This headline appeared on the local BBC news website on Wednesday 28th January. It serves to remind Christian parents, Free Presbyterians in particular, that there are teachers in the state system who do not necessary believe the Bible but who nevertheless teach pupils ‘about’ Christianity!
View the BBC news article here.
This teacher freely acknowledged that “he was not ‘anti-Christian,’ and did not “have a problem teaching children about Christianity.”
Problem
His problem with the state system is stated as: “He said there was currently a system where ‘one worldview is dominant’.
‘I just think it places a burden on a six-year-old or a seven year-old to understand where Christianity sits in relation to other religions or no religion,’ he said.”
There are many in the teaching profession who would share his view. Indeed, out there in the ‘religious world’ there many clerics in the ecumenical denominations who have long taught that there is more than ‘one world view’!
After all, King Charles III desires to be known as the ‘Defender of Faith’, rather than the title, ‘Defender of the Faith’, which is a reference to Protestantism, when the title was later defined!
It was originally bestowed on Henry VIII by Pope Leo X in 1521 for defending Roman Catholic doctrine, but it was later reaffirmed by the English Parliament to signify the monarch’s duty to defend of the Reformed faith. A duty most monarch’s failed in most dismally!
Luther
But the nation, indeed, nations, have moved on from the 16th century Protestant Reformation. That ‘religious movement’ was in essence, a return to Bible truth after centuries of practising the superstitions and perversions of Roman Catholicism.
It is generally agreed that one of the first steps back to the Word of God was Martin Luther’s nailing up his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517.
These theses condemned the sale of papal indulgences (pardons for sin) and criticised the Roman Catholic Church’s corruption. His action is considered the spark of the Protestant Reformation.
His 95 ‘Theses’ were refined and enlarged upon to become the basis of the Protestant movement which sprang up in many places in Europe around that time. We in the Free Presbyterian Church, as was the case with Bible-believing Presbyterians in the past, embrace the ‘Westminster Confession of Faith’, drawn up by the 1646 ‘Westminster Assembly’, which was instituted by the English Parliament, as part of the Westminster Standards to be the confession of the Church of England.
It became and remains the ‘subordinate standard’ of doctrine in Presbyterian churches which adhere to the Word of God worldwide. It also became the doctrinal statement of the Congregationalists, as they modified it to suit their beliefs.
The Nonconformists, who withdrew from the Church of England rather than submit to the ‘Act of Uniformity’ in 1662, which declared that ‘the Church of England was the only legally approved church’, adopted it as their standard.
Charles II
The godless King Charles II was the chief instigator of this rejection of the truth of God’s Word and the Church of England to this day is increasingly marked by rebellion against God and His Word.
Syncretism
A central theme of today’s apostasy is the fanciful and stupid notion, designed to accommodate the various heathen religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc, and include them within the circle of lifestyles and beliefs that is claimed will bring us to God and to heaven!
This ‘religious concoction is termed ‘Syncretism’ and refers to the merging of different religious beliefs into a unified system.
That is what King Charles III advocates and believes! It is also what many teachers in the state school system would desire to be embraced more fully and officially than its present ‘clandestine’ exposition!
Cain
All this is but part of the age-old rebellion against God and His Truth. From the dawn of time, men have rejected that there is ONLY ONE GOD AND MEANS OF WORSHIPPING HIM!
Cain was the first recorded exponent of this evil notion. Back then, in the second generation of mankind, the means of approaching God and offering that which was acceptable to Him was the way that Abel adopted by faith.
“By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh,” Hebrews 11:4.
Abel’s Faith
Abel believed God and brought to Him a lamb as his offering. “And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering,” Genesis 4:4.
Abel brought a lamb as an offering for it was the divinely appointed symbol of faith. The ‘ firstlings of his flock’ was a declaration of Abel’s belief in the promise of God that ‘THE DIVINE LAMB OF GOD’ would appear one day and bear away the sins of those who believed God’s promise and displayed that faith by the offering of a lamb in their worship.
This practice, seen in its infancy in the worship of Abel, became central to the order of worship ordained by the Lord for His people and set forth in Old Testament dogma.
John the Baptist
The last of the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, had the privilege of announcing the arrival amongst men of the promised Redeemer and identifying Him as Jesus of Nazareth!
“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. . . . And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!” John 1:29, 36.
Gospel
The Gospel is all about the holy person of the Lord Jesus and His words to those He encountered during His three year ministry, the rejection of Him by the nation of Israel as a whole, the cruel death those rejectors inflicted upon Him, and His resurrection and ascension to glory, there to intercede for His people.
But His death was not in vain, rather it was the eternal means purposed by God for the redemption of those who trusted, as did Abel of old, in Him as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”.
His work of redemption has never been better set forth than it was by Isaiah the prophet, some 2700 years ago!
“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors,” Isaiah 53:1-12.
Heart
That is the heart and core of Bible religion and it sets forth the simple truth that there is BUT ONE WAY TO GOD!
This the Saviour stated in those blessed words in answer to Thomas: “Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me,” John 14:5-6.
That truth is rejected by King Charles III and all those in apostate churches, and of course those who would remove the teaching of the Bible in state schools as the ONLY RULE OF FAITH AND PRACTICE!
This desire was given support by the UK’s High Court, when it ruled, in November past, that the Christian Religious Education taught in schools in Northern Ireland was unlawful.
In other words the teaching of the Bible only in state schools is OUTLAWED!
Murderer
That was the position and practice of Cain, the man rejected of God and referred to by John the Apostle as “Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous,” 1 John 3:12.
We have to thank this teacher, whose actions are reported on the BBC news site, for bringing out (perhaps unintentionally) and highlighting again the truth concerning the rejection of God’s Word in the state school system here in Ulster.
Will it make any difference to the attitude and behaviour of Free Presbyterian parents who refuse to send their children to a Christian school and those elders and ministers who are prepared to close Christians schools under their charge?
Not unless the Lord in mercy moves amongst us and reveals the terrible sin that is tolerated and endorsed by all too many professing faith in Christ and preaching obedience to Him!
Rev Ian Foster (Rtd)
29th January 2026