Showing pupils a range of perspectives on Jesus from different individuals and groups will make religious education more rigorous and encourage pupils to have empathy with others, according to academics.

At a time of year when questions about Jesus’s identity are likely to arise, a new textbook is being launched to encourage more varied teaching.

It supports teachers to move beyond telling the story of the birth, life and work of Jesus and instead highlight the way he is seen by people from varied cultural, religious and academic backgrounds.

This would help students in GCSE and A-level RE lessons to investigate how Jesus is portrayed by assorted individuals and groups – including theologians, historians, feminists, the visually impaired, artists and southern African cultures.

Professor Rob Freathy, who led the team that put the textbook together, said: “There is no single, neutral and objective answer to the question ‘Who is Jesus?’.

“Answers differ depending on who is being asked. RE teaching and assessment that recognises that, by asking pupils to think about subject matter from different perspectives, is intellectually more rigorous and can promote the educational benefits of open-ended inquiry.

“It also best prepares pupils to enter a world characterised by a radical diversity of beliefs, religions and world views.”

The textbook, titled Who is Jesus?, introduces…

The Vatican announced the resignation in a one-line statement. It was the latest in a string of cases of alleged misconduct against bishops to come to light this year, following the scandal of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick that exposed how bishops have largely avoided sanction for improper behaviour.

The current archbishop of Los Angeles, Most Rev Jose Gomez, said the archdiocese was made aware of the claim in 2005.

Rev Gomez said prosecutors declined to bring charges, but that the archdiocese forwarded the complaint to the Vatican office that handles sex abuse cases.

Rev Gomez said that office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, imposed precautionary measures against Salazar and that a further investigation by the archdiocese’s independent review board found the allegation to be credible.

Rev Gomez said Salazar, 69, has “consistently denied any wrongdoing”. The archdiocese said it had received no other allegations against Salazar.

“These decisions have been made out of deep concern for the healing and reconciliation of abuse victims and for the good of the church’s mission,” Rev Gomez told the Los Angeles faithful in a letter.

“Let us continue to stay close to the victim survivors of abuse, through our prayer and our actions.”

Rev Gomez said that the alleged misconduct occurred while Salazar was a parish priest in the 1990s, and that the claim was…

Bishop William Amove Avenya of Gboko Diocese, in Benue state, told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need: “The Fulani have claimed far more victims during 2018 than Boko Haram, but no one is doing anything about it.

“Fulani tribesmen armed to the teeth, are murdering pregnant women and children, and destroying our smallholdings.”

According to the 2018 Global Terrorism Index, as many as 1,700 deaths have been attributed to Fulani-militia attacks carried out between January and September 2018.

Bishop William also accused EU politicians he had met during a meeting in Brussels as being “poorly informed” about the violence in the West African nation.

“This is a time bomb that threatens to ignite the whole region,” he added.

Violence between Christian farming communities and Muslim Fulani herdsmen in the middle belt areas of Nigeria has increased in recent years.

Earlier this year the Secretary of the Nigerian Christian Elders Forum (NCEF), Bosun Emmanuel, accused President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration of “openly pursuing an anti-Christian agenda”.

He also claimed that “Christianity is on the brink of extinction in Nigeria”.

Bishop William appealed to the international community “not to wait for a genocide to happen before intervening”.

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The MP for Birkenhead is the chairman of the cross-party Commons Work and Pensions Committee who have called on the Government to take urgent action to avoid vulnerable people being forced into “miserable hardship”.

Mr Field said: “The Government’s plans will see ‘very’ disabled people getting the extra help they need at the cost of other disabled people.”

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) removed disability premiums – worth up to £64 a week to help pay for the additional costs of living with a disability – under Universal Credit.

Existing claimants who already receive the premiums will be protected under a process called “managed migration”, but the top-ups will not be available to new claimants, the MPs said.

“We have already seen the terrible cost of the department’s failure to find out what is happening to the most vulnerable claimants in the transition to Universal Credit,” Mr Field added.

“People receiving the disability premiums are already, by definition, managing in some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable in our society, and this includes disabled children, and children forced to care for a disabled parent.

“It would be a terrible betrayal of these people to allow another failure of planning in this mega reform to worsen their situations, even one bit.

“No-one should ever be forced further…

Langfang is a city between Beijing and Tianjin in Hebei province whose officials have issued a ban on festive decorations and sales of Christmas-themed items, saying they are going for a clean streets and environment award. 

However, the decision is suspected to have a darker tone as on social media they also appealed to the public to report anyone “spreading religion” in parks and squares during this period.

This comes at the end of a year in which there has been harsh action taken against both registered and unregistered churches in China, with large protestant congregations having members detained and registered churches experiencing increasing levels of surveillance, such as CCTV cameras in church buildings. 

In Langfang, anyone selling Christmas trees, wreaths, stockings or Father Christmas merchandise in the city could be punished and members of the local law enforcement are not allowed to take days off from 23rd-25th December to ‘maintain stability.’

Further south in the country in Henan province state-sanctioned Christian associations issued a notice to churches requesting non-Christians to not take part in the celebrations. Decorations for churches also cannot have religious elements in them. 

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Qasir and Amoon are said to have posted disrespectful material on their own website, after which they fled Lahore for four years but then returned. 

Their case was heard by the Additional Session judge Javed Iqbal Bosal on 13th December inside a prison due to security reasons and he found them guilty and sentenced them to death.

Both brothers have been in District Jail Jhelum in Punjab province since 2014. 

The two men are both married and Qaiser has three children. 

The UK group CLAAS (The Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement) has decided to challenge the decision before the Lahore High Court Bench as soon as possible.

In blasphemy cases the judges are often under threat from religious fanatic, meaning trial judges frequently convict those accused of blasphemy.

Nasir Saeed Director of CLAAS-UK, said in a statement: “This is a very unfortunate situation as because of threats from hardliners lower courts pass their responsibility to the higher court and then it takes years to prove the accused innocent.

“We have seen this in the recent case of Asia Bibi, who was similarly convicted by the lower court and it took her years to reach to the supreme court to get justice. I am afraid now Qasir and Amoon will have to wait years to get justice.

“It is a sad reality that the present government has no intention even to talk about or to take steps to stop the…