If we pass an Assisted Dying Bill we are legislating atheism because such a Bill operates on the assumption that there is no life (or pain) after death. This is atheism.

Abortion operates on the assumption that those involved in this despicable act will not be held to account, but Assisted Dying goes further than this.

Between secular atheism and aggressive islam, Britain is in a precarious position.

Islamists have introduced religion to British politics and it is time that Christians voted for a Christian Voice in Parliament.

Some muslims are agitating for an alternative World Order through islam. This UK speaker this video: “Now is the time to put the final nail in the coffin to Western liberalism” and to replace it with an islamic world order.

Worldview

Globalists advocate a multipolar world but it is a fantasy. There are competing worldviews – Christianity, international socialism or islam – which will prevail? for they do not easily co-exist.

Secularism has failed to hold back islamisation and atheism is simply one element of secularism.

If Britain legislates that there is no God, we need not be surprised if God allows all hell to break loose on Earth. Some areas of Britain appear to be experiencing this pathway already.

“Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.”

The death of God’s earthly saints is precious in His sight because they have become heavenly saints and reached their heavenly goal, leaving their earthly troubles behind them. “After death the wicked cease from troubling the godly, and there the weary are at rest” Job 3:17.

Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people – prepared by Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus told His disciples: “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” Jn 14:2-3. Jesus comes for His own at their death.

Jesus told His disciples while they were on Earth: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” Jn 14:27. He continued: “These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer – I have overcome the world” Jn 16:33. In heaven, the glorified saints have also overcome the world by leaving it behind.

These saints have beaten us to the finishing line, having raced through it to join the great cloud of witnesses Heb 12:1 of our continuing earthly race. Let us follow them who, through faith and patience, are now inheriting the promises Heb 6:12.

We may have learned only a little about their earthly witness, but when I lay down my own head on Jesus’ pillow in due course, I look forward to making their acquaintance in heaven, to hear the rest of their earthly witness for Christ.

It is a joy to finish one’s earthly course and to enter into the joy of the Lord. Mat 25:21,23.

Earthly considerations

What about those grieving family and friends whom they leave behind?

The apostle Paul says that they do not need to sorrow as others who have no hope of eternal life nor happiness for their departed loved ones 1Th 4:13.

Let us learn to follow their pathway. London-preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon wanted “devout men” to carry him down to the grave like Stephen Act 8:2 and it will be good to have a similar burial.

Let us not leave Question marks about our own eternal state

There are some whose lives are such that we have no certainty of their eternal blessedness. They leave a large question mark hanging in the air. How much better to “make your heavenly calling and eternal election sure”? 2Pe 1:10. Not only will this be to your personal, present comfort but it will comfort your family and friends when you leave this earthly scene.

How can you ensure this? It is becoming more difficult to find out. I made a recent blogpost referring to changes in Highland funeral services nowadays, substituting celebrations of the departed person’s life for the Gospel. Although there may be a place for celebration, the purpose of a Christian funeral service is to seek God’s blessing on the bereaved, just as the purpose of a Christian marriage service is to seek God’s blessing on the marriage. That former blogpost pointed out the inadequacies of some current funeral services; hopefully, this blogpost may go some way to pointing you to the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed hope of the godly.

There is a biblical warrant for remembering the godly Heb 13:7 and even the ungodly “Remember Lot’s wife” Lk 17:32. We may celebrate the life of the godly and we may celebrate the death of wicked oppressors, dictators and tyrants.

However, a Christian funeral service is the very time to learn how to find peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ Rom 5:1. “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, which is the finish of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart” Ecc 7:2.

Jesus speaks to the heart and mind. He touches them and changes them forever.  If you do not know about this potential in the Gospel, now is the time to learn about it.

A lingering or sudden death?

The Lord knows the best way for us to leave this earthly scene. A lingering death is the Lord’s kind providence giving time to prepare for the inevitable. A sudden and unexpected death is also the Lord’s providence, as in the case of Job’s children. A long battle with terminal illness reminds us of our long battle with sin, the flesh and devil and the sudden release when the soul takes it departure from the body reminds us that the godly will be rid of them all in an instant of time – thanks be to God.

