Latest updates on Current Affairs
The Political Push For Pronouns August 2021
Tim Dieppe, Christian Concern’s Head of Public Policy, comments on the push for people to ‘state their pronouns’.
Push for pronouns in email signatures
Last month, the BBC asked all staff to state their pronouns in their email signatures in a drive to be more inclusive of transgender employees. The BBC employs 400 people who identify as transgender according to internal surveys – that is nearly 2 percent of the 22,000 employed by the broadcaster.
The Scottish government has also asked its 8,000 civil servants to ‘take a pronoun pledge’ and add pronouns to their email signatures. This is in spite of an internal survey showing that almost 60 percent of civil servants disagreed with the move and did not want to add pronouns to their emails.
No doubt other businesses and organisations across the country are making similar requests of employees.
July 2021: Woman stabbed at Speakers’ Corner speaks following harrowing incident
A Christian woman who was attacked and stabbed multiple times by a man in a black Islamic robe at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, London, has spoken for the first time since the incident.
Hatun Tash, 39, a well-known Christian apologist who regularly critiques and debates the Qur’an at Speakers’ Corner, the most famous place in the world for free speech, was attacked at 3.34pm on Sunday 25 July.
Hatun is an ex-Muslim who has converted to Christianity and is the director of the ministry Defend Christ Critique Islam (DCCI). It is well known that those who convert from Islam are deemed to have committed apostasy which, according to sharia law, deserves the death penalty.
Shocking video footage from Sunday’s incident has revealed a man clad in black, with a hood and face mask, unleashing a series of violent stabs at Hatun’s throat and body which left her with wounds to her face and hands. Hatun collapsed with blood down her face and is seen wearing a Charlie Hebdo t-shirt. Following the attack, the man immediately fled the scene and discarded the knife.
Redemption from the Powerful Art of Selling Fake News
Sue Ellen Browder, former Cosmopolitan magazine writer from the 1970s & 80s, talks with Carl Trueman and Todd Pruitt about the role she played in the feminist movement and “sexual revolution” of that period.
Sue’s story is compelling as she speaks about her “double life” as a happily married woman raising children, tending her garden, and baking fresh bread while writing made-up stories on feminism and sexual liberation. Can a media outlet really have a manual on how to write fake news to accomplish the desired outcome? The truth is shocking as she explains how fictional journalism was used to spread propaganda that deceived an entire generation, and still does today.
As you listen, you will appreciate just how biased and disingenuous the news media is, and how determined they are to pursue their anti-God agenda. It’s fascinating to hear how many factors were in play, how truth mingled with lies to achieve predetermined goals, and above all how abortion became the great issue that united the “Sexual Revolution” and the “Women’s Movement”
Essential listening for all who seek understanding of how we arrived where we now find ourselves.
Freedom To Speak About Transgenderism
Many in our society speak about gender ideology as if everyone must agree. Christians are being put on the spot, aware that anyone who objects is quickly labelled hateful or transphobic. It’s no surprise that people are reluctant to say what they really think. A key tactic of activists is to silence debate by declaring it to be intolerant or even unlawful. So it’s crucial to take note of the many times when the freedom to disagree is affirmed by the courts. Recent cases prove there is space to disagree with transgender ideology – and also demonstrate the need for us to speak. Click below to read the March 2021 update on freedom of speech in relation to transgenderism from the CI.
Court blasts Blackpool Council for discriminating against Christians
Blackpool Council has been criticised by a judge after she ruled that it discriminated against Christians by banning bus adverts for the Lancashire Festival of Hope with Franklin Graham. The adverts, which simply displayed the message ‘Time for Hope!’, were controversially removed by the Council and Blackpool Transport Services Limited over Graham’s biblical views on marriage and sexuality. It followed this up by lighting up Blackpool Tower with the colours of the rainbow flag to show support for LGBT activists. But Her Honour Judge Claire Evans of Manchester County Court ruled “overwhelmingly” in favour of Graham and the Lancashire Festival of Hope, stating that the Council’s actions in removing the adverts and taking sides against local Christians were “the antithesis of the manner in which a public authority should behave in a democracy”. Click below to read more.
Victory for Scottish church leaders as judge rules government acted unconstitutionally when criminalising gathered worship
In an historic judgment, on March 24th 2021 a judge has ruled that the Scottish Ministers’ decision to ban and criminalise gathered church worship during the current lockdown was unconstitutional and a disproportionate interference of Article 9 ECHR rights. The ruling is believed to be the first successful legal case against Covid regulations in the UK. Handing down judgment, Lord Braid also ruled that online worship is not real Christian worship, stating that it is not for the Scottish Ministers to: “dictate to the petitioners or to the additional party, that, henceforth, or even for the duration of the pandemic, worship is to be conducted on-line. That might be an alternative to worship but it is not worship. At very best for the respondents, in modern parlance, it is worship-lite.” Supported by the Christian Legal Centre, 27 Scottish church leaders, from a range of Christian denominations, had brought the legal action stating that the unprecedented closures were unlawful and breached Human Rights law and the Scottish constitution. Click below for more details.
Canadian Pastor Imprisoned For Preaching In The Church Building – February 2021 James Coates, a minister of the gospel in Alberta, Canada, has been arrested and imprisoned for preaching to his congregation in the church building. Listen to Jared Longshore and Tom Ascol of Founders Ministries as they speak with Erin, James’ wife, about the events and how we can pray for them. The persecution of the churches in our atheistic and aggressively secular western cultures is gathering pace and we must all be mindful, courageous and prayerful.
Govt announces tough new measures on uni free speech
The Government has announced a range of tough new measures to ensure that free speech is not restricted at universities. After an increasing number of students, staff and academics have been silenced or no-platformed, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson warned of a “chilling effect”, leaving people feeling they cannot freely express themselves. Places of higher education will now be subject to a new free speech condition in order to be registered in England and access public funding. If universities and colleges break this condition, the Office for Students (OfS) will have the power to impose sanctions upon them, including financial penalties.
Activists Attempt To Silence Gospel Witness Using “Conversion Therapy” Arguments Nelson McCausland, a former minister in the NI Executive, recently used Facebook to share the testimony of Becket Cook, an American who lived a homosexual lifestyle until he turned to Christ. LGBT activists denounced Mr McCausland as a proponent of ‘conversion therapy’. Some, including elected officials, called for him to be sacked from his position on the Board of the NI Education Authority. But Becket Cook’s testimony is about his Christian conversion and has nothing to do with ‘conversion therapy’. The vitriol experienced by Nelson McCausland shows that the real target for these activists is the gospel. As a church, we have been calling our members to a greater awareness that targeted persecution is now upon us, and that government is using newly-acquired powers to try and silence the sound of the gospel in our land. Listen to Nelson’s account of his experience in this interview with Ciarán Kelly of the Christian Institute and let it be a spur to renewed prayer and courage in these challenging times.
