Displaying items by tag: Religion

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

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s court case, at which she was expected to have her jail sentence extended, was postponed following the Foreign Secretary’s visit to Iran. Boris Johnson has said he held ‘worthwhile’ meetings in Tehran over the case of the jailed British-Iranian woman, but warned that he did not wish ‘to raise false hopes’ for her release. He believed his messages had been understood by senior Iranian figures, but admitted it was too early to be confident of the outcome, casting doubt on her family’s hopes that she might be released in time for Christmas.

As Christmas approaches, churches will be presenting carol services and other seasonal activities where the gospel is preached. Pray for God to anoint His people with powerful evangelism, and for the Holy Spirit to speak through the Church as she faithfully witnesses to the true gospel message. The Evangelical Alliance recently won an award for their website at the Premier Digital Awards. At this site churches can order from over 200 different outreach materials and ideas to inspire, equip and support the Church to make Jesus known. Pray for many thousands of unsaved people to realise this year that Jesus was born to give them a full life that never ends. Christmas can be a very lonely time, a time without hope. The Salvation Army has begun its 2017 Christmas appeal to raise awareness and finance for their work amongst the poor, vulnerable, and homeless. See:

Numbers are falling in the Church in Scotland, church buildings are closing, and in a recent survey 51% said that they have no religion. However, there is a ‘stirring’ going on under the surface. The Church has often been called the ‘sleeping giant’. We may be experiencing a reduction in numbers but, as the story of Gideon’s army tells us, numbers are not everything when it comes to accomplishing the plans and purposes of God for a people and a nation. The sleeping giant is starting to awake from its slumber! There have been many local outreaches, summer missions, etc, which, together with the excellent Alpha courses, have borne fruit with folk coming to Christ. With Ffald y Brenin, we can pray, ‘O High King of heaven, have mercy on our land. Revive Your church. Send the Holy Spirit for the sake of the lost, the least and the broken. May Your Kingdom come to our nation. In Jesus’ mighty Name. Amen.’

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 1995 the US passed the ‘Jerusalem Embassy Act,’ which formally recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and called for their embassy to move there from Tel Aviv. With overwhelming support it passed the Senate by 93 to 5. President Trump has now implemented that decision. Israel’s intelligence services minister Yisrael Katz said, ‘The Palestinian reaction is a rejection of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, just as Arabs did 70 years ago.’ He also said that this action will make it clear to Palestinians that they too must recognise Israel, which is necessary for the peace process. He said Israel would take economic steps to help the Palestinians, singling out the regional railroad project currently being proposed. Manuel Hassassian, Palestinian representative to Britain, warned, ‘Trump is effectively declaring war in the Middle East’. See also

Jesus is the central character in the Christmas story. But 15 million Mormons have a false understanding of Him, believing that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three gods. They believe the lie that salvation depends on their works instead of on the work of Jesus Christ; and the Heavenly Father began as a spirit child, came to earth to gain a body, and earned his way to godhood. Many good works are required for Mormons to earn the privilege of living with the Heavenly Father in the next life. One ‘good work’ is temple work for the dead - a person can be saved after they have died when temple works are completed by those still living. Mormonism teaches that man is not born in sin and cannot sin until the age of eight; and Eve’s disobedience was ‘a fall upward, a necessity for eternal progression toward godhood’.

Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman who has been on death row for blasphemy since 2010, has been nominated for this year’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. The 2017 report by the International Humanist and Ethical Union, presented on 5 December, should be alarming to all who care about freedom of thought and expression, as it shows ‘a pattern of regression on a global scale’. It shows that 85 countries have at least one law or symptom of ‘severe discrimination’ against those who think or believe differently; the free thinkers. Thirty countries are guilty of ‘grave violations’ such as prescribing the death penalty for apostasy, or ‘religious instruction in a significant number of schools, of a coercive fundamentalist or extremist variety’. See also the next article, about Canada’s religious freedom in schools.

Canadian father Steve Tourloukis - who featured in television commercials for the Coalition for Marriage - has been fighting a legal battle since 2012 to protect his parental rights and religious freedom. The legal battle has just come to an end, but not in the favour of Mr Tourloukis - or Canadian religious freedom. He initially sent a letter to the school board asking that his children be opted out of the sexual education programme, since many of the messages in the class directly conflicted with his religious beliefs. He specifically mentioned that he was concerned about the ‘discussions or portrayals of homosexual/bisexual conduct and relationships and/or transgenderism as natural, healthy or acceptable’. When they refused his request, he took them to court, but Ontario’s appeal court has ruled against him, and against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

President Putin told representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church: ‘Over the past few years the Russian state, alongside the Russian Orthodox Church and other religious organisations, has provided humanitarian aid to Syria. It is very important that peaceful life is re-established as soon as possible, so that people can return and begin rebuilding churches and temples.’ Putin also stressed that most of the historically Christian areas have been liberated. Syria’s Christian community, one of the oldest in the world, has shrunk from 30% to an estimated 10% of the population, after being driven from their homes or forced to convert to Islam. Syrian Christians lived in Syria for centuries before Assad, but only reached the highest levels of government when Syria was democratic. Despite being a minority they have long belonged to Syria's elite, and joined prominent political groups.