Christian charity blasts govt plans for parents to lose right to veto sex-ed at age 15

Education Secretary Damian Hinds told MPs in parliament on Thursday that children should be able to request sex education in at least one of the three terms before their 16th birthday.

James Mildred, spokesperson for Christian charity CARE, told Premier why he thinks it is problematic.

 

“This is about who is ultimately best placed to have responsibility for the education. And it is not politicians – it’s parents who have the ultimate responsibility for educating their children.”

The proposed change is part of new draft guidelines on the teaching of sex education in England’s schools.

The guidelines – which will become compulsory from 2020, are now open to consultation.

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Defending the decision Hinds said in the Commons: “A right for parents to withdraw their child up to 18 years of age is no longer compatible with English case law nor with the European Convention on Human Rights.

“It’s also clear that allowing parents to withdraw their child up to age 16 would not allow the child to opt into sex education before the legal age of consent.”

The new wider guidelines people are being encouraged to share their views on will include mental wellbeing; consent; keeping safe online; physical health and fitness and LGBT issues.

Mildred told Premier the new plans are not respectful of Christian parents.

“We must respect the fact that…

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Author Alan Noble on Being a ‘Disruptive Witness’

(Photo: REUTERS/Mark Kauzlarich)Julia Vitora (L), 11, Barry Vitora, Sabrina McKenna, 11, and Gianni Vitora, 11, play Pokemon Go in Central Park as they enjoy the mild weather at the start of the Labor Day weekend ahead of potential storms on the east coast of the United States caused by Tropical Storm Hermine in New York, U.S., September 3, 2016.

The twin forces of secularism and distracting technologies present challenges to sharing the Gospel, Alan Noble writes in Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age.

Embracing the Gospel requires thought — reflection and meditation on our own life and how that relates to God’s message in the Bible — yet, we are easily distracted from this life-giving task by a multitude of apps available on our smartphones, explains Noble, professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University and editor-in-chief of Christ and Pop Culture.

“Humans are tremendously gifted at hypocrisy and inconsistency, but a ubiquitous, powerful stream of information and interaction driven by technology enables these gifts to flourish. And that is precisely the problem,” he writes in the introduction.

Meeting this challenge is necessary, Noble writes, if the Church in the United States is to flourish.

“Failure to reassess how we bear witness to our faith in the twenty-first century, and failure to take these societal changes into account, has had and will continue to have serious effects on the life of the church and our ability to have a prophetic voice in the world. … If these trends continue, we can expect the church to dramatically weaken in the United States as…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – The Christian Post.

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Steph Curry on Making Family Movies: ‘I Don’t Mind Being Called Corny’

Steph Curry on Making Family Movies: ‘I Don’t Mind Being Called Corny’



NBA all-star guard Stephen Curry revealed a few more details about his Sony deal in a new interview with Variety, saying it will produce family-friendly content and that he doesn’t care if people view him as “corny.”


Financial details weren’t announced when the deal was unveiled in April, although it was known that the partnership would focus on three areas: faith, family and sports. The deal between Sony Pictures Entertainment and his production company, Unanimous Media, will spotlight box office movies, television shows and video games.


“I don’t mind being called corny,” Curry, an outspoken Christian, told Variety. “I’m comfortable with who I am.”


Variety reported that Unanimous has promoted ideas to Sony that cover a wide variety of entertainment, including “drama, comedy, unscripted, TV movies and miniseries.”


Curry’s entertainment team is developing “concepts” tied to Christian holidays and also promoting an animated Bible story, Variety reported. Another concept is something called Church Hoppers, which would be a comedy “about a jilted groom who takes his pals along with him as he navigates the church scene in search of a new bride,” according to Variety.


Jeffrey Godsick, executive vice president of brand partnerships and global strategy at Sony, said it was “very important” to ink Curry to a deal.


“He chose…

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Pastor Under Fire for Purging Members Who Attend Church Poorly

(Screenshot: WBKO)Pastor Ryan Broers of Cave City Baptist Church in Kentucky.

A Kentucky pastor who purged the rolls of his church of members who he says have been attending church poorly, is now coming under fire for how the now fuming ex-members say they were delisted.

