The bylaw pushed through by Markus Söder, the Bavarian state premier, requires government buildings to display a cross in their entrance from next month.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, head of the German Bishops’ Conference, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that Mr Söder had not discussed the law change with him and warned against “instrumentalising” the Christian symbol.

“This has caused unrest and is pitting people against each other,” Cardinal Marx said.

Mr Söder said in a statement that the cross “stands for elemental values such as charity, human dignity and tolerance”.

He added that crosses should not be seen as religious symbols but as a “clear avowal of our Bavarian identity and Christian values”.

Roman Catholic and evangelical Christian leaders have also said they are concerned the cross is being used by the ruling Christian Social Union as nothing more than a political tool to garner votes ahead of October’s election amid fears of a rise of the far right.

The order could still be challenged in the courts for breaching the German constitution’s insistence of equal treatment of religions.

Gunmen armed with grenades targeted Notre-Dame de Fatima Church on the border of the predominantly Muslim PK 5 area where 21 people were killed during clashes last month.

Witnesses said churchgoers were forced to escape through a hole made in the church wall by police.

“Filled with panic, some Christians began to flee until bullets and grenades began to fall in the parish grounds, trapping those who remained in the compound,” Moses Aliou, a priest at the church, told Reuters.

CAR has faced several years of both ethnic and religious conflict since 2013 when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels ousted President Francois Bozize.

Retaliation killings are common occurrences, spear-headed largely from Christian communities, and Muslim “self-defence” groups.

This isn’t the first time the church has been attacked.

In 2014 gunmen with grenades killed a priest and some worshippers.

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The CLC’s role in the case will be looked into after criticism of the group. 

The main criticisms have been toward Mr Pavel Stroilov, who wrote a letter to Alfie’s father, Tom Evans, saying it would be legal for him to take his son out of the hospital. 

In the court’s notes they say: “The father had a letter written to him by Mr Pavel Stroilov of the Christian Legal Centre which, we were told, is a campaigning organisation. In the letter Mr Stroilov, who we have been told is not a lawyer, purported to give the father legal advice. He said that it would be lawful for the father to remove Alfie from the hospital and take him to any other place he chose.”

They go on to say: “is letter was misleading to the extent of giving the father false advice. We have been told that it had the most regrettable consequences in that it led to a confrontation in which Alfie was involved. The Police had to be called.”

The CLC released a statement last Friday, before the Solicitors Regulation Authority was made aware of the critcism but after some initial concern regarding their involvement: “The Christian Legal Centre…has only been assisting Mr Evans and Ms James for less than a month. Many of the important court hearings happened before this time.”

“Before our involvement, for example, Mr Evans and Ms James were represented by the…

The multi-millionaire has been criticised for saying in an interview that 400 years of slavery in America “sounds like a choice”.

He made the comments to entertainment website TMZ, where he was interrupted by a staff member who accused him of an “absence of thought”.

Responding to the comments, David Westlake, CEO of International Justice Mission told Premier News Hour slavery is never a choice.

“The only people who had a choice in the 400 years of slavery are the people who captured and sold slaves. They were exercising a choice to profit from other people’s misery.

“It raises an issue which is how people get into slavery. Slavery is a brutal violent crime. There is no choice involved.

“It’s a shock for people to know that there are more slaves now than there were during the transatlantic slave trade.”

Kanye West stirs up the TMZ newsroom over TRUMP, SLAVERY and FREE THOUGHT. There’s A LOT more that went down … and the fireworks are exploding on @TMZLive today. Check your local listings for show times. pic.twitter.com/jwVsJCMPiq

— TMZ (@TMZ) May 1, 2018

Westlake said the biggest element of modern day slavery is bonded labour, in which people borrow a small amount of money and are then trapped in debt bondage.

He added: “They are told they have to pay back this money by working and that can go on for generation after generation where costs are added – the debt…

The Christian owners of Ashers Bakery were found to have discriminated by refusing to make a product iced with the slogan Support Gay Marriage.

The order was placed by gay rights activist Gareth Lee in May 2014 and was the subject of a Supreme Court appeal in Belfast this week.

His barrister Robin Allen QC said: “This is what was a relatively small incident in his life which has become enormously significant and continues to be so.

“That is a heavy burden to bear for one individual.”

The Ashers legal action has run for four years and attracted enormous attention.

The original case against the McArthur family, who own Ashers and enjoy the backing of the Christian Institute lobby group, was taken by Mr Lee with the support of Northern Ireland’s
Equality Commission.

The bakers lost in the lower courts.

Mr Allen said the Commission was seeking “legal certainty” and stepped in because only a millionaire could afford to litigate this case.

“In the context of this case it is super-difficult because in relation to the provision of goods, facilities and services you are talking about a prohibition on discrimination on transactions which may range from a box of matches up to a long-term contract.

“In many cases, particularly true in a divided community, prohibition in relation to goods and services is a task which is difficult to police through a commission or…

Speaking to the Shropshire Star, the Northamptonshire vicar said “there’s a lot of things churches do that aren’t celebrated”.

However, he added: “It would be quite misleading to suggest the Church is not in crisis though.

“But out of crises new things can form, and we’re quite good at forming new things out of crises.”

The former popstar and Strictly Come Dancing contestant also opened up about the difficulty he has in balancing his life in the media and maintaining relationships with people in his church.

“I manage it very badly,” he said.

“I’m half-time in my parish, although really there’s no such thing as half-time because people don’t have half-time lives. Half of my time is work in the media. That’s what I always have done. And I try and fit everything in, although sometimes I don’t do it very well.”

Highlighting the importance of the Church being able to turn people’s novelty visits into regular attendance, he said: “We need to reform our relationship with the people around us. In the past the Church was just there – it was just establishment.

“Lots of people like it being there, but in a picturesque relic. It has no future as a picturesque relic.”

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