Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army.
In the Holocaust, apart from gypsies, homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses, six million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany. Old men and old women; young men and young women; babies, boys and girls. Of the Jews who died, something like a million and a half were children.
Extermination camps were built. Killing squads followed the German Army into Soviet Russia. Jews were shot and buried. Some had to be dug up and burned. Others were shot and burned, but that was slow work. Then came mobile gas vans; finally, gas chambers and crematoria.
In Auschwitz, more people died than the British and American losses in World War II combined. More than a million perished in Auschwitz, 90 per cent of them Jews.
The largest gas chambers each held 2,000 people at a time. By 1944, 8,000 were being gassed at Auschwitz every day. About 400,000 Hungarian Jews were exterminated there in three months.
On January 27, 1945 the Red Army entered Auschwitz to liberate several thousand prisoners, including 180 children suffering from acute frostbite. The only reason the children had survived was because they were required for Josef Mengele's medical experiments. Three thousand twin children had entered the camp. Fewer than 200 survived to tell of its horrors.
Yesterday an Israeli government study presented to the Israeli cabinet showed a rise in antisemitic attacks over the past year. The biggest increase in attacks was in Europe. Parliamentary victories by a number of far-right antisemitic parties in Europe, it said, was a worrying trend.
The US-based Anti-Defamation League reported "dangerously high levels" of antisemitism in Europe last year, with antisemitic beliefs held by almost a third of the people surveyed. In France, 24 per cent of the population had antisemitic attitudes, compared to 20 per cent in 2009; in Spain, 53 per cent, compared to 48 per cent; in Hungary, 63 per cent, compared to 47 per cent. In the UK, antisemitic attitudes were up to 17 per cent, compared to 10 per cent four years ago.
Never again?
David Cameron and Nick Clegg appear determined to push through legislation redefining marriage in order to allow same-sex marriage. ("David just won't be told," the Prime Minister's mother, Mary Cameron, is reported as saying.)
The bill outlining the change had its first reading on Thursday and was published yesterday. MPs will have a debate and vote on it for the first time on Tuesday, February 5.
The Government says there will be adequate protection for religious bodies who do not want to hold same-sex marriages and for teachers who do not want to teach homosexual marriage as part of sex education. Opponents deny this; they say such protection or lack of it will be in the hands of European judges, who have already shown that people with a conscientious objection to homosexual marriage can lose their jobs.
It is not certain that the bill will be passed. Considerable numbers of MPs say they are ready to vote against it, and if the House of Commons passes it, it is said to be likely to have a hard time in the Lords.
Christians say marriage has been between one man and one woman throughout history, and is the basis of a stable society. They suggest the proposed change will not give homosexuals rights they do not already have with civil partnerships, and will have the effect of destroying traditional marriage.
It is remarkable how Christians came together to fight the proposed change. They quickly formed the Coalition for Marriage, which organised a petition that gained a record-breaking 600,000 signatures, which the Government is now trying to ignore.
Organisations including the Christian Institute, CARE, Christian Concern and the Christian Medical Fellowship have now called a national day of prayer on the issue for Sunday, February 3 - a week tomorrow. Suggested prayer topics can be seen here. Voice for Justice UK says that although the Government will place all its resources behind the bill, the result is not yet sure. "If something is right, it remains worth fighting for."
The organisations continue to ask people to write to their MP, asking him or her to vote against the bill. A CARE briefing, Twelve compelling reasons for rejecting same-sex marriage, can be downloaded here.
The World Prayer Centre in Birmingham calls the bill "an attack on the social and spiritual life of our nation." It points out that the following prayer has been said every day that Parliament has been in session since the 17th century:
Lord, the God of righteousness and truth, grant to our Queen and her Government, to members of Parliament and all in positions of responsibility, the guidance of Your Spirit.
May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals; but laying aside all private interests and prejudices, keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind.
So may Your Kingdom come and Your name be hallowed.
Amen.
Imagine the unspeakable fury that would erupt across the Islamic world if a Christian-led government in Khartoum had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese Muslims over the past 30 years. Or if Christian gunmen were firebombing mosques in Iraq during Friday prayers. Or if Muslim girls in Indonesia had been abducted and beheaded on their way to school, because of their faith.
Such horrors are barely thinkable, of course. But they have all occurred in reverse, with Christians falling victim to Islamist aggression.
So wrote Rupert Shortt in the Telegraph.
A couple of months ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world. Shortt, who has been responsible for writing biographies of Archbishop Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict, has now written a report titled Christianophobia, published by the UK think tank Civitas. In it, he agrees with her assessment.
Christians, he says, are targeted more than any other body of believers. An estimated 200 million Christians are socially disadvantaged, harassed or actively oppressed for their beliefs.
Shortt lists atrocities in Egypt, where whatever the results of the Arab Spring, "Copts remain deeply concerned about the future of their battered Church"; in Iraq, where the number of Christians has fallen from 1.2 million in 1990 to less than 200,000 today; in Pakistan, with its blasphemy laws; in Nigeria, where thousands, including children, have been caused to disappear, hacked to death, burned alive or pulled off buses and murdered; in India, where Hindu extremists have killed or displaced thousands; in Burma, and in China, where more Christians are imprisoned than in any other country in the world.
"One reason," he says, "why Western audiences hear so little about religious oppression in the Muslim world is straightforward: young Christians in Europe and America do not become 'radicalised,' and persecuted Christians tend not to respond with terrorist violence."
