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Sunday 29 April 2012

A Summary of the Gospel to Help You Enjoy It and Share It

God Created Us for His Glory
“Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory” (Isaiah 43:6-7). God made all of us in his own image so that we would image-forth, or reflect, his character and moral beauty.
Every Human Should Live for God’s Glory
“Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). The way to live for the glory of God is to love him (Matthew 22:37), trust him (Romans 4:20), be thankful to him (Psalm 50:3) and obey him (Matthew 5:16). When we do these things we image-forth God’s glory.
We Have All Sinned and Fallen Short of God’s Glory
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “Although they knew God they did not glorify him as God or give thanks to him…but exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images…” (Romans 1:21-23). None of us has loved or trusted or thanked or obeyed God as we ought.
We All Deserve Eternal Punishment
“The wages of sin is (eternal) death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Those who did not obey the Lord Jesus “Shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). “They shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matthew 25:46).
In His Great Mercy God Sent Forth His Only Son Jesus Christ to Provide for Sinners the Way of Eternal Life
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). “Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God" (1 Peter 3:18).
Eternal Life Is a Free Gift to All Who Will Trust in Christ as Lord and Savior
“Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). “By grace are you saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8). “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
Pursuing the power of Acts 1:8 with you,
Pastor John
© Desiring God
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Desiring God.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Spreading Power Through Persecution

This sermon by pastor John Piper will encourage Pakistani Christians that God is working through persecution.
    Acts 8:1-8
And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen, and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to a city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the multitudes with one accord gave heed to what was said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs which he did. For unclean spirits came out of many who were possessed, crying with a loud voice; and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city.
On January 9, 1985, Pastor Hristo Kulichev, a Congregational pastor in Bulgaria, was arrested and put in prison. His crime was that he preached in his church even though the state had appointed another man the pastor whom the congregation did not elect. His trial was a mockery of justice. And he was sentenced to eight months imprisonment. During his time in prison he made Christ known every way he could.
When he got out he wrote, "Both prisoners and jailers asked many questions, and it turned out that we had a more fruitful ministry there than we could have expected in church. God was better served by our presence in prison than if we had been free." (Herbert Schlossberg, Called to Suffer, Called to Triumph, p. 230)

God Rules over Persecution and Suffering 

There are thousands of stories like this to tell today. And even more over the centuries of Christian history. The lesson comes true again and again: God uses the persecution and suffering of his people to spread the truth of Christ and to bless the world (cf. Luke 21:12–13). Everyone I know in this church who has been to jail in the cause of defending the life of the unborn would say that great good came from it. And I don't doubt that the suit against us as a church and against some individuals will serve to advance the cause of Christ and his kingdom.
I want to encourage you this morning from Acts 8:1–8 that God rules over the sufferings of the church and causes them to spread spiritual power and the joy of faith in a lost world. It is not his only way. But it does seem to be a frequent way. God spurs the church into missionary service by the suffering she endures. Therefore we must not judge too quickly the apparent setbacks and tactical "defeats" of the church. If you see things with the eyes of God, the Master strategist (who cannot lose because he is omnipotent), what you see in every setback is the positioning for a greater advance and a greater display of his wisdom and power and love.

Four Encouraging Facts About Our God and Mission 

This is the main point of Acts 8:1–8 (probably of the whole book of Acts). Let me break it down into four parts: four tremendously encouraging facts about God's way of guiding the church in its mission.

1. God Makes Persecution Serve Mission

First, verse 1b shows us that God makes persecution serve the Great Commission. "On that day [the day of Stephen's murder] a great persecution arose against that church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles."
Moving into Judea, Samaria, and Beyond
Up until now in the book of Acts all the ministry has taken place in Jerusalem. No one had moved out to Judea and Samaria. But Jesus had said in Acts 1:8 that the coming of the Holy Spirit was to empower missions in Jerusalem and beyond. "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."
Now Acts 8:1 uses exactly those two unreached areas in that order: " . . . they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria." So whether the church may have awakened to her calling eventually without persecution, the fact is that God used persecution to move his people into the mission he had given them.
To confirm this missionary purpose of the persecution, look at Acts 11:19. "Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews." But in Antioch some spoke to Greeks also. In other words, the persecution not only sent the church to Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1) but also beyond to the Gentiles (Acts 11:19).
The Danger of Comfort, Ease, and Prosperity
I think there is a tremendous lesson for us here. The lesson is not just that God is sovereign and turns setbacks to triumphs. The lesson is that comfort and ease and affluence and prosperity and safety and freedom often cause a tremendous inertia in the church. Inertia is the tendency of something that is standing still to stay standing still and of something moving to keep moving. The very things that we think would produce personnel and energy and creative investment of time and money in the cause of Christ and his kingdom, instead produce, again and again, the exact opposite—weakness, apathy, lethargy, self-centeredness, preoccupation with security.
The Star Tribune had an article on Friday (May 3, 1991, p. 2A) showing that the richer we are, the less we give to the church and its mission proportionate to our income. (The poorest fifth of the church give 3.4% of their income to the church and the richest fifth give 1.6%—half as much as the poorer church members.) It's a strange principle, that probably goes right to the heart of our sinfulness and Christ's sufficiency—the principle that hard times, like persecution, often produce more personnel, more prayer, more power, more open purses than easy times.
I know it's true, from Jesus' parable of the four soils, that some fall away during persecution because they have no root. But it seems to be true that even more people are like the third soil—"the cares of the world, and the delight in riches, and the desire for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful" (Marks 4:19).
Persecution can have harmful effects on the church. But prosperity, it seems, is even more devastating to the mission to which God calls us. My point here is not that we should seek persecution. That would be presumption—like jumping off the temple. The point is that we should be very wary of prosperity and excessive ease and comfort and affluence, and we should not be disheartened but filled with hope if we are persecuted for righteousness' sake (Matthew 5:10). Because, as Luke shows us here: God makes persecution serve the mission of the church.