Thereafter the soul returns to God Who gave it Ecc 12:7 and man enters his eternal or “long home” Ecc 12:5.

I finish off this blogpost with Christian affection for and condolences to wounded spirits.

I grieve with you mourning your loss and point you to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life, Whom to know is eternal life Jn 17:3. I hope that you will find and feel the Lord’s rich consolations at so difficult a time.

I have attended countless funerals in my lifetime, and last winter has taken its toll upon a significant number of people that I knew. Witnessing these funerals I draw attention to the subtle changes that are taking place.

Instead of seeking God’s blessing upon the bereaved family, mourning friends and acquaintances, the tone is changing towards celebrating the deceased person’s life by way of thanking God for them, and supporting the family in their bereavement.  This is well and good in its own place, but it is substituting for seeking God’s blessing upon all concerned.

Scripture guides us how to comfort the bereaved when the godly die 1Th 4:13-18 and how to direct the mourners to the only true Comforter through Jesus Christ.

Instead of this, Christian comfort is being misapplied and sometimes it is even missing.

The Gospel is not often overtly declared, and sometimes it is absent, the preacher leaving the life of the deceased to do the talking for him by way of a potted biography extolling the deceased.

The warning about preparation for meeting God in eternity is rarely heard, and more importantly, how to find peace with God is not explicitly explained.

Instead I have heard Rest In Peace (RIP) declared, the Roman Catholic prayer for souls in purgatory, whom they think are not yet at peace, so they pray even for their deceased popes to have peace. There is plenty scope for preachers to correct these misleading doctrines and to point their hearers in the right direction, towards Jesus Christ as a welcoming Saviour while there is yet time to find “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” Rom 5:1.

The past

In the past, a Highland funeral service usually followed soon after death, at which God’s blessing and comfort was sought for the bereaved. Attendees showed their respect for the deceased by their attendance at their burial.  If the person was publicly significant there might be a memorial service arranged at a later date. 

Nowadays, the latter memorial service is being conflated and even replacing the former funeral service, beginning to conform to the varied practices throughout world history, but departing from biblical worship.

Current competition

As funeral directors compete with each other for business, there are more funeral businesses and national firms appearing in the Highlands of Scotland.  Their services to the bereaved are more ornate than the simple Presbyterian or Puritan “send-off” that has hitherto been witnessed in the Highlands. Additionally, humanist celebrants are avoiding the religious element altogether. An Inverness funeral director promoted the building of a Crematorium in Inverness, against which I campaigned at the time.  Now evangelical Christians are burning their dead, a significant change, whereas Abraham, the father of the faithful, buried his dead Gen 23:4,8.  Jesus on His cross cried, “Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit.” It is as well for us that His body was not burned but solemnly buried – “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and He was buried, and He rose again the third day according to the scriptures” 1Cor 15:4-5.

From a Christian point of view, which is worse? – a humanist funeral with a burial or a christian funeral with a cremation?  One needs to ask also, what is one trying to achieve by each of these? In one, the humanist denies the being of God. In the other, the Christian burns what they believe was once the image of God in man. Humanists celebrate the life of the deceased but don’t thank God for it.  Christians seek God’s blessing on the bereaved through the worship of God, then the body made in the image of God is burned.  This is so inconsistent that you may understand why I cannot be a part of the latter hypocrisy. The former is consistent but the latter is God-defying, possibly out of ignorance. The best biblical text for demonstrating God’s displeasure with cremation is Amos 2:1.  Sometimes in Scripture we read of large numbers of decomposing carcasses being burned, probably for hygienic or practical reasons after a battle, but the singular burning of the bones of the ungodly king of Edom was abominated by God.  How much more the bodily remains of the godly?  It is an unchristian ritual, and will God bless it?