In addition, "Parts of the media have been influenced by the logical error that equates criticism of Muslims with racism, and therefore as wrong by definition."
His conclusions: "The Qur'an does not set out specific punishments for apostasy in this life. The notion that converts to other religions should be killed fed into all the main branches of sharia law via later collections of teaching, especially the Hadith. . . Muslim attitudes should not be considered immutable."
Christianity has evolved, he says, and there are reasonable grounds for thinking Islam will do so too.
But "there is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands."
I greet his conclusions with some scepticism. I am reminded that Christianity's founder said that He would build His church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it - and that Christianity has a habit of flourishing under persecution, painful though it is.
You can read the 41-page report here.
Saeed Abedini, recruited in high school in Iran by a radical Muslim group, was being trained as a suicide bomber. The more he tried to be a devout Muslim and the more he went into training, the more depressed he became.
When he was 20 years old, he was converted to Christ. He loved evangelism, and became a leader in the house church movement. In 2005, he moved to the US, where he and his wife are now US citizens.
On a vist to Iran in 2009, he was arrested and threatened with death for having converted to Christianity. He was released, his wife says. after signing a written agreement that he would not be charged and would be allowed to visit Iran provided he gave up house church activities.
Saeed, now 32 and the father of two young children, was on a visit to Iran last year to visit family and help build an orphanage, which had no religious affiliation. He was taken off a bus by Revolutionary Guards, subjected to "intense interrogation" and placed under house arrest.
In September he was transferred to Teheran's notorious Evin Prison, placed in solitary confinement and reportedly badly beaten by guards. Transferred to a communal cell, he was severely beaten by fellow prisoners who claimed to belong to al Qaeda.
In a letter, Saeed wrote:
Prison is a test of faith. I was always worried that the storms of this life would break the ship of faith, but when you stand in the steadfast ship of faith, the storms are like a nice breeze. Nothing can break the ship of faith. These walls have created more fervor for me to love others through sharing the Gospel, but more than that, the walls have deepened my love for my Savior. I feel the prayers of all who are praying for me.
In a letter brought out of prison by relatives, he says:
When I think that all of these trials and persecutions are being recorded in heaven for me, my heart is filled with complete joy. . .
I always wanted God to make me a godly man. I did not realise that in order to become a godly man we need to become like steel under pressure. It is a hard process of warm and cold to make steel. The process in my life today is one day I was told I will be freed on bail to see my family and kids on Christmas (They are all lies) and the next I am told I will hang for my faith in Jesus. One day there are intense pains after beatings in interrogations, the next day they are nice to you and offer you candy. . . this is where you learn you can love your enemies with all of your heart. . .
I am looking forward to the day to see all of you who are behind me with your prayers. . .
Saeed is due to appear before a court today charged with "actions against the national security of Iran," a charge which can lead to a long period of imprisonment or possibly the death penalty.
Christian authorities in the US have appealed for prayer.
UK Christians didn't find much help at the European Court of Human Rights yesterday.
Lillian Ladele, a registrar, was disciplined by Islington Council for asking to be excused from conducting same-sex civil partnership ceremonies on the grounds of religious conviction. She lost her claim for discrimination on the basis of freedom of conscience and religious belief.
Gary McFarlane, a Relate marriage counsellor dismissed for gross misconduct after suggesting he might not be able to counsel same-sex couples because of his Christian faith, also lost his claim.
Nadia Eweida, a British Airways check-in clerk sent home by her employers after refusing to remove a necklace with a small cross, won her case. The court ruled the UK had failed to protect her freedom to manifest her faith in the workplace.
The judges said that manifesting religion was a fundamental right. This was because "a healthy democratic society needs to tolerate and sustain pluralism and diversity, but also because of the value to an individual who has made religion a central tenet of his or her life to be able to communicate that belief to others."
Shirley Chaplin, a nurse ordered by her hospital to remove a small cross on a chain she had worn for some 30 years, lost a similar claim. The judges said the hospital should be able to refuse permission to wear a cross on health and safety grounds.
The Telegraph said in an editorial: "Instead of the application of a little common sense, we have seen protracted and costly legal action, followed by a judgment that severely curtails people's rights to manifest their faith at work. This is part of a wider trend to nudge religion to the margins of society. People of faith are depicted as being not part of the mainstream, as being quirky and different.
"We are not only a Christian country, we are a tolerant one - but it seems the new secularism has no room for toleration."
Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute, said "What this shows is that Christians with traditional beliefs about marriage are at risk of being left out in the cold. If the Government steamrollers ahead with its plans to redefine marriage, then hundreds of thousands of people could be thrown out of their jobs unless they agree to endorse gay marriage."
Turtle Bay and Beyond, a blog covering international law, said it was not proportionate to dismiss an employee when he could have been accommodated in other positions or tasks. The refusal to accommodate the applicants was merely an ideological sanction meaning that, as a question of principle, there was no room on the staff for "intolerant Christians."
Canon Chris Sugden, of Anglican Mainstream, said homosexual rights were stifling the rights of people to live lives of faith openly. "Human rights were introduced to protect minorities but not to give them supervening rights over the rest of society. Gay rights have now become a separate privilege and a specially protected group of rights which trump all others, including freedom of conscientious objection and to hold religious conviction without fear of discrimination."
