On petrol prices and earthquakes...

This week I've received lots of Facebook requests to join groups protesting about petrol and diesel prices. Most of them have been from Christians. I've also been asked whether it's OK for Christians to pray that fuel prices will come down...

My stock response to this is that:

a) motoring is actually still historically cheap compared to incomes so we should spend more time thinking about how fortunate we are instead of moaning

b) increasing fuel costs is probably the only thing that will make us burn less fuel and, even if you're broadly skeptical about global warming (which I'm not), that's certainly a good thing

But another blog post a friend was telling me about the other day made me realise there's a deeper issue here. It was from a Christian worker in the area of China affected by their terrible earthquake asking people to pray because they can't sleep well due to all the aftershocks in the building they've fled to because their home is unsafe.

Maybe in an absolute sense it's not wrong to pray for fuel prices to come down - our heavenly Father is concerned for all our needs. But I have to say I do think it's wrong to Christians to pray about petrol prices if:

a) the reason I ask for it is so my life can be more convenient and I can spend more money on other stuff for me

b) praying for this, and other me centred concerns - displaces prayers that display love for God and my neighbour

Perhaps we should pray that petrol prices go up to curb our relentless destruction of God's world but that giving to missions also goes up so that more and more Christians can afford all the costs (including fuel) of taking the good news about Jesus round the world?

On Power!

No comment appended to this one - just something for people to think about!

Northern Men's Convention

It was great to be at the Northern Men's Convention last Saturday. We had some super talks from Vaughan Roberts, Graham Beynon and Justin Mote and some brilliant seminars and music. But the highlight of the day for me (given that the talks, seminars and music are always great!) was the 10ofthose.com bookstall. 800 men bought about 2,000 books - let's hope we all read them and grow in our understanding of the gospel and love of the Lord accordingly! I didn't buy any for myself - but that's because my current resolution is to read some of the three shelves of unread books I already own!

World's end...

I've been thinking about babies recently. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly it seems that a lot of my friends are about to have babies. Secondly I've just done a series at church on children in the church and in the world. But this post was prompted by reading someone else writing about babies - the BBC reporter John Simpson.

If you've not come across his books they are well worth reading - mostly they are stories of some of the very interesting, and sometimes disturbing, people he has met and his reflections on the various wars and conflicts he has covered over the last 40 years.

His most recent book (Not Quite World's End) is slightly different. Much more autobiographical it includes stories about Simpson's home and family life as well as more "political" and international items.

In a week when the news has been full of debate about abortion (apparantly some people have taken the fact that survival rates for children born at less than 24 weeks gestation have not improved much in the last years as a sign that it's OK to kill such children) Simpson's stories about the difficulties he and his wife Dee suffered trying to have a baby really got me thinking. Here's what he writes:

"She had already been through a procedure to get rid of the baby which was clled a D&C, We came to know it well in the years that follows. What the letters stand for I have no idea, and no interest in finding out. The reality is the scraping out of the womb to get rid of every trace of the dead child. It's intrusive and painful, and afterwards this send of pain and intrusion is all you are left with: no baby, no joy, no hope."

(p132)

It struck me that the grief Simpson and his wife felt for that lost baby is a grief felt by God for all the babies we destroy. I have no wish to stigmatise women who have an abortion. I think it's a very wrong thing to do - but I know that I do many very wicked things too. And I think that many women have been thoroughly duped into thinking that abortion empowers them when, as far as I can tell, it just provides another reason for men to behave selfishly and irresponsibly and so perpetuate Adam's sin.

But I do wonder how we can collectively, as a culture and a society, empathasise with Simpson's pain - as I'm sure all his readers to - and yet tolerate other babies, just as human, with just as much promise, being treated in the same way as John and Dee Simpson's; but while they are still alive?

The thought made we weep - and I hope it will make me pray consistently that our culture comes to its senses and that one day we will see abortion in the same way that we now look upon slavery.

Evangelicals Now and Loving your Uni

Here's the link to the EN article - www.e-n.org.uk

Keep the comments coming!