Not The BBC News: 18 March 2017

1900 people in Vancouver have accepted Christ during an evangelistic crusade at which Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham was preaching. This was despite Graham receiving a letter beforehand from church leaders claiming to represent over half the Christians in the city, urging organisers to withdraw Graham from the crusade because of his right-wing political views. The organisers responded that Graham was “not coming to incite hatred or violence but simply to preach the Gospel.”

Once again, Muslims from the Middle East have converted to Christianity and reported that they did so because Jesus appeared to them in a dream. Bishop George Saliba in Beirut has baptised at least 100 ex-Muslim Syrian refugees since the start of the Syrian Civil War. Also, two Middle Eastern pastors who were arrested after running an underground church for new believers were maltreated at first but then an official intervened. Eventually the official admitted that he had dreamed of Jesus who said, "My children are being tortured in your jail. I leave them before you. My children are the apple of my eyes." The official became a Christian himself, was baptised, and then released the men.

The US Government has started proceedings to reduce finding for abortion. It has saved $200 million by ceasing funding for abortion as part of foreign aid packages, and it also plans to remove all federal funding from America’s biggest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has frequently presented itself as a provider of sexual health and women’s health services in general – but when the US Government offered to continue to fund them if they stopped all abortions, Planned Parenthood declined.

Planned Parenthood has also been under fire for its ‘sex education’ which is funded from the ObamaCare programme. In a recent undercover investigation in Portland, Oregon, a 15 year old girl was advised to watch porn without her parents’ knowledge; to buy items from a sex shop (which is illegal at her age); and to engage in deviant sexual practices – the counsellor summarised their advice by saying, “In Fifty Shades these things were abusive because they were enforced, but if they are consensual then they’re absolutely fine.”

There has also been renewed criticism of one of Britain’s biggest abortion providers. A newspaper investigation into Marie Stopes found that some women were being signed off to have abortions after a brief conversation with a call centre worker – and the officially recorded reason for the abortion may bear no resemblance to what is said on the phone.

Two street preachers from Bristol have been found guilty of a public order offence after preaching from the King James Bible. The prosecutor said, "To say to someone that Jesus is the only God is not a matter of truth. To the extent that they are saying that the only way to God is through Jesus, that cannot be a truth." They were also accused of being homophobic after discussing the Bible’s views on homosexuality with hecklers. The magistrate agreed with the prosecutor and fined both men £300.

In the USA, the marriage registrar who was taken to court for refusing to sign certificates for gay marriages and instructing her staff not to do so has won her final court battle. Kim Davis’ case was settled some time ago; she was not required to sign certificates but was banned from instructing her staff to do the same as her. The final issue was legal costs which often far outweigh any fines issued; in the case the ACLU wanted her to pay their legal fees of $231,000 but the judge refused.

Anna Hayford, the wife of well known preacher Jack Hayford from the 10,000-strong Church On The Way in Los Angeles, has passed away after a battle with cancer. She was 83. Jack and Anna had been married for 62 years; Anna was a licensed preacher herself and they co-pastored for 60 years.

The NHS in the UK has issued new guidance under which doctors and nurses will be encouraged to talk to dying patients about their religious preferences. Malcolm Brown, the Church of England Director of Mission and Public Affairs, said: “People’s views and needs can change radically as the inevitability of death approaches and dying can be eased considerably if careful opportunities to express or discuss these matters are created.”

A former porn star in the USA is now a pastor. Crystal Bassette filmed her first porn film at the age of 21 and appeared in over 100 films over the next 10 years. She married a Pentecostal minister in 2015 and they now co-pastor a church in Fulton, New York state. “I never saw myself going to this extreme,” she said, “but God leads you in these directions. I regret my time in the industry but then I think to myself, ‘if I didn’t do these things, where would I be today?’”

In film news, “The Shack” has been released. Although criticised by some for its varied depictions of God, it has been described as ‘a parable’ and ‘one of the most powerful and best-quality Christian movies for a long time’ by others.

