Lynn Green

Tag: UK

  • Jean Darnall’s prophecy in 1967

    Jean Darnall’s prophecy in 1967

    I first visited Great Britain In the summer of 1970. I was meeting up with a couple of other team members on my way to Afghanistan, where we were due to help the few expatriate Christians who were wanting to extend help to the hippy generation that was often in great need as they travelled the trail to India and Nepal.  Loren Cunningham had contact details for a Pentecostal lady preacher who lived on the south coast of England at Lytchett Minster, Poole, Dorset.  Jean and Elmer Darnall welcomed us into their home for those few days before we set out on the long journey east. 

    A couple of years later, Marti and I were in England again, this time to stay.  Jean Darnall began to play an important role in our lives, teaching in our training schools and advising us with much needed wisdom.  We came to realise that Jean was being used of God to light the fires of the Holy Spirit in churches, especially Anglican churches throughout England.  She was energised by a God-given vision that became widely known and has resurfaced again and again over the decades.  Just recently, a new generation of Christian leaders have been inspired by her prophecy from 1967.  Here it is:

    What I saw was the British Isles, as in a bird’s eye view. A kind of haze was over the whole, like a green fog. And then little pinpricks of light began to appear from the top of Scotland to Land’s End. Then the Lord seemed to draw me closer to these lights, and I saw that they were fires that were burning. They were multiplying from the top of Scotland to Land’s End. Then I saw lightening come and strike those fires, the brightest spots particularly, and there was a kind of explosion, and rivers of fire flowed down. Again, the sense of direction was from the top of Scotland to Land’s End. But some of those rivers of fire didn’t stop there. They went right across the Channel and didn’t stop there. They went right across the Channel and spread out into the Continent.

    The third time this vision appeared I figured the Lord was showing me or trying to tell me something. I was in Dorset by this time, at St Mary’s (Church of England) with Rev Ken Prior, and I asked him if I could stay an extra day. You know, there’s nothing quite so awkward as an evangelist the day after the meetings are over. But I said, ‘Could I stay an extra day in the vicarage and pray? I need to find out what the Lord is trying to say to me.’ Because up to that point I was really still on my way to Hong Kong. And the Lord spoke to me very clearly. It was a wonderful day. It certainly changed the path of my life. When I say the Lord spoke to me, I don’t mean that it was an audible voice. But it was a knowing. That strong knowing, like reading at the end of a book and knowing exactly what was going to happen. And you can’t change it: it is written. And so it was written upon my heart, the meaning of this vision.

    Phase One: The Glowing Fires

    The Lord impressed it on my Heart that those fires I saw were groups of people whom He would make intensely hungry for New Testament Christianity. They would start reading their Bibles and saying, for instance, as they read the book of Acts, ‘Well, where is this happy church? Where are these people so full of the power of the Holy Spirit? Where are these miracles? Where is this growth, this vitality, this courage, this boldness that these people had? Is that for today – can we have it today? Should the church be this way?’

    And as these questions were being planted in their hearts, the Lord Jesus said He would make them very hungry for the Holy Spirit; He would fill them with the Holy Spirit, and out of those gifts would flow ministries that would enrich the Body of Christ. The whole concept of the Body of Christ would come alive, and barriers between denominations and different types of Christians would break down as people met each other. The Lord said He would move these people all over the country. After he had taught them gifts, he would move them to another place where they would carry that fire, and where they would meet others also who were being renewed by the Holy Spirit. He would put them in different situations from what they were used to, so that they would get to know people of other denominations, other cultures and other classes, and be able to communicate to them the blessings that the Lord had given them. And then He told me that during that time He would also test them. There would be great testing of faith, great waiting times. He would teach them spiritual warfare. He would show them the meaning of the power of the blood of Jesus, the name of Jesus, the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.

    Phase Two: The Coming of the Lightning

    Then I asked the Lord, ‘What does the lightning stand for?’ And he said, ‘Unlike the first part, in which I will be speaking to Christians and preparing My church and renewing it and reviving the saints, the lightning represents a second part of the vision, in which I will bring a spiritual awakening to the nation that will be a witness to the unsaved, to the un-churched, to the non-Christian.