Controversial History

I gave an analysis of the principles behind funerals and burial at a Free Presbyterian Theological Conference more than twenty years ago, but the most significant person was not there to hear it, far less to “confer” upon the subject. Instead lessons were not learned and the Free Presbyterian Church had a few years of disagreement over “the funeral overture” from the Southern Presbytery and manifest inconsistences in subsequent practice.

The Synod debates on the subject were so poor that they even descended into prescribing the number of psalms to be sung at worship, the first liturgy introduced into and mandated for Free Presbyterian worship in its long history. Of course, it did not hold and there was one rule for one and another rule for another.

One significant observor told me some years later that he thinks the counting of votes was wrong and according to his calculation the vote should have gone “the other way” in favour of what I was saying.

This was a failure of the spirit of Presbyterianism. Instead of conference there was imposition. I have noted many conferences that do not confer, such as the Scottish Reformed Conference which I stopped attending many years ago because it consisted simply of three sermons without any conferring. It may be my regular criticism of this point which makes the Free Presbyterian annual conference a true conference with about an hour or more of conferring. On the other hand, some lecturers run over their time with lengthy papers, such as the annual Free Church School in Theology, so that there is little or no time to confer, nor to discover that the speaker cannot answer the questions raised.

The spirit of Presbyterianism

It is the nature of Presbyterianism to confer and make use of the wisdom of “a multitude of counsellors” but too often this is abandoned in favour of “following my leader”. The ability to use biblical exegesis to solve disputes, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, has given way to following authority figures and their opinions. This is far from the apostle Paul’s example:

“But we have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”

2Corinthians 4:2

Worse than “follow my leader” is the current policy of “catch me if you can” in which church leaders simply do as they please, like teenagers testing their boundaries, to see what they can get away with.  This is becoming commoner with the worship of God, which is changing from God-centred worship to man-centred entertainment.  This spirit is developing at Highland funeral services, promoted by the next factor changing funeral practices in the Highlands.

Funeral directors

There are other factors at play in the Scottish Highlands, such as competition between the funeral directors. The established businesses are being squeezed by newcomers who are catering to the aesthetics of the trade, trying to make glamorous what is a solemn occasion and transaction, lightening the mood of the occasion.

The coffin is solemnly introduced to the celebratory occasion, with ritualistic bowing, processions and other novelties, so that the body is not “left out in the cold” – a genuine comment to me, and not a humorous pun.

If it was not the worship of God, some of this might be acceptable. So possibly one needs to conclude that some of these public meetings are simply not the worship of God. They are family gatherings to which friends are invited, and some religious elements are included. Humanist funerals are becoming commoner and their lighter, celebratory, musical elements entertaining the attendees may influence some Christians to imitate them, but just as church hymnody cannot match secular entertainment, one should not think that man-centred ‘worship’ can outmatch humanist celebrations. The Christian church should abide by God-centred worship at funeral services and make it meaningful and relevant.

The Christian witness

At Christian funeral services, many preachers are failing to use the opportunity to warn people about a lost eternity and to invite them to Jesus Christ with the free offer of the Gospel. Frequently the mourners are none the wiser that there is “a heaven to be won and a hell to shun”. Although the life of the deceased may be used to suggest that others should follow in their steps, yet preachers need to explain how this is done. While seeking to comfort the mourners that the deceased has gone to heaven, there is rarely any explanation how we can follow them to heaven. I was recently told after a funeral service that this “was not the time to discuss this”.  Really? If so, things are definitely changing in the Scottish Highlands.

Links:

18 May 2026: Christian condolences.

I am the Scottish Christian Party’s candidate for the Highlands and Islands Region for Thursday’s Election to the Scottish Parliament.

The interviewer, Professor Diane Rasmussen is a professional librarian who has been exposing the wicked and overtly sexualised content of school library books for children, both in America and increasingly in the UK. In one interview she highlighted that major European publishers want explicit sex in future publications for young people .  She has been following and publicising the abuse in Fornethy Residential School, Scotland, and the inadequate response experienced by the survivors. The abuse of children has been a particular interest not only of hers but of UK Column’s founder Brian Gerrish.

