Wednesday 17 June, 2009

Family

By Charles Gardner

Britain is facing a bigger crisis today than when they were threatened by Nazi invasion during World War II, a South African farmer/preacher told a conference in Worcestershire.

The break-up of family life, which had saved the nation in the dark days of 1939-1945, has left the country in a very vulnerable state, Angus Buchan told the Father and Sons weekend camp meeting on a farm near Worcester.

“The most precious thing in God’s sight is the family,” he said. “It’s the one thing the devil hates the most; for if he’s broken the family, he’s broken the nation.”

With obvious reference to the 1940 Battle of Britain when RAF airmen successfully fought off the German Luftwaffe, Mr Buchan said we were now fighting “principalities and powers in the air” – meaning anti-God spiritual forces in high places.

“We’re so busy closing the front door the devil is coming in through the kitchen door,” he added. He compared our weakness with how the Cubans who, though they evidently couldn’t fight when abroad (as in Angola during the civil war there in which they come up against South African soldiers), were a different kettle of fish on their home ground as President Kennedy discovered with the infamous Bay of Pigs fiasco at the time of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

We in Britain needed to get our house in order, he said, as our home life was in a mess and “charity begins at home”.

The conference drew 2,000 men to the 800-acre Top Barn Farm at Holt Heath, with wives and children invited to the final service. And Mr Buchan told the wives that the men had been “getting back to basics” – learning about loving their wives, disciplining their children, paying fair wages to their employees and that “lazy men did not deserve to eat”.

“We need to bring Christianity back into the home,” he said, adding that the Bible was our agricultural manual as well as a compass for those who had lost their way.

Father and Sons is a spin-off of a similar annual event in South Africa which this year drew a staggering 200,000 men to Mr Buchan’s KwaZulu-Natal farm and which is seeing a transformation in those taking part – “men are becoming men and women are becoming women,” said the evangelist who has been accused in the South African press of being a ‘male chauvinist’ who quotes the Scriptures too much.

“You carry the load and make her feel like a princess and you’ll have a happy home,” he told his male audience.

He encouraged the men to adopt supposedly old-fashioned etiquette such as opening the door for their ladies, tipping their hats and paying for the entire bill at the restaurant rather than ‘going Dutch’.

Mr Buchan’s message hit home, for on the last day (with wives and girlfriends present) he must have sensed there were couples there who were living together without being married. When he asked if there were any in that position, no less than five couples came forward and he married them there and then on the stage (with their consent)!

And it is the attack on family life which has led the Christian Concern for our Nation campaign led by lawyer Andrea Williams to organise a petition to the Queen and Prime Minister.

The Life and Liberty petition particularly addresses the pernicious Coroners and Justice Bill currently being discussed in Parliament – you can sign it on-line or download a printable form by visiting www.ccfon.org/petition.php

It focuses on the threat of state-sanctioned assisted suicide and the bid to ban any criticism of homosexual behaviour.

The petition states: “Preserving the sanctity of life and freedom of speech are vitally important to the preservation of liberty and good governance under the rule of law in the United Kingdom. These are under immediate threat by measures in the Coroners and Justice Bill. We the undersigned, therefore, petition HM the Queen, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House of Lords to:

1) Protect the value of human life in the UK by opposing proposed amendments authorising state-sanctioned assisted suicide; and 2) Protect freedom of speech by abandoning its opposition to the free speech protection clause currently within the sexual orientation hatred offence which preserves the right to discuss, criticise and urge to refrain from certain forms of sexual conduct or practices.”

CCFON has also called a prayer meeting at the Emmanuel Centre, Marsham Street, Westminster, on Monday (June 22) from 6.30 to 9pm.

Photo: stock.xchng