The charity announced on 30th October that it was giving away 1,000 free Bibles as Kanye West’s first Christian album Jesus is King released the week prior sparked many of Google searches about Christianity.

The American Bible Society has now said it has received 6,000 requests for the free Bibles, so it has now multiplied its giveaway offer and will continue to accept requests until 22nd November.

John Farquhar Plake, director of ministry intelligence at the American Bible Society, said in a statement to the Christian Post: “We couldn’t be more thrilled at this unexpected demand.

“When we saw Google searches for Kanye, Jesus, and Bible spike, we saw an opportunity – but we never could have dreamed that we’d get such an overwhelming response.

“Our hope is that these Bibles will allow Kanye fans to get to know the extraordinary person of Jesus, who inspires not just musicians, but millions of believers around the world.”

The program called “Bibles for Kanye Fans” is giving away copies of the Good News Translation for those who apply on American Bible Society’s website.

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The Pope said: “I would like to make a separate note. The Jewish people have suffered so much in history, they have been chased away, they too have been persecuted.

“In the last century we saw so many brutalities against the Jewish people, and we were all convinced that this was over. But today the habit of persecuting the Jews, brothers and sisters, is here reborn. This is neither human nor Christian.”

He continued: “The Jews are our brothers and should not be persecuted, understand?”

His comments come after a reported significant rise in antisemitic attacks in Italy, particularly online.

“Since the beginning of the year to the end of September, we recorded about 190 anti-Semitic incidents, about 70 per cent online,” according to Milan based Foundation Jewish Contemporary Documentation Centre. The total incidents for the whole of last year were 197 and 130 for 2017.

A recent survey by ComRes last year showed that antisemitic stereotypes were alive and well in Europe with more than a quarter of Europeans polled believing Jews had too much influence in business and finance.

Meanwhile, a third of Europeans in the poll said they knew just a little or nothing at all about the Holocaust, the mass murder of some six million Jews in lands controlled by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in the 1930s and 1940s.

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Tirham (whose name has been changed for security reasons), an Open Doors partner, provides counselling to women and girls who have been raped, kidnapped and/or used as sex slaves by Boko Haram fighters or Fulani militants. Many of them are specifically targeted for kidnapping because of their faith.

“So many things happen today that people outside Nigeria don’t really believe are happening, like many women being kidnapped, raped, some of them being killed. It’s clear to us but to the outside world it’s hidden,” Tirham said.

“Everywhere, people are attacked by armed robbers, kidnappers, Fulani militants and Boko Haram fighters. It feels like everybody is walking in a minefield and, at any moment, there might be an explosion. People carry hurt and wounds on their hearts and they need to be cared for.”

Tirham works with women who have suicidal thoughts because, after being freed by their kidnappers, they are often not accepted back by their families and communities. Without support, they cannot cope with the double trauma of being kidnapped and then rejected.

Tirham will testify to the stigma these women and girls face upon their return and share stories about how trauma care has helped survivors overcome this. She will also talk about the work Open Doors partners do to change the mind-set of husbands and communities from that of stigma to support.

The trauma care…

Abuse of children for reasons of faith or belief rose from 1,460 cases in 2016/17 to 1,950 cases in 2018/19 – an increase of 34 per cent.

The figures were published by the Local Government Association and are based on safeguarding assessment data from local authorities passed to the Department of Education.

Abuse can be driven by a belief the child is possessed by demons or the devil or is the reason for some misfortune to befall a family, or to terrorise the child into compliance when being trafficked.

The new figures also revealed the number of girls identified by social workers as either having had or being at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) reached a high of 1,000 cases this year.

It is an increase of 6 per cent on the 940 cases in 2017/18.

A belief in witchcraft and the perpetuation of FGM can sometimes be linked, although experts emphasise this is by no means true in the majority of mutilation cases.

The National FGM Centre has been conducting research and providing education and training into faith-based abuse since its inception in 2015.

Leethen Bartholomew, the centre’s head, told the PA news agency: “We know [faith-based] abuse is often linked to when families experience some kind of misfortune – whether it is a child with a disability or parental mental health, or when some of these families experience exclusion because of poverty.

“They try to make…