As the UK General Election approaches, the Liberal Democrats recently announced that, if they hold power after the election, they will make lessons on sex and relationships compulsory in all schools, starting at key stage 2 (age 8). The Labour party have just announced a similar policy, but starting at key stage 1 (age 5). The aim of these policies is to prevent “homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying”. However, a spokesman for the Christian Institute said, “This is the wrong solution. For three decades the cry has been that we must have more sex education, of a more explicit nature, at an ever younger age – and look where it has got us.” He added, “We should end the defeatism that says all children will inevitably be exposed to pornography and engage in underage sexual activity. It is a counsel of despair.”
The chief inspector of OFSTED has hit back at those who criticised his inspectors for their inappropriate questions about sexuality to children. In an article in the “Independent” newspaper, he claimed that critics are “creating a smokescreen for their own palpable weaknesses of leadership and management.” He also said that “the idea that this is a sinister attempt to force a particular metro-liberal, politically correct orthodoxy on the nation’s schools is simply wrong.” His first statement suggests he hasn’t heard of the truism that, in any public argument, the first person/group to make a personal attack on the other person/group is effectively admitting that they have the weaker case.
Reliable reports and photographs suggest that Boko Haram has captured the town of Gwoza in north-eastern Nigeria and has killed almost exactly 1,000 of the Christian population, many by horrific methods. Nigerian military forces who were defending the town were reported to have fled rather than fight; this may well be true, as there are also reliable reports that the wives and relatives of Nigerian soldiers have been demonstrating for days outside army camps. The wives are demanding that their loved ones should not be sent to fight Boko Haram or to recapture towns, as the equipment they have is so poor that the wives believe such missions would be suicidal.
Having reported recently on persecution of Christians across South East Asia, I will use this bulletin to report on the work of St. Stephen’s Society, a Hong Kong based Christian mission agency. St. Stephen’s originally became established in Hong Kong as a group that prayed for healing for heroin addicts, and often helped them to withdraw from the drug without pain; “missionary evangelism” consisted largely of asking ex-addicts if they’d like to hear about the Person who healed them. St. Stephens now runs several activities that combine prayer for divine healing with practical aid for those in poverty. They hosted several Christmas parties across Hong Kong, and have sent a team to the Philippines to help those who lost their homes in the recent typhoon. In the past couple of weeks in the Philippines, a fire destroyed a further 500 homes close to the mission centre, and 141 people were given temporary housing in the centre.
A man from New Zealand whose Armenian wife gave birth to a son in her homeland was faced with three major shocks in rapid succession. The first was that his son had Down’s syndrome; the second was that his wife had already accepted the hospital’s suggestion that the baby be quietly euthanized. When he said he wanted to keep the baby, she gave him an ultimatum: if he kept the baby, she would divorce him. Despite the cost, he chose to keep the baby; his wife duly left him; and he is raising funds to take himself and baby Leo back to New Zealand.
The famous/infamous atheist Richard Dawkins tweeted recently that a good approach to dealing with rigid theocracies such as ISIS would be to flood their airwaves with erotic videos. He added that this would be “loving, gentle, and woman-respecting.” After a few minutes of mockery, the tweet was deleted.
As Valentine’s Day and the release of the film “Fifty Shades of Grey” approaches, the pastor of a megachurch from Texas says he will publicly baptise copies of the book in Texas, Florida and London to raise awareness about the perversion in the story. “God isn’t anti-sex, and he isn’t grey when it comes to relationships,” he said. “[The book/film] is a pathetic distortion of a more powerful reality about relationships … Relationships drive so much of our lives. You show me your friends and I’ll show you your future … Are your desires fulfilled in a sexual fantasy, or a relational reality?”
In technology news, researchers from Aberystwyth and Cambridge have developed an artificially intelligent robot scientist to help in the process of discovering new drugs to tackle parasite-carried tropical diseases. Robots are already available that can perform mass screening – trying out tens of thousands of different drugs and compounds to see if they defeat certain parasite proteins. Eve, however, learns from early trials to select drugs and compounds that are more likely to succeed, thus greatly reducing the average length of time to find an effective drug. It has already discovered that a certain anti-cancer drug inhibits a key molecule of malaria. The robot is called Eve because it is the second robot that the team has produced; the first was called Adam.
And finally, anyone who has suffered through too many sermon jokes might like to let their pastor/priest know that this week’s Christian Resources Exhibition includes a class called Comedy for Clergy. The teacher is a priest’s son who later studied neurolinguistic programming (mirroring the mannerisms of those to whom you want to relate). He now provides evaluations of voice, body language, and the sermons themselves, before using an alter ego (the rapping reverend Rupert) to mirror back the attitudes he is seeing from the participants. He said, “There are so many priests striving to be modern today — I see them in class with their Sex Pistols T-shirts and the odd tattoo. The priests who crowded into our house when I was growing up weren’t modern, but they were raconteurs who knew how to work a crowd. I try to pass on the essence of their ability to entertain.”
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