    Through these believers I will bring a witness to this land. They will be an army of witnesses. And I will begin to release their ministries so that when they give their testimonies there will be apostolic signs following and accompanying their testimonies. Where ears have been deaf and hearts have been hard and eyes have been blind, I will touch the people of this land and they will begin to hear the testimony of My people, they will begin to see the manifestations of My power, and their hearts will begin to believe. Thousands and thousands of people are going to come into my kingdom through this army of witnesses, through this people movement – not characterized by any particular evangelist or great organisation at the front, but just My people rising up, led by My spirit and beginning to move forward with a new faith for evangelism, a new zeal to share Jesus with others. And as they give their testimonies, I will release their ministries of healing and miracles, and there will be signs and wonders accompanying their ministries. So many people will be saved, in the villages as well as in the cities, in the schools, in the government, in media, in industry. It will affect the destiny of this nation; it will determine the course of the times.

    Phase Three: Streams across the Channel

    Then I said, ‘Lord, what about these streams that go on across the Channel into Europe?’ And He said, ‘That represents people who will rise up in the midst of this people movement, this army of witnesses in Britain, whom I will make My communicators.’ (Note 1.) Now I hadn’t used that word very much before in ministry I said, ‘Lord, what do you mean by communicators?’ And he said, ‘They will not only be people endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, with strong faith, but they will also be people talented in the arts. They will be writers, musicians, singers and actors, and also technicians in television, radio and the mass media. I will call and send them and put them in strategic places. I will bless their natural talents with my Spirit, and they will be good: they will excel. They will be leaders in their fields. I will send them into Europe, where they will meet other people in the media, and through them I will release the word of God very fast in Europe.

    The result will be another wave of a spiritual awakening, with thousands coming to Christ throughout Europe.’ Well, I got kind of excited after I’d heard all that from the Lord, and I said, ‘Lord, why are you telling me this? I’m on my way to Hong Kong.’ And He said, ‘Oh, no you’re not: you’re going to stay right here, and I’m going to bring Elmer here.’ And I said, ‘ What do you want us to do, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I want you to nourish the fires that I light.’ So, I’m not the firelighter. The Lord is the Firelighter.

  • Gender Politics

    Gender Politics

    Photo by Tim Mossholder from Pexels.

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    I did not see this coming!  Just a few years ago I had never heard the term “gender dysphoria” and I would have never guessed that it would be politically weaponised.

    But now, Sky News reports:

    The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust (UK) offers gender identity services for children under 18, with some patients as young as three or four years old.

    They now have a record number of referrals and see 3,200% more patients than they did 10 years ago – with the increase for girls up by 5,337%.

    (Please note that this article is not about our attitudes towards people with sexual identity issues; it does not offer pastoral or counselling advice.  That is another very important topic that is beyond the scope of this article.)

    The numbers of children and young adults requesting sex change procedures is still relatively small, but the extraordinary growth patterns point to an epidemic.  What impact is it likely to make over the next decade or two?  Some people who transitioned years ago have begun to speak up:

    Ruby is now 21 but first began identifying as male at 13.  After taking testosterone her voice got a lot deeper, she grew facial hair and her body changed.  She had been planning to have surgery to remove her breasts this summer.

    However, in May, Ruby voiced the growing doubts she had been harbouring and made the decision to come off testosterone and detransition to identify as female.

    “I didn’t think any change was going to be enough in the end and I thought it was better to work on changing how I felt about myself, than changing my body,” says Ruby. 

    Charlie Evans, 28, was born female but identified as male for nearly 10 years before detransitioning.

    The number of young people seeking gender transition is at an all-time high, but we hear very little, if anything, about those who may come to regret their decision.  There is currently no data to reflect the number who may be unhappy in their new gender or who may opt to detransition to their biological sex.

    Charlie detransitioned and went public with her story last year – and said she was stunned by the number of people she discovered in a similar position.

    “I’m in communication with 19 and 20-year-olds who have had full gender reassignment surgery who wish they hadn’t, and their dysphoria hasn’t been relieved, they don’t feel better for it,” she says.

    If you would like to read more, quotes from the Sky News article are taken from:

    https://news.sky.com/story/hundreds-of-young-trans-people-seeking-help-to-return-to-original-sex-11827740

    Considering the growing number of people wanting to detransition, or at least wishing they hadn’t started the process, surprisingly, few of the proponents of gender transition have not suggested caution, or that more research should be done.  They claim that even talking about detransition is transphobic.  To me, that suggests that this is not primarily about helping people, but it must be part of some strange, possessing ideology.  Gender identity has been made a political weapon.

