Displaying items by tag: Religion

Taylor was attending the concert at the Mandalay Bay casino when a gunman killed 59 and wounded 527. He said that prior to the shooting he was an agnostic but, ‘In a fight or flight situation you just take it to God and hope that you can make it,’ In the midst of tragedy and fear, not knowing where to flee to, with bodies everywhere, his faith was renewed. The National Day of Prayer president said, ‘The massacre has more to do with the fallenness of mankind than where God is. God is with the people of Las Vegas. He is with everyone who has suffered. We must trust Him, even when we see things like this occur and we have no idea why someone would do it. We are living in days like none before and being called back to God through every terrible event we are observing around the world. The Church must call out to God together.’ See

Dr John Sentamu said it has never been so important to support young people as he launched a major fundraising drive to extend the reach of his youth trust almost a decade after it launched. The Youth Trust seeks to ‘change our world for the better’, and has supported more than 50,000 pupils in 450 schools since 2008. It has now embarked on a drive to raise £375,000 to extend leadership courses for those living in the top 20% of the most deprived areas across the north of England. That means reaching an additional 15,000 youth from disadvantaged communities, in 300 primary and secondary schools, in the next eighteen months.

The so-called 'foreign minister' of the Russian Orthodox Church recently gave a bold speech in London. Addressing diplomats, politicians, religious figures and entrepreneurs, Hilarion Alfeev said Christianity is dying in Europe and being replaced with secular ideas. He said that other peoples with different faiths, cultures and values will live in Europe in the future and establish liberalism, which will affect human rights and fundamental Christian freedoms in civil, economic, political, social and cultural life. Hilarion appealed for this to be countered by unity among the churches. 'Christians must strive to defend their values on which the continent has been built for centuries, and listen to the lamentations and sufferings of Christians from across the globe.' The Orthodox Church is known to view the social liberalism of Western churches as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

Leaders from 18 denominations attending the Windermere leaders' summit heard about the results of the new Talking Jesus research, and the best strategy for sharing Jesus. Andy Hawthorne from the Message Trust said, ‘People's hearts are open to the gospel. The Church is on the front foot in mission, the like of which I've not known in my lifetime.’ The summit drew on a newly updated survey of adults and teenagers, which shows that people of all ages want to know more about Jesus Christ and Christianity. The strategy for seeing church growth is to pray for five people; talk about Jesus (the research shows that conversations play a key part in people becoming Christians); give away Bible-based resources; and invite people to church. The research found that 13% of young people now describe themselves as practising Christians, with 67% of adults saying they know a Christian and consider them 'caring', 'generous' and 'good-humoured'.

London Fashion Week held a ‘Satanic Black Mass Fashion Show’ at St Andrew’s Catholic Church, Holborn. The aisle was transformed into a graphically satanic runway with a checkerboard catwalk, a towering backdrop of tarot card imagery, and an eerily pale model in a cream outfit inspired by a corpse bride. The church was desecrated with all manner of demonic symbolism as it became the backdrop for this widely-publicised event, devised by Turkish fashion designer Dilara Findikoglu. People are wondering how shrouding the church’s sacred space with pentagrams, inverted crosses, and other occult paraphernalia is consistent with the church's mission. See

In the 1940s, Christianity enjoyed tremendous growth in North Korea. By 1950 there were 2,850 churches, 700 pastors, and 300,000 Christians; Pyongyang was nicknamed ‘the new Jerusalem’. But the rise of Kim Il Sung to power changed everything, and religion was outlawed. There are stark similarities between Christianity and the Juche philosophy indoctrinated into every North Korean from birth. Replacing Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a trinity of Kim Il Sung, his mother Kim Jong Suk, and his son Kim Jong Il. National laws are written in a style that resembles Mosaic law. Children are taught to give thanks to Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il for their food. Photos of the two adorn every house, as reminders of who supposedly cares for their needs. The World Centre for North Korea Missions connects people with North Korea, and facilitates mission training and projects.

America’s intercessors are praying for the presence of God to invade the government and lifting Christians in government to His throne room. Examples are Vice President Mike Pence (‘Giving my life to Christ changed everything’) and CIA director Mike Pompeo (‘Pray and stand and fight and make sure that we know that Jesus Christ, our Saviour, is the only solution for our world’). Others are Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development; Kellyanne Conway (counsellor to the President), whose faith plays a minute by minute part of her life; Reince Priebus, White House chief of staff; and Ken Blackwell, the domestic policy chair, who says his faith influences his decisions. The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, says her faith has a profound impact on her daily life, and that she looks to God for guidance in every decision.

A six-year-old boy’s parents removed him from a church school, in a row over another boy wearing a dress. Their son was confused as to why the boy dressed as both a boy and a girl. The couple were told that under the school's bullying policy their son faced being disciplined for misidentifying the gender of the other pupil. The diocese responsible for the school said it is required to ‘respect diversity of all kinds’, and its policy regarding boys wearing dresses is, ‘if a child wants to do that then we just have to accept it’. The couple are suing the school for ‘overriding their religious beliefs’. The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust handle ‘under-18 gender issues’. Since 2015 the number of referrals to them of children under the age of ten has risen from 87 to 216 (32 aged five or under). See also

The Prayer Book Society gives free copies of the 17th-century Book of Common Prayer to first-year students in theological colleges. This year they will also be given a key to some of the BCP’s more old-fashioned words and phrases. Tim Stanley, the Society's press officer, conceived the scheme because although the language of the prayer book is very beautiful, it is also very ancient, and modern readers might find some words difficult to understand or interpret. The glossary will be given in a bookmark form, and is also available on the Society's website. See:

Pablo leads a small indigenous ministry. He says Syrian refugees are frustrated with Islam, and when we begin to show the love of God in our actions and tell them about God in the Bible, they say they had never heard anything like it. When they start coming to church one of the brothers begins visiting them in their apartment, and explains that, as Christians, they are expressing God's compassion and kindness. The refugees become Christian. Every six months the EU sends 150 refugee families to this ministry for assistance to get resettled. Every month its human and financial resources are stretched. But they do whatever God tells them to do.