World Vision, one of the largest Christian charities in the world, has discovered that the director of its branch in Gaza (in Palestine/Israel/the Gaza strip) has been diverting large amounts of aid funds to the terrorist organisation Hamas. He was ordered to infiltrate World Vision by Hamas in 2005; he was selected because his father (who has also recently been revealed as a Hamas member) worked for the UN. Once he became director he set up fictional agricultural projects and also put out tenders which were rigged, with the ‘winners’ being aware that a large proportion of the money was going to Hamas. 60% of World Vision’s annual budget for the region – just over $7 million per year – has been diverted since he became the director.
There have been numerous incidents of persecution of Christians in several countries recently. In China, a 67 year old church elder from Jinhua in the east was sentenced to seven years in jail for “subversion, damaging national security and harming social stability” after protesting against the Chinese government's removal of hundreds of church crosses around the country and the imprisonment (in unknown locations, without trial) of hundreds of Christians and lawyers representing them. In Nigeria, a Christian church was attacked by Boko Haram; any Christian who refused to renounce their faith was immediately doused in fuel and burned alive. And in Russia, the new law that prohibits evangelism anywhere has led to the cancellation of at least one major evangelistic crusade. However, a local church planter has said, “It's not going to stop us from worshipping and sharing our faith. The Great Commission isn't just for a time of freedom."
Meanwhile in Paris, police broke down the doors of a Catholic church where a traditional Mass was taking place and (illegally) fired teargas inside to help them remove all participants. The Mass was organised to protest against the sale of the century-old church building to a property developer.
Also in France, a legal issue has arisen against a Muslim halal supermarket which mirrors the pressure placed on Christian bakers and other service providers in the USA and UK. The local authority in the Colombes district has told the supermarket that it must start selling alcohol and pork, or it will be shut down. The halal supermarket replaced a previous supermarket and local residents have complained that they now have to travel some distance to purchase non-halal products. The supermarket’s owner says he is merely catering to the demands of his customers. The authority is seeking to terminate the supermarket’s lease; the case goes to court in September.
Peter Bull, the co-owner of the guesthouse in Cornwall which was the first Christian establishment in the UK to be subject to a legal case for not providing equal facilities for gays, has died at the age of 76. He and his wife have run guesthouses according to their Christian principles for 30 years.
The ‘revival’ in Burlington, North Carolina has come to an end. It started with a week-long event on Mother’s Day 11 weeks ago and continued with regular meetings in a huge rented tent. However, the owner has now ended the lease for the tent as he needs it for something else. More than 1250 people have accepted Christ in the course of the revival.
The High Court in Ireland has ruled that unborn children have all the rights of “born” children under the Irish constitution and law. Justice Richard Humphries made the ruling during a tangled deportation case; a Nigerian man whom the Irish government is seeking to expel wanted his unborn child to be factored into his request for a judicial hearing because the baby’s rights would strengthen his case to stay in the country. But the government resisted on the grounds the child was unborn and had only one right — to be born. Humphries ruled differently, stating that the controversial Eighth Amendment to the constitution protecting “the unborn” meant that an unborn child had rights under both statutory and common law that were “significant” and went “well beyond the right to life alone.” He ordered the government to give the case a judicial review.
In Kawaguchi, Japan, an ex-mobster has become a pastor of a church largely populated by other ex-mobsters. Tatsuya Shindo joined the yakuza at the age of 17 – “I was a child, I didn’t think too deeply,” he explained. He was arrested seven times and went to prison three times, beginning at 22. By the time he was 32, he had been excommunicated by the yakuza after spending about 8 of 10 years as an inmate. He found God while reading the Bible in solitary confinement. He studied and became a preacher after his release more than a decade ago. Now he says of his congregation, "Before, we were in rival gangs, firing guns. Now, we're praising the same God."
In sports news, Fiji have won their first every Olympic medal, gold in the rugby sevens. The country declared a public holiday to celebrate. The team celebrated their win by singing a traditional Fijian hymn on the pitch.
And finally, a Swedish church plans to use drones to drop thousands of miniature solar-power electronic Bibles into ISIS-controlled Iraq. “The Bibles are the size of pill boxes,” a spokesman said. The operation will be organised by another group who the church declined to name.