    There is so much publicity on this subject that you might think it is very common for babies to be born with unclear sex identity, so I looked it up.  Some say that as many as one in 2,500 children cannot be identified at birth as either male or female, but others say it is not that high, but closer to one in 5,000.  This has become a major social issue, not because it is a biological reality, but because it is a consequence of a political philosophy.

    Different shades of that political philosophy dominate the liberal arts courses of our universities and have done so for a generation.  Now they are being worked out in everyday social mores and in law.

    In 2007, Christopher Dummitt was one of the first academic authors to make the case that gender is not primarily a biological issue, but that it is socially constructed.  He recently wrote a humble confession in Quillette magazine where he admitted that, “The problem was, and is, that I was making it all up.”

    His article is important and revealing, so I am quoting it at length:

    When the American Historical Association surveyed the trends among major fields of specialization in 2007, and then again in 2015, the single largest field was women’s and gender history. This was right up there with social history, cultural history, and the history of race and sexuality. Each of these fields shared the same worldview as I did—that just about every identity was a social construction. And, that identity was all about power. (My added emphasis.)

    Back then, quite a few people disagreed with me. Almost nobody who hadn’t been exposed to such theories at a university could bring themselves to believe that sex was wholly a social construct, because such beliefs went against common sense. That’s what makes it so amazing that the cultural turnaround on this issue has happened so quickly. Reasonable people might readily admit that some—and maybe a lot—of gender identity is socially constructed, but did this really mean that sex doesn’t matter at all? Was gender solely based on culture? Yes, I would insist. And then I would insist some more. There’s nothing so certain as a graduate student armed with precious little life experience and a big idea.

    And now my big idea is everywhere. It shows up especially in the talking points about trans rights, and policy regarding trans athletes in sports. It is being written into laws that essentially threaten repercussions for anyone who suggests that sex might be a biological reality. Such a statement, for many activists, is tantamount to hate speech. If you take the position that many of my ’90s-era debating opponents took—that gender is at least partly based on sex, and that there really are two sexes (male and female), as biologists have known since the dawn of their science—uber-progressives will claim you are denying a trans person’s identity, which is to say, wishing ontological harm upon another human being.

    But what I can offer is a mea culpa for my own role in all of this, and a detailed critique about why I was wrong then, and why the radical social constructionists are wrong now. I once made the same arguments that they now make, and so I know how they are mistaken.

    If you would like to read the rest of that confession, it is available online:

    https://quillette.com/2019/09/17/i-basically-just-made-it-up-confessions-of-a-social-constructionist/

    (A book by Stephen Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism, helped me understand the ideology/philosophy behind this thinking.  Another very good source of context is a 43-minute video by Jordan Peterson:

    A friend and I did a long, high altitude hike this past summer in my home state of Colorado and we finished our week in a beautiful resort town.  As we trudged the final mile up the main street, which was busy with tourists, I saw a young boy wearing lipstick and eye-shadow; then I saw another a bit farther on, and then another. I was full of questions I couldn’t ask of the boys or their parents:

    Why?  When did it start?  Was there a triggering event? Does he wear make-up every day?  Is he receiving therapy and puberty blockers?  What was your response initially?  Before he started trying to look more like a girl, did he have a friend or friends who had led the way?  Was he bullied by peers, or rejected by an adult?

    As the book and lectures I have cited explain, this ideology is a re-packaging of Marxism and an all-out attack on the nations that have produced the greatest individual freedom, opportunities and prosperity in human history.

    As we resist this toxic ideology, we must also treat each person with empathy and respect.  So, let me be very clear: this article does not aim to provide any guidance for the pastoral care of someone experiencing uncertainty, or dissatisfaction with their sexual identity.

    What I have aimed to do is to convey an important message:  BE ALERT!  DON’T EXPERIMENT WITH CHILDREN’S LIVES!

    We are allowing an ideology that destroyed millions of lives in the 20th century to resurrect itself and don new clothing.  Now we are experimenting with the lives of millions of children.  If the influence of the ideology continues to grow, the chances of this turning out well are nil.

    Lynn Green.