Dr Dave Landrum, of the Evangelical Alliance, said "Christianity is not about a set of rules, but a God that brings people into a new life of freedom. This new life is then lived out 24-7, and cannot ever be restricted to just our private lives.
"If UK courts are going to protect religious freedom more fully in the future they need to better understand the nature of Christian belief. . . We need solutions that will allow for the reasonable accommodation of the expression of religious belief."
Yesterday I wrote on this blog about Open Doors' World Watch List of countries where the persecution of Christians is the most severe.
A blogger at God and Politics in the UK decided to investigate how much the British Government paid to those countries in international aid. The UK Department for International Development website shows that in a year £146million was paid, for instance, to Afghanistan, £101million to Somalia, £162million to Nigeria, £212million to Pakistan, £324million to Ethiopia, £139million to Tanzania and £284million to India. All those countries appear on the list.
The writer says that the UK Government has the potential to exert huge pressure on some of these countries over the persecution of Christians if it chose to do so.
On the occasion of a conference promoting the right to freedom of religion or belief for all, the UK Government said: "Promoting the right of freedom of religion or belief is a key human rights priority for the British Government. Freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief is one of the fundamental freedoms that underpins other human rights and is a key building block of any democracy."
Some months ago it was reported that Prime Minister David Cameron had threatened to withhold UK aid from governments which continued to ban homosexuality. He said those receiving UK aid should "adhere to proper human rights" and that "British aid should have more strings attached."
I am not personally aware of any similar threat with regard to the treatment of Christians. Are Christians of less worth than homosexuals?
I have written to Mr Cameron as follows:
The Rt Hon David Cameron MP,
10 Downing Street,
London SW1A 2AA
Dear Prime Minister,
Some months ago you were reported as having threatened to withhold UK aid from governments which continued to ban homosexuality, saying that those receiving UK aid should adhere to proper human rights and that British aid should have more strings attached.
Countries like Somalia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Tanzania and India, all of them recipients of generous UK aid, are also countries where Christians are severely persecuted.
Would you please use your good offices to alleviate the severe persecution of Christians in these lands?
Yours sincerely,
Would you like to write to Mr Cameron too? His address is above. Trying to write to him by e-mail is not recommended.
Open Doors has published its annual World Watch List of the 50 countries where the persecution of Christians is most severe.
For the 11th successive year, North Korea tops the list as the most difficult place to be a Christian. In North Korea, Christians face arrest, detention, torture and public execution. One prison camp alone reportedly holds 6,000 Christians. Despite severe oppression, there is a growing underground church movement of an estimated 400,000 Christian believers.
Second is Saudi Arabia, where conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by death. Evangelising Muslims and distributing non-Muslim materials are illegal. Public Christian worship is forbidden. Worshippers risk imprisonment, lashing, torture and deportation.
Third is Afghanistan, where there are no church buildings, even for expatriates, and gatherings in private houses require extreme caution. Both foreign and local Christians are subject to kidnapping, abduction, killing and having to flee the country.
Persecution of Christians generally has increased during 2012, most dramatically in Africa. Violence in Mali increased after a coup in March. Christians are being killed by the Islamist organisation Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Islamism has increased in every country that experienced the Arab Spring, with massively increased pressure on Christians in the Middle East and North Africa. Tens of thousands of Christians have fled Syria in recent months.
Western governments need to be reminded of their responsibility to stand up against religious persecution in other countries. Christians should pray for persecuted believers - and seriously consider giving financial help to organisations providing aid for the persecuted.
Making up the 20 at the top of the list with North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are Iraq, Somalia, Maldives, Mali, Iran, Yemen, Eritrea, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, Libya, Laos, Turkmenistan and Qatar.
You can see the list, and details of how the placings are arrived at, here.
The oldest man in Britain died in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, last week. He was 110 years old.
Rev Reg Dean was born in Tunstall, Staffordshire, in 1902. He was ordained to the Church of England ministry as a young man, and was a Church of England minister and later a minister in the United Reformed Church until he was 80. At 80 he took up painting, and in his mid-eighties founded an award-winning male voice choir.
He had been married three times.
In World War II he was an Army chaplain in Burma. He told his son that at one point he was surrounded by Japanese. They taunted him, shouting "Johnny, we will come and kill you tomorrow." He spent the evening in prayer. The following morning, all the Japanese had disappeared.
In 2011, speaking (at his 109th birthday party?) to an audience of elderly people, he told them: "There are three questions you must learn to try to answer. One is 'Who am I?' Two is 'Why am I here?' And three is 'Where am I going?'
Spot on. Those are questions that plague all of us at one time or another. Those questions do have answers. It's so important before you go right through life and tumble into eternity that you're sure you've found them.
Rob Joy, the son of a recovering alcoholic, grew up on a troubled estate. He longed to be accepted by his father - but his father died suddenly one night after a blazing row.
Rob had begun drinking at an early age and was treated for alcohol poisoning at 14. After losing his dad, he decided if he couldn't go straight, he would go for a life of serious crime.
He was nicknamed "Bobby the gun" because he carried a weapon. He was "always drunk, always high and always fighting."
He put two men in a coma in gang violence, allegedly blew £250,000 on drugs and slid into paranoia. People said he was going to wind up dead.
His mother and two sisters had become born-again Christians. Rob wasn't having any of that because he knew that Christians were all brainwashed nutters, but his mother and sisters continued to pray.
One night in a filthy drug den, Rob fell to his knees and pleaded with God to forgive him for a life of crime.
