POSTSCRIPT
When I finished the preceding
chapter I thought that ‘The River’ was complete. But yesterday - the Sunday
of Bank Holiday weekend - I heard a bit of the Radio 4 programme ‘Sunday’,
and came in on an item about a respected evangelist named David Pawson (I first
heard him speak about fifteen years ago, and have had cause to pay attention to
what he says). And what he had said, and the programme was reporting, was that
he had heard a word from the Lord, a prophecy, that the British Isles would
become an Islamic state - under the rule of Islam - and David thought of his
children and their children and was heartbroken. He asked the Lord “Why?”
And the gist of the answer he got
was, “Because my Church has turned its back on me”.
Now before you switch off, just
think for a moment. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, only
excepting Pentecostal Christianity (and many people would dearly like to ignore
that exception!). And what is growing is not so much the pure theological Islam
which respects Christians and Jews as being ‘People of the Book’, but mob
Islam.
Any mob rule is not pretty - even
the scenes at Peterborough
following the murder of those two children in Soham - and in too many Islamic
countries it reigns. Remember Indonesia and the efforts Islamic extremists made
to exterminate (yes, that is the word) all Christianity in the eastern end of
the country. Eventually after much argument the country was divided roughly into
eastern Christianity and western Islam. But I get prayer notes from a thing
called the Barnabas Trust, and every item for this last week or more has given
examples of persecution and often murder in that area by something called Laskar
Jihad - which under the terms of the settlement is supposed to have left that
place long since.
In south Sudan war, starvation
and persecution have for many years been let loose on the Christian population.
In Pakistan recently Christian churches and schools have been subjected to
murderous attacks - bombings and machine-gunning - by Islamic extremists. In
Khazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan action has been taken by police
(contrary to the laws af the countries concerned) to close churches and suppress
Christianity. Similar stories come from Turkey; also Senegal, Nigeria and other
African countries where Christians and Muslims used previously to get on
together very well.
Let me emphasize again that this
is the work of extremists going against the formal doctrines of Islam. Many
believe that if they kill an infidel they are guaranteed an immediate place in
Heaven, and they treat Christians and Jews as if these were infidels and not
People of the Book. Such things are as I have said, mob rule and not true Islam,
but have not mobs ruled in Britain in many places fairly recently? Will God
prevent such things here because we are nominally Christian?
It is worth remembering that
Turkey - an Islamic country for many centuries - was the birthplace of
Christianity outside of Israel. The
Seven Churches that John in his Revelation was told to write to were in what is
now Turkey.
And the gist of those letters was
that in those churches faith was growing cold, heresies were increasing, false
teaching was being tolerated; and that God told them that if they did not get
their act together soon they would be cut off, their ‘lampstands’ would be
removed from Christ’s presence. And it happened that way. Can we assume that
God will not let it happen here where churches are emptying and vanishing, and
the essentials of Christian belief are being labelled as myths, superstitions,
emotional rubbish to be quietly removed from our churches and wiped out of
existence?
Historically, a civilisation, a
nation or a religion with lukewarm beliefs goes down before one with strongly
held beliefs, even if those beliefs are wrong. Why should life today be any
different?