[All the articles in this magazine are selected from the last three months’ issues of the Christian Herald weekly newspaper.]
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George Best: Must talent always be reckless?
Those were the days, my friends
Mercy for Myanmar’s displaced people
Christian Herald: Origins and endings
They say that the older you become, the less you like change. Some of us felt this way just before Christmas when, quite out of the blue, Christian Herald announced it would be closing down in its present form at the end of January. You can read more about it in this, your last issue, of Christian Herald Digest. We’ve very much appreciated working with Russ Bravo, Christian Herald’s editor. If you’re able to use the internet, you can find out about the new monthly magazine, Inspire, at www.christianherald.org.uk and www.inspiremagazine.org.uk
Once we got over the shock of Christian Herald closing, we set about looking for a replacement. We believe God has guided us to a web service called Christian Today. The directors are keen to edit a new digest which will include topical news and devotional articles like those we included from Christian Herald. Please pray for us as we work together.
We will start sending you the new magazine in June (it hasn’t even got a name yet!) We hope you’ll enjoy it and find it helpful, but if you don’t want to continue receiving it, please let us know.
We pray you’ll enjoy the welcome change to spring, as God’s creation bursts into life once more.
Sheila and the Editorial team
by Dr Rhona Knight
I enjoy going to courses to learn new things. I often find that I learn more from informal chats with colleagues at meal breaks, than from the course itself. On one of these occasions I had my eyes opened in a new way to the whole area of artificial insemination. I discovered that children conceived using artificial insemination are often not told of the method of their conception, but that many intuitively guess. I discovered that this deception is not without its consequences. Those conceived through artificial insemination often express issues relating to identity and about the way they fit in their family. Many, on being told or discovering that their social father is not their genetic father, wish to find out more about their genetic and family heritage. Others wish to trace members of their genetic family. This desire to search out genetic links was well illustrated in The Times on 3 November 2005, which carried the headline, “How a donor sperm boy traced his father using the Internet”. It told the story of a 15-year-old boy who managed to track down his genetic father using his own saliva and the Internet.
But what information is legally available to children born through the use of donor sperm, eggs or embryos? Until April 2005, precious little. Although 1991 saw the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) set up a register of all children born as a result of donated sperm, eggs and embryos, all that children born through donation could do was, on reaching the age of 18, ask the HFEA to confirm the nature of their conception. If they decided to get married, they could ask the authority to see if they might be related to their future spouse. When one compares the rights of these donor children to children adopted over the same period of time, the differences are remarkable. Adopted children have the right to have social parents that have passed through stringent selection processes. They usually have access to their story from pregnancy through to adoption, often enshrined in photographs and albums. At 18, they have access to identifying information held on their birth certificate, which allows a search for genetic parents to be initiated. The whole adoption process is open and child centred, the welfare of the child being paramount.
In April 2005, however, the situation changed for donor children. The process became more open, and the welfare of children born using such methods was given more of a priority. Now, children born through donated sperm, eggs or embryos after April 2005 will have access to the identity of their genetic parents at the age of 18. They will be able to discover their genetic heritage. One donor child, Verity, has been quoted as saying: “How could doctors . . . think that we wouldn’t need or want some honest answers about our heritage? Without all this information, I will never feel complete.” Donor children born today are being given the opportunity to find those answers, and to fill in the gaps.
Why then are we being drip-fed with headlines like, “Fertility experts alarmed by loss of anonymity for donors”? (Independent 19th October 2005). My generous side says it may just be to inform us, the public, of what is happening. In my more cynical moments, however, I can hear fertility experts beginning to plead for a return to donor anonymity, and prioritising yet again the desires of infertile couples and donors over the rights of the child.
[Dr Rhona Knight is a portfolio GP with an interest in education, ethics and popular culture.]
by Alison Farnell
Pandemic! The news is full of it. Will there be enough vaccine?
But there is no vaccine for another pandemic which is already sweeping the globe. Affluenza is the term coined to describe the virus of relentless, selfish consumerism from which we all suffer.
Perhaps Paul Goggins, a Minister in the Home Office, was thinking about affluenza when he announced that the Home Office is giving £500 to every English secondary school. The idea is that the school’s pupils should invest the grant in a special charity account. They will then continue to give or raise money and add to the initial £500. At intervals, the pupils will decide which charity will benefit from the money.
Interviewed about the grants, Paul Goggins explained that pupils in schools respond well when a crisis happens, raising money for emergency relief. However, he believes that it is also important to encourage young people to get into a habit of giving away money regularly, so that they carry that habit into their adult life.
Paul Goggins is aiming to bring about a fundamental change in behaviour and attitudes in young people; to educate them to make wise choices about money, and to encourage them to put others’ needs before their own. This is exactly the purpose of a game devised at The Stapleford Centre a few years ago to use in school maths lessons. In the game, pupils gain money, then give some away. Working out what they have, or don’t have, left to spend on themselves is very challenging for some pupils!
Regularly giving away a proportion of our money is a fundamental biblical principle which even some within the Christian Church don’t seem to have grasped! Now a Government Minister is suggesting that this is a good thing to be teaching young people to do!
In the press, the idea of schools having charity accounts met with immediate objections. Unions and headteachers protested that this was yet another Government initiative which would make more work for staff. How sad!
School pupils already give a lot to charities. Red Nose Day, Children in Need, the Tsunami, the Kashmir earthquake and the Christmas Shoebox appeals all prove that. Paul Goggins wants to encourage pupils to give away money regularly and to take responsibility for doing so. Some 5,500 secondary schools will receive £500 to start off these charity accounts. That’s less than £3 million. To change the habits of a generation of pupils, I think that is money well spent!
