No genocide, says Britain

In Iraq, Christians, who totalled 1.4 million, are down to about 30,000. In Syria, where there were 1.25 million Christians, figures are down to about 500,000. 

Pictures may no longer appear regularly in the newspapers, who have other themes to take their interest. But the rape and the butchery at the hands of ISIS continue. Even children are crucified and beheaded. One Iraqi Christian woman reported last week how she saw her husband crucified on their front door.

Last month the European Union decided unanimously that the persecution of Christians by ISIS in Syria was genocide - an attempt to exterminate an entire group of people. Two weeks ago the US House of Representatives voted by 393 to nil to call on the Obama administration to declare ISIS guilty of genocide.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has described ISIS actions as genocide. (Although  President Obama has not yet managed to do the same.)

A UN decision that ISIS activities constituted genocide would demand action from signatories to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and require prosecution of perpetrators when hostilities were over.

Last week Lord David Alton proposed an amendment to the Immigration Bill in the House of Lords which would have led to a High Court ruling on whether ISIS' actions amounted to genocide. The decision would have had implications on priority for asylum seekers.

The Lords voted against the amendment 148 to 111. The Government is said to have imposed a whip on Conservative peers to vote against the amendment. Lord Carlile described Labour's refusal to support the amendment as "supine" and "chickening out." 

"Surely parliaments such as this should recognise the suffering of victims of genocide, and not merely by wringing our hands with rhetoric about those victims. Where else have they to turn to if not to parliaments and governments such as ours?"

Many of the Lords were said to be furious over lack of support for the amendment. 

Lord Alton said  "This was a day when Britain neither salved its conscience or offered practical help, but chose to look the other way. When historians come to consider the lamentable failure of both Parliament and Government to speak and act they will surely conclude that we failed to recognise the crime above all crimes."

A Home Office spokesman said the amendment would have created a dangerous loophole. The presumption of status could have made it more difficult to exclude those that were a threat to our communities.

Pray for Christians who are still suffering in the Middle East. Please sign Barnabas Fund's petition for the genocide of Christians and other minorities in Syria and Iraq to be recognised. You will find it here.    
        

Were Sodom and Gomorrah man and wife?

It has been said that Christianity in the United States is "miles wide and inches deep." There's some truth in that. But can it be even worse than we have supposed? The facts quoted by leading American evangelical Al Mohler, if true, are profoundly shocking.

He says that, according to researchers:

●  Fewer than half of all adults can name the four gospels.

●  Many Christians cannot identify more than two or three of the disciples.

●  Sixty per cent of Americans can't name five of the Ten Commandments.

●  Eighty-two per cent of Americans thought "God helps those who help themselves" is a Bible verse. (Born-again Christians did better - by one per cent.)

●  At least 12 per cent of adults believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

●  Fifty per cent of graduating high school seniors thought Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife.

Americans revere the Bible, Mohler suggests, but they don't read it.

Churches must recover the centrality and urgency of biblical teaching and preaching. We will not believe more than we know, and we will not live higher than our beliefs.

But parents, he says, are to be the first and most important educators of their own children. They cannot franchise their responsibility to the congregation. Children must see their Christian parents as teachers and fellow students of God's Word.

God help us. 
            

The church isn't dead yet

According to the latest poll, the number of white Britons who say they have no religion is greater than the number who claim to be Christian.

YouGov did  the poll for Professor Linda Woodhead, co-director of the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University, last month. 

Of a sample of 1,500 people, 46% said they had no religion. This was up from 42% in February, 2015, and 37% in January, 2013. This figure rose to more than 50% among white British.

The non-religious trend was most pronounced among under-40s. Among under-40s of all races, 56% had no religion, while 31% said they were Christian. Some 16.5% of those who said they had no religion believed that there was definitely - or probably - some higher power. Only 5% were absolutely convinced that God did not exist.

Andrew Brown, who writes on religion for the Guardian, points out that 95% of children of non-religious parents remain non-religious, while only 40% of the children of Christian parents continue to call themselves Christian. To me, he always appears to criticise the church for standing for what it believes, and seems almost impatient for the church to die and be replaced by "some kind of organised humanism."

I am confident he will be disappointed. We might live in dark days, but the church isn't dead yet.
          

Christian persecution on the increase

The persecution of Christians across the world is getting worse - and getting worse fast.

