Conceived By the Holy Spirit (Advent 4c)

 There was a song we used to sing during the charismatic revival of the 80s: “She Walks on the Mountain in the heat of the Day” that moved me deeply. I was right there, with Mary, filled with joy at the Holy child she was about to bring into the world. Like Elizabeth, I knew intuitively this was true. We say we believe Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit” as the Apostles Creed. I wonder how many of us understand their importance. If we have trouble believing in the virgin birth and the divine fatherhood of Jesus; we might logically have trouble with the divinity of Jesus. If Jesus is not Divine we might question the sufficiency of His sacrificial death to pay for the sins of all people. The logical result is the popular modern non-divine, good man Jesus who doesn’t need to forgive our non-existent sins and was a great teacher. The Bible is very clear this modern teaching is heresy and completely inconsistent with the historical evidence:

 

1.   Mica had Prophesied the Birth 800 years Earlier (5.2-5)

Conversion Therapy Laws Limit Freedom of Choice, Speech and Religion

It is outrageous that in this time of pandemic fear, economic confusion and social media destruction; our Canadian Government instead focusses on “completing the work” of making it illegal for professionally trained counsellors, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists and priests to help the eighty percent of children who drift into adopting a non-birth sexual identity and later change their minds as adults. The law is one-sided - It is not illegal to counsel them into changing from birth gender. This is speech and thought control pushed by the same LGBTQ activists who organized a massive demonstration outside the American Psychological Associations annual convention in 1973 and forced them to drop sexual dysphoria (gender confusion) from their professional manual of psychological disorders. These LGBTQ activists (rightly) demand free choice and speech rights - then turn around and use social media and government lobbying to limit the choices and free speech rights of others.