As the Scottish Parliament debates a bill that would
legalise assisted suicide, a group of children’s charities have stepped in to
say that the Bill’s lower age limit of 16 should be removed, therefore allowing
assisted suicide for children as well as adults, on the grounds that children
have painful terminal illnesses too. A pro-life group said such a change was
“unthinkable.” The Bill has already been described as “unclear and confusing”
by the Faculty of Advocates.
A mega-church in Texas has told its members that if they
give tithes to the church and God and has not responded with blessing inside
three months, they are entitled to claim all their tithes back. Fellowship Church,
which has several video-linked church buildings in Dallas and elsewhere,
requires anyone who wants their tithes back to send in a response card after at
least 90 days have elapsed.
A healing evangelist has courted controversy by apparently
refusing healing prayer to a disabled man, admittedly in difficult
circumstances. A healing service in Oklahoma led by Todd Bentley was
interrupted by a man with cerebral palsy, who was on stage apparently awaiting
healing prayer, who publicly called Bentley a “fraud” and a “worker of
iniquity.” Bentley tried to minister healing to the man (who runs an eponymous
local ministry) even though the man continued to argue and tried to hit Bentley
with his crutch, but eventually Bentley said “I’m not giving you my healing
anointing because I have nothing to give you.”
The leaders of the three biggest political parties in the UK
were invited to the annual National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast, which was
addressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Ed Milliband attended and so did
David Cameron, the first Prime Minister to do so since Margaret Thatcher.
Cameron also wrote a foreword to the programme for the event, saying that
Christianity could inspire politicians to “get out there and make a difference
to people’s lives.”
The Chinese government is continuing its campaign to remove
highly visible crosses from churches, including those belonging to the official
Three Self movement. A church in Wenzhou successfully blocked a pre-dawn
attempt to remove their cross last week but the authorities returned between
3am and 6am on Tuesday and used a crane to remove the 10ft cross. It is
reported that another 15 churches have been told to remove their cross
voluntarily or face demolition, and that 360 churches have been demolished in
China this year.
The UK Ministry of Justice has written to The Christian
Institute confirming that the new Bill criminalising emotional mistreatment of
children will not make it an offence for Christian parents to teach their
children Biblical principles. Instead it will target “cruelty likely to cause
physical or psychological suffering or injury,” thus modernising the wording of
the existing law but not widening its scope.
In sport, Germany’s Martin Kaymer won the U.S. Open golf by
a huge eight-shot margin. The Open has been held at the Pinehurst course twice
before, and the lowest score achieved in those tournaments was 66; Kaymer
scored 65 in both his first two rounds, and 67 in his last.
And finally, the Uruguay football team are suffering from a
caramel shortage. The team brought 39kg of dulce de leche with them to Brazil,
but it was seized at the border for not having the right sanitary paperwork. It’s
not clear if the 39kg was being carried by one individual or was intended for
the whole team. Some fans are blaming the lack of Uruguay’s favourite snack for
the team’s shock defeat to Costa Rica.
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