Displaying items by tag: society

More people are reporting consistent unhappiness, with women more likely to do so, an NHS survey has found. The Royal College of Psychiatrists said women are more likely to bear the brunt of domestic and caring responsibilities. Almost a quarter of 45- to 54-year-olds are mentally ill, but numbers drop as women get older. 16% have severe problems past 65, and 14% at 85. Christians are recognising the need to reach those with mental health diagnoses, but often those in the church with these diagnoses suffer in silence. Having heard that the joy of the Lord is their strength or that they need only pray more to be healed or that happiness will accompany the faithful, many who suffer from mental illness keep their diagnosis a secret. Pray for all those in need of counselling and pastoral care, and for Christian counselling services to be known about more widely. See also

The Christian mental health organisation Livability called for churches to be more honest about life's difficulties. A survey found that half of UK adults (26 million people) would feel uncomfortable or unsure about telling others if they experienced a mental health problem. The director of Livability said, ‘It's about creating communities where we talk about our well-being. There's a real need for us to start normalising the level of conversation that we have in our churches. There's a negative impact when we don't talk about these things.’ He encouraged churches to move away from criticism and adopt a culture of honesty, with leaders talking about their own emotional and mental well-being. The survey found that people aged between 16 and 24 are most likely to experience mental health issues. To be called a ‘snowflake’, implying that you are easily offended or hurt, is damaging to mental health.

In September we reported that 122,500 people had been evacuated to locations outside a 7.5-mile exclusion area around Bali's Mount Agung volcano as magma rose during hundreds of daily tremors (see ). On 25 November thousands were evacuating an area within 8-10 kilometres from the peak as lava began to appear. The next day most people had fled but some have remained, despite plumes of smoke and visible lava. They are too frail or sick to move. If Agung erupts again, they will die when fire and rocks rain down and boiling lava flows. Many of the people forced to evacuate their homes are the poorest in Bali. Farmers and construction workers will find it hard to earn money while living in the camps to which they have been evacuated. No one knows when they will be able to return to their villages; financial pressures may force some to go home before the danger has passed.

In a highly biased legal system where Christians are normally denied fair trials, the family of a Christian youth killed by police may actually receive justice. Six officers were charged with murder after they dragged Arslan Masih out of his schoolroom, intent on revenge. He had successfully fought a Muslim boy who had been bullying him, and one officer, the boy’s uncle, found it unacceptable that Arslan had stood up to his nephew. Arslan was regularly bullied and in this instance fought in an attempt to stop the daily torment and attempts to convert him to Islam. He is not the first Christian to have died in Pakistan’s police custody, but it is the first time it has happened with many witnesses.

Palestinian women are scoring a sweet victory against gender discrimination in the West Bank by breaking with tradition and working alongside men at the largest pastry factory in Nablus. They are ignoring prejudices and competing with men for jobs that traditionally belonged to men. However the women only earn half of the amount of the men, even though they have proved to be more competent than the men. Now the factory, supported by women’s rights organisations, plan to provide pastry courses for other women who want to work.

For centuries the social and political organisation of many Iraqis has centred on the tribe. Socially, tribes were divided into related sub-tribes, which further divided into clans, and then into extended families. Today 75% of Iraq’s people are members of a tribe with a strict honour code. Despite the liberation of most of IS-occupied areas, political differences and a struggle for power remain. There have been clashes between the Popular Mobilisation Units and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces near Kirkuk. Also, on 20 July clashes between the Sunni Nineveh Guards and the Shi’ite faction of Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada took place in Mosul. There are fears that these clashes might expand into open warfare amid deep differences over the disputed tribal areas extending from the Iranian border, through Kirkuk province and into Yazidi areas near the Syrian border. Terrorists have also been exploiting tribal differences for years. For historical roots, see:

The government plans to legalise recreational marijuana by 1 July 2018. Pray for Canadians to use critical thinking skills as they decide what to do with their vote that could change many God-given lives. There is no shortage of easily accessible information on the topic of marijuana. In fact, there are enough facts to effectively argue two opposing perspectives on the recreational use of marijuana. Where does one go from here? Pray that the Canadian Church will research the long-term and short-term effects of marijuana use, then stand up and speak out on the subject of addiction and where it leads. What would Jesus do? Where would recreational drug use lead me?

Christianity, no matter what form it takes, has now become unacceptable to the political and media establishments. The Bishops of Ireland call it 'a kind of persecution'. Viewed from a distance, anti-Christian activity might seem to have undergone merely an increase in intensity. But a closer inspection reveals that something more fundamental has changed. It is more subtle, taking the form of gradual exclusion of Church people or Christian activities from the public space. There is denigration of religious beliefs, practices and institutions on radio, television and on social and other media. There is often a focus on bad news about the Church, to the almost total exclusion of good news. The message is clear, in Ireland and in Britain alike: the persecution of the Christian faith has been ratcheted up a notch.

Churches across Britain are being asked to ‘adopt’ care homes to provide comfort and succour to lonely dementia sufferers. When former nurse Tina English had a vision of churches across Britain adopting care homes to alleviate a crisis, she did a simple sum. ‘There are about 50,000 churches in the UK and 17,500 care homes,’ she says. ‘I thought, if one in three churches started a care-home-friend project there would be a lot less isolation and loneliness.’ Tina, director of Care Home Friends, now has the chance to make it happen after receiving funding from Cinnamon Network, a Christian charity, to start projects across the country. A video that she posted on YouTube has been an effective recruiting tool. She has built up a network of fifty volunteers visiting seventeen care homes in the borough of Richmond upon Thames over the past two years. ‘God has given me a heart for older people,’ she says.

Ninety died and 400 were injured when a truck bomb shook Kabul's diplomatic quarter, in one of the worst terror incidents to hit Kabul. People struggled to deal with the number of casualties. The damage was enormous. The majority of the dead were civilian men, women and children. In recent years jihadist groups have called for attacks on civilians during Ramadan, which began on 27 May. The explosion raises questions about security procedures. However, on 1 June the president told the BBC Today programme that thirty attacks are foiled for every one that gets through. Three years after David Cameron declared ‘mission accomplished’ and Barack Obama said the American war in Afghanistan was over, this carnage demonstrates the opposite. The West does not want another escalating war, while generals on the ground call for more troops. In 1989 foreign powers turned their backs on Afghanistan, which enabled the Taliban to burgeon. Now, the country cannot be allowed to disintegrate again in the face of IS, with the internet accelerating the dissemination of both ideology and violence. See