Each January Open Doors publishes a World Watch List of the 50 countries in the world where it is most dangerous to be a Christian - in other words, the 50 countries where persecution is at its most severe. Its World Watch List 2016 is published today.

It shows that well over 7,000 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons in the reporting period - a rise of almost 3,000 on the previous year. This does not include North Korea, Syria and Iraq, where accurate records do not exist.

Around 2,300 churches were attacked or damaged, more than double the number for last year.

Systematic  religious cleansing is widespread across Africa and the Middle East. Every year well over 100 million Christians are persecuted because of their beliefs. Extreme Islamic fundamentalism is rising most sharply in sub-Saharan Africa, where more people are killed for their Christian faith than anywhere else in the world.

North Korea tops the list of offending countries for the 14th successive year. In North Korea there are estimated to be about 70,000 Christians imprisoned in labour camps. Christians who worship in secret face death if they are discovered.

Iraq, where a 2,000-year-old church is on the verge of extinction, is second. Eritrea is third, followed by Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Iran and Libya.

More than 120 MPs were expected to attend a meeting at the House of Commons this afternoon to discuss Christian persecution.

You can read more details here. 
       

Where Christian lives are cheap

The militant Islamist group al Shabaab has publicly declared that it wants Somalia free of Christians. According to the nation's constitution, Islam is the state religion. Open Doors says those who attack Christians do so with impunity. Suspected Christians are frequently killed on the spot.

Said one Christian: "It appears that I live in a hell on earth. I wish I could just stand inside a  church and cry out in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Still they manage to maintain a witness. One has regular contact with camel herders. He gave them a radio tuned to a Christian radio station. The camel herders are illiterate, but they listen to the radio every night.

In Nigeria, thousands of Christians have been killed or abducted by Boko Haram, the militant Islamist group. Hundreds of churches have been destroyed.

In Sudan, blasphemy laws are frequently used tor prosecuting Christians. A significant number have been imprisoned. President Bashir's government has demolished churches, killed Christians in bombings and allowed others to kill Christians with impunity.

In Eritrea, Christians are considered a threat to the state. They have been tortured, beaten and imprisoned in horrific conditions.

Syrian Patriarch Ignace Joseph lll Younan said Eastern patriarchs had warned the West from the beginning that the situation in Syria was much more complex than in Egypt, Tunisia or Libya, and conflict would create only chaos and civil war.

"They responded: No, the Assad regime will fall in a few months..As I predicted, that hasn't happened, and five years later, innocent people, especially Christians, have no support. The West has betrayed us."

Says Generals International: "Many of us live mostly isolated from the atrocities. We're so used to hearing about unrest and turmoil in places like the Middle East and Africa that we hardly flinch at news of bombings or shootings 'over there.' The scope of this horror is hard to wrap our heads around; meanwhile, it is a daily reality faced by thousands. 

"We are calling on you, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Take a step back from politically charged rhetoric. . . Jesus Himself told us to pray 'Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven'. . . 

"We are here on earth. And terrorism is not the will of heaven. So we will pray, and we will love because the kingdom of darkness is no match for those two things when they come together. . .

"Pray for those who are choosing to destroy others and sometimes themselves. If they only knew the great love which the Father has for them, they might change their minds and choose God's plan of salvation, instead of destruction. 'For this is the way God loves the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.'

"Ask the Lord to uncover every planned attack. . . Ask God to stop those who persist right in their tracks. Proclaim that their hiding places will be uncovered."
            

Convenient excuses

Planned Parenthood is the largest provider and promoter of abortions in the United States, performing some 400,000 abortions a year - one abortion every 94 seconds. Recently a series of videos has been released of secretly filmed footage of interviews with Planned Parenthood executives.

They appear to show that Planned Parenthood sells body parts from aborted babies. (American law says "It shall be unlawful.for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human foetal tissue for valuable consideration.")

The latest video to be released appears to demonstrate that Planned Parenthood is guilty of after-birth abortion.

 Two interviewers posing as representatives of a foetal tissue procurement company want to know how many babies are aborted intact. "Probably less than 10 per cent," says Dr Savita Ginde, vice president and medical director of Planned Parenthood, Rocky Mountains. "Sometimes, if we get, if someone delivers before we are able to see them for a procedure, then we are intact."