  • Boris and Brexit—An Opinion

    Boris and Brexit—An Opinion

    Photo by Slyzyy from Pexels

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    Boris and Brexit—An Opinion

    Thirty-six years ago, the United Kingdom joined a free trade zone, the European Economic Community. Prominent Christians were among the founding fathers of that community and it seemed like an obvious good move—and so it proved to be for many years.  The entire area prospered and economic activity between the member nations increased the wealth of their citizens.

    From Free Trade towards a Federal Government

    There is, however, a tendency for people with power to do their best to gain more power. The free trade zone evolved into a supra-national state taking more and more authority over the member nations, creating courts that sat in judgment over the national courts, establishing a parliament that passed volumes of legislation that bound all members states, controlling immigration, admitting nation states that did not meet the membership criteria with subsequent economic chaos and mass people movements within the area, and then creating one super-currency with a European Central Bank. That step was a step too far for the UK.  We kept our currency.  The next planned step is one military for all of Europe.  The EEC had become the EU in its journey from a free trade area to the United States of Europe.

    Unwilling to Acknowledge the role of Christian Faith

    To my mind, the most important issue was the steady momentum away from its Christian foundations towards a self-proclaimed humanism.  Angel Merkel, German Chancellor, publicly stated that she wanted a direct reference to Christianity in the Lisbon Treaty, but her efforts were unsuccessful.  There is no reference whatsoever to God or Christian values in the current documents of the EU.

    Many citizens of the European Union, chafe under the growing bureaucracy, taxation and wealth redistribution from Brussels, but is it possible to leave?  For those who had abandoned their own currency and adopted the Euro, the answer was almost certainly, “No.”  The United Kingdom, though, with the Pound Sterling still in place, might just pull it off.  When the Conservative Government of David Cameron put the question to the general population three years ago, nearly all the media pundits predicted that, despite the ceaseless griping about Brussels, the people would choose to remain in the EU just to avoid the risk of an economic down-turn.  The results shocked both the main-stream media and the political establishment.  The people of the UK voted to leave—though by a small margin.

    A Clear Vote

    The margin, however, wasn’t so small when seen in the context of representative government.

    We have 650 members of the House of Commons.  Each one represents a voting district and they are normally the voice of the majority of their voters.  That was not so when it came to the question of leaving the EU.

    408 Constituencies voted to leave.

    Only 160 MPs have voted to leave.

    There is a clear gulf between the politicians and the people they are meant to represent.  To compound that, our Prime Minister for the past couple of years, Theresa May, wanted us to remain and the government she formed had few members who wanted to leave.  Those facts are at the heart of the last three years of confusion.

    Brexit Without Leaving?

    The PM and her team attempted to negotiate a deal, but their hearts weren’t in it.  Worse than that, though, was the determination of Brussels to make it very hard to leave and to punish the UK if it succeeded in its efforts to leave.  (If they were cooperative, more nations would head for the exit.)  Theresa May returned from her many trips to Brussels with a deal that she presented as leaving the EU, but kept the UK captive to the regulations and judicial system of the EU and prevented the UK from negotiating any trade deals with other countries. The big thing that would have changed under her agreement was that the UK would lose voting rights as one of the 28 member states.

    Finally, after months of no progress in Parliament, Mrs May announced her intention to resign and the conservative party initiated a process of choosing a new leader. The final step, a vote by the 160,000 members of the party, resulted in a two-thirds majority for Boris Johnson. So, who is he?

    A British version of Trump?

    The BBC and more liberal press will continue to caricature him as a “British Donald Trump”.  But he is different in many respects.  That caricature is no doubt because of his firm conservative political beliefs.  He had the privilege of very good schooling followed by university at Oxford where he studied Classics and was President of the Union..  He was a political columnist for the Daily Telegraph, a successful mayor of London and was also the author of a biography of Winston Churchill–and it’s a good read.  There is no doubt that Churchill is his hero and that he would like to be known as a Churchill-like figure.

    What he has in common with Churchill is an optimistic outlook in uncertain times. He has a quick wit, a superb command of language (definitely not Trump-like) and a good sense of humor. He has been characterized as impulsive, and insufficiently detailed, but those who know him well, including one of his professors at Oxford, counter that claim by pointing to his record as a student, as a journalist and as Mayor of London. In that sense, he is more of a Ronald Reagan than a Jimmy Carter. Carter probably had a higher IQ than Reagan, but got lost in the details, while Reagan was a big picture man who surrounded himself with competent people whom he trusted.

