Multi-Faith Prayer
Like the tempest-tossed mariners in the Book of Jonah, some of the leading figures in world religion joined together to call upon their various gods in a “Day of Prayer for Humanity” on May 14. The Pope said, “This time of global tragedy and suffering should cause believers of every religion to beg mercy from the one God and Father of all”. The participants also included Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist leaders as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury, and representatives of the Greek Orthodox Church and the World Council of Churches. Aware that his participation might bring accusations of religious relativism, the Pontiff asked, “How can you not pray to the Father of all? We are all united as human beings, brothers and sisters, praying to God each according to our own cultures, traditions and beliefs.”
Whatever Rome’s underlying intentions are in playing a leading part in multi-faith events, such words portray an ambivalent attitude to the competing claims of the world’s religions. In an age such as this, false religion can often appear to be tolerant of error and frequently seems to overlook radically-different beliefs and practices. But however tolerant false religions may appear, they are all intolerant of the truth as it is in Jesus. True religion is exclusive in nature, however, because God has revealed Himself as the God of salvation, only through Christ in the Scriptures of truth. “I am the way, the truth and the life”, the Saviour tells us in John 14:6, “no man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” Multi-faith prayers, therefore, are injurious to the claims of Christ and are an abomination to the Lord.
The mariners in the ship going to Tarshish were wiser than the Church leaders of our day, in that they sought to know “for whose cause this evil is upon us” (Jon 1:7). For all their talk of praying, neither the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury or any of the other Church leaders have called on the people of the world to repent of their sin in view of the solemn judgement of the coronavirus pandemic. “They be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Mt 15:14). AWM
Racism and Sexism
The two sexes of mankind – male and female – go back to the original creation of man (Gen 1:27), and the different races of mankind to soon after the Flood (Gen 10). To what extent modern-day racial distinctions correspond to the earlier ones is an interesting question. Many people now are of “mixed race” in nineteenth and twentieth-century terms, and perhaps these “mixed races” will come to supersede the present ones. It is a matter of daily observation that children of the same parents have different characteristics: one is tall, another strong, another clever, another placid, another cheerful, and so on; and as races have developed out of families, so these characteristics often preponderate in different nations and races, and are part of the variety and interest of the world.
Dominant races have succeeded one another in history – Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome – but generally no race is more important than another, except that God has marked out the line of Seth, and particularly the seed of Jacob, as that nation from which the Messiah was to come, and whose conversion to Christianity is to be as “life from the dead” to the Church (Rom 11:15).
Our duties to our fellow-men are governed by what is pleasing to Christ, and He requires that we treat one another with love, honour, kindness, helpfulness, purity, equity and so on: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”; “therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Mt 7:12). Our duty to others may be modified or complicated by questions of sex and race, and what may be scriptural in one situation may be inappropriate or unwise in another. The great rule, however, is the law of Christ; and we will find His counsel and example infinitely more helpful than trying to conform to the ever-changing demands of the world: “Giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel” (1 Pet 3:7), “How is it that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans” (Jn 4:9). God has made men of one blood (Acts 17:26), and there is One Saviour (Acts 4:12), and there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female in Christ (Gal 3:28).
But God is also the Creator of the two sexes and of the different races; and these sexual and racial differences are part of His purpose for human life, and are not going to go away. Learning how to behave to members of the opposite sex, and to people of different races and backgrounds, is part of human and Christian life. The recent race-protestors in the streets of America and Britain probably have at least as much to learn in this regard as anyone else.
DWBS
Blasphemous Hollywood
The film industry has recently been in the news because of the abusive and exploitative behaviour of the film director Harvey Weinstein and others. The industry has always had a tendency to appeal to the lowest common denominator of fallen human nature. Over the years, there have been various distressing depictions of the Saviour in film, but now the industry is plumbing the depths of blasphemy in two recent productions.
One, already in circulation, is produced by Netflix, and is called, “The First Temptation of Christ”. Without going into detail, it portrays the Saviour as a sodomite, and His disciples as a group of rowdy alcoholics. The second, called, “The Habit”, has been completed but not yet released, and depicts the Saviour as a woman who has a lesbian relationship with one of her followers. There was a time when a person would have to go to the cinema to watch a film but now they can be transmitted into homes at the click of a button, making this fearful blasphemy even more accessible.
The very thought of these things is utterly abhorrent, and the fact that, despite many protests, producers feel entitled to peddle such wares to the public, shows how weak the cause of Christianity is in America and throughout the world. The film industry seeks to make a profit like any other industry, yet one cannot but feel there is another agenda here. This is an atheistic, satanic attack on the Lord of Glory, the Lord Jesus Christ. “Thy foes against Thee loudly speak, and take Thy name in vain.”
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.”
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
FRD
He to whom Christ is precious, to whom the Word of God is sweeter than honey, to whom sin is odious, to whom secret devotion is a delight, who makes it the business of his life to honour his Master, and who regards the world as a broken idol, has the witness that he has passed from death unto life.
The reason why the wicked hate God’s Word is that it is so holy.
Why should we be in love with this world? It reviled, maligned and crucified the Lord of life and glory. It deserves not our confidence or our love.
W S Plumer