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| London-Daily Mail |
Daily Mail February 8
From a story on my Facebook blog
Cited
’Charles tells UK Muslims to abide by our values: Prince says if you come to live in Britain you must respect us’
This seems reasonable.
Cited
’Prince Charles risked provoking a new political and religious storm yesterday when he said Muslims living in the UK should follow British values.’
If these comments would risk a political and religious storm it demonstrates that the climate has become far too politically correct in the United Kingdom.
'In a staunch defence of Britain's 'Christian standpoint,' he denounced the radicalisation of young Britons by Islamic fanatics and said they should show more respect to 'the values we hold dear'.’
Practically speaking, however, Britain today is a secular nation.
Cited
‘Charles also intends to use his Middle East tour to call for an end to attempts to drive Christians out of the region. IS terrorists slaughtered thousands of Yazidis and Christians in Northern Iraq, and Christians are also threatened in other Muslim countries. If nothing was done, the time could soon come when 'there are no Christians left in the Middle East… they are intimidated to a degree you can't believe,' the Prince said. He rammed home his point in uncharacteristically plain terms: 'The tragedy is even greater because Christians have been in the Middle East for 2,000 years, before Islam came in the 8th Century.'’
I am not concerned with how long Christians have been in the Middle East, rather I am concerned with reasonable intellectual freedom for persons, including freedom of religion.
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‘It is a most agonising situation, but we must remember that all around the world there is appalling persecution going on, not only of Christians but of Muslims and of other faiths and religions. The radicalisation of people in Britain is a great worry, and the extent to which this is happening is alarming, particularly in a country like ours where we hold values dear.’
Indeed this is a problem of the present and the future.
If Muslims are to live by British values, Sharia law should not be the law of the land in any context. This would at least in a legal context to some degree prevent some but not all Islamic radicalization.
All persons in a Western nation should live by the same secular law with reasonable intellectual and religious freedom. If Sharia is followed by Muslims within freedom of religion it should be done without government sanction as law. In a similar way for example, that a Christian can follow church rules and discipline in the United Kingdom or Canada without such being the law of the land.
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No Family Values In Heaven?
The Pastor during the sermon today stated that in heaven, paraphrased, basically family relationships will be over.
I reason he is perhaps basing this on...
Matthew 22:29-30
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
29 But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not [a]understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God.
30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
Footnotes: Matthew 22:29 Or knowing New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Mark 12:24-25
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
24 Jesus said to them, “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not [a]understand the Scriptures or the power of God?
25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
Footnotes: Mark 12:24 Or know New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
How would resurrected human beings be like the angels in context? Not-exhaustive.
Not married.
Not getting married.
Not procreating.
There are some differences however.
Although both human beings and angelic being are finite, angelic beings are non-corporeal and human beings now in this present realm have a physical body and in the resurrection (the Gospels with Christ and 1 Corinthians 15) have a spiritual body (15: 44).
Therefore, resurrected human beings, although like the angels are not exactly like the angels. Human beings have physicality and there is in my view no good reason to believe all previous connections are abandoned in the new creation.
Remember there is a new heaven and new earth and resurrected body (s), in other words the first sinful realm freed from the problems of evil and sin transitions through the atoning and resurrection work of Christ into the everlasting realm.
I see it as overly speculative to suggest that human relationships in Christ would be abandoned from the previous realm.
As Jesus Christ was recognized as a man in the resurrection, when God willed it, it would also be overly speculative to assume that since Biblically human beings with a spiritual body do not procreate and are like the angels it would mean resurrected human beings were non-sexual. In other words the end of male and female from Genesis 1-3.
Rather, Erickson states heaven could for example feature the suprasexual. Erickson (1994: 1232) which would transcend what was experienced in the previous realm.
ERICKSON, MILLARD (1994) Christian Theology, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House.
