Scotland made international news with its Named Person
programme in 2014. This programme would effectively assign a social worker to
every child so that the state would be involved in that child's life from
infancy. Parents, privacy advocates and others were horrified at this attempt of
gross intrusion by the state as well as the potential for abuses and in
principle the loss of parental power and autonomy.
There was resistance and the act was partially blocked in
2016, though Edinburgh is still trying to implement it. Recently there was a
scandal as a video emerged of local authorities encouraging teachers to
override parental consent regarding collected personal information about
children and their families. In other words the state is keeping files on
everyone and teachers are being effectively trained to disregard parental
concerns and objections. They know best of course. For obvious reasons
Christians and others are alarmed.
Additionally both Scotland and Wales have introduced
anti-smacking legislation which many parents view as a further threat to their
autonomy and ability to parent as they see fit. The extreme cases of abuse are
being marshaled to make the argument.
England is beset by ongoing debates, the concern being that
the state is chiseling away at parental control over education. Parents are
being told they cannot exempt their children from certain classes as the state
is patently determined to push the sodomite agenda along with its 'mental
health' curriculum. All too often they go hand in hand.
Some want to see these changes applied universally and would
include not only state schools but even what Americans would call private
schools. In the UK, there are Public schools which are more like American
private schools. Though these schools are exempt from many of the regulations
associated with State schools, there is a concerted push to bring the
sodomite-mental health agenda into these institutions so that no one (apart
from homeschoolers) is exempt. And how long before they too are subjected to
some kind of required curriculum with regard to this agenda?
Why the aggressive push? There are certainly some ideologues
behind this. But for most politicians the issues are more pragmatic. Clearly
there is a fear of subcultures and parallel societies. To be honest, though
none are willing to openly say so, it's probably more of the fear of Muslim
radicalism that's being targeted and yet certainly Evangelicals and even
Orthodox Jews are certain to be affected.
The irony is that despite all the propaganda efforts, the
more the West embraces sodomy, the number of parallel societies is only going
to increase. In many ways they are reactions and direct results of these
changes. What we're seeing right now is just the start.
So it's no surprise that in April 2018 the BBC reported a 40%
rise in homeschooling over the past three years. Not everyone is being
motivated by specific religious concerns and yet that certainly plays a part.
Some are pulling their kids out of the State schools because of social problems
and failures within the education system and yet a growing number of people are
dismayed with what's happening to British society and how it's playing out in
education.
The numbers are growing and some are alarmed due to fears of
a parallel society. This has led to both councils and MP's to push for
regulation.
Clearly there are growing tensions within the UK and
Christians are feeling a sense of angst as to what is over the horizon. This
author has little doubt that this very angst is driving UK Evangelicals into
the arms of American-style Dominionist 'ministries' bent on fighting the
culture war through legislation, politics and litigation. These same groups are
working hand-in-glove with their American partners, funneling money into the UK
and also working with Washington to put pressure on Westminster and Holyrood.
Once but whispers carried on the wind there are no some
figures in government speaking of removing children 'from extremists' and often
equating 'extremist' views with sexual abuse. It's no great leap to understand
that teaching your children that homosexuality and transgenderism are wrong
could fall into this category of 'abuse'. If the relationship with your child
is antagonistic and school authorities are involved, it could go very badly for
parents indeed. Some have even floated talk of an equality oath, requiring
doctors, teachers and office holders to swear fealty to 'British values'....
which as of now are the values of Sodom.
OFSTED, the Office for Standards in Education is inspecting
educational institutions for conformity to 'British Values' and has been
involved in rather intrusive and somewhat outrageous inspections and
interrogations of young children querying about sexually explicit issues,
leaving children confused and parents angry.
All Christians would agree the only way to defeat these
measures is to take a stand but this is where New Testament Christianity parts
ways with the Constantinian tradition which in today's terms is manifested in
the various forms of Dominionism. While Britain has a long and most unfortunate
Constantinian tradition which incidentally has brought great shame and
opprobrium on the Church (generally speaking), the Nonconformist legacy (dating
from the 17th century) has been mixed. There have been bright
chapters but many unfortunate and misguided turns as well. This legacy we will
take up below.
In our day as has so often been the case throughout history,
we must (and are compelled to) take a stand and yet our resistance is of a
different nature. It's not political. Christ's Kingdom is not of this world and
his servants don't take up the sword to win its battles. We don't use the
courts and the police to advance the Kingdom and we certainly don't look to
them for justice. We don't go down to Egypt for help.
Our resistance does not utilise non-violent force seeking to break the power of the
state... a state which we would control if possible.
No, New Testament opposition to the world and to Bestial
powers is rooted in what has been called non-resistance. We bear witness and
take up the cross. It's not a popular message and even many a Christian will
recoil from it and yet this is what the New Testament calls us to. As painful
as it may be, and it's probably most painful to our fleshly pride, that's what
we're called to do. We can flee and there are times when that's appropriate and
yet in many cases we ought to take a stand. If the Church were really the
Church (so to speak) our numbers would be overwhelming and the state would back
down in shame and in fear of our numbers.... though they needn't fear the
toppling of their thrones.
