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In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Dr John Sentamu, the second most senior cleric in the Church of England, tells Ministers they should not overrule the Bible and tradition by allowing same-sex marriage. The Archbishop says it is not the role of the state to redefine marriage, threatening a new row between the Church and state just days after bishops in the House of Lords led a successful rebellion over plans to cap benefits. ‘Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman,’ says Dr Sentamu. ‘I don’t think it is the role of the state to re-define what marriage is. It is set in tradition and history and you can’t just change it overnight, no matter how powerful you are.
Pray: for the Government to listen to and respect the views of the Church and other religious groups when considering this matter. (Ps.85:8)
The Archbishop of York has challenged politicians to put their money where their mouths are and make the living wage a reality. Dr John Sentamu has just taken up his new appointment as chair of the Living Wage Commission, which will spend the next 12 months looking at how the living wage can be implemented. Writing in The Observer at the weekend, he said it was a ‘national scandal’ that five million people in Britain are not being paid enough to live on. ‘Millions of people across the country will get up today, leave their families and travel to work to carry out jobs that we all depend on,’ he wrote. ‘They will care for people, serve us food, clean the spaces that we all use and share. They will do more than a fair day's work, but they won't get a fair day's pay.’
Pray: that a living wage for a fair day's work will become the norm and not something that leaves people with less than enough. (Dan.9:17)
More: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/sentamu.attacks.scandal.of.low.wages/33295.htm
The Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer, warned that the rules would allow developments when councils had not set out local plans, which would make clear where building can take place. His intervention is the first time that a senior cleric has entered the dispute over the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework. The framework distils 1,300 pages of planning guidance into as few as 52, and writes in a ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’. Groups including the National Trust fear this will allow developers to build on large parts of the countryside. The bishop criticised the draft rules during a House of Lords debate. He said: ‘Just because no one has thought about a proposal before does not mean that it should automatically be granted. A default answer of 'yes’ seems to be dangerous in legislation and could well lead to problems in, for example, the proper provision of affordable housing.’
Pray: for the Government to build in safeguards to address the concerns of many who seek to protect townscapes and countryside. (Ps.72:3)
Five men are being held under the Terrorism Act after being arrested close to the Sellafield nuclear site. The men, who are all from London and in their 20s, were arrested on Monday shortly after 1630 BST. The arrests were made after Civil Nuclear Constabulary officers conducted a stop check on a vehicle close to the Sellafield site, in Cumbria. The BBC understands the men were taking photographs and are all believed to be Bangladeshi. The arrests are not thought to have been intelligence-led. The men were held in Carlisle overnight and then moved to Manchester. Four houses in east London were raided by counter-terror detectives as part of the investigation. The arrests were made within hours of the news breaking that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan. Pray: that the authorities will remain vigilant amid fears of reprisals from groups sympathetic to al-Qaeda. (Eph.5:15)
The National Secular Society has written to Bideford Council to say that its prayers at council meetings are ‘illegal’. It has threatened the council with a judicial review unless it stops the prayers and hopes the action will "set a precedent that will affect the many other councils that have prayers as part of their agenda", the NSS said on its website. The NSS has decided to take action in response to a complaint from local councillor Clive Bone, whose motions to remove prayers from meeting agendas have failed. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey told the Guardian: ‘The centuries-long tradition of saying of prayers before council meetings is simply an acknowledgment of the important role the Christian faith plays in civic life. The attempt to rule such prayers as discriminatory is an attack on freedom and a cynical manoeuvre to drive public expressions of faith from national as well as local life’. (See also praise item)
Pray: against these attacks upon our Christian roots.(2Ti.4:18)
More:http://www.christiantoday.com/article/secularists.says.council.meeting.prayers.are.illegal/25929.htm
Bishops in the Church of England are resisting calls from a secular campaign group to ban the use of NHS money to fund hospital chaplains. The National Secular Society (NSS) argue that the NHS is spending ‘millions of pounds a year’ on chaplains, and that public funds could be better spent on alternative health care services which were ‘non-discriminatory’. However, in a debate at the church’s General Synod this week, Rt Rev Mike Hill, the Bishop of Bristol, said that ‘every effort’ must be made to preserve the role of chaplains in the NHS to ensure that ill patients were offered full, comprehensive care.