2. Stephen Is Honored, Not Blamed

The second encouraging thing to see in this text is that Stephen is honored and not blamed. The persecution in Jerusalem started because of Stephen. That's clear here; and it's clear in Acts 11:19—"the persecution that arose over Stephen."
I can imagine some cautious and prudent and well-meaning believers in Jerusalem saying: "Stephen's speech was utterly uncalled for. There are other less inflammatory ways to defend the truth than to call the Sanhedrin 'stiff-necked people who always resist the Holy Spirit' (Acts 7:51). It's always hotheads like this that get the church into trouble. Now the whole city is against us. Look at the waste of life and property and time. Look at the families that are being broken up. Look at the homes being lost and the children being taken away from all their friends. Now we have to live like refugees and exiles in Judea and Samaria. Why didn't Stephen think before he spoke?"
But when Luke tells God's version of the story, Stephen is a man full of grace and power (Acts 6:8). When he spoke his final words that enraged the council, Luke says he was filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:55). And here in Acts 8:2 Luke says that "devout men buried Stephen, and made great lamentation over him." Stephen is honored not blamed for the persecution—at least by devout men. Worldly people might be more worried about goods and kindred and status. But the devout people, who think the way Jesus thinks about life, they "let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill, God's truth abideth still."
So the second encouraging truth here is this: when persecution comes because of courageous, faithful, God-honoring obedience, godly people don't blame the servant of the Lord. They give honor.

3. Adversaries Can Become Advocates

The third encouraging thing to see here is that sometimes our worst enemies become our best friends. Verse 3: "But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison." This Saul is the one who would be dramatically converted and become the best friend and advocate Christianity ever had.
We need to live in this hope again and again: fearsome enemies can become precious friends. Adversaries can become advocates. Critics can become comrades. For most of us it's pretty easy to believe that an intimate disciple can become a deadly betrayer, like Judas. That's the way the world is. But we need to remember that a deadly persecutor can also become a great ally and partner in the cause of Christ. That's the way God is. That's the kind of power he has.
Look on your adversaries with the eyes of faith—that someday, by the power of God they could experience a turn-around as amazing and unexpected as Saul's.

4. The Word of God Is Good News and Brings Joy

Finally, the fourth encouraging thing in this text is that even though the Word of God brought persecution and exile, it is still good news and brings joy.
The paragraph that begins with verse 4 ends with verse 8. Verse 4 says that the scattered, persecuted Christians preached the Word wherever they went. They announced the very Word that brought persecution as good news (euanggelizomai). And verse 8 confirms that it was good news because it says, "So there was much joy in that city." The Word that brings persecution also brings joy—and the joy it brings is so much greater and longer than the trouble it brings that the trade-off is worth it.
Why? Well, verse 7 says that unclean spirits were coming out of people and leaving them free and whole and pure. It says that many that were paralyzed or lame were being healed. But the main reason there is joy is what we read in verse 5: "Philip went down to a city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ."
Christ alone has the power to deliver from Satan and all his evil. Christ alone has the power heal our bodies now and finally in the resurrection. Christ alone has the right and power to forgive our sins and make us right with God (Acts 10:43). So if you have Christ, if you know him and trust him, then no matter how severe the persecution is, no matter how great the suffering of life, you have hope and you have joy. "There was much joy in that city" because Philip preached Christ.

Conclusion 

So I urge you this morning to put your faith in Jesus Christ. Because if you do then all these reasons for encouragement become very personally true for you and not just generally true.
  1. God makes persecution serve the unstoppable mission of the church—your mission, your ministry.
  2. If your faithfulness brings trouble to the church (like Stephen's did), you will be honored and not blamed—at least by the godly.
  3. Your worst critics can become your precious comrades by the power of Christ's converting grace.
  4. And the very Word—the gospel—that brings persecution sometimes, brings joy always and forever.
© Desiring God
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Desiring God.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Friday 27 April 2012

Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans


Archbishop Eliud Wabukala of Kenya

Wilson Chowdhry, Bishop Dr Felix Orji, Bishop Dr Michael Nazir Ali, Bishop Dr M. Dobbs.


The Emmanuel Centre, Marsham Street London became the venue for a conference of the Primates Council of FCA International, April 26th 2012.  The Invitation only event was attended by Bishops and other leaders of the Anglican Communion from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Australasia in a celebration of the unity and experience of the Gospel.

This was a opportunity for the Anglican church to stand united against the challenges it is facing.  The event was designed with a specific purpose to enhance partnerships amongst churches.

At the event Mr Michael Abel of People International based in Lahore spoke of the increasing persecution of Christians living there.

Wilson Chowdhry who attended said;

"For me this was a chance to join with the Anglican community and highlight the suffering of Pakistani Christians.  The event was well organised and the foyer to the main hall offered a good opportunity to network and establish new productive links with wider groups.  Hopefully seeds have been sown that will coordinate a more joined up approach, in tackling the persecution faced by many Christians living in the Islamic world."

