Lord Carey taking Home Office to court over alleged discrimination against Christian Syrian refugees

In an article he wrote for The Daily Telegraph, Lord Carey said as violent conflict has erupted again in Syria he doubts that Syrian Christians will have much help from the UK government because they are of the “wrong faith”.

He referenced how refugees of other faith groups were supposedly favoured over Christians.

 

“Of the refugees who came here in 2015 under the Vulnerable Persons Scheme, only 1.6 per cent were Christians,” he said.

“That’s despite this group being 10 per cent of the Syrian population.The situation for Christians seeking asylum has worsened.

“In 2016 only 0.4 per cent were Christians. In 2017, 0.2 per cent. And in the early part of last year none of the 1,112 refugees we took in were Christians. The Yazidi and Druze minorities have been treated just as unfairly.”

He added that the government states that their selection of refugees who are allowed to settle in the UK is dependent on their suffering. However, Lord Carey highlighted what deems is an issue in the selection process.

“In their supposed blindness to religion they allowed the process of choosing refugees to be dominated by workers for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in refugee camps,” he said.

“Sunni Muslims – 74 per cent of Syria’s population – have made up 99 per cent of the refugees we admit.

“UK officials eventually conceded the obvious: Christian refugees are…

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Kanye West Releases Highly Anticipated Jesus Is King Gospel Album

Kanye West Releases Highly Anticipated Jesus Is King Gospel Album



After a several-months long delay, rapper and singer Kanye West launched his Jesus is King album on Friday.


The release features 11 songs loaded with Scripture and praises to Christ, as reported by Faithwire.


“To my fans. Thank you for being loyal & patient. We are specifically fixing mixes on ‘Everything We Need’ ‘Follow God’ & ‘Water.’ We not going to sleep until this album is out,” West wrote on Twitter Friday morning. The album was released that afternoon.


Several artists commented on the beauty of the album’s lyrics.


“Regardless of how you feel about #KanyeWest the content is refreshing to hear. God will get His glory. And #JesusIsKing,” said Christian rapper Lecrae in a tweet.


Artist Marco McKinnis also tweeted, “God is really working through Ye. If you don’t recognize that, it’s time to catch up.”


West doesn’t skate around Scripture in his lyrics. In the song “Selah,” the rapper sings: “They say the week start on Monday / But the strong start on Sunday / Won’t be in bondage to any man / John 8:33 / We the descendants of Abraham / Ye should be made free / John 8:36 / To whom the Song set free is free indeed / He saved a wretch like me.”


West also pays homage to popular Christian fast-food restaurant, Chick-fil-A. In his song “Closed on Sunday” West sings: “Closed on Sunday / You my Chick-fil-A / You’re my number one…

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Pope’s Amazon synod proposes married priests and female deacons

The majority of 180 bishops from nine Amazonian countries also called for the Vatican to reopen a debate on ordaining women as deacons, saying: “It is urgent for the church in the Amazon to promote and confer ministries for men and women in an equitable manner.”

The proposals were contained in a final document approved on Saturday at the end of a three-week synod on the Amazon, which Pope Francis called in 2017 to focus attention on saving the rainforest and better ministering to its indigenous people.

 

The Catholic Church, which contains nearly two dozen different rites, already allows married priests in Eastern Rite churches and in cases where married Anglican priests have converted.

However, if Francis accepts the proposal, it would mark a first for the Latin Rite church in a millennium.

The celibate priesthood has been a tradition of the Latin Rite Catholic Church since the 11th century, imposed in part for financial reasons to ensure that priests’ assets pass to the church, not to heirs.

Francis told the bishops at the end of the voting that he would indeed reopen the work of a 2016 commission that studied the issue of women deacons. And he said he planned to take the bishops’ overall recommendations and prepare a document of his own before the end of the year.

