2. Physical interaction during services, including the Sign of Peace, should be suspended. Clergy may choose to give the congregation permission to carry out an alternative Sign of Peace that does not involve hand contact (e.g. a smile, nod or bow) if so wished. Shaking hands on greeting and departure at religious services/gatherings should be suspended. Observe good hand and general hygiene – thorough hand–washing with soap or sanitisers and disposal of tissues.

3. Stay at home if you feel ill and display influenza–like symptoms. The symptoms to be aware of in the case of the coronavirus include cough, shortness of breath, difficulty in breathing, and fever. Do not come to church services until you feel well.

4. The Church’s duty of care extends to members of the clergy. If you have influenza–type symptoms, do not call the clergy for pastoral visitation. Pastoral support for parishioners who are unable to attend church services should be provided by telephone or online (e.g. Skype).

Read it all.

By comparison, Covid-19 is not especially life-threatening. According to the best available data at the time of writing, there have been about 85,000 confirmed cases worldwide, roughly 94% of them in China, and 78% of them in the province of Hubei. The implied global mortality rate is 3.4%, but that is surely an overestimate, because the denominator (total cases) is being underestimated by infected people who don’t feel sick or don’t check themselves in for medical care.

We also know that, unlike the “Spanish flu” of 1918-19, Covid-19 disproportionately kills the elderly and those with existing conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes or chronic respiratory disease. Worry about grandparents: the mortality rate for people in their eighties is above 14%, whereas it’s close to zero for those under 40.

Yet those who blithely say, “This is no worse than the flu” — which will likely cause between 16,000 and 41,000 deaths in America this season — are missing the point.

What makes Covid-19 dangerous is not so much the threat it poses to the average person’s life, but the threat it poses to economic growth. Uncertainty surrounds it because it is so difficult to detect in its early stages, when many carriers are both infectious and asymptomatic. We don’t know for sure how many people have it, so we don’t exactly know its reproduction number and its mortality rate. There’s no vaccine and there’s no cure. Last week this uncertainty, crystallised by a leap in the number of Italian cases, gave the US stock market its worst week since the great banking crisis of 2008-9.

I have often been asked in the past few years where the next financial crisis will come from. I have said, time and again, that it will come not from America but from China, now the second-largest economy in the world. Sure enough. A pandemic is very different from a bank run, to be sure, but in each case we witness the same phenomenon, which is characteristic of a networked world: a cascade of consequences driven by fear of the unknown.

Read it all (subscription).

“A Covid-19 outbreak in one or more large American cities would inflict a September 11-level hit on the US economy and a Hurricane Katrina-level hit on Trump’s popular approval.” https://t.co/mFHrDbe7eW

— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) March 1, 2020

I want to hear his views on the outbreak that is happening right now: coronavirus. I wonder if we are not overreacting. After all, so far it has killed a fraction of those who die from seasonal flu.

“I’m not the scaremongering type,” he says. “But I think this is serious in the sense that we can’t afford not to consider it as a serious threat.

“It could be that, indeed, it’s going to be over in a few months,” he continues, crunching into a tempura-covered sage leaf. “But just take the counterfactual. We say, ‘OK, it’s fine and we don’t do anything.’ I bet that we would already have had far more cases in Singapore, the UK, Germany. Let’s not forget, we are already well over 1,000 deaths. That’s not a detail….”

“It’s clearly not Sars,” he continues, referring to severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed nearly one in 10 who contracted it 17 years ago. “That’s the good news. But the bad news is, it spreads much faster. The Sars virus sits deep in your lungs. With this virus, it seems that it’s in your throat and that’s why it’s far more contagious.

“Secondly, we have no vaccine. All we have is medieval ways of containment: isolation, quarantine, contact tracing.”

Piot remembers hearing about the first cases of a mysterious virus in Los Angeles in 1981. “The first report of HIV was six or seven gay men in California. Cumulatively, now we have, like, 75m people who have been infected. Who would have thought that then? Nobody. I’d rather be accused of overreacting than of not doing my job.”

Read it all (subscription).

“I’m really not a risk-taker” – Peter Piot on coronavirus & his extraordinary life in public health https://t.co/az