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In the News

  • Gatestone Institute: France's fatal attraction to Islam
    March 4th, 2017

    Two years ago, the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, suggested converting empty churches into mosques, to accommodate the growing Muslim community in abandoned Christian sites. Now, many people in France seem to have taken the idea so seriously that a report released by the foundation Terra Nova, France's main think tank that provides ideas to the governing Socialist Party, suggests that in order to integrate Muslims better, French authorities should replace the two public holidays -- Easter Monday and Pentecost Monday -- with an Islamic holiday and, to be ecumenical, a Jewish holiday.

    Written by Alain Christnacht and Marc-Olivier Padis, the study, "The Emancipation of Islam of France," states:

    "In order to treat all the denominations equally, it should include two important new holidays, Yom Kippur and Eid el Kebir, with the removal of two Mondays that do not correspond to particular solemnity".

    Read more.

  • Christian Today: Church stance on gay marriage 'increasingly untenable' for an established church, say MPs
    March 3rd, 2017

    MPs are branding the established Church's status on sexuality 'untenable', 'unfair' and 'hard to justify' as they piled on pressure for a change.

    Labour's Ben Bradshaw and Chris Bryant and Tory MP Robert Jenrick all voiced their concern after a bishops' report on sexuality was rejected by the Church of England's ruling body.

    The report kept a conservative line on gay marriage and was criticised by members of the general synod for its tone towards LGBT people.

    Read more.

  • GOV UK: Open consultation: Reforming GCSEs, AS and A levels in biblical Hebrew
    March 3rd, 2017

    The Department for Education (DfE) has recently made changes to the subject content for GCSEs, AS and A levels in ancient languages. These changes allow for the development of reformed GCSEs, AS and A levels in biblical Hebrew, which will be taught in schools from September 2018.

    We are proposing to change our rules and guidance for reformed GCSEs, AS and A levels in ancient languages to accommodate these new qualifications, and are seeking views on those changes.

    Read more.

  • Christian Medical Fellowship: Activists' attempt to legalise abortion on demand up until birth is both unnecessary and unwanted
    March 3rd, 2017

    A campaign by activists to legalise abortion on demand up until birth hots up again this month, with the first reading of a Ten Minute Rule Bill on 13 March.

    Labour MP Diana Johnson is introducing an 'Abortion (Decriminalisation): Ten Minute Rule Bill' seeking to amend sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 to 'decriminalise consensual abortions; and for connected purposes'.

    While the bill is unlikely to become law, Ten Minute Rule bills do very rarely eventually make it onto the statute books. However, the primary aim of Johnson’s bill seems to be to reopen the debate on 'decriminalisation' of abortion.

    Read more.

  • The Gospel Coalition: Life in a foreign country: Navigating our culture's change on sexuality
    March 3rd, 2017

    L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between famously begins, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." But for many Western Christians today, it's not the past that's unfamiliar territory, but the present. Everything, it seems, has changed.

    Our legal systems - once used to persecute the gay community - are now used to prosecute Christians who refuse services to gay customers. The fear of coming out as an evangelical Christian in the workplace today is perhaps similar to the fear of coming out as gay to colleagues a generation ago. Dictionaries are changing definitions of words like "marriage," and schools are asking parents to indicate their child's preferred gender identity. More and more young people talk of a fluidity in their experience of gender and sexuality.

    Read more.

  • Church Times: Lambeth Palace letter suggests 'indistinguishable' blessing after same-sex marriage
    March 3rd, 2017

    A letter from Lambeth Palace has said that a church service after a same-sex marriage can be "almost indistinguishable from a wedding".

    The letter was written to Dr Richard and Matthew Edwards, who married last year in Birmingham Register Office. Both are members of the PCC at St Paul’s, Birmingham. Dr Edwards is the treasurer, and Matthew Edwards the vice-chair and a churchwarden. They have been together for five years, and got engaged in 2015. Before they married, they wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury for guidance.

    The letter they received in response, written by the Archbishop's correspondence secretary, Andrew Nunn, demonstrates the Church of England’s ambivalence on the question of same-sex marriage. He states: "marriage in an Anglican church is not an option for you." On the other hand, he describes the practice of having a blessing in church after a civil ceremony. "The church ceremony can be arranged so as to be almost indistinguishable from a wedding, but without the legalities."

    Read more.

  • Barnabus Fund: In 2017 the UK capitulated to a new blasphemy law: Christian street preachers convicted for quoting the King James Bible
    March 3rd, 2017

    Two Christian street preachers have been convicted of religiously aggravated harassment after quoting from the King James Bible when asked questions about Islam and homosexuality by hecklers. The prosecution claimed that in the context of modern society this "must be considered to be abusive and is a criminal matter".

    Originally four men had been accused. However, the Crown prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the charges against one before the trial began and the case against another was dismissed part way through the four-day trial as the court ruled there was no case to answer. However, Michael Overd and Michael Stockwell were convicted. After the trial their solicitor, Michael Phillips said:

    "This prosecution is nothing more than a modern-day heresy trial - dressed up under the public order act."

    Read more.

  • The Local: An Italian woman was forced to go to 23 hospitals to have an abortion
    March 3rd, 2017

    An Italian woman has shared her story of the difficulty in getting an abortion in Italy, where around 70 percent of doctors refuse to carry out the procedure on moral grounds.
    The woman, who has not been named, was turned away from 23 hospitals across the north-west of the country.

    After getting pregnant unexpectedly while using the IUD as a form of contraception, she was only able to find a hospital which would offer the procedure when trade union CGIL intervened on her behalf.

    Read more.

  • Independent: German school bans Muslim students from using prayer mats
    March 3rd, 2017

    A school in western Germany has banned the use of prayer rugs and other traditional Muslim rituals saying it is "provocative" to other students, sparking a debate about freedom of religion.

    The Gymnasium Johannes Rau, in the city of Wuppertal, sent a letter to staff in February saying Muslim students had been using prayer rugs and performing ritual washing in the restrooms, and that they should get a "friendly reminder" it's not permitted and will be reported to the administration.

    After strong criticism when the letter was posted last week on Facebook, municipal authorities said the wording was "unfortunate" and the school had only meant to bring affected students in to discuss a solution to allow their prayer, Bild newspaper reported on Thursday.

    Read more. 

  • Guardian: Mass grave of babies and children found at Tuam care home in Ireland
    March 3rd, 2017

    A mass grave containing the remains of babies and children has been discovered at a former Catholic care home in Ireland where it has been alleged up to 800 died, government-appointed investigators said on Friday.

    Excavations at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, have uncovered an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing "significant quantities of human remains", the judge-led mother and baby homes commission said.

    Read more.