THREE-PEAT! 🏆🏆🏆

Real Madrid retain the Champions League trophy thanks to Gareth Bale's two goals off the bench. #UCLfinal pic.twitter.com/YeWmNjeWwg

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) May 26, 2018

The reason the Irish—as Irish—are celebrating is that they have with this referendum delivered a decisive and final blow to their venerable image as a Catholic nation. They have taken their vengeance on the Church. They must relish the unshackling; they must love the taste of blood. But, finally, they take joy in becoming what, it seems, they were always meant to become. An unexceptional country floating somewhere in the waters off a continent that has long since entered into cultural decline, demographic winter, and the petty and perpetual discontents that come free of charge to every people that lives for nothing much in particular.

Read it all.

The Republic of Ireland has voted overwhelmingly to overturn the abortion ban by 66.4% to 33.6%.

A referendum held on Friday resulted in a landslide win for the repeal side.

Currently, abortion is only allowed when a woman’s life is at risk, but not in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality.

The Eighth Amendment, which grants an equal right to life to the mother and unborn, will be replaced.

The declaration was made at Dublin Castle at 18:13 local time.

Read it all.

Here’s the part of the [Pete Sanlon] piece that I think is most valuable for Evangelicals. The reality it describes in the UK is nearly our own in the US, and becoming more so every day. Earlier in the piece, Father Sanlon describes the situation for Christians in the West as being like the Titanic‘s. So many people perished, says Father Sanlon, because far too many people assumed that the ship was too big to sink, and because they ignored warnings. So too is it with the church today. Here’s Father Sanlon:

I believe that the iceberg that has sunk the way we live as Christians in the UK is actually a concoction of attitudes and social-spiritual realities, that have frozen together.

The first part of the iceberg has arisen from the fact that Christianity once had a deep hold on the consciousness of the UK. When a culture has rejected Christianity, it tends to then despise it. That creates a more volatile situation than before the culture has ever heard the gospel. (This phenomena of hostile rejection is described in Mark 4 at the personal level, and Romans 1 at the cultural level.)

The second part of the iceberg is the joining of government authoritarianism to enforced celebration of unbiblical views of humanity – especially in the area of sexuality. The story of how the 1960s vision of free love developed in the UK through the individualist 1980s and entertainment focused 1990s is a complex tale. What is proving to be the twist of the knife is the willingness of our governments (local and national and European) to use (or abuse) their powers to enforce celebration of views that were only a short time ago viewed as eccentricities.

The third part of the iceberg has formed because almost everything about how British Christians have done church over the past 70 years has depended upon a very high degree of cultural acceptance of our activities and beliefs. Consider how many churches advocate friendship and workplace conversations as key for evangelism. Well that becomes very difficult under current HR guidelines. Consider how many church plants rent space for meetings from councils or schools – we are already seeing that become more difficult due to holding beliefs that are not culturally acceptable. Many churches view their buildings as a hub for local community events — this is thought of as a bridge to the local community. But how does this work when the next generation views people who are Christians as evil — homophobic, transphobic — and worse? Some continue to argue for setting up Christian schools — but they must be regulated by a government that is increasingly hostile. Others promote social helps of various stripes – but these usually must exclude what is derisively termed ‘proselytising.’

Over the past few weeks an Independent Enquiry into horrific sex abuse cases in the Church of England has heard witness statements suggesting that traditional Christian beliefs made leaders more likely to ignore abuse. As such views are increasingly accepted by the next generation — and reinforced by the media — the Church will find its model of building bridges, making cultural connections for outreach – impossible to sustain. Already it is proving very unfruitful – but many press on with it, unable to admit the ship has been holed beneath the waterline.

Read it all.

from there:

“Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously. The latest fads of culture, the latest sophistries of anarchism will carry us away if we are uneducated: we shall not know how very old are all new ideas.”

–G.K. Chesterton, “Our Note Book,” Illustrated London News, December 2, 1905

O Lord our God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thine apostles and send them forth to preach the Gospel to the nations: We bless thy holy name for thy servant Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, whose labors in propagating thy Church among the English people we commemorate today; and we pray that all whom thou dost call and send may do thy will, and bide thy time, and see thy glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Holy Father Augustine of Canterbury, Apostle of the English, pray to God for us. https://t.co/O0oVaKxPZe #26May #SaintOfTheDay pic.twitter.com/gOACYT2R2B

— Alexander Haig (@ahaig) May 26, 2017

O Holy Ghost, giver of light and life, impart to us thoughts higher than our own thoughts, and prayers better than our own prayers, and powers beyond our own powers, that we may spend and be spent in the ways of love and goodness, after the perfect image of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

—Daily Prayer, Eric Milner-White and G. W. Briggs, eds. (London: Penguin Books 1959 edition of the 1941 original)

Now I know that the LORD will help his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with mighty victories by his right hand. Some boast of chariots, and some of horses; but we boast of the name of the LORD our God. They will collapse and fall; but we shall rise and stand upright. Give victory to the king, O LORD; answer us when we call.

–Psalm 20:6-9