    Far from Ideal

    He is not, however, a good role model for aspiring young people.  He left, and is divorcing, his second wife.  He has four children by his two marriages and at least one other child from an affair.  His current girlfriend, 31 years old, will be moving with him into the Prime Minister’s residence, Number 10 Downing Street.  That fact attracts almost as much media attention as his politics.  He is known to be antagonistic to the Church, by that I mean the Church of England. Whether or not he is also an adversary of Christian faith in general is not yet clear.

    Some Signs of Hope

    In these early days of his overall national leadership he has given us some reason to hope.  His cabinet and the wider government he formed have demonstrated that he is serious about delivering Brexit.  He has also put some very strong characters in position to streamline government. Interestingly, their pay will be related to how much wasteful expenditure they eliminate.  His speeches have been very well received by the public.  I have to say that the BBC has been consistently downbeat and negative about him and our national outlook.  I am hoping that he will have the courage to do away with the TV license fee (£150 per household!) and make them stand on their own commercial success.  They have demonstrated a strong left-wing bias for the past couple of decades.

    To my mind, his most significant appointment thus far has been to make Jacob Rees-Mogg the leader of the House of Commons. Marti and I admire him and I often listen to his videos just for entertainment.  There are several short YouTube clips that show his ability to speak clearly and avoid the pitfalls. Here is one of them:

    Of all politicians, he has been the most articulate proponent of Brexit.

    Finally, I am glad this has happened during the Trump presidency. President Obama visited here a few years ago and famously stated that if the UK left the EU, they would be at the “back of the line” for any trade negotiations. Trump has said that the UK is at the front of line and, just yesterday, I read that Boris has plans to visit DC three times in the next few months.

    Many pundits say he cannot succeed, and others focus on the innumerable and very difficult obstacles, but a few think he will deliver Brexit. That is my hope.

    Lynn Green.

  • Oh no, another article about Brexit!

    Oh no, another article about Brexit!

    Photo ©Pixabay

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    I have not yet written anything about Brexit because volumes have been written and I think most people are highly unlikely to read yet another article.  However, having spoken to people about it on occasion, at least one kind person asked if I had written anything, so here it is.

    Some of you who will read this live outside the UK, so you might wonder why we think this is so important.  Why would it be important enough for Barak Obama, when he was President and visiting London, to urge the UK to stay in the EU?  Why would other heads of state line up to condemn the results of our democratic process whereby the citizens were allowed to choose to stay in our leave?   Why would they vote, by a narrow margin, to leave in spite of a massive campaign, funded by tax revenues, to convince us to stay?

    To my mind, Brexit is not primarily about any of the most commonly cited themes.

    It is not about race and immigration, though I do believe that national borders are necessary, and immigration must be managed.  More than ever, it is possible and relatively easy for millions of people to relocate to another nation where they imagine that life will be easier.  As a result, mass movements of people have destabilised international relations and economic policies.  EU authorities are very uncomfortably aware of the phenomenon of uncontrolled movements of people from poorer and less stable nations to wealthier and more peaceful nations.  Britain could and should, even though we are leaving, work with other European nations to develop, implement and enforce workable immigration policies and reasonable limitations on freedom of movement within the EU and bordering nations.  There is no compelling need to leave the EU to address this problem, though it should be easier and quicker to address the issue as a sovereign nation.  (The concept of freedom of movement within the EU has been undermined by the EU itself, having been so committed to expansion that it bypassed its own economic guidelines for membership.  Once poorer nations with minimal social safety nets and very high unemployment were integrated, it was inevitable that their citizens would move in very large numbers to the nations where social benefits were more extensive and jobs more readily available.)

    It is not because Brits do not consider themselves to be Europeans.  Very large numbers of British citizens live in other parts of Europe and many continental Europeans live in Britain.  As far as I can tell, there is no significant wish to reverse this growing trend, especially since the younger Brits feel even more European than the older generations.

    It is not because of some resurgent nationalism or protectionist tendencies in Britain.  Though I was born in the USA, nearly 50 years of life in Britain has made me sensitive to and suspicious of nationalistic fervour.  Seen from this side of the Atlantic, nationalistic politics and aggressive patriotism in the USA seem to be at least unwarranted, if not dangerous.  Britain on the other hand, seems to have very little patriotic passion and could probably use more.  Patriotism and nationalism are closely related.  Brexit is not driven by nationalism.

