29% of UK teachers favor teaching creationism

To me the abandonment of Christianity in the UK is very sad, of course, what else would you expect of me? It's like you guys are shoving a beautiful history into obscurity, now embarrassed by what used to be your glory and the cause of your rise to world power and prosperity. Not that your history was just a sweet straightforward path of course, lots of bloody stuff and ups and downs along the way. Somewhat similar Christian history in the US, we've both been losing power and prestige for some time, we're both going down to oblivion it seems because we've rejected what made us great but don't even recognize what made us great.I think first of all "Saint" Patrick, whose true history hardly anyone knows, an early Briton who brought true Christianity to the Irish. TRUE Christianity. No, he wasn't a Roman Catholic, he was a member of an earlier church, a true church, and the religion he planted in Ireland was true Christianity, not Roman Catholicism. Rome later co-opted him and stuck one of those ridiculous bishop's hats on his head in their portraits of him, and then of course they also co-opted the religion of Ireland. I wrote an appreciation of him at my blog a few years ago.Then there was John Wycliffe who translated the Bible into English back in the 14th century. I don't trust Wikipedia on anything having to do with the conflict between Rome and its critics but the link on Wycliffe looks like it covers most of the basics at least. And I know some here will answer that the Protestants "also" mistreated the Catholics, because that's the propaganda they've promoted, wish I could disabuse you of such nonsense but I'm still learning about all this myself. Not that Protestants are above committing abuses, but most of it was defensive against Rome and most of the stuff that makes them out to be equally guilty is pure lies.John Tyndale who had better manuscripts to work from made the English translation that became 95% of the King James Bible and got burned at the stake for it.There were the English former priests Latimer and Ridley who were also burned at the stake for rejecting Rome. We honor them as great men of the faith. John Bunyan of course wrote the great classic Pilgrim's Progress, spent time in prison for refusing to bow to the Anglican church's law against public preaching.You probably all hate Cromwell, but he was a hero of the Protestant faith too, slandered by Rome as so many of them are.John Knox, GREAT leader of the faith, prayed that God would give him Scotland.I'll forget most of the greats I'm sure, I'm just ticking off a few that come to mind.George Whitfield was a leader of the Great Awakening through his preaching right before the American Revolution. John Wesley preached at the same time and rode all over the eastern part of the US on horseback to get the gospel out. Charles Wesley's hymns are classics.Charles Spurgeon, Reformed Baptist, considered the "prince of preachers" in the late 19th century. J C Ryle, great Anglican preacher and leader of the late 19th century, love to read his books. A W Pink, Reformed writer whose books I also collect. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones Anglican preacher who lived into the 1960s as I recall. I love listening to old tapes of him preaching. Had been converted in the great revival in Wales in the early 20th century.ABE: Oh yes, mustn't forget John William Burgon, 1813-1888, who's quoted in my signature, one of those "Anglican divines" who defended the true faith.None of this is about Creationism in particular but none of these great names would have rejected the first 11 chapters of Genesis.And here's a British creationist speaking on the evidence for the Flood as found in the Grand Canyon, really good presentation of the evidence, done in that laid-back style you Brits are also known for. None of the posturing of a Hovind, or the flares of temper so many of us in America are prone to, just a quiet reasonable presentation of the evidence.The sun went down on the British Empire a long time ago. Sad. But there are still true Christians there same as here. Sometimes they write to me through my blogs.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The rise to such prominence is always due to God's blessings, but there were negative aspects of it too, you lost those blessings partly because of how you dealt with the peoples you colonized. Almost nothing's ever completely good or evil in this world.ABE: I'm going to take this back. I think the British Empire's rise was due to God's blessings but I have to admit that there have been a lot of purely evil empires that have risen to great prominence too. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The same is true here, Christianity is in a chaotic shambles really. True Christians complain about how hard it is to find a really good Bible-preaching church. Yes, just the empty shell of Christianity, no knowledge of the Bible, just a thin veneer of what's left of empty tradition.The Church of England has clearly overall been degenerating for a long time, same as its offshoot here, the Episcopalian churches, full of all kinds of compromises, hardly teaching the rudiments of the Biblical faith any more.In fact much of Anglicanism seems to be going back to Romanism these days.There's no danger of the true church, true believers, actually "dying out," however. The "soft and woolly" pew-sitters, compromisers who are just going through the motions, will probably die away but that can only be a good thing. True believers won't die out though. They'll simply become more and more marginalized and it will become harder to hold to the faith because of the ridicule and, could be, the eventual return of persecution as well. But we could use a good injection of the spirit of Tyndale, Ridley and Latimer and all those who courageously died for the true faith.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You do know that's a satirical website, right?

Yeah, well, that's the history you have been getting for some time now, rather all black rather than both black and white. Dinesh D'Souza is an Americanized Indian who says he's grateful for the colonization of India because otherwise the nation would never have made it into the modern world.

Yes, there are "theistic creationists" and Muslim creationists and probably all kinds of other creationisms as well, but surely you know that the only Creationism that anyone really cares about, the Creationism that gets everybody here all up in arms, that is the cause of all the furor, is Bible-based Creationism. Nobody in the UK or North America is going to object to your kind of creationism, GDR.If it's important for the sake of clarity I'd be happy to try to remember to refer to myself as a Biblical Young Earth Creationist. And that's the Creationism I impute to all those I named in my first post.