The website Anglican Mainstream prints the following quotation from Dr Francis Schaeffer:

"Christians have largely shut up their Christianity into a small corner of life, Sunday church or their Bible studies instead of realising that the Lordship of Christ is to permeate the whole spectrum of life. They have coasted along complacently, often serving up such dogmas as 'you can't mix religion and politics,' or 'you can't regulate morality,' or 'we just need to pray and witness to people' - when what they really meant was 'we just don't want to be disturbed.' They were content in their 'comfort zone.'"
     

Does God answer prayer?

Does God answer prayer?

Course He does. Sometimes in remarkable fashion.

On the fringes of Cairo is a village called Mokattam. It's a garbage village; that's to say a village where live thousands of people who collect the garbage from the residents of Cairo and live off what they find in the garbage they collect. Behind it stands Mokattam Hill.

Some 40 years ago a young man went to Mokattam to preach. Reluctantly, it must be said. There was dirt; there was poverty; above all, there was an overpowering stench from the piles of garbage.The people seemed to him like wild people.

But people were converted: transformed by the love of Jesus. They stopped beating their wives and  children and started to live without drink and drugs. The young man built a church for them out of corrugated iron, roofed with reeds. The only trouble was it became too small. So they prayed.

Building permits to construct a church were virtually impossible to obtain in Egypt, especially for a politically irrelevant group like the garbage collectors. So they prayed some more.

One day some men noticed a hole in the side of the hill above the village. They enlarged it, and peered in. It looked like a large cave. Men and women began to move loose rocks from inside. In total, they manhandled thousands of tons of rock down the hill.

Against all the odds, the government granted the land to the Christians. Egypt is 90 per cent Muslim, but Mokattam is 80 to 90 per cent Coptic Christian. The cave is today the largest church in the Middle East, seating up to 20,000 people.

Do click here and watch a video of thousands of people in the cave church worshipping God with feeling.

"This is our time to change the world," says a priest at the church. "We need to cry, scream, travail and groan, to pray day and night. And the Lord will support this work of the Holy Spirit. We're not just talking about Jesus in words, but also in miracles which will follow our faith, and the world will see and believe and come back to Christ."
     

Two anniversaries on the same day

There are at least two reasons to remember tomorrow. First, tomorrow is Pentecost Sunday.

Pentecost Sunday commemorates the day the Holy Spirit came and filled the early Christian disciples. Those early believers were aware of Christ's crucifixion to pay the price for man's sin. They realised He was the Son of God. They knew He was risen from the dead. They were ready to go out and preach the glorious good news. Well, almost.

Jesus had said "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8). But He had also said "Tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high" (Luke 24:49). So they waited.

On Pentecost Sunday the Holy Spirit came. A multitude gathered to see what the commotion was about. Peter stood up and preached, and about three thousand were converted to Christ.

The wonderful thing is that the same experience is available today. Peter said (in Acts 2:39): "For the promise is to you" - those who were there that day - "and to your children," - those who were to come - "and to all who are afar off," - those in Manchester, and Medjugorje and Milton Keynes; and as though to make it perfectly clear - "as many as the Lord our God will call." If you are called to God's salvation, the infilling of the Holy Spirit is for you.

Second, tomorrow is the anniversary of the conversion of John Wesley. Wesley, one of 19 children, went to Oxford, belonged to the Holy Club, and was ordained to the ministry of the Anglican Church. He went to Georgia as a missionary, and returned considering himself a failure. "I went to America to convert the Indians;" he wrote, "but, oh, who shall convert me?"

He was impressed by the conduct of Moravians on board ship, and on his return to London made the acquaintance of some Moravian believers. Then came May 24, 1738.

"In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in  Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." He was 34 years old.

He went on to ride an estimated 250,000 miles and preach an estimated 40,000 sermons. He preached, it is said, "as though he were out of breath in pursuit of souls."

The Methodists have lost much of their power since those days. Methodist churches in England are closing in numbers. But God is still able to call others like He called Wesley. "I will build my church," said Jesus, "and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Matt 16:18).

A beauty of the Bible is that it tells us about the past, the present and the future. Many Christians are suffering a hard time at the moment. But the Bible tells us how things end up. We win.
     

Seven million children in danger

Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant leaders met in Bkarka, Lebanon, and called for international support for Christian refugees in Iraq and Syria. They urged Middle Eastern nations to stop funding terrorists, who have displaced over 90 per cent of the region's believers.

They appealed for material aid and medicines. Christian Aid said refugees, left homeless and penniless, are struggling in snow and bitter winter weather.

According to UNICEF, who are appealing for help to provide winter clothing, medicines and food, seven million children are in grave danger.

Film actress Angelina Jolie said she had never seen anything like the suffering in the refugee camps she visited in Erbil. She demanded additional funding for UN humanitarian efforts and urged countries outside the Middle East to offer sanctuary to the most vulnerable refugees, who had been raped and tortured.

Prayer is good, but material aid is needed too. If you want to give material aid, you can do so through Barnabas Fund, 9 - 10 Priory Row, Coventry CV1 5EX, or Open Doors, PO Box 6, Witney OX29 6BR.
    

The world's most persecuted people

Christians are the most persecuted group of people in the world. They are being murdered, tortured, imprisoned and assaulted solely because of their faith.

Christians in many parts of the Middle East face wipe-out. Churches and Christian homes are being vandalised and destroyed.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the right to change his religion or belief. Yet in many places those who choose to change their religion are beaten, imprisoned or killed.

The above facts are taken from a report on global persecution, containing almost a hundred pages of evidence, published by Maranatha, the Manchester-based Christian community. The report may be read or downloaded here.

Next Sunday, November 16, is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. A coalition of Christian organisations, impelled by the knowledge that more people had died for their faith in the 20th century than in all the previous centuries combined, decided in 1996 that the church worldwide would no longer be silent.

People from 110 countries pledged to pray in that first year. It has since become an annual event.

Will you pray? You can download a free resource pack here.
   

Rape, death and destruction - as the world looks on

Christians in Iraq are in desperate need. Christians have been crucified. Christian children have been beheaded and their bodies cut in half. ISIS, now calling themselves the Islamic State, have seized vast swathes of land in northern Iraq and forced their brutal rule on all and sundry.

Hundreds of thousands of Christians have fled. Most have been robbed of all their possessions and left with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They are homeless, helpless and starving - and facing a cold winter. They are threatened with genocide and extinction.

Hundreds of Christian, Yazidi and Turkmen women are held in Badush Prison in Mosul. The women are raped daily unless they agree to convert to Islam. The UN estimates that there have been roughly 1,500 Iraqi women and children abducted from the Christian and Yazidi communities and forced into sexual slavery.

Said one Iraqi Christian woman: "I wouldn't wish my experiences in Mosul on any human being on earth. They threatened us with death. They forced us to pay jizya - knowing that we can't. For years we have lived close to poverty. In our emergency we Christians looked for help everywhere, but they didn't help us. I plead to the international community, to churches, to human rights organisations, to the UN - to all who promote peaceful living together, to help us."

Politicians have expressed their sympathy, but done nothing effective. They want to bomb ISIS from the air. But what about the Christians?

Says Patrick Sookhdeo: "The real problem is that the Christians have no power, and because of this they are deemed irrelevant. They have no weapons, therefore they are deemed to be no threat. They have no oil, so they have no economic weight. For some politicians it seems better that Christians should leave the Middle East, for then at least they would not be a complication to the situation."

The response from the churches has been negligible.

Are you a Christian? These are our brothers and sisters in Christ. This week, October 26 to November 2,  is Barnabas Fund's Suffering Church Action Week. Will you pray?

You can contact your MP, urging him or her to put pressure on the Government to act. You can sign a petition here.
      

Dealing with the pain

Next Monday, October 27, is the National Day of Prayer about abortion. Statistics say that one in three women in England, Scotland and Wales will have had an abortion by the time they are 45. Eight million unborn babies have been killed since abortion was first allowed - equivalent to almost an eighth of the present population.

Yet there are many churches where the word abortion is never mentioned, leaving people who have had a connection with abortion afraid to confess it and unable to find forgiveness and healing.

Says author Jonathan Jeffes: "Christians can be reluctant to engage with the issue because they do not want to appear judgmental or bigoted; thus a powerful silence has grown up around the subject in the church. Two generations of Christians have grown up with little or no understanding of church tradition or theology in this area."

Many Christians are burdened to see a practical and compassionate response to deal with these issues in a church setting.

"Our churches have many women (and men) who feel trapped by the silence and unable to talk about their past personal experience," says Jeffes. "The place they can find themselves is one of real darkness and pain.

"This is where the church could begin to make a real impact. Not by campaigning or protesting but by connecting with a theology of compassion and understanding and humility. If we can start to change the culture of our churches so that women and men who have been through abortion feel welcomed and able to unburden themselves, then perhaps we can start to influence and change the worldview of the surrounding culture."

On the day, will you pray for the silent taboo to be broken so that people can be set free from the pain that binds them?

Details of the day here.
     

One Christian killed 'every five minutes'

The latest issue of Dabiq, the propaganda magazine of ISIS - or ISIL, or the Islamic State, call them what you will - contains a declaration of war against Christians. The front cover shows a picture of St Peter's in Rome flying the black ISIS flag.

"We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women," they say. "If we do not reach that time, our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market."

Meanwhile. a letter has been sent to the heads of state of 95 countries calling for urgent, determined action to halt the brutal persecution of Christians in the Middle East. The letter was signed by International Christian Embassy Jerusalem executive director Dr Jurgen Buhler, World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder, and Dr William M. Wilson, chairman of the Empowered21 Global Council.

Dr Buhler said the participation of the head of the main umbrella organisation representing world Jewry, together with leading evangelical ministries, made the event "historic." "Western churches have to do more to bring the suffering of our fellow believers to the forefront worldwide. To have a prominent global Jewish leader lend his voice to this moral call for protecting the region's persecuted Christians is unprecedented in modern times."

Father Gabriel Naddaf, a Greek Orthodox priest in Israel, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in September that some 120,000 Christians have been killed each year in the Middle East for the last 10 years. That meant that every five minutes a Christian was killed because of his faith.

"Those who can escape persecution at the hands of Muslim extremists have fled. Those who remain exist as second if not third class citizens to their Muslim rulers."

Israel was the only place where Christians in the Middle East were safe. He appealed to the council's 47 member nations to "end your witch hunt of the only free country in the region." 

Some 4,500 Christians from 80 countries have been in Jerusalem this week to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. A  prayer vigil, organised by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, was held at the southern wall of the Temple Mount, adjacent to the Hulda Gate, on Wednesday. The Chief Rabbinate in Jerusalem issued a ban on Jewish participation.

The embassy said the prayer event was "for pilgrims only" and was "not in any way an interfaith event." 
       

'Outspoken' pastor faces 10 years in jail

Christianity has enjoyed phenomenal growth in China. The Pew Forum on Religion and Ethics has estimated Protestants there at 58 million and Catholics at nine million: others say there are more than 100 million Christians in China. The Chinese Communist Party has only 86 million members.

In May, a national report listed religion as one of four "severe challenges" to national security in China. (The others were the import of democratic ideals, the influence of Western culture and uncensored access to the world-wide web.)

A few weeks later, the New York Post reported, a Chinese government document said religion had grown too fast, there were too many religious sites and there were too many religious activities. Once again, the Chinese authorities are tightening the screw, especially in the coastal Zhejiang province, where Christians are particularly numerous.

Communist officials have toppled the crosses of at least 229 churches, torn down some churches entirely, and issued demolition notices to over 100 more. They have even attacked state-controlled churches, where the state has the say about membership, the appointment of pastors and the content of sermons.

Church members, some of them elderly, attempting to protect Wenzhou Salvation Church, were beaten with electric batons. A number were hospitalised with a fractured skull, broken bones and internal injuries.

One of the pastors, Huang Yizi, has been openly critical of the demolition programme, calling it "severe persecution" and an "insult" to China's Christians. "I will not be silenced," he said. "I know I will be put in jail one day." 

He was detained on August 2 for "gathering a crowd to assault a state agency" and has not been released.

He is 40 years old, and has a wife and two young children. He is said to be facing a 10-year jail term.
     

Some good news from refugee chaos

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives, many with only the clothes they were wearing. Many families are living in the open air, exposed to soaring heat, often without food and drink.

An estimated 1.2 million have been displaced this year. For many, it was not the first time.

Fortunately, the Kurdistan region of Iraq has not closed its borders to refugees. Officials say at least 45,000 Iraqis have fled there to escape Islamic State fighters. Iraqi Kurdistan is already home to more than 300,000 displaced Iraqis, along with 220,000 Syrian refugees. 

A local worker described one church hall where 200 families were lined wall to wall. Two babies were said to have been born there. A church in Irbil was helping 260 families, 216 of them staying in the church courtyard.

Many local Christians spend most of their days distributing aid and sharing Christ with the residents of refugee camps. “In a crisis like this, we are experiencing a time of revival and awakening everywhere,” reported a ministry leader. “God is not just moving people geographically; He is moving in their hearts as well.”

Norya is a Syrian refugee who lost her husband and five children when a rocket fired by Syrian government forces toward the terrorists landed on her house. She found Christ in a refugee camp. "She now sings hymns with us at our church group meetings.”

In the Kurdish town of Akra, some of the displaced are living in a former prison. Each bathroom is shared by approximately 10 families.

It was in a tented refugee camp in that town that workers came across Abu Mustafa, a 50-year-old man whose wife had been killed. He has three girls with cerebral atrophy. He blamed God for his tragic situation, but allowed the workers to read the Bible to him and pray for him.

“This is the first time I feel relief,” he told the workers. “For three years, I couldn’t smile or feel safe, but now I feel differently. I have peace in my heart. Please pray for my girls. I believe Jesus can heal them and heal me from the inside.” He calls the workers daily to ask when they will visit him again.

The Red Cross is appealing for funds to buy tents, blankets and food. Open Doors is appealing for funds to provide relief.

Remember those in need.
  

Hundreds of thousands in humanitarian crisis

ISIS fighters are butchering their way across Iraq. Hundreds of thousands have fled, and are stranded without food and water. Many have already died in what looks to become an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.

Some 200,000 Iraqi Christians are reported to have fled from ISIS militants, who took control of Christian towns and villages in the Nineveh region this week. A number of towns are reported to have been completely emptied of their Christian populations. Many have nowhere to go and are stranded in streets and open fields.

At least 40,000 members of the Yezidi minority community are stranded on a mountain without food or water. Many have already died. Water, food and blankets are desperately needed.

The vicar of Baghdad, Canon Andrew White, says his organisation is seeking to help everybody, irrespective of belief. "People have nothing," he says. "We have had people's heads chopped off. We are having people convert. We are even having children slaughtered and cut in half."

You can see a video of Canon White here. You  can see an impassioned appeal by a Yezidi member of the Iraqi Parliament here.

You can send funds to Canon White's organisation here, or you can contribute to barnabasfund.org.

John Robb, chairman of the International Prayer Council, has appealed for five minutes of prayer in services on Sunday, August 10 and Sunday, August 17, and a day of prayer and fasting on Wednesday, August 13. The e-mail containing his appeal quotes Isa 64:1 - 4:

"Oh, that you would rend the heavens!

"That you would come down! . . ."
  

A glorious hope

Man has been here a long time, but he doesn't improve much. Violence and lawlessness are on every hand. Daily newscasts are a litany of murder and mayhem.

It can't go on for ever. We are living in the days when God Himself will call time.

The first thing that will happen is that Christ is going to take His church - all those who know Him, love Him and serve Him - out of the earth. It might sound unbelievable, but it's true.

Look it up yourself in the Bible, for instance in 1 Thess 4:15 - 18:

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore comfort one another with these words.

Can you believe it?

Are you ready?
    

The photograph he daren't show

The vicar of Baghdad, Canon Andrew White, writes in a post on his blog dated today:

"You know I love to show photos but the photo I was sent today was the most awful I have ever seen. A family of 8 all shot through the face lying in a pool of blood with their Bible open on the couch. They would not convert it cost them there life. I thought of asking if anybody wanted to see the picture but it is just too awful to show to anybody. This is Iraq today. The only hope and consolation is that all these dear people are now all with Yesua in Glory."

After a few prayer requests.he adds:

"Very Bad News. Baghdad Airport Closed. (2nd August)

"We have just had terrible news that Baghdad International Airport has been shut down because of security risks. Without it we cannot go North to do the relief work or even leave the country. Please pray that we can get out.

"Baghdad Airport open but no RJ flights (3rd August)

"Baghdad International Airport is open the main airline Jordanian Airways is not flying in or out of Iraq. So we are stuck here. We got one flight to Erbil on Iraqi Air that was all they had so she will go to to take the relief money North."