    When the media and commentators write or broadcast about Brexit, the overwhelming majority of what is said and written is about economics.  But I believe it is a secondary issue and greatly outweighed by the bigger, long-term issues.  My guess is that the economy in the UK (in this article I am using Britain, Great Britain and the UK synonymously) will suffer from leaving the EU.  I think it is likely to be a three to five-year down turn, but it will be worth it.  When the process of negotiating bilateral trade agreements with other nations is well down the road, there is every chance that the UK will become more prosperous than it would be if it remains subject to the protectionist policies of the EU.

    There are two issues that far outweigh all these other considerations.

    The first one is about foundational values.  Though the EU had significant input from Christian thinkers at its inception, it has drifted a very long way from those foundations.  The EU is defined by a progression of treaties with each one aiming to restate the values and policies they wish to carry forward.  The values that are not restated in the latest treaty are left behind.  So, though we can find Christian foundations, they have now been replaced by the values of “humanism and the religions of Europe”, as stated in the Lisbon Treaty.

    What is meant by this phrase?  No one can think that there can be easy harmony between the “religions of Europe”.  Are we suggesting that they all share the same values?  What harmony of values can be found between Christianity and Islam when it comes to separation of Church/Mosque and State? Christianity took a long time to work out what is clear from the New Testament, that the authority of the State and the influence of the Church are different and should never be conflated.  Islam is not there yet and, because of their origins and history, probably never will be.  When the Treaty of Lisbon cites the “religions of Europe”, do they include Paganism and the various expressions of New Age beliefs?

    That phrase, “the religions of Europe” can only be seen as a sop for “religious” people.  Humanistic thinking has become the final arbiter, supplanting the early foundations.  With humanistic thinking, comes the idea of evolving values.  Nothing is absolute or fixed; the opinions of those who shape opinions have the final say.  That, in turn, is a license for those in power to steer society in the direction they want values to turn and that is nothing more than a sophisticated form of tyranny.  When rulers do not acknowledge a higher power, they are dangerous.

    The nature of tyranny brings me to the most important issue at the heart of Brexit.  In Western nations we have lived a long and glorious period of three generations free from tyranny.  That is our “normal” but is a rare exception in human history.  The decisions of tyrannical men have killed more people than any other cause.  Understandably, political philosophers have concentrated on how to keep political and military power in check.  We need to pay careful attention to the principles that have been developed by that thinking, which grew in the context of Protestant Christianity.  The superiority of democratic, open, limited and accountable government is underscored every day with the statistics of immigration and asylum seeking.  The massive flow of millions of hopeful people is all one way—towards the nations with Protestant Christian history.

    Citizens of these Protestant-based countries have benefits that were unknown for most of human history.  The post-Constantinian (337 AD), but pre-Reformation (16th century) era, considered the primary institutions to be more important than the individual.  Those institutions, whether Church or State, were inevitably oppressive, looking after the well-being of the powerful but trampling on ordinary people.  With the Reformation came the emphasis on the importance of personal faith in Christ and gradually, our institutions were reformed with a view to protecting the rights of the individual.  Where the Roman Catholic Church or the various Orthodox hierarchies prevailed, individual rights were not enshrined in law.  Generally, that meant, and often still means, that individuals who are charged with a crime are tried before a representative of the State, a judge, rather than before a jury of their peers.  In other words, the State is both prosecutor and judge.  This can be tyranny.

    A close friend recently pointed out that the moto on our British passports reads, ‘Dieu et Mon Droit’, “God and My Right”.  In other words, I am significant and have inalienable rights because I am an individual created in the image of God.  As individuals, we comprise a society that decides its laws and gives such powers to the state as we deem fit and necessary.  As an individual I am considered to be innocent until proven guilty.  Unlike most Roman/French law, I do not have to prove my innocence before the state, rather, a jury of my peers must assume I am innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

    The clear thinking about limiting power started at least 1000 years before Christ, when the prophet Samuel warned the people of Israel that if they chose a king for themselves, they would end up regretting it when they laboured under his tyranny (1 Samuel 8).  God had set Israel up with a loose form of government based upon families, clans and tribes.  You might say that this Biblical pattern was an expression of subsidiarity.  That is the name given to the idea that power should be kept as close to local communities as possible.  The natural tendency is for powerful men to draw more power to themselves.  But the application of the idea of subsidiarity runs contrary to the hubris of powerful rulers.  Subsidiarity was built into the foundational documents of the European Economic Community, but it has been forgotten.   And that is dangerous.