[Alison Farnell is Education Projects Manager at The Stapleford Centre.]
[Will New explains the vision behind extreme sports organisation, Rezurgence, and his ministry to the world’s mountain bike and BMX riders.]
“She’s going to be a female downhill biking world champion,” says Will New. There’s a twinkle in his eye as he holds his grinning two-year-old daughter high in the air at his home in Surrey, “Of course, only if she wants to, that is.”
For 39-year-old Will, mountain-biking and BMX are two of life’s great passions. Since he started riding at university 15 years ago, he has been hooked: “I ride cross-country around Surrey for fitness, I go downhill riding in the French Alps for fun and sometimes fear, and do free-riding when I need that little extra something!”
Will’s other passion is Christian leadership and so it seemed natural to marry the two loves. “I have had an enormous vision for the biking community for many years now,” Will explains. “So, a while back when I was investigating the possibility of becoming a full-time minister, it made sense to try and put the two things together and reach out to the community God has put on my heart.
“I drew up a plan for building a faith community for professional and amateur mountain bikers and BMX riders called Rezurgence. I thought the best way to engage riders was to build a website specifically geared toward them. I wanted to make the best biking website on the internet and stuff it full of articles, news and events. And secondly, I wanted to infuse it with a Christian ethos and provide spiritual answers for any riders looking a little further behind the more traditional services on offer. I submitted the plan to the Church Army. They gave me their full blessing and support and partnership. Church Army liked that we were reaching people where they are, changing lives and making a difference on the edge. We have also keyed into Fresh Expressions.”
Fresh Expressions is the Church of England’s newest initiative to create “alternative church” projects for young people and those who would normally never have contact with church groups. Over the last 18 months, 300 projects have been opened around the UK.
But Will is keen to point out that Rezurgence has been born out of the biking community and not just inserted into it as a “project”: “It’s not just a case of putting on some rider clothing and trying to build a church with a community you don’t know. I’m a biker so these are my people: we share passions and, I think it’s only from this place that you can really successfully build something without suspicion or confusion.”
Being open with bikers has been key in Will’s work since Rezurgence launched in September last year. “We started by visiting the main mountain bike competitions around the world, just talking to riders and giving them the website address and an overview of what we’re trying to achieve.
“It was mainly a case of building relationships and getting to know people. If we’d have set up an evangelism tent in these events, without any relationship-building first, the bikers would have thought we were from outer space and those Christian riders out there would have felt intimidated to share their faith. The response from the professional riders and spectators in doing things this way has been fantastic. They really respect what we’re doing. From this place we can now start turning up at events with a Rezurgence venue, provide a whole load of different services and tell people about Jesus, if they want to hear.”
Now this groundwork has been set, Will has big plans for Rezurgence: “We’re looking to build the community more and more over the coming months. We have a chat room/forum that we are about to launch on the site, as well as an agony uncle section where people can ask tough questions to do with faith and receive answers from an ordained minister. We’re looking to help Christian riders across the world to find other Christian riders in their area via the website. We’re really excited about the possibilities this opens up.”
“Then there are the events themselves. We are taking a tent out on the road to all the main biking competitions in 2006, where we will be providing services such as internet access, chill-out/prayer areas with music, headphones and videos and even a clothes washing and drying facility for the bikers coming back from a day of getting muddy on the courses.
“You know, you’d be surprised how many times you’ll be drying someone’s shorts and they’ll turn and ask you: ‘so tell me about this Jesus guy . . .’”
www.Rezurgence.com
by Russ Bravo
Once again, as a tragic story has made its way through the national media, a Christian has stood up to be counted, and forgiveness has become a talking point.
Gee Walker is the mother of Anthony Walker, the 18-year-old murdered with an ice axe by Paul Taylor and Michael Barton in Huyton, Liverpool, in what the judge called an act of “poisonous, racist thuggery”. Last week they were both sentenced to life imprisonment, and it has been the calm dignity and forgiveness offered by Mrs Walker that has caught the imagination of newspapers, as well as the pointless death of a young man full of promise and potential.
She has refused to talk in terms of hatred, vengeance and punishment for her son’s attackers, although many wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. Instead, she has allowed her faith to mould her words and earned the surprised respect and admiration of many in her home community and around the country. A member of Grace Family Church, she has launched a trust set up in Anthony’s name, which will work in the education system to promote racial harmony and understanding.
“We do not want to be eaten up with bitterness,” she said in an interview published in The Daily Telegraph. “We are Christians and believe we should love, not hate. I have seen what bitterness can do to people. Who does it harm? Yourself. We are already in pain. Why make it any worse?”
And she is surprised that others are so affected by her attitude, going on to say: “All I am trying to do is live by the Word of God. The commandment says: ‘Love your neighbour’. For us, it is not just words on pages; we give those words life; we lift them from the page. It gives us strength.”
There lies the challenge, most explicitly for those of us who claim to follow Jesus. How much do you and I live by the Word of God?
It’s often been said that it’s not what happens to us that counts, so much as how we respond to it. And most of us, to a lesser or greater degree, will collect the scars and wounds that come from living in a fallen world, and they will either transform us bit by bit into resembling Jesus more, or they will drive us the other way, to bitterness and hard-heartedness.
