Destination Unknown

 "Oh, Superman, where are you now? When everything's gone wrong somehow, The men of steel, the men of power, are loosing control, by the hour".

Genesis - Land of Confusion.

Imagine you're driving on a freeway across some wide, open country. The sun is up and the day looks bright, and there's enough gas in the tank, and all your papers, procedures and protocols are in place to keep you rolling for a fair while to come... but there is a problem.

Way up ahead, the 'off' ramp (exit) you're intending to eventually use, which was promised when you started this trip so you could reach your destination, hasn't been built yet, because you're in fact travelling along on unfinished mega-project, so the moment is coming when it will become overwhelmingly true that this road is, in effect, a road to no where.

That's an apt analogy of where we are right now with so many of the world's most arrogant and ignorant 'global' policies.

Most people in the UK, for example, were unaware this week that after all the hot-air generated in Glasgow on climate change, our emergency energy facilities had to be brought on-line as - get this - there had been no strong winds across most of the country for the last ten days, so coal-fired generators had to be fired up!

Then there's the 'pandemic'. The island of Gibraltar has had 140% take-up on the jabs, but this has done nothing to stop rising infections or another total lockdown being ordered. For what? If that level of cover has proved ineffective, what on earth do they think this step is going to do? Scare the virus?

Then there's the "law" rhetoric of the church. Evangelicals are now actively discriminating in some major churches against allowing the un-jabbed to fellowship with the 'protected'.... but on what basis? Certainly not one derived from faith in the Gospel, and that is the most telling truth about what we're seeing right now.

If the church is going to be well again, it must do so in its relationship to the fact that Christ's death is for all men everywhere, and that any digression from that glorious truth is erroneous. To develop from there, if there is to be a reconciliation between believers who have become divided by responses to the past few years, it has to be by being brought together by the redemptive bedrock of the Gospel, allowing God's peace to foster genuine fellowship once again. If we are, in effect, implementing policies (like Durham Cathedral this week) which prevent such union, we are actively engaged in a process which dismembers God's people.

When we look at society at large, what is obvious is at the heart of many troubles resides institutions which, like our freeway, may seem impressive, but are in reality so unwieldy they are unfit for purpose - the likes of the NHS or the BBC - bloated mega-projects that leave us stranded. The same is often painfully true of the church.

The problem is that our investment into such things is often so great, we cannot imagine them failing, but they, like us, do so constantly, because they are filled with the likes of us - men full of sin, always in need of grace. That, of course, is why Christianity matters!

We're now entering a time when men are indeed 'loosing control', and they are responding the way such creatures always do - by doubling-down on what they're demanding in respect to compliance, but this won't end well. Christianity cannot afford to take that freeway, because it is a road to hell (however 'noble' the espoused intentions). We must show another way.

Beyond all of this misery is a cross made empty of its power of tyranny, torture and execution by one who bore its demands - became our sin - and buried all such evil in His grave, rising whole and holy, to take us through to eternal care. That's the health, the fellowship, each of us so deeply needs in this trying day.