Yesterday a number of English bishops were pressing the British Government to offer asylum to Christians persecuted in Iraq.

Said the Right Rev Nick Baines, Bishop of Leeds:

"We have a tradition of offering sanctuary to people who are oppressed, and it's part of the Christian heritage of this country and the law we have established that puts an obligation on us. We also have an obligation to at least raise with the Government the possibility that we should be offering sanctuary to Christians in Iraq who have been effectively expelled under the threat of death.

"The Government cannot remain silent and you cannot just issue words - you've got to put something behind that. If we can't offer sanctuary to these people, who will? Not doing so would be tantamount to the betrayal of our moral and historical obligations."

France agreed last Monday to grant asylum to Christians driven from Mosul.

A petition on behalf of Christians in Iraq can be signed here. Donations for their relief can be sent here.
 

Time to pray?

Civil war in Syria has decimated the Christian population. In Aleppo, where Christians once numbered around 450,000, only about 180,000 remain. Homs once had a Christian population of 60,000. Now only a few dozen are left.

ISIS, the extremist Muslim group which has taken territory in Syria and Iraq, has declared it a caliphate. It claims its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is caliph and the only legitimate successor to Mohammed. Rape, torture, crucifixions and beheadings are reportedly being carried out against opponents there. Al Qaeda is said to have cut all ties with ISIS because of its "notorious intractability" and wanton brutality.

Large numbers of Christians have been killed in northern Nigeria by the Islamist group Boko Haram. Of girls, mainly Christians, kidnapped from a school, 219 are still missing. Boko Haram have since kidnapped more than 60 more women and girls. Four villagers who tried to escape were shot dead. Gunmen burned churches and attacked villages in north-eastern Nigeria on Sunday, leaving at least 50 dead.

Thousands of Christians have been killed in the Central African Republic by the Seleka, an Islamist militia. Christians are being killed during political unrest in Egypt.

Three more Christians were sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy. No death sentences for blasphemy have been carried out there, but 52 people involved in blasphemy cases have been killed by vigilantes.

Twenty years ago, there were about 1.1 billion Muslims. Today their number is estimated at 2.1 billion. Efforts to reach them have increased tenfold. Needless to say, not all Muslims are extremists.

This week is the first week of Ramadan,  the month-long festival where Muslims fast during daylight hours, seeking forgiveness and cleansing of their souls. The 30-Days Prayer Network organises prayer for the Muslim world each day during the month. It publishes prayer booklets in 39 languages.

You can get involved here.
   

Will Christians please take some notice?

"Remember the prisoners as if chained with them, and those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also. . ." (Heb 13:3).

For long enough, churches have been bombed and burned to the ground in Nigeria. Thousands of homes have been torched, and thousands of Christians shot down. For many, it seemed like the world didn't care. Finally, the kidnapping of more than 200 young girls has captured the West's imagination.

For many years, persecution of Christians in Sudan has been brutal. A countless number have been bombed and butchered. Christians have been found literally crucified. Finally, Meriam Ibrahim, a 27-year-old Christian woman with two very young children, sentenced to death after a family dispute and shackled to a prison wall, has captured the world's attention.

For three years, Syria has been blown apart in one of the fiercest battles in memory. Thousands have lost their homes and their possessions and fled the country. Islamic fighters, with military jihad as their motivation and acknowledging allegiance only to Allah, have now spread into Iraq, taking the cities of Mosul and Tikrit and reportedly surrounding the country's largest oil refinery.

 They belong to a group named ISIS, said to be more ruthless than al Qaeda. Their beheadings and crucifixions are well known. They have assassinated adults and  children, their bodies left lying in their homes and in the streets by the hundred. Thousands, including children, have fled for their lives, and are without food and water. Kurds are blocking refugees from entering Kurdistan. Some refugees find themselves in towns now surrounded, and are facing death.

What the ,mainstream media perhaps does not make clear is that Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, is the site of ancient Nineveh, and has been one of the last resorts for Christians in Iraq. It has been a Christian centre for the past 2,000 years. Most of the Christians there are probably now among the 150,000 escapees, fleeing they don't know where, but afraid for their lives.

"Please help us" are the cries coming out of Iraq at the moment. May they be heard.

"As we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith" (Gal 6:10).