Now that I’ve finally got back into a routine after a summer break, it’s time to get back up-to-date with what’s going on in the world. And our own wee country of Northern Ireland has plenty to talk about. Unfortunately, not in a good way.

Two recent developments are heartbreaking to watch if you love the Lord and His Word. Both indicate that immoral, unethical, and anti-God trends in the political landscape have gained a strong foothold.

Green light for abortion

From 2020 until March 2025, over 11,000 babies have been murdered inside the womb. Some will call that inflammatory language, and it is, but not because it’s an exaggeration. It’s inflammatory because it presents the truth in its unfiltered form. Babies are unique human beings, with souls, created and knit together by God.

Dress it up anyway you like, but if the statistics are anything like other regions with similar abortion laws, the vast majority are carried out just because a child in inconvenient or unwanted, not for any medical reason. They are being sacrificed for another person’s comfort and convenience.

Even in cases that use medical justification, the diagnoses seem to be wrong at least as often as they are correct. But even if the children are rightly diagnosed as having a disability (someone explain to me how cleft palette or club foot qualifies as a disability worthy of death!), the predominant argument is that it would be too cumbersome for the parents to deal with. Well, guess what – the moment you chose to “be intimate”, you were choosing the consequences, good or bad. It’s a parent’s duty to care for their child, however easy or difficult that may be. That’s parental love! It is our duty as parents to sacrifice for our children, not to sacrifice our children so we get things easier.

And what is the stance of our politicians? Well, Belfast City Council have demonstrated the political opinion by voting to light up City Hall in green to celebrate abortion in Northern Ireland.

How vile! How disgusting! To celebrate the murder of thousands of unborn children by lighting up the symbol of civic leadership in Belfast in a colour that is supposed to signify life. Twice as many voted in favour as voted against (36:18). A prior committee vote on the proposal passed 11 votes to 3. This is the death cult of modern politics in Northern Ireland.

Criminalising conversion

The second development is the bill submitted to the Northern Ireland Assembly by Eóin Tennyson of the Alliance party to criminalise “Conversion Therapy”. It is clear from the legislation that the normal expression of faith, especially of evangelical Christians, is being attacked. Oh yes – the legislation states that expressing beliefs or opinions is perfectly fine, but only on the condition that people are not directed “towards a particular sexual orientation or gender identity” (clause 7(1)(b)). So you can say the Bible teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman for life and that anything else is against God’s Word, but you are not allowed to call people to live in obedience to God’s Word on this issue, because that’s directing them toward a particular orientation/identity, one that honours the distinction and cooperation between a man and a woman in biblical marriage.

This badly-worded, ill-thought-out bill sexual orientation or gender identity as “what the victim considers it to be” and “what the person [i.e. the accused] considers it to be”. In other words, this official piece of proposed legislation in the Northern Ireland Assembly allows sexual orientation and gender identity to be literally anything you want it to be. You can identify as a cat or a fox and under this legislation another person can be prosecuted and fined or even imprisoned for a year without a jury trial if they say to you on two or more occasions that you need to wise up and realise you are a human being, not an animal.

If a preacher is preaching through Genesis, Romans, 1 Corinthians, or the words of Christ regarding biblical marriage and says that this is the only standard God accepts as valid, that every deviation from this standard is wicked in God’s eyes, and that God command us to repent from these sins, be converted (a biblical quotation), and conform to His Word, they can face prison.

It is inconceivable that the choice of the term “conversion therapy” is not designed to target biblical Christianity. Conversion is exactly the business of the Church. It is the message of the gospel. It is the aim of repentance and faith, to be converted, transformed, made into a new creature in whom “old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new”.

And if someone comes to us wanting help to resist immoral urges of homosexuality, bisexuality, paedophilia, or whatever other definition, real or imaginary, they care to use, the bill clearly states that this is not a defence against prosecution. The complaint doesn’t even need to come from the individual. It can come from a family member who doesn’t want their relative to be mixing with church folk. It can come from political lobbyists who hear of such help being given and who complain to the police that pastor so-and-so is carrying out conversion therapy. There is no defence even if the help is sought out and asked for.

But this is not a new tactic.

They did it to Daniel

Many of us are familiar with the story of Daniel and the den of lions. Remember how the trouble started for Daniel? The other presidents, governors, princes, counsellors, and captains hated Daniel, resenting his higher position, but they couldn’t find fault with him under the law. Most Christians do not commit crimes. A few have done and the law has dealt with them appropriately and that’s how it should be. But for the LGBTQIA+ lobby, their biggest pain are the evangelical Christians who are seeking to live true to the Word of God. They aren’t perfect by any means, but they’re seeking to live honest, blameless lives. But that means they’re free to keep preaching and teaching an inconvenient message for those who hate it. So how do they handle this? How can this lobby get rid of or silence these Bible-believing Christians they see as extremists?

Well, they do exactly what the Persian officials did. The found something Daniel did as a normal expression of his faith and they criminalised it. They made it a crime for anyone to pray to any God, deity, or any other entity except King Darius, for 30 days. That last bit was thrown in just so they could claim to be reasonable: “It’s only for 30 days. After that you can go back to praying to your God. Surely 30 days isn’t such a big deal!”

Eóin Tennyson’s bill uses the exact same tactic. It takes something Christians do as an integral and normal part of their faith – calling all sinners to repent, be converted, put their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, and live in obedience to God’s Word – and it makes this a crime. It criminalises the gospel. “But you can preach the gospel – just don’t tell people they need to change from who they are. Surely that’s reasonable!” No, it’s not. It’s seeking to change the gospel. It’s trying to change the expression of truth as found in Scripture.

We are commanded by Jesus Himself to “teach all nations … to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). It’s not enough to merely teach what the Bible says concerning moral issues. We are commanded to call people into obedience to its teachings, to conform to it’s teachings, to be converted so that we live by the Word of God.

So how do we respond? Well again, turn to Daniel.

Dare to be a Daniel

Daniel prayed. Our first and most powerful response is to pray. Pray the bill will be defeated. Pray the hearts of enough politicians will be changed to bring about that defeat. Pray that God would even miraculously make it impossible for this bill to be made law. I don’t know how, but I’m not God. I think God is capable of performing a miraculous defeat of this bill.

Second, keep doing what we normally do as the expression of our faith. When Daniel went to pray, not in defiance of the law but despite the law, he didn’t shy away and hide what he was doing. He opened his windows and prayed as normal, in the same place and manner the officials had seen and heard him pray before all of this kicked off. We’re to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We’re to keep preaching the gospel. We’re to keep calling sinners of all kinds to repentance. We’re to keep preaching repentance, conversion, faith, and obedience.

In the end, Daniel couldn’t escape the actions of the law, but he did escape the effects of those actions. He survived. God honoured him. God dealt with those who sought to destroy him. And in the end, even King Darius, ruler of the greatest empire in the world at that time, had to declare openly that Daniel’s God “is the living God”.

Whatever happens, victory is ours in Christ. Satan will not win. The gospel will continue to be preached. In fact, the coverage of this bill may even create opportunities for the gospel to be proclaimed on national media, and that could result in countless numbers trusting in the Saviour.

These things are happening right now. We can’t bury our heads and pretend they’re not. We’re to face them with the confidence of those who know that God is still on the throne.

Keep looking up!

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