I am sitting in a place that I never thought I would be: rooms in a college in Oxford. And the place grieves me. I walk past eight hundred years of faith. I have been driven past the pub where Tolkien and Lewis drank. I have seen the closed churches. (At Merton, where I am sitting, the chapel is being used for a recording and we cannot enter: ironically it is a mass that is being recorded). But the nation has fallen away, and we sit in the ruins.

It was quite a week. Rarely do you get to see the worm in the act of turning. And when it turns this much in a short time, it is a sight to behold. Thus the confederate battle flag is deprecated, and the rainbow flag suddenly raised everywhere. No more fitting symbol exists for this week than that above. And by analogy it is a fitting symbol for the entire march of progress. Which, tho’ we “celebrate” #LoveWins (and have always “celebrated” it), is admittedly not over. For now, we have always been at war with East Asia.

While the USA discusses this Supreme Court decision about gay marriage, in the real world the Islamists have killed tourists in Tunisia: an Muslim man has killed his employer in France, and the Islamic activists are promising more terror.

It makes one turn to the psalms.

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.

(http://www.esvbible.org/devotions/bcp/2015-06-30/)

We have had a period during which the West in general supported Christ and we were allowed to be salt and light. This allowed for a great work of evangelism: the world has been reached — with the few remaining tribes and Peoples being evangelized now — and for a while it looked as if we would have a world where all Peoples would praise God. But instead the church has been corrupted from within and is facing persecution from without. And some are shocked, thinking this is new.

It is not. The opposition come at us in the same old way, and when that happens there is the same old result: God is glorified by our faithfulness.

And Saul approved of his execution.

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city.

But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed.

(Acts 8:1-13 ESV)

I am greiving, or I am in a country which has abandoned faith. Well, the English version of the faith: and I miss Anglcians who were Anglicans and not progressive activists. Just like I miss methodists. But both branches of English Arminism have imploded. We are left with the Calvinists on one side and the Romans on the other. [In the East they have the Orthodox, but neither the pentecostals nor the mennonites are catholic in their theology: instead of being a church which accepts it has weeds they think they have but wheat].

And as the church shattered under pressure in Jerusalem, the power of the witness was such that practitioners of the occult such as Simon Magnus converted. Such that the natural enemies of the Israel — the Samaritans — came to faith.

The elite think they have won. They think the can neatly wipe the cross our of the way and make us all neat robots.

But if we stand, they will fail as much as they did in the Reich or the Stalin’s gulag. The church, you see, is not of this world, and the tools of this world cannot conquer it. It is of the spirit, and that spirit is the spirit of God. So it matters not if the church elects corrupt and evil bishops or the crown decides to ban us. We can move. We can speak. But we cannot bow to this elite, and join them in hell.