Harvey Thomas on the Brighton Bomb and Reconciliation from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.
Harvey Thomas was the former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party. In this presentation given at Christ Church, he talks about forgiveness and reconciliation. Harvey is Chairman and Lobbyist for the Fellowship of European Broadcasters (FEB)
Today is without doubt, the largest, the longest, the most joyful, colourful and costly celebrations in the whole world. Literally billions of people, have set aside their normal routines to take a midweek holiday, decorate their homes, send greeting cards, buy special gifts to give, attend church services and parties, sing Christmas carols and travel long distances to be with family. And in an hour or two, depending on their time zone, people will be sitting down for one of the largest, most colourful and tasty meals of the year. And most of us will eat too much and need a short nap afterwards. Isn’t it incredible that the simple birth of Jesus in Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago has caused such ripples?
The anniversary of his birthday each year leads to record retail sales and traffic jams as far away as New York, Tokyo and Sydney. So special is Jesus birthday that your own birthday is dated from his! Every single time we check the calendar, or refer to a date, or write one in our diary, we are using Jesus birthday as our reference point.
And what does celebrating Jesus birthday signify? That God loves you. God is with you. And God is for you.
The Purpose of Christmas from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.
Trains were humming, loudspeakers blaring, porters rushing about shouting at one another, and altogether there was so much noise that Mr Brown, who saw him first, had to tell his wife several times before she understood. ‘A bear? On Paddington station?’ Mrs Brown looked at her husband in amazement. ‘Don’t be silly, Henry. There can’t be!” “Seeing that something was expected of it the bear stood up and politely raised its hat, revealing two black ears. ‘Good afternoon,’ it said, in a small clear voice … The bear puffed out its chest. ‘I’m a very rare sort of bear,’ he replied importantly. ‘There aren’t many of us left where I come from.’ ‘And where is that?’ asked Mrs Brown. The bear looked round carefully before replying. ‘Darkest Peru. I’m not really supposed to be here at all. I’m a stowaway.'”[1]
Michael Bond’s marmalade sandwich-loving Peruvian bear first appeared in 1958’s A Bear Called Paddington. Now the star of his very own film, Paddington, is a charming and funny adventure about a very polite and friendly orphan bear who yearns for adoption and new home in London.
At the Carol Services, we realised that we are all a little like Paddington, orphaned, lost, vulnerable, in need of adoption. But tonight, because the children should all be fast asleep by now, I want us to consider “Paddington Bear for Grownups”. Michael Bond, Paddington’s creator, says the inspiration came from seeing Jewish evacuee children pass through Reading railway station from London during the Kindertransport of the late 1930s. “They all had a label round their neck with their name and address on, and a little case or package containing all their treasured possessions. So Paddington, in a sense, was a refugee, and I do think that there’s no sadder sight than refugees.”[2]
Following the tragedy of 9/11 and the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York, multi-bestselling author and Christian journalist Anne Coulter, wrote,
“We don’t need long investigations of the forensic evidence to determine with scientific accuracy the person or persons who ordered this specific attack. We don’t need an “international coalition.” We don’t need a study on “terrorism.” … We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.”[3]
More recently, at the July 19th, 2006, inaugural event for Christians United for Israel, in Washington DC, after recorded greetings from the then President, George W. Bush, and in the presence of four US Senators as well as the Israeli ambassador to the US, Pastor John Hagee, stated :
“High Noon” released in 1952, starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, is one of my favourite films. Gary Cooper was the sheriff of a small western town. Earlier a gang of four outlaw brothers had terrorized the town. The sheriff had brought them to justice and sent them to prison.
In prison they vowed that when they got out they would kill the sheriff. The movie focuses on one particular day. The sheriff has just married Grace Kelly. She happens to be a devout Quaker utterly opposed to all violence. The sheriff resigns from law enforcement and the couple are to leave town on their honeymoon. He is going to start a new life as a rancher. Suddenly word comes that the outlaw brothers have been released from prison and are due to arrive that very day on the noon train. Everybody urges the couple to get out of town quickly. They ride away, but the sheriff is troubled. Finally, he turns the wagon around and heads back to town, much to the consternation of his bride.
He cannot stand to run away from his old enemies. He pins the badge back on his shirt. Quickly he tries to round up a posse. It’s a Sunday morning. Lots of people are in church. The sheriff interrupts the service, explains the emergency, and asks the men of the congregation to help him form a posse. Several people stand up and respond. One of them says, “We’d like to help you, Sheriff, but we’re not trained gunmen. That’s what we hire sheriffs for.” Then another says, “You know, Sheriff, we Christians don’t believe in violence.” Still another says, “Sheriff, you’re a brave man but it would probably have been wiser if you had not come back to town.”
