The end of the world is NOT nigh!

Woo a new blog entry, it’s been too long hasn’t it…!

As I write this, it’s just turned May 21st 2011 in the UK, and one of the quirks of world time zones is that somewhere in the world May 21st started over 12 hours ago, and somewhere else in the world May 21st will stop in around 36 hours time. This is what keeps the world spinning round I guess!

Anyway, my point about the date is that you may well have heard on Twitter, Facebook, Tabloid newspapers, and even on TV that according to a particular Christian sect in America, something significant is supposed to happen today. According to what I have read about them, they are saying that the rapture will happen at some stage today, which in layman’s terms means that a large amount of Christians will get taken to heaven for judgement.  They are also saying that everyone who remains on earth will face 5 months of ever increasing difficulty, eventually resulting in the end of the world on 21st October of this year.  Crazy stuff eh?

Well if you’re reading this and it’s still May 21st, then keep an eye on the news. In today’s 24 hour media world, it won’t take long for anything unusual to be reported. If however you’re reading this after 12 noon in the UK on Sunday 22nd May, and nothing has happened, then rest assured that a bunch of charlatans have been exposed for what they are.

So, assuming I’m right, they are wrong, and nothing happens, then what is all this business about rapture, judgement, and the end of the world really all about.  Will it really happen, and if so when?

Mainstream Christianity has many preconceptions about what goes on in heaven. Most would say that heaven is the place we go after death, it’s the paradise we’re destined for, and the earth is only a temporary place of abode. With respect to those who believe this, they really haven’t done their homework.

But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.  [Numbers 14.21]

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  [Matthew 6.9-10]

These are just a couple of examples which show that God has plans for earth, it’s a place which will be filled with his glory (although this is partly true now, it can’t be properly fulfilled while sin and death are present) and which will house the coming Kingdom of God.  This doesn’t fit well with any teaching about the earth being destroyed does it?

Having said all this, there are verses in the Bible which could give the impression that the world is going to end, but different translations give a better rendering as the “end of the age”.  An age is a period of time with a defined event at the end of it.  When Jesus talked about it he either meant the end of the Jewish age (AD70, when Rome overthrew Jerusalem and scattered the Jews to all ends of the earth) or the end of human rule, the age we’re currently in and will end with his return to set up God’s Kingdom (which the verse above in Matthew talks about).  God made this beautiful world to be inhabited by people who love it and love him, and he’s not about to abandon it and take everyone to heaven.  This doesn’t mean that everything will be fine though – things on earth are getting worse and worse, just as Jesus told us they would.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.  [Matthew 24.6-8]

We’ve always had wars, we’ve always had earthquakes, but no-one can deny that things are getting worse all the time, and as we’re often told we’re overdue a big earthquake in a particular part of the world, it could also be said that we’re overdue another world war. It doesn’t take much imagination to see something like this happening in the next few years does it?  Like the contractions of a woman in labour, the earth is having birth pains, and we know that despite the pain a woman goes through, it’s all forgotten about once she has her baby in her arms. The same goes with the world, those who God chooses to be in his Kingdom will be in a transformed world truly reflecting his glory, and the past pain will not be remembered, just like Isaiah prophecies.

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.  But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.  [Isaiah 65.17-18]

Not literally a new earth, but earth and it’s inhabitants totally transformed and fulfilling their potential.

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.  [Matthew 24.36]

So in terms of when this will happen, well we just don’t know.  But neither does Jesus himself.  To take a phrase overused in modern society, God only knows!  Anyone who professes to know the exact date is clearly deluded…

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!  [Revelation 22.20]

All we can say is that it’s getting closer, and it will hopefully be soon, and God wants us to be ready and prepared – to be awake so that it doesn’t happen like a thief in the night for us.

I have been wondering about the universe

So…Stephen Hawking is the latest in a long line of people to dismiss God from the origins of our universe in his new book The Grand Design, which I presume is supposed to be an ironic title.  I’m not sure whether that means he doesn’t believe in God, or if he’s just sitting on the fence just a little bit, seeing as he’s previously talked about God as being the spark that started it off.  Either way, have a look yourself at this news article and see what you think.