He's now pastor of a church in Wellingborough, Northants, and a gifted evangelist. He's married to a Christian girl amd has two young children. Their story is told in a book, Internal Revolution.
Carl Beech, leader of Christian Vision for Men in the UK, says "Rob is a living testimony that your past, no matter what has happened to you, does not need to govern your future."
Rob's former pastor says of him: "His zeal is real. He loves to see people brought into a new life that only Jesus can give. I thank God that He occasionally releases a man with a message to build His church and encourage us all. I see this in Rob Joy. He's a man with a message, born on time."
You can read his story here.
The Liverpool Care Pathway is a programme which allows medication, food and water to be withheld from hospital patients, and patients to be sedated, during the last days and hours of life to prevent unnecessary distress during the dying process.
Newspapers claim that patients have been placed on the pathway who have not been dying, with the result that they would have died from use of the pathway. They also claim that thousands of patients have been placed on the pathway without the patients being informed or their families consulted.
Of the 450,000 who die in Britain each year, 130,000 now - almost a third - are said to have been on the pathway.
Dr Jacqueline Laing, senior lecturer in law at London Metropolitan University, says only a year after the Department of Health recommended the LCP as its end-of-life care strategy in 2008, 300 hospitals, 560 care homes and 130 hospices had introduced the programme.
One enterprising journalist, using provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, discovered that hospitals have been given financial rewards for placing patients on the LCP. NHS trusts have received payments totalling millions of pounds for reaching targets relating to use of the pathway. Some hospitals doubled the number of patients dying on the pathway in one year.
The Christian Medical Fellowship has called for financial incentives to be scrapped immediately and for patients to be treated solely according to their need.
Dr Laing, writing in the New Law Journal, says some fear the LCP has a homicidal character not acknowledged by its proponents. "When a patient is clearly in the last hours of life, it may well be that acts recommended by the strategy are entirely appropriate. The problem arises when they are not indicated, ie on the strength of misdiagnosis, or when the sedation-dehydration regime is implemented to satisfy managerial targets or countless other unjustifiable possibilities.
"Part of the difficulty is that, where a patient is diagnosed as terminal and imminently dying, the combination of morphine and dehydration is likely to undermine a patient's capacity. Persistent dehydration of even the fittest sedated patient will kill him. This was the problem with the Pathway from the very outset. . .
"Recent revelations of financial incentives and staggering compliance in rolling out the managerial programme radically alter the debate. Diagnostic concerns in the context of arguably self-fulfilling sedation-dehydration regimes and overarching financial and political pressure to implement the Pathway suggest that the regime may have acquired a lethal power of its own. This lethal character is almost certainly one that exists independently of the best intentions of those who formulated or apply it. . .
"Incentivised and managerialised death targets become problematic in the context of uncertain diagnosis, a steadily ageing population, spiralling healthcare costs, and the philosophical dehumanisation of the vulnerable pervasive in contemporary bioethics. The targets themselves constitute improper pressure on healthcare professionals' employment and livelihood. As such, they predictably invite and rationalise grave human rights abuse with tragic consequences for the defenceless."
Some critics ask what benefit the LCP or any other integrated pathway brings to patients which traditional pain relief and symptom control, pioneered by Dame Cicely Saunders, could not. They say there have been no controlled trials.
Results of an inquiry into the use of the Liverpool Care Pathway are eagerly awaited. What effect they will have in practice remains to be seen.
As we sit around our firesides wishing one another a happy New Year, spare a thought for Syria's Christians.
Thousands have fled the country, and are currently in neighbouring countries with very little to keep them alive. The situation of those still in Syria is even more dire, with Christians, their property and their churches the target of violent attack.
A senior church leader in Syria says they also face "inflation, poverty, growing of sectarian enmity, shortages of supplies of food and fuel, cold weather, revenge, kidnapping for big amount of ransom, risks of travelling, frequent internet cut off and many such things."
Barnabas Fund says while the Christian population of Homs was once 50,000 to 60,000, just 80 Christians remain in a Christian neighbourhood of the old city. One by one they are dying because of severe hardship and lack of medicines. Rebel groups keep them there as human shields.
Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, director of Barnabas Fund, said in Aleppo some children suffering from malnutrition now had the distended stomachs more often seen in famine situations in Africa. He warned that rebel forces and Islamist extremists among them "want to see an end of the Christian presence in Syria."
A UN investigation concluded last week that the war in Syria is becoming increasingly sectarian, with minority groups, like Christians, in more danger than ever.
Last week a rebel group warned the Christian towns of Mharda and Sqilbiya to stop permitting Syrian government forces to take up positions there or face a merciless attack. The two towns used to have populations of tens of thousands, but most locals have already fled.
One Syrian rebel leader, Ahmad al-Baghdadi al-Hassani, speaking on Egyptian television, warned that Syria's Christians are "friends of the Zionists" and must choose between "Islam and death."
It is estimated that more than 45,000 have died in Syria since the fighting began.
Dear Virginia,
Because you have been such a loyal friend of Christmas, I wanted to write a personal letter to try and explain the sad news I'll be announcing at a press conference tomorrow. Virginia, I'm retiring. I've already deleted my database, put the sleigh up on Craig's List, and changed forever into civilian clothes. Mrs Claus and I have sublet our cottage here to a Russian drilling crew (they insist they own the North Pole anyway) and we've sold the workshops to a Chinese toy manufacturer. For ourselves, we'll be moving to Malta, at least for a while. There are at least some remains of civilization on that island; the health care system is top notch; and the climate may well help my arthritis.