UKColumn began in 2006, the same year as the Scottish Christian Pary, with the aim to expose corruption and through the intervening 20 years it has developed into investigative journalism. Its strapline is “an independent multimedia news website supported by its members.”

I have always admired investigative journalism, but the Christian Party does not have the resources to engage in it. We can only point to what is going on as we are able. We do not have the deep pockets of other political parties, but if Christians would vote in sufficient numbers for the Christian Party, we might be able to take on the many issues I mention in my interview, and many more. Meanwhile we rely on others such as UK Column to investigate and expose what is happening in the high echelons of power.

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair wanted Britain to be a meritocracy, but UK Column is “following the money”, the friendships, the meetings, the powerbrokers with jobs for the boys (metaphorically and genetically), exposing nepotism, croneyism and kleptocracy in most of the national and international bodies and NGOs that intelligent observers suspect but do not have the resources to expose.

The citizen journalism of the UK Column is more informative than most forms of online media owned by billionnaires with their inevitable prejudices. The most recent example is the new owner of The Daily Telegraph who said yesterday that his journalists must support Israel or resign [8’20] and UK Column informs us [at 19’25] that The Telegraph was bought for $766m after a three-year bidding war, but only two days after the conclusion of the recent Bilderberg meeting. UK Column contributors each have their own bias but it is a platform for free speech, is member-driven, and importantly provides sources along with its online interviews. I discuss some of these matters during my interview.

Rupert Lowe is a political Christian and possibly Nigel Farage is also. Ben Habib might be the same.  They are also afraid of islam taking over Britain.  Their promotion of Christianity is political expediency.  Without islam on the scene, Christianity would not be mentioned in their politics.  Indeed, over the past decades, the mention of Christianity was met with the charge that one is introducing sectarianism into politics.  Now it is convenient to support Christianity – convenience Christianity, the Christianity of convenience.  You don’t miss the water till the well runs dry, and the well is now quite dry.

Such politicians want to support and promote institutional Christianity.  What form this will take is open to question, but the main thing in their eyes is to roll back islam in Britain.

Political Christianity

How they expect to do this with politics is a mystery. Politics has its place but it needs to know its place. Puerile politicians with little experience in life will not do it. This is why people are turning to Nigel Farage, Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib, who are in turn abandoning career politicians (a.k.a. “no real-world-experience” politicians) for businessmen and women who know about life. However, do these real-world substitutes know how to convert radical, aggressive, violent muslims into peace-loving equivalents?

Even the much more popular peace-movement musicians of the 1960s have not changed the world. They sang about peace and stopped the Vietnam War eventually, by creating a mass-movement whose numbers influenced politicians to act. What doctrine did they preach in their songs? Bob Dylan told those who listened – “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.” It had a catchy tune, appealed to multitudes, but what is the answer? Will musicians convert radical, aggressive, violent muslims into peace-loving equivalents?

Will politicians do it? Will musicians do it? Which “influencers” know enough Christianity to attempt it?

For half a century activists wanted to disestablish the Church of England and now the folly of such ideas is becoming apparent. Which form of Christianity will our political Christians adopt?

Religion or politics?

Is islam a religion or a political movement?  It is both, like the pope in Rome who is both the spiritual leader of billions of Roman catholics and the king and ruler of Vatican City.

Who said religion and politics don’t mix?  Islam and the Roman papacy have been at it for over a millennium.

If islam was to go away, so would this adoption of political Christianity.  Political Christianity is just a convenience.  It does not adopt Jesus Christ as Lord.

Political Christianity will be accused of stoking up religious tensions.  False religion has always given true religion a bad name.

In former days, Britain evangelized the world.  Now it has forgotten how to do so.

Psalm 2 reminds us of the religious warfare that has continued for several millennia. Its advice is to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord.

This is the solution to the world’s ills and it has the answer for Britain, blowing in the Wind of the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ changing the hearts of aggressive muslims, and others also for that matter.