Cave City Baptist Senior Pastor Ryan Broers told WBKO he was trying to send the delinquent members of his church a “wake-up call” when he sent them delisting letters this week.

“A lot of the people that the letters were sent to are not attending church anywhere, and this was kind of a wake-up call to them ‘you’ve broken fellowship with God, you’ve broken fellowship with this church, you need to come back and repent and get your relationship with Him.'” Broers said.

Samantha Esters, who had been attending the church since she was a kid, told WBKO however that the only message she got from the way she was delisted is to never return to the church again.

“I don’t ever want to go back to that church,” said Esters after receiving a letter informing her of her delisting that was sent out on July 16.

A copy of the letter was posted to Facebook by Cave City resident Jason Pedigo.

The letter signed by Broers and Student & Worship Pastor Steven Wilson, point out to the members how much the church cherished their…

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Bishop Joseph D’Souza Says India Needs Its Own #ChurchToo and #MeToo Movements – Urban Christian News

India is in dire need of its own #ChurchToo and #MeToo movements, a well-respected pastor and human rights leader is urging as recent reports of clergy-related sexual abuse have rocked churches in the Kerala state in the past month.

Bishop Joseph D’Souza, president of the All India Christian Council, traveled to Washington, D.C., this week to attend a religious freedom roundtable hosted by Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback.

But since D’Souza’s trip comes as much media attention has surrounded two different cases of alleged sexual abuse by Indian clergy members from different denominational backgrounds, he spoke with The Christian Post Monday about how Indian Christians and churches should respond.

“It would be great to have the #ChurchToo movement in India because India probably needs it more than the West because the #MeToo movement in India is far more needed on several fronts,” he said, adding that India’s chauvinistic society has bred much male aggression against women and girls even inside the church.

As many women in the United States have come forward this year with allegations of being abused or molested at the hands of clergy members through the #ChurchToo movement, a similar trend has been happening in the south Asian state.

Last month, allegations emerged that a handful of priests with the Indian Orthodox Church in Kerala sexually abused a woman by using her confessions as blackmail to force her to have romantic encounters. The allegations led to the suspension of five priests, four of whom have been charged with…

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Bishop’s vlog shortlisted for Not For Profit campaign award

Last November, the Bishop of Burnley, Rt Rev. Philip North, record at least one daily video log (vlog) while leading a pilgrimage of around 40 people from parishes in Lancashire across Israel.

A total of 13 vlogs were made across the 10 days of the pilgrimage. They have now been viewed more than 10,000 times on YouTube by people Bishop Philip has dubbed ‘virtual pilgrims’.

Now ‘Virtual Pilgrimage’ has been shortlisted in the ‘Not For Profit Campaign’ category of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) North West PRide Awards for 2018. 

The CIPR PRide Awards cover every region of the UK and feature the best PR work from the last year. 

Each vlog was two minutes or less and featured the bishop describing each day’s activities in his own unique way; speaking from the Sea of Galilee to an ancient water tunnel deep under Jerusalem. 

They also featured interviews with some of the pilgrims and The Dean of St George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem, The Very Rev. Hosam Naoum. 

The Bishop’s videos featured in local press and the audio was also used by the BBC to create a 30-minute special programme which aired at Christmas 2017 and repeated at Easter 2018.

They have also been well received in schools where they have been used in RE lessons, prompting plans to create resources to be used alongside the vlogs in future terms. 

The idea came from Ronnie Semley,…

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Internet Filters Not Effective in Preventing Teens From Seeing Sexual Material

(Photo: Unsplash/Thom)

A new study has revealed that internet filters, designed to protect young people from seeing sexually explicit material, don’t really work.

Researchers Andrew K. Przybylski and Victoria Nash from the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford looked at data provided by 9,352 male and 9,357 female subjects, ranging in age from 11 to 16 years, from the European Union and the U.K. They also analyzed data from an equal number of caregivers. Their analyses of the data “delivered conclusive evidence that filters were not effective for protecting young people from online sexual material.”