Gee Walker is a Christian trying to live by the Word of God, in personal circumstances anyone would find agonising. Just like the late Gordon Wilson, who lost his daughter Marie in the Enniskillen bomb, and others like Rob Halligan, whose father died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, and Abigail Witchalls, paralysed in a knife attack. They refused to condemn and continue the cycle of violence and bitterness. Instead, they chose to respond differently, however hard it has been to do it.
It puts a different perspective on how we handle the day-to-day grievances and petty hurts that sometimes jostle for position in our lives. It’s all too easy to nurse these and consider ourselves hard done by and picked on, as if God has consciously chosen to bless others and leave us stricken by the unfairness of life.
We can’t imagine how we would respond faced with the kind of tragedy Gee Walker has experienced, but we can choose to make God’s Word more than just words on a page. As we make them live, we will not only find life but others will see it in us, too.
[Russ Bravo was editor of Christian Herald.]
by Jo Glenn
So the great football legend George Best has passed away. And with the tributes and the flowers and the one-minute silences/applauses comes the razor-sharp reminder of our own mortality – a shiver in the soul of a nation of obituary-readers. If George Best died, Wayne Rooney will die. Did we pray for George Best? If not, we must pray for Wayne Rooney whilst he’s still alive.
Celebrities are especially vulnerable to the prowling predator, who wishes to consume their God-given talent, and them with it, their gifts, their families, their health and their lives. Munch. Munch. In one mouthful, or in corrosive little nibbles.
Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times suggests that you cannot have huge talent without huge recklessness. I disagree. Talent is God-given, and in its expression we see something of God: heart-stopping goals, extraordinary athleticism, sublime acting, soul-piercing music. It is discipline which releases wildness and a submission to God which unleashes the untrammelled potential of the person within.
Rod Liddle’s piece is entitled “A Nation of Two Halves”, and he divides us up, essentially into “exciting” and “boring”. The “excitings” flout authority and are fun to be around and the “borings” submit to it and are quiescent and dull. He starts his contrasting pairs with George Best and Bobby Charlton, moving on to Prince Harry and Prince William, Pete Doherty and Chris Martin. I see where he’s coming from – it’s the dangerous lie I bought into at 15. In the Fifth Form at school I, too, divided the world into “exciting” and “boring”, placing myself arrogantly in the first category and Christians in the second.
Then I bumped into Jesus, and in His reckless abandonment to the will of God, in His wild passion for the lost, in His bold confrontation with the religious authorities and the rigid status quo, I saw someone and something I’d never seen before. Here was wildness with compassion, here was humility with power, here was passion without sin. Here was flamboyant, untrammelled godliness.
Liddle speaks of Best: “That wonderful flamboyance on the pitch was indivisible from the recklessness off it. They are part of the same thing. You cannot have one without the other . . . Which side are you on?”
I reject the polarisation of exciting and boring. I acknowledge the true polarisation of that which enriches and that which destroys. I reject the destructive taunts of the prowling predator over George Best’s life and all of our lives. I celebrate George Best’s God-given talent.
BBC Three is to celebrate Easter 2006 with a major event broadcast live from the streets of Manchester.
Manchester Passion is a contemporary retelling of the last few hours of Jesus’ life using popular music from the cream of Manchester bands. This Passion follows key moments in the Gospel story and unfolds in a procession through Manchester City Centre.
BBC Commissioning Editor for Arts, Music and Religion, Adam Kemp, said: “We are excited by the possibility of introducing a new audience to the rich history of the Passion Plays. We’re looking forward to involving the people of Manchester in this moving live event.”
A Swedish pastor, who preached a sermon condemning homosexuality, was acquitted by Sweden’s Supreme Court on charges of engaging in hate speech on 29 November.
Pentecostal pastor Ake Green, 63, had originally been given a one-month prison sentence for a sermon he preached in the east coast town of Borgholm in 2003, in which he described homosexuality as “a horrible tumour in the body of society.”
The Supreme Court noted in its verdict that the pastor’s statements had been made during a sermon and were based on a biblical theme, and were therefore protected by freedom of speech and religion. Furthermore, a guilty verdict would not be accepted in the European Court of Human Rights.
Councillor Alan Craig of the Christian People’s Alliance has been a supporter of Pastor Green, and travelled to Stockholm to attend the Swedish Supreme Court the week before the verdict was announced.
He said: “Although this has been cited as a “gay hate” issue, in reality it is not about that. It is about the freedom of speech and religion which is under threat both from the fear agenda and from political correctness throughout Western Europe.”
The Evangelical Alliance has issued a statement saying they are “alarmed” that the new head of the Gambling Commission has a “liberal attitude to the industry”. In a recent interview, Mr Peter Dean, who is in charge of regulating gambling in the public interest after a relaxation of the laws, suggested the Gambling Commission will be a laissez faire regulator which believes regional casinos with million-pound slot machines are “not such a very big deal”.
Gareth Wallace, Parliamentary Officer at the Evangelical Alliance, said, “Over a year ago we warned Tessa Jowell that the Gambling Act risked opening a Pandora’s Box. She assured us at the time of the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the Bill does not cause an increase in problem gambling and we were dismissed as alarmist. Recent developments confirm our concerns.”
The Alliance has called on the Gambling Commission and the Government to clarify exactly what Mr Dean’s proposed “ambling prevalence study” involves, and how it relates to the Government’s promised “rigorous independent research” against robust benchmarks to monitor the incidence of problem gambling. In particular the Alliance is keen to discover who will do the research; will it be independent and fair and will every casino be thoroughly and comparatively researched?
