Do you know what really annoys me?

First Published February 1, 2008

When people say that statements made by evangelical Christians about our God are offensive to people of other faiths and/or no faith. Locally our city council (Aberdeen Scotland) have stopped referring officially to the Christmas holiday period and renamed it “Winter Festival” so as not to offend people who are not Christian.

The fact that many of the lights strung up across the high street showed wise men on camels and or a star over a manager in Bethlehem was officially not connected with any Christian festival concerning a birth of a young baby. Those fancy lights were to commemorate a winter time festival that just happens by sheer co-incidence to occur at Christmas-time.

Have our city officials gone mad? Or is it another way of throwing out the baby Jesus in favour of being able to be totally commercial and encourage us to do nothing connected with our church beliefs and just spend, spend, spend in the big department stores?

A short time ago there was a debate about our Equality Acts which outlawed any discrimination against other people in particular races, genders and disabled people. Quite right too in my view but where do you draw the line? Recently there was discussion started by our national politicians that a new Act would bring the various different Acts of Parliament (laws) together into one overall Law covering all groups.

However the new Act was to be broader and introduce a new offence which would outlaw discussions which hit at a particular groups of people. Nothing wrong in that one might think! But what would it mean in our church meetings? Would we have to censor the bits of the Bible we could use and miss out those chunks that said that some practices were wrong. For example I can imagine the immediate outcry that would come as soon as any Church minister said that homosexual practices was not in line with God’s will. Will that lead to Christians in our so called “Christian country” being sent to prison for reading the Bible aloud?

The fact that the Bible also says “sex outside marriage” is wrong does not seem to arouse so much opposition yet it affects so many many more people.

Our Christian beliefs are based on biblical truths written over several thousand years ago (they were first written about in The Old Testament thousands of years before the birth of Jesus) would be made illegal if we speak about them. So we would be able to speak about some of the ten commandments? For example I think it would mean we could say “thou shalt not steal or kill” but what about some of the others about worshiping only the one true God? Would we be prevented from saying that Jesus is Lord?

If we do not speak out and defend our faith now will the right to believe statements set out in our Bible be taken away from us one by one.

If we do not do something to protect our beliefs today will there be anyone left to support us when our society totally collapses and the “thought police” come after us tomorrow.