Wednesday 25 April 2012

French Kissing Equality Goodbye


  French Kissing Equality Goodbye

Ranbir Singh

'Liberty Leading the People' by Delacroix

The twenty per cent polled by Marine Le Pen in the recent first round of elections in France has come as a shock to many. She is said to have softened the often blatant racism, xenophobia and even fascism of her father who founded the Front National. Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter are said to lead a ‘far right’ party and Marine herself is called a candidate of  the ‘right’.
Marine-Le-Pen

Yet how much of the Front National’s success can be laid at this supposed ‘softer’ image? Our memories fail us if we are to take this assessment at face value. The bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989 included celebrations of ethnic diversity. African-American operatic diva Jessye Norman was invited to sing Marseillaises in the Place de Concorde as director Jean-Paul Goude projected the Revolution as something akin to world culture. Only the Front National explicitly rejected the updated message of 1789 which now included feminism, civil and human rights, anti-racism, cultural and racial inclusion, as well as widening the message of the Revolution of social justice. Yet only thirteen years later the presidential ballot of 5 May 2002 saw a run off between Chirac and Le Pen, arguably a much better success than that achieved this week by Marine. The French were forced to ask themselves why they had such a powerful Far Right party comparable in strength to analogous movements in Belgium and Austria, and in fact more powerful than neo-Nazi elements in Germany. France now had the very real possibility of having the first unashamedly fascist style government since the time of Vichy. Was this not a diametric opposite of everything which 1789 had envisaged? Yet at the same time was it really so unsurprising? Is the flourishing of extreme racism and ethnocentrism perhaps a direct result of the French Revolution itself? France, the birthplace of Jewish emancipation in Europe and the Rights of Man has in many ways become the intellectual lab of anti-Semitism, racism and prejudice. Indeed the country has become host to the largest post-war fascist, racist and national socialist movement. France claims to stand in stark contrast to the Anglo-Saxon policies of multiculturalism as found in Britain, America and Canada, with its unitary policy of assimilation. Of course the contrast between the naive ideal theory and reality could not be greater. Did Jacobinism unleash something sinister which has pervaded French social and political thinking ever since?


France in the 1920s became a cockpit of exotic cultures. Modernist art combined elements from Africa and Polynesia. Jazz, which had arrived with American troops in the First World War, flourished and became an integral part of the social and cultural life of Paris attracting African-Americans denied equality in their own country. The exotic dancing of Josephine Baker led French men to queue for the Revue Nègre. Sidney Bechet the saxophonist was another who came while Louis Armstrong felt at home in Paris. Jazz was attractive because it was both primitive and modern, the bodily expression of dance expressed through the latest technology of wireless and gramophone. Enthusiasts insisted on authenticity known as le jazz nègre. Black Jazz was said to have colonised Paris with Le Hot-Club in Paris reaching international status in the world of this music genre. Yet there was also a move for ‘French jazz’ to divorce the music from its African-American origins. With global depression it was obvious that French modernism was a minority taste. Rampant xenophobia reared its ugly head as ‘alien’ black and foreign musicians were denied employment. From the 1920s the pages of L’Action française Maurras regarded modernism as subversive to French tradition with ‘black jazz’ being especially ascribed as decadent. Surely this stands in contrast to as education system and state authority impose a uniformity which mitigates against multiculturalism? People of all ethnic backgrounds should conform to the national stew and unity of the republic. The official French doctrine, derived from the ideals of the Revolution, then of the état laïque, is that since all citizens are equal in rights, so their racial origins, or their culture or religion, are purely a private matter. From this it follows, first, that official research and statistics about origins are not allowed. While France reached greater prosperity in the 1960s the largely Maghrebi, Portuguese and Spanish inhabitants of the bidonvilles were excluded. Even with their clearance in 1964 the resultant ghettos continued to seal off any social mobility. The republic’s ideal of conformity ignored the reality in the banlieus, tower block suburbs of La Courneuve, Aubervilles and Saint-Denis outside Paris which in places of worship, food and colloquial French are very much a different world from republican values. The government expects immigrants to integrate fully while rejecting any notion of multiculturalism as practised in Britain. Yet the minorities are rejected by the white host community. Racism against non-whites, largely Maghrebis and blacks, has replaced the xenophobia once prevalent towards Poles, Italians and Portuguese. But the Europeans were able to integrate into wider French society because they were white. Laws to tackle racism are difficult to enforce. Discrimination in jobs and by the police weighs heavily on French non-white minorities. Whites move out of housing or schools where Maghrebis and blacks congregate too much thus creating ghettos in diametric opposite to France’s official policy of integration.John Ardagh, formerly of The Times and the Observer in his 1999 book France in the New Century Portrait of a Changing Society (Viking, London, 1999):

“The State promotes an integration which the public then obstructs; the public stresses cultural differences which the State refuses to recognize. That, in a word, is the basic dilemma of immigration today in a France that officially does not accept multiculturalism or ethnic communities. On the one hand the State regards all citizens as equal, with the same full rights, and turns a blind eye to any distinctions between them of race or culture. But the French public, in its mass, does not regard immigrants as fully or equally French, and will constantly remind them of their otherness. The State expects those who become French citizens to integrate fully, and many immigrants would themselves like this: but the French people make it hard. Conversely, many immigrants would like to retain something of their own culture and identity: but the French State in turn makes this hard. It is a terrible paradox. A Breton, for example, is easily accepted as Breton yet also fully French: but the many Beurs who see themselves as French Arabs, and would like to be respected as such find it much more difficult. Although they may hate the American model, they sometimes envy its acceptance of diversity.”

Film belatedly recognising the contribution made by colonial troops to the French army