The EA has recently published a briefing paper for churches concerned by plans to build a new casino which can be downloaded from the Alliance website at www.eauk.org/currentpoliticalissues
Writer and pastor Selwyn Hughes died on 9 January, ending a ministry spanning more than four decades.
He was also well known as the founder of Crusade for World Revival (CWR) that produces a number of Christian resources, including Bible study notes, Every Day with Jesus.
Born on 27 April 1928, Selwyn was inspired by his family’s faith. The Welsh Revival of 1904 had influenced many of his relatives and when he turned 16, Hughes became a Christian himself.
In 1965 he initiated a series of short daily Bible-reading guides, written on blank postcards, for friends and church members. Demand rapidly exceeded supply and soon the guides became a bi-monthly publication. Nearly a million people in 130 countries around the world now read Every Day with Jesus (EDWJ) daily.
According to CWR, Hughes personally wrote every issue of EDWJ, only occasionally assisted by other writers. He continued to write prolifically for more than 40 years, during which time he coped with the 1986 death of his wife, the premature loss of their two sons in more recent years, and his own serious illness.
In June 2005, he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Brunel University for “outstanding service to Christian education.”
Cartoonist John Byrne remarked this week that it feels like a time of great change in his life as two great influences on his faith, the Christian Herald and Selwyn Hughes, pass away.
Both have faithfully served God and the Church for many years, facing tragedy and difficulties (Selwyn’s wife died in 1986 and his two sons more recently) yet continuing to worship and glorify God in the midst of both suffering and abundance.
Both, through their writing, have united Christians of different denominations and theological persuasions, something of increasing importance in these days where a divided Church is nothing short of a broken, impotent Church.
In the Bible the concept of God’s “blessing” often refers (contrary to how the phrase is used in our worship services and prayer times) to times of difficulty and suffering from which God draws maturity, worth and wonder. This certainly rings true when we examine Selwyn’s life and work, which was matured and flavoured by adverse circumstances. In these changing times for Christian Herald, we hope you will join us in praying that, through wisdom, faithfulness and ongoing worship, God’s blessing will continue to ripen and flow from us, bringing peace to a hurting world.
by Alison Hull
G P Taylor must be a man who has everything, right? He’s been fabulously successful with his children’s books, there is a Hollywood film planned . . . What more could he possibly want?
Not to sit and weep for hours, for a start. Graham struggles with bouts of depression so bad that he finds functioning normally almost impossible. Having agreed to go public on it, I asked him how long he has been suffering like this.
“Heavily – for about 11 years. I was beaten up when I was in the police force in 1994. Thirty blokes came out of a pub and beat me up. I was badly injured. I started getting flashbacks, then developed a benign growth in my throat – and started to have ever-increasing bouts of depression. It ended my police career.”
Graham – and his doctors – believe that there have been chemical changes in his brain as a result of the attack. He knows when the depression is going to hit him: “I get head pains, numbness and a dryness in my mouth. Then the complete and utter despair follows – and I am immobilised by it.” Could he admit to being depressed as a policeman? “No, never.” Nor did it improve when he became a vicar: “I couldn’t admit to it as a pastor, either. It carries a big stigma in the Christian world. You have to be seen to be well – the idea of a wounded healer is not strong in the evangelical world. You are put in a position, as a pastor, where you can’t admit to being ill. There are huge expectations put on a priest, you have to be so many things to so many different people, and I couldn’t be what everyone wanted me to be.
“I became a workaholic – it was justification by perspiration. No one ever says you are doing well or doing a good job in the church, so you just work harder and harder. The Church of England lacks a pastoral care system for its clergy – who cares for the carers? No one does. Bishops are too bothered with finance and buildings, and are called in when it is too late – at least, that was my experience.”
Has he tried medication? “No. I won’t take anti-depressants – I saw their effects as a policeman and as a coroner’s officer – people who had taken them and jumped under the 9.45 to Edinburgh. No matter how painful all this is, I will face it with the faculties that God gave me, and with the voices in my head saying: ‘Kill yourself’, I will reply: ‘this will pass’. And I cling onto life. I have sat and cried for hours. I have asked God to take my life when I don’t want to face another day. It is torture, and I can understand why people commit suicide. The pain goes on and on. I don’t get violent, I just become very introverted. My family suffers because I become difficult to live with – my patience gets shorter by the minute, I don’t like noise, I don’t want people around – if they have friends in – and I can’t cope with mess around the house. All the things that normally I wouldn’t mind irritate me intensely, and people around me end up walking on eggshells.”
But it is to his family that Graham pays the biggest debt of gratitude – particularly to his wife, Kathy. “She has been my greatest support. I have to be completely honest with her and she forces me to do things – to go for walks. She in turn has a great network of friends whom she prays with and who support her. I couldn’t cope if my marriage was in danger.”
Has the depression improved, now that he hasn’t got the pressure of a parish to take care of?
“Not really – now I am expected to turn out incredible books every year, so there is pressure on me as a writer.” And his success has brought huge amounts of hate mail, even death threats. Some Christians love his work – others have accused him of leading children into witchcraft.
What has he found that helps?
“Watching funny films. Planning special events – thinking, I will do this, I will go out, doing something. Walking – we’ve got two dogs and they need exercising. I force myself to read my Bible, because the first thing that goes when you are depressed is your spiritual life. I have to slow down, empty my diary, just be . . . And I have a happy file, full of e-mails from people who have enjoyed my books, and I read those. They cheer me up. But mental ill-health is growing in this country and we have to find ways of dealing with it.”
