Islam And Black Majority Churches, the Future of Religion in Britain

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Islam And Black Majority Churches, the Future of Religion in Britain

Christian Today report– The future of religion in Britain is in black majority churches and Islam, according to a leading expert in religious trends.

For white British people, it is particularly bleak. Leaders who can inspire and build congregations are few and far between.

“Most ordained ministers are good, well meaning people with the leadership ability of bank managers,” says Professor David Voas, who specialises in population studies at Essex University.

Statistics show that Islam and newer forms of Christianity are overhauling the Church of England as white Britons lose their taste for worship.

He says: “The future of religion in Britain is to be found in Islam and the black majority churches. Muslims already contribute ten per cent of British births; within several decades people of Muslim heritage will form ten percent of the population, even if immigration came to an abrupt halt tomorrow.

“If even half are observant, they will form a substantial proportion of the religiously active population. Ethnic minority Christians will have another large share.”

Professor Voas reveals the latest trends in a blog for the thinktank Theos which is published as the Church of England prepares to debate reforms to structure, training and mission at the General Synod which meets tomorrow in Church House, Westminster.

“While the secularisation of consciousness in the West is an ongoing process, the secularisation of behaviour has reached the point of no return,” he writes.

He says the leaders of the major Christian denominations are asking the wrong question. The issue is not why people are staying away from church but why anyone would go to church.

“The onus is on churches to offer something that people want and would have difficulty finding anywhere else.”

He says it is more about community than religion, and the problem is that local churches “are not especially attractive”.

“The elderly may need people, but for the young there are simply too many alternative ways of spending time.”

While about half of English people born early in the 20th century still declare their affiliation to the Church of England, just one in 20 of those born at the end of the century do so. All Protestant denominations are similarly affected.

In addition, belief in God has taken a battering, he writes.

In another blog for the same Theos series, David Goodhew, director of ministerial practice at Cranmer Hall, Durham, says the new “atheist church” in north London illustrates the secularisation of Britain. But the picture is more complex than that, he continues, with a proliferation of new and growing churches in parts of the country.

He argues that while it is often assumed that as Britain gets more ethnically diverse, it gets less Christian in fact the reverse is the case and that Roman Catholicism is being significantly boosted due to migration. In addition, at least 5,000 new congregations have started in Britain since the 1980s, mostly from new churches.

“Looking forward, evidence suggests that, alongside considerable potential for death, Christianity in Britain also has considerable potential for resurrection in the coming decades.”

Nick Spencer of Theos writes that a new edition of Professor Grace Davie’s influential book on Religion in Britain since 1945 is shortly to be published under a new title, Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox. Theos is hosting a debate on the subject next week with Prof Davie.

Source: Christian Today

Justin Welby Says social Media Should Ban Racist and Antisemitic Trolls Online

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Justin Welby Says social Media Should Ban Racist and Antisemitic Trolls Online

Christian Today report–  The Archbishop of Canterbury called on social media sites to crack down on antisemitic abuse online.

Archbishop Justin Welby said Facebook and Twitter must do more to prevent the proliferation of racism and antisemitism on their sites.

The Archbishop was speaking in advance of a report today that calls for “internet Asbos” to ban “determined” abusive social media users from certain sites.

The report by the all-party parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism calls on the Crown Prosecution Service to investigate whether prevention orders similar to those already used against sex offenders could be used against online trolls.

Recent reports of a rise in antisemitism in Britain revealed that “Hitler” and “Holocaust” were among the top 35 key words used on Twitter last summer including the trending topic “#Hitlerwasright”.

The report says: “There is an allowance in the law for banning or blocking individuals from certain aspects of internet communication in relation to sexual offences.

“Informal feedback we have received from policy experts indicates that this is a potential area of exploration for prosecutors in relation to hate crime.

“If it can be proven in a detailed way that someone has made a considered and determined view to exploit various online networks to harm and perpetrate hate crimes against others then the accepted principles, rules and restrictions that are relevant to sex offences must surely apply.”

David Costolo, chief executive of Twitter, wrote in a recent memo that Twitter must start “kicking these people off right and left.”

Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi, said the report could not come at a more opportune time.

He added: “The threat against the Jewish community is real and anxiety remains high following recent events in France and elsewhere.”

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said: “The Government has introduced a range of measures to ensure Britain provides a safe environment for Jewish people and these figures are a depressing reminder that there is still much work to be done.”

Gideon Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Clearly education and interfaith work are important to ensure that more British people are not lured into antisemitism, but surely the greatest priority is to re-establish deterrence with zero-tolerance law enforcement, which requires police and CPS resources above all else, and a firm plan against antisemitic hate crime along the lines that we presented to the Home Secretary and which is now in advanced discussions.”

Archbishop Welby recently said Twitter was not the best place to have a row, and that in some ways it is one of the worst because it does not allow visible facial expressions and body language. He said in a blog post that if you want to tell someone off, the answer is not to tweet angrily to them but instead put an arm around their shoulder and show them your tears. Electronic media has no “volume control”, he warns. “Electronic media breaks through locked doors, and pierces people painfully.”

Source: Christian Today

New Vatican Commission Seeks Heavy Sanctions Against Bishops Ignoring Abuse Guidelines

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New Vatican Commission Seeks Heavy Sanctions Against Bishops Ignoring Abuse Guidelines

Catholic Herald report– Prelates who do not comply with child protection norms adopted by their bishops’ conferences and approved by the Vatican must face real consequences, Cardinal Seán O’Malley has said.

The president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said the commission “is very, very concerned about this whole area of [bishops’] accountability” and has a working group drawing up recommendations for Pope Francis.

The proposed new norms, the cardinal told reporters at the Vatican on February 7, “would allow the Church to respond in an expeditious way when a bishop has not fulfilled his obligations”.

“We think we have come up with some very practical recommendations that would help to remedy the situation that is such a source of anxiety to everybody” on the pontifical commission, he said. The recommendations will be presented to Pope Francis.

The cardinal and members of the commission, which includes survivors of clerical sex abuse, spoke to reporters at the end of their February 6-7 meeting at the Vatican.

Peter Saunders, an abuse survivor and commission member, said: “Bishop accountability is most definitely something that is a concern and central to some of the work that is going to be carried out by the commission.”

Mr Saunders, who is from London, said he knows the Vatican and the Church at large “operate in a slightly different time dimension” where the definition of “quick” may be months or years. “I get that,” Saunders said, “but when it comes to time, children only get one stab at childhood.”

“It is not disputed that there have been far too many cover-ups, there have been far too many clergy protected, moved from place to place – this has got to be consigned to history very quickly,” he said.

Fr Hans Zollner, a Jesuit psychologist and member of the commission, said, “as far as we know”, the number of bishops who have not followed their conference’s child-protection norms is not large, “but it is certainly a huge problem in terms of publicity and in terms of the authenticity of the Church. If you have bishops who do not comply with the Church’s own norms, we have a problem.”

Currently, he said, even though bishops are part of a bishops’ conference, they are accountable only to the Pope and there is no procedure for investigating the way a bishop complies with the norms and nothing that spells out the consequences of non-compliance.

“Until now every bishop has been a little pope” in his diocese and “can do whatever he wants” with regard to national guidelines, Fr Zollner said. “Only the Pope has authority over him.”

Mr Saunders told reporters that if in the next year there is not “firm action” on accountability and the implementation of child protection policies around the world, he would leave the commission.

Marie Collins, an Irish survivor of clerical abuse, who was appointed to the commission about eight months before Saunders, told reporters she also would leave if no progress is seen soon.

“We’re not here for lip service,” Mr Saunders said, but to protect children.

Cardinal O’Malley said 96 per cent of the world’s bishops’ conferences have sent the Vatican their child-protection norms, as requested in 2011 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Some of the norms are “weak”, he said, and the commission will work with those countries and countries without norms to bring them to full compliance.

