To what have we come?

To what have we come?

History can be a troubling thing. It tells us of ancient lands and ancient words. It tells of these things, yet it never forces us to listen. The hard-fought lessons of ages past are lost.

An ancient land, called England, gave us the Great Charter, a document first known as The Charter of Liberties, but known today as the Magna Charta.  This ancient document spelled out many of the individual rights we take for granted in our day. It was agreed to by King John in an English meadow called Runnymede in the year 1215. Among many other things, it promised the protection of church rights and protection from illegal imprisonment. Mankind you see has been working on this freedom thing for a long while.

England gave us many great evangelists like Charles Spurgeon and John Wesley, many great Bible commentators such as Matthew Henry, preachers, and songwriters and converted slave ship Captains such as John Newton (think Amazing Grace), hymn writer and poet Charles Wesley, and organizations such as the London Missionary Society formed in 1795. This England sparked the process which ended the scourge of slavery and brought personal freedom to a larger world.

And yet just the other day, people of that same land found it offensive to listen to the words of a North London pastor doing what Pastors are called to do, preach from God’s word. The police hauled him off to jail.

“In a statement given to Premier Christian News, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police stated: “At 13:35hrs on Friday, 23 April, officers on patrol were flagged down by a member of the public who made them aware of a man allegedly making homophobic comments close to Uxbridge Underground Station.”

The “homophobic comments” were simply comments from the closing verses of Genesis Chapter 1.

To what have we come? 

To what have we come indeed?