The French Revolution of 1789 provided the civic idea of the nation, one in which the collective sovereignty of the inhabitants as citizens in a given territory constituted both state and nation, regardless of ethnicity and language. The civic nation has since become synonymous with constitutional democracy, the rule of law and human rights. From the perspective of eighteenth century Europe, nationalism was a subversive doctrine which introduced the notion of popular sovereignty as the basis of legitimacy of government, substituting that of divine right of kings. The new legitimacy therefore came from the nation. But Robespierre and Napoleon were also the first modern dictators and worked on the premise that they served the ‘general will’. Inspired by Rousseau’s divination of the people, Robespierre divided the French into two binary opposites: people and enemies. The latter were to be exterminated and indeed 50,000 people died in the Terror. The Nazis were in fact to emulate the Jacobins in minute detail. The terror is not a side-effect of the system. It is the system. The earthly paradise can only be achieved when the ‘enemy’ is eliminated. Massacres are necessary in an ideology in which killing is an inherent element and takes on a momentum of its own. Rousseau, prophet of the 1789 revolution, provides the antithesis of liberalism by creating an anarchic individualism, an individualism which extends from the intellectual sphere to that of the passions. He appealed to existing la sensibilité, proneness to emotion, which was admired by cultivated people in eighteenth century France. This overturned existing conventions by justifying direct and violent emotion uninformed by thought and for this reason is the father of what we recognise as fascism by introducing the virus of the totalitarian state. After all the Social Contract claims to solve the problem by allowing freedom without the brute force needed for order. In this context we can understand why Poles who flocked to Napoleon’s banner found revolutionary rhetoric to be empty of real liberation because French imperialism oppressed them even more than the tsar. More ominously disillusionment with French rule led German thinkers to seek answers in a spiritual quest which became romanticism. The French Revolution had therefore led to the exaggerated imperialism of Napoleon, and the rise of a romantic conception of national cultures notably by German thinkers such as Fichte, Herder and Hegel, imprisoning humanity into certain uncompromising categories of nation, ethnicity and therefore race.
This was noticeable in the cradle of revolution itself. The French historian Tain said that the revolution of 1789 had brought forth barbaric, animalistic baboon types. The Parisian bourgeoisie deployed language such as classes dangeruesses in racial terms describing the proletariat as being of low intelligence, violence, raw animality and moral corruption. For the ideologue of modern racism, Arthur de Gobineau, this was not an age of progress but one of despair as he translated aristocratic fears of the seething masses into racial terms in his 1855 book Essaie sur l’inégalité des races humanes (Essay on the Inequality of Human Races) asserting that whites or Aryans were the master race. The fissures of 1789 were manifest in the language of identification to act in the best interests of France brought to a head in the anti-Semitic Dreyfus Affair where Radicals and socialists found themselves as patriotes pitted against right-wing nationalistes in an obvious overlap of self-descriptive language. Anti-Semitism was an essential glue for Nationalists who saw the true French nation as excluding the Jews who supposedly ruled them. In 1902 the Scènes et doctrines du nationalisme by Maurice Barrès articulated an organic French society which emphasised rural culture and respect for ancestry as opposed to the rootlessness and materialism of urban industrialised society. A central concept in this French nationalism was that of the Jew as outsider and traitor. The Jew was the perfect ‘Other’, symbolising everything that was not organically French. In 1886 the failed publicist Edouard Drumont produced La France Juive employing Gobineau’s terminology of Aryan and Semitic to describe races and reach out to those who felt left behind during France’s industrialisation such as small traders struggling against large department stores. Drumont blamed Jewish high finance and capitalism even though most department stores were owned by Catholics and Protestants outnumbered Jews in banking. When workers in Fourmies in 1891 protesting for an eight-hour day were fired upon by troops, Drumont blamed Jews for the massacre in his attempt to use anti-Semitism to garner proletariat support. But of all the hate preachers of organic nationalism few surpassed Charles Maurras for whom the guilt of Dreyfus was self-evident simply because he was Jewish.

Drumont and his classic anti-Semitic hate manual

Yet the little known fact is that organic French nationalism lagged behind the Left.In their book Why the Jews?, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin:

“The belief in Jewish world domination was spread during the twentieth century through the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and used by the Nazis as a justification for genocide. This mythical worldview was first introduced into the West’s consciousness not by racists, Fascists, or Nazis, but rather by socialists in nineteenth-century France.”

In the early nineteenth century, Pierre Leroux coined the term “socialism” and identified Jews with capitalism and exploitation of the French proletariat. Along with Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier was a founding father of French socialism, and he referred to Jews as “parasites, merchants, userers”, and was against their emancipation. In 1845 Alphonse Toussenel’s Les Juifs, rois de l’époque (The Jews, kings of the Epoch) said cosmopolitan Jews dominated Europe. But the most extreme attitude was perhaps taken by Proudhon who justified pogroms in Russia and in December 1847 and said all Jews must be exterminated or expelled to Asia. During the Dreyfus Affair, the French socialists were either indifferent or even hostile to the army officer’s plight. When they eventually did take a stand, they made it clear that the Jewish element in the persecution was irrelevant.

Unhappy with what he saw as a republic dominated by opportunist politicians influenced by the Rothschilds and Reinachs, Edouard Drumont made his fortune from the thousands of La France Juive sold and in the process politically transformed anti-Semitism from an originally socialist weapon peddled by Proudhon. Jews were now not just usurers and capitalists but the cause of all evils through parasitic capital which fleeced peasants and large department stores which undermined the small shopkeepers. Drumont’s slogan was La France aux Français which he circulated through the new paper he founded in 1892, La Libre Parole. In 1889 the Ligue Nationale Antisémitique de France was founded and led by the Marquis de Morès, with a vice president who actually called himself a “national socialist”.


With a new nationalism that denounced economic injustices, the rich, parliamentary democracy and called for a fervently authoritarian state, there was also a French socialism which was national and not international. Barrés used the term Socialist Nationalism and it reared its ugly head during the Dreyfus Affair when Jews were denounced as not being French. In the words of Maurras:

“[A] form of socialism which, when stripped of its democratic and cosmopolitan accretions would fit in with nationalism just as a well-made glove fits a beautiful hand.”

Although his L’Action Française made great efforts in appealing to the French proletariat, Maurras was now being superseded in both his nationalism and working-class appeals by the former members of the French Left. In, 1903 the former “Red” socialist Pierre Biétry founded the Nationalist Socialist Party which espoused “Yellow” socialism: national solidarity in lieu of class conflict, where private property would be sacrosanct, and workers would benefit from profit shares as management and unions worked side by side. Anti-Semitism, a strong state and the personality cult of leader were other essential elements. The emergence of Federation des Jaunes de France was the model for similar European groups such as the DAP (German Workers Party) which emerged in Austria in 1903, and the national socialism of Enrico Corradini in Italy. Yellow unions had their origin in workers opposed to the strike of 1899. Lanoir established the Bourse de Travail in Paris and gained the support of the nationalist majority on the city council. Biétry had in fact been his deputy until rebelled against his authority and was expelled. This led to him forming the Fédération des Jaunes and the Nationalist Socialist party, the latter collapsing within a year. Elected to parliament for Brest, Biétry formed Le Parti Propriétiste anti-étatiste with a platform to defend property ownership for the small man not big industry. Indeed he opposed capitalists and especially Jews, proposing the nationalisation of the Western Railway to be run by its own employees. Yellow socialism hence resembled what would later be called fascism. Maurras emulated attempts by Barrès in the 1880s to create a union of nationalists and socialists by reaching out to that prophet of syndicalism himself, Georges Sorel. A Proudhon Circle was set up by Georges Valois to develop an axis of both Nationalists and Radicals to combat the Republic, Jews and capitalists. The resultant ‘integral’ nationalism was therefore based on excluding everything defined as anti-France. Sorel in his 1908 book Révolution sur la violence saw workers responding to the idealist myth of a general strike and advocating violent change.
Yet xenophobia and racism continued practised by the traditional French Left. In 1910 French seamen in Marseilles went on strike against the employment of Kabyles by the merchant navy. From 1910 to 1912 Italian immigrants in oil refineries fought with North African strike breakers. In 1913 Kabyles were attacked by Belgian immigrants in the coal mines of northern France. In World War I French trade unions lambasted colonial workers for lowering the wage levels of native whites. From 1917 African workers were subject to violent street level assaults by the French proletariat in Dijon and Le Havre. The Hatmakers’ Union campaigned against the immigrant “lepers” while the Hotel Workers’ Federation targeted an invasion of foreign labour. Le Peuple, mouthpiece of the General Confederation of Labour denounced foreign labour. Violent clashes occurred in 1931 between French workers on one side with their Belgian, Moroccan, Italian and Polish compatriots used as strikebreakers or competition. Even the Communist Party claimed “La France aux Français!”. French Communists were hostile to refugees and the racist and anti-Semitic venom spewing from its own mouthpiece ironically named L’Humanité led communist Jews in 1938 to form their separate Union des Sociétés Juives. Of course after 1945 the communists joined the national postwar amnesia as it conveniently hid the two year alliance of Hitler and Stalin which they had supported. During this postwar period the  PCF (French Communist Party) dropped all pretence of anti-colonialism in order to champion national imperialism. Stressing unity and assimilation the PCF said it was in the interests of the colonies to remain French in order to be safe from American imperialism. The USSR with its many nationalities was cited as a template for a fully democratic imperial France of 100 million citizens of all races. The PCF’s anti-Americanism led them in 1954 to forge an axis with Pierre Poujade and his UDCA’s attack on Jews, foreigners and support for colonialism in Algeria. Le Pen was to emerge from this Poujadist fold. From the 1960s the PCF complained that conservative governments were dumping immigrants in the working-class suburbs, industrial zones and communes that encircled Paris. From 1978 PCF mayors blocked access to public housing by immigrants. A quota of fifteen percent was imposed on immigrant children attending summer holiday camps for youth from deprived backgrounds. On 5 November 1980 the Political Bureau of the PCF condoned this official racist strategy. In Vitry the PCF mayor went so far as to lead the bulldozing of an immigrant worker hostel. In February 1981 the Communist mayor of Montigray, Robert Hue, coordinated a harassment campaign against a Moroccan family accused of drug-dealing. Hue later became leader of the French Communist Party. The erosion of its traditional working-class base led the PCF to adopt a strategy of racist populism. This was barely distinguishable from Le Pen who himself managed to attract working class vote to the Front National, support that previously went to the Communists. Indeed the party has overtaken the PCF in becoming the foremost proletariat party in France, while also gaining support from farmers and small tradesmen. Front National has established its own parallel trade unions which are very strong in the police and prison service. Gaining greater proletariat support than Maurras had ever enjoyed, the situation was complicated in places such as Marseilles where dockers were quoted as both members of the Communist CGT and supporting the FN.
U.S. soldiers of the U.S. 28th Infantry Division march along the Champs Elysees on Aug. 29, 1944, four days after the liberation of Paris
Sikh soldiers in Paris during World War 2

Vichy is a collaborationist period which French leaders have consistently failed to come to terms with. Voting power to Pétain at Vichy in 1940 was no impediment in René Coty becoming president in 1954. Indeed successive presidents laid wreaths at the Marshal’s tomb. It was only in 1995 that President Jacques Chirac admitted the inescapable guilt of Vichy in the deportation and extermination of French Jews. But Vichy is perhaps merely a reflection of the snister flipside of the revolutionary heritage which has shaped modern France. Towards the end of his life it was revealed that socialist president François Mitterand had been associated as a student with the Cagoule or Comité Secret d’Action Révolutionnaire, founded in 1937 by Éugène Deloncle as a radical and violent offshoot of the anti-Semitic paramilitary Action Française. In February 1935 he was photographed on a march against foreign students with the banner “Go on strike against the wogs”. Mitterand also wrote for a newspaper which admired Mussolini and became leader of a nationalist student group. Indeed he later served with the Vichy regime. As head of state he never formally acknowledged the collabarionist national stain. Even as socialist president Mitterand even then he insisted that the state bore no responsibility for what happened to Jews during the Occupation and Vichy. But he was far from the only Leftist in Vichy. Admiral François Darlan was a radical socialist and republican who in 1940 joined Pétain’s regime as Minister of Marine Affairs, and also met Hitler twice and drafted legislation for Jews to be deported to the death camps. Maurice Papon belonged to the Radical Socialist Party, joining the Air Ministry in 1931 at age twenty, and in 1936 took a role with the Popular Front government of the Left, only to Vichy Ministry of the Interior in 1941 and take an active part in rounding up Jews for extermination. Papon his racist and repressive policies into the 1950s by crushing Algerian demands for independence as prefect of Constantine. He also imposed curfews on Algerians in Paris and blocked enquiry into the massacre of forty of pro-FLN demonstrators in Paris on 17 October 1961, and the subsequent and incarceration of thousands. He managed to keep his Nazi past hidden until 1981 as he served successive French government. Réne Bousquet had also come from a radical socialist background yet became a Vichy prefect in 1940, and head of national police in 1942. He was so successful in the round up and deportation of French Jews that he greatly impressed Himmler.
Nazi poster encouraging French recruits for the Waffen SS

France has always accorded a great respect to its intellectuals and it was here that Holocaust denial found its first pseudo-academic hero and he was firmly a creature of the Left. In 1948 Paul Rassinier published Le Passage de la Ligne (Crossing the Line). This first book as with the sequels attacked survivors’ claims regarding the atrocities committed by the Nazis, especially in there being an explicit and deliberate plan by the Third Reich to exterminate the Jews. In 1977 Rassinier’s books were reissued in one volume. By now he was denying that there were even any gas chambers. Dismissing the credibility of testimonials from Holocaust survivors, he stated that concentration camps were evidence of the benign nature of the Nazi regime and that the Holocaust was merely being used by Israel as a guilt trip milk cow in order to financially exploit West Germany under the guise of reparations. The truth was prevented from emerging due the all-powerful nefarious network of Zionists. Such ideas being staple food for neo-Nazi groups worldwide and especially in France. Yet Rassinier had joined the French Communist Party in 1922 at sixteen, moving to the Socialist Party in the 1930s and even enlisted for the Resistance following the German invasion. Captured, he was incarcerated in Buchenwald concentration camp and on his release in 1945 he was elected member of the National Assembly as a Socialist. Serving for a year he then began a writing career which by exonerating his former Nazi captors provided essential foundations for the pseudo-academic undiscipline known as Holocaust denial. In the 1970s French anti-racists laid claim to droit à la difference, the right of ethnic minorities to retain their own language, religion and cultural identity. This was the antithesis of French republicanism with its tradition of assimilation. The New Right transformed this right to difference to defend European national cultures. This meant that the French had as much right to survive as Amazonian tribes. Mixing of cultures would damage the cultural identity of both host and minority communities. The only solution was an apartheid style separation which justified exclusion and repatriation of non-whites. French culture must be protected from being swamped and immigrants themselves were being damaged through contact with the superior numbers of Europeans among whom they lived by being allowed to recover their own traditions.To thsi effect Alain de Benoist founded Groupement pour Recherche et d’Études par la Civilization Européen (Research and Study Group for a European civilization), with the acronym GRECE, in 1968 at the age of twenty-five. GREC referred to classical Greece and emphasised it was an intellectual battlefield for what became the Novelle Droite (New Right). Taking the ideas of Italian national socialist Julius Evola, De Benoist looked to the pagan glory of classical Greece and felt that Christianity was an alien colonising ideology which had no place in Europe. It was this which caused a chasm with America’s New Right. Indeed de Benoist opposed the Americanisation of Europe through television, fast food, mass media and worship of the dollar. As he himself admitted in 1982:

“Better to wear the helmet of a Red Army soldier than to live on a diet of hamburgers in Brooklyn.”

He condemned NATO and dallied with the New Left during the May 1968 student uprising in Paris and claimed he was in favour of ethnopluralism, cultural diversity and preservation of ethnic identities. But his ideas were parallel to that of the National Front under Nick Griffin, who by 1985 had moved to a Third Positionist stance in praising black separatism, Khomeini’s Iran, Gaddaffi of Libya and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana.
De Benoist in 1993:

“Will the earth be reduced to something homogenous because of the deculturalizing and depersonalizing trends for which American imperialism is now the most arrogant rector? Or will people the means for the necessary resistance in their beliefs, traditions, and ways of seeing the world? This is really the decisive question that has been raised at the beginning of the next millennium.”

Bolstered by the ideas of Alain de Benoist, Le Pen often said that the native French were now the real victims of racism in France. He denied xenophobia and hatred, and even voiced his respect for Arab civilisation but stressed that Muslims would enjoy their own culture better in their own countries. By now Le Pen said it was no longer a conflict between capitalism and Communism but instead economic nationalism versus internationalism. Free market ideas were abandoned for statism, economic protectionism and anti-globalisation he also praised Saddam Hussein and condemned US military action against Iraq in 1991. was well received by the dictator in Baghdad, lauding him as a “great Arab patriot”.
Saddam Hussein meeting with Jean-Marie Le Pen

In 1993 Charles Pasqua said that the Front National only reflected the same values as the majority. But rather than influencing the majority of French into becoming racist or sympathetic towards fascism, perhaps the Front National merely exhibits a behaviour pattern which can be traced back to Jacobinism itself. Calling Front National ‘Far Right’ only clouds its ideological origins on the Left and why in the second round of voting Marine Le Pen appeals even more to traditional socialists than to those who have supported Sarkozy.
Le Pen minimising the Holocaust in 2009 in the European Parliament
 

Free Zumba and Children's Bollywood Classes!



The East Ilford Betterment Partnership and British Pakistani Christian Association has secured funding via the Redbridge CVS   “Fit for Fun” programme. The scheme  encourages  groups in Redbridge to improve their fitness levels and self worth by giving groups a chance to have 20 weeks of FREE exercise training.

The sessions will be held at Clementswood Community Centre located  at 14a Connaught Road, Ilford, Essex  IG1 1RN at the following times:

If you would like to take part in this unique opportunity please contact the group for the start date

Zumba for women every Friday  evening from 19:00  - 20:00

Bollywood for Children every Tuesday afternoon from 17:00 – 18:00

The classes are open to all members of the public however due to a shortage of space, we ask local people to contact us early to book your place. Bookings will be reserved on a first come first served basis.  A start date will be fixed once we have completed ourt list of potential  participants. 