Put your cross by The Cross for a Christian Voice representing your Region in the Scottish Parliament.

If you do not know whom to vote for in your Constituency or Region, phone Donald on 07927 094718. 

Donald’s 70-minute interview illustrating what the Scottish Christian Party would contribute to the Scottish Parliament.

Why Christians should not vote for the Lib Dems nor the Greens.

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Join the Christian Party here or get involved.

Confusion and the culture of death promoted by the Liberal Democratic Party.

Links:

Christians and Political Party loyalty.

What is a Christian Voice? The importance of communication.

The coming sexualisation of children. Is Scotland and the UK going to follow America in this regard?

Zack Polanski’s ratings are nose-diving.

The Tories had been in the political wilderness during Tony Blair’s triple premiership.  They experimented with a few ineffectual leaders. William Hague was the first Tory leader who never became Prime Minister. Iain Duncan Smith “the quiet man” failed to make any breakthrough. Then Michael Howard experienced the same.

Eventually the Tory Party chose the fresh-faced David Cameron in a competition that resembled a beauty contest rather than a serious challenge, by-passing competent and educated Malcolm Rifkind.

Cameron showed how little he knew about world history when he said during his first visit to the United States: “We were the “junior partner” in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis”, whereas America had not even entered the war in 1940. This shows how ill-prepared he was for leadership. The same failure to understand world history led to his rapprochement along with George Osborne with the Chinese premier Xi Jinping. Three days before he was elected UK Prime Minister in May 2010 Cameron said that he had no plans to redefine marriage, but he changed his mind under the influence of his Lib Dem coalition partners. Marriage was redefined on his watch, which he now considers to be one of the greatest legacies of his administration.

He was succeeded by Theresa May who as Home Secretary made the solemn pledge to a Conservative Party Conference to “Watch my lips, I will say this only once”, that the immigration numbers would be brought down to the tens of thousands by the next Parliament. As Tory Prime Minister she announced a snap General Election and lost a 24-point lead in the Polls because she did not know how to campaign.

Opposite her was Jeremy Corbyn, sprung unexpectedly into the Labour leadership, supported by Momentum, a movement which gave him the largest political party in Europe. However, he could not convince the electorate that he had a programme for government, or that he was a safe pair of hands, and so he lost out in the next General Election to Boris Johnson, whose post-Brexit premiership was made possible by Nigel Farage’s skilful political sense, whom Johnson did not thank. This resulted in Labour losing 60 seats in its worst result since the 1935 General Election. The public appetite was swinging like a pendulum as it witnessed the puerile incompetence of political leadership.

Johnson was educated enough but he did not know how to run a political party far less the country.  He was hampered by the Covid pandemic, his own illness and the fierce anti-Brexit campaigning by poor losers among the Europhiles.

Tory in-fighting led to their going through a series of ineffectual Prime Ministers.   Liz Truss had ideas but no idea how to implement them. Rishi Sunak did not know what he was trying to do and he announced a snap General Election in the pouring rain outside 10 Downing Street, a parody of his washed-out Government. This time, Nigel Farage was not so accommodating to the Tories leading to another record collapse, not of Labour this time but of the Tories.

Amidst this chaotic political confusion, Labour benefitted. The public mood swung away from the Tories back to Labour – anything was better than the Tories. The old adage “be careful what you wish for” could not be more appropriate. Labour had ditched Jeremy Corbyn and elected Sir Keir Starmer as its leader, who now became Prime Minister. He had supported Jeremy Corbyn while Corbyn was leader, but then expelled him from the Labour Party for perceived antisemitism, a harbinger of his catastrophic leadership.

Keir Starmer proved so bad that he has become the most unpopular Prime Minister since records began. His international standing is disastrous and in spite of many years in Opposition to prepare, he became UK Prime Minister with no idea how to govern. He appointed a Chancellor of the Exchequer who knows little about the economy and is trying to learn on the job, and he proceeded to break many of his election pledges. He performed a series of U-turns, growing in number to his opponents’ delight. Starmer is in the process of selling-out Britain and today he is fighting for his political life for his inept appointment of Peter Mandelson as the British ambassador to the United States.