The Sheriff turns and walks out in disgust. In the background you hear Tex Ritter singing the theme song-“I do not know what fate awaits me; I only know I must be brave, and I must face the man who hates me, or lie a coward, a craven coward, or lie a coward in my grave.”
The “Pillars of Hercules,” which flank the entrance to the Straits of Gibraltar between Africa and Europe were from Roman times associated with the Latin phrase ne plus ultra, meaning “No More Beyond.” Certainly no one dared question the prevailing belief that there was nothing beyond the horizon. That was until 1492 when Christopher Columbus boldly sailed westward and discovered the New World. On his return, Spain celebrated with a new national logo. Coins were struck with two words: plus ultra meaning “More Beyond”. We are here tonight for this special remembrance service because ‘out of sight’ does not mean ‘out of mind’. But is there more beyond? More than simply the act of remembering the past? The Christian hope is that there is a new world beyond our horizon. Our Psalm this evening teaches us to look beyond our limited horizon, beyond what we can see, feel or touch. Psalm 103 inspires us to feel the heart beat of God’s love and realise there is indeed yet ‘more beyond’ our horizon to discover. More of God’s character to understand. More of his purposes to discover.
More of his love to experience. More of his commission to fulfil. More of his justice to proclaim. More of his love to share. More of his glory to praise. Psalm 103 inspired Henry Francis Lyte to write one of the most opopular hymns in the English language “Praise my soul the King of heaven”. No wonder. We have here in Psalm 103 the authentic utterance of a redeemed child of God, who piles up words to express his gratitude to the God of grace. There are three sections to the Psalm.
God’s personal blessings (Psalm 103:1-5).
God’s Covenant Mercy (Psalm 103:8-18).
God’s Universal Dominion (Psalm 103:19-22).
Let us consider them in turn and discern whether there is indeed “more beyond” Continue reading
Scientists have proven that birthdays are good for you, the more you have, the longer you live. Norman Wisdom once said, “As you get older, three things happen: The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two.” Inside every older person is a younger person, wondering what on earth happened. In a couple of weeks we will celebrate the 176th birthday of Christ Church. Today we remember the birthday of the Church under three headings: the context, the message and the experience of Pentecost. Please turn with me to Acts 2.
To make sense of Pentecost we must see it within its biblical and historical context. The most obvious is:
1.1 The Confusion of Languages at the Tower of Babel
There is clearly an obvious parallel with the Tower of Babel. In Genesis when people tried to make a name for themselves and build a tower reaching to heaven, God cursed them by confusing their languages and scattering them across the earth (Genesis 11:1-9). On the Day of Pentecost people “from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5) came together in Jerusalem and were able to hear the same good news of “the wonderful works of God” in their own languages (Acts 2:11). At the cross of Jesus, the curse of the Tower of Babel had been removed. The good news of Jesus is for all peoples. He is building a church of all nations. The Tower of Babel. Continue reading
There is deep inside each one of us a subconscious awareness that life is precarious. It is implicit when we kiss the children goodbye on their way to school with the words ‘Take care’ or to an adult friend, “Hope you keep well.” The fact is, disease can strike, accidents do happen, and unforeseen events interrupt our carefully planned and manicured lives. Naturally, we do everything we can to reduce the possibility. And in our relatively affluent, peaceful community, we can convince ourselves that we really are in control of our lives, cocooned from the world outside. Bad things happen to other people, and we’re confident they won’t happen to us.
When we live calamity-free for long periods of time, when the big issues have to do with the length of the grass at the golf course or whether the trains are running on time, or the availability of our favourite products at the local supermarket, not only do we feel a kind of invincibility, but we slowly begin to take life itself for granted. We stop thanking God for the daily blessedness of it – for sunrises and sunsets, for spring rains and autumn mists, and for our very own lives. We so easily grow complacent with our partners, our children, our parents, our friends. We get accustomed to the privilege of living.
Then a day like Tuesday September 11th 2001 or a Thursday like Thursday 7th July 2005, or a Tsunami floods whole countries or a Hurricane devastates an entire city, and our world is turned upside down. With biological contagions like Ebola seemingly out of control and terror extremists like ISIS radicalising our world, we realise no one is immune from danger, fear and even death.
Heartened by the recent historic meeting between Prime Minister David Cameron and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, at the United Nations, signaling a long-overdue thawing of Anglo-Iranian relations, I was delighted to attend the New Horizons interfaith conference in Tehran last week, as a member of a UK delegation.
The conference addressed issues where faith and politics intersect in the Middle East such as Israel’s war on Gaza, Islamophobia in the West as well as the rise of ISIS and those sponsoring extremism.
