It may be better for my career if I did not have a temper, and if I was quiet. Over the years I have both become less obvious and more bold: because in these fallen times complaints will happen for our mere existence. The sensitive exist: people who do not understand professionalism define any confrontation as bullying. I don’t know how they could survive on a factory floor or building site.

Victoria Wasteney, a senior occupational therapist in one of the country’s most racially diverse areas, was also accused of bullying the colleague after giving her a book about a Muslim woman who converts to Christianity.

In addition, senior managers told Miss Wasteney that it was inappropriate to invite the woman to a community sports day organised by her church.

The complaints led to Miss Wasteney being suspended on full pay for nine months.

Three charges were upheld against the 37-year-old Christian at an internal disciplinary hearing in February and five charges were found to be unsubstantiated. She had to accept a final written warning at work which will remain on her records for 12 months, as well as accept a range of other requirements designed to stop her discussing her faith and beliefs with colleagues.

Miss Wasteney said she was challenging her employers in court because political correctness in the NHS was stifling ordinary conversations about faith.

“I believe in tolerance for everyone and that is why I am challenging what has happened to me,” she added.

We have to be wise about these things, because our employers are not supportive of any conversations about faith, while teaching cultural appropriateness. Somedays I wish I was Maori: I could then pray for people and call it an appropriate practice, but even then it would only be within the tribes. THose of us of faith are supposed to be gagged.

The original story doesn’t make clear who launched the complaints, but I’m almost certain it wasn’t the young Muslim woman whom the Christian woman befriended, but rather some other busybody (probably a fellow Briton, a progressive one).

In these times, therefore, don’t proselytize or witness at work; instead, if you feel compelled, i.e. Spirit-led, to share your faith with a colleague, invite him or her out for lunch or a coffee, or a walk in the park – make sure there aren’t other colleagues present – then speak freely. Then, at least, if a complaint is later made, it was not due to something that happened at work, on work hours, and ideally there shouldn’t be grounds for the workplace to punish. But even if there somehow is considered to be such grounds (and who knows, in these times, how far they’ll go), at least you’ll know exactly who initiated the process – the individual to whom you were trying to witness, and not any other busybody at your workplace (other than those to whom he or she complained).

Like WK says, you have to be smarter. Christ told us to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” We should therefore act accordingly.

When a society makes the praise of evil compulsory and punishes good, then things are getting to the point where that society is rotten. A bit like the tree above. It’s still fairly strong: one of the sons climbed it, but it is dead, shunted to the side of a trail, and slowly rotting, a refuge for birds and vines.

Deliver Me, O Lord

A Song of Ascents.

In my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me.
Deliver me, O LORD,
from lying lips,
from a deceitful tongue.

What shall be given to you,
and what more shall be done to you,
you deceitful tongue?
A warrior’s sharp arrows,
with glowing coals of the broom tree!

Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech,
that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
Too long have I had my dwelling
among those who hate peace.
I am for peace,
but when I speak, they are for war!

(Psalm 120 ESV)

Our Eyes Look to the Lord Our God

A Song of Ascents.

To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
till he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than enough
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.

(Psalm 123 ESV)

We should not be deceived. The liberals hate us, hate what we stand for, and will act to destroy us. I mistrust HR, delay promotion until I am well over the threshold for it, and work on the assumption that it is better not to ask permission, and then do not beg forgiveness. I have to consider my career, which I have spent decades building, could be fungible. Not because I am bad at my job, and not because I cannot lead.

But pour encourager les autres

To which the answer is: well, we certainly considered the possibility [of setting up a charity under US tax law], and a few years ago I might have entertained the notion. But not anymore. The National Organization for Marriage, which was founded to protect the pre-revisionist definition of marriage, is, in its various arms, both a 501(c)3 and a 501(c)4. As such, its tax returns are publicly available, but not its donor lists. Nevertheless, it is obliged to report its donors on Schedule B to the Internal Revenue Service. Someone at the IRS leaked the donor lists to a man called Matthew Meisel, a gay activist in Boston. Meisel in turn passed it on to the gay group Human Rights Campaign (whose president was a national co-chair of the Obama re-election campaign), and HRC in turn published the list of donors, which was subsequently re-published by The Huffington Post.

There’s no secret about why they’d do such a thing. As we know, if you disagree with progressive orthodoxy, you have no right to host a cable-TV home-decor show or give a commencement address at an American university or be a beauty-queen contestant. But that’s not enough for these groups. If you’re not a public figure, if you’re just a Californian who puts up a yard sign or a bumper sticker on Proposition Eight, your car will be keyed and your house defaced. And likewise, if you slip a check in the mail for a modest sum, it is necessary that you also be made an example of. Brandon Eich, Richard Raddon and Scott Eckern all lost prominent positions as chief executives because of their donations. But Marjorie Christoffersen, a 67-year-old Mormon who works in the El Coyote restaurant in Los Angeles, was forced to quit because she wrote a $100 check in support of Proposition Eight.

So, when it comes to the leaking of donor lists, we’re not dealing with anything “theoretically” or “potentially” “troubling”. These guys act on this information, and act hard, and they are willing to destroy your life for a hundred bucks

There is absolutely nothing new here. Us Christians are often accused of being legalists, for making rules up, for removing the liberty of conscience. Well, not now. Most of the Christians I know want liberty of speech and liberty of conscience — for if nothing else, we need the quiet space to speak plain, and speak of God. Without some politically correct zampolit telling us what we cannot say. Moreover, we should not be shocked by this development. We are disciples of Christ, and Christ pissed off the authorities by breathing.

The Authority of Jesus Challenged

And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

The Parable of the Two Sons

“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.

(Matthew 21:23-32 ESV)

And Christ ended up on a cross. Most of the apostles died. Freedom is vanishing from the United Kingdom, where the nightmare that was V is coming to pass — but not because of the religious right, but because of the progressive agenda. Perhaps it will come to this in the end. Pray that it does not.

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