Christian satire website Babylon Bee was called ‘fake news’ by Facebook, but their comical take on Christian culture has a deeper purpose. They aim to make Bible believers think. ‘We want to make clear we’re not making fun of Christianity, per se, and we’re not making fun of Jesus or the Bible or the gospel,’ head writer Kyle Mann said on a podcast. ‘What we’re making fun of is a Christian culture that builds around those things and the biblical message.’ He and other members of the Bee team are looking to make a deeper point with their satire. ‘Good satire should really make you laugh,’ he said. ‘And then it should make you think.’ The goal is to help Christians think through whether they have created idols or erred in their handling of issues. They want Christians to recognise in their spirit that some Christian culture is unnecessary, but Jesus and the Bible are eternal foundations to build faith upon.

There are signs that things can improve from now on, as chief participants in Syria’s war are keen to stabilise the conflict. The latest chemical attack and international accusations come in the midst of questions that we can pray into: How long will the US remain in Syria? -Will Turkey keep advancing its own territorial control? What happens in all the territory IS has lost, now a genuine ceasefire is in place? We can pray for a diplomatic and further ceasefire process by Russia, Iran and Turkey to achieve security in the region. In north-west Syria, Turkish forces and allies overran Afrin in March after Kurdish YPG unexpectedly withdrew and joined an exodus of 150,000 civilians. Please pray for the precarious situation of the 137,000 civilians who fled and are now in villages abandoned by IS. They face hunger, sickness, and mines left by the terrorists.

16 April was pastor Andrew Brunson’s first day in court answering espionage charges. He pastors a small Protestant church, and is accused of supporting the attempted 2016 coup to overthrow president Erdogan by aligning himself with terrorist organisations. If convicted, the 50-year-old faces 35 years in prison. ‘I was never involved in any illegal activities,’ the American Pastor told the court in Turkish, the language he speaks fluently after 23 years in the country. After the hearing, instead of being returned to the prison he had recently been held in, he was taken to an overcrowded, extremely grim prison. The USA said prosecutors have no case against the pastor. He is accused of ‘the supposed crime of Christianisation’. Brunson’s Turkish lawyer told Reuters that prosecutors interpret the pastor’s religious work as ‘aiding terror organisations; there is evidence revealing that he was arrested due to his faith.’

With the defeat of IS and Kurdish independence ambitions thwarted, many see a positive mood in Iraq. Yet major obstacles of corruption, sectarianism, and nepotism limit Iraq’s capacity to recover from war and destruction. As soon as campaigning began on 14 April for parliamentary elections, people pulled down pictures of fighters killed in combat and replaced the images with their own posters, causing major controversy. The following day a car bomb targeted an election candidate in Kirkuk, killing one and wounding eleven. Iraq elections have typically been accompanied by violence since the removal of Saddam Hussein. 7,000 candidates have registered to stand for 329 parliamentary seats, in the fourth election since 2003. Iraq is the 12th most corrupt country in the world. On 15 April the US defence secretary accused Iran of funnelling money into Iraq to sway election outcomes, calling it part of a broader pattern of destabilising Iranian actions across the Middle East. See also