Public awareness of ineptitude

The public are now very aware of the UK’s ineffective political leadership. Starmer’s premiership has co-incided with the rapid rise in the Polls of Reform UK under Nigel Farage which has overtaken both the ‘governing’ Labour Party and the diminishing Tory Party.

The two-party dominance of British politics is now being seriously challenged for the first time in 100 years and political pundits speak openly of Nigel Farage as the next Prime Minister.

Governing political parties who had learned to deceive and manipulate a politically-illiterate public have been caught out by the reality of broken-Britain. The current generation of young people are discovering that they have been short-changed by their elders.  Many 20-year-olds are still living at home with their parents, with poorer prospects than their parents.  

The public is now aware that career politicians have failed the nation, as surely as the national churches have failed their nations.  These politicians have no idea how to run the economy nor to manage the unintended consequences of their policies.

Current politicians in positions of leadership are non-descript. We need quality in public life.  It is so bad that Rupert Lowe is looking for non-political candidates for his Restore Britain party, and when Nigel Farage announced Reform UK candidates at a recent Press Conference in Hull, his selling point was that “hardly any of these guys and girls have ever been involved in politics before”. This shows how broken British politics is.

What the country needs is not career politicians, nor non-political politicians, but Christian politicians. The country needs Christian Voices in the public square. There is a Christian Party. How about joining it or giving it your support?

Links:

22 Apr 2026: Nigel Farage mocks the “political apparatchiks” among the candidates of the main political parties and diagnoses Starmer’s “absolutely fatal electoral flaw” and asserts “his credibility is shot to pieces”.

2 May 2026: American comment on Britain’s parlous state: “customs, manner, the rule of law, politeness, decorum – see what it is now! It is shocking. They have gone completely unhinged.”

3 May 2026: more American comment on Keir Starmer.

6 May 2026: Nigel Farage continues to extol that “many of our candidates have never been involved in politics before”.

8 May 2026: Sir Keir Starmer thinks Britain will be plunged “into chaos” without him as Prime Minister! His delusions of grandeur continue.

12 May 2026: US President Donald Trump lists the reasons why Sir Keir Starmer is unpopular. “More than 80 MPs have now publicly called for Sir Keir to step aside, while five ministerial aides have walked out. Four ministers have also quit.” Such a revolt was enough for former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnstone to resign. Starmer is so inept that he does not know when his time is finished. Pressed over whether Sir Keir should stay or go, Trump said this evening: “That’s up to him, but I told him from day one, you’re getting killed on energy. You’re windmilling your country to death. Open up the North Sea. You have one of the greatest sources of energy in the world.”

13 May 2026: no-one feels better off under the UK Labour Government. Starmer’s behaviour compared to dictators.

14 May 2026: Wes Streeting has resigned as Health Secretary saying that he has lost confidence in Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. His resignation letter says: “Where we need vision we have vacuum. Where we need direction we have drift.” Labour is “in chaos already”.

15 May 2026: of the record intake of Labour MPs in the UK Parliament, none of them are reckoned to be Prime Ministerial material to replace Sir Keir Starmer, demonstrated by the rush to get Andy Burnham into Parliament. This shows the poor quality of the current Labour MPs.

19 May 2026: the Tories had five Prime Ministers in seven years. Replacing Sir Keir Starmer would put Labour on the same unstable pathway. Jacob Rees-Mogg gives an interesting analysis of what is involved in being Prime Minister of the UK; his political views are vastly better than his religious ones.

26 May 2026: former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair critiques the current direction of the Labour Party with “no coherent plan”.

Since their employment in the war effort in WWI, some women promoted and developed the feminist movement.  Men were pushed aside as women took control of their fertility, and since the oral contraceptive pill became generally available in the 1960s, fathers have been marginalised when women sought to abort their own babies in order to assert their autonomy (which literally means “self-law”, a law unto oneself).