Anyway, you’ve probably visited my blog to see what I think about it all.  Well until a few years ago I was 110% dogmatic that the first few chapters of Genesis were literal, that’s the way it happened and to hell with all the scientists.  I’m a bit more open-minded these days, or perhaps I should really say that in my mind it doesn’t really matter how the universe, the Earth, and life upon it actually happened, all that matters to me is why.  This to me is why God cannot be taken out of the equation.  Scientists look at the evidence set before them and try to work out how it came to be, and because it’s not really very trendy for scientists to believe in God the vast majority of them dismiss him and try to find other explanations.  They are clever people, I have no doubt in the validity of their experiments, and if I tried to get into an argument with one then I’d most probably lose quite miserably.  Theologians/Religious nuts/whetever you want to call us, we are more interested in trying to explain what we’re doing here on planet Earth in 2010, the meaning of life, that sort of thing.  Science can’t explain why, in fact the more God is taken out of the world the worse the world becomes.  Science can’t explain morals.  Of course, the Rev. Richard Dawkins (that’s me using irony btw) would like us all to think that once religion is gone the world will be a much happier and more peaceful place.  His arguments don’t stand up to much scrutiny though, unless you want to pretend that Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot & Saddam Hussein were religious men of course.  No, what causes wars and evil things to happen are power-hungry leaders, those intent on controlling people, and those with hatred of a certain race or religion.

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked.  The question us religious sorts get to ask is why?  Well belief in God gives us a framework, a reason to live beyond the day to day things which keep us going.  It also gives us hope of something better.  Belief in God requires faith beyond that which science can tell us.  Hebrews 11 says “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Those who want facts scoff at the idea of having a faith in something invisible and unprovable.  I can’t do anything about that other than to be happy that I do have a faith and be prepared to tell others about it.

This passage from 1 Corinthians 1 says it better than I ever could though…  “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.  For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written:  ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’  Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.  Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.  It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’”

For those who still insist on some sort of proof, well I’ll try and put up another posting soon about the Middle East peace process which is going to restart again soon.  Until then, I’d better go back to my day job!

Preaching to the converted…?

This week in Glasgow’s West End, my church is running the Christadelphian Bible Exhibition, as well as doing related activities in the local area.  The exhibition itself is a history lesson in how the Bible came into being, particularly in the English language.  It also gives some proof for it’s authenticity by way of prophecy plus historical artefacts, plus gives a breakdown of what it teaches and how Christadelphian teachings differ from other forms of Christianity.

I’ve been working so haven’t had much chance to be there except for this afternoon/evening when I volunteered to look after it along with a few others.  We had a steady level of visitors, about 20 within the 3hrs we were there, with many hanging around for 30mins or more.  Some wanted to talk about things, others just quietly looked around and took leaflets.  The thing which I can reasonably safely say is that everyone who came in had a belief in the Christian God.  That’s not really a surprise, you can’t imagine many atheists being interested, unless they just wanted an argument.  Where is Richard Dawkins when you need him?!  Some fellow campaigners (which is a more appropriate word than exhibitionists!!) apparently had good conversations with atheists out on the street, but they were unlikely to wander up to our exhibition on their own steam.  Also notable for their absence were Moslems, Hindus or Jedi, it was presumably not to their tastes either.

So we had instead a wide variety of Christian visitors.  Some there for curiosity’s sake, some to themselves preach to us.  The Mormons made an effort, well-dressed as always, but quoted more from their own scripture than from the Bible.  Unfortunately for them, the Book of Mormon doesn’t have the same credible evidence for it’s authenticity that the Bible does, and the Bible itself warns against those preaching “another gospel” or adding to the Bible.

Those who were of the more orthodox Christianity strains ranged from Catholics to Evangelicals to Anglicans.  The Catholics and Anglicans were of course very much aligned to the doctrines of the trinity, immortal soul, infant baptism, a literal devil and an afterlife in heaven or hell.  The Evangelicals added to that a belief in the possession of Holy Spirit gifts today.  They were all very genuine in their beliefs, reasonably knowledgable about them, but were all quite surprised that Christadelphians didn’t accept these, and when faced with evidence from the Bible to dismiss their beliefs seemed to prefer to just accept that they knew best and we couldn’t possibly be right.  In terms of heaven going and christening one lady said that she just liked the concepts and that was good enough for her.  The Evangelicals were aghast that we couldn’t possess the Holy Spirit today and commented that we looked miserable due to that.  Note to self, smile more next time I talk about my faith