But the Church has been divided by the wolves, the false
prophets and the angels of Satan who teach the Church to commit idolatry, to
fornicate with foreign gods, to worship mammon and to embrace the violence
these allegiances demand and entail. It is indeed tragic but the Church has
been infiltrated and permeated by these enemies. Some are very popular, have
'conservative' ministries and valiantly defend the Scriptures in the face of
secularism. And yet they teach doctrinal filth and soul-destroying heresy in
that they teach God's people another gospel for another kingdom. These
divisions mean that any Christians who resist society and the world on New
Testament terms will face condemnation not just from the agents of the Beast,
but from other believers. The ability to prick the consciences of those in
power and shame them is lost because there are always a host of ear-ticklers
and pulpiteering sycophants who will bow to the image of the state and teach
God's people to do the same.
Christians need to face reality regarding what the New Testament
teaches about the Kingdom and about the world. It is both eye opening and
painful, even shocking to realise so much of what you were previously taught
was just flat wrong. So-called Christian societies were never Christian, and instead
represented a betrayal of the Kingdom on the part of the Church. They're a deal
with the devil. The Church became a harlot and sold its services to the Beast.
Whether the turning on the harlot in Revelation is a one-time event or an event
finding multiple fulfillments with perhaps a final or ultimate expression or perhaps
even something repetitious, something characteristic of the age, whichever way
it's understood, the principle is there.
The beast turns on the harlot. Additionally there is the
Sodom dynamic (Rev 11, Ezekiel 16) in which Sodom is identified with self-seeking
riches and power. This in Romans 1 parlance devolves into decadence and
reprobation, the destruction of conscience and the violation of the image of
God. Perversion follows. Everyone gets that part but they miss the former, they
miss the social foundations of it and cannot understand why sodomy has reared
its head in the 'Christian' West. They should have seen it coming but since
they were sold-out to the West and its quest for affluence and power they
missed it. Again, the leaders of the Church bear great responsibility in this
regard as rather than teach the Kingdom of the New Testament they taught the
Constantinian hybrid, the Beast-Harlot Church we're warned against in both the
Old and New Testaments.
The United Kingdom has a long Bestial legacy. One could
debate the particulars and the chronology but one could certainly point back to
the legacy of Augustine of Canterbury and certainly the Norman Invasion as key
turning points. Though there were some resistors, clearly by the Elizabethan
era England took another significant turn and began a process which eventually
developed into what we know as the British Empire.* It saw itself as a
Christian empire and its heroes and historians have oft celebrated it as such.
In reality it was avaricious and murderous, thieving and ungodly to its core.
The Church sold itself out to be its servant. This began in earnest under
Anglicanism but would eventually even include the various ecclesiastical bodies
and factions which resisted Canterbury. But that would take time.
During this overtly imperial era, the actual golden age for British Biblical Christianity was probably
from 1662 to the mid 19th century, the period in which Nonconformity
was true nonconformity and chapel goers were outsiders and less likely to be
duped by the charms of empire. But eventually even these churches bought into
the zeitgeist and spirit of the age and sought to re-Christianise society. From
Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect to various Societies that sought to lobby for
Christian social legislation, nonconformity (in the name of reform) assimilated
with the larger vision of British power. While nonconformist political
liberalism advocated a soft empire and tried (and failed) to apply Christian
morality to foreign policy, the primary focus was on domestic reform. The
so-called nonconformist conscience sought to create a new type of Britain,
Christian but distinct from the old Anglican order.
Political (or politicised) Nonconformity worked to
democratise society, break the power of the aristocracy and empower workers and
average people. While the old order had been mildly oppressive and certainly less
than Christian, the Nonconformists in allying with Liberal politics unwittingly
unleashed the powers of populism and as a result laissez-faire was not only an
economic policy but became effectively a social one. Decadence, self-seeking,
self-justification and self-worship came to dominate in the 20th
century and now the very apparatus nonconformity helped to erect has turned and
is persecuting them. The failures of old liberalism led to social liberalism,
the new liberalism or what we often associate with today's Left-wing liberalism
and an increasingly heavy-handed communitarian ethos.
Laissez faire and individualism were once tempered for the
collective good and yet now the communitarian imperative is crushing not only
religious freedoms but liberal values in general. It was a different
aristocratically led-and-governed communitarianism that crushed nonconformity
in the past and yet extreme liberalism's failures seemingly puts society on a
hamster wheel, venturing from one extreme to the other both of which are
destructive for society and certainly for the church.
*The legacy of the Lollards is a mixed one. On the hand it
could be argued that there were in reality at least two branches of the movement,
one political and one non-resistant. The political wing was caught up in the
1381 Peasant's Revolt and the Oldcastle Revolt of 1414, while the other party
issued the Twelve Conclusions in 1395, a document which in principle challenged
the very notions of Christendom itself and called for a Separatist Church.
Whether these represent a shift in attitude or (considering the dates)
indicates different forms of Lollardy is open for debate. Regardless after
1414, all aspects of the Lollard spectrum had abandoned political ambition as
the movement was deep underground and enduring what would be a century of
severe persecution.