China: Stamping out religion

With all the talk about banning Tik-Tok, I think people forget about the war on Christianity that ids going on in China. This from LifeSiteNews,

 (LifeSiteNews) — A Chinese province has increased its stranglehold on religion by requiring parents of kindergarteners to sign a pledge renouncing their faith.

The City of Wenzhou in the Chinese Province of Zhejiang sent parents of kindergarten schoolchildren a “Pledge Form of Commitment for Family Not To Hold Religious Beliefs,” the human rights and religious liberty advocacy group ChinaAid reported. According to the group, a preschool teacher in Wenzhou confirmed it is the first such mandate in the province.

The pledge was issued by schools earlier this month to parents and guardians of students and included numerous commitments to which they had to agree. The pledge wholly proscribed any religious beliefs and practice, with signatories affirming that they “do not hold a religious belief, do not participate in any religious activities, and do not propagate and disseminate religion in any locations.” The pledge also enjoined “exemplary observance of the Party discipline and the country’s laws and regulations,” and instructed parents to “never join any… cult organizations.”

One teacher in Wenzhou revealed to ChinaAid that “in the past, the higher-level education department made it compulsory for kindergartens not to be superstitious and not to participate in cult organizations but did not mandate kindergarten children’s families not to believe in religion or participate in any religious activities.”

According to ChinaAid, the city of Wenzhou is one of the most vibrant Christian regions in mainland China. Its population numbers close to 750,000 people, with about 10 percent of the population Christian. This number has increased over the last decade. In efforts to curb the growth of Christianity, in 2014, the Communist government began tearing down and removing crosses in a large-scale persecution that went unabated for more than two years. Then in 2017, minors were outright forbidden from attending church services or even entering a church.

The latest crackdown on parents of kindergarteners comes as China takes its nationwide surveillance and control of religion to a new extreme with the rollout of a new “Smart Religion” app that will allow the Communist government to know exactly who takes part in any officially recognized religious service.

The Chinese communist party is trying to stamp out all religions and replace them with a religion that treats the State and the Communist Party as gods.

I think the Pharaohs, Roman emperors, and Japanese emperors tried doing that.

And remember what happened to them.

Pray for the Chinese people and for the Chinese Christians.

 

Hear the word of the Lord from dem bones

 Hearing the words of this Sunday's reading from Ezekiel 37:1-14 raised up an ear worm which I could not shake through the rest of the service.

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all round them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’ Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath (or spirit) to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.’

So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath (or spirit) in them. Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath (or spirit), and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath (or spirit) came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.’

Growing up in the age of Ed Sullivan, I first learned about "dem bones" from the Delta Rhythm Boys and their performance on the television show. I think we children loved the eye catching visualization of the bones projected on one of the singers bodies as he sang. 

The song goes way back, but after that show was when we kids started singing it in the school yard especially whenever someone hurt themselves in one of dem bones.  

For me, the ear bone is connected to the music bone and that's how I often "hear the word of the Lord"!

The Easy Way Out of Prison

Imagine being sentenced to prison for life as South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was recently for the crime of blowing away his wife and son. Life in prison is no fun. For some, it is a fate worse than death. Would you choose the death penalty if you had the choice? 

In countries that have legalized physician assisted suicide, the option is being carried out.

From Spiked-Online comes this report by Kevin Yuill (author of Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalisation), 

Geneviève Lhermitte was an infamous murderer. She killed her son and four daughters, aged between three and 14, in Nivelles, Belgium on 28 February 2007. On 28 February 2023, she was euthanised, after she successfully invoked her ‘right to die’.

Lhermitte’s crimes were horrifying. On that dreadful day 16 years ago, she locked the door to their home and slit the throat of each of her children. At her trial in 2008, Lhermitte explained how she invited her daughter, Myriam, into her office, telling her to put a blindfold on for a ‘surprise’. Lhermitte then hit her over the head with a marble plaque, knocking her out before killing her with a knife. She murdered all five of her children that night.