Some conservatives and traditionalists have warned that any papal opening to married priests or women…

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Benevolent Teenager Raises over $12,000 for Local Food Pantry

Benevolent Teenager Raises over $12,000 for Local Food Pantry



Thirteen-year-old Joshua LeRette has spent the past four years raising thousands of dollars for his local food pantry. He recently donated $12,583 that slowly accumulated over the years, according to KCCI.


The Iowa teenager started his compassionate venture in the third grade after he heard one of his classmates didn’t have food at Thanksgiving. In response, Joshua asked his friends and family to donate canned goods in lieu of his birthday presents. He was able to gather 100 cans from his request to donate to the local food pantry in Red Oak and hasn’t stopped since.


Joshua slowly built up the cash for his most recent donation with bake sales and lemonade stands. “I’ve seen people pay more than $50 for one of his pies,” his mom, Dawn LeRette said. The teenage entrepreneur has also invited other community members to donate their pies as well.


But Joshua doesn’t take in just high donations. One woman who could only contribute a dollar was allowed to choose anything on the bake sale table. “Those are the people we do this for,” Dawn said.


The motivation behind Joshua’s benevolent work is to help kids in school.


“He thinks if kids are not thinking about being hungry, they will be more focused on school,” Dawn said.


According to the Christ Cupboard, a food pantry run by First Covenant Church in Red Oak, recipients of the donated goods are often…

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Archbishop of Canterbury calls on Boris Johnson to mind his language

Justin Welby told the Sunday Times there was a risk of pouring “petrol” on the country’s divisions on the issue of Britain’s departure from the European Union.

The archbishop said Mr Johnson had come to symbolise a climate in which Britain had become consumed by “an abusive and binary approach to political decisions”, and where those with opposing views treated each other as “total” enemies.

 

In an era in which social media had made it “extraordinarily dangerous to use careless comments”, and in which hate speech was on the rise, Mr Welby called for political leaders to take more care with their language.

He said his criticisms were not confined to Mr Johnson and his Government, but made it clear he considered the prime minister partly to blame for the fact society had become “quite broken”.

“I think we have become addicted to an abusive and binary approach to political decisions: ‘It’s either this or you’re my total enemy’,” Mr Welby told the paper.

“There have been inflammatory words used on all sides, in parliament and outside – ‘traitor’, ‘fascist’, all kinds of really bad things have been said at the highest level in politics.”

Mr Welby said he was “shocked” by Mr Johnson’s recent dismissal of concerns extreme language could encourage death threats against politicians as “humbug”.

And he added political leaders could no longer behave the same way as Mr Johnson’s…

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Texas College Party Shooting Leaves 2 Dead, 12 Injured

Texas College Party Shooting Leaves 2 Dead, 12 Injured



An off-campus college party descended into chaos Saturday night when a gunman opened fire on patrons, killing two and injuring a further twelve people.


According to the Associated Press, police believe that the gunman was targeting one person, but that others may have been shot at random. In the pandemonium following the gunfire, the suspect managed to evade capture – he has still yet to be located.


The shooting took place at a Halloween party attended by several students from Texas A&M University-Commerce, though it was not thought to be a school-sanctioned event.


Mom Kimberly Wilson said her daughter was at the party when gunshots rang out and she managed to flee the scene. “She’s angry, hurt, upset. She’s going through that whole emotional thing,” Wilson, an Afghanistan war vet, told AP. “When you’ve not been trained to deal with something like that — it just throws you off.”


In a statement, University President and CEO Mark Rudin noted that counseling services were available to all enrolled students at the university’s counseling center. He also urged people to stop speculating on details, adding that there was “a tremendous amount of misinformation” surrounding the incident.


Shockingly, on Sunday night, police reported that gunfire had erupted at a vigil for the victims, held just 24 hours after the murders. There were no injuries recorded, but…

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Vietnamese priest sheds light on Essex lorry deaths

Fr Anthony Dang Huu Nam, a Catholic priest in Nghe An province, says the victims are from a rural village called Yen Thanh.