And finally, a 20 year old Norwegian woman has announced on YouTube that she was born the wrong species and that she self-identifies as a cat. ‘Nano’ claims to have realised this at the age of 16; to have a superior sense of smell; to be able to see in the dark; and to hate dogs. She hunts mice at night while wearing cat ears and a tail though she has not yet caught any.

Not The BBC News: 2 March 2017

Compassion International, which links Western sponsors with children who need schooling and associated needs in the developing world, has announced that it is to shut down its operations in India. The Hindu-dominated Indian government passed a law last year that prevented any organisation from receiving foreign funds unless it received permission from the Government, and Christian organisations are finding such permission almost impossible to get. Compassion currently schools and cares for 147,000 children in the country.

A middle-aged couple in Jharkhand state, India were forced to stand for 17 hours up to their necks in freezing water because they would not renounce Christianity and return to their indigenous tribal religion. Ten couples in the village had become Christian but seven reverted under persecution, and there had been increasing persecution of this couple in the last 3 years. The husband died after the experience and the villagers would not even let him be buried on their land.

A 14 year old Christian girl in West Africa who was attacked by Muslim radicals and later died in hospital has been raised from the dead and healed ‘by Jesus’, in her words. ‘Lydia’ is the daughter of an ex-Muslim Christian missionary who boldly proclaimed her faith at school. She was attacked on her way home from school, subjected to female genital mutilation, and left in a coma. After six days two doctors pronounced her dead; but an hour after they did so she threw off the sheet covering and announced that she had met Jesus and he had healed her completely. She said Jesus said to her, “I cannot turn back from the prayers of my children. So I give you your life back … You go, and be my witness." She left hospital without even having a thorough check-up.

In Rasht, Iran, three Christian converts found drinking wine at a Communion service were charged with ‘acting against national security’ and ‘consumption of alcohol’ and sentenced to 80 lashes each. Consumption of alcohol is legally forbidden to Muslims but permitted to other religious groups. An appeal is pending shortly. Two other Christians who have been held and interrogated for weeks without charge have gone on hunger strike to obtain medical attention but so far it has been refused.

Sudan has ordered the demolition of at least 25 church buildings of various denominations in north Khartoum state. The authorities say the churches are built on land zoned for other purposes; church leaders say it is part of a wider crackdown on Christianity.

Two Christian street preachers have been arrested in Bristol for quoting the words from the King James Bible that say that Jesus is the only God, and the only way to God is through Jesus. The prosecutor argued that “just because the words preached appear in a 1611 version of the Bible, this does not mean they are incapable of amounting to a public order offence in 2016.” He did not comment on the fact that the same claim is made in almost the same words in modern Bibles.

A Christian florist in Washington state, USA has lost an appeal to the state’s Supreme Court against a fine for refusing to provide flowers to a gay wedding. The fine is $1,001 but she may be bankrupted because she has been ordered to pay the gay couple’s legal fees as well. She had previously been offered the opportunity to pay a token fine, but she refused, saying that it was not the money that she objected to but the principle. Her lawyer said, "This case is about crushing dissent. In a free America, people with differing beliefs must have room to coexist … Freedom of speech and religion aren't subject to the whim of a majority; they are constitutional guarantees."

Also in the USA, Donald Trump has rescinded Barack Obama’s executive order that required schools and public buildings either to provide toilets for transgender individuals or to allow them to use the bathroom of their choice. States, however, will still be entitled to create such requirements in their own laws. Obama’s order proved highly controversial, not least because of cases of violation of privacy by men in women’s bathrooms – one man was caught mounting a camera, another taking photos of a woman who was changing her clothes. The media in the US and elsewhere appears as divided on the issue as ever, with some reporting that Trump removed federal ‘protection for transgender people’ while others phrased it as removing ‘guidance on transgender bathrooms’ or ‘enforcement of transgender rights’. However, the American College of Pediatrics has stated that transgenderism in children amounts to child abuse: in a statement they said “Facts – not ideology – determine reality.”