Nearly 50 percent of the subjects involved in the U.K. study and almost a quarter of those from the E.U. reported having some kind of internet filter. And yet, the study revealed that they were still able to see approximately the same amount of explicit material — nudity, private parts, people having sex — as those subjects who surfed online without filters.

Researchers were also surprised to find that “households reporting using filters were more, not less, likely to have an adolescent who reported having seen violent pornography in the past 6 months.”

Participants were more likely to report seeing images or videos of nudity than of violent porn.

The researchers also sought to “calculate the number of households which would have to be filtered to prevent one young person, who would otherwise see sexual material online, from encountering it over a 12-month period.” 

“Depending on the form of content, results indicated that between 17 and 77 households would need to be…

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Missouri Tourist Boat Capsizes in Stormy Waters, Killing 13

Missouri Tourist Boat Capsizes in Stormy Waters, Killing 13



Thursday evening, a tourist boat carrying 31 people capsized in Table Rock Lake outside of Branson, Missouri. The boat, known as a duck boat, is equipped for traveling on both water and land, however, due to a sudden storm, was unable to ride out the waves to make it safely back to shore.


Among the 13 deceased were children. Four people, including the driver of the boat, remain missing today.


“An off-duty sheriff’s deputy working security for the boat company” noticed the sinking vessel and went to assist the passengers, according to KCRA. With his help, 14 were able to survive.


“Branson was under a severe thunderstorm warning issued shortly before 6:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m. ET), about half an hour before the boat capsized,” CNN reports, “Pattison said he believes the weather was calm when the duck boat went into the water,” they said of the president of Ride the Ducks Branson’s parent company. “Partway through coming back is when … the waves picked up and then obviously swamped the boat,” he said Friday morning.”


7 of the 14 survivors were injured in the event and were taken to a hospital, including the captain. 2 remain in critical condition.


Rescue and recovery efforts continue today to locate the missing passengers.


Please join us in prayer for the victims and family members affected by this tragedy.


Publication Date: July 20, 2018


Photo Courtesy:…

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LDS Church Asks Judge to Dismiss Woman’s Lawsuit Alleging Rape at Missionary Training Center

(Photo: Facebook)McKenna Denson, 55, of Pueblo, Colo. alleges that Joseph Bishop, 85, former leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Missionary Training Center sexually assaulted her in 1984.

Lawyers for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have asked a federal judge in Utah to dismiss a lawsuit from a woman accusing a former leader of the organization’s Missionary Training Center of sexual assault, arguing that it is too late.

In her lawsuit, the woman, McKenna Denson, 55, of Pueblo, Colorado, alleges she was sexually assaulted by the training center’s leader, Joseph Bishop, now 85, while she was a missionary there in 1984.

Attorneys for the LDS Church argued that the statute of limitations on Denson’s claim began ticking in 1984 when she alleges she was assaulted and argued that she could have filed a claim in 1988 when she says she reported the assault to LDS leaders, who took no action according to a FOX13 report.

“The statute begins to run when you realize no one reported back to you,” the LDS Church’s lawyer, David Jordan said.

U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball who is set to prepare a written ruling on the matter in 30 days wasn’t so sure.

“How would she know anything happened in 1988 to Mr. Bishop?” Kimball asked in court.

Jordan further…

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Two Earthquakes Rock Surrey in 12 Hours – Urban Christian News

Surrey has been rocked by a 2.7 magnitude earthquake today – the second in just 12 hours.

The quake was the sixth to shake the area near both Gatwick and Heathrow airports in just four weeks – and raised the unlikely spectre of a ‘Big One’ hitting London.

Previous quakes have included a 2.6 magnitude tremor felt in parts of Surrey and West Sussex on June 27 and a quake measuring 2.6 recorded on June 30.

Today’s 2.7 tremor was recorded at Newdigate, which is eight miles from Gatwick and 30 miles from Heathrow, just after 1.30pm.

It was less than a mile below the surface.

Just hours earlier, a tremor was recorded at 4.59am at Newdigate at a magnitude of 2.0.

Large earthquakes are extremely rare in Britain but scientists recently uncovered two fault lines running directly under London.

Click here to read more.
Source: Christian Post

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