Abortions

Election 10

Well its all over, all the dust has settled and the new government is in power in Britain following last weeks election, but what are some of the noteworthy things that happened? Well locally, Peter Robinsons defeat in East Belfast has caused some ripples and proves that local constituency work can triumph over the big names. In North Antrim the Paisley dynasty is well in tact and Jim Allister was soundly beaten. Nationally the biggest casualty was also a local man Lembit Opik, but by far the biggest surprise is the government we have as a result of the election, a Tory-Liberal pact, certainly not the most natural bed fellows. What are the biggest challenges facing the incoming government? The national debt, immigration, electoral reform to name but a few. But so what? Why as someone who comments on news from a Christian slant am i mentioning this? Well because the bible has something to say about government and how it should be administered, we read in Romans 13,
"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resits the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgement." So the first thing to say is that God has appointed the government over us and has given us our government and so far as we are able as Christians we are to support our government, or else as Paul tells us we are resisting what God has appointed over us. What does this mean? Well it means we pay our taxes, it means we obey the speed limits and generally live as good citizens to the state.
But what about to Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg, what does God have to say to them, (not alot according to Mr Clegg) but Paul continues in Romans 13:
"For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant, for your good. But if you do wrong then be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is a servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer."
So whatever they think, whatever their opinion on weather God exists or not, the fact is that David Cameron is God's servant set in place by God, but for what purpose? To do us good. This warning is something that Mr Cameron would do well to remember as he forges his coalition, that he is put in place by God, he is God's servant to do God's people good. Lets pray that he does this.

Utilitarianism

So this was allegedly a weekly blog, and i think this may be my second post in two months awh well it is better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all. Tonight i was at a debate entitled "Christianity is an irrelevant and outdated belief system". Now surprisingly perhaps at this point im not going to attack the premise of the debate, but the proposer of this motion argued that Christianity led to a flawed morality by which the world should not be governed and instead propsed utilitarianism as an alternative, now for a olitics graduate like myself this greatly interested me. Utilitarianism is basically the belief that what should happen is the greatest good for the greatest number of people should be the thing that happens. Now i have 3 objections to this, two on a common sense basis and the other on a a more theolgical level. Firstly, what is for the greatest good today may not be for the greatest good tomorrow.So for example the policy of appeasement seemed like the greatest good at the time but later it emerged that all it served to do was allow Hitler time to build his resources. Secondly, what happens when the greatest good is in fact illegal. This was the justification for the war in Iraq, Tony Blair argued that what Sadaam Hussein was doing in Iraq was wrong and therefore the greatest thing to do for the greatest number was to invade and depose Hussein, but this was in fact an act of war in which many young men have died, so was this right? And finally and perhaps my biggest objection is who is to decide on what is the greatest good for the greatest number of people? Essentially what you are doing to that person is elevating them to a god, you are saying that youre reason is so much higher and so much better that you are the only one qualified to deliberate on such issues, you are making them god. Far from bringing a more egalitarian system all this will serve to do will be to consolidate the power for those whose reason is allegedly better, it will make them gods with the power over life and death, and there is only one God and he does not share His glory with any other

Iris Robinson M.P.

The purpose of this blog is really to try and give a biblical reflection on a news event and look at things from a Christian perspective. Anybody who has a TV over the past few weeks cant have missed the spotlight programme regarding Irish Robinson and her affair with a 19 year old man Kirk McCambley, but as Christians how should we respond to this? What should we do or say to Iris Robinson? Well firstly the important thing to remember is that Iris is a sinner saved by the grace of God, and along with us will not be perfect this side of heaven. Faced with someone caught in a similar situation. We are told that the religious leaders of Jesus day bring him a woman who had been caught in adultery and they say that this woman should be stoned according to the law of Moses, but Jesus replies to them that the one who has not sinned can throw the first stone. The self righteous people of the day were looking to kill her and castigate her, and the same is true today of Iris. I think this is what we need to rememeber we are all sinners, we are all saved by the grace of God alone. None of us can afford to get on our moral high horse over this issue and castigate Iris and the family instead we must pray for them, we must point out the sinfulness of her behaviour and not endorse that but remember that there but the grace of God go I.

On a second level however there is something much more damaging that has occured, more damaging even than to the strained family relations i now imagine exist, and that is the damage to the gospel of our Lord and Saviour, it has emerged that this affair was going on at the same time that Iris was making her comments about homosexuality, and unfortunatley this has caused many people to scoff at the message she brought. I think the warning for us here is the importance of living a consistant, clear Christian life. The latest revelations have impacted severely the message of the gospel. Im not advocating a perfect life this is unrealistic, but to lambast people for sexual sin whilst being caught up in sexual sin yourself is hypocritical and will prove your message false. So this whole affair then should be an encouragement to us to life a consistant life, to life a life worthy of the gospel we have recieved