Letter: Church attendees at cathedral service seemed to ignore doctrinal truths of Biblical Protestantism

The centenary service of the Irish Council of Churches (ICC) took place in Belfast Cathedral during the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. (January 23).

The importance of prayer shines through the pages of Holy Scripture. Adam’s communion with God in the garden of Eden was broken by sin. Following the murder of Abel by his brother, it wasn’t until the subsequent generation that men began to call upon the Name of the Lord.

Throughout the Old Testament, prayer was accepted on the basis of a blood sacrifice. This anticipated the only Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. The Saviour Himself said that men aught always to pray. He gave the example of the publican who sought and found mercy. Christ also taught His disciples to pray. A sign of Paul’s conversion was that he prayed.

When the ecumenical, ecclesiastical experts come together for prayer, we must examine their actions in the light of the Bible, which poses the question, ‘Can two walk together except they be agreed?’ (Amos 3v3)

How can Rev Dr Harold Good refer to ‘our shared faith’? The Bible, speaking of Christ, states that ‘this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.’(Heb 10v12) Diametrically opposed to this, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the Mass is a sacrifice, in which the sacramental bread and wine, through consecration by an ordained priest, becomes the sacrificial body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ as the sacrifice on Calvary, made truly present once again on the altar.

Have the doctrinal truths of Biblical Protestantism been replaced, or just simply ignored by those in attendance at St. Anne’s? The joint efforts of the ICC are somewhat akin to those who attempted to build the Tower of Babel, an ambition that ended in confusion!

Considering the ICC’s self-description as ‘Christian Communions in Ireland willing to join in united efforts to promote the spiritual, physical, moral and social welfare of the people’, was the invitation given to the NI Secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, extended in the hope that he might repent and rescind the liberal abortion laws imposed on this Province and reduce the slaughter of the innocents?

Robert McFarland, Dungannon