‘As with much in life, the true value of our chaplains might only be appreciated if they were no longer present,’ he said. ‘Every effort ought to be made, and is being made, to resist secularist calls for chaplains to be excluded from the NHS.’
Pray: for our church leaders to stand up against the secular and humanist organisations who are attacking our Christian values. (Jude.1:3-4)
More: http://www.christianconcern.com/our-concerns/social/secularists-lobby-to-remove-nhs-chaplains
The BBC will devote nearly a whole day of Radio 4 to readings from the King James Bible to mark the 400th anniversary of its publication. (See Prayer Alert 5010) While the move has been welcomed by the Church, it has prompted secularists to complain to the BBC at what they believe is ‘excessive’ coverage. The 28 Bible passages, each 15-minutes long, will be introduced by the Archbishop Rowan Williams, Simon Schama and Will Self, and recorded by actors including Samuel West, Emilia Fox and Hugh Bonneville. The Rt Rev Graham James, Bishop of Norwich, said the BBC's coverage was an encouraging sign that it recognised the significance of the King James Bible. ‘The BBC is not being kind to Christians, but recognising the place of the Bible in the nation. It has had an impact on our culture, our history and our language and it has helped to create our sense of who we are as a people.’
Pray: that this event will go ahead and will be heard by as wide an audience as possible. (1Ti.4:13)
The greatest threat to evangelical Christianity is not Islam, but rather secularism, consumerism and pop culture, a new study has found. In a survey of nearly 2,200 evangelical leaders from 166 countries, 71% identified the influence of secularism as a 'major threat' to evangelical Christianity. This was followed by consumerism (67%), and sex and violence in pop culture (59%). Only 47% of evangelicals identified the influence of Islam as a major threat. The survey, by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, also found that evangelicals in the Global South are more optimistic about the future of evangelicalism than their brothers and sisters in the Global North. While seven in ten evangelical Protestant leaders (71%) living in the Global South expected the state of evangelicalism in their countries to be better in five years than it is today, in the Global North evangelical Protestant leaders expected the situation to either be the same (21%) or get worse (33%).
Pray: that God would be our protector against the enemies of His church and people. (Ps.60:11)
Education Secretary Michael Gove has said that he will ensure that the Church of England plays a greater role in the provision of schooling. He told the House of Commons yesterday (April 16) that ‘we praise and cherish the role of the Church of England in making sure children have an outstanding and inclusive education’. He ‘looked forward to working with Bishop John Pritchard to extend the role of the Church in the provision of schools.’ He also praised the Church for ‘driving in the first instance’ the provision of education. His remarks have been interpreted to signal his backing for new Church of England schools, and may provide some reassurance to those who have questioned whether Mr Gove’s support for faith schools was ebbing. The Church currently supplies education to more than a million children, and is involved in 4,800 schools. The review discussed the viability of opening new academies, adding to the 154 academies it currently has.
Pray: that the Church will be able to take up the additional requirements for education in the UK. (Ps.34:11)
Secret documents that have hidden the truth behind the recent changes in the marriage laws, have been exposed by the Daily Mail. Schools could be required to teach children about gay marriage, Government documents reveal. Officials at the Home Office and the Department for Education concede that teachers may be under a legal obligation to inform children about same-sex marriage once it has passed into law. Under the Education Act 1996, pupils must learn about the nature of marriage and its importance for family life in sex education classes. Officials and ministers knew there was an issue, but said nothing to the public. The secret Government emails came to light following a Freedom of Information request. They show that Government officials were worried about how the media (and therefore the public) would react if it became known that redefining marriage would affect school lessons.
Pray: that the truth would be exposed and those responsible would not continue to hide or distort the truth. (Ps.25:5)
More: http://www.theway.co.uk/feature.php?id=8869&this=Secret_documents_exposes_Gay_marriage_law_