21st century

The experience of UK women in the 21st century is changing.  Pakistani rape gangs have come to light, targeting tens of thousands of vulnerable young girls, whose mothers did not abort them but neither did they protect them from predatory muslim men. Older women are being attacked by aggressive men out of the blue. Some muslim men think that they have “every right” to rape women who are not properly dressed.  Which part of the koran gives them this right? Can someone supply the reference? ChatGPT does not supply one. Who teaches these men? They need the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Males were marginalised in the 20th century and are not mentioned in the abortion debate nor lectures to the current time.

Women are beginning to learn some of the extremes in gender issues.  It is time to recall that God made man in His own image, “male and female created He them” Gen 1:26-27.  They are equally in God’s image, and together they complement each other in a wholeness that expresses the character and image of God.

Links:

6 May 2026: some more examples; and here. It is not just the UK. Women on women in Europe.

The violence is growing and indiscriminate.

Gratuitous violence.

Open intimidation and fire-raising.

Last time, Apollo 17 was so close to the Moon’s surface, about 110km, that the crew had a limited view of it, but this time Artemis II’s Orion spacecraft will be over 4000 miles from the surface so that the crew can view the whole Lunar disc, seeing areas and features never before seen by unaided human eyes. Its nearest approach will be 4,067 miles, more accurately calculated just before Orion went round the back of the Moon and confirmed after the event.

Today the Orion Spacecraft and its crew will surpass the longest-ever human travel around the Moon by Apollo 13 in 1970.

US Eastern Time is 5 hours behind current British Summer Time.

The Orion spacecraft is now in “the Lunar sphere of influence”, pulled more by Moon’s gravity than Earth’s. The crew has named the Orion spacecraft as Integrity. You can track it in real time here.

“Praise the LORD. Praise the LORD from the heavens: praise Him in the heights.”

Psalm 148

1 The Lord of heav’n confess,
On high His glory raise.
2 Him let all angels bless,
Him all His armies praise.
3 Him glorify
Sun, moon, and stars;
4 Ye higher spheres,
And cloudy sky.

5 From God your beings are,
Him therefore famous make;
You all created were,
When He the word but spake.
6 And from that place,
Where fix’d you be
By His decree,
You cannot pass.
7 Praise God from earth below.

1650 Scottish metrical second version of Psalm 148

Links:

1 Apr 2026: NASA launch.

A diagram of the Artemis II Flight Path throughout its mission.

Current live streaming. 6 Apr 2026: 2:13 p.m. BST 22,000 miles away from the Moon. 3:37 p.m. 19,000 miles from the Moon.

6:37 p.m. BST: 22 minutes from bypassing the Apollo 13 record distance. Dr Kelsey Young is the lead for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, at this point overseeing and confirming the upcoming photographic imaging.

6:57 p.m. BST: the countdown clock stopped displaying with 10 seconds to go.

Flyby and its purpose

Orion’s Flyby’s speed was 3,139 mph relative to the Moon, during which time the crew observed and photographed multiple target sites on the Moon’s surface to investigate the surface geology of the Moon. It is worth recalling that all of earthly life exists within the narrow surface geology of the Earth and its narrow atmosphere. We know of no life of any sort anywhere else in the Universe, except on the Orion spacecraft! for these 10 days of the Artemis II mission. All humanity is in the following photograph.

11:41 p.m. BST: the first live view of Integrity, the Moon and the Earth in one photograph

The Flyby LOS

Just before Loss of Signal, Pilot Victor Glover reminded his listeners of one of the mysteries in the Universe – love on Earth. Jesus Christ in response to, What is the greatest command? said to love God with all that you are, and Jesus “being a great Teacher”, He said the second commandment was equal to it, to love your neighbour as yourself. Drawing upon this, he said that Orion’s crew felt the love from Earth and “we love you from the Moon” – described by Mission Control as a Love letter from the other side of the Moon all the way to the Earth, three minutes before Loss of Signal, with the comment “How great Thou art”.