Discussions about this sort of thing are great, sowing the seeds of Bible truth and making people think about what they actually believe is good, but my worry is that these sorts of discussions can get close to argumentative.  These people are still neighbours, and they have a genuine belief in God.  They also believe that Jesus died for them.  It’s not for any man to say that that on it’s own isn’t enough to give them salvation, any more than I can say that I’m saved because of what I believe.  That doesn’t mean I don’t want to share my beliefs with others, but I’m constantly evaluating in my mind where the line is and how we should preach the good news in a positive way – what we believe, not what we don’t believe, and to those in darkness, not just those in a dimmer shade of colour.

So, the positive message, is that Jesus was and still is human, lived a perfect life, died and was raised by God, giving hope to those who associate their life with his death and resurrection.  He will return to set up God’s Kingdom on earth, centred in Jerusalem.  All those who are dead who believed will be resurrected and the earth will be restored to the glory of Eden.

Amen.  Come Lord Jesus.

The future’s bright?

This is my third attempt to write a new blog post.  On the previous 2 occasions I got so far and then kept losing focus.  This is one of my very bad habits.  I started off writing about Concorde – I saw a great documentary on Monday evening about it’s entire history from the amazing technological birth right through to it’s tragic end, first of all due to the Paris crash in 2000 and then financial ruin after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.  I was going to liken it’s life to that of the second half of the 20th Century, full of optimism for the future but ultimately ending up with global financial ruin and a level of warmongering not seen since before the World Wars.

I then started off a blog post concerning the Orange marches in Northern Ireland and was trying to point out how stupid it is to commemorate a war won over 300 years ago and rub it in the faces of the side which lost.  Although no violent retaliation should be condoned, we can’t really be that surprised when it happens, even though both sides profess to be Christians.  Whatever did happened to “love thy neighbour”?

The logical thing to finish with after summing up two aborted longer posts is to say I’m not sure how to finish this one either!  I normally try and finish with some sort of moral.  Maybe the moral is for me to try and concentrate a bit more, or maybe it’s that I shouldn’t be on the internet at work when I’ve got more important things to do…like work!

United Song

Fisher's Tale

Yesterday I got a nice surprise in the form of a CD I’d ordered a few weeks back.  It was the new Fisher’s Tale album United Song, lovingly crafted by a group of great musicians who also happen to be dear friends of mine within the Christadelphian community.  This is the 3rd album made by the current line-up, and the 5th album in all.  Certainly for the last 3 albums the quality of music has been consistently excellent.  Quite often when you think of Christian music your mind either goes to an awful rendition of Kumbaya at school or some over-excited live performance of a naff band being played at your local branch of Wesley Owen.  Fisher’s Tale have always made sure that as well as the words sending out a positive gospel message they also have a high standard of music on offer.  They are also excellent live, having recently debuted their album material to an audience of over 150.

They are pretty much unique within Christadelphia, certainly in the UK anyway.  Modern music in worship is something which we’re not used to, and although it’s slowly making inroads, there are many who vehemently oppose anything to do with it.  Some people have successfully put various Psalms to comtemporary music, it sounds like something between folk and classical music.  Fisher’s Tale is more ambitious musically, with drums and electric guitars, certainly music which is easier on the ear for those who like their amps turned up closer to 11.  There will of course be people who say it’s “too worldly”.  Unfortunately many of those people are quite happy to listen to or go to concerts of bands who certainly are too worldly, or if they don’t then they will let their children.  I can’t quite figure out their mentality no matter how much I try.