He claimed to have heard that those found dead in Essex were part of a group of more than 100 people travelling to Europe.

 

He told the BBC: “According to a few sources that have told me, in this case they were many people, more than 100 were on their way to a new life, but 39 died.

“A few families confirmed the deaths of their relatives who are the victims of this tragic journey.”

Fr Anthony, who has among those who have led efforts to gather contact details for all the families involved in the tragedy, led prayers all day on Saturday for the situation.

“The whole district is covered in sorrow,” he told Reuters news agency. “This is a catastrophe for our community.”

Experts have said Vietnamese families are paying smugglers large sums of money to help transport relatives into Europe via Russia.

Bernie Gravett, a former Metropolitan police officer who now advises the EU on human trafficking, said migrants from Vietnam often enter Europe via a different route to people coming from China – the country of origin police previously identified for the container victims.

He told BBC Breakfast: “The Chinese would generally come down through Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, across through Turkey and then up what we call the Balkan…

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Christian Comedian John Crist Announces Netflix Comedy Special

Christian Comedian John Crist Announces Netflix Comedy Special



Christian comedian John Crist will release a Netflix special, “I Ain’t Prayin’ For That,” on Thanksgiving.


Crist told The Tennessean that Christian comedy “has gotten a bad rap in the past because it’s very passive, and it’s not honest.”


“It’s like knock-knock jokes type humor,” he said. “What we’re bringing to the table is another level of honesty, and maybe transparency, that I think does make some people uncomfortable.”


Crist’s comedy points to nuances and quirks in the Christian church, but he said he doesn’t joke about core Christian beliefs.


“There’s nothing funny to me about Jesus on the cross or the Virgin Mary, things that are very at the center of our belief system,” he said. “But if your pastor is dressed like he’s on ‘MTV Cribs,’ I’m gonna make fun of that. I worked in a church last week that had ‘Pastors Only’ parking spots, which in my estimation, is, I think, 100 percent everything that Jesus as a person was against.”


Crist’s first gig was at a Chili’s restaurant in 2009. He gained popularity through his online videos, including “Millennial International,” “Every Parent at Disney” and “7 Signs You Grew Up Christian.”


“There’s so much healing that takes place every night at our show,” Crist said in an interview earlier this year.


“Last year, a mom told me, ‘I’ve got…

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Pope Francis thanks Amazon bishops after talks on married priests request

In his homily on Sunday at a Mass to conclude weeks of discussions at the Vatican on the needs of the Amazon’s faithful, Francis did not mention the bishops’ vote to press the Vatican to allow married men to become priests in special circumstances.

A day earlier, Francis told bishops he would draw his conclusions in a document he hoped to write by the end of the year.

 

Allowing married men to be ordained in remote Amazon areas that are facing severe shortage of priests would chip away at the Catholic Church’s nearly millennium-old teaching upholding priestly celibacy.

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Supreme Court Rejects Case of Christian Student Forced to Write Islamic Prayer

Supreme Court Rejects Case of Christian Student Forced to Write Islamic Prayer



The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up the case of a Christian high school student who claims her constitutional rights were violated when she was forced to write on a worksheet, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” 


The justices, without comment, refused Oct. 15 to hear an appeal of the case from the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had ruled the teacher at La Plata High School in Charles County, Md., did not violate the free speech or religious rights of the student, Caleigh Wood. She was in the 11th grade at the time and refused to complete the assignment. She received a failing grade. 


“The Supreme Court has recognized the secular value of studying religion on a comparative basis,” the Fourth Circuit ruled in February.


The Thomas More Law Center represented the student. 


Wood and her classmates viewed PowerPoint slides, one of which stated, “Most Muslims’ faith is stronger than the average Christian.” They also were told to fill out a worksheet about the “Five Pillars” of Islam. It was on that worksheet that students were required to write, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” The profession of faith is called the Shahada.


Thomas More alleged that the assignment violated the Establishment Clause by “impermissibly endors[ing] and advanc[ing] the…

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