The crew photographed Earthset just before Integrity disappeared behind the Moon with LOS Loss of Signal. LOS lasted about 40 minutes during which time 1. Integrity’s closest approach to the Moon, at MET (Mission Elapsed Time) 5 days 0hrs 25mins 34seconds was 4,067 statute miles, and 2. its furthest distance from Earth at MET 5 days 0hrs 27mins 39seconds was 252,756 statute miles, which was 4,112 miles further than Apollo 13. As it comes out of LOS, it will photograph Earthrise, recalling Apollo 8’s iconic Earthrise photograph from much closer to the Moon, and it will begin its return to Earth under Earth’s gravitational pull.

On its return from the Moon to Earth, Orion experienced the first Solar eclipse seen from the Moon, lasting 54 minutes of totality because the Moon is so close and appears so much larger than the Sun. This photograph shows Earthshine on the Moon. The Sun’s light reflects off the Earth, which the crew reported as very bright, and reflects back to the Moon so that a crescent of light can be seen on the Moon, which is not completely black because of this Earthshine, described as “amazing” by the crew. They could see “the majority of the surface of the Moon” because of this Earthshine.

Here is a historical video about Artemis I and II with plans for Artemis III and IV: the most complex engineering feat so far in human history.

Two recent solar eclipses in America 2017 and 8 Apr 2024, which was almost exactly two years ago.

Friday 10 Apr 2026 – Flight Day 10

Parachute Deployment Sequence

11 Apr 2026: Integrity crew happily back on the ground.

Some of the best images of the Mission although some commentary is wrong, such as the previous most distant mission being Apollo 8 in 1968 instead of Apollo 13 in 1970.

However, I witnessed two errors within an hour today that I thought I would highlight.

The first error was at a midday prayer meeting where we read in the New Living Translation at John 7:8 Jesus saying: “I’m not going to this festival, because my time has not yet come.”

However, a few verses later it says: “But after his brothers left for the festival, Jesus also went, though secretly, staying out of public view.” In other words, according to the New Living Translation, Jesus told a lie. He said that He was not going and then He went.

The more observant readers will notice a footnote – “Some manuscripts read not yet going.”  In other words, Jesus told His brothers that He was not yet going to the festival. This is very different. However, multitudes of readers never read the footnotes, and certainly not the preacher or whoever is reading the chapter publicly.  So the average person hears Jesus apparently telling lies.

This does not trouble many Christians, just as the Jesuitism that I heard earlier in the day does not trouble them either.

The facts are:

1. not “some” but most manuscripts read “not yet”.
2. the New Living Translation uses the critical text of the New Testament, about which many Christians know nothing or do not care.
3. current versions of the English Bible are slowly changing the thinking of Christians by changing the translations of the Bible, but many Christians do not know this, nor do they care.

This example should show thinking Christians the error of the critical text and the folly of those who follow it.

However, apathetic Christianity is the order of the day.

Jesuitism

As for the Jesuitism I witnessed earlier in the day, who cares? Who wants to hear it?

Many Christians do not know what Jesuitism is, nor do they care, nor do they want to know.  The result is that many are led by the nose back into the errors of Roman Catholicism.

The second error I witnessed within an hour is the declaration that “Jesus died for everybody”.

Thinking Christians might ask several questions in response to this:

1. so what did Jesus die for? What did He accomplish by His death?

2. if Jesus died for everybody, why is anyone in hell, or is there nobody in hell?

3. how many Christians care about this false doctrine?

Apathetic Christians do not trouble themselves with such questions and simply respond: Doctrine divides. As if Jesus had never said that this is exactly what His doctrine does Mat 10:34.

Update:

3 Apr 2026: US President Donald Trump also thinks Jesus “died for all of us”, showing one facet of the false religion that surrounds him. It is difficult for powerful people to find the truth because of the time-servers who surround them.

“I’ll speak Thy word to kings, and I
with shame shall not be moved.”

Scottish Metrical Psalm 119 verse 46.