Protecting the innocent?

Pro-life or Pro-choice?
Abortion is an emotive subject, it often quickly divides people who feel forced to take a 'pro-life' or 'pro-choice' stance. It's making headlines at present because Channel 4 has decided to air and advert by an organisation that works in the area of "sexual and reproductive health", apparently the advert will include abortion services.

Consumer Driven - or Advertising Led?
Such services have been advertised in lower key ways for some time now, but the move to mainstream broadcast media, opens up a new area of debate. The reality is that such media play an important part in shaping people's views and opinions - the recent political leadership debates in the run up to the election provide a timely example of how popular opinion can be changed by a few minutes air time.

Welcome to the New Norm
One of the most powerful effects of exposure through television is the establishing of new 'norms'. People see it on TV and accept that, it must be OK, "everyone" is doing it. It's the reason that companies run advertising campaigns, few if any people immediately jump up and rush off to buy a product after watching a TV advert, the effect is more subtle than that. But none the less such adverts do influence people's behaviour.
(Why else would government run expensive campaigns warning us not to drink and drive, or extolling the risks of benefit fraud - if not to convince us that responsible behaviour is the norm, and so we'd better conform?)

Does Advertising Work?
Advertising plays a powerful role in shaping our consumer economy, just ask Unilever, Nestle, Kelloggs, Asda, Tesco etc who spend millions on advertising each year. So it's not unreasonable to assume that any advert offering abortion services will do two things:
1) It will send the message that abortions are 'normal'.
2) Consequently it will effectively present abortions as a consumer choice.
Such advertising will take the UK (barring Northern Ireland) to a new low point in it's commercial and moral life.

Some Questions to Ponder:
- Is it right that Channel 4 earns revenue from advertising such services?
- Is it acceptable to have such ad's shown on TV, if it will help to normalise people's views on abortion?
- Is it right to call being pro-abortion 'pro-choice' as it does not take into account both of the people involved directly in the process. (Mother and Baby?)

Time to Pray and to Act!
If you, like me feel that to run this advert is wrong, and the thin end of a commercially dubious wedge, then can I encourage you to act and to PRAY.
1) Write to your MP. - "Write to them" link here
2) Complain to the ASA - Link here - Nb in theory you can only complain after the ad has run
3) Sign the on line petition against the advert
4) Write to Channel 4 and ask them to pull the advert.
5) Consider how you can support (£££+ prayer!) those charities that offer practical support as an alternative to abortion:

• Prolife
• Care for the Family
• SPUC 

PS For those that are interested in Pro-Life issues SPUC has a useful blog post, analysing the new UK cabinet and the respective ministers likely position on these important issues. It's great resource to help your praying and campaigning.

Their help line details can be found here

Love your enemies - Nice idea or practical advice?

Over recent weeks , as I've been following the UK general election via various social media sites. By and large the coverage has been good, even when the opinions put forward have been clearly partisan, the tone has been largely measured and good natured. Sadly however there is a minority of people who don't take such a measured view, and a rash of "hate" sites have grown up. These sites often express their disagreement with a specific person or group of people in vitriolic terms.

Passionately Held Views
Now I have no problem with strongly held views being passionately expounded, the fact is that it's passionately held views that often bring much needed change. (The alternative is to be left wallowing in mundanity whilst nothing changes - God forbid!)  Debate and argument are useful tools when used wisely. Sadly from what I have seen these hate sites have little to do with bringing change, or acting wisely. In short they exist almost exclusively to berate and belittle the people they target, and their followers.

I Disagree
From a Christian perspective there are many people that I strongly disagree with. The very nature of having a code of moral standards, means that it it divisive, as it divides into those that hold those codes as valuable and those that don't. I happen to believe that those who hold different opinions to me are wrong, in some cases I believe that not only are their views wrong, but that those views are harmful. For example I am pro-life and believe that to abort healthy babies is wrong, I use the word babies deliberately as I believe that life begins at conception, and that to use semantics to obscure the taking of a viable life is both wrong and dishonest.

Murder Starts Here
These are views that I feel passionately about, but for me to set up a hate site to vilify people who hold pro-choice views is not helpful. Jesus teaches that if we hold anger in our hearts we are no better than murderers.

Jesus makes it plain that our attitude towards even our enemies should be love - so even if we disagree vehemently with someone, for whatever reason we should not be inciting hatred towards them.

So what Should We Be Doing?
I guess there are many answers to that question, but the context for my initial observation was the number of hate sites that have appeared on social networking sites, so I'll confine my answer to that context. How about setting up a site to encourage prayer for those people we disagree with? This in turn begs the question what should we pray for them?  - How about asking God to pour out His love and blessing on them? After all it's how Jesus treats you and I even whilst we still sinners....

I think that Jesus commandment was practical advice for the winning of our enemies, not just wishful thinking.

Go On Give It A Go!
What will happen if we try it? Might we see some people we passionately disagree with, turned around and walking into the Kingdom?

Christian views don't count?

Andrew Brown, in the Guardian, writes on the important decision made by Lord Justice Laws, in regard of the recent case of Gary McFarlane, the evangelical Christian sacked by counselling service Relate for refusing to give sex therapy to gay couples.

Brown notes that the ruling goes out of its way to demolish former archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey's intervention in the case. He also asks does it also remove any vestiges of established religion from the law?

This is important, as Christianity (albeit in it's Anglican guise) is the established religion, and as such it runs deep within our legal system, and right to the heart of our constitution. He comments that the the symbolic gesture from which all other legitimacy in this country derives is the coronation of a monarch by the archbishop of Canterbury.

In other words we are not a secular society in our constitution, and as such Christianity should hold some sway in our thinking and our legal system. Brown quite rightly points out that Parliament can change this, should it be minded so to do - thankfully to date they have not chosen to, something that those in the judiciary should be mindful of. 

Personally I would not argue for Christians to be given any priority over other people, just on the basis that the incumbent faith is Christianity, but surely justice should extend to Christians being treated equally? It should be acceptable for Christians to act according to their conscience, and where this brings us into conflict of opinion with others we should be allowed to hold those views without being criminalised.

Brown goes on to remind us that secularism and religion are both equally subjective beliefs, so to elevate secularism over religion is nothing more than preferring one deeply held opinion over another. This ruling is no doubt the thin edge of a wedge that secularists would like to see driven further, in order to see their views take hold and the views of Christians driven further to the margins of society.

This secularist undercurrent, and the very real possibility of changes to our political system as a result of the hung Parliament, and possible further changes with the reform of the House of Lords,(With it's 26 Lords Spiritual the Bishops who are there to provide a spiritual voice in the business of the House,), should all act as a spur for Christians to pray and to engage with those in authority to ensure that our voice is heard on these important matters. If we don't, then I fear that we will regret our complacency in the years to come.