UK NEWS

CHRISTIANITY: POIROT STAR DAVID SUCHET SAYS RELIGION IS BEING SIDELINED

Christianity: Poirot star David Suchet says religion is being sidelined

Thursday November 26,2009

By Martyn Brown

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(5)

POIROT star David Suchet has warned that Christianity in Britain is being pushed out by other religions.

The actor who plays the Agatha Christie detective believes the importance of the national faith risks being lost in our multi- cultural society.

He claims some charities miss out on funding just because they are Christian.

Mr Suchet, 63, said: “I feel that Christianity is being marginalised by other religions in Britain.

“A charity I work for got turned down for Government funding recently because it was a Christian charity, even though it had been funded by the Government for several years.”

He added: “Don’t misunderstand me – we should embrace all religions and marginalise none. But we seem more concerned with marginalising Christianity and not offending other faiths.

“We are in danger of losing the importance of the Christian faith in our own country.”

The award-winning actor, who narrates the audio version of The Jesus Storybook Bible, made his comments during an interview with Woman’s Weekly magazine.

Alan Craig, leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance, said: “Christianity is being marginalised by those who rule our society. Christianity can stand up for itself, but my concern is that it is not a level playing field.

“It seems everything is being done to accommodate the Islamic faith at the expense of society.” A spokesman for the Church of England said: “We do not recognise the picture of ‘Christianity being marginalised by other religions’.

“Our experience is that other faith groups tend to be united in the importance they attach to a continuing strong Christian, and Church of England, voice.

“What we need to overcome is the squeamishness of some secular authorities when dealing with any faith group.”

Earlier this year the Archbishop of Canterbury said it was “depressing” that an academic report claimed Christianity was being sidelined in Britain because Labour is concentrating on minority religions such as Islam.

Dr Rowan Williams complained to Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC, about the decline of religious content on television and radio.

Senior members of the Church of England are concerned that the BBC is giving preferential treatment to minority faiths.

Mr Thompson caused controversy last year when he suggested that Islam should be treated more sensitively by the media than Christianity because Muslims were in a minority.

According to the 2001 national census, seven out of 10 people in the UK described themselves as Christian, while an estimated 3.2 million go to church on Sundays.

But four out of five primary schools will not be staging a nativity play this year.

FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS DEAD

26.11.09, 11:20am

Only Believers have the Holy Spirit indwelling them and the source of all spiritual gifts is the Holy Spirit. Many unbelievers do wonderful works of kindness towards their fellow man but as they are not indwelt by the Holy Spirit -and remain unsaved. As to the Believer: The Holy Spirit knows God's calling for each individual and the result of a true and vibrant faith will evidence works, but works that God intends for each individual so he/she is not doing it in their own strength (that no one should boast). The shed blood of Jesus is the gift of God's love and believing in the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) is totally sufficient unto salvation. Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 that the distribution of the gifts is of the whole Triune God for the equipping of the saints unto the work of ministering to build up the Body of Christ. A person who is not grounded in the Word of God can be caught up in "super spiritual" movements" that sound really good and seem to give a great experience but are false. So spiritual gifts are given to prevent immaturity, instability and gullibility and to promote knowledge, discernment and stability.

• Posted by: Grevillea • Report Comment

CHRISTIANITY SIDELINED

26.11.09, 10:45am

Faith and Works without each other are of no value to God.
The Anglican church fools itself about Christianity being sidelined- and in cases discriminated against- but is right about the attitude of the secular society who like to benefit from the Christian provisions of generations but deny those reforms etc to their fellow man today.
The Church has its head in the sand ,trying to compromise all the time, but it is people like David Suchet who work in the charities who see the results of this non Christian attitude so prevalent in this selfish materialistic and other -faith appeasing society which Britain has been forced into becoming by self -serving mankind.
God help us all.

• Posted by: keepcool • Report Comment

CHRISTIANITY SIDELINED

26.11.09, 10:35am

With regards to this article...

• Posted by: keepcool • Report Comment

PSYCHO BABBLE AND DESTRUCTIVE HERESIES

26.11.09, 7:49am

Comments such as the one entitled "Fishing' reveal what a dismal state Christianity is in for it confirms the prophesied facts that today, the visible Church is in apostasy. The Holy Spirit cannot be passed on from person to person. This is a destructive heresy. God is in three persons, co-equal and co-eternal. Man cannot manipulate the Holy Spirit and transfer God to another person. The Bible teaches that salvation is based solely and only on FAITH in Jesus Christ. Salvation is only by God's grace through that faith without any additional requirements. There are more than 200 cases in the Bible where there is a condition given for salvation. Faith or belief is stated to be the only condition and this must be placed in Jesus Christ as our substitute for the penalty due for our sin. That is, through His body we are saved from eternal suffering in hell throughout all eternity. The visible Church today is being seduced as never before. Like a virus the biblically illiteracy plaguing the Church is totally hostile to the Christian faith. It is a case of the blind leading the blind and this evidences a tragic dimension for those who enter in and sup of teachings which are peddled by false teachers - Ministers of Satan who lead the flock ever onward into the false ecumenical church of the Tribulation a church where even today there is unity despite diversity of religions. Today, experience takes priority over the Scriptures and if the Bible contradicts the practice then it is justified as being a "new move of the Spirit". This then is a far more "spiritual" way of denying the truth of God and so therefore far more deceptive "leading to many strange and divers doctrines which cause so many to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine" and resulting in instability. Prophesied, is that people will become spiritually blind, stagger as if they were drunk, grope in spiritual darkness, having no spiritual sight to see and once again I urge anyone caught up in this religious deception to "come out and be ye separate" for they continue to draw unto God with their mouths and they do honour God with their lips but there hearts are far away from God. What makes them far away from God is that whatever fear they have of the Lord is based upon man-made doctrines, commandments and traditions rather than that which God Himself has said and taught in the Scriptures. The validity of the movement is based on the external such as "praise the Lords, or "Praise Jesus" and the Bible based observer realises that verbalising Jesus over and over again proves nothing. When such people can regularly do "God talk" and "Jesus-speak" when they are faced with dealing with the concrete Word of God they are at a total loss. The most satisfactory teacher par-excellence and available to any seeker after the truth can be found at Ariel.org.

• Posted by: Grevillea • Report Comment

FISHING

26.11.09, 5:05am

Christianity is being left behind because there is no training in the Churches with regards to 'fishing for men.' When the only way that the Church has is to preach of people having faith to work miracles 2000 years ago on street corners it is as dead as any other religion, we need people of faith doing miracles and passing on the Holy Spirit. The easiest way of getting up to speed is by giving all your money to the poor, but I regularly hear of people in the Church telling young Christians this is not necessary.

• Posted by: RedRoseAndy • Report Comment