At her trial, Lhermitte’s lawyers argued that she was mentally disturbed and should not be sent to prison. But the jury found her guilty of premeditated murder and she was sentenced to life in jail. Having served 11 years, Lhermitte was moved to a psychiatric hospital in 2019.

Belgian law allows for people to choose to be euthanised if they are deemed to be experiencing ‘unbearable’ physical and / or psychological suffering. They must be conscious of their decision and be able to express their request in a reasoned and consistent manner. According to Lhermitte’s lawyer, she fulfilled all the criteria and received the approval of doctors.

This case exposes the logical and ethical problems of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Belgium and elsewhere. And, above all, it undermines one of assisted-suicide campaigners’ central claims – that euthanasia is an act of ‘autonomy and choice’.

After all, how can a prisoner – or someone in a psychiatric facility – make a free and uncoerced decision to die? A prisoner cannot even have a private consultation with a doctor, as guards must always be present. A prisoner is told when to get up, when to eat, when to go to bed. His or her entire life is coerced.

Belgium is not the only nation to euthanise prisoners. In Canada, where assisted suicide is also offered as a medical treatment, three prisoners have been euthanised to date. The story of one of them, known only as ‘patient one’, illustrates the key problem with this practice. He informed his parole officer that he wished to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) and was advised to first apply for compassionate release. This was denied, at which point he submitted a request for MAID, which was accepted. He was shackled and guards were present during the assessment of his request.

Canada’s federal prison ombudsman was sufficiently disturbed by the three cases that he said in 2020 that MAID should no longer be accessible to prisoners, because incarceration compromises individuals’ ability to consent to euthanasia. Indeed, euthanasia in these circumstances essentially comes down to prison officials and doctors making a subjective judgement about the hopelessness of a prisoner’s continued existence...

Euthanising prisoners is the inevitable consequence of legalising assisted suicide. Assisted suicide essentially redefines death as an acceptable medical treatment for suffering. In turn, denying someone that treatment is presented as cruel and inhumane. It is by this logic that euthanasia is now being extended to prisoners – on the grounds that they are suffering psychologically.

Talk about a "get out of jail free card"! 

What about the poor souls who are serving life sentences for crimes they did not commit? I can imagine their mental anguish might lead them to take the easy way out. Imagine the, "Oops we made a mistake", when after they had been put to death exculpatory evidence came forth that would have changed their decision.

As Christians, we never lose hope because of our faith in Jesus. 

Pray for those in physical prison or in the prison of their minds that they put their lives in the hands of the Lord and Saviour of us all for He is the way out. Sometimes it isn't easy, but his yoke is easy and his burden light for those that accept it.

 This Sunday's reading of Psalm 23 (Dominus regit me) always gives me goosebumps when we get to the last verse.

1 The Lord is my shepherd; *

I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures *

and leads me beside still waters.

3 He revives my soul *

and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake.

4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I shall fear no evil; *

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; *

you have anointed my head with oil,

and my cup is running over.

6 Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, *

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Having sung John Rutter's choral version several times in concert and in various churches, I am biased to think that his is the best musical application of the English text. I get choked up singing the last verse, but am always surrounded by stronger singers who provide cover for my tears of joy. I wonder if the ancient Hebrew cantor had the same reaction. Below find a fine recording of Psalm 23 from the Atlanta Master Chorale.

 

Thoughts and Prayers

 Whenever a terrible thing happens, people are heard offering up thoughts and prayers for those involved. I believe that is the right thing to do at all times and in all places either silently or aloud. 

Not everyone believes in the power of prayer, or in the power of God. Some even think that mankind can fix a problem better than the use of prayer. 

They say, "Prayer is not enough." 

I say, "Since when?"   

Recall President Obama, 

After eight college students and a professor were killed at Umpqua Community College near Roseburg, Ore., in October 2015, Obama condemned the phrase.

“Our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough,” Obama said at a new conference. “It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel, and it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America, next week or a couple months from now.”

The speech was followed by a tweet sent from Obama’s account: “Our thoughts and prayers are not enough — it’s time to take action.” (source: Investigative Reporting Workshop)

Of prayers and thoughts, the greatest of these are prayers. 