Virginia, I know this may seem like an abrupt and drastic move, but, trust me, I really had no other choice. I'm deeply saddened to think of the heartbreak the cancellation of Christmas will bring to good-hearted supporters like you. Yet I also believe that the true friends of Christmas will sympathize with my plight. I have, of course, been grieved and frustrated over the increasing commercialization of the holiday. That's been going on for decades. But the demands from the children of the last couple of generations have driven me over the edge. Virginia, you and I both can remember when you were thrilled and very grateful to receive a doll, a Laura Ingalls Wilder book and some candy. Your brother felt the same way that Christmas when I left him a football, some Lincoln Logs and a couple of oranges. But now children are absolutely insatiable.You simply cannot give them enough. And even a magic bag isn't without a bottom.
And then there are the kinds of presents they crave! There's no way I can leave them the horrid things they ask of me. Little girl dolls dressed in sexually suggestive outfits. Grotesque and gory video games. Rap music which glorifies savagery against women. Movies full of blasphemy and brutish violence. There's no way I could give an impressionable child such nasty, noxious things. And as a result, I've lost a big chunk of my market share. Back in the 1950s baby boom, I really had to hustle to keep up with demand. But in recent years, my trip takes a quarter of the time because I have so few children who want the presents I have to give. To keep from laying off the elves, I've kept production high but we have completely run out of storage space. Our overstock of board games, baby dolls, puzzles, fire engines, books - I could go on and on - is crushing us.
But the present crisis, Virginia, has arisen from still other matters - key among them being a vociferous committee of elves which started with grumbling, then moved on to organised protests, and ended up by forming unions connected, respectively, with the AFL, the SEIU, and the Teamsters. The subsequent demands from union leaders are not only irrational, they are downright immoral. For instance, I refuse to allow, under my name, the manufacture of gifts which I believe to be decadent and culturally destructive. Nor will I provide health coverage plans that would cause me to violate my religious convictions. Virginia, I shudder to think of the hard-working elves who have been loyal to the spirit of Christmas having to sign up for unemployment but the troublemakers have left me no other option. So, alas, I am shutting down Christmas altogether. . .
I didn't write the above, as you will gather from the American references in it. It was written by an American friend of mine, Denny Hartford. I lifted it from his website. You will enjoy reading the rest of it here.
Christmas may not be the same as it used to be. Although I do think people have a little more openness, a little more friendliness, a little more, if you like, of a spirit of goodwill during a couple of days over the holiday. That we ought to try to preserve.
If Christmas isn't the same as it was, I hope that doesn't prevent me wishing all of you a happy Christmas?
Just a brief postscript: I am minded that the Babe of Bethlehem is the one sure hope this world has. May many come to know the reality of that this Christmastide.
The internet is awash with pornography.
The US citizen is well informed of the extent of internet porn. Charisma News, a leading American Christian magazine, says that
* The internet pornography business makes more money than top companies Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, eBay, Google and Yahoo combined.
* About 12 per cent of the world's websites offer pornographic material.
* The average age at which children first see pornographic material is 11. Ninety per cent of those from eight to 16 say they have viewed it online.
* Twenty-one per cent of Christian girls admitted to sending a naked photograph of themselves to someone else by their mobile phone.
An article in the Christian Post, another US Christian magazine, says - can you believe this? - that according to a survey 50 per cent of Christian men and 20 per cent of Christian women are addicted to pornography.
Trying to find similarly detailed figures regarding the situation in Britain seems more difficult. It is suggested that British teenagers spend an average of 87 hours a year looking at internet pornography, and that four out of five regularly access pornographic material online. A recent report showed that 40 per cent of children under 12 have seen pornographic images online.
When I contacted people in Britain whose ministry is to pornography addicts, all they seemed able to say was that they wouldn't be surprised if the figures here were similar to those in the United States.
UK charities have been pleading for action for long enough. They favour automatic anti-pornography filters used by internet service providers. Internet service providers generally have resisted, no doubt because of the amount of money to be made.
Earlier this year Prime Minister David Cameron instructed Government officials to look into the possibility of such filters being used by internet service providers, which would mean that adults wanting to see pornography would have to "opt in" with their provider for the service.
Last Friday the Government announced rather quietly that proposals for such a block on pornography had been rejected. The Government's excuses: first, parents would then assume that the internet was safe for their children; second, an automatic block might also prevent children having access to "helpful information on sexual health or sexual identity." Instead, the Government had decided, parents should use internet filters if their children were using computers at home.
Countless thousands, if not millions, of children are having their lives ruined.
Will someone please stand up and sort out this situation?
An American news agency reports that two 14-year-olds and a 13-year-old tried to cadge a cigarette from a young man. The young man's 22-year-old girlfriend told them to get a job. So the teens shot her. She died in hospital two hours later.
What a world we live in.
But some people are looking for something better.
Mission Network News reports that Barry Werner, from an organisation called Bibles for China, recently went to China to distribute 30,000 Bibles in rural areas.
You would think that would satisfy the need, the report says, but in China 35,000 people are converted to Christ each day. A believer in China getting his or her first Bible will often read it from cover to cover in six weeks. On average, five other people will read that Bible in its first year. Of those five, three will commit their lives to Christ.
There's hunger for you.
In the 2001 Census, 71.7% of people in England and Wales called themselves Christians. By 2011, according to newly published figures from the 2011 Census, the figure was down by 13 per cent to 59.3% (a total of 33.2 million). There may be a drop in the number of people who were not practising Christians but identified themselves as Christians for traditional reasons.
Islam, with 2.7 million adherents, was up from three per cent to 4.8%.
Seven per cent of people did not answer the question on religion. Some 14 million ticked the box which said "no religion," double the figure in 2001.
The number of people who identified themselves as Jedi Knights had dropped by more than 50 per cent, but they still ranked as the seventh most popular faith. Among the "other faiths" were 1,893 adherents of Satanism, 1,276 of witchcraft, 541 of animism, 184 Thelemites and 124 Confucianists.
The Church of England said the death of Christian England had been greatly exaggerated. Some 253 Anglican churches had closed over the past decade, while 1,000 new congregations had been started.
"Doubtless campaigning atheist organisations will attempt to minimise the significance of the majority figures for faith and Christianity. In fact, these figures draw attention to the free ride that has been given to these bodies whose total membership would barely fill half of Old Trafford. For instance there are an estimated 28,000 members of British Humanist Association - the same membership as Union of Catholic Mothers, whilst the National Secular Society has an estimated 5,000 - the same as the British Sausage Appreciation Society."
Euthanasia became legal in Belgium in 2002. A report on the first 10 years of euthanasia in Belgium by the European Institute of Bioethics makes disturbing reading.
According to the report, nearly half of the 16 members of the commission set up to ensure that the law was kept were found to be members or associates of the Association for the Right to Die in Dignity, which campaigns for euthanasia and the widening of legal conditions;
in dealing with more than 5,000 cases, the commission never felt the need to report a single case to the Crown Prosecution Service;
although a written declaration from the patient was required before euthanasia, the commission accepted the situation when none was provided;
the commission allowed euthanasia in cases where diseases were not life-threatening;
the commission decided that a coma, loss of independence or progressive dementia were sufficient to qualify as unbearable and unrelievable psychological suffering;
the commission decided not to verify the unbearable and unrelievable nature of the suffering because consideration should be given to the fact that a patient could refuse pain treatment and the unbearable nature of the pain depended on the patient's own ideas and values; and
although the law specified that the lethal substances had to be handed to the doctor in person by a registered pharmacist and left-over quantities returned, lethal substances were handed out to families or by chemists' assistants and no check was made on the return of surplus amounts.
BioEdge says in the Netherlands a regional euthanasia review committees' annual report for 2011 shows that the committees in several cases seriously exceeded the statutory deadline for issuing their findings, which was both "undesirable" and "unlawful."
Although there are expected to be further attempts to legalise euthanasia or doctor-assisted suicide in both England and Scotland before long, it is unlikely that either euthanasia or assisted suicide will be legalised soon. It is hoped, however, that these reports will serve as a serious warning about what can happen when the legal gates are opened.
New free schools found to be teaching creationism as fact could lose their Government funding, according to a report on BBC News online.
A new rule says that from 2013, all free schools in England must teach evolution as "a comprehensive and coherent scientific theory."
The new rule will apply to Grindon Hall Christian school in Sunderland and two other schools due to open next year, after concerns about the teaching of creationism.
Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, said he was "delighted." He said previous rules on free schools and the teaching of evolution versus creationism had been "not tight enough."
Although the previous rules had confined creationism to religious education lessons, "the Royal Society identified a potential issue that schools could have avoided teaching evolution by natural selection in science lessons or dealt with it in such a perfunctory way that the main experience for students was the creationist myth."
"The creationist myth," Sir Paul?
I want to tell you that evolution by natural selection is a theory that has never been proved and is being brought into question by more and more scientists.
The first verse in the Bible says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." If you don't believe the first verse, what price the rest of the Bible? 2 Tim 3:16, according to the Authorised Version, says "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." If creationism isn't true, that verse is a lie.
I am reminded of the young man who discovered by reading the New Testament that Jesus believed the book of Genesis. The young man said "My high school science teacher once told me that much of Genesis is false. But since my high school science teacher did not prove he was God by rising from the dead, I'm going to believe Jesus instead."
And rules on the teaching of evolution versus creationism "not tight enough," Sir Paul?
Every child should be taught what the Bible says about creation. But he or she shouldn't be forced to believe it. And every child should be taught about what people choose to believe about evolution. But he or she shouldn't be forced to believe that. That's what education is about: giving young people the (unbiased) information they need to teach them to think for themselves.
One last question. Schools that teach creationism as fact are likely to lose their funding.
Will schools that teach evolution as fact be likely to lose their funding?
I thought not.
UNICEF has ranked Britain bottom out of 21 developed countries for child welfare and third from bottom for educational standards. Other reports have labelled British children the "unhappiest in the world."
* Forty-eight per cent of children born today will experience the breakdown of their parents' relationship.
* Twenty-four per cent of children live with only one parent. Nine out of 10 of those children are in households headed by lone mothers.
* A boy of 12 who raped a nine-year-old girl told police he wanted to feel grown-up. He had had unrestricted access to hardcore online pornography. Children as young as six are surfing the internet without parental supervision. Fourteen per cent of children between six and 10 have encountered adult material on the internet.
* Some 31 per cent of sexual crimes in England and Wales in 2009 - 2010 were against children under 16. More than a third of all rapes were against children.