    What started as a free trade area has evolved into something much more complex and more dangerous.  The logic of its evolution is clear.  For trade to be both free and fair, the rules governing trade and production must be harmonised. This logic leads to the exercise of more and more power by the body overseeing trade.  When the logic is mixed with the reality that powerful men seek more power, then it results in ever more centralised, and distant, rule over the member nations.

    That power is probably best expressed in the European Commissioners.  They are appointed by the member nations, not elected.  In other words, there is no direct accountability to the people they rule.  They have complete and exclusive authority over what issues are brought to the European Parliament for legislation.  They also have control over the European budget.  This is a powerful concentration of authority in the hands of a few appointees.

    I am not claiming that there is no democratic accountability in this structure, but I am claiming that it is too distant from the voters to be effective.  To illustrate, if you were to ask a European citizen to name their MEP, I would be confident to predict that less than 20% would be able to name, let alone say they know, their MEP.  If you were to ask when the next election for European Parliament is due, I doubt that 5% would know.  Why?  Because it is all too distant and complex for the voter to think they have any real voice.  They know intuitively that their vote makes no difference.

    And yet the leaders of the EU are calling for ever closer union and more power to the supranational institutions.  They are now calling for a common foreign policy and a common EU army.  This should serve as a warning sign that we are well down the road to tyranny.

    I am so grateful for the 70+ years of peace in Europe. (Though there have been some significant exceptions, especially in the Balkans.)  The EEC, followed by the EU, has played its part in assuring that peace.  Nevertheless, it would be a serious mistake to think that the current and growing bureaucracy of the EU will make that peace more likely.  On the contrary, resentment against the distant, but powerful authority of the EU is contributing to deep resentments between European nations.  European economic and immigration policies have led to anger and growing social unrest, especially in the southern nations.  An ever-more-powerful central European government is not likely to lead to ongoing peace and its reputation for corruption is the cause of deep suspicion among European citizens.

    Finally, a brief word about the global picture.  It is quite likely that the EU is seen by many of the most powerful political figures in the world as the prototype for other trade blocs.  Each of those trade blocs then represents a means for harmonising the laws and institutions of every member nation within that bloc.  When those blocs encompass the majority of the most powerful nations in the world, then the only thing that remains is to harmonise the various blocs.  Providing that there has been good consultation between the trade blocs as they take form and become more powerful, the final harmony should not be difficult to achieve.

    If I were a very bright and powerful secular humanist, it would seem perfectly clear that this would be the best way to order the world.  We could have global trade with few, if any, tariffs.  Once all the nations became completely interdependent at the economic level, then surely dangerous disputes could be more readily resolved, and we could see an end to conflict and war.

    Surely the brightest and most powerful people in the world could order all of humanity in a way that would be to the benefit of everyone. What could go wrong?

    The oft quoted statement from Lord Acton is probably the most relevant warning:

    Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

    Everything could go wrong!

    The landscape of Brexit shifts daily so this article will be out of date very quickly, but as it stands today, I am glad that the UK is attempting to leave what the EU has become and what it is intent upon becoming.  Perhaps Brexit will be a reforming influence, encouraging other nations to demand a change of direction.  Maybe it will be a loud enough voice to finally get the attention of those in power, convincing them that they must decentralise and stop the aggregation of power.  Many have suggested that the best way to bring about reform would be to remain an EU member, but Britain has had little or no power as a member state.  Though Britain has attempted to use its power of veto on many occasions, it has never been successful.  In spite of the theoretical right of veto accorded to members states, there is no real power there.  In spite of that, the Commissioners have announced that they plan to do away with the right of member states to veto EU law.

    Someone once referred to modern secular humanist leaders as “squatters in the house that Christianity built”.  Squatters usually destroy the squat they invade.  Is it possible that the squatters might vacate and let the original designers and builders reclaim the fruit of their labours?  Probably not.  But Brexit could be a step in the right direction.

    Lynn Green.