Last Sunday evening after participating in a viral online prayer service interceding for the UK with Fr Calvin Robinson and Rev Canon Phil Harris, I sat down in my study for my usual end-of-the-week pipe and a glass of port. However, this week I couldn’t relax and let go of the thoughts troubling my mind. As I sat tucked away in my study, my nation was burning.
Protests had broken out across England following the stabbing of numerous children in Southport resulting in the tragic death of three precious little girls. This horrific event was the spark that lit the powderkeg that is modern Britain alight.
The general populace evidently fed up with decades of systemic decline, poverty and seemingly uncontrolled illegal immigration took to the streets in frustration. Simultaneously members of mostly Muslim immigrant communities organized counter-protests. Thus the stage was set for utter chaos as bad actors from both sides turned to violence, looting and destruction of property and the protests devolved into riots and battles on the streets.
The Prime Minister has promised a crackdown but by blaming the “far right” only many feel he may have stoked the flames of further division in an already fractured country. With this as the backdrop, the news headlines mulling around in my head and my phone relentlessly pinging with notifications about the unfolding anarchy I suddenly felt God put a message in my heart for Britain.
So I prayed, sat down in front of my webcam and with no notes, in a single take poured out my heart to my countrymen. The crux of my message is simply this: Britain needs Christ. With that, I enjoyed my ‘holy smokes’ and a tipple and went to bed. When I awoke in the morning I found my video had skyrocketed to nearly 50k views, my inbox was overflowing with emails and I had dozens of missed calls.
Aside from a tiny minority of easily offended woke types, the response was unanimous: thank you for speaking out as a clergyman with the guts to speak the truth. People in the UK clearly think the mainline churches have failed them as much as they feel successive governments have. What the populace is yearning for is lasting hope that transcends mere political solutions and that is what my video inadvertently tapped into.
WATCH:
