HEART’s letters page provides a forum for Christian opinion. Only concise letters of up to 100 words giving your name and town are likely to be printed. Longer letters are usually abbreviated.
If you comment on articles via our website, and do not wish it to be considered for our letters page, please mark it ‘not for publication’.
Deadline for the April/May letters page is 1 March.
Email: letters@heartpublications.co.uk
Prayer ammunition
Since I read Dr Clifford Hill’s book ‘The Reshaping of Britain’ (reviewed in Dec/Jan, 2018/19), both I and our prayer group have been praying deeper, more heartfelt prayers for our nation’s leaders.
Having interceded for several years, I believe the Lord hears our prayers for all leaders, whether in the Church, government, business, the NHS or even in religions we’d consider to be false.
When they repent and turn to the Lord, they can have a powerful influence on everybody who looks up to them.
Geoff Stevens
Ivybridge, Devon
God’s real children
Clifford Hill seems to be saying that everyone is one of God’s children (Dec/Jan, 2018/19).
If so, he is incorrect. He says, “We sing about love coming down at Christmas, but do we really tell others about the great love the Father has for each of his children?”
Only born-again believers are the children of God; they should know already that he loves them. But those who are not yet his children need to be told that God loves them too.
John Oxborough
Worthing, West Sussex
Asia Bibi safer elsewhere?
I was shocked at last issue’s cover headline, ‘Why couldn’t we welcome Asia Bibi?’ (Dec/Jan, 2018/19).
When challenged about Asia Bibi during Prime Minister’s Questions, Theresa May replied that one shouldn’t believe everything in the papers. Given our small size, bringing Asia Bibi and her family to the UK would not be a viable answer in the present climate. They would be much safer in the US or Australia.
However, the excellent content in the rest of the paper restored my pleasure at having taken out gift subscriptions for two of my friends.
June Walters
Reigate, Surrey
Make the Bible cool again
While trying to figure out the best yearly Bible reading plan, I had the idea of making the Bible into a five paperback series that people could read through as slowly or as rapidly as they like and also read in public easily.
I did a trial run by dividing a cheap Bible into its five natural sections: law, history, poetry, prophets and New Testament. I made covers with bright pictures and laminated them, then made a box for the set. These Bible paperbacks could be sold at supermarket bestseller prices in newsagents and airports.
I’m now looking for a publisher or group of churches who will take up this simple initiative for making the Bible genuinely cool again in wider society.
Paul Minter
Bexhill, East Sussex
A deserving ‘Me Too’
I strongly believe in upholding the rights of all those who are looked down on and oppressed.
Our God has created everyone of equal value but with different gifts and abilities, and as his creations we should respect and care for one another.
Therefore I want to speak up for those who have never even seen the light of day – the many aborted unborn babies who would have developed into girls, boys, men and women. I believe that they are with their Father in Heaven, but as a nation we have a lot to answer for.
Since 1967 nearly nine million babies in our own nation have been denied a life and a voice. That surely merits a little cry of “Me Too”?
Andrew Harmsworth
Shetland, Scotland
Are Christmas trees biblical?
More and more churches are displaying a range of decorated trees in their sanctuaries for Christmas tree festivals.
But what is their significance? Non-Christians, commercial businesses and even atheists follow the same custom.
In Jeremiah 10:2-4, God denounces the practice of decorating trees as futile: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Do not learn the way of the Gentiles (pagans)…For the customs of the peoples are futile; for one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple…’”
This practice closely resembles our efforts with Christmas trees, yet is clearly pre-Christian and, furthermore, is condemned by God.
How can churches today reconcile this ‘futile’ practice in the House of God? Would Jesus (Yeshua) condone these displays, supposedly in honour of his birth?
Colin Nevin
Bangor, County Down