“There is no teleology in western society, no guiding morality, only an obsession with materialism,” argued organizer Arash Darya-Bandari. “We believe it is necessary to control the negative tendencies in culture, such as pornography, alcohol, drugs, prostitution, to strive towards a more moral and justice society.”
One of the contributors, Eric Walberg wrote, “Contrary to the shrill cries in the western media that the conference was anti-Semitic, it was unique in my experience in addressing Zionism and US imperialism forthrightly and intelligently, without a hint of racism. The issue of anti-Semitism was addressed and dismissed, as “There is no issue with Jewish people or the Jewish religion,” explained Darya-Bandari, “but rather with Zionism, that secular distortion of Judaism that itself is racist, and has been used as a pretext to dispossess and kill Palestinians.”
He went on to report, “The conference issued a resolution condemning ISIS, Zionism, US unconditional support of Israel, Islamophobia, and calling for activism locally to boycott Israeli goods and to promote understanding between the West and the Muslim world, and to fight sectarianism. “This was a great opportunity to meet anti-imperialist activists from around the world, to bring Russians, Poles, western Europeans, North Americans together with Iranians and other Muslims, both Sunni and Shia, in a forum without sectarianism, truly supporting peace and understanding,” said delegate Mateusz Piskorski, director of the European Centre of Geopolitical Analysis in Warsaw and former MP in the Polish Sejm.”
I was invited to contribute to the opening ceremony and present a biblical perspective on Jihad and in particular, a Christian refutation of the Islamic State (IS). Later in the conference I was asked to present a paper on the impact of the Israel Lobby in the UK, especially in parliament and in the media, ahead of the publication of my new book on the subject.
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)
Ambassadors, of necessity serve in foreign countries, where perspectives may be different and at times even hostile to one’s own. But given the dire consequences of any breakdown in relations between countries, dialogue and diplomacy are always to be preferred over war and strife.
In the journal Diplomat, Michael Binyon asks,
“Are Christian church leaders becoming the world’s most active peacemakers? Only a week after President Peres of Israel and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accepted the Pope’s invitation to pray together with him in Rome, the Archbishop of Canterbury made a dramatic flight to Nigeria to pray with President Goodluck Jonathan and encourage him to make every effort to find the schoolgirls kidnapped by the terrorist organisation Boko Haram.
The Archbishop’s impromptu trip came hard on the heels of a visit to Pakistan, where he visited a small embattled Christian community and praised their efforts to forge closer links with the wider Muslim community, despite regular attacks by militants, the threats of mob violence and the increasing use of the notorious blasphemy laws to force Christians from their land and property…
Peacemaking and reconciliation – within the Anglican Church and between the world’s main faith groups – were the declared priority for Justin Welby from the moment he became Archbishop. He is well qualified for the role. As an oil executive who visited Nigeria often before his ordination, he has seen at first-hand the conflict raging between Christians and Muslims in Central Nigeria that is now taking a deadly toll. As a former head of Coventry Cathedral’s Centre for Reconciliation, he has himself conducted delicate negotiations between militant groups in an effort to free hostages, often risking his own life.”
A walk through the deserted US embassy in Tehran last week was a poignant reminder of how a failure to pursue diplomacy has fueled not only decades of missed opportunities but also perpetuated misunderstanding and animosity between our countries.
Ironically, the leaders in Jesus day, tried to dictate whom he could and could not meet with, criticizing him for eating with “tax collectors and sinners”. Clearly they considered his actions “conduct unbecoming” a rabbi. Thankfully for us he did not listen to them.
Critics of conferences such as New Horizons should think more carefully about how their inflammatory words will negatively impact on their own communities in Iran.
They would be better served following the examples set by our Prime Minister, the Pope and the Archbishop who, as true ambassadors, are working for peace and reconciliation.
I hope that we would all agree ISIS is no more representative of Islam than Zionism is of Judaism, or the Crusades and Inquisition are of Christianity. But the reality is ISIS has attracted at least 3,000 young idealistic Muslims from Europe. And apocalyptic Christian Zionists are the dominant supporters of Israel’s colonialist expansionist agenda in Palestine.
ISIS has made their vision for the world very clear. Carl Medearis says,
“We know what it is – evil personified. They have morphed out of Al Qaeda who were ironically too liberal for their most radical Islamic interpretations, namely that there should be a new national Muslim identity – a Caliphate. They have chosen Iraq and al-Sham (the Levant) as the territory from which this new “state” will emerge.
ISIS has brutally killed 1000’s, mostly non-Sunnis, in this quest for power. Ethnic Christians and a small people-group called Yazidis have found themselves in evil’s path, but so have the armies of Syria (both the national army and the various rebel groups), Iraq and even Lebanon. It seems anyone who isn’t willing to lay down their “flag” and join the newly self-appointed ISIS Caliphate is deemed a traitor and deserves to die.”[1]