The USA has seen a record number of arrests for sex trafficking this year – over 1500 in the first two months, compared with 400 in the entire year 2014. 178 arrests were made at the Superbowl, and in California 474 arrests were made on a single day and 28 sexually exploited children were rescued.

Donald Trump’s Presidency continues to be stranger than most, and now a group of witches have announced that they will hold a mass occult ritual designed to oust Trump from the White House. Anyone who wishes to participate, once a month on a Friday at midnight, is instructed to use various images and items and to invoke certain demons.

Norma McCorvey, better known by the pseudonym ‘Jane Roe’ in the infamous Roe v Wade legal case that first permitted abortion in the USA, has died at the age of 69. She never did have an abortion and became ardently pro-life in her later years, seeking to reverse the effects of the legal decision that bore her name.

France has passed a law that makes it a criminal offence to “spread misleading information” about abortion, with a maximum penalty of two years in jail and a fine. The law specifically targets “electronic” and “online” means of spreading information with the intention of dissuading women from ending their pregnancy. The upper house of the French Parliament repeatedly tried to make the wording of the law less severely restrictive but was eventually overruled. The law is the latest in a series of increasingly harsh laws against pro-lifers; under a previous law, an elderly man was fined heavily for having given knitted baby boots to a woman he spoke to in the public stairway of the building where Planned Parenthood has its Paris offices.

A senator in Mexico who claims to be Catholic has introduced a bill that is intended to force Christian doctors to refer women for abortions and Christian doctors to perform them. Doctors can currently claim religious exemptions but the bill would remove these. The senator justified his Bill by saying that the Bible doesn’t say that abortion is wrong.

A similar Bill in Queensland, Australia was withdrawn because it faced certain defeat in the state’s Parliament. It proposed to decriminalise abortion; prohibit peaceful assembly within 50 metres of abortion clinics; and force doctors and nurses to perform ‘emergency abortions’. 83 per cent of public submissions opposed the Bill.

The General Pharmaceutical Council in the UK is currently asking for comments on a proposed change to its own wording ion religious exemptions which could lead to Christian doctors being forced to perform abortions in this country. Currently, doctors are required to “Tell relevant health professionals, employers or others if their own values or beliefs prevent them from providing care, and refer people to other providers”; the new wording would require them to “Take responsibility for ensuring that person-centred care is not compromised because of personal values and beliefs”. If you wish to comment in this submission, go to https://www.pharmacyregulation.org/…/gphc-consults-religion…

Another consultation that is open at the moment concerns new prenatal genetic tests for Downs Syndrome in foetuses. Given that many such foetuses are aborted despite the high quality of life that people with Downs syndrome can expect with modern medical care, pro-life groups are opposing the introduction of such tests. To sign the petition, go to http://stopdiscriminatingdown.com/sign-the-petition/

The world’s largest chain of Christian bookstores has announced that it is going into liquidation and closing all its shops. Family Christian has 240 shops in 36 US states. It blames competition from online bookstores.

Bethel church in Redding, California, a current centre of charismatic revival, has offered to pay $500,000 to help maintain the city’s police department over the next two years. Councils all over California are suffering under new rules on benefits and increased pension payments due to a lowering of the expected value of current pension savings. The city’s fire department is also at risk of being eliminated.

In sports news, Ireland rugby international Andrew Trimble, part of the team that beat the All Blacks last year, has given interviews about his Christian faith and his work to help refugees. "Pope Francis says they're all created in the image of God,” he said. “They're just like you and me, they're no less special. It's a real shame that they're forgotten about because they're considered less important."

And finally, a workmen’s café in Bourges, central France was suddenly overwhelmed with customers a couple of weeks ago, after it was accidentally awarded a Michelin star. Le Bouche à Oreille, which serves homemade lasagne and beef bourguignon for 10 euros, shares its name with a more upmarket café near Paris. The mistake was corrected on Michelin’s website after a couple of days. The café’s owner said, “My son phoned from Paris; he was laughing his head off.”