Ironically, it was the hard-hitting comedian Jimmy Carr, who says he’s an atheist, who hit the nail on the head in terms of the relevance of the Christian faith.
Watching one of his shows on Netflix, he suggested that the Christian faith was a prime target for ridicule because no one was scared of that religion.
He’s correct in his analysis. From a personal point of view, I once attended one of his live shows in Newcastle upon Tyne. Carr had a heckle amnesty where people can shout abuse at him. I wanted to yell the word ‘heretic’ at him, but in the end, I bottled it and sat as quiet as a church mouse in my seat.
Many of us Christians seem afraid to stand up and be counted, preferring at times to behave like one of Jesus’s disciples, Peter, when asked if he was a follower of Christ, he denied he was three times.
The Bible has a number of verses condemning homosexuality as a lifestyle, yet when you see coverage of the various pride parades across the island of Ireland, the Christian opposition is minimal.
Christian Churches seem to be constantly saying sorry to groups in society for past treatments of those groups. Compromise and concession seems to be the order of the day.
At some point, will we see the ridiculous situation where a cleric apologies to satanists for the Biblical fact that Lucifer was booted out of heaven by God? Is the Christian Church capable of any more climbdown?
Christians have already had to endure the humiliation of so-called Church leaders apologising for the Holy Crusades of the Middle Ages. Shame on any Christian who says sorry for the Crusades, which stopped radical Islamic tyranny in its tracks.
And to make matters worse, in the past some Christians have even said sorry to the memory of Charles Darwin, even though he’s been worm feed for generations. He’s best known as the father of evolutionary theory, essentially that we are all descended from monkeys.
Here’s more potential daft climbdown by liberal or ‘woke’ clerics we could expect:
Clerics calling for homosexuals to be financially compensated by the Church for God destroying the gay cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as outlined in the Old Testament. We could even expect calls for these cities to be rebuilt in their original locations in the Middle East.
Could we see a deleting of the Book of Revelation from the Bible because it scares too many people about the end of the world and the coming of the AntiChrist. Maybe the Church will also bend the knee to the so-called thought police in society so that preaching about hell and eternal damnation is banned in places of worship.
Maybe, too, we will also see the Church issuing a public apology to Egypt because of the Old Testament’s Ten Plagues which were inflicted on that nation until Pharaoh decided to free the Israelite slaves. That apology may also include compensation to Egypt for the destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea when they were chasing the fleeing Israelites led by Moses.
Will women be forgiven by some fundamentalist denominations for being the ‘lesser sex’ because Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden after she was tempted by satan. It was Eve who also got Adam to eat the apple, too, resulting in the Biblical Fall of Man.
The Church has already lost the battles against same-sex marriage and abortion, so could we see another moral defeat by the Church on Old Testament opposition to whore mongering as identified in the Book of Hosea?
Will we see a memorial built to the Old Testament Philistine nation, and an apology because the Biblical hero David - later King David - killed the Philistine super hero Goliath?
Could we see joint Christian pagan ceremonies to say sorry by the Christian faith for the number of so-called witches who were burnt at the stake by Puritan Oliver Cromwell’s witch finders and the Catholic fanatics of the Spanish Inquisition?
Could we also see an apology to the descendants of the Biblical traitor Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus to the Pharisees in the New Testament? Could this be supplemented with compensation payments to the modern-day Iscariot descendants as Judas was given 30 pieces of silver to betray Christ, but he later hanged himself. Indeed, would there be interest due on the 30 pieces?
And will there be another public apology by the Church to supporters of the pagan demon Baal, whose Old Testament descendants were massacred with a jawbone by the Christian hero Samson?
Likewise, is the Church going to issue a grovelling apology to Iran for the Old Testament massacre of 70,000 Iranians in a single day by supporters of the Christian God as detailed in the Old Testament Book of Esther?
Whilst some of these supposed apologies may seem daft, it was only a few generations ago it would have sounded equally ridiculous for Christian Churches to ordain openly gay clergy, approve same-sex marriage, and march in pride parades. But this has all happened.
As the dilution of Scriptural teaching continues, the Christian Churches will have to face the bitter reality that until this ‘woke’ drift is halted and reversed, the Christian faith will continue to be ridiculed and even ignored.
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. |
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