Most Rev Thabo Makgoba and other church leaders asked some of the migrants to leave Cape Town’s Methodist Church on Friday due to overcrowding.

The migrants, mostly from other African countries, were staging a sit-in in the church after being forced to leave the offices of the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) in Cape Town two weeks prior.

The crowd demanded that they be resettled in another country and be given refugee status as they don’t feel safe in South Africa due to a recent spike in xenophobic violence.

JP Balous, a man speaking on behalf of the refugees told a local news channel that they have “been treated like rubbish”.

“We are human beings, we came here to seek refuge… The human rights commission is actually the human rights abuse in South Africa,” he said.

Video aired by broadcaster eNCA showed a fight breaking out in the church, injuring Archbishop Thabo and South Africa’s Human Rights Commissioner Chris Nissen.

Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba says he bears no ill-feelings to refugees who attacked him in Cape Town today. #Refugees #Upfront with @FaithMangope Courtesy #DStv403 pic.twitter.com/vsVt2WQF6g

— eNCA (@eNCA) November 15, 2019

Witnesses said the fight started after a Congolese church leader had the microphone snatched out of his hand and was beaten up by an angry crowd.

“They started throwing papers at me when I was trying to calm them…

A Church tribunal found that Rev Keith Hanson, a mission development vicar of the Maltby Team Ministry and of Thurcroft St Simon and St Jude in South Yorkshire, had sex with the woman three times.

It was revealed in a hearing by the Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal for the Diocese of Sheffield that Hanson had sent the woman explicit text messages after they met in 2017.

He had been communicating with her via e-mail, Facebook and WhatsApp before visiting her house to have intimate relations with her.

The tribunal heard that in the messages he sent her, he made references to be “isolated and lonely”.

It also heard that when he ended the relationship with the woman, he told her no one would believe her if she reported it because of her mental history.

Hanson did not appear at the tribunal ruling, claiming he was “mentally unwell” but gave evidence of prescriptions and data sheets describing the risks of sexual dysfunction.

Stay up to date with the latest news stories from a Christian perspective. Sign up to our daily newsletter and receive more stories like this straight to your inbox every morning.

The website that allows people to give money directly to others. Managed through a network of churches and local charities called “advocates”, the goal of the charity is to get 100 per cent of donations quickly to those in need.

Since its foundation in 2010, the national charity has increased its activity and reach to over 400 local “advocates” based around the U.K.

An advocate meets with individuals to determine their need and post requests on the website.

These local advocates reach out to many in need, from all walks of life; from families in debt who need to be able to buy a bed for their child, to a single person on low income who needs oil to heat their home, travel costs for an asylum seeker to attend appointments, or a homeless man who desperately needs even a small deposit to get off the streets and into a hostel.

The 20,000th request was for petrol costs for a grandmother in Oxford who had begun to care for her granddaughter full-time and was unable to cope with all the extra expenses.

The grandmother said: “Thank you for the money you raised for me- it’s been such a help as getting her school is involving driving 25 miles a day.  £120 to help with petrol costs is making such a difference.”

The charity said it’s seen much organic growth through its advocates, but also its donors, who have enabled Acts 435 to double the amount of people helped in…

It prompted Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro to close St Mark’s Square and call for more donations for repairs just three days after the Italian lagoon city suffered its worst flooding in 50 years.

The high tide peaked at five feet above sea level just before noon on Friday, flooding most of the historic World Heritage city’s centre.

A senior official in charge of St Mark’s basilica has called for the monument to be surrounded with a 2 metre flood wall as the building was threatened with flood waters.

Carlo Alberto Tesserin, the head of the board responsible for the church said: “The weather is changing and there is no time to waste, we must save this place.”

Mayor Brugnaro said the damage is estimated at hundreds of millions of euros and blamed climate change for the “dramatic situation”.

He also called for the speedy completion of the city’s long-delayed Moses flood defence project.

Carabinieri officers from the corps’ world-renowned and highly trained squad of art experts were being deployed to map damage to art treasures, a job that is expected to take some time.

Mosaics were covered with corrosive saltwater and marble panels were bugling out as the water expanded the brickwork behind the wall.  

“A wall is the way to save all this unless Venice’s flood barrier is completed and works,” Mr Tesserin said.

Many people were rising to the challenge of saving…

Rev Phillip Owen said the robbers got away with almost £55,000 of gems in May which he was going to give to his grandchildren.

“It was a big day but it was absolutely ruined,” Rev Owen said, referring to his birthday.

“My grandchildren came down and were traumatised with the mess that was here and the state their grandmother was in.

“The dog was badly beaten. It was terrible.”

Keiran Bunce, 19 and Marcus Thomas, 30, admitted the charges and got two years and eight months and four years and six months.

Leon Rowlands, 20, was found guilty after trial and given 18 months.

Keiran Jason Bunce (left) Leon Solskjaer Rowlands, and Marcus Lee Thomas

Rev Owen said the burglars took glass they had smashed from a window to get in the house; put it in meat they had got from his fridge and then fed it to his dog, Rusty.

The vicar also said the dog was beaten on the back of his legs and ribs and was left limping. Thankfully, a vet confirmed the dog didn’t ingest any of the glass and has now fully recovered from the attack.

Rev Owen, from Taibach, Neath Port Talbot, said the men had started raiding the house, but when they found a safe, they focused on that.

He said one piece of jewellery was 100 years old and most of them are extremely rare.  

“The stones were more valuable than the gold of the rings,” the vicar…

An argument broke out over the replacing of the cathedral’s spire that burned down in a fire in April.

During a meeting of the French National Assembly’s cultural affairs committee on Wednesday , General Jean-Louis Georgelin stated that the new spire should be “contemporary”. His view is shared with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has set a deadline of 2024 for the reconstruction project to be completed.

However, architect Philippe Villeneuve said the new spire should be an exact replica of the one that was burned down and maintained the only way the five-year deadline of the project will be met is by doing it the traditional way.

Georgelin said during discussion in the meeting: “As for the chief architect, I have already explained that he should shut his mouth.”

His comment prompted gasps from attendees, AFP news agency reported.

Georgelin later said that all involved in the project should “move ahead in wisdom so that we can serenely make the best choice for Notre Dame, for Paris, for the world”.

He added that a final decision on the spire would be settled on in 2021.

Last month, Villeneuve told the broadcaster RTL: “Either I restore it identically… or they make a contemporary spire and it will be someone else [doing it].”

Stay up to date with the latest news stories from a Christian perspective.

According to court documents in a federal court in the state of Kentucky, Ben Hart, who identifies as an atheist, applied for the license plate in 2016 but was denied.

Back then, the state transportation department said the request went against its anti-discrimination guidelines.

After getting legal support from the Kentucky American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Hart challenged the decision in U.S. District Court in Frankfort and won.

A judge ruled that “vanity plates” are considered private speech which is protected by the US First Amendment.

The judge ruled that the state of Kentucky has violated Hart’s rights by rejecting his request for the license plate.

Stay up to date with the latest news stories from a Christian perspective. Sign up to our daily newsletter and receive more stories like this straight to your inbox every morning.