If you are vaccinated and refuse to host loved ones who are not, what is your reasoning for this lack of hospitality? Surely it is not “the science”? Your vaccine should protect you. According to multiple studies, your loved one’s lack of vaccine doesn’t make them much more likely to contract or spread the virus.

There was no room at the inn for Jesus. And now that the categories of ‘vaccinated’ and ‘unvaccinated’ have been adopted in Australian society, there will be no room at the Christmas table for many this year. Be challenged by this confronting word to both the rejectors and the rejected.
As the Christmas story famously begins in Luke 2:1, “And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” Every citizen was required to return to the place of their birth.
So Joseph and his wife Mary travelled up from the Galilean town of Nazareth. They journeyed together, Mary heavily pregnant, arriving in Judea. Their destination was Bethlehem, also known as “the town of David”, as Joseph was of the house and family of David.
While they were there, Mary went into labour. But because of the number of travellers for the census, there was no room at the local inn. Moreover, no one showed compassion for the young woman giving birth and relinquished their lodging.
However, the innkeeper took pity upon them. He offered them the stable where animals were kept, and they gladly accepted.
So Mary gave birth to a son, her firstborn, and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in the manger – the animals’ feeding trough.
Still today, we feel for Mary and Joseph in their predicament. We empathise and sing songs of our Saviour’s birth. Our mind’s eye can easily envision the proceedings. A blessed baby, destined to save the world. Such humble beginnings for God-in-flesh, the Messiah.
Oh, how the angels sang! The star shone in the sky above, the shepherds gathered around to worship. All of heaven rejoiced.
Reflecting on a Difficult Year
Fast-forward to early December 2021. What a year or two it has been.
Last year, many of us were denied travel to see our loved ones. As many have observed, Australia has returned to its roots as a penal colony, and the situation has hurt and outraged many of us.
We have shed tears and grieved the loss of lives – from the virus and other causes too. Many still haven’t hugged their babies or grandchildren. Others were forbidden to weep with their beloved parent or sibling at their passing.
“It’s all for our own good” is the mantra we have repeated. Many of us chose to believe this. Some still do.
It breaks my heart – and must certainly break God’s heart – to see the division across our country. 
Read More

There is hope even for the idolater if only he is willing to repent, if only he is willing to turn to the God who saves. “But he who takes refuge in me,” says God, “shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.” It is never too late to turn to God, never too late to cry out to him for help and deliverance, never too late to flee to the one who is—and will always be—our refuge.

We are all prone to idolatry. We may consider ourselves far too advanced to bow before an idol of wood or stone, to bend the knee to the image of an animal or man. But none of us is immune from bowing before the idols of our dreams and desires, before the idols of our wandering hearts. None of us can forever resist the allure of our illicit longings, of finding hope in mere riches, of finding meaning in mere accolades. In one way or another we are all prone to idolatry. And idolatry is futility.
In the prophecies of Isaiah we hear the voice of God as he rebukes the nation of Israel for its commitment to idols. He challenges the people to consider the cost of turning away from the God who called them, the God who saved them, the God who loves them. “When you cry out,” he says, “let your collection of idols deliver you!”
He knows the day will come when his people will face a great calamity. He knows the day will come when his people will understand that they cannot save themselves. And in that time, he tells them, they ought to be consistent and cry out to their idols for help, for deliverance, for satisfaction. Cry out to those pieces of wood, cry out to those blocks of stone, and let them come to your rescue!
And what will happen? “The wind will carry them all off, a breath will take them away.”
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Dr. Peter Jones |
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
We find ourselves in an increasingly divergent clash, not of nationhood but of ultimate worldviews. Certainly the accusation of “Christian nationalism” fails to do justice to the Christian vison. The goal of the Christian faith is not social control but recognition of the cosmic lordship of God the Creator and Redeemer over all things, including all nature and all nations.

The latest critics of the Christian faith accuse Christians of being selfish, out-of-date, non-constitutional “Christian nationalists” who would impose all the Christian rules on everyone around them. Think Ku Klux Klanners parading through Washington, DC in the 1920s to defend “Protestant America.”[1] Or the The Handmaid’s Tale or a Christian version of 1984. Christians will, they believe, impose an Old Testament-like Christian theocracy on all citizens of the modern state, in which only Christian truth is allowed and the death penalty is employed for various sinful acts. Christian nationalism is decried by many who cry “fascist,” or “domestic terrorist.” Some Christian liberals see their understanding of Christian Nationalism to be “a threat to national security and domestic cohesion,” and even “the greatest threat to the witness of the church.”

Freelance writer David Bates tweets: “[Christians] will go after every office and seat, from the White House to school boards, city councils, even library boards…This is what fascism looks like in America in the 21st century.”[2]
Cari Marshall, a board member of the Texas Democracy Foundation, believes “Christian Nationalism” amounts to “domestic terrorism.”[3]
MSNBC host Joy Reid said via Twitter she was “glad to see the mainstream media beginning to make it plain [that] Christian nationalism poses a very real threat to American national security and social cohesion.”[4]
Adrienne Quinn Martin, the Democratic Party chairman of Hood County, Texas, was among many who used the term “White Christian Nationalism.” According to Martin, “You can’t compromise with people who view opposition as evil and believe they are on a mission from God. White Christian Nationalism has to be defeated, there is no middle ground.”[5]
Jemar Tisby, an antiracist black scholar, graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary, in an article entitled “Myth that Powers White Christian Nationalism” argues that “White Christian Nationalism is the greatest threat to the witness of the church and to the future of democracy in the United States.”[6]

These visceral accusations reveal much about the present spiritual state of the culture. The more Western culture turns to pagan thinking, the less it identifies with its Christian past. The normativity of biblical truth dissipates, and what we used to call Christendom falls back under an onslaught of what we can begin to call “pagan nationalism.”
In Finland, a once deeply Lutheran culture, the Helsinki Court of Appeals charged Paivi Rasanen (medical doctor, government minister of the interior, member of the Finnish Parliament since 1955, and Christian believer) with three counts of “ethnic agitation” for publicly questioning the decision by the Evangelical Lutheran Church to support the Helsinki LGBT Pride events, while including a copy of the text of Romans 1:24-27. The court imposed monetary fines and insisted that her publications be censored. A district court in Helsinki recently dismissed all claims against her, but then the public prosecutor produced 26 pages of reasons to reopen the case. Paivi Rasanen’s fate is still wide open.[7]
In America, pagan nationalism shows up in the politicization of anti-biblical morals. Common moral binaries of the past, like normative heterosexual marriage and male-female distinctions, are denied. Instead of biblical morals influencing the policies of the nation, it is anti-biblical morality that is imposed on all, as is evidenced in the coming project of the [sexual] Equality Act, that will punish all who do not adopt the LGBT agenda. Already, the Christian College of the Ozarks is challenging a Biden administration directive that would force religious schools to open girls’ dorms, showers, and other private areas to males. If the college operates according to its beliefs, it risks devastating financial penalties. Over less obviously religious themes, the Biden administration has recently accused parents who do not want their children taught Marxist Critical Race Theory or radical gender philosophy as “terrorists” who must be controlled by the FBI and the Department of Justice. Thankfully, those who formed the Disinformation Governance Board were incompetent. On the surface, at least, this Board no longer exists. But one has to wonder which democratically-elected politicians would even consider that controlling and punishing public speech is a laudable moral value. But this should not surprise us, since some progressives reject even the central philosophies behind the founding of the country. So, the growing politicization of sexual morals and the rejection of traditional governing principles in the West are truly leading us down a path to the normalization of “pagan nationalism.”
Read More

Related Posts: