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#MyriaReport Booms and Fires in Russia? 👀🔥
Please share and retweet the space and make sure to join us for the latest on #Ukraine January 19 #Reboot
Bring your questions, join the discussion or just listen in! 🇺🇦🎙️
🎙️ https://x.com/mriyareport/status/1748960524425892069?s=46
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#MyriaReport Booms and Fires in Russia? 👀🔥
Please share and retweet the space and make sure to join us for the latest on #Ukraine January 19 #Reboot
Bring your questions, join the discussion or just listen in! 🇺🇦🎙️
🎙️ https://x.com/mriyareport/status/1748960524425892069?s=46
-
#MyriaReport Are we giving 🇺🇦 enough to remain strong against rattacks from Russia?
YOU can make a difference today by donating to our fundraiser for Scruff's @vatamustdie Air Recon Unit! Let's give them everything💥
bit.ly/mr_donate -
#MyriaReport Are we giving 🇺🇦 enough to remain strong against rattacks from Russia?
YOU can make a difference today by donating to our fundraiser for Scruff's @vatamustdie Air Recon Unit! Let's give them everything💥
bit.ly/mr_donate -
#MyriaReport Are we giving 🇺🇦 enough to remain strong against rattacks from Russia?
YOU can make a difference today by donating to our fundraiser for Scruff's @vatamustdie Air Recon Unit! Let's give them everything💥
bit.ly/mr_donate -
#MyriaReport Are we giving 🇺🇦 enough to remain strong against rattacks from Russia?
YOU can make a difference today by donating to our fundraiser for Scruff's @vatamustdie Air Recon Unit! Let's give them everything💥
bit.ly/mr_donate -
#MyriaReport Are we giving 🇺🇦 enough to remain strong against rattacks from Russia?
YOU can make a difference today by donating to our fundraiser for Scruff's @vatamustdie Air Recon Unit! Let's give them everything💥
bit.ly/mr_donate -
#TheMetalDogArticleList
#MetalInjection
DREAM THEATER's Live Setlists Might Get Weird Again Now That MIKE PORTNOY Is Back
"They kind of want me to take the reins with the setlist and with the ideas of crazy sets and crazy shows and unique things."#DreamTheater #LiveSetlists #WeirdAgain #MikePortnoy #Back #News #MetalInjection #ImportantInfo
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#TheMetalDogArticleList
#MetalInjection
DREAM THEATER's Live Setlists Might Get Weird Again Now That MIKE PORTNOY Is Back
"They kind of want me to take the reins with the setlist and with the ideas of crazy sets and crazy shows and unique things."#DreamTheater #LiveSetlists #WeirdAgain #MikePortnoy #Back #News #MetalInjection #ImportantInfo
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#TheMetalDogArticleList
#MetalInjection
DREAM THEATER's Live Setlists Might Get Weird Again Now That MIKE PORTNOY Is Back
"They kind of want me to take the reins with the setlist and with the ideas of crazy sets and crazy shows and unique things."#DreamTheater #LiveSetlists #WeirdAgain #MikePortnoy #Back #News #MetalInjection #ImportantInfo
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#TheMetalDogArticleList
#MetalInjection
DREAM THEATER's Live Setlists Might Get Weird Again Now That MIKE PORTNOY Is Back
"They kind of want me to take the reins with the setlist and with the ideas of crazy sets and crazy shows and unique things."#DreamTheater #LiveSetlists #WeirdAgain #MikePortnoy #Back #News #MetalInjection #ImportantInfo
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#TheMetalDogArticleList
#KillerGuitarRigs
Mike Portnoy Explains What Drummers Don’t Understand About Metallica’s Lars Ulrich: ’His Drumming Was Groundbreaking’
Recently, progressive metal drum legend Mike Portnoy sat down with Revolver magazine to discuss what he believes are the greatesthttps://killerguitarrigs.com/mike-portnoy-metallica-lars-ulrich-drumming-groundbreaking/
#MikePortnoy #Metallica #LarsUlrich #Drumming #Groundbreaking #MusicHistory #Metalheads #RigRundown #DreamGig
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The universe is whole again. I never thought this would happen, especially after the last two #dreamtheater albums kicking a** and what I felt to be #Mangini really settling into the band. But man, I love #MPs drumming and can’t wait to hear what’s coming. Thanks #mikemangini for your contribution to #DTlegacy and welcome home #mikeportnoy!
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#BLABBERMOUTH
Watch MIKE PORTNOY, FRANK BELLO And JASON BITTNER Perform At 2024 Tribute Concert To Late RUSH Drummer NEIL PEART#NeilPeart
#Rush
#MikePortnoy
#FrankBello
#JasonBittner
#2024TributeConcert
#TributeToNeilPeart
#RIPNeilPeart
#RememberingNeilPeart
#DrummersUnite -
#TheMetalDogArticleList
#BLABBERMOUTH
Watch MIKE PORTNOY, FRANK BELLO And JASON BITTNER Perform At 2024 Tribute Concert To Late RUSH Drummer NEIL PEART#NeilPeart
#Rush
#MikePortnoy
#FrankBello
#JasonBittner
#2024TributeConcert
#TributeToNeilPeart
#RIPNeilPeart
#RememberingNeilPeart
#DrummersUnite -
#TheMetalDogArticleList
#BLABBERMOUTH
Watch MIKE PORTNOY, FRANK BELLO And JASON BITTNER Perform At 2024 Tribute Concert To Late RUSH Drummer NEIL PEART#NeilPeart
#Rush
#MikePortnoy
#FrankBello
#JasonBittner
#2024TributeConcert
#TributeToNeilPeart
#RIPNeilPeart
#RememberingNeilPeart
#DrummersUnite -
#TheMetalDogArticleList
#BLABBERMOUTH
Watch MIKE PORTNOY, FRANK BELLO And JASON BITTNER Perform At 2024 Tribute Concert To Late RUSH Drummer NEIL PEART#NeilPeart
#Rush
#MikePortnoy
#FrankBello
#JasonBittner
#2024TributeConcert
#TributeToNeilPeart
#RIPNeilPeart
#RememberingNeilPeart
#DrummersUnite -
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Note (1897-05-31), paraphrasedMore about this quote: wist.info/twain-mark/51247/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #marktwain #twain #death #exaggeration #obituary #report #rumor #survival #misreporting
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The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Note (1897-05-31), paraphrasedMore about this quote: wist.info/twain-mark/51247/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #marktwain #twain #death #exaggeration #obituary #report #rumor #survival #misreporting
-
The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Note (1897-05-31), paraphrasedMore about this quote: wist.info/twain-mark/51247/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #marktwain #twain #death #exaggeration #obituary #report #rumor #survival #misreporting
-
The Big Conversation – Christadelphians in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom people may find several villages and towns where there reside Christadelphians, a body of Christians who try to base their beliefs and practices wholly on the Bible, which they regard as God’s word. They try therefore to rid themselves of the various ideas and rituals which have attached themselves to Christendom over the last 2,000 years and to return to the beliefs and practices of the first century apostles.
Being a group of people who want to follow the Nazarene Jew Jeshua, who did not want to do his own will, but always did the Will of his heavenly Father, they as the man born in Bethlehem, are living in this world but not wanting to be of this world following human traditions and human dogmas. That does not make them so popular, because people may look strange at those people who do not want to celebrate Halloween and other pagan festivities.
Because the Christadelphians are a community without the trappings of elaborate buildings, priests or icons, their institutions and fellowship-rooms not be seen straight away. The outer sights are not important for the Christadelphians who prefer to give honour to God and show a deep respect for God’s word and love to have a strong sense of family and fellowship.
On the above map you can see some of the more than 300 ecclesiae in Great Britain and Ireland. They were taken under the loop by brother Jon Downes who on the 10th of October asked
What is happening?
For him the present size & growth or non-growth of UK ecclesiae show there isn’t a, ‘No Change’ option
It’s not that we aren’t trying!
he said to about 350 Christadelphians present at Dudley college.
In this world of figures, comparisons and evaluations it is all about numbers in graphics which have to show an up-going trend and reach high peaks. this for sure can not be said about our very small community. Lots of people may think when it is not big it has no value and can not be good. But people should look at the intrinsic value and to see what a group or church is believing, following up, and how they keep to what they preach. It is true that minorities do not exert influence, and that they should have to contend on the culture or the systems around it.
Christadelphians do not fall in the temptation to pretend to be a majority, even if one is not. They do know they are just a little grain of sand in our religious world. But that does not mean that many more little grains can be put together with water and with clay form a nice vase. Though sometimes it can look like we are coming to sit more in an urn. Especially in Belgium we are in distress and can do with some support form abroad. Though looking at other countries can show us also how important it is to make more work of the announcing or making known of our society.
All over the world people may not forget that the church of Jesus Christ is never a majority, in any fallen culture, even if we happen to outnumber every[one] else around us. They should come to see that the real church of God is the church of Christ were people are willing to follow Jesus his words, his teachings, but also his manners and his aspirations. It is a place where people are willing to share the agapè love of Christ, who was even willing to give his life for others, even for those who turned against him. Would we do that?
Where Christian churches have held fast to the truth that the Holy Scriptures have been given by God as an authoritative and infallible rule of faith and practice, they have never wandered very seriously out of the right way. But when, on the other hand, reason has been exalted above revelation, and made the the exponent of revelation, all kinds of errors and mischiefs have been the result, and got many sorts of denominations which have lots of rituals people may like very much but which are not according to God’s Law. And that part is the most important in our building community. We should all try to live according God’s Law and love His Words more than the words of man.
Unfortunately, lots of Christians do not closely follow the Bible today and prefer to join churches in which they can keep up their human traditions. They have changed things to how they want them to be.
Since the times of Jesus, there have been small groups of people who believed what the Bible said. Many of these people were cruelly treated in times past as a result of their beliefs. Such believers united in the North of America when in 1864 broke out the Civil War. Dr. Thomas thought up the word “Christadelphian“, a name combining the name “Christ” with the Greek word “adelphi” meaning “brother”. So the name “Christadelphian” means “brothers and sisters in Christ“.Christadelphians are grateful to John Thomas for his efforts in searching out the message of the Bible. John Thomas was not a prophet or someone special. He read the Bible, just as we try to do. Christadelphians follow Jesus Christ, not John Thomas. Not following just one man or just one human organisation gives that we may have different ideas about certain things, but that doe snot mean we would not have union with each other, though we must agree that there are certain Christadelphian groups who shamefully do not want to have contact with other Christadelphians. According to the Belgian Free Christadelphians this is also part of the reasons why it is so difficult to show the world a bigger group of religious people under one name: Christadelphians.
Being joined together by our common faith in the Bible, and the way we live, we all should try to meet each other and have contact with each other as loving siblings. All being brothers and sisters in Christ. Though each “ecclesia” has to look after its own affairs, and choose members who determine arrangements and organise activities on behalf of their members they should feel that unity with Christ with other Christadelphians world wide and show the outside world that Jesus Christ is their head of each ecclesia.
Living in this world we do agree that “It’s not about the numbers” … …but the “numbers tell a story”. And those numbers in west Europe may be alarming. Therefore there was the call to come thereto in the UK to discuss that matter of dwindling ciphers.
Like any other western capitalist country in the UK Bible ownership and Bible knowledge has slumped, some english people also do find it a form of indoctrination when parents in their home pray and talk about God in front of their children of that child.
Jon Downes presented the anxious members a snapshot of our society in the UK.
and showed those present how a typical ecclesia looks like.
When we look at the adult baptisms in our community from related people (3,5) and from non related
(1.0) plus counting the (0.5) refellowshipping members, comparing them with the average of 10 people falling asleep and 2 people leaving the fellowship, we might say that such numbers bring the graphic line downwards.What might happen to the Christadelphian community in the United Kingdom when they do not something to change the coarse.
happened.
Therefore lets look at the United Kingdom as an example.
what might this give to that community, where we find, like everywhere in the world members becoming older and dying, whilst the world is getting less interested in God and commandment.
In case we can bring the Gospel of the Good News to many more ears, we should be able by a co-effort of preaching to increase the interest in God again and get again some people interested in joining a community of lovers of Christ and lovers of God.
We must see that
The lost are our hope
and that there is good reason to try to reach the lost. We as brothers and sisters in Christ should love the people in the world so much that we will be offering some of our spare time for preaching work.
We are the hope of the lost
Luckily it is not all ad or sad news.
Good News!
tells brother Downes is that we can look at
- 120 baptisms a year (4 average sized ecclesias)
- In the last 40 years, 39 new ecclesias. (Although 96 have closed & some were renamed).
- In the last 15 years,1/4 of all baptisms from non Christadelphian backgrounds were by just 16 ecclesias. (Although 1/3 didn’t baptise any)
- While many ecclesias are shrinking many are growing.
- Numbers in Africa are growing!
- Bible Learning Centres & Learning English are having a big impact
Instead of going for Plan A is it not better that we go for Plan B?
Plan A discussed at the Big Conversation of 2015 October 10 at Dudley college, UK- Current UK Christadelphian population of 8-8500 is based on 223 2015 ALS Diary returns on households & 178 2015 CCH survey returns. 10 Ecclesias had neither return and were estimated on previous diary returns.
- 1985 to 2015 data based on records kept from the back of the Christadelphian, clearly subject to some error, gaps and misreporting. The last 12 months of Magazine entries were analysed separately and yielded results consistent with the records obtained.
- Net loss of 120 per annum and the 10, 5, 1 ratio derived from average of last 10 years data. Approx 240 out and 120 in. These do not include brothers and sisters movement in and out of the UK.
- Forecast from 2015 based on a linear continuation which could easily be a) more dramatic because of rapid closure of small ecclesias, ageing population, reduced home pool to draw from, fewer people to witness, higher rates of leaving the community b) less dramatic as in a smaller community there are fewer people falling asleep each year.
One of the deceases of this time is that too many people want to enjoy their own little cocoon and not getting out of their comfort zone to share life with the spiritually needy. Those who call themselves Christian may not forget that this means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and demands also doing what he required from his followers. Jesus asked us to go out in the world to proclaim the Kingdom of God. We are to make every effort to bring hope and healing in Jesus name to those in need.
We are to see that the tangible goodness of God flows into every nook and cranny of our communities – especially in those places where darkness seems to prevail. {Walking With Intentionality}
+
Preceding articles:
Religious Practices around the world
Manifests for believers #3 Catholic versus Protestant
Ecclesia to exist, grow and communities to have people communicating with each other
The Ecclesia in the churchsystem
The Big Conversation follow up
Reasons why you may not miss the opportunity to go to a Small Church
Engaging the culture without losing the gospel
Evangelisation, local preaching opposite overseas evangelism
Feeling-good, search for happiness and the church
Members of the ecclesia uniting and seeking God’s help in tribulation
Why we do not have our worship-services in a church building
Belgian Christadelphians 2013 & 2014 in review
Personal thoughts, communication, establishing ecclesia and guest writings
++
Additional reading:
- People are turning their back on Christianity
- Looking on what is going on and not being of it
- London an exaggerated microcosm of the UK at large
- Parents forbidden to pray in front of their children or to take them to church
- State and attitude of certain people to blame for radicalisation
- More Muslim children than Christian children growing up in our cities
- Will Islam conquer Europe
- Christianity to be enshrined
- Halloween custom of the nations
- Wrong ideas about religious terrorism
- A call easy to understand
- Discipleship way of life on the narrow way to everlasting life
- Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
- The meek one riding on an ass
- Do not be afraid to learn or to speak
- Reasons to come together
- Congregate, to gather, to meet
- Fellowship
- Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
- The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
- Holiness and expression of worship coming from inside
- To find ways of Godly understanding
- Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach
- Who are the honest ones?
- Certain people trying to stem freedom of speech
- Priority to form a loving brotherhood
- Newsweek asks: How ignorant are you?
- Religious Freedom in a Multicultural World
- Some christians do have problems with the Christian connection with Jews
- American atheists most religiously literate Americans
- Determine the drive
- Try driving forward instead of backwards
- Campbell, Thomas and Bijbelvorsers
- Looking at older articles series over Russell on the previous Bible-scholar Association
- Wanting to know more about basic teachings of Christadelphianism
- Christadelphians or Messianic Christians or Messianic Jews
- Christadelphian people
- Who are Christadelphians
- What are Brothers in Christ
- Two new encyclopaedic articles
- Christadelphians today
- Keeping an ecclesia in modern times
- Small churches of the few Christadelphians
- Christianity to be enshrined
- Christianity is a love affair
- Intentions of an Ecclesia
- Character transformed by the influence of our fellowships
- Love for each other attracting others
- What makes a consecrated Christian
- A call easy to understand
- If you have integrity
- Work with joy and pray with love
- To know Christ is filling life with meaning
- The truth is very plain to see and God can be clearly seen
+++
Other articles of interest:
- Walking in Total Dependence Upon God
- What is God’s Will For Your Life?
- On the Affirmation of Scripture
- A Snapshot of the Church in America
- a little church
- Four Pressing Needs in Rural Communities, and How the Church Should Respond
- If It’s All About Relationship…
- Leading a church is not a hands free exercise
- Walking With Intentionality
- Living Our Faith in a New Way
- What’s in It for Me?
- Deacon Selection In the Small Church
- Lord’s Day 10: God is in Control
- Just Try a Few Things
- “When Faith Goes, All Good Things Go”
- Growing Deep
- All the Wrong Reasons
- Little Church
- Leading Change
- Small Groups & Grow A Small Church by Multiplying Its Small Groups
- Living well
- Blessed by His Hand
- Encouragement for the Small
- How Did You Get Here?
- How to Impersonate a Big Church
- What Do You Do Well?
- Recognize the Facts
- What are your top two struggles?
- The Best Thing You Can Do
- On the road to sainthood and not silent about it
- Incognito Zone: Where the Church Is Booming
- House Church Reaches Out to Atheists, Agnostics in California
- The one religion that’s not part of my spiritual quest
- Six Ways Not to Forsake the Assembly
- Tent Making
- Journey On The Narrow Path
+++
Related articles
- One in three people born in the UK this year will suffer from some form of dementia in their lifetime, the Alzheimer’s Research UK charity has warned. (grumpyelder.com)
- Israel Goldstein Youth Village looking for dates in Europe (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
- Looking for writers for two Lifestyle Magazines (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
- Change of name (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
Rate this:
#AdultBaptism #Agape #BeingInUnion #Belgium #BiblicalTruth #BrothersAndSistersInChrist #BrothersInChrist #CapitalistWorld #Christadelphian #ChristadelphianCommunity #Christadelphians #Christendom #ChristianChurches #ChristianTruth #Christians #ChurchOfJesusChrist #ComfortZone #DwindlingChurch #Ecclesia #Fellowship #FollowerOfChrist #FollowingJesusChrist #FollowingMan #GreatBritain #HopeOfEcclesia #Influence #InterestInGod #Ireland #JohnThomas #JonDownes #LeavingTheFellowship #LivingInThisWorld #LoversOfChrist #LoversOfGod #Minority #NorthOfAmerica #NumbersAmount_ #PaganFestivities #Preaching #PreachingWork #Proclaim #Proclaiming #ReachingTheLost #Refellowshipping #RuleOfPractice #SistersInChrist #SmallCommunity #TeachingsOfChrist #Temptation #Union #UnitedKingdom #Unity #UnityInChrist #UnityInDiversity #WayOfLiving #WordOfMan
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The Big Conversation – Christadelphians in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom people may find several villages and towns where there reside Christadelphians, a body of Christians who try to base their beliefs and practices wholly on the Bible, which they regard as God’s word. They try therefore to rid themselves of the various ideas and rituals which have attached themselves to Christendom over the last 2,000 years and to return to the beliefs and practices of the first century apostles.
Being a group of people who want to follow the Nazarene Jew Jeshua, who did not want to do his own will, but always did the Will of his heavenly Father, they as the man born in Bethlehem, are living in this world but not wanting to be of this world following human traditions and human dogmas. That does not make them so popular, because people may look strange at those people who do not want to celebrate Halloween and other pagan festivities.
Because the Christadelphians are a community without the trappings of elaborate buildings, priests or icons, their institutions and fellowship-rooms not be seen straight away. The outer sights are not important for the Christadelphians who prefer to give honour to God and show a deep respect for God’s word and love to have a strong sense of family and fellowship.
On the above map you can see some of the more than 300 ecclesiae in Great Britain and Ireland. They were taken under the loop by brother Jon Downes who on the 10th of October asked
What is happening?
For him the present size & growth or non-growth of UK ecclesiae show there isn’t a, ‘No Change’ option
It’s not that we aren’t trying!
he said to about 350 Christadelphians present at Dudley college.
In this world of figures, comparisons and evaluations it is all about numbers in graphics which have to show an up-going trend and reach high peaks. this for sure can not be said about our very small community. Lots of people may think when it is not big it has no value and can not be good. But people should look at the intrinsic value and to see what a group or church is believing, following up, and how they keep to what they preach. It is true that minorities do not exert influence, and that they should have to contend on the culture or the systems around it.
Christadelphians do not fall in the temptation to pretend to be a majority, even if one is not. They do know they are just a little grain of sand in our religious world. But that does not mean that many more little grains can be put together with water and with clay form a nice vase. Though sometimes it can look like we are coming to sit more in an urn. Especially in Belgium we are in distress and can do with some support form abroad. Though looking at other countries can show us also how important it is to make more work of the announcing or making known of our society.
All over the world people may not forget that the church of Jesus Christ is never a majority, in any fallen culture, even if we happen to outnumber every[one] else around us. They should come to see that the real church of God is the church of Christ were people are willing to follow Jesus his words, his teachings, but also his manners and his aspirations. It is a place where people are willing to share the agapè love of Christ, who was even willing to give his life for others, even for those who turned against him. Would we do that?
Where Christian churches have held fast to the truth that the Holy Scriptures have been given by God as an authoritative and infallible rule of faith and practice, they have never wandered very seriously out of the right way. But when, on the other hand, reason has been exalted above revelation, and made the the exponent of revelation, all kinds of errors and mischiefs have been the result, and got many sorts of denominations which have lots of rituals people may like very much but which are not according to God’s Law. And that part is the most important in our building community. We should all try to live according God’s Law and love His Words more than the words of man.
Unfortunately, lots of Christians do not closely follow the Bible today and prefer to join churches in which they can keep up their human traditions. They have changed things to how they want them to be.
Since the times of Jesus, there have been small groups of people who believed what the Bible said. Many of these people were cruelly treated in times past as a result of their beliefs. Such believers united in the North of America when in 1864 broke out the Civil War. Dr. Thomas thought up the word “Christadelphian“, a name combining the name “Christ” with the Greek word “adelphi” meaning “brother”. So the name “Christadelphian” means “brothers and sisters in Christ“.Christadelphians are grateful to John Thomas for his efforts in searching out the message of the Bible. John Thomas was not a prophet or someone special. He read the Bible, just as we try to do. Christadelphians follow Jesus Christ, not John Thomas. Not following just one man or just one human organisation gives that we may have different ideas about certain things, but that doe snot mean we would not have union with each other, though we must agree that there are certain Christadelphian groups who shamefully do not want to have contact with other Christadelphians. According to the Belgian Free Christadelphians this is also part of the reasons why it is so difficult to show the world a bigger group of religious people under one name: Christadelphians.
Being joined together by our common faith in the Bible, and the way we live, we all should try to meet each other and have contact with each other as loving siblings. All being brothers and sisters in Christ. Though each “ecclesia” has to look after its own affairs, and choose members who determine arrangements and organise activities on behalf of their members they should feel that unity with Christ with other Christadelphians world wide and show the outside world that Jesus Christ is their head of each ecclesia.
Living in this world we do agree that “It’s not about the numbers” … …but the “numbers tell a story”. And those numbers in west Europe may be alarming. Therefore there was the call to come thereto in the UK to discuss that matter of dwindling ciphers.
Like any other western capitalist country in the UK Bible ownership and Bible knowledge has slumped, some english people also do find it a form of indoctrination when parents in their home pray and talk about God in front of their children of that child.
Jon Downes presented the anxious members a snapshot of our society in the UK.
and showed those present how a typical ecclesia looks like.
When we look at the adult baptisms in our community from related people (3,5) and from non related
(1.0) plus counting the (0.5) refellowshipping members, comparing them with the average of 10 people falling asleep and 2 people leaving the fellowship, we might say that such numbers bring the graphic line downwards.What might happen to the Christadelphian community in the United Kingdom when they do not something to change the coarse.
happened.
Therefore lets look at the United Kingdom as an example.
what might this give to that community, where we find, like everywhere in the world members becoming older and dying, whilst the world is getting less interested in God and commandment.
In case we can bring the Gospel of the Good News to many more ears, we should be able by a co-effort of preaching to increase the interest in God again and get again some people interested in joining a community of lovers of Christ and lovers of God.
We must see that
The lost are our hope
and that there is good reason to try to reach the lost. We as brothers and sisters in Christ should love the people in the world so much that we will be offering some of our spare time for preaching work.
We are the hope of the lost
Luckily it is not all ad or sad news.
Good News!
tells brother Downes is that we can look at
- 120 baptisms a year (4 average sized ecclesias)
- In the last 40 years, 39 new ecclesias. (Although 96 have closed & some were renamed).
- In the last 15 years,1/4 of all baptisms from non Christadelphian backgrounds were by just 16 ecclesias. (Although 1/3 didn’t baptise any)
- While many ecclesias are shrinking many are growing.
- Numbers in Africa are growing!
- Bible Learning Centres & Learning English are having a big impact
Instead of going for Plan A is it not better that we go for Plan B?
Plan A discussed at the Big Conversation of 2015 October 10 at Dudley college, UK- Current UK Christadelphian population of 8-8500 is based on 223 2015 ALS Diary returns on households & 178 2015 CCH survey returns. 10 Ecclesias had neither return and were estimated on previous diary returns.
- 1985 to 2015 data based on records kept from the back of the Christadelphian, clearly subject to some error, gaps and misreporting. The last 12 months of Magazine entries were analysed separately and yielded results consistent with the records obtained.
- Net loss of 120 per annum and the 10, 5, 1 ratio derived from average of last 10 years data. Approx 240 out and 120 in. These do not include brothers and sisters movement in and out of the UK.
- Forecast from 2015 based on a linear continuation which could easily be a) more dramatic because of rapid closure of small ecclesias, ageing population, reduced home pool to draw from, fewer people to witness, higher rates of leaving the community b) less dramatic as in a smaller community there are fewer people falling asleep each year.
One of the deceases of this time is that too many people want to enjoy their own little cocoon and not getting out of their comfort zone to share life with the spiritually needy. Those who call themselves Christian may not forget that this means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and demands also doing what he required from his followers. Jesus asked us to go out in the world to proclaim the Kingdom of God. We are to make every effort to bring hope and healing in Jesus name to those in need.
We are to see that the tangible goodness of God flows into every nook and cranny of our communities – especially in those places where darkness seems to prevail. {Walking With Intentionality}
+
Preceding articles:
Religious Practices around the world
Manifests for believers #3 Catholic versus Protestant
Ecclesia to exist, grow and communities to have people communicating with each other
The Ecclesia in the churchsystem
The Big Conversation follow up
Reasons why you may not miss the opportunity to go to a Small Church
Engaging the culture without losing the gospel
Evangelisation, local preaching opposite overseas evangelism
Feeling-good, search for happiness and the church
Members of the ecclesia uniting and seeking God’s help in tribulation
Why we do not have our worship-services in a church building
Belgian Christadelphians 2013 & 2014 in review
Personal thoughts, communication, establishing ecclesia and guest writings
++
Additional reading:
- People are turning their back on Christianity
- Looking on what is going on and not being of it
- London an exaggerated microcosm of the UK at large
- Parents forbidden to pray in front of their children or to take them to church
- State and attitude of certain people to blame for radicalisation
- More Muslim children than Christian children growing up in our cities
- Will Islam conquer Europe
- Christianity to be enshrined
- Halloween custom of the nations
- Wrong ideas about religious terrorism
- A call easy to understand
- Discipleship way of life on the narrow way to everlasting life
- Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
- The meek one riding on an ass
- Do not be afraid to learn or to speak
- Reasons to come together
- Congregate, to gather, to meet
- Fellowship
- Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
- The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
- Holiness and expression of worship coming from inside
- To find ways of Godly understanding
- Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach
- Who are the honest ones?
- Certain people trying to stem freedom of speech
- Priority to form a loving brotherhood
- Newsweek asks: How ignorant are you?
- Religious Freedom in a Multicultural World
- Some christians do have problems with the Christian connection with Jews
- American atheists most religiously literate Americans
- Determine the drive
- Try driving forward instead of backwards
- Campbell, Thomas and Bijbelvorsers
- Looking at older articles series over Russell on the previous Bible-scholar Association
- Wanting to know more about basic teachings of Christadelphianism
- Christadelphians or Messianic Christians or Messianic Jews
- Christadelphian people
- Who are Christadelphians
- What are Brothers in Christ
- Two new encyclopaedic articles
- Christadelphians today
- Keeping an ecclesia in modern times
- Small churches of the few Christadelphians
- Christianity to be enshrined
- Christianity is a love affair
- Intentions of an Ecclesia
- Character transformed by the influence of our fellowships
- Love for each other attracting others
- What makes a consecrated Christian
- A call easy to understand
- If you have integrity
- Work with joy and pray with love
- To know Christ is filling life with meaning
- The truth is very plain to see and God can be clearly seen
+++
Other articles of interest:
- Walking in Total Dependence Upon God
- What is God’s Will For Your Life?
- On the Affirmation of Scripture
- A Snapshot of the Church in America
- a little church
- Four Pressing Needs in Rural Communities, and How the Church Should Respond
- If It’s All About Relationship…
- Leading a church is not a hands free exercise
- Walking With Intentionality
- Living Our Faith in a New Way
- What’s in It for Me?
- Deacon Selection In the Small Church
- Lord’s Day 10: God is in Control
- Just Try a Few Things
- “When Faith Goes, All Good Things Go”
- Growing Deep
- All the Wrong Reasons
- Little Church
- Leading Change
- Small Groups & Grow A Small Church by Multiplying Its Small Groups
- Living well
- Blessed by His Hand
- Encouragement for the Small
- How Did You Get Here?
- How to Impersonate a Big Church
- What Do You Do Well?
- Recognize the Facts
- What are your top two struggles?
- The Best Thing You Can Do
- On the road to sainthood and not silent about it
- Incognito Zone: Where the Church Is Booming
- House Church Reaches Out to Atheists, Agnostics in California
- The one religion that’s not part of my spiritual quest
- Six Ways Not to Forsake the Assembly
- Tent Making
- Journey On The Narrow Path
+++
Related articles
- One in three people born in the UK this year will suffer from some form of dementia in their lifetime, the Alzheimer’s Research UK charity has warned. (grumpyelder.com)
- Israel Goldstein Youth Village looking for dates in Europe (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
- Looking for writers for two Lifestyle Magazines (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
- Change of name (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
Rate this:
#AdultBaptism #Agape #BeingInUnion #Belgium #BiblicalTruth #BrothersAndSistersInChrist #BrothersInChrist #CapitalistWorld #Christadelphian #ChristadelphianCommunity #Christadelphians #Christendom #ChristianChurches #ChristianTruth #Christians #ChurchOfJesusChrist #ComfortZone #DwindlingChurch #Ecclesia #Fellowship #FollowerOfChrist #FollowingJesusChrist #FollowingMan #GreatBritain #HopeOfEcclesia #Influence #InterestInGod #Ireland #JohnThomas #JonDownes #LeavingTheFellowship #LivingInThisWorld #LoversOfChrist #LoversOfGod #Minority #NorthOfAmerica #NumbersAmount_ #PaganFestivities #Preaching #PreachingWork #Proclaim #Proclaiming #ReachingTheLost #Refellowshipping #RuleOfPractice #SistersInChrist #SmallCommunity #TeachingsOfChrist #Temptation #Union #UnitedKingdom #Unity #UnityInChrist #UnityInDiversity #WayOfLiving #WordOfMan
-
The Big Conversation – Christadelphians in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom people may find several villages and towns where there reside Christadelphians, a body of Christians who try to base their beliefs and practices wholly on the Bible, which they regard as God’s word. They try therefore to rid themselves of the various ideas and rituals which have attached themselves to Christendom over the last 2,000 years and to return to the beliefs and practices of the first century apostles.
Being a group of people who want to follow the Nazarene Jew Jeshua, who did not want to do his own will, but always did the Will of his heavenly Father, they as the man born in Bethlehem, are living in this world but not wanting to be of this world following human traditions and human dogmas. That does not make them so popular, because people may look strange at those people who do not want to celebrate Halloween and other pagan festivities.
Because the Christadelphians are a community without the trappings of elaborate buildings, priests or icons, their institutions and fellowship-rooms not be seen straight away. The outer sights are not important for the Christadelphians who prefer to give honour to God and show a deep respect for God’s word and love to have a strong sense of family and fellowship.
On the above map you can see some of the more than 300 ecclesiae in Great Britain and Ireland. They were taken under the loop by brother Jon Downes who on the 10th of October asked
What is happening?
For him the present size & growth or non-growth of UK ecclesiae show there isn’t a, ‘No Change’ option
It’s not that we aren’t trying!
he said to about 350 Christadelphians present at Dudley college.
In this world of figures, comparisons and evaluations it is all about numbers in graphics which have to show an up-going trend and reach high peaks. this for sure can not be said about our very small community. Lots of people may think when it is not big it has no value and can not be good. But people should look at the intrinsic value and to see what a group or church is believing, following up, and how they keep to what they preach. It is true that minorities do not exert influence, and that they should have to contend on the culture or the systems around it.
Christadelphians do not fall in the temptation to pretend to be a majority, even if one is not. They do know they are just a little grain of sand in our religious world. But that does not mean that many more little grains can be put together with water and with clay form a nice vase. Though sometimes it can look like we are coming to sit more in an urn. Especially in Belgium we are in distress and can do with some support form abroad. Though looking at other countries can show us also how important it is to make more work of the announcing or making known of our society.
All over the world people may not forget that the church of Jesus Christ is never a majority, in any fallen culture, even if we happen to outnumber every[one] else around us. They should come to see that the real church of God is the church of Christ were people are willing to follow Jesus his words, his teachings, but also his manners and his aspirations. It is a place where people are willing to share the agapè love of Christ, who was even willing to give his life for others, even for those who turned against him. Would we do that?
Where Christian churches have held fast to the truth that the Holy Scriptures have been given by God as an authoritative and infallible rule of faith and practice, they have never wandered very seriously out of the right way. But when, on the other hand, reason has been exalted above revelation, and made the the exponent of revelation, all kinds of errors and mischiefs have been the result, and got many sorts of denominations which have lots of rituals people may like very much but which are not according to God’s Law. And that part is the most important in our building community. We should all try to live according God’s Law and love His Words more than the words of man.
Unfortunately, lots of Christians do not closely follow the Bible today and prefer to join churches in which they can keep up their human traditions. They have changed things to how they want them to be.
Since the times of Jesus, there have been small groups of people who believed what the Bible said. Many of these people were cruelly treated in times past as a result of their beliefs. Such believers united in the North of America when in 1864 broke out the Civil War. Dr. Thomas thought up the word “Christadelphian“, a name combining the name “Christ” with the Greek word “adelphi” meaning “brother”. So the name “Christadelphian” means “brothers and sisters in Christ“.Christadelphians are grateful to John Thomas for his efforts in searching out the message of the Bible. John Thomas was not a prophet or someone special. He read the Bible, just as we try to do. Christadelphians follow Jesus Christ, not John Thomas. Not following just one man or just one human organisation gives that we may have different ideas about certain things, but that doe snot mean we would not have union with each other, though we must agree that there are certain Christadelphian groups who shamefully do not want to have contact with other Christadelphians. According to the Belgian Free Christadelphians this is also part of the reasons why it is so difficult to show the world a bigger group of religious people under one name: Christadelphians.
Being joined together by our common faith in the Bible, and the way we live, we all should try to meet each other and have contact with each other as loving siblings. All being brothers and sisters in Christ. Though each “ecclesia” has to look after its own affairs, and choose members who determine arrangements and organise activities on behalf of their members they should feel that unity with Christ with other Christadelphians world wide and show the outside world that Jesus Christ is their head of each ecclesia.
Living in this world we do agree that “It’s not about the numbers” … …but the “numbers tell a story”. And those numbers in west Europe may be alarming. Therefore there was the call to come thereto in the UK to discuss that matter of dwindling ciphers.
Like any other western capitalist country in the UK Bible ownership and Bible knowledge has slumped, some english people also do find it a form of indoctrination when parents in their home pray and talk about God in front of their children of that child.
Jon Downes presented the anxious members a snapshot of our society in the UK.
and showed those present how a typical ecclesia looks like.
When we look at the adult baptisms in our community from related people (3,5) and from non related
(1.0) plus counting the (0.5) refellowshipping members, comparing them with the average of 10 people falling asleep and 2 people leaving the fellowship, we might say that such numbers bring the graphic line downwards.What might happen to the Christadelphian community in the United Kingdom when they do not something to change the coarse.
happened.
Therefore lets look at the United Kingdom as an example.
what might this give to that community, where we find, like everywhere in the world members becoming older and dying, whilst the world is getting less interested in God and commandment.
In case we can bring the Gospel of the Good News to many more ears, we should be able by a co-effort of preaching to increase the interest in God again and get again some people interested in joining a community of lovers of Christ and lovers of God.
We must see that
The lost are our hope
and that there is good reason to try to reach the lost. We as brothers and sisters in Christ should love the people in the world so much that we will be offering some of our spare time for preaching work.
We are the hope of the lost
Luckily it is not all ad or sad news.
Good News!
tells brother Downes is that we can look at
- 120 baptisms a year (4 average sized ecclesias)
- In the last 40 years, 39 new ecclesias. (Although 96 have closed & some were renamed).
- In the last 15 years,1/4 of all baptisms from non Christadelphian backgrounds were by just 16 ecclesias. (Although 1/3 didn’t baptise any)
- While many ecclesias are shrinking many are growing.
- Numbers in Africa are growing!
- Bible Learning Centres & Learning English are having a big impact
Instead of going for Plan A is it not better that we go for Plan B?
Plan A discussed at the Big Conversation of 2015 October 10 at Dudley college, UK- Current UK Christadelphian population of 8-8500 is based on 223 2015 ALS Diary returns on households & 178 2015 CCH survey returns. 10 Ecclesias had neither return and were estimated on previous diary returns.
- 1985 to 2015 data based on records kept from the back of the Christadelphian, clearly subject to some error, gaps and misreporting. The last 12 months of Magazine entries were analysed separately and yielded results consistent with the records obtained.
- Net loss of 120 per annum and the 10, 5, 1 ratio derived from average of last 10 years data. Approx 240 out and 120 in. These do not include brothers and sisters movement in and out of the UK.
- Forecast from 2015 based on a linear continuation which could easily be a) more dramatic because of rapid closure of small ecclesias, ageing population, reduced home pool to draw from, fewer people to witness, higher rates of leaving the community b) less dramatic as in a smaller community there are fewer people falling asleep each year.
One of the deceases of this time is that too many people want to enjoy their own little cocoon and not getting out of their comfort zone to share life with the spiritually needy. Those who call themselves Christian may not forget that this means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and demands also doing what he required from his followers. Jesus asked us to go out in the world to proclaim the Kingdom of God. We are to make every effort to bring hope and healing in Jesus name to those in need.
We are to see that the tangible goodness of God flows into every nook and cranny of our communities – especially in those places where darkness seems to prevail. {Walking With Intentionality}
+
Preceding articles:
Religious Practices around the world
Manifests for believers #3 Catholic versus Protestant
Ecclesia to exist, grow and communities to have people communicating with each other
The Ecclesia in the churchsystem
The Big Conversation follow up
Reasons why you may not miss the opportunity to go to a Small Church
Engaging the culture without losing the gospel
Evangelisation, local preaching opposite overseas evangelism
Feeling-good, search for happiness and the church
Members of the ecclesia uniting and seeking God’s help in tribulation
Why we do not have our worship-services in a church building
Belgian Christadelphians 2013 & 2014 in review
Personal thoughts, communication, establishing ecclesia and guest writings
++
Additional reading:
- People are turning their back on Christianity
- Looking on what is going on and not being of it
- London an exaggerated microcosm of the UK at large
- Parents forbidden to pray in front of their children or to take them to church
- State and attitude of certain people to blame for radicalisation
- More Muslim children than Christian children growing up in our cities
- Will Islam conquer Europe
- Christianity to be enshrined
- Halloween custom of the nations
- Wrong ideas about religious terrorism
- A call easy to understand
- Discipleship way of life on the narrow way to everlasting life
- Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
- The meek one riding on an ass
- Do not be afraid to learn or to speak
- Reasons to come together
- Congregate, to gather, to meet
- Fellowship
- Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
- The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
- Holiness and expression of worship coming from inside
- To find ways of Godly understanding
- Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach
- Who are the honest ones?
- Certain people trying to stem freedom of speech
- Priority to form a loving brotherhood
- Newsweek asks: How ignorant are you?
- Religious Freedom in a Multicultural World
- Some christians do have problems with the Christian connection with Jews
- American atheists most religiously literate Americans
- Determine the drive
- Try driving forward instead of backwards
- Campbell, Thomas and Bijbelvorsers
- Looking at older articles series over Russell on the previous Bible-scholar Association
- Wanting to know more about basic teachings of Christadelphianism
- Christadelphians or Messianic Christians or Messianic Jews
- Christadelphian people
- Who are Christadelphians
- What are Brothers in Christ
- Two new encyclopaedic articles
- Christadelphians today
- Keeping an ecclesia in modern times
- Small churches of the few Christadelphians
- Christianity to be enshrined
- Christianity is a love affair
- Intentions of an Ecclesia
- Character transformed by the influence of our fellowships
- Love for each other attracting others
- What makes a consecrated Christian
- A call easy to understand
- If you have integrity
- Work with joy and pray with love
- To know Christ is filling life with meaning
- The truth is very plain to see and God can be clearly seen
+++
Other articles of interest:
- Walking in Total Dependence Upon God
- What is God’s Will For Your Life?
- On the Affirmation of Scripture
- A Snapshot of the Church in America
- a little church
- Four Pressing Needs in Rural Communities, and How the Church Should Respond
- If It’s All About Relationship…
- Leading a church is not a hands free exercise
- Walking With Intentionality
- Living Our Faith in a New Way
- What’s in It for Me?
- Deacon Selection In the Small Church
- Lord’s Day 10: God is in Control
- Just Try a Few Things
- “When Faith Goes, All Good Things Go”
- Growing Deep
- All the Wrong Reasons
- Little Church
- Leading Change
- Small Groups & Grow A Small Church by Multiplying Its Small Groups
- Living well
- Blessed by His Hand
- Encouragement for the Small
- How Did You Get Here?
- How to Impersonate a Big Church
- What Do You Do Well?
- Recognize the Facts
- What are your top two struggles?
- The Best Thing You Can Do
- On the road to sainthood and not silent about it
- Incognito Zone: Where the Church Is Booming
- House Church Reaches Out to Atheists, Agnostics in California
- The one religion that’s not part of my spiritual quest
- Six Ways Not to Forsake the Assembly
- Tent Making
- Journey On The Narrow Path
+++
Related articles
- One in three people born in the UK this year will suffer from some form of dementia in their lifetime, the Alzheimer’s Research UK charity has warned. (grumpyelder.com)
- Israel Goldstein Youth Village looking for dates in Europe (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
- Looking for writers for two Lifestyle Magazines (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
- Change of name (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
Rate this:
#AdultBaptism #Agape #BeingInUnion #Belgium #BiblicalTruth #BrothersAndSistersInChrist #BrothersInChrist #CapitalistWorld #Christadelphian #ChristadelphianCommunity #Christadelphians #Christendom #ChristianChurches #ChristianTruth #Christians #ChurchOfJesusChrist #ComfortZone #DwindlingChurch #Ecclesia #Fellowship #FollowerOfChrist #FollowingJesusChrist #FollowingMan #GreatBritain #HopeOfEcclesia #Influence #InterestInGod #Ireland #JohnThomas #JonDownes #LeavingTheFellowship #LivingInThisWorld #LoversOfChrist #LoversOfGod #Minority #NorthOfAmerica #NumbersAmount_ #PaganFestivities #Preaching #PreachingWork #Proclaim #Proclaiming #ReachingTheLost #Refellowshipping #RuleOfPractice #SistersInChrist #SmallCommunity #TeachingsOfChrist #Temptation #Union #UnitedKingdom #Unity #UnityInChrist #UnityInDiversity #WayOfLiving #WordOfMan
-
The Big Conversation – Christadelphians in the United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom people may find several villages and towns where there reside Christadelphians, a body of Christians who try to base their beliefs and practices wholly on the Bible, which they regard as God’s word. They try therefore to rid themselves of the various ideas and rituals which have attached themselves to Christendom over the last 2,000 years and to return to the beliefs and practices of the first century apostles.
Being a group of people who want to follow the Nazarene Jew Jeshua, who did not want to do his own will, but always did the Will of his heavenly Father, they as the man born in Bethlehem, are living in this world but not wanting to be of this world following human traditions and human dogmas. That does not make them so popular, because people may look strange at those people who do not want to celebrate Halloween and other pagan festivities.
Because the Christadelphians are a community without the trappings of elaborate buildings, priests or icons, their institutions and fellowship-rooms not be seen straight away. The outer sights are not important for the Christadelphians who prefer to give honour to God and show a deep respect for God’s word and love to have a strong sense of family and fellowship.
On the above map you can see some of the more than 300 ecclesiae in Great Britain and Ireland. They were taken under the loop by brother Jon Downes who on the 10th of October asked
What is happening?
For him the present size & growth or non-growth of UK ecclesiae show there isn’t a, ‘No Change’ option
It’s not that we aren’t trying!
he said to about 350 Christadelphians present at Dudley college.
In this world of figures, comparisons and evaluations it is all about numbers in graphics which have to show an up-going trend and reach high peaks. this for sure can not be said about our very small community. Lots of people may think when it is not big it has no value and can not be good. But people should look at the intrinsic value and to see what a group or church is believing, following up, and how they keep to what they preach. It is true that minorities do not exert influence, and that they should have to contend on the culture or the systems around it.
Christadelphians do not fall in the temptation to pretend to be a majority, even if one is not. They do know they are just a little grain of sand in our religious world. But that does not mean that many more little grains can be put together with water and with clay form a nice vase. Though sometimes it can look like we are coming to sit more in an urn. Especially in Belgium we are in distress and can do with some support form abroad. Though looking at other countries can show us also how important it is to make more work of the announcing or making known of our society.
All over the world people may not forget that the church of Jesus Christ is never a majority, in any fallen culture, even if we happen to outnumber every[one] else around us. They should come to see that the real church of God is the church of Christ were people are willing to follow Jesus his words, his teachings, but also his manners and his aspirations. It is a place where people are willing to share the agapè love of Christ, who was even willing to give his life for others, even for those who turned against him. Would we do that?
Where Christian churches have held fast to the truth that the Holy Scriptures have been given by God as an authoritative and infallible rule of faith and practice, they have never wandered very seriously out of the right way. But when, on the other hand, reason has been exalted above revelation, and made the the exponent of revelation, all kinds of errors and mischiefs have been the result, and got many sorts of denominations which have lots of rituals people may like very much but which are not according to God’s Law. And that part is the most important in our building community. We should all try to live according God’s Law and love His Words more than the words of man.
Unfortunately, lots of Christians do not closely follow the Bible today and prefer to join churches in which they can keep up their human traditions. They have changed things to how they want them to be.
Since the times of Jesus, there have been small groups of people who believed what the Bible said. Many of these people were cruelly treated in times past as a result of their beliefs. Such believers united in the North of America when in 1864 broke out the Civil War. Dr. Thomas thought up the word “Christadelphian“, a name combining the name “Christ” with the Greek word “adelphi” meaning “brother”. So the name “Christadelphian” means “brothers and sisters in Christ“.Christadelphians are grateful to John Thomas for his efforts in searching out the message of the Bible. John Thomas was not a prophet or someone special. He read the Bible, just as we try to do. Christadelphians follow Jesus Christ, not John Thomas. Not following just one man or just one human organisation gives that we may have different ideas about certain things, but that doe snot mean we would not have union with each other, though we must agree that there are certain Christadelphian groups who shamefully do not want to have contact with other Christadelphians. According to the Belgian Free Christadelphians this is also part of the reasons why it is so difficult to show the world a bigger group of religious people under one name: Christadelphians.
Being joined together by our common faith in the Bible, and the way we live, we all should try to meet each other and have contact with each other as loving siblings. All being brothers and sisters in Christ. Though each “ecclesia” has to look after its own affairs, and choose members who determine arrangements and organise activities on behalf of their members they should feel that unity with Christ with other Christadelphians world wide and show the outside world that Jesus Christ is their head of each ecclesia.
Living in this world we do agree that “It’s not about the numbers” … …but the “numbers tell a story”. And those numbers in west Europe may be alarming. Therefore there was the call to come thereto in the UK to discuss that matter of dwindling ciphers.
Like any other western capitalist country in the UK Bible ownership and Bible knowledge has slumped, some english people also do find it a form of indoctrination when parents in their home pray and talk about God in front of their children of that child.
Jon Downes presented the anxious members a snapshot of our society in the UK.
and showed those present how a typical ecclesia looks like.
When we look at the adult baptisms in our community from related people (3,5) and from non related
(1.0) plus counting the (0.5) refellowshipping members, comparing them with the average of 10 people falling asleep and 2 people leaving the fellowship, we might say that such numbers bring the graphic line downwards.What might happen to the Christadelphian community in the United Kingdom when they do not something to change the coarse.
happened.
Therefore lets look at the United Kingdom as an example.
what might this give to that community, where we find, like everywhere in the world members becoming older and dying, whilst the world is getting less interested in God and commandment.
In case we can bring the Gospel of the Good News to many more ears, we should be able by a co-effort of preaching to increase the interest in God again and get again some people interested in joining a community of lovers of Christ and lovers of God.
We must see that
The lost are our hope
and that there is good reason to try to reach the lost. We as brothers and sisters in Christ should love the people in the world so much that we will be offering some of our spare time for preaching work.
We are the hope of the lost
Luckily it is not all ad or sad news.
Good News!
tells brother Downes is that we can look at
- 120 baptisms a year (4 average sized ecclesias)
- In the last 40 years, 39 new ecclesias. (Although 96 have closed & some were renamed).
- In the last 15 years,1/4 of all baptisms from non Christadelphian backgrounds were by just 16 ecclesias. (Although 1/3 didn’t baptise any)
- While many ecclesias are shrinking many are growing.
- Numbers in Africa are growing!
- Bible Learning Centres & Learning English are having a big impact
Instead of going for Plan A is it not better that we go for Plan B?
Plan A discussed at the Big Conversation of 2015 October 10 at Dudley college, UK- Current UK Christadelphian population of 8-8500 is based on 223 2015 ALS Diary returns on households & 178 2015 CCH survey returns. 10 Ecclesias had neither return and were estimated on previous diary returns.
- 1985 to 2015 data based on records kept from the back of the Christadelphian, clearly subject to some error, gaps and misreporting. The last 12 months of Magazine entries were analysed separately and yielded results consistent with the records obtained.
- Net loss of 120 per annum and the 10, 5, 1 ratio derived from average of last 10 years data. Approx 240 out and 120 in. These do not include brothers and sisters movement in and out of the UK.
- Forecast from 2015 based on a linear continuation which could easily be a) more dramatic because of rapid closure of small ecclesias, ageing population, reduced home pool to draw from, fewer people to witness, higher rates of leaving the community b) less dramatic as in a smaller community there are fewer people falling asleep each year.
One of the deceases of this time is that too many people want to enjoy their own little cocoon and not getting out of their comfort zone to share life with the spiritually needy. Those who call themselves Christian may not forget that this means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and demands also doing what he required from his followers. Jesus asked us to go out in the world to proclaim the Kingdom of God. We are to make every effort to bring hope and healing in Jesus name to those in need.
We are to see that the tangible goodness of God flows into every nook and cranny of our communities – especially in those places where darkness seems to prevail. {Walking With Intentionality}
+
Preceding articles:
Religious Practices around the world
Manifests for believers #3 Catholic versus Protestant
Ecclesia to exist, grow and communities to have people communicating with each other
The Ecclesia in the churchsystem
The Big Conversation follow up
Reasons why you may not miss the opportunity to go to a Small Church
Engaging the culture without losing the gospel
Evangelisation, local preaching opposite overseas evangelism
Feeling-good, search for happiness and the church
Members of the ecclesia uniting and seeking God’s help in tribulation
Why we do not have our worship-services in a church building
Belgian Christadelphians 2013 & 2014 in review
Personal thoughts, communication, establishing ecclesia and guest writings
++
Additional reading:
- People are turning their back on Christianity
- Looking on what is going on and not being of it
- London an exaggerated microcosm of the UK at large
- Parents forbidden to pray in front of their children or to take them to church
- State and attitude of certain people to blame for radicalisation
- More Muslim children than Christian children growing up in our cities
- Will Islam conquer Europe
- Christianity to be enshrined
- Halloween custom of the nations
- Wrong ideas about religious terrorism
- A call easy to understand
- Discipleship way of life on the narrow way to everlasting life
- Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
- The meek one riding on an ass
- Do not be afraid to learn or to speak
- Reasons to come together
- Congregate, to gather, to meet
- Fellowship
- Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
- The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
- Holiness and expression of worship coming from inside
- To find ways of Godly understanding
- Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach
- Who are the honest ones?
- Certain people trying to stem freedom of speech
- Priority to form a loving brotherhood
- Newsweek asks: How ignorant are you?
- Religious Freedom in a Multicultural World
- Some christians do have problems with the Christian connection with Jews
- American atheists most religiously literate Americans
- Determine the drive
- Try driving forward instead of backwards
- Campbell, Thomas and Bijbelvorsers
- Looking at older articles series over Russell on the previous Bible-scholar Association
- Wanting to know more about basic teachings of Christadelphianism
- Christadelphians or Messianic Christians or Messianic Jews
- Christadelphian people
- Who are Christadelphians
- What are Brothers in Christ
- Two new encyclopaedic articles
- Christadelphians today
- Keeping an ecclesia in modern times
- Small churches of the few Christadelphians
- Christianity to be enshrined
- Christianity is a love affair
- Intentions of an Ecclesia
- Character transformed by the influence of our fellowships
- Love for each other attracting others
- What makes a consecrated Christian
- A call easy to understand
- If you have integrity
- Work with joy and pray with love
- To know Christ is filling life with meaning
- The truth is very plain to see and God can be clearly seen
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Other articles of interest:
- Walking in Total Dependence Upon God
- What is God’s Will For Your Life?
- On the Affirmation of Scripture
- A Snapshot of the Church in America
- a little church
- Four Pressing Needs in Rural Communities, and How the Church Should Respond
- If It’s All About Relationship…
- Leading a church is not a hands free exercise
- Walking With Intentionality
- Living Our Faith in a New Way
- What’s in It for Me?
- Deacon Selection In the Small Church
- Lord’s Day 10: God is in Control
- Just Try a Few Things
- “When Faith Goes, All Good Things Go”
- Growing Deep
- All the Wrong Reasons
- Little Church
- Leading Change
- Small Groups & Grow A Small Church by Multiplying Its Small Groups
- Living well
- Blessed by His Hand
- Encouragement for the Small
- How Did You Get Here?
- How to Impersonate a Big Church
- What Do You Do Well?
- Recognize the Facts
- What are your top two struggles?
- The Best Thing You Can Do
- On the road to sainthood and not silent about it
- Incognito Zone: Where the Church Is Booming
- House Church Reaches Out to Atheists, Agnostics in California
- The one religion that’s not part of my spiritual quest
- Six Ways Not to Forsake the Assembly
- Tent Making
- Journey On The Narrow Path
+++
Related articles
- One in three people born in the UK this year will suffer from some form of dementia in their lifetime, the Alzheimer’s Research UK charity has warned. (grumpyelder.com)
- Israel Goldstein Youth Village looking for dates in Europe (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
- Looking for writers for two Lifestyle Magazines (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
- Change of name (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
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#AdultBaptism #Agape #BeingInUnion #Belgium #BiblicalTruth #BrothersAndSistersInChrist #BrothersInChrist #CapitalistWorld #Christadelphian #ChristadelphianCommunity #Christadelphians #Christendom #ChristianChurches #ChristianTruth #Christians #ChurchOfJesusChrist #ComfortZone #DwindlingChurch #Ecclesia #Fellowship #FollowerOfChrist #FollowingJesusChrist #FollowingMan #GreatBritain #HopeOfEcclesia #Influence #InterestInGod #Ireland #JohnThomas #JonDownes #LeavingTheFellowship #LivingInThisWorld #LoversOfChrist #LoversOfGod #Minority #NorthOfAmerica #NumbersAmount_ #PaganFestivities #Preaching #PreachingWork #Proclaim #Proclaiming #ReachingTheLost #Refellowshipping #RuleOfPractice #SistersInChrist #SmallCommunity #TeachingsOfChrist #Temptation #Union #UnitedKingdom #Unity #UnityInChrist #UnityInDiversity #WayOfLiving #WordOfMan
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In 2020, the #Trump campaign reported paying hundreds of millions of dollars to two companies, one set up by a former campaign manager and the other by campaign officials.
Neither the campaign nor the companies themselves reported specifically what the money was being spent on.
The #Campaign #Legal #Center filed a complaint to the F.E.C., accusing the Trump campaign of using the companies as “#conduits” to #conceal other vendors.
The commission’s #general #counsel recommended that the F.E.C. find that the campaign had broken the law by misreporting payments, and begin an #investigation into the Trump campaign’s relationships with vendors and subvendors.
But the commission #deadlocked last year in a vote on the matter, which meant no action could be taken.
The Campaign Legal Center sued the commission, but a federal judge — while expressing sympathy for the desire of transparency — dismissed the case late last year, saying that the commissioners had discretion.
“It is a lot easier to follow the money when you have a paper trail,” the judge opened his opinion.
The Campaign Legal Center has appealed.
https://campaignlegal.org -
A quotation from Henry Commager
What happens when a state tries to purge its state universities or a community tries to purge its public schools of alleged subversives? […] What happens is the demoralization and eventual corruption of the school system.
This is not a momentary or even temporary affair; it is something the consequences of which may be felt for years. The search for subversives results in the intimidation of the independent, the original, the imaginative, and the experimental-minded. It discourages independence of thought in teachers and students alike. It discourages the reading of books that may excite the suspicion of some investigator or some Legionnaire. It discourages the discussion of controversial matters in the classroom, for such discussion may be reported, or misreported, and cause trouble. It creates a situation where first-rate minds will not go into teaching or into administration and where students therefore get poor teaching.
In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience. In the long run it will create a generation not only deprived of liberty but incapable of enjoying liberty.Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
Essay (1953-02-21), “Is Freedom Really Necessary?” Saturday ReviewMore about this quote: wist.info/commager-henry-steel…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #henrycommager #chillingeffect #conformity #education #indoctrination #innovation #nonconformity #school #subversion #subversive #teachers #witchhunt, #redscare
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The idea that the ‘golden’ ratio — $1.61803\ldots:1$ — has applications in visual art and architecture does not go back any further than the 2nd edition (1799–1802) of Jean-Étienne Montucla's (1725–99) (generally superb) ‘Histoire des Mathématiques’, in which he made the **incorrect** statement that Luca Pacioli's (c.1447–1517) book ‘Divina Proportione’ included illustrations of the ratio's application to architecture and font design.
This was shortly after the earliest known appearance of the term ‘golden section’ in Johann Samuel Traugott Gehler’s (1751–95) general scientific dictionary ‘Physikalisches Wörterbuch’.
The golden ratio was then taken up by Adolph Zeising (1810–76) as the basis for a system of aesthetic proportion in his book ‘New Theory of the Proportions of the Human Body’ (1854), where he argued — apparently to his own satisfaction — that his system agreed with the proportions of many masterpieces of art.
The psychologist Gustav Fechner (1801–87) made a much-misreported experiment in which people were asked to choose the most aesthetically pleasing of various rectangles (shown in the attached image). The most popular choice was the 34 ∶ 21 rectangle, whose proportions approximate the golden ratio. Fechner's conclusion was only that **a range of rectangles**, including the golden ratio rectangle, were considered most pleasing.
1/3
#GoldenRatio #GoldenSection #DivineProportion #HistMath #aesthetics #Zeising #Fechner
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CW: Indonesia summons UN official over criminal code comment, Bali in damage control over non marital sex
After the United Nations posted a statement of concern on Indonesia’s new Criminal Code, the Foreign Ministry summoned a UN official to provide an explanation.
The DPR and the Ministry both consider the statement to be a violation of the country’s sovereignty in enacting its own domestic laws. The Foreign Ministry expressed disappointment and said the UN should have communicated privately with the government instead of releasing a public statement. It’s the view of the United Nations that Indonesia has an obligation to follow the United Nations Charter as the country is a member state and also a member of the UN Human Rights Council.
The UN expressed concerns over the freedom of opinion and expression, including the ability to criticize the government and members of the government, which are curtailed in the new Criminal Code.
Separately, Bali is in full damage control thanks to widespread misunderstanding and misreporting of the upcoming Criminal Code which won’t be implemented for another three years. Tourist cancellations, driven by fears that the moral police will be checking up on their sexual activities, have spooked the government.
The Bali government have said that they will not be checking on the marital status of holidaymakers and other visitors at any point and that they should not be worried.
That is actually inaccurate, because if a foreigner happen to be in a relationship with a local resident and an immediate family member of the local resident objects to their cohabitation and sexual relations, they can file a police report. Similarly if the foreigner happen to be married and is having a extramarital relations while in Indonesia, their legal spouse can report them.
#Indonesia #CriminalCode #KUHP #tourists #Bali #UnitedNations #FreedomofExpression
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The concern now, going into November, is not only another uptick in #threats #against #election #workers, but the continuation of a larger #delegitimization cycle that originated in 2020:
a greater number of clerical election errors due to new and inexperienced election staff, leading to more election conspiracy theory fodder, and ultimately culminating in more violence and another wave of resignations, where the vicious cycle begins again.Some of the most viral 2020 election conspiracy theories originated from simple human error – a normal occurrence in any election that is in no way indicative of voter fraud.
In Antrim County, Michigan, for example, Trump and his allies spread #baseless #voter #fraud claims after the county inadvertently misreported a number of unofficial votes in 2020.
The mistake, which Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson quickly confirmed was not nefarious, but rather a “human error,” was then used by the MAGA world to cast doubt on electronic voting systems and election officials.And, similarly, in Maricopa County, Arizona, printer issues stirred up a wave of conspiracy theories, leading to failed gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake filing a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court asking the state to #overturn the #results of the election.
Even though election officials explained that the printer issues did not prevent voters from voting, bogus claims that the printing issues were intentional and depressed voter turnout continued to circulate.It’s mistakes like the ones in Antrim County and Maricopa County, which bad actors seized upon to inflict harm and #violence on #election #workers, that experts worry will only increase ahead of the 2024 election.
This is especially true because, according to a survey from the Brennan Center, 💥one in five election officials are likely to resign ahead of November. 💥
And, per reporting from the nonprofit Issue One, 💥over 160 chief election officials have resigned in 11 states since the 2020 election.💥
“The concern is when you have experienced people leave particularly close to an election and you aren’t able to bring on an experienced person to help steer the ship,” David Levine, senior elections integrity fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, told TPM in an interview.
And we’ve already begun to see this cycle play out.
A Spotlight PA and Vote Beat analysis found that 12 Pennsylvania counties reported 16 errors on or before Election Day during their November municipal election — more than twice the amount of errors reported since 2019.
The report found that the mistakes were linked to an increase in election official turnover.This past November, in Northampton County, for example, a programming mistake caused votes for two county judges to be flipped on a ballot question. And although the error did not cause any changes in the official election results, rumors about voter fraud continued to circulate.
But just because there might be an increase in normal clerical errors, it doesn’t mean voters should assume that officials will make mistakes that won’t be caught. Election procedures are sound, emphasized Justin Levitt, a professor of law at Loyola Law School.
And while there is certainly benefit to having an experienced official on the job, a lack of experience doesn’t mean there will be errors that will impact the results of the election.
“In the wake of 2020, there’s been so many more challenges related to physical security, the threats, the harassment, the making sure that conspiracy theorists aren’t blowing innocuous things out of proportion,” Michael Beckel, research director for the nonpartisan organization Issue One, told TPM.
But Trump isn’t waiting around for clerical election errors to occur in order to spread bogus claims about a fraudulent election.
On Tuesday, Trump resurrected his “Stop the Steal” mantra from 2020 in a Truth Social post arguing that the people prosecuting him are involved in their own form of “election interference.”It’s not surprising.
The delegitimization of our elections, according to Levitt, has been incredibly lucrative for those who have perpetuated baseless claims.“The grievance machine is exceedingly lucrative,” said Levitt. Trump himself raised about $30 million for his Save America PAC solely off of frivolous election fraud lawsuits, Levitt noted.
“There’s unfortunately big business in claiming problems, and I expect there to be additional unsound, frivolous litigation,” Levitt said, emphasizing that election mistakes that impact the results of the election are exceedingly rare.
“We rarely see an election result in the US that gets overturned, or even a new election that gets called based on either large scale mistakes or nefarious behavior,” he said.
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Why Labour Leaders Are Pushing for ECHR Revisions: A Political Analysis
Alarming stories that Labour leaders are wanting to reform the European Convention
June 2025
Alarming reports have emerged over the past few days that the current government is considering some kind of revision to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Figures such as the prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and the Attorney General Lord Hermer have made speeches suggesting disquiet concerning aspects of the Convention. In particular it is article 3: No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and article 8: Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
This story has history and the statements by politicians are more than usually disingenuous. To understand the story and the reasons for this recent slew of statements it is necessary to look at causes and why there is a clamour among politicians, some of the public and the media for change.
Stage 1 – the media
Much of the pressure has come from sections of the media so it is necessary to look at what is going on there. Newspaper readership has declined precipitately. Between 2000 and 2010, the decline was 65% and in the following decade up to 2020 a further 55%. Add in rising costs and declining advertising, and there is something of a crisis in the newsrooms. In this climate, it is cheaper to break into the emails, phones, bank accounts and even houses of the rich and famous, politicians and footballers to achieve a juicy front page, than to carry on the normal business of journalism.
Then came the hacking exposures and the Leveson enquiry which exposed the depth and extent of the hacking and criminal activity. It included senior police officers in the Metropolitan police in particular who sold information to the newspapers. This changed the dynamic of the industry and the notion of privacy was an anathema to their business models.
Over the last two decades there have been hundreds of stories alleging that criminals were not getting their just deserts because of their human rights either because of the ECHR or the domestic Human Rights Act. It was a ‘criminal’s charter’ they alleged. Photos of wanted criminals could not be circulated because of their human rights (they can), police could not evict an armed man until they provided him with a McDonalds hamburger because of his human rights (they could but it was normal practice to accede to requests to cool the situation). Abu Qatada was seriously misreported in the tussle over his deportation to Jordan.
Sadly, positive stories about the acts were almost entirely missing. The Daily Mail used the act to defend its journalist’s rights to protects their sources but strangely forgot to mention this to its readers.
Stage 2 – the politicians
Then the politicians began to join in perhaps sensing from the newspaper coverage that they were onto a popular winner. After all, if the voters were reading a never ending litany of stories about the evils of the human rights laws and Europe meddling in our affairs, it was a gift. It soon became part of the Conservative manifestos to abolish the act or later reform it. It became tangled up with the Brexit crusade and it is possible that many thought that coming out of Europe would mean that the ECHR would also be history. There was the famous cat story by Theresa May which was almost complete nonsense.
There was meant to be a Leveson part II to look at the unlawful conduct between the media and police but there were allegations that in return for a softer ride from the press, Keir Starmer agreed not to set it up. These allegations are denied. There are no plans for a part II.
Stage 3 – the boat people
As the means to arrive into the UK as a refugee or an asylum seeker diminished so the numbers who took to the boats to cross the Channel rose. This became a matter of massive political importance and the Reform party made huge progress with its promises to stop it. Media stories of asylum seekers being installed in hotels are constant. Despite boat crossings being only a small part of those coming to the UK, they loom large in the public imagination and politicians on the right have taken note of this.
The problem is that the government has obligations under the ECHR and other agreements, to treat asylum seekers in a proper way. Demands to simply ‘send them back’ are difficult to do particularly as ‘back’ can mean a county riven by war or where they can face dire consequences. But in simplistic terms human rights are standing in the way, as Mahmood says: ‘voters say international law stop them achieving the changes they want to see.‘
Stage 4 – the Reform party
Along came Reform and quickly began to made inroads into the political landscape. The overturning of a massive Labour majority of 14,700 in Runcorn and Helsby by Reform has shaken them badly. Reform has simple answers to matters like immigration which appeal to many and which has defeated both the Conservatives and now Labour. They would pick up boats in the Channel and return them to France. Asylum seekers would be processed off shore. These and other policies quick fix policies appeal to many and saying that they are difficult or impossible to do because of our international obligations carry little weight with many voters. They are even inflammatory particularly with those who have a deep distaste for anything European.
Stage 5 – today
So the Labour government is feeling under pressure. It has not ‘solved’ the Channel crossings problem. It has lost popularity for a variety of reasons quite apart from the discussion here. Reform is making great strides and even ahead in some polls with suggestions that Nigel Farage becoming a future prime minister was not the joke it might once have been. The Home Office remains dysfunctional and would take years to reform even under competent leadership. The party is becoming desperate to be able to counter the tide of dissatisfaction present in large parts of the kingdom particularly in the red wall seats.
So this brings into where we started and speeches about trying to reform elements of ECHR. The sadness is that they cannot. It would take years to carry through any reform in Strasbourg with little likelihood of success. If the government were to resile from either or both articles 3 and 8 would it solve its problems? Again sadly, no. The opposition to human rights laws and agreements have little to do with the people at the bottom of society so to speak. Almost no part of their speeches are about the victims of injustice which human rights are about.
As we have argued, it is sections of the media who have over decades created myths and disinformation about the workings of the laws. It is their business models which are under threat not the fate of asylum seekers. Why else would the Murdoch press spend over £1 billion in keeping the facts of its intrusion and criminality out of the courts? It is an irony – almost a supreme irony – that the much prized sovereignty that people apparently so desperately want is not in fact available to them. The Judiciary are all too happy to allow these hugely expensive legal actions to go ahead and thus subvert justice and free speech. There is no justice in any meaningful sense of the word. The rich and powerful can ‘buy’ silence by paying large sums into court that no one can afford to match.
These speeches appear to be preparing the ground at present in an attempt to match the rhetoric of Reform politicians. Instead of a proper concern for justice, establishing a Leveson II enquiry into the criminality of some of the media and their friends in the police, or tackling the rampant injustice of the defamation laws which serve to protect the rich from proper enquiry, our politicians seek to curry favour and favourable headlines in those very media outlets which have distorted the public’s attitudes to the laws which in truth protect them. The sadness is that the three politicians saying this stuff are experienced human rights lawyers who know it to be a distortion of the truth. A truly bizarre state of affairs.