Fr Zollner said only five of the world’s 112 bishops’ conferences have not submitted norms. All five are in French-speaking West Africa and are facing the challenges of civil strife, the Ebola epidemic, poverty and a lack of people familiar with both canon and civil law, something necessary for drawing up effective guidelines.

Cardinal O’Malley publicly thanked Pope Francis for a letter, released on February 5, insisting that the protection of children – and not the avoidance of scandal or bad publicity – must be the priority for the way all bishops deal with accusations of sex abuse by Church personnel.

The Pope’s letter also encouraged bishops to meet with and listen to survivors, which is something Cardinal O’Malley said “many bishops have not yet done”.

Mr Saunders told reporters: “There are far too many bishops around the world who have refused to meet with survivors.”

If a victim of clerical sexual abuse feels able, he said, the first thing he or she should do is report the crime to police “because we know there is an abysmal record” of “ill-judged responses” from bishops and priests.

Cardinal O’Malley said the commission also has set up working groups to design child protection workshops for members of the Roman Curia and for the courses for newly appointed bishops that the Vatican runs each September.

“The commission is also preparing materials for a Day of Prayer for all those who have been harmed by sexual abuse,” he said, which “underscores our responsibility to work for spiritual healing and also helps raise consciousness among the Catholic community about the scourge of child abuse.”

In addition, he said, commission members are contacting Catholic funding organisations “to ask them to include some requirements concerning child protection in their guidelines for eligibility for funding” and to consider giving poorer countries grants to establish child protection.

Source: Catholic Herald

Life without Jesus Will Lead You Straight in Hell, Says Darell Waltrip at National Prayer Breakfast

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Life without Jesus Will Lead You Straight in Hell, Says Darell Waltrip at National Prayer Breakfast

Christian Post report– Darrell Waltrip, a three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, shared how he became a follower of Jesus, telling the audience at the National Prayer Breakfast, which included President Obama and the Dalai Lama, “If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior … you are going to hell … good guys go to hell.”

“Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast is the biggest thing I’ve ever done, the most influential audience I’ve ever addressed and the most important speech I’ve ever given,” the keynote speaker and hall-of-famer Waltrip said.

“I know I talk to millions of fans on TV every week. However, I’m not entirely comfortable speaking to this many people in person, but the Lord told me to do so,” he added. “This was an honor beyond description and a moment I’ll never forget. I love to share my testimony about what the Lord has done in my life, and doing it on my birthday made it that much more special.”

The NASCAR legend told the audience, including Obama sitting a few feet away and the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama a little farther, that racing was both a blessing and a curse for him, as he was as aggressive on the racing track as he was in his life.

People, who liked him, thought he was “brash, ruthless, pushy, cocky, conceited, aloof, boastful arrogance and … annoying,” he said. “You can imagine what people who didn’t like me had to say about me.”

Waltrip said he did “everything to satisfy me.” And when his wife, Stevie, tried to take him to church, he said he just didn’t have the time “for this church stuff.” But things changed after a car wreck.

“I realized that wreck knocked me conscience,” he recalled. “It scared the hell out of me. I mean that literally. I realized, what if I had lost my life that day at Daytona? Would I have go to heaven or would I have gone to hell? I thought I was a good guy, but folks, let me tell you something: good guys go to hell.”

Waltrip continued, “If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, if you don’t have a relationship, if He’s not the Master of your life, if you’ve never gotten on your knees and asked Him to forgive you of your sins, or if you are just a pretty good guy or a pretty good gal, you’re going to go to hell.”

The former NASCAR driver said the day he knelt down to invite Jesus into his life was the greatest day of his life, which “changed everything.”

He said he still has wrecks and troubles, but he never feels he’s alone.

He also talked about miscarriages his wife had. He said they got to a point where they were about to give up and decide to adopt a child. But they prayed, God gave them peace in their hearts, and they had their first child in 1987.

“You don’t have to walk alone. … Get on your knees and ask for forgiveness. He’s waiting for you. He was there all the time. I just didn’t know or acknowledge it,” he said.