Please contact  Wilson Chowdhry the Bollywood Dance co-ordinator for more information.  Tel: 020 8514 0861 Fax: 020 8514 2438 email:wilson@aasecurity.co.uk

For Details on Zumba dance for women email Sania Satwat:  eibp@hotmail.co.uk

Monday 23 April 2012

Wilson Chowdhry to speak at protest against gender discrimination by intolerant Islamic nations.

A public demonstration against sport sexism at the Olympic games will be held outside the Saudi Arabian embassy, 30 Charles Street, London W1J 5DZ on 25 April 2012 at 12 noon. (Nearest tube station: Green Park). 

Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association Wilson Chowdhry has been invited to speak out, against the gender discrimination imposed upon Saudi Arabian and Brunei women athletes.  Imam Dr Taj Hargey a frequent speaker at BPCA protests has organised the first protest of it's kind in the UK after another Olympics will be bereft of women athletes from these nations.

Wilson Chowdhry said;

"Imam Dr Taj Hargey is known for his indomitable spirit and passion for justice, which has seen him at the fore of the challenge for Islamic reform.  He has proposed this protest after yet another disgraceful attempt to undermine the worth of women in the intolerant nations of Dubai and Brunei.  The London Olympic Committee simply cannot allow this injustice to prevail, if they truly espouse the vaunted and much lauded Olympic ideal."

Dr Taj Hargey the organiser of the protest and leader of 
Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford (MECO) said;


"we urge the British public to support our campaign for Muslim female empowerment by targeting those who subvert pristine Islam. Saudi Arabia and Brunei must be barred from the forthcoming London games because of their blatant sexism. Anything less will be an embarrassing toleration of female discrimination in our liberal democracy and gender equal society."

United Nations urged to take action on persecution of minorities in Pakistan!





The UN recently opened a window for submissions for their "universal Periodic Review" of Pakistan.  

Humanitarian Groups working in and around Pakistan were in a frenzy to submit their reports of no more than 5 pages, by deadline 31st March.

BPCA was approached by Peter Coleman of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian legal organisation based in Austria.  They required research material for a report they wished to write a submission  on the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, specifically involving the blasphemy laws.  Our assistance was enabled  ADF to produce the following report, for which our contribution has been credited:


Whilst in process we undertook to submit our own report on Pakistan to the UN which includes much broader inequalities and persecution faced by Pakistani  Christians:



We then assisted a supporter group through colleague Jesbir Singh from the "Free Sarabjit Singh" campaign.  Jesbir submitted a report on the illegal prisoners of war in India and Pakistan dating back from the two Pak-India wars.  Jesbir also described the captivity faced by many innocent border strayers along the Pakistan/India land border. You can read her report here:


The next review will be open in 3 years and we intend to update our submission during that cycle.  Please pray that the UN reads our submissions and presses for change in Pakistan.




Saturday 21 April 2012

Michelle Chaudhry speaks on the life of Cecil Chaudhry (RIP)

Group Captain Cecil Chaudhry laid to rest will full military honours.

Dear Friends,

I am so touched by the kindness and love expressed by all of you; it has really been a great source of strength and comfort to me and my family at this extremely difficult time. 

The four of us stand so proud and fortunate to be the children of such a brave, courageous and illustrious man. My father was bestowed with numerous Honours, from Gallantry Awards to equally high Peace time citations, he also received enormous recognition for his contributions towards the rights of Religious Minorities in Pakistan and in the field of education too, his services are second to none. My Father was a proud, dignified and daring man, who always held his head high and when life presented its worst adversity before him, he took it in his stride and refused bow his head even in the state of extreme pain. He fought cancer; an absolute merciless disease like a brave and courageous warrior right to his last breath. 

Our Father was a National Hero, a highly decorated war veteran, a legend of the Pakistan Air Force, a bold and fearless Human Rights Activist, a beacon of light and inspiration for many Pakistanis. His death has been widely mourned - from the President of Pakistan to the man on the street. Catholic schools in Lahore and Rawalpindi / Islamabad were closed today as a mark of respect. A one minute silence was observed at most Christian Institutions across the country and citations were read out at various institutions. 

However it was my Father’s first family The Pakistan Air Force that has left us completely overwhelmed. The Chief of Air Staff, senior serving officers and all the Officers at the Lahore base went beyond all expectations to bid farewell to our father and their colleague in an extremely befitting manner. 

A funeral ceremony was held at the Lahore Base a “100% percent full uniform attendance” was ordered, the Honor Guards were flown in from Air Head Quarters, he was presented with a Guard of Honor, was carried by the Air Force pall bearers in a coffin wrapped in the flag of Pakistan, a gun salute was given at the cemetery as he was being laid to rest. 

Floral wreaths were presented on behalf of the Chief Minister Punjab, Chief of Air Staff, Chief of Army Staff, the Naval Chief, The Corps Commander Lahore, The Ministry of Defence and thousands of family, friends and well-wishers from across the world. 
He was given a funeral with complete Military Honours, the kind he truly deserved. 

We apologize for not being able to thank each one of you individually, your Facebook posts, comments, emails, text messages and telephone calls have left us emotionally overwhelmed. No amount of words can express our gratitude. Thank you ever so much. God bless each one of you abundantly.

Michelle Chaudhry

Friday 20 April 2012

BPCA AND LONDON MUSICIANS RALLY TO FREE ASIA BIBI FROM PAKISTAN’S DEATH ROW NOW

Ooberfuse playing live at BPCA's Trafalgar Square Concert 10th March 2012

The 3rd anniversary of Asia Bibi’s death row imprisonment will be marked by a peace rally and concert outside the Pakistani Embassy in London on 12pm, Thursday 14th June 2012.

On 14th June 2009 Asia Bibi, mother of five, was condemned to death by hanging by a Pakistani court. Her crime was to refuse to convert to Islam, holding firm to her Christian faith in the face of aggressive solicitations from Muslim interlocutors.

