We thought it would be good to end 2007 on a positive (albeit slightly late) note, by flagging up the results of a recent (last month) survey on prayer conducted by Tearfund.

According to the survey (based on a representative sample of 2000):

Of the 42% (20 million) of UK adults who pray, 13 million pray at least once a month and 12 million at least once a week. Nine million adults pray every day.

Perhaps one of the most surprising statistics is that London is the ‘prayer capital’ of the UK, with 73% of adults praying.

There seems to be little correlation between prayer and church attendance since “while 42% of UK adults pray, the figure for church attendance (at least once a year) is 22%.”

These results seem to suggest that the UK is not quite such a ’secular’ place as the commentators generally observe (see for example this American take on the UK’s religious attitudes in the light of Blair’s recent public conversion to Catholicism).

Whichever one is more realistic, we hope and pray that 2008 will be a year of great blessing for you.

Last week I had the benefit of hearing a presentation by Christian Concern for Our Nation and wanted to bring their good work to the attention of anyone who happens to read this site.

I was very challenged by the way that over the last few decades in the UK we have enabled our faith to be so easily privatised, and the way in which laws which are designed to achieve one thing, can have very different, often unforseen consequenecs.

In many ways the ungodly laws which are currently being passed can be seen as God’s judgement on our nation. This is a time for Christians to repent - of our own failure to act, and on behalf of our nation (see Daniel 9) - and to cry out to God for mercy on our nation. And we need to seek to act where we can to lobby for better laws.

Of course, real change requires God to change people’s hearts, so we need to be praying too for revival in our land. And we need to be working hard to share the gospel with those who have never heard it.

And perhaps above all to pray for wisdom to know how to balance these different ways of living out our faith, and the boldness to do so.

In many respects we want to cautiously applaud the news of the letter written by Muslim scholars to the Pope . Greater understanding between faiths must be a good aim, and in particular an end to violence would be welcomed.

Two observations.

Given the disparate nature of Islam, it is questionable how much impact such a letter can have. In some parts of the world, the issue of persecution by Muslims continues to be a live issue. For example, the Barnabus Fund today have the following prayer request:

Pray for the protection of Pakistani converts from Islam to Christianity. At least 11 convert couples have been murdered in the Lahore region alone in the past two years. Pray also for the protection of other believers around them. In the North West Frontier Province, six people were murdered in connection with one conversion - the convert himsled, the person who led him to Christ, the person who baptised him, the person who discipled him, and two others.

And this very language of “conversion” leads to the second point. Despite the apparent ’similarities’ between the two religions, it is impossible to say that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. Understanding between faiths does not mean that we have to suggest that the faiths are the same. Despite all the abuse of the term today, ‘tolerance’ only makes sense as a concept if there are differences between the opinions of which you are being tolerant.

Let us work to understand those of other faiths. Let us seek an end to the violence between those of other faiths and Christians. But let us hold on to the fact that ‘truth’ as a concept is meaningful, and that we are not all the same. Difference does not of necessity lead to violence.

The recent woes of Northern Rock (and to a certain extent the earlier panic in the USA) seem to be related to the state of the ‘Sub-Prime Mortgage’ market. ‘Sub-Prime’ seems to be something of a euphemism for ‘mortgages for people that can’t really afford them’ and as the BBC’s investigation seems to indicate, some brokers have got round this unfortunate problem by persuading would-be borrowers to lie about their wages.

Now if the normal pattern of things occurs it is likely that first of all the brokers will have their wrists slapped for ‘mis-selling,’ and then the borrowers will complain that they only took loans on ‘expert advice’ and so are not responsible at all.

The thing is, they are BOTH responsible. It is not a valid argument to suggest that because this is a ‘financial’ matter some kind of ignorance is a defence - because the issue (for the borrowers at least) is not so much ignorance as blatant falsification of information. If genuine ignorance meant they failed to appreciate they would be over-stretching themselves financially that is very unfortunate, but what on earth is going on in a society where people will lie in this kind of transaction without thinking it is wrong?

The God who made this world built the pattern of blessing for truth-telling into the very nature of things. As our society moves further and further away from His way it is no surprise that things go wrong.

I am not an economist so the following statement is problem reductionist in the extreme, but if over a long period of time we had not been encouraged to purchase properties beyond our means, it seems likely that prices would not have risen as quickly as they have done, due to the simple laws of supply and demand.

Regardless of this point, we must work and pray for a society which sees the inherent value in truthfulness, and much more than that, a society which begins to take note of the One who is entirely true, entirely good and entirely faithful.

What a pleasant surprise to find ourselves in agreement with the Archbishop of Canterbury for once! Whilst the arguments around the establishment of the Church of England are complex, if the monarch is to remain the titular head of the Church, that only makes any sense if it is an exclusive claim. Of course, if Charles himself doesn’t find himself in accord with the historic truths of the Christian faith, then an entirely different question needs to be asked… The BBC have comments on the Dr Williams interview here. The full interview is available at the Telegraph site.

There is no denying Harry’s popularity as ‘Book 6′ breaks all sales records.

And amongst certain branches of Christianity the debate seems to rumble on about whether or not Christians should be reading about ‘witchcraft’ and the like (a really good summary article of both positions here).

But having finished reading The Deathly Hallows yesterday, and also having watched Order of the Phoenix (OOP) on the same day, it strikes me that this argument is often carried out on far too superficial a level.

In the past I have defended the books on the basis of their general ‘moral framework’ of good and evil. But I now think that the reality is less positive than that.

In OOP, Sirius tells Harry, “We all have dark and light within us. What matters is the part we choose to act on.” Although positively this avoids the naive assumption that everyone is ‘good’, this kind of self-determinism is clearly a long way away from the Biblical picture of mankind helpless to choose the good without the work of the Spirit.

There is more to be said about the worldview of Harry Potter, but I am convinced that it is precisely because this mirrors so accurately the worldview of so many in the West that the book has done so well. In saying this I acknowledge firstly, that this may happen on an entirely subconscious level for many if not most readers and secondly, that it is also an excellent story which keeps its reader gripped.

So the ‘danger’ for Christians reading or watching HP, is that they do so with an uncritical mind, and begin to accept the worldview presented there, rather than critically evaluating it against the Biblical truth.

(For further reading, Hollywood Jesus provide a typically stimulating discussion of OOP here)

According to the recent High Court ruling, a school girl was not discriminated against when she was Banned from wearing a ‘purity ring’.

I think that this was a good result.

As Christians we are called to live in submission to the earthly authorities, except when to do so would be in contradiction with the clear command of God.

Although Christians are called to chastity except within marriage, there is no Biblical obligation upon us to wear a symbol to demonstrate that point. Our life and words are surely witness enough.

The school was not “ruling on religious truth” in banning the ring. It was simply enforcing a reasonable school uniform requirement.

On the other hand, there is a much stronger argument that this school and indeed all state schools in this country are “ruling on religious truth” inasmuch as a particular viewpoint on sex and sexual ethics is being promoted to the exclusion of all others.

But whilst we continue to swallow the lie that to be ’secular’ is to be ‘objective,’ there is little chance of us noticing that.

It was nice to see The Guardian, not usually slow to attack anything to do with evangelical Christianity, publishing a positive piece by Jonathan Aitken about the ‘problems’ at Wycliffe Hall.

Aitken seems to place some of the exaggerated newspaper claims in context, and in particular to suggest that they largely boil down to a ‘personal dispute’ of the kind which would not even raise comment if it took place in a different kind of organisation.

Of course, that such a disagreement has taken place within a Christian institution is sad, and that (as usual) different elements of the church seem so quick to argue and fight demonstrates a spirit a million miles from that of the Lord we all purport to follow.

What a comfort that our God is so infinitely more gracious and forgiving than we ever manage to be.

No comment on this one, but whilst to reduce road rage is an admirable aim, this seems just a little daft…

Vatican Driving Commandments

Enjoy

I have just picked up on an interesting article from The Guardian which suggests that the well publicised ‘new atheist’ movement (represented by the Dawkins/Dennett type of school) is essentially motivated by a political agenda - and in particular fear of radical Islam and ‘fundamentalist’ America.

Bunting rightly recognises that in their “vituperative polemic” the new atheists may be doing themselves no favours - and also comments on the worrying tendency towards ‘irreligious intolerance’ - which sounds scarily like an atheist version of the Inquisition.

But perhaps most interestingly of all, she picks up on a point which the evolutionary thinkers have still failed to answer adequately - “the durability and near universality of religion is one of the most enduring conundrums of evolutionary thinking.”

But the ‘new atheists’ don’t seem to like debating questions they have no answers to.