[GP Taylor’s first book Shadowmancer is now available as a “manga” graphic novel.]
[Alison Hull is a journalist and editor based in Bristol.]
by Rob Frost
I have just returned from Ethiopia. It wasn’t an easy trip. I came back physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted. As President of Release International, an organisation which cares for the persecuted Church, I went to meet a group of Christians who have fled from Eritrea.
If you, like me, are not very knowledgeable about the region, you may not know that a bloody African war in Ethiopia led to the establishment of the new country of Eritrea. A United Nations peacekeeping force still patrols the border to keep the two massive armies apart. There is talk of a new war.
The people we had come to meet have faced a kind of persecution that most of us only read about. The Eritrean government, despite embracing “religious freedom” as a principle of its constitution, declared that only the Orthodox and the Lutherans were proper Christians.
The rapidly growing evangelical, Pentecostal and cell church movements were labelled “penties”, and became the focus of much activity by the secret police. All these churches were told to “close down temporarily” whilst they applied for licenses. Many of them, anxious to “stay within the law” began the arduous process of application – giving detailed information about their structure, leadership and organisation in the process. Many of them were doing excellent work, sometimes on behalf of well-known aid organisations like Tearfund.
Sadly, no licenses were ever issued – but the Eritrean government gained much useful information to use against the Church in the process. Many Christian leaders were imprisoned and the Church was forced to go underground.
I interviewed 15 Christians who ran for their lives from Eritrea and ended up in the refugee camp. I compiled detailed recorded statements of the systematic process of persecution, which they have endured. I am hoping to present these to the Foreign Office and to the United Nations in due course.
They were just a sample of scores of other Eritreans in a similar situation. Many of them had been asked by the Eritrean government to sign a declaration promising that they would never again “pray to Jesus, read the Bible, or attend ‘pentie’ services”.
When they refused, they were imprisoned and sometimes beaten. If they continued to practice the faith in prison, they were sent for “special detention” where they were held in metal shipping containers in desert heat, or forced to dig wells in scorching temperatures with inadequate water. My questioning was thorough and detailed, and the statements cross-reference with great detail and accuracy. Many of my interviewees spoke excellent English and were highly intelligent. I am convinced of the truth of their story.
That evening, in the refugee camp, we joined more than 200 Eritreans for a time of worship, adoration and praise, which was breathtaking. It’s a long time since I’ve shared such liberated, vibrant, Spirit-filled worship. And that night, in a mud hut at the edge of the camp the leaders of the church carried a bowl of water and washed my feet. I was moved to tears.
If you want to know more about these people visit www.releaseinternational.org. A documentary about our visit will be released in the spring. Please pray for these brothers and sisters – they are in a perilous position and living in very basic conditions. They desperately need our help.
[Rob Frost is director of Share Jesus International.]
by Russ Bravo
A recent poll conducted by broadband ISP Bulldog discovered that the average person spends the equivalent of three and a half years of his or her life doing housework. Leaving aside the question of whether it’s actually him or her who does the work (and one suspects we know the answer to that one), the solution could be buzzing and whirring around the corner very shortly. Robots. Yes, the ever growing robotics industry is increasingly turning its attention to domestic issues, recognising that use of robots in manufacturing is now commonplace, the humble consumer has yet to really feel the benefit.
So, you can already get vacuum cleaners from the likes of LG, iRobot and Electrolux that will beetle around cleaning your carpets until you turn them off. Siemens have launched the Dressman, a robot in a mannequin shape with a skin of balloon silk. It inflates itself with hot air and can press a shirt in six minutes. There are robots that will guard your home, take charge of your home appliances and more. There's even a worrying “domestic android” being developed, stuffed full of Artificial Intelligence, called Valierie. A 5ft 8 inch female mannequin, modelled to look like someone from Baywatch, can be programmed to paint, wash clothes, change lightbulbs, lift loads of up to 50lb, do the washing up and more. A mere snip at $59,000.
The aim is, we’re told, to make our lives easier by doing all the troublesome chores we’d much rather not be bothered with, so that we can devote ourselves to the interesting stuff of life. A few questions come to mind. While we’d all much rather do less vacuuming, ironing and cleaning, isn’t the dull stuff still very much part of the life God has given us? Brother Lawrence, who encountered God in the midst of the humdrum, might have a word to say about that.
Clearly robots will be another “must-have” accessory for the rich, while the poor will continue to have to make do with rock bottom wages, or no jobs at all – and no aid from robots. And while Artificial Intelligence may be a wonderful thing, could it be that we’ll also soon discover Artificial Stupidity. After all, the old computer maxim “rubbish in, rubbish out” applies – inadequate programming from frail human beings will always be the point at which robots break down. And when their parts wear out. Technology can be a wonderful thing, but people need to come first, or life simply doesn’t compute.
by Fran Hill
I was looking back over some of my old columns in a fit of nostalgia, bearing in mind that this is the last one I’ll write for Christian Herald. The experience was akin to leafing through an old diary, although more Adrian Mole in nature than anything serious.
I’d forgotten what it was like to be a member of a New Frontiers happy-clappy charismatic Bible-weeking who-cares-a-fig-about-the-church-calendar congregation. But those were the things I was writing about back in 1999: manic trips to Stoneleigh Bible week where people fell down in the aisles, Matt Redman holding all 10 slots in the top-ten worship songs at church, old ladies swinging from light fittings while prophesying.
