Daughters Under Trial is also available for Kindle from Amazon.

Christine is the wife of the School founder Christopher Smith and mother of principal Calvin Smith.

Details:

Daughters Under Trial… Twenty-eight distinct devotionals addressing the trials of faith and the challenges that daughters of the heavenly Father can encounter in their Christian walk. Further details and reviews from Christine’s Blog .

Also:

It Could Take Faith To… A compelling and exciting story of a leap of faith to take the Gospel to Spanish gypsies living in caves. Further details and reviews from the book’s website.

I personally found It Could Take Faith To… immensely enjoyable, not least because it is about the family so much responsible for the setting up and ongoing work of Kings. I for one have benefited enormously from my studies there and believe their approach to be absolutely right.

David Foster (Webmaster)

Of course, one can draw a line under the past, kick a habit, or take up something new at any time of the year… there’s no need whatsoever to revolve life changes around the somewhat abstract concept of New Year. Yet given how the work, school and family yearly cycles tend to operate, together with how society seems to invest so much into the concept of a fresh start at New Year, it is difficult not to see 1st January as an opportunity to make those desired changes. The problem is, many New Year resolutions rarely make it to the end of the month. The long dismal winter ahead (at least here in the northern reaches of the globe), the abrupt introduction of an ascetic lifestyle following a month of feasting, unrealistic resolutions, and the cold light of (wintry) day all combine to make us fail at the first hurdle.

So this coming New Year why not make a decision to do something realistic, worthwhile and beneficial in early January, rather than a well-meaning resolution which will fall by the wayside within a week or two? Apparently New Year’s decisions which seem to succeed most are the proactive kind, the ones in which people set about engaging a new interest, learn a new skill, or make a decision to study. Thus, the New Year offers an excellent opportunity for those who have contemplated studying the Bible in greater depth, those wanting to study Theology for whatever reason, or perhaps individuals who feel a vocational calling to ministry but have never done anything about it. So this holiday season why not give serious thought to studying Theology at King’s in  early January? Moreover, unlike most schools and colleges, our flexible distance learning programmes permit you to begin studying straight away – this very January – rather than having to wait until next September. Applications received during December will be processed in time for an early January start for new students, well before the post-season blues have had a chance to set it.

We offer a Bachelor of Theology with a strong focus on biblical interpretation, a Master of Arts in Evangelical Theology, and a Graduate Diploma in Theology for those already holding a degree in another subject, all validated by the University of Chester. We also offer our own Knowing Your Bible short courses for those seeking a deeper knowledge of the Bible without the study commitments of our validated courses. So whatever your reason for studying the Bible and Theology – whether part-time or full-time ministry, future teaching or higher studies in Theology, to become more effective in lay ministry, or else purely out of personal interest and spiritual development – consider making a New Year’s resolution with a difference this December.

Naturally, we were treated to the story of Galileo and his telescope proving the church wrong. His telescope, said Dixon, was ‘more reliable than the bible’. This is because ‘at the heart of scientific knowledge are observation and logic’. Scientists ‘make hypotheses and test them time and again against the evidence’. For poor old faith, there is just ‘revelation – direct communication from God.’

Clips were shown of people who had experienced God in a special way. They’d seen a vision or found themselves speaking in another tongue. Later in the programme, to debunk such experiences, we were treated to the so-called “God-Helmet” – a kind of motorcycle helmet with lots of wires attached. Using this helmet, scientists can make people feel ‘a presence’ which may account for the ‘supernatural’ experiences many people have of ‘God’. The helmet can also make people look really daft, though it suited Richard Dawkins. (You knew he had to turn up sooner or later). Unfortunately, he didn’t experience anything supernatural. (Maybe he didn’t have enough faith in the helmet?)

We moved on (inevitably) to Creationists. ‘The battle ground is America’, says Dixon. ‘For American fundamentalists, the bible is literally the word of God; every phrase is true.’ Therefore, he goes on, ‘the theory (sic) of evolution cannot be right, because it contradicts what’s written in Genesis.’

Once again (sigh) we return to the “Scopes trial” in 1925 Tennessee. A ‘debate of science versus religion, reason versus faith’ a voice from the past tells us. Dixon takes up the commentary; ‘nevertheless, even into the 1980s creationism persisted in many American classrooms.’ The implication is that this is a bad thing because, for scientists, ‘Ancient religious texts are not sources of knowledge about the natural world and to treat them as if they are is absurd.’ And then, the breathtakingly arrogant assertion; ‘there’s no room for the God of biblical creationism in modern science.’

Intelligent design and irreducible complexity also got the elbow. Parents at one American school were shown outside a court case in 2006 in which they sued the school for teaching intelligent design. They claimed the school was trying to ‘promote religion and introduce false doubts about evolution.’ A clever lawyer informed us that the ‘the positive proposition that life could have been created by an intelligent designer is not science.’

