Posted by Dyfed on Friday, September 16, 2011,
In :
Random
The church’s explosive
growth in China is truly a phenomenon worth beholding. The price some
Christians are paying for their faith is also remarkable – a persecution that
should make some who use the word to describe events in the UK blush. The BBC
have a piece on their website this week about the Chinese church that is well
worth reading.
European comparison
One sentence in the piece that
does need to be put into some kind of context, however, is this: ‘More people
go to church on Sund...
Posted by Dyfed on Thursday, February 3, 2011,
In :
Emerging church
If fear is the reaction to Christian
persecution we should most be wary of, then committing ourselves to God’s
care is probably the most positive thing we can do. In this series I have looked
at Christian persecution from a biblical point of view in some detail because
there is so much talk about it within the conservative church in the UK. And although I
can see how the church is losing influence and privilege in the West toda...
Posted by Dyfed on Thursday, January 27, 2011,
In :
Emerging church
In my last post on Christian persecution I focussed
on the issue of ‘falling away’ which, according to Scripture, is one response we
will see in the face of Christians being persecuted for their faith. This is
obviously a negative reaction and in warning us about it Jesus was hoping that
we would be able to guard against it happening. But it is not th...
Posted by Dyfed on Thursday, January 20, 2011,
In :
Emerging church
One of the consequences of persecuting
Christians is that some, according to Scripture, will ‘fall away’. Obviously
this is not a good response! There are other responses that Jesus does not want
to see from us in the face of persecution but I feel that ‘falling away’
probably deserves a post on its own. In my first post on the subject of Christian
persecution I noted how Jesus said that those who follow him would f...
Posted by Dyfed Roberts on Wednesday, January 12, 2011,
In :
Emerging church
Christians are not being persecuted in the UK today. Despite all
the stirring up of certain stories in some quarters of the church and despite
even the launch of a campaign by one group as a defiant stand against the
so-called trend to silence Christian witness, the truth is rather more mundane
– in the Western world today the church does not find itself in danger and
there is very little Christian persecution.
Posted by Dyfed on Wednesday, December 22, 2010,
In :
Post-Christendom
Are
Christians being persecuted in the UK? Errr
… no. You wouldn’t believe it reading some websites though, including the
Christian Institute’s. (I was nice to them yesterday and I’m sure being
balanced is important, don’t you?) Indeed listening to some, including the
former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, you’d think that the state is
executing a grand plan of sweeping the faith away from public sight.
It is not a coincidence that those
listed as being blessed after the peacemakers are those who are persecuted
(Matt 5:10-12). To be a peacemaker in a world that has learned the perverse
value of confrontation is no easy task and will surely draw opposition. But in the
face of such opposition Jesus is saying that the correct stance to take is to
be one of peacemaking.
Posted by Dyfed on Tuesday, June 8, 2010,
In :
Random
Yesterday I was sent an email by
some friends forwarding an email doing the rounds about a petition in the US calling for Christian broadcasting
on television to be banned. The petition was, apparently, gaining much support
with nearly 300,000 signatories and was calling for people like Joyce Meyer and
Joel Osteen to be silenced on the airwaves. The email encouraged recipients to
sign a counter petition in order ...
Posted by Dyfed Wyn on Wednesday, January 27, 2010,
In :
Island ministry
On Friday I’m speaking at an Anglican Church Mothers’ Union meeting (no sniggering in the back, please!) on the island. It’ll be a small gathering by all accounts and I was press-ganged into it by a family member during a time when I found it hard to say no. Things have changed since then and I won’t be saying yes a second time, but a promise is a promise. So I’m going.
They don’t want anything too spiritual (!) so I asked what I should speak about. ‘What about the time ...