But that’s obviously music which you listen to rather than partaking in.  What about music within church which we can all sing along to?  Our standard hymn book is a great asset and I’d never want to see the end of it (well apart from maybe a few of the dirges), but we need more inspirational music to drag us into the 21st Century.  The Praise the Lord book is a good start – it’s contemporary Christian music, it works well with a variety of instruments, and people enjoy singing from it.  Again there are many who won’t touch it with a barge pole, and although I would never want to push things at people against their will, they should at least look at modern music for Sunday School/CYC activities and see the enjoyment kids get out of being able to understand what they are singing, being able to clap their hands and smile as they worship with great music.  The Bible is full of examples of multiple instruments, shouting for joy, clapping of hands, but unfortunately we are too often constrained by centuries old traditions of church organ hymns.  I’m not sure whether it’s a fear of the unknown or a fear of becoming too much like other churches.  What we do should surely be influenced only by what God tells us, not merely by the dread of becoming too worldly.  Also, let’s not forget that church organ music was probably quite popular in the world at one time!  I wonder what form praise took in the 1st Century?  My guess is that it’s probably very different from what we’re used to and would surprise many.

So my prayer is that we all have a more progressive outlook at the way we worship God.  In a time when the vast majority in our country aren’t interested in God, we should show them the joy we get from knowing about his plan & purpose, and music is a fantastic way of demonstrating this.

I’ll finish with some words from the title track of Fisher’s Tale’s new album United Song:  “One day we’ll sing a united song, in one voice, one tongue, a mighty throng.  You and I will not disagree, we will live together in harmony!” Amen to that.

It’s all me, me, me

It’s an even-numbered summer, which must mean the inevitable massive England hype, followed by massive disappointment/vehement anger well short of the date of the final. England’s efforts this year have been particularly depressing. It would seem that the coach is deluded into thinking they played well, the players think they are a lot better than they actually are, and they are all getting paid so much money that they don’t ultimately care too much anyway.

There is a famous phrase for promoting teamwork which says “there’s no I in team”, and a brilliant response says “yes, but there’s a me if you look hard enough”.  The England “team” are all me and not a team by any means.

Living in Scotland, I will no doubt take some form of mockery in the office on Monday.  Scotland football fans like to see England lose as much as they like to see Scotland win.  The following T-shirt demonstrates this pretty well…

Friendly neighbours

Partly this is down to the fact that UK is over 85% England according to population and the media have a bad habit of forgetting that Scotland, Wales & NI actually exist – combined with massive hyping of England’s chances in each tournament and you have some pretty riled celts. I can accept that, but when it turns into petty or even nasty racism is where I get pretty fed up with it though. I don’t see much of it, but it’s often bubbling under the surface, and quite frankly we could do without it.

In both games today we saw at first hand what happens when officials are expected to make quick judgement calls and not given tools which could be provided to assist them.  Mistakes happen, and these mistakes can sometimes ruin games.  The complete denial of video replays/goal-line technology is FIFA’s elephant in the room and the quicker they swallow their pride and admit they were wrong the better as far as I’m concerned – it works in Tennis & Cricket, why not in Football?

So what have we learned today?  Work as a team, avoid being jealous of others, and admit when you’re in the wrong.  Sounds like a good Christian way of living to me!

Forgiving a footballer

I was going to start off with a general hello/introduction but I read a news report this morning which got me thinking.  You may remember last year the footballer Marlon King was jailed for sexual assault & subsequently sacked by his club Wigan Athletic.  At the time I remember feeling like he was a pretty nasty piece of work, he had a previous history of crime, he seemed like the worst sort of role model for any young football fan.

Well today I read that Coventry City’s new manager Aidy Boothroyd will visit him in jail to try and convince him to join him at the club when he finishes his sentence.  King played for him when they were both at Watford a few years back, so perhaps he feels he can turn his career back round again.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know how I feel about this.  Everyone deserves a second chance as long as they are honestly sorry for what they’ve done and make a concerted effort to change…but, certain crimes can’t easily be forgiven, and some people would never want this guy to play football again due to the exposure he would get.  He’ll be on the sex offenders register for a number of years, he may even have to wear a security tag if he’s released early.

Former Coventry player Lee Hughes was jailed a few years ago for causing death by dangerous driving (and consequently running away from the accident and denying it for a while).  He wasn’t playing for Coventry when it happened but he lived in the area and the accident happened in Meriden.  He’s now back in football but I know a lot of football fans didn’t feel he should ever play again.  He has apparently shown a lot of remorse for what he did though.

My final thought is how we’d react if this happened in a close circle to us, and I’m particularly thinking of a church environment.  God will forgive anyone who is genuinely sorry, but us humans find it much harder to forgive.