I’m running out of space now but I’m sure you get the gist. As always with such programmes, we ended up with a pile of contradictions dense enough to make our brains hurt. For example, that once the Large Hadron Collider has done its bit, scientists will know all there is to know about everything. On the other hand, 75% of the universe is made up of dark matter and no one has any idea what it is! There is no Creator, but there are probably an infinite number of universes. Well of course! Stands to reason don’t it?

Such documentaries can drive me to distraction. Not just because of the ignorance as to what the bible claims and doesn’t claim: not because of the general ignorance as to what most intelligent Christians believe; and not because of the number of scientific facts we are bombarded with. But simply because of the sheer arrogance of little human beings, strutting about the planet, happily trying to supersede God.

Behind everything they tell us of course, is the implication that all is meaningless; that there is no objective worth to anything. But if this is true, why should we listen to anything they have to say?

However, it turns out that Ms Dorries is quite firmly ‘pro-choice’. Her desire is not to see the number of abortions in the UK reduced (from the horrendous figure of 200,000 per year). What she is actually after is ‘independent help’ for mothers seeking abortion, rather than counselling from any organisation with a vested interest in the performing of abortions. ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14822710 ).

During my years as a Christian, the topic of abortion has haunted me. I don’t quite know what I can do. I’ve tinkered around the fringes – been a member of the SPUC (Society for the Protection of Unborn Children) almost since my conversion; always argued against people who are ‘pro life’ and always try to counter the old chestnuts about women who’ve been raped, or the life of the mother being threatened if the birth goes ahead. The truth is, of course, that such cases – in the UK at any event – are a miniscule percentage of the total number of abortions performed each year.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw – for the first time – the film of the book The Boy in Striped Pajamas. The horror of the Nazi death camps was conveyed in such a way as to make my blood run cold. I literally wept and found it difficult to sleep after watching the picture. I, no doubt like you, always ask myself ‘how could ordinary people have known about this (both in Germany and around the world) and allowed it to go on?’ And yet here we are, sitting right in the middle of an even bigger holocaust – a ‘silent holocaust’, as it’s been called, which is going on constantly all around us. Just as with the death camps, how can otherwise decent seeming people be content to allow this to go on? And how it must break God’s heart!

How can we refer to the destroying of an unborn child so casually as a ‘termination’? How is it that a wanted child is a baby and an unwanted child is a foetus? How is it that we can kill millions of children world-wide each year and not accept they are babies? After all, if a woman loses a baby as a result of a failure in the health system, or, for example, the failure of a car seatbelt, she can take legal action against those responsible for the failure. In such cases, the unborn child is clearly not simply considered a foetus, but an unborn human being.

This crime against humanity must be challenged by Christians with as much energy as we can (peacefully) bring to bear. It’s my prayer that God will bring Christians everywhere (including me) to take this issue more seriously.

Those who resist God do come out with the most remote arguments and this young chap was no exception. After several minutes and beginning to feel slightly exasperated (and ready for my cup of Costa coffee), I said ‘Look, let’s just get down to two basic questions. If there’s no God, where did everything come from? And, if there’s no God, how do you explain the fact that we find meaning in things. For example, if you love your parents and family, does that mean they are important in some way?’ He replied ‘of course, but it only means they’re important to me.’ To which I replied; ‘so they have no objective meaning or value, other than that which you place on them.’ He faltered for a moment and soon returned to the old standbys; ‘I try to live a moral, ethical life’, etc., etc. It’s almost always the same. People have this built in defence mechanism to what they call ‘religion’ (what a tiresome word this can be).

But later, as I put myself outside my coffee and reflected on the discussion, I sympathised with that young man. Once, I thought as he does now. Since then I have grown into my beliefs (as all Christians do) and gradually accepted them as I’ve developed as a child of God. But we must remember that to those who do not share our beliefs, so much of what we believe as Christians will seem far-fetched. And it must be especially difficult for a young person in the modern world, showered with scientific and atheistic propaganda.

We must be patient with people; we must talk to them and listen to them. And we must recognise that the best we can hope to achieve in a few minutes is to undermine their atheistic beliefs at some crucial point, giving them something to go away and think on. Where that thought, that planted seed, may eventually lead, we may never know. But we can pray for them in the knowledge that God can totally transform their minds. And we must remember that all our evangelistic effort – everything we say and do, and everything the recipient understands – depends entirely on the power of the Holy Spirit.

This kind of thing is happening more often these days. I wonder is that because Christians are becoming bolder or the UK society less tolerant of Christians?

I’d challenge us to consider, how committed Christians should respond to this kind of news story.

Answers below please…