The worst offense a politician or a government can do is to assume that they are more powerful than God, and that they can see and should control your thoughts.  

In the U.K. the government (through society) is trying to shut down "thoughts and prayers" near abortion clinics. One woman has been arrested twice for silently standing and praying near one of these centers. 

From CBN News, 

The nonprofit law firm Alliance Defending Freedom UK (ADF UK) reports their client, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, has been arrested for the second time for the "offense" of silently praying in her head within an abortion facility censorship zone or "buffer zone".

Her arrest comes just weeks after being acquitted by a UK court for the same violation...

Her exchange with two police officers was captured in a video clip that was released on social media by ADF UK. 

In the 46-second video, Vaughan-Spruce is shown standing still with her back to a hedge and her hands placed in her coat pockets. 

Then several police officers approach her. One officer asks her, "Can I please ask you to step away from here and step outside the exclusion zone?"

Vaughan-Spruce replied, "But I'm not protesting. I'm not engaging in any of the activities prohibited."

"But you said you were engaging in prayer which is the offense," the officer responded. 

"Silent prayer," Vaughan-Spruce counters. 

"No, but you were still engaging in prayer. It is an offense," the officer explained. 

 I understand that our thoughts condemn us before the Lord, but before the police? Holy 1984!

"The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed – would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper – the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."

– George Orwell, 1984. Part 1, Chapter 1.

 My thoughts and prayers go out for the hyphenated lady, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, to be acquitted once again.  

 

The woman at the well

This Sunday's reading from John 4:5-42 contains the story of Jesus and a woman at Jacob's well.

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’1The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

16 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you (you people) say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’

 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

A long reading like this sometimes gives a preacher an opportunity to go long himself or herself.

I prefer to be short and sweet. 

Jesus comes to you, a sinner, and offers you eternal life. Will you recognize him as your Saviour and drink from the cup of living water?

I Hope You R.I.P. Frank Griswold

 The recent death of former Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold brings back too many painful memories. Pleasant memories of growing up as an Episcopalian in the 1960's and 70's, learning the liturgy, singing in the youth choir, attending Episcopal schools, and expecting the Church to always be there. 

Then came change. Trial liturgies, the irregular ordinations of women, the 1979 Prayer Book which was supposed to keep young people in the church, the Righter trial, and the consecration of Gene Robinson as the first divorced, openly homosexual Episcopal bishop. That  last one is on Frank Griswold.

Looking at all of the failures of the past 50 years it is impossible to lay all of the blame for the downfall of the Episcopal organization. It is just that Gene Robinson being made a bishop was the straw that broke the camel's back. 

It certainly woke me up.

Maybe the demise of the Episcopal denomination is part of God's plan to wake us up, to rid us of false teachers, and all players involved are part of that plan.

So what happened to Griswold when he died? In the words of St. John Chrysostom,

"I know not if there be many in the priesthood, who are saved, but I know that many more perish.” (Third homily on the Acts of the Apostles)

Jesus can wash away our sins, even the sins of bishops, but priests and bishops are held to a high standard by our Lord. 

Let us hope the best for Frank Griswold.

An Uplifting Psalm

This Sunday's Psalm 121 (Levavi oculos) is perhaps #2 on my list of favorites. It is definitely uplifting.

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills; *
from where is my help to come?

2 My help comes from the Lord, *
the maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved *
and he who watches over you will not fall asleep.

4 Behold, he who keeps watch over Israel *
shall neither slumber nor sleep;

5 The Lord himself watches over you; *
the Lord is your shade at your right hand,

6 So that the sun shall not strike you by day, *
nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; *
it is he who shall keep you safe.

8 The Lord shall watch over your going out and
your coming in, *
from this time forth for evermore. 

My only issue with this psalm is found in verse 6. I am not sure how the moon is supposed to strike you by night. I know that the word "lunacy" comes from folklore (Luna is the Moon in Latin) when the full moon was thought to bring out the crazies. During a full moon you could get drunk and still find your way home at night. I just don't know if this was true back when the psalm was written.