Recently twenty Palestinian and Israeli women met in a small village in the north of Israel. This village is not well known - there is not even a sign from the main road pointing in its direction - but Al-Jadeida has been in the news lately because of the violence there. Whole groups of people have been relocated there from low-income neighbourhoods in Acco and Gaza. Al-Jadeida is 97% Muslim and 3% Christian. Organised crime has taken hold, and the local municipality has all but stopped the city services. For the evangelical families and local Catholic and Orthodox churches, this is unacceptable. This has been the subject of prayer for some time now. As a result intercessors met to pray with the local women’s group. They had no physical weapons of protection, but went armed with hope, faith and boldness, walking through neighbourhoods in two groups and praying that the municipality will be cleansed and that any who won’t bend the knee to God will be changed.
Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, has said that the Church must be ‘vision-led, not problem-led’ in the post-denominational phase we are now entering, seeking street-level co-operation between the Anglican Church and the wider Church body. The key to growth, according to Chartres, is ‘refusing to see the many divisions in Church life, between High Church and Low Church, between Catholic and Protestant tradition. There is only one division that truly matters, and that is the division between dead church and live church. That can embrace almost any expression of Christian faith.’ Strong ecclesial identity is now history, according to Chartres. Rather, we are in a post-denominational phase. ‘Very few of the hundreds of thousands of students studying in London arrived with any clear ecclesial identity. They are looking for churches and congregations of varied and contrasting styles that are living and not dead,’ he said.
Christian Tory MP Mark Pritchard has urged ministers in the UK Government to speak to their Israeli counterparts about reducing the number of attacks on Christian religious sites in Israel. He spoke out just months after the Church of the Multiplication on the Sea of Galilee was victim to an arson attack. Shortly after the blaze, Bishop Declan Lang said, ‘Attacking, desecrating and damaging any church or house of worship anywhere in the world is an inexcusable act. This is more so in the Holy Land that is home to followers of the three monotheistic traditions.’ There have been a number of attacks on Christian sites in recent years as well as a rise in anti-Christian graffiti.
The Government’s counter-extremism strategy could seriously backfire and damage the values it is intending to uphold, a range of critics have warned. A senior police chief, a national newspaper and a legal commentator have all highlighted flaws in the strategy, which includes controversial Extremism Disruption Orders (EDOs). Concerns have been raised that the terms for the orders are being ‘far too broadly drawn’. Writing for the Guardian online, legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg noted that according to the Government, extremism is the vocal and active opposition to values such as the rule of law. But he said expressing ideas that offend is an ‘essential part’ of our fundamental values. Rozenberg also criticised part of the strategy which proposes an extremism community trigger, whereby anyone will be able to complain about extremism to the local council or the police. This might mean the police turning up at a street preacher’s home to question them.
The head of Ofsted reports that employers are offering poor-quality, low-level apprenticeships that are wasting public funds and abusing the trust placed in them by the Government and apprentices. Retail and care workers are particularly likely to be signed up for low-level apprenticeships that do not provide them with sufficient training, stretch them, or improve their skills. Instead, they are frequently being used as a means of accrediting existing low-level skills, like making coffee and cleaning floors. In a major report published this week, Ofsted concludes that many courses are failing to give learners the skills and knowledge employers are looking for, or add value to the economy. Some interviewed for the report were not even aware that they were on an apprenticeship programme. The Government intends to deliver three million apprenticeships over the next five years, but poor-quality courses have devalued the brand.
Wilberforce Academy
23 Oct 2015
Every year Christian Concern runs an academy for young people called the Wilberforce Academy, named after the famous reformer William Wilberforce. It’s a four-day residential course to train and equip the invited students on what it means to proclaim Christ in public life. It is the academy’s desire to raise up the next generation of Christian leaders to take a bold stand for Christ within their spheres of influence. Just as God blessed Wilberforce and his fellow reformers it is hoped that God will mightily use those being trained. The course has proved very popular, with great potential impact on our nation, and Christian Concern is now developing a network to encourage Wilberforce graduates to build relationships and connect for the future. They have a passion to serve Jesus in law, politics, education, media, arts and business; please pray for them.
Slavery in the United Kingdom
23 Oct 2015
Last Friday, the country’s first anti-slavery commissioner spoke out against the treatment of modern-day slavery victims by the UK authorities. Kevin Hyland said officers don’t know how to handle victims and there could be as many as 13,000 here, but the way they’re received by authorities is morally unacceptable. He plans to train forces to react better when they discover victims (predominantly from Albania, Nigeria and Vietnam). Human trafficking has an annual trade of $32 billion and trafficking is not in any way removed from us. It’s close. It happens where we live, in the nice quiet towns and villages or amid the buzz and loudness of big cities. God cares deeply for humanity and is constantly moved to action. We have the opportunity to intervene proactively in the lives of those who are bound by fear, who have no freedom and who see no way out.
Prayer for steelworkers
23 Oct 2015
Revd Peter Vickers, a chaplain working at a Tata Steel site where 900 jobs are being axed, is asking Christians to pray for those facing uncertainty, saying, ‘You've got fear of what is going to happen; you've got people feeling anger because others should have done something to stop the situation; then there's the whole worry about their future. Pray for those on the journey of uncertainty - the number given is 900 but that doesn't mean that 900 will walk away without a job. Pray that they can keep a calm head as they look for other employment. Pray also for the emotional ripple effect that Scunthorpe itself will feel. Pray for those with power to make decisions; there are an awful lot of people feeling powerless, and they need to know that those people will use their power wisely.’