Then about two years into my column writing, I moved to a Baptist vaguely-contented occasionally-enthusiastic church-weekending we-care-very-much-about-the-church calendar congregation. Suddenly I was writing about the hymn versus new song debate, the 106-year-old gent on the coffee rota, the Banner Controversy . . . These things would never have come up in my NFI days.
There was no contest between hymns and new songs then – because there was only one option: new songs. Redman was King of the Swingers and if a song was more than a year old it was slung out. Graham Kendrick was considered old hat, and if you mentioned that you didn’t hear much of Charles Wesley, people thought he was someone who used to belong to the church.
I do think fondly of the old days, though. I’m still more of a Redman fan than a Wesley fan myself. For a start, Redman’s songs usually fit on just one acetate, which makes it a lot easier for the overhead projector operator. Don’t get me wrong, however. I’m quite happy at my present church, and as I get older (I’ve just put in my order for Praise Him on the Zimmer – Kendrick’s latest) I suppose the pace suits me better.
We used to march around the town doing enthusiastic prayer walks in the previous church, knocking on doors and singing like banshees in the High Street. Now I’m more likely to evangelise by inviting some friends to the Harvest Supper or having some neighbours round for a cream tea. You need less Prozac for this kind of witnessing, put it that way.
But nostalgia isn’t always a good thing, and at this time of year especially, it’s probably better to look ahead. For me, that’s a future without sitting down every fortnight to write my Christian Herald column. Which is a shame, because now I have to find someone else to irritate.
[Fran Hill is a secondary school teacher and writer based in Hampton.]
[Deborah Kirk reports on the work being done amongst thousands of the 1.5 million displaced people, many of them Christians, in Thailand and Myanmar (formerly Burma).]
The pickup bounced over the rough dirt road, driving deep into the lush green Thai countryside before coming to a stop at a marsh. The team transferred bundles of relief goods into long, narrow wooden boats and then motored the rest of the way to Gong Mong Tha – otherwise known as “Elephant Village”.
About 16 Karen and Mon families live here in isolated poverty. Some earn a small amount caring for the elephants that tourists use for trekking expeditions. Others are rubber plantation workers, gathering the liquid tapped from surrounding trees.
This area has about 20 similar villages. Many dozens more lie further along the border between Thailand and Myanmar (or Burma as it was formerly named). All are in desperate condition.
Back in 1988, Burma’s brutal military regime killed more than 6,000 pro-democracy demonstrators and began targeting hill tribes people in the east for particular persecution. The Karen – about 40% of whom are Christian – have since endured forced labour, relocation and execution. Over the years, thousands of the 1.5 million displaced peoples have made their way through the jungle and over the mountains to Thailand.
“We lost everything,” said a Karen refugee. “They burned our houses and we had to live long years in the forest. We don’t have a country or a nationality. We have nothing.”
In 2004 Mercy Teams International (MTI), OM’s relief and development arm in the East Asia Pacific area, established a base on the Thai-Burmese border. Nelson and Bea, who lead the work, say their town actually has more Burmese than Thai residents.
Elephant Village was MTI’s first project. On previous visits they had brought fruit, hygiene packs and other supplies. It was now the “cold” season and the people needed warmer clothing and blankets. Their diet had been reduced to rice and whatever fish they could catch, since recent flooding had destroyed the village’s vegetable garden. And supplies were needed for the little school being held in one of the bamboo houses for 21 small children.
“Thai schools would accept them,” explains Nelson, “but even if parents could afford to buy school uniforms, the children live too far away to attend.”
Burmese children who are born in Thailand and have a birth certificate can receive Thai citizenship. Many do not, however. On weekends Nelson uses donated computers to teach Karen teenagers, some of them orphans, with the hope of giving them an educational advantage. MTI has also helped equip a local church to run a school for the children in a lakeside Laoshen village. Six families in this village now follow Christ.
“We want to provide physical help as well as spiritual help,” Nelson asserts. “We have total freedom. The Thai government know what we are doing. In November the Karen pastor who works with me baptised a family of six in the lake, including a 75-year-old grandmother. Thailand is a Buddhist country, but our area is very open to the Word of God. There is no persecution against Christians. That’s why we say it’s harvest time in Thailand right now!”
MTI’s small team is supplemented by volunteers and short-term teams from Singapore churches. Last year a medical team treated 700 patients in several different locations, within a week. Another group of medics crossed 23 streams and travelled hours of dirt tracks and sharp inclines to tend 500 destitute tribal people. The place was so remote the people normally had to walk three days for medical help. A Thai helicopter airlifted in the team’s medical supplies. In the evenings, after the clinic, they showed the Jesus film. Many people turned to the Lord and burned their charms.
Daisy Dwe – better known to all along the border as “Aunt Daisy”, has long been a champion and support of displaced people. She herself is a Karen Christian who escaped to Thailand with her family in the 1970s. For several years this extraordinary woman, who speaks six languages, oversaw a camp for 3,000 refugees from Burma. When the UN took that over, she began to help other newcomers in whatever way she could.
Ten years ago a donation from expatriate friends made it possible for Daisy to begin a weaving business. Weaving is a traditional craft for Karen people, and this could generate income for refugee women and their families. Soon they learned to spin their own yarn using a homemade bicycle wheel and bicycle parts, and coloured the fabric with natural dyes. The project now employs 12 workers who make their own designs for blouses, scarves, handbags, and other items, weaving them on huge shuttle looms and selling them in their own little shop. MTI has contributed three looms to this worthwhile enterprise.