Source: Christian Post

Pope Francis Criticised for Comments on Spanking Children

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Pope Francis Criticised for Comments on Spanking Children

Christian Today report– A victim of child sexual abuse by clergy criticised Pope Francis on Saturday for appearing to endorse parents who spanked their children.

“Children don’t need to be hit. We need to talk about positive parenting … physical violence has no part in modern-day child upbringing,” said Peter Saunders, who is advising the Vatican on how to deal with its abuse crisis.

“I was hit throughout my childhood and it did me a lot of harm,” said Saunders, who was abused by a priest when he was a teenager and is one of 17 members of a Vatican commission tasked with recommending reforms in the 1.2 billion-member Church.

During a talk on fatherhood at his general audience last Wednesday, Francis departed from his prepared text to recount a conversation he once had with a father at a family encounter.

He quoted the man as telling him: “I sometimes have to hit the children a bit but I never slap them in the face so as not to demoralise them.” The Pope then added in his own words: “How beautiful! He has a sense of dignity. He must punish. He does it in the right way and then moves on.”

The Pope came under heavy criticism in social media for the comments.

Speaking at a news conference on the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis, Saunders said he was taken aback when he heard about what he called “the apparent endorsement of hitting children”. He added that he planned to talk to the Pope about it when they next met.

“He comes up with some howlers and that proves his humanity, but we need to talk to the Pope about this issue because there are millions of children around the world who are physically beaten on a daily basis,” he said.

“It might start off as a light tap, but actually the whole idea of hitting children is about inflicting pain,” said Saunders, head of Britain’s National Association for People Abused in Childhood.

Marie Collins, a victim of sexual abuse by clergy in her native Ireland, said she was also surprised.

“The good thing about the Holy Father is he speaks without thinking, which in many ways I think is good because it is refreshing,” she said. “Maybe sometimes he sort of puts his foot in it, but he’s an honest man and I respect him for that. It’s not an opinion I would hold.”

Source: Christian Today

US Aid Worker Kayla Mueller was ‘condemned to death’ Long Time Ago by ISIS

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US Aid Worker Kayla Mueller was ‘condemned to death’ Long Time Ago by ISIS

Christian Today report– The young American hostage who Islamic State says was killed in a Jordanian air strike was condemned to death by the militant group last year, according to an American Muslim activist.

Islamic State seized aid worker Kayla Mueller in 2013 in northern Syria and initially gave her a “life sentence” in retaliation for the jailing in Texas of a Pakistani woman whose case is a well-known cause among Islamist militants, said activist Mauri Saalakhan, who leads a US campaign to free the Pakistani.

The militant group said on Friday that Mueller, a 26-year-old from Prescott, Arizona, was killed when Jordanian fighter jets bombed a building where she was being held. Jordan expressed doubt about the claim and US authorities said they could not confirm it.

Mueller’s family had long asked US officials, aid groups and media outlets, including Reuters, not to use her name for fear the publicity could induce Islamic State to harm her.

After Islamic State’s claim on Friday, Mueller’s parents issued a public statement on Friday night, identifying their daughter by name and saying they remained hopeful she was still alive.

Mueller’s family has not given details of any communication with the militant group and Saalakhan’s information could not be verified by Reuters.

Saalakhan said that last summer, as Islamic State extended its control over parts of Iraq and Syria, the group threatened to kill Mueller. Saalakhan first mentioned the “sentencing” of Mueller in an open letter to the group he released last year.

On July 12, militants told Mueller’s family she would be executed in 30 days if Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui were not released or the American’s family did not pay a ransom of 5 million euros ($6.6 million), he said.

The information about the threats came from a representative of Mueller’s family, Saalakhan said.

Islamic State apparently did not carry out its death sentence after Saalakhan and an Arizona pastor wrote open letters to the group. Siddiqui’s family rejected Islamic State’s attempt to link the two cases and said it did not want Mueller to suffer.

“I believe that the messages that went out after that threat was conveyed, both from Aafia’s family and from us, I do believe those messages made their way to ISIS,” said Saalakhan.

Mueller’s family had a communications pipeline to the militant group, Saalakhan said, without elaborating.

Siddiqui is serving 86 years in a prison medical center in Texas. A jury convicted her in 2010 of attempting to shoot and kill a group of FBI agents, US soldiers and interpreters who were about to interrogate her in Afghanistan for alleged links to al Qaeda.

The White House has refused to negotiate for the release of hostages or pay ransoms demanded by Islamic State.

Mueller was seized while leaving a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in August 2013. She had a record of volunteering abroad and was moved by the plight of civilians in Syria’s civil war.

She had worked for a Turkish aid organisation on the Syrian border and volunteered for schools and aid organisations abroad including in both in the West Bank and Israel as well as in Dharamsala, India, where she taught English to Tibetan refugees.

Source: Christian Today

 

Boko Haram Suffers Huge Loss as It Launches First Attack In Niger

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Boko Haram Suffers Huge Loss as It Launches First Attack In Niger

Christian Today report– Niger’s forces killed 109 fighters from the Islamist militant group Boko Haram on Friday as they repulsed attacks on Bosso and Diffa, two southeastern towns near the Nigerian border, Niger state television said.

Four Niger soldiers were killed, 13 were wounded and two are missing after the fighting in Bosso against Boko Haram, whose five-year insurgency is spreading from Nigeria to neighbouring states. Four Niger soldiers were wounded in Diffa.

“At around 9 am elements of the Boko Haram terrorist group launched two simultaneous attacks at Bosso and Diffa. At Bosso, Niger’s defence forces helped by Chadian troops neutralised the assailants,” said the statement by Defence Minister Karidio Mahamadou on state television.

Chad deployed war planes to repulse the attack, military officials in Niger said earlier.

There was no independent confirmation of the numbers killed.

General Yaya Doud, commander of Chadian forces deployed north of Lake Chad, was shot in the stomach in Bosso, a Chadian security source said. He has been evacuated to hospital in N’Djamena for treatment.

“The Boko Haram attack from Malam Fatori (in Nigeria) against the town of Bosso and the bridge at Doutchi in the Diffa region has been repulsed. We have Chadian planes bombarding the locality,” said a Niger military source.

Boko Haram has seized territory in northeastern Nigeria as part of a five-year insurgency for an Islamist state. Around 10,000 people were killed last year and the militants increasingly stage cross border attacks.

The insurgency is the worst threat to Nigeria’s security as the nation, Africa’s top oil producer and biggest economy, heads to a presidential election on February 14.

The militants are also increasingly threatening neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon, prompting regional leaders to come up with a joint plan to defeat them.

Chad has deployed some 2,500 soldiers to neighbouring Cameroon and Niger as part of this effort. Niger’s parliament is due to vote on Monday on a proposal by the government to send its troops into Nigeria to fight Boko Haram.

Source: Christian Today

 

Fresh Expressions of Church Won’t Solve Decline, Research Says

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Fresh Expressions of Church Won’t Solve Decline, Research Says

Christian Today report– ‘Fresh expressions’ will not solve the problem of declining numbers of churchgoers, according to research carried out in the Diocese of Canterbury.

A study by the Rev Dr John Walker claims to show that the innovative evangelistic and church-planting methods into which the Church of England and Methodist Churches have poured resources over the last few years are no more effective than more traditional approaches.

Originally a Church of England project, the Fresh Expressions initiative, which supports new congregations in non-traditional settings like homes, pubs and cafés, is now supported by the Methodist Church and the Salvation Army among others and has been credited with helping stem the decline in UK churchgoing.

But in his book ‘Testing Fresh Expressions: Identity and Transformation’ , which describes research into five ‘fresh expressions’ and five traditional parishes with growing congregations, Walker concludes that they have broadly the same impact. He says that “fresh expressions … do not and cannot compete with the depth and breadth of life and experience of parish churches, they are no better at attracting the non-churched than parish churches, and both fresh expressions and parish churches grow through exactly the same process”.

Walker told Christian Today: “I’m saying that fresh expressions aren’t the only future for the Church. Some would argue that this is where the energy is and that they are the future. I’m saying that we need both.”

Fresh expressions could “reinvigorate” parish churches, Walker argued, saying that “mission is happening in a way that it wouldn’t have happened without them”. He added that new forms of evangelism could be appropriated by churches in liberal and Anglo-Catholic traditions which would be less comfortable with traditional evangelical methods.

He also said that while fresh expressions were no better than traditional churches in terms of their numerical results, it was reasonable to conclude that they attracted people who would not have been reached otherwise. “They are slightly better at engaging with some kinds of people. Some people have become Christians who wouldn’t have done otherwise.”

Commenting on Walker’s research, Fresh Expressions spokesman Norman Ivison told Christian Today that it was “ultimately small-scale” and that its conclusion that fresh expressions were “no better at attracting the non-churched than parish churches” was based on little evidence.

He said that Walker’s work was done before research by Church Army was published in January 2014, looking at 518 fresh expressions in 10 dioceses.

“When it came to those who regularly attended, according to the leaders of those fresh expressions, 40 per cent of members were ‘non-churched’ and 35 per cent were ‘dechurched’. Only 25 per cent of members in the fresh expressions surveyed were already actively involved in church life and most of them were instrumental in setting up the fresh expression itself,” said Ivison. “There are few conventional churches in the UK who can claim to engage with that proportion of non-churchgoers.”

Walker told Christian Today that he and the Church Army researchers were using different definitions of ‘non-churchgoer’; his own was much narrower, meaning people who had no experience of church at all. “In my research I found that even occasional attendance as a child had an immense effect on the likelihood of becoming a Christian in later life,” he said.

Michael Harvey, author of Unlocking the Growth and pioneer of the Back to Church Sunday movement, told Christian Today that whether in fresh expressions of Church or traditional congregations, it was important to encourage people to have “God conversations” with people. “I would suggest people who enhance their faith through deliberate faith practice would become very attractive to those struggling in our fearful and broken world,” he said.

Source: Christian Today

UN is ‘alarmed’ as ISIS Logo Surface on Its Syria Aid Packages

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UN is ‘alarmed’ as ISIS Logo Surface on Its Syria Aid Packages

Christian Today report– The United Nations is expressing alarm over the emergence of videos that show food parcels distributed by the UN World Food Programme emblazoned with Islamic State logos.

According to Reuters, images have surfaced in social media that show cardboard boxes with papers carrying the Islamic State logo pasted on them and being distributed to refugees. The images allegedly depict refugees in Deir Hafr village in Syria, where the WFP had delivered food parcels with one month of supplies to 8,500 people in August.

WFP Emergency Regional Coordinator Muhannad Hadi blasted this latest attempt at propaganda by the Islamic State.

“WFP condemns this manipulation of desperately needed food aid inside Syria,” he told Reuters through a statement issued on Monday. Hadi also said that the WFP is working to validate the authenticity of the images.

The World Food Programme works with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Organisation to distribute food aid to the people in Syria. According to the SARC, negotiations are carried out between them and all parties on the ground including the Islamic State prior to commencement of distribution.

“We negotiate for access, we always do this,” Vivian Tou’meh, SARC head of communications, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Tou’meh also said that SARC volunteers deliver the food packages themselves on behalf of the WFP.

WFP also told Reuters that the Islamic State had carried out a raid in SARC’s warehouses in September. The WFP alleged that the warehouses may have stored food parcels including packages from the WFP itself.

A radical Islamic extremist group that first emerged in June last year, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria aims to “create a broader Islamic caliphate.” Reuters said that the group has to keep the public fed in order to depict its fledgling state as a genuine caliphate in the eyes of the international community.

Source: Christian Today

ISIS Claims Jordan Airstrikes Killed American Hostage

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ISIS Claims Jordan Airstrikes Killed American Hostage

Christian Today report- Islamic State said on Friday that an American woman hostage it was holding in Syria was killed when Jordanian fighter jets bombed a building where she was being held, but Jordan expressed doubt about the Islamist militant group’s account of her death.

In Washington, US officials said they could not confirm that the woman, 26-year-old humanitarian worker Kayla Mueller of Prescott, Arizona, had been killed.

Her family said in a statement on Friday they are hopeful she is alive and asked Islamic State to contact them.

Mueller was the last-known American hostage held by Islamic State, which controls wide areas of Syria and Iraq.

The group has beheaded three other Americans, two Britons and two Japanese hostages – most of them aid workers or journalists – in recent months. Mueller was taken hostage while leaving a hospital in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in August 2013.

The group’s latest claim, detailed by the SITE monitoring group, came just days after it released a video on Tuesday showing a captured Jordanian pilot, Mouath al-Kasaesbeh, being burned alive in a cage.

Jordan’s King Abdullah, who was in Washington discussing how to deal with Islamic State militants when the video was made public, vowed to avenge the pilot’s death and ordered a stepped-up military role in the US-led coalition against the group.

Jordan said it had carried out a second straight day of air strikes on Friday on Islamic State positions.

“We are looking into it but our first reaction is that we think it is illogical and we are highly sceptical about it. It’s part of their criminal propaganda,” government spokesman Mohammad Momani said in response to Islamic State’s account of what happened to Mueller.

“How could they identify Jordanian war planes from a huge distance in the sky? What would an American woman be doing in a weapons warehouse?” Momani said.

Hours after the release of the video showing the pilot burning to death, Jordanian authorities executed two al Qaeda militants who had been imprisoned on death row, including a woman who had tried to blow herself up in a suicide bombing and whose release had been demanded by Islamic State.

WHITE HOUSE ‘DEEPLY CONCERNED’

In a statement released by a family representative, Mueller’s parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller of Arizona, asked the Islamic State group to contact the family privately.

“You told us that you treated Kayla as your guest, as your guest her safety and well-being remains your responsibility,” they said in a message directed to “those in positions of responsibility for holding Kayla”.

They also said: “Kayla found this (aid) work heart-breaking but compelling; she is extremely devoted to the people of Syria.

“When asked what kept her going in her mission, she said, ‘I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine, if this is how you are revealed to me, this is how I will forever seek you.'”

White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said the United States was “deeply concerned” over the report but had not seen “any evidence that corroborates” the group’s account.

Islamic State, in a message monitored by SITE, said Mueller died when the building in which she was being held outside Raqqa, a stronghold of the group, collapsed in a Jordanian air strike on Friday.

“The air assaults were continuous on the same location for more than an hour,” Islamic State said, according to SITE.

The group released photos of what it said were the building’s wreckage but did not include photos of Mueller.

French journalist Nicolas Henin, a former captive of the group in Syria who gained his freedom last April, said on Twitter: “Kayla Mueller was among the very last of my former cellmates still detained. I was full of hope she could have a way out.”

The US military last summer carried out an unsuccessful mission to rescue American hostages held by the group in Syria.

Reuters and other Western news organizations were aware Mueller was being held hostage but did not name her at the request of her family members, who believed the militants would harm her if her case received publicity.

‘WHERE IS THE WORLD?’

Mueller, a 2009 Northern Arizona University graduate, had a long record of volunteering abroad and was moved by the plight of civilians in Syria’s civil war.

“For as long as I live, I will not let this suffering be normal – something we just accept,” Mueller’s local newspaper The Daily Courier quoted her in 2013 as saying.

“When Syrians hear I’m an American, they ask, ‘Where is the world?’ All I can do is cry with them, because I don’t know,” Mueller said.

She had worked for a Turkish aid organisation on the Syrian border and volunteered for schools and aid organisations abroad including in the West Bank, Israel and India.

“The common thread of Kayla’s life has been her quiet leadership and strong desire to serve others,” according to a statement from her family’s representative.

Islamic State previously executed American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto and Goto’s friend, Haruna Yukawa.

Among the hostages still thought to be held by the group is British photojournalist John Cantlie.

Jordan is a major US ally in the fight against militant Islamist groups. It is home to US military trainers bolstering defences at the Syrian and Iraqi borders, and is determined to keep the jihadists in Syria and Iraq from crossing its frontiers.

Source: Christian Today

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