The Myth of Equality (And The Tyranny of Progress)

The mantra on everyone's lips nowadays is that of equality. In everything there must be equality. Even where it is clear that equality has nothing to do with it, equality is used as a yardstick. The crazy notion of equality has also crept into the church. Last year, the Anglican Church in England held it's General Synod and voted against the ordination of women bishops. Comments that I read before and after the vote baffled me. In the end I had to come to the conclusion that the Anglican Church is seen as something of a club both by the media and even its members. I asked myself, whatever happened to having a calling? What happened to being led by God through the Holy Spirit? I am extremely baffled by the people who think that any change in culture automatically equals to some sort of progress.

Equality is a myth and when you chase a myth you end up creating confusion. What people should be looking at is what is just and fair. However in a world where everyone has the wrong idea of what should be and equality is the new fad, trouble is inevitable. I love sport, especially tennis. Thanks to people like Serena Williams and the world media, all the major tennis organisations now give equal prize money. The myth is that the men and the women do the same work. I disagree. If I were to randomly pick a hundred men and women, and ask them which match-up they would prefer to watch, a Roger Federer/Rafael Nadal contest or a Serena Williams/Caroline Wozniacki contest, I'm sure over 90 per cent of the people would want to watch the Federer/Nadal contest. The only people who might want to watch the female match-up would be Americans because of some strange sense of patriotism. That tells me that they are not equal. Especially when the men play five sets and the women three.

If you really want to push the idea of equality, you would find out that the women would be the losers. If all the tennis grand slams deecided that the women should also play five sets, or the army decided that women had to do the same number of push ups and run the same number of miles as the men, the women would find it extremely hard to cope. We only push for "equality" when it suits us. We all heard about how Navy SEAL Team 6 found Osama Bin Laden and assassinated him. How many women were part of the team?

The world has been gripped by the equality fever but the Church must stand firm. We are followers of Christ and we must not be ashamed to admit that we play by a different set of rules. It may offend people, even some who say they are Christians, but Christians but Christianity is not about equality. I have looked through my Bible and the God I love and who loves me is not a God of equality. He is a God of justice. Justice is different from equality. Equality is about what you want. Justice is about what you deserve. And not just because of you or what you've done. God's justice is based on who he is and his love for us.

 

Happy New Year (And Wait On God)

Happy New Year everyone. It is my earnest prayer that this year, we will come to know God, and his power, in a more intimate way. I pray that the Spirit and life behind the Word and the Spirit of prayer and intercession will move us greatly this year.

There might be the temptation for a lot of us to look back at the year that has just ended and conclude that there is nothing to be grateful for. There were probably quite a lot of things we were believing God for (or one important thing) and we didn’t get to see it and so some of us are probably disappointed. You’re not alone. I also thought last year was the year in which I would get a literary agent who would agree to represent me and would offer me a representation contract (is that what they are called?). I thought that after a little while, the major Christian publishing houses would be breaking down my door in order to get my signature on a publishing contract. Did any of that happen? No. I wrote a lot of book proposals and I got a lot of rejection letters. There were even more literary agents who didn’t even bother replying so all I got was silence. Am I disappointed? Yes. Am I giving up? No. Why? Because I know what I believe about what God has said to me. What the whole thing has taught me is patience.

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter 9, verse 4 that “a living dog is better than a dead lion.” As long as there is breath in our lungs, we should live in hope. Especially if we believe that we know what God has said about the particular situation we are trusting him for. I have told myself that I am going to send a book proposal to every literary agent under the sun who represents Christian writers until I find one who will represent me. I believe that I have a good story (at least one of the agents has told me she likes certain aspects of it. I have been waiting for word from her superior) so I believe that there must be someone out there who will like it and will be ready to represent me. And I believe this is the year.

So if you are thinking of quitting, thinking of giving up, let it not be today my friends. We need to keep on going because tomorrow just might be the day. We should have it always in our thoughts that God has our best interests at heart. We might not always get the things we want but he will give us the things we need. And as the Kutless song says, Even If we don’t get the things we think we should have, we should still praise and worship Him because he is worthy. Let’s stick close to Him this year. I believe there are a lot things He wants to say to us. We should not let our circumstances or situations drown out his voice.

What are things we are believing for this year?