Matthew 16 (Part1) Jesus said, ‘I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.’ In so many places there are attempts to prevail against the Church In Africa and Asia Christian Churches are attacked regularly and Christians are persecuted for their faith. In America the American Civil Liberties Union is constantly seeking means to restrict the practice of our faith. In Britain we have the most anti-Christian government in most people’s memories. It was expected that a Conservative government would be pro Christian, and whilst the most aggressive attack is coming from one of their so called partner members, a woman who few would have ever remotely conceived her as being in charge of anything greater than a children’s tea party, the Prime Minister has done nothing to rein her in. The Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, has ordered government lawyers to contest an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights by two women who are asking for the right to wear a Cross. Her attitude is, if you don’t like being stopped from wearing a cross, go get another job. Other faiths are encouraged to wear symbols and dress however. In addition, she has vowed to have legislation enacted to recognising marriage between two persons of the same sex, ‘no matter who says or does what’ and offensively accused the Church of homophobia and told them to lay off making objections. Another government Minister has persuaded a judge to ban a Christian radio station from asking Christians to inform of any difficulties they have experienced in exercise of their faith. So when David Cameron next speaks of his deep Christian faith, calling for back to Bible values, and his support for women wearing crosses, realise it is just a Public Relations exercise to canvass votes. Don’t take him seriously. Then in Norwich, an Independent Reformed Church which has rented a Council building for its meetings for the past twenty years, has been banned from further use because some unnamed individual complained an article written by the pastor a decade ago was offensive to Islam. Would the same action be taken against the militant preachers who spoke against Christianity? (to-morrow a look at the positive side.)