There are
reports of unprecedented openness to the Christian gospel in the Middle East.
"It's happening everywhere, but mostly around the refugees" said the
Middle East coordinator for All Nations college, where many missionaries are
trained. "Previously [missionaries] shared with someone for seven or eight
years before they came to know Jesus. Now it happens in two or three months and
they bring others with them. People are coming into the kingdom practically
without us—we get to be the midwives."
A Jewish
school in northwest London has been downgraded by Ofsted inspectors after they found
“major gaps in students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development”
according to the controversial new standards. However, the inspectors themselves
are under fire for asking students “inappropriate” questions including asking if
they understood how babies were made; how many gay people they knew; and
telling one nine year old, “a woman might choose to live with another woman and
a man might choose to live with another man, it’s up to them.” One eleven year
old also said, “They asked us if we had friends from other religions, and they
asked the question many times until we answered what they wanted us to say.”
A gay man
who became a Christian Bible professor has called on Christian parents not to
reject their children if they come out as gay. "Parents, love
your LGBT or same-sex attracted children and point them to a life of costly
discipleship following Jesus," he said. "The Gospel can best be
communicated or can only be communicated while in relationship." He shared
his own story of being rejected by his parents when he ‘came out’, until they
became Christians. An unverified statistic from Twitter suggested that 40% of
homeless youths in America say they are gay and have been kicked out of their
homes.
It has
emerged that a UK mother has been granted the legal right to end the life of
her severely disabled 12 year old daughter. The girl was blind and unable to
talk, walk, eat or drink, except through a tube. After an operation that made
her scream in pain, the mother petitioned the court to allow her daughter to
die. The petition was supported by the father and by Great Ormond Street
Hospital. It is the first time that the law has allowed “mercy killing” for a
child who was breathing, not on life support and not suffering from a terminal
illness.
Meanwhile, Brittany Maynard,
the Oregon woman with terminal cancer who previously announced that she planned
to commit assisted suicide this coming weekend, has recorded a video in which
she says she may not do so after all. Instead, she plans to continue to
campaign for assisted suicide to be legalised in all US states.
In sport, Jeremy
Lin, a star basketball player for the LA Lakers and outspoken Christian, has
used social media to ask people to pray for him. "I'm not humble," he
wrote. "Pride is the greatest sin I struggle with. But as I get older, I
realise I'm more sinful and need God more than I ever imagined." He says
he has had numerous requests from people who wanted to pray for him, and asked
what they should pray for.
And finally, a
dentist in Wisconsin has been credited with devising a Halloween Candy
Buy-Back program in 2005 that has now been taken up by 2500 dentists across the
nation. A few days after Halloween, many children still have considerable
quantities of uneaten sweets. Dentists buy the sweets from the children at $1
per pound, and donate them to Operation Gratitude which adds them to care
packages that are shipped to U.S. soldiers overseas. Last year, one California
dentist collected over 3,500 lb (1,600 kg) of sweets, and in December last
year, Operation Gratitude shipped its one millionth sweet-enhanced package.
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