An open letter to all Christians from CCFON

Most of you reading this letter today will have read about the recent case of Caroline Petrie and, I imagine, you may have been shocked at what the case says about the way Christians can be treated in today’s Britain. We were honoured to have been able to serve through helping Caroline.

At the moment The Christian Legal Centre has over 20 ‘live cases’. Praise the Lord, Caroline Petrie was given her job back. Not all of the people we help through CLC and CCFON are so blessed. I’m writing today to give thanks to those readers of Christian Today who have helped us in the recent past. And also to offer all those of you reading this now the opportunity to join us – by joining our free email list for our publication Christian Weekly News which keeps tens of thousands of Christians in Britain up to date about individual cases like Caroline Petrie’s, as well as providing an important digest, update and comment on all key developments for Christians in our nation.

We are also very keen that as many Christians as possible stand with us as supporters. To be able to produce our newsletter, and to be able to continue defending Christians under threat in the workplace, and to resist developments in legislation that affect us all, we need the financial support of people around the country who share our Christian concerns.

To give those of you reading now who are not so familiar with our work an overview, here are a few examples of recent work and of some of the challenges ahead that we must face. All of these issues affect us as Christians and are of great importance in the future of this nation.

* CLC has arranged representation for Mahboob Masih, a Church minister from East Kilbride , who was dismissed from his role as host of a radio programme for the manner in which Christianity was defended on air that allegedly offended Muslims.
* We supported therapist Gary McFarlane who was dismissed because he expressed the view that his Christian beliefs on sexual ethics prevented him giving specialist sex therapy to homosexual couples.
* A number of foster carers holding Christian views on sexual ethics are being prevented from becoming or continuing to be foster parents because of alleged breach of equality codes. We successfully helped Vincent and Pauline Matherick to continue fostering and restored Eunice and Owen Johns to the system though we are waiting to see if they are approved.
* We also represented Andrew McClintock, a Christian Magistrate, who had been forced to step down because he did not want to place children in homes with a same sex couple.

Challenges which we will have to face in the near future may include:

* Renewed attempts to legalise assisted suicide in the Scottish Parliament and in the Coroners and Justice Bill, which is currently making its way through the House of Commons.
* Clause 58, which would remove the protection of freedom of speech regarding homosexual practice that Christians currently enjoy and that was won in the House of Lords last April.
* An equality Directive that is being debated at European level is likely to restrict Christian freedoms further across Europe and to ride roughshod over our rights to freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

How you can help

All in all, CCFON is a David-sized organisation fighting a Goliath-sized problem. We are actively seeking financial donations, large and small to pay for our small team of highly dedicated and talented lawyers and other professionals.

The financial need for running our not-for-profit organisations is in the region of £20,000 per month. Our team is small but highly effective in defending individual Christians, winning cases which uphold all our rights, and challenging legislation that would set the law of the land against Biblical truth and Christian values. I believe this is money effectively and well spent in defence of these values.

At the moment we are some way short of this monthly target and so I want to ask you, if you are not already a committed giver to our work, to consider joining us as a standing order donor.

Our greatest need at this moment, if you are able to help us in this way, is for standing orders, because only in this way can we start to gain the reassurance that our work is on a truly secure footing. We will inevitably have to continue to issue specific appeals, but we would rather keep this to a minimum. Our aim over the coming months is to build up this level of committed giving via standing orders to reach as close as possible to that £20,000 per month target. If you are able to consider being part of making this possible, this would be the kind of support that we would value above all.

If you and your friends and contacts would be interested in helping us in that way, we are now able to offer the option of making this a charitable gift. Faith, Truth & Hope (reg. Charity 1121897) can direct funds to the charitable aspects of CCFON and CLC’s work.

We are also delighted to accept one-off gifts in the form of cheques payable to Faith, Truth & Hope, if this would be your preference, although we always encourage standing orders as the best way to help us achieve sustainability. You can find a standing order form and gift aid declaration on our website:

www.ccfon.org

which you can print off and complete and then return to us by post.

The address for all three organisations is:

c/o CCFON

PO Box 655
Haywards Heath
West Sussex RH16 9AT

You can also make one-off donations on-line, also by logging on to www.ccfon.org or by sending a cheque by post to the PO Box address above.

With many thanks for your interest.

Andrea Minichiello Williams

Director, CCFON and CLC