Interspersed between musical contributions from Pakistani singer/songwriter, Hammad Bailey and East-meets-West band, ooberfuse, there will be readings from Asia’s autobiography, translated into English for the first time and the first public performance of new single ‘Free Asia Bibi.

In her autobiography Asia says : ‘My world was turned upside down one day in June. The day should have been like any other. When I woke up in the morning I never imagined that this Sunday would change my life forever. June 14th is etched on my mind. I still recall all the details’.

Wilson Chowdhry from the British Pakistani Christian Association says : ‘Until Asia Bibi is freed from the hellish prison where she has spent the last 3 years we should use all the opportunities we have in the UK to speak out on her behalf and for all those whose political and religious freedoms are compromised in any way’.

Hal St.John, from ooberfuse, says : ‘Translating Asia’s autobiography into English has brought vividly to life the nightmare ordeal she and her family have been subjected to over the last 3 years. It is difficult for Western people like me, who take their religious freedoms so much for granted, to fully comprehend the violent and dark forces that can be at work elsewhere. For example, the Governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, was assassinated by a member of his security team because of his defence of Bibi. Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Minorities, met a similar fate for saying that we should “not kill in the name of religion, but love one another.”

Front-woman for ooberfuse Cherrie Anderson says : ‘we hope that the song Free Asia Bibi, performed in conjunction with Hammad Bailey, will help to spread the word about the grave injustice Asia and others like her are enduring today around the world.’

Please sign our Asia Bibi petition:


http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/justice4asia

Asia Bibi  (Urdu: آسیہ نو رین) is a Pakistani Christian woman who was convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court, receiving a sentence of death by hanging. The verdict, which would need to be upheld by a superior court, has received worldwide attention. If executed, Noreen would be the first woman in Pakistan to be lawfully killed for blasphemy. Christian minister Shahbaz Bhatti and Pakistani government politician Salmaan Taseer were both killed for opposing the blasphemy laws.

14th June 2012 Peace Concert and rally is organised to mark the 3rd anniversary of Asia Bibi’s imprisonment. Attendees gather at the Pakistani Embassy in Lowndes Square, London, at 12.00pm for the concert and protest. The event is organised by the British Pakistani Christian Association, Hammad Bailey and ooberfuse. 

Hammad Bailey (www.myspace.com/hammadbaily) is a professional artist from Pakistan (Hammad Farooq). Hammad began singing at the age of 7, learning semi-classical Asian vocals and the Harmonium and Tabla from the age of 13. He started learning guitar at the age of 19 and also studied classical vocals. Hammad has completed a Higher Dimploma in Popular Music at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London. Hammad has a Bachelor in Arts from University of Punjab and a Bachelor in Divinity after attending Seminary classes for three years. Whilst happiest leading on guitar, Hammad sequences many instruments and beats using his much loved Korg Triton Extreme keyboard (nicknamed Kelly).

 ooberfuse (www.ooberfuse.com) is an experimental music project led by Cherrie and Hal. They share a common vision to infuse the increasingly moribund traditions of western pop with fresh eastern vigour. By refusing the standard conventions that determine the contemporary pop scene they invite their audience to rediscover ooberfuse-iasm not just for contemporary pop but for life itself!

British Pakistani Christian Association is a non-profit social enterprise company limited by guarantee. It gives a voice for Pakistani Christians and is headed up by Wilson and Juliet Chowdhry


Thursday 19 April 2012

The Truth About Christianity

Dear friends, I'd like to present to you, the truth of Christianity. It is this: Christianity is always about the man Jesus Christ. That's from where it gets its name! Christianity revolves around, is worshipful of, is founded by, and has as the hero, none other than God who became a man, Jesus Christ. I tell you this because as Christians, often times we individualize it and turn ourselves into the prime focus. I'm here to say no: it's not about me or my Christian blog or my career as a web designer and web developer, it's not about you, it's about Jesus Christ.

The Distinctive Feature of Christianity


It's amazing, isn't it? That God, the creator of heaven and earth, would come down from his perfection, into our destruction. That God, who has all the power in the universe, would set it aside for the sake of his children. Ah, this truly is remarkable. It's what makes Christianity unique. Every other major religion teaches that God stays up in heaven; that he doesn't intervene; that he doesn't stoop to our level. Christianity teaches that God is willing to come down to be with us to save us from ourselves.

WHAT GOD HAS DONE

Look back on your life for a second and think about your past. Think about the things you've done. Can you remember any bad ones? Can you remember doing anything that religions call sins? Now, you may have done a thousand good deeds to cover them up. You may have murdered one person, but as a doctor, saved hundreds. Let me ask you a question: if you were on trial, in a courtroom, would a judge not send you to jail for murdering one man because you saved one hundred men? Or would you get jail? Such is the character of the perfect judge.

That being said, you see now that you've done a few bad things, you've committed a few sins in your life. According to God, in every religion, sin is bad. Sin deserves punishment. Sin deserves hell. Here's where it gets interesting: God sees all the sin in the world. Instead of sending everyone to hell, because everyone sins, he hand picks a few people, and invites them into heaven. He came as the man Jesus Christ, to take the punishment that his people deserved, so that they don't have to be punished. He paid the bill of sin. He invites his people into heaven.

HOW WILL YOU REACT?

If you're not a Christian, here's the truth: God saw the bad things you did If you feel something moving in you as you read this, odds are, he might have chosen to invite you into heaven. He might have chosen to speak to you, through this post, and tell you about what he has done for you. How will you react? 

If you're not a Christian and you appreciate what God has done for you, if you want to get into heaven, you need to give your life to Jesus, AKA God. You need to give your sins to him. You need to accept his righteousness. You need to worship him as God, as he deserves. After all, he saved you out of hell and invited you into his house. Become a Christian and enter into eternal love with your creator. Amen.