“People are still coming over the border all the time,” says Daisy. “There are many ways to come in. And the first thing they need is food. Rice. Then they make bamboo shelters. We try to help with whatever they need. This year the heavy rains flooded the rice paddies and they have no rice to eat. The water level is very high. Some of them have lost their homes all over again.
“Pray for freedom in Burma,” she appeals, “and for peace of life for all the displaced people who are struggling here!”
As long as Burma’s border continues to bleed human beings, there will be an urgent need to care for them in body and spirit. Last month three volunteer groups – one with doctors and a dentist – gave time to help MTI. Noted Director David Greenfield: “We have been invited to plant churches in two or three places by the village chiefs. We don’t have enough people. But this is an open door we need to be walking through!”
[Deborah Kirk is a journalist who reports on the Global Church.]
by Pete Greig
“The streets of Boys Town are littered with evidence of the previous night’s activities (used condoms, empty beer bottles etc) and yet I want to tell you it’s beautiful here,” writes Kelly Green in Mexico. She is seeking to develop a 24-7 prayer centre in the walled city of “Boys Town” – a centre of prostitution and vice near the American border.
“I’m not sure if words can contain the work of Jesus here,” she writes.
“The doorways are darkened by women who have been stripped of their humanity, mere robots who are programmed to do only one thing. They don’t feel anything anymore, partly because they’re strung out on God-knows-what, and partly because they had to turn off their feelings in order to survive another day.
“But tell them Jesus loves them, and their faces change. Admittedly, some of them struggle to believe it’s true, but you can see that others want so badly to surrender to the pull of Jesus’ love.”
Kelly’s extraordinary journey from the buckle of the Bible Belt to Boys Town (she is from Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an extraordinary one. It began with a short mission trip to the area and a prayer walk near Boys Town. Kelly prayed innocently that God would send someone to shine his light in the dark and desperate streets. God did it, and sent her.
Arriving in Mexico – a single young woman sent out by her church in Tulsa, Kelly came across Red Moon Rising, the story of 24-7 prayer, and realised that what the area needed was a house of prayer, mercy and hospitality and a base for mission.
A year on, God is opening amazing doors: “Only Jesus can break through hardened hearts and addictions and lies,” she realises, “and he’s doing it! Things are changing here. I walked these streets 16 months ago and found cold, empty stares. Today I walk the same streets and women come out of their rooms to chat, pimps and drug addicts stumble out of bars, and they all want to talk.
“I’m convinced that this growing openness has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been walking these streets, and everything to do with the fact that Jesus has been walking these streets with me.”
Just before Christmas, Kelly handed out Christmas gifts. “As we entered Boys Town, armed with boxes wrapped in Christmas paper, a lady called Sandra found me. Sandra has lived in Boys Town for a year; she’s 19 and from Matamoros. She had eyes like a little child, expectant and hopeful. Yet she didn’t want a Christmas gift; she wanted to know if I had brought her a Bible. When I gave her a Spanish New Testament, she held it close to her heart like it was a recovered treasure.”
[Pete Greig’s new book, The Vision and The Vow – a call to discipleship, is out now.]
by Dr Rhona Knight
Do you remember how you reacted when you first met real live human clones? What did you think? How did you feel? Could you tell who was who?
I grew up next door to a pair of clones: identical twin girls. These, and other friends who are identical twins, have been part of my life for many years. Natural cloning, therefore, far from being fantasy, is a fact of human reproduction. Natural cloning can also be seen in the garden. Plants that use tubers, suckers and bulbs to reproduce, are doing so through cloning. In fact the word clone, comes from the Greek ‘Klown’, meaning twig, illustrating that taking cuttings from plants is also a form of cloning.
But what of the fantasy? To many, the realm of fantasy includes Huxley’s Brave New World, where one egg is used to produce 96 genetically identical individuals. It would also include the use of clones as a source of harvesting spare parts, as in the 2004 film, The Island, starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. On The Island, clones are seen as “a product in every way that matters . . . not human”. To younger viewers, the use of clones as fighting fodder is portrayed in the Star Wars films. While it could be argued that today’s fiction becomes tomorrow’s fact, technology still seems a long way off from these film scenarios.
However, we are living in a time where the edges of fact and fiction in the area of cloning are becoming increasingly blurred. Whether looking at reproductive cloning, which aims to produce a fully developed individual, or therapeutic cloning, which aims to create an embryo from which to develop treatments, it is difficult to know where we have got to.
As far as reproductive cloning is concerned, the fact of the creation of Dolly, the cloned sheep, marked a key scientific development. Using the process of nuclear transfer, Dolly was born on 5 July 1996.
Yet, in the area of therapeutic cloning, this month sees more of the work of Woo-Suk Hwang, the South Korean cloning researcher, acclaimed for being the first person to clone a human being, being deemed to be a fraud. What was hailed by the world as a fact, is now being derided as fiction, in a way that must increase public distrust and scepticism of scientific “progress”.
When one examines therapeutic cloning further, one meets with the idea that a cloned embryo can be created to order, and harvested for embryo stem cells that can be used to treat or cure the person who placed the order. Embryo stem cells have had a great deal of press, and readers would be forgiven for thinking that a wealth of cures are imminent. This is where more fiction becomes apparent. Whereas stem cells taken from adults have already been used in treatments, for example in bone marrow transplants, the use of embryo stem cells in treatments is still in its infancy.