I haven't read the Landover site in some time and would rather not. I reject Westboro completely. That's just one bizarre trend of the degeneration of the churches these days. Can't really blame outsiders for not knowing one from the other.That's one reason I like to point to the greats of Christianity in history. There are some good preachers left here in the US (John MacArthur, Alister Begg, Chuck Betters, Paul Washer, John Piper, actually quite a few more), don't know about the UK, but I tend to prefer the oldies.Oh John Owen was one I forgot to put on the list, and a bunch of Puritans.It's only SOMEWHAT more acceptable to "go on" about religion here, and in fact really it isn't any more than it is there. Maybe it's that we're more likely to close our eyes and plunge in and take our lumps for it here. Yes, I guess that's a difference. We can get the silent treatment but also we get some lumps for it. I get both kinds of reactions, among my own family.

Does GDR actually have THAT coherent a creationism, OR any desire to get his ideas taught in schools? If so I've apparently missed a lot of his writings.Yes, there's the teaching in schools issue, but I had in mind just the level of animosity that gets generated in discussions about these things. Am I wrong about that?

I know it's popular here to insist that Christians are supposed to be held to the Levitical laws, and get all indignant about our supposedly not really being Bible-believers if we don't, and any attempt to tell you that orthodox Christian theology is a completely new thing just gets rejected as some kind of phony rationalization, so I usually stay out of these discussions.But that's the case. Israel was a theocracy and God was teaching them, and us through them, that sin deserves death. We are not a theocracy, we understand that sin deserves death, but Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more, He did not uphold the Levitical law that would have had her stoned to death. It is His teaching we follow. Yes, adultery is a sin deserving of death, so is homosexual sex, so are a lot of other things, so in fact is ALL sin. That's what we're to learn from the OT.Jesus came to teach us that He Himself is the remedy for sin, the salvation of sinners, which all of us are. He took our punishment for us so we don't have to take it. He took it for adulterers of all kinds. for homosexual sinners, for murderers, for liars, for blasphemers, for all sinners. We have to REPENT of our sin and we have to BELIEVE that He died for our sins, otherwise we're still sinners headed for ultimate judgment.So, sure, there's a lot of complicated theology involved in all these things but that's the general difference between the OT and the New. The OT was to teach us what sin is, how sin deserves death, and punishment, how we are incapable of NOT sinning, so how we all deserve death and other punishments, how only sacrifice can atone for sin, and how God planned to send the Messiah to BE the one and only sacrifice that could really pay for our sins etc etc etc.The Messiah has come.We are still to execute murderers, as God commanded BEFORE Moses, to Noah. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

India has a whole class of stupendously impoverished people the Dalits or Untouchables. I don't think some of the classes above them do a whole lot better, but maybe. In any case there is no poverty in western nations at that level. I happen to be in touch with a little ministry in India that preaches to the Dalits, that feeds and clothes them, that helps when their settlements are destroyed by fires and the usual seasonal monsoons. They barely have enough to eat and wear, they go everywhere barefooted, they live in thatched huts, the roads are muddy tracks. The ministers themselves are just about as poor, they get around on bicycles they've been able to buy through foreign donations. In ministering to the Dalits this preacher I hear from caught typhoid a few years ago, almost died of it, prayed his way out of it. I dunno, jar, seems to me the wealth in India goes to the upper upper classes. Maybe now that they HAVE at least a toe in the modern world there's more of a middle class. All those guys you have to talk to when your computer breaks down for instance.

I didn't even say I sent money to them. I used to, can't afford it any more. Fortunately I'm only one of a circle of people who are in touch with them.What don't you believe? I get pictures from this ministry all the time so I've seen their condition. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I did not say they were "godly men," what I said was that the great prosperity of Britain and its great power were the RESULT of the blessings of God on the nation.I wish I knew more about the history of these things but just because they were there to make use of the wealth of the nation didn't necessarily mean a merely exploitative mentality dominated all their actions. India was a COLONY, and it was also in the interests of the conquerers to better their condition, and they did work to better the condition of the Indians. They did compensate them for their work, they developed education in the country and built a modern infrastructure and brought a lot of other benefits that they would not have had otherwise.The British were no doubt snobs and racists but if they had the evil character you are now imputing to them it's not likely their descendants could have inherited much better so watch out for your habit of treating your ancestors with such disdain.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

OK, I've apparently not been following GDR's creationist ideas.Well, SURE the animosity is driven by my attitude and behavior. Sometimes I lose my temper but that's not the reason. The reason is that I won't compromise, I insist the Bible is God's word, I'm not going to give up even one verse of it for "science" and as I've said I don't believe evolution and old earth science are true science anyway, which is another way my attitude and behavior are offensive. The animosity is toward my uncompromising Biblical belief and my opinions in general. I'm probably not a particularly likeable personality, that could be, but I really think it's my opinions that bring down all the jeers here.

I don't think you're getting my point. Saying that the British Empire was a result of God's blessings on the nation is not saying that they behaved rightly as colonial conquerors or anything like that. The blessings built on the past. Clearly those blessings have pretty much all been lost by now, and probably some of it through their mistreatment of their colonies.I AM arguing that they weren't nearly as bad as conquerors as you want to paint them, but I'm NOT saying anything about their colonial activity was "Christian" either. I suspect that HAD there been a substantial Christian spirit in their dealings with India, they would more clearly have benefited both themselves and the Indians and possibly India could have evolved into something similar to Canada or Australia in their relations with their conquerors. Possibly.

I said no such thing or anything remotely similar to that.