Category Archives: Bible

Lessons from Watership Down: What Rabbits Can Teach the Church

Article by Christian Leithart.

From the conclusion:

The way to keep our senses sharp, says Hauerwas, is to constantly remind ourselves of danger through telling true stories. For the church, these true stories are about suffering, death, and resurrection. This is the good news with which we transform culture and bring life to the cities of men. A Christian—or a rabbit—can never be complacent. As the agents of God in the world, we too are called to take up the cross.

LENT – give it up ‘for Lent’ and forever

Article by

The Rev Dr Alan Clifford

LENT – (along with the religion which inspired it) should be given up ‘for Lent’ and forever!

An Oxford organisation known as the ‘Oxford Minority People Gathering’ have complained to BBC Oxford that while Divali, the Chinese New Year, and Ramadan are reported, Lent is not.

I fully understand OMPA’s complaint. This is but a further example of the creeping deletion of Christianity from our culture.

However, a more urgent question is what kind of Christianity do we wish to preserve and promote?

Getting upset about BBC Oxford’s omission of Lent raises a more profound question: why Lent at all? As I argue, there is a strong case for abolishing it.

It is astonishing in this secular age that superstitious observances like Lent still survive.

There’s no denying that in our obesity-ridden society, diet-reduction would be good for the health of all of us. But to turn it into a religious ritual is no part of authentic biblical Christianity.

Lent is of pagan origin, adapted as a 6th-century Papal innovation. It is quite alien to the teaching of the New Testament. While Roman Catholics, Anglicans and others persist in its observance, the Apostle Paul rejects the validity of special holy days and superstitious abstinence (see Galations 4:10-11; Colossians 2:16-23).

Christian teaching does have a lot to say to us on the subject of over-indulgence. However, our Saviour’s teaching on ‘self-denial’ (see Mark 8:34-8) covers every kind of self-gratification, and not just for forty days but every day! Also, arguments against Lent do not call into question properly-understood and correctly-motivated periods of fasting and prayer.

More faithful interpreters of the Bible are represented by the great Genevan reformer John Calvin (1509-64) and the great English Puritan Richard Baxter (1615-91):

Christ did not abstain from food and drink to give an example of temperance, but to gain Him more authority in being set apart from the common lot of men, that He might progress as a messenger from heaven, not as a man of the earth.

It is really quite foolish to institute the so-called forty-day fast in imitation of Christ. For there is no more reason today why we should follow the example of Christ, than ever there was for the holy Prophets and the other Fathers under the Law to imitate the Fast of Moses. In fact we know that no-one ever had such a thought.

They pretend to be imitators of Christ, when they fast every day of the forty, but really they so stuff their bellies at breakfast that they can easily go through dinner-time without food. What resemblance have they to the Son of God?

Neither Christ nor Moses held a solemn fast every year, but both held one only, in all their lives.

For [Lent observers] to persuade themselves that it is a work of merit, a part of religious devotion and the worship of God – this is the ultimate superstition.

Commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, John Calvin

The imitation of Christ in His forty days’ fasting is not to be attempted or pretended to; because his miraculous works were not done for our imitation.

The pretending of a fast when men do but change their diet, flesh for fish, fruit, sweetmeats, etc, is but hypocritical and ridiculous.

As for the commanding such an abstinence, as in Lent, not in imitation, but bare commemoration of Christ’s forty days’ fast, I would not command it if it were in my power…

A Christian Directory (1673), Richard Baxter

So give up Lent and take up the true Christian life! Link up with a faithful and consistent Bible-believing church, and embrace for life-long discipleship our Saviour’s life-transforming saving grace.

Dr Alan C. Clifford
Norwich Reformed Church

A Christian Libertarian View on Environmental Protection

I’ve just finished reading “Faith Seeking Freedom – Libertarian Christian Answers to Tough Questions“. The authors are Dr. Norman Horn, Doug Stuart, Kerry Baldwin and Dick Clark.

It covers 12 different subjects, plus one chapter on “Christian misconceptions on Libertainism”.

Here, I’m just going to concentrate on chapter 12: “What about the Environment and Creation?”

Here are a few quotes from that chapter:

The natural world in the beginning [of Genesis] is described as a garden. Gardens are meant to be worked, and that work inherently means that the garden is incomplete.

Therefore, the destiny of the whole earth is not pure wildland, but cultivation by its inhabitants.

Now, that does not mean we should be utterly wasteful and foolish with those resources, but it also means we do not have the right to assume we know better than our neighbor how he can use those resources that he rightfully owns.

As we use the resources that God has seen fit to grant us, we should use them as mindful stewards of a divine blessing (Matt. 25:14-30). The righteous take care to leave something of value for future generations (Prov. 13:22)

When property boundaries are clear and unambiguous, neighbors can more readily hold each other accountable.

Too often, in a system where environmental regulation is provided through government, political decision making can lead to wasted resources. Under modern environmental regulatory regimes, polluters and other bad actors may even be able to defend their harmful actions legally by pointing to government licensure and compliance with relevant regulations.

In a free society, property owners would have a better chance at holding others accountable for the environmental damage that they cause.

It is important to point out that governments do not just fail to protect the environment; in fact, they are among the worst polluters. A 2020 report concluded that the United States military is the “largest single institutional consumer of hydrocarbons in the world”.

Private property owners have a strong incentive to conserve their privately owned resources. Unfortunately, when government owns and manages natural resources, there is an incentive for private parties to attempt to get as much as they can until the resource is exhausted.

It is rational to maximise profits, and for as long as human beings live in a fallen world with scarce resources, they will seek to do so.

We must recognize that some pollution is inevitable simply because of entropy.

The bigger concern, though, is hazardous waste. [Whoever damages] someone else with their pollutant, they are liable for those damages in form of a tort (a civil lawsuit). The polluter would have to pay restitution for those damages and resotre the property (or health) of the claimant.

Models of the future are massively uncertain, and their predictions of global climates and the need to “fix” the predicted issues are dangerous at best and unjust to billions at worst.

Encourage efforts that move land and resources into private hands rather than the state.

Interview with Astrophysicist Hugh Ross

At Grace Church St. Louis, from 19th May 2024

Starts here.

Includes account of when he visited the Soviet Union. He says scientists there were researching “occult weapons”, because the leadership realised they were falling behind the US and were getting desperate.

He says some of the scientists there were “obviously demon-possessed”, and explained that in terms of their behaviour: Shouting at him during his talk, being very hostile, turning away, going into foetal position etc.