It is concerning that “faction” seems to reign on an issue that involves experimentation on early human life, which many Christians see as having crossed a line that should not be crossed. Many of us see embryos as vulnerable human beings, who should be protected. As Christians, therefore, we do need to discover what is fact, and prayerfully consider what should remain fiction.
The Christian Herald newspaper was the brainchild of the Rev Michael Paget Baxter, born in Doncaster on 7 December 1834. He was the tenth child born to Robert Baxter, head of a firm of solicitors based in Westminster. Baxter became a Christian at the age of 20 under the ministry of the Rev Samuel Martin of Westminster Chapel.
After spending a number of years in Canada and America during his twenties, Baxter returned to England in 1863. Four years later, in May 1867, he launched the small monthly prophetic magazine Signs of our Times in which he published articles by various ministers on the exposition of prophecy.
In 1873-4, having attended the meetings of the famed contemporary preachers Moody and Sankey, he decided “immense good could be done by publishing in my magazine full reports of the services, thus enabling multitudes to read the evangelist’s sermons”. This idea resulted in the weekly launch of Christian Herald and Signs of our Times, the first surviving issue of which was published on 7 July 1876. The purpose of the publication as outlined in this paper’s obituary for Rev Baxter on 20 January 1910 was “to make known to the masses of the people the saving truths of the Gospel of Christ”.
Initially the paper was printed and published in Glasgow but it quickly became necessary to have an office in London. Premises were sought and found in Tudor Street, under the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral. For a number of years there were simultaneous issues of the Christian Herald from the two centres. At the time of Baxter’s death the paper was “a welcome visitor in considerably more than 300,000 homes”. Up until his death Baxter also published the Prophetic News, a paper circulated for many years, even after his death, and also the separate Christian Herald Penny Stories, a single “complete, interesting and high-toned story” published once a week.
Later in his life Baxter travelled regularly to France, Belgium, Italy and Spain to distribute Bibles. He allegedly delivered by hand between two and three thousand Bibles each trip. At the time of his death Baxter reckoned that he had distributed around two million Bibles, gospels and tracts himself. Baxter was close to many of the most prominent preachers of the time and was himself quietly baptised in the Metropolitan Tabernacle by C H Spurgeon.
An enthusiastic foreteller of Armageddon he unsuccessfully predicted the end of the world for no less than seven different times between 1867 and 1908. However, commentators at the time remarked that his prophetic writings were more of a hobby alongside the more serious business of social action and spreading the gospel.
In 1878 Baxter sent two “agents” to inaugurate an edition of the Christian Herald in New York. In 1890 Dr Louis Klopsch purchased the American rights and invited a Dr Talmage to edit. The American edition of the Christian Herald ran successfully until 1992.
Mr Baxter, “founder and proprietor of the Christian Herald passed peacefully on the morning of 7 January 1910” so announced the national press of the day. His funeral was held on 11 January at Christ Church Highbury Grove. He was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Baxter, who lived until 1926.
Their son, Paget Baxter, took over the Christian Herald from his father and led the paper into further successes with a boasted readership of a million weekly by the end of the 1920s. In the early 1930s, the traditional hand-drawn illustrations that characterised the paper’s front page stories were replaced by black and white photography. Due to the difficulty and expense of appropriating photographs directly related to current affairs, the front page stories moved away from the large national news stories of the first 30 years to more regional, Christian-based magazine style images.
In June 1954 the Christian Herald welcomed the young evangelist preacher Billy Graham to write a question and answer column each week. This column ran for many years and in it Billy fielded questions ranging from “Are films good or evil?” and “Are family devotions practical?” to “Should a Christian read cheap books?” Throughout the next 20 years the magazine style of the paper was emphasised with features such as “It’s time to choose a hobby” and “Fish are so fashionable!”
One of the most remarkable characters in the history of The Christian Herald was Dr Thomas Wilkinson Riddle, who edited it from the Second World War until 1982. He had been the Baptist minister in Plymouth, and thanks to the high society company he kept, was referred to by some as a “Baptist Pope”. When in 1979, Colin Reeves acquired the business, Dr Riddle was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the World’s Oldest Working Editor – he was 94.
At that time an elderly lady who lived in the Lake District, a descendant of Baxter, owned the paper. The women’s editor was 88 and the general manager was 77. Colin Reeves recalls his first visit to their print works beside Shoreham Harbour as “like walking into a Dickensian film set”. Some of the machinery was in fact given to an industrial museum.
In June 1996 current editor Russ Bravo launched the New Christian Herald, a redesigned and revamped paper closer to the “current affairs from a Christian perspective” look and feel of 100 years before. In February 1999 another redesign saw the “New” dropped from the paper’s title.
Millions of readers have been informed, entertained and encouraged by the Christian Herald over five or six generations and hundreds of thousands of God’s children have been featured throughout the 6,753 editions in our archive. At the end of an extraordinary life and ministry we thank God for the faithfulness of all who have worked on the paper for his glory.
On 20 September 1952, the week the Christian Herald offices moved out of Tudor Street, London, a writer known only by his initials, C L J, wrote of the future of the paper: “We must expect great changes in a world growing smaller day by day as giant planes encircle the earth’s surface in a space of a few hours. Our columns will be filled with these records of men’s progress in science but our sincerest hopes and prayers will be for the renewal of the faith of all who have been privileged to hear God’s word. We go forward in a spirit of humility and pray that he who has so greatly enabled us, will lay before us a wider opportunity still.” Amen.