We could see it coming. The increasing pressure to shut down ANY voice that speaks against the "multi faith/multi cultural" doctrine embraced and propagated by the secular West.
It happened in England yesterday when two street preachers were tried and convicted of violating public order in the south-west city of Bristol. Both were fined about $ 5,000.00 each.
The ruling judge accused them of "creating anxiety to the public by stating that there was only one way to God and that was through Jesus Christ."
On the day that these men were preaching, several Muslims began shouting and swearing at the preachers. It is worthwhile noting that none of these were arrested for being a public nuisance: only the two gospel preachers.
A similar incident occurred in Toronto last year when a senior clerk in the city administration banned any singing of christian hymns in Nathan Philip's Square because the line, "There is no God like Jehovah", was likely to cause offense to the listening public.
Thankfully, she was later overruled by the mayor, but the writing is still left clearly on the wall. "Christians keep within your four walls and keep your faith to yourselves"
O really! These edicts should be call to war for all who love and profess faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Our unified response should be "We will not be BROW BEATEN or BULLIED by anyone, be they politician, judge, jury or bureaucrat. Freedom of speech is the legacy of our Christian faith and through God we will exercise it.
Jubilate
Ian
We may well ask the question, just who is Trappist One? It could be the founding member of the Silent order of the Trappist monks but it isn't. No, Trappist is one of seven earth sized planets that have been discovered beyond our own galaxy and NASA astronomers are getting real excited about them.
"Why," say the learned star gazers," these planets are in the "Goldilocks" zone, they are not gaseous and they receive roughly the same amount of light as does planet Earth." Hence the excitement. One or more of these planets could be inhabited. Just think of that. "Why," they go on to say, "we human beings might have intelligent neighbours."
But, for mere mortals like you and me, this is where the excitement suddenly ends.
We now find out that our friendly neighbours are 40 light years away. Not the sort of place that we will be dropping in for a cup of tea any time soon. In fact, at the present speed of space travel the journey to see our cosmic friends would take 764,000 years!
Enough said.
With a space exploration budget of several billion dollars each year, if this is the best that NASA can come up with, it might be better to put the money into getting to know our neighbours on earth. Maybe to build a few bridges and pave a few roads to make it easier to visit the folks across town. Let's do that first and leave the aliens to Captain Kirk and Starship Enterprise.
Jubilate.
Ian
