This ministry has upped sticks and moved to America so that it can claim 501 c3 status to replace it's Canadian tax-exempt status. Of course, this has the same net effect to Canadian donors - their donations will still not qualify for tax rebates. So what is the point? Presumably they already had a US ministry set up to harvest US tax dollars. Where is the $ gain for the ministry? This just does not add up.

Secondly, they have chosen to advertise to the entire world that they have built up a healthy cash surplus based upon years of Canadian tax exemptions.
"We had been saving up to build a studio, because we don't believe in debt," she said. "At the moment we are ready to start construction, the government moved in to shut us down."
And they think the Canadian tax authority wont have a problem with expatriating all those years of Canadian tax-dollars and spending them in a foreign economy?

First, the legitimate issue that we all need to be very concerned about and beware of is the arbitrary and relatively unaccountable powers wielded by low and middle ranking bureaucrats in every nation.

Secondly, this is not the WND headlined case of “The Canadian government has ordered a Christian ministry” to “shut down”. The detailed report actually shows that the ministry concerned "wrote on Feb. 7 and voluntarily revoked our [license] ourselves,"

I understand the views of Mrs MacGregor not to see her donors’ charity money eaten up by lawyers’ fees. However there are many alternative courses of action:
1) Voluntarily forego the Canadian tax rebates and government oversight.
2) Appeal through the tax authority's internal appeals procedures.
3) Raise the matter in Parliament through a sympathetic Member of Parliament.
4) Appeal for a Christian lawyer to take the case on gratis to make a legal challenge
5) Appeal for the many many thousands of Canadian Christians to help finance a legal team.

It seems strange to see a Christian ministry surrender rights and freedoms (for which our forbears were martyred) for some govt tax dollars?

Jim Lincoln wrote:
I rather enjoyed the last paragraph of the WND article,

" Q: Will your architects be drawing up options for mosques to accommodate 40,000 or 70,000 people?

A: The stories citing 70,000 or 40,000 have been wildly exaggerated. The mosque will be able to accommodate 12,000, although the regular weekly attendance is expected to be probably about half that figure. We currently attract about 3500 to our gatherings every Thursday and about 2000 on Friday. In Dewsbury, we currently attract just over 1000 every week. "

http://www.abbeymillsmosque.com/AMILLS/cache_PID_48.html#architects

At $40 it probably doesn't need insuring unless one agrees with this Amazon reviewer about the likelihood of a reprint :-
"I LOVE this booke!!!

This is the greatest investment I have ever made in my ENTIRE life!
This really is the True WORD of GOD! It will save your life.

You can learn, teach, edify, correct, and help save people with this Booke. This is having a piece of history, right in your hands. You feel like this is the real thing. Order about 3 copies, because the world, will stop publishing the 1611 Authorized King James Bible forever!!!

Thomas Nelson, stopped publishing their version of the 1611 KJV, and Hendrickson Publications might be the last publishers to EVER publish the REAL 1611 KJV before Christ comes back!!!!

kenny wrote:
I have a bunch of lawyers in my family and I'm familiar with the tactic as they use it often.

Neil wrote:
Since Hitler & Franco, fascists have *always* distanced themselves from Communists - rival parties need not be polar opposites, just as Bolsheviks hated the Mensheviks & Socialist Revolutionaries.
My impression of neo-Nazis is that they're more interested in Nazi racial dogma than anything else. It is American pseudo-Christian Kinists that give the greatest credulity to the "right-wing" label (which in any case, has been technically meaningless since the Fr. Revolution).

Minnow wrote:
She was the best man in politics in her day.

In his public life he conducted himself honourably and with great dignity amidst very turbulent and disturbing times.

Lance Eccles wrote:
Martin Luther might have been successful if he'd tried to reform the Church from within. But as it was, all he did was shatter Christianity into a thousand fragments.
He was the wrong person for it. His explosive temperament took him where he hadn't intended to go.

RobertWilliams wrote:
The issue concerning his attendance at an ecumenical service reinforces the judgement that many people make concerning those who are deemed guilty by reason of association. Can we say for certain that he has fallen from his former convictions? I don't think anyone can.

Unfortunately, Dr. Paisley is paying the price for what he himself has sown.

Another issue is, as you say, that Ian Paisley founded those institutions and was a leader or teacher in them.

I see no reason why those whom Paisley taught should be criticised for consistently applying the very biblical principles he taught them to apply.

If Ian Paisley is right now, he was wrong for the last 50 years - and owes apologies to all those he criticised in those years for ecumenical guilt by association.

Personally, I think he is wrong now, but then I have spent most of the last 23 years of my life respecting what Ian Paisley taught and lived by for most of those years.

When leaders ask their people to do moral gymnastics I think there is a real issue there. Pragmatism can be sin.

Boy Scout wrote:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=12008938490
'In the interview, Symonds states that Dr Paisley knew that he (Symonds) would be at the event and would be leading in prayer when he acccepted the invitation to speak.'
Concerned free p...why not listen to your former moderator rather than a Romish priest. Rev Paisley I believe clears this point at the above sermon link.

The last I heard on this was sophistry surrounding whether Paisley was "officially" told.

Neil wrote:
Woodrow Wilson, who established the first American fascist regime during WW1 which jailed over 170,000 people, also claimed to be a Christian.

Jim Lincoln wrote:
Great Britain would be much better off with independent Christian churches proclaiming the Gospel.

Pastor Tom Newton wrote:
Is there not equal blame for all? Consider two sets of verses that describe our day: #1- "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?"(Jeremiah 5:30-31). #2- "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables"
(2 Timothy 4:2-4). It is when preachers fail to preach and live up to the Word that perilous times come upon the church. It is when the sheep fail to obey the word of God and forsake the fold in self will, that perilous times come. A call to repentance for the pulpit and the pew!

Pastor Tom Newton wrote:
What happened in the book of Judges is happening now - "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes"(Judges 17:6). The true spirit of Laodiceanism - the laity rules.