* Up to 40 per cent of children have been involved in "sexting" (creating, sharing and forwarding sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images by mobile phone or internet).
* Despite billions of pounds spent on sex education, teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases are increasing. One in 10 young people catch a second sexually transmitted disease within a year of a first diagnosis.
* Binge drinking has become habitual for many young people in Britain. A 14-year-old girl diagnosed with liver disease after drinking 16 bottles of wine, cider and spirits in three days was told by doctors if she drinks again she will die. Alcohol contributes to the death of five per cent of young people.
* Almost a quarter of children from 11 to 15 in the UK have tried drugs.
* An estimated 100,000 children in the UK run away from home each year.
* In the UK there are an estimated 5,000 child prostitutes.
What on earth are we doing to our children?
That question is also the title of a book, published by the Manchester-based Maranatha Community, being promoted at a meeting in the Houses of Parliament today. (You can see details of the book at www.maranathacommunity.org.uk.)
What can be done about the situation? The book suggests three things.
First, listen to what children are saying. We need to face facts about what's happening to children.
Second, repent for what we have done and what we have failed to do.
Third, commit ourselves to action. Become more involved in work for children. Assist organisations working for the good of children and young people.
The book quotes Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Which infers that if we do nothing, we bear responsibility too.
Christians in Iran put us to shame by the way they live in the face of persecution, imprisonment and physical and psychological torture.
Since 1979, eight church leaders have been killed by the Iranian regime solely on account of their Christian faith. One narrowly escaped judicial execution in 2012.
Arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of Christians is widespead. There are confirmed reports that more than 200 Christians in 48 cities have been arrested and interrogated since 2010. The full figure is almost certainly higher.
Since April the UK Christians in Parliament all-party parliamentary group has been listening to detailed evidence from eye witnesses of extensive suffering inflicted on Iranian Christians by their own government. The group has compiled a 35-page report, which asks the British Government to apply pressure on Iran to uphold the right to religious freedom of all Iranian people and to release Christians in prison for their faith.
At a crowded meeting to launch the report, the group handed a copy of the document to Alistair Burt, minister of state for the Middle East - himself a Christian.
Rev Sam Yeghnazar, founder and director of Elam Ministries, read a letter from an Iranian prisoner. It said:
Often I have been insulted, humiliated and accused, but I have never doubted my identity in Christ. We rejoice in the Lord and take joy in the God of our salvation. Because neither the walls nor the barbed wires, nor the prison, nor suffering, nor loneliness, nor enemies, nor pain, nor even death separates us from the Lord and each other.
You can read the report here.
I had it in mind to write about the Rotherham couple with an exemplary record as foster parents who had their foster children taken away from them because social workers found out the couple were members of the UK Independence Party, which is not in favour of multiculturalism, or of continued membership of the European Union.
Since I was thinking about it, the story has taken on a life of its own, with coverage locally, nationally and internationally. So perhaps it doesn't need me to comment on it at this time. . .
Except to say that if the story is found to be correct, I do hope serious action will be taken.
Children's lives are too precious to be spoiled by social workers' politically correct ideology.
I don't watch much television these days, but the television happened to be switched on and it happened to be tuned to a Christian television station. It was broadcasting an hour-long interview with a well known Christian, whose name I won't mention in case my recollection of what he said is less than perfect.
He was talking about God, about worship, and about the lessons God had taught him. He recalled that the Bible verse that speaks of knowing the power of Christ's resurrection also speaks of knowing the fellowship of His sufferings.
He had five children, highly intelligent youngsters - apart from one, who was born with a disability. He remembered the lessons that God had taught him through that disabled daughter. Sometimes, he said, as Christians we look for perfection; and sometimes God allows imperfection, not only to teach us, but to demonstrate His perfection.
I have to confess that that spoke to my heart.
Life is not all jam butties, and Christians are not exempt from the trials and difficulties that come along in life. But Christians do have two tremendous advantages.
First, God is a master at bringing good out of bad situations. As the Bible puts it, all things work together for good to those who love God. In fact, God will not allow anything to happen to a Christian unless He can bring good out of it. He is working in Christians' lives. He can use what is after all a short time of suffering to work something good in us that will last for all eternity.
Second, God is with us in it. There is nothing you can suffer that He hasn't suffered already. Selwyn Hughes tells of a Christian woman whose husband was killed in the Twin Towers tragedy in New York. "When the news broke that my husband had been killed," she said, "a terrible darkness descended on me. But a hand reached out to me in the darkness. It was rough with work at a carpenter's bench, and pierced with an ancient wound."
When tragedy strikes and suffering comes, you may be tempted to wonder if God cares. If you are, look at the cross of Christ. He had no need of Himself to suffer all of that. He did it willingly for you and for me, out of the greatest love that this world has ever known. Keep the cross in view, and you won't need to doubt God's love.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg have agreed to speed up legislation to permit homosexual marriage, with a vote in Parliament in the New Year. So newspapers were reporting in the past couple of days.
Downing Street had said that same-sex marriage legislation would be introduced at some point before the next election in 2015. It was not included in the last Queen's Speech, which sets out the legislative programme for the year ahead.
But with Conservative back-bench opinion hardening against same-sex marriage, the Prime Minister and his deputy are reportedly going to have legislation fast-tracked. That would be a disaster.
Even if Tory MPs rebelled, such proposed legislation would be expected to succeed, with Labour and Liberal Democrats voting in favour.
It would cause confusion with stacks of existing laws. Promises that churches would not need to perform same-sex marriages would quickly be broken. ("Homosexual marriage is legal. Why can't I be married in church?") It would quickly be followed by requests for legalisation of other forms of so-called marriage.
A new ComRes poll published this week shows that 68 per cent of Tory voters, 58 per cent of Labour voters and 52 per cent of Lib Dem voters want marriage to stay as it is (defined as "a lifelong exclusive commitment between a man and a woman.") Sixty-nine per cent believed children should be raised by a father and a mother in a permanent relationship.
So clearly politicians are not going ahead with legislation that the majority of people want.
Coalition for Marriage, who sponsored the poll, is the organisation that organised a petition to the Government against redefining marriage which has attracted a record-breaking 610,000 signatures.
"We knew that our campaign was hitting home very effectively," it said. "Downing Street's panicked reaction shows that we and you have been doing the right things in opposition to this unpopular and unnecessary plan."
It appeals to people to contact their MP - again, if they have done so already.
There's a beautiful verse in the Bible, addressed to Christian believers. "Be steadfast, immovable," it says, "always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor 15:58).
One day I walked into a supermarket, whistling as I went (Sometimes people tell me they can hear me coming before they see me).
"You sound happy," said an assistant on the meat counter. "I am," I said. "I'm one of the happiest people around." "Why? Have you come up on the pools?" "No," I said. "Better than that." "Are you getting married?" "No," I said. "Better than that." "Are you getting divorced?" "No," I said. "Better than that."
"Well," he said, "are you going to tell us the secret, or what?" "Well," I said, "if you like." I told him I had accepted Christ, I knew my sins were forgiven, I had a home in heaven, and I had a peace that only a Christian can know.
We talked for a while; then he told me that some months before two girls from Operation Mobilisation had gone into the shop where he was working, had told him about Christ and had left him some literature.
Next time I went into the supermarket, he was missing. I never saw him again. Sometimes you meet people who are ready to accept Christ themselves. Other times, you're just a link in a chain.
But if you are prepared to speak for Jesus and do things for Jesus, He will arrange the circumstances. And the things you speak and the things you do won't be in vain. They'll be part of His purposes.
A Manchester Christian who was demoted and had his salary cut by his employer because he expressed an opinion on homosexual marriage on his Facebook page yesterday won his case against his employer at the High Court.
Adrian Smith, a housing manager with Trafford Housing Trust, concerned at news that homosexual marriages might be permitted in church, wrote on his personal Facebook page "An equality too far." The page could be seen only by a few dozen friends and work colleagues, and the entry was made in his own time.
A colleague at work reported the matter to the management, who said Mr Smith was guilty of gross misconduct, demoted him and cut his salary by £14,000 a year. They claimed he had broken the trust's code of conduct by expressing religious or political views which might upset co-workers.
It emerged at the High Court that the trust was worried it could lose a homosexual rights charter award unless it took action against Mr Smith.
The judge, Mr Justice Briggs, said Mr Smith had been taken to task for doing nothing wrong. Mr Smith's postings in his view were not, "viewed objectively, judgmental, disrespectful or liable to cause upset or offence. As to their content, they are widely held views frequently to be heard on radio or television, or read in the newspapers."
He rejected the suggestion that Mr Smith's comments could be viewed as homophobic. The breach of contract the trust has committed, he said, was "serious and repudiatory."
Because of rules covering contract law, the judge was able to award Mr Smith only £98 in damages, leaving "the uncomfortable feeling that justice has not been done to him. I must admit to real disquiet about the financial outcome of this case."
I understand that despite the court's judgment, the trust is refusing to reinstate Mr Smith to his former managerial post or restore the £14,000 pay cut.
Mr Smith said after the case he was delighted to have won the judgment. "I have won today. But what will tomorrow bring? I am fearful that, if marriage is redefined, there will be more cases like mine - and if the law of marriage changes people like me may not win in court.
"Does the Prime Minister want to create a society where people like me, people who believe in traditional marriage, are treated like outcasts? That may not be the intention, but that's what will happen.
"The Prime Minister should think very carefully about the impact of redefining marriage on ordinary people."
Nationally, the United States, like Britain, has consistently refused to legalise euthanasia or doctor-assisted suicide. Two individual US states have agreed to allow assisted suicide, and the numbers of assisted suicides in those states have increased considerably since they were first permitted.
Massachusetts is the latest state to hold a referendum on the issue. Legalisation of assisted suicide was defeated there by 1,516,584 votes to 1,453,742 - 51 per cent to 49 per cent. I thought this a small margin, but I am told it represents a significant victory for the pro-life cause since Massachusetts is strongly Democrat and one of the most liberal of US states.
American bioethicist Wesley J. Smith says the fight for assisted suicide was lost in Massachusetts because opponents were not just religious groups, but disability rights activists, medical organisations, pro-lifers, and advocates for the poor concerned that assisted suicide might be promoted for economic reasons;
legalising assisted suicide was not high on people's "to-do list" (although most people were not emotionally opposed either. Primarily, they didn't want to think about it);
Massachusetts retains a strong Catholic identity; and
there remains sufficient traditional morality in the country to allow liberals to oppose a specific proposal, while still supporting the concept.
Which gives me some hope for the situation in Britain.
Advocates of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Britain are well supported and very vocal - but the public as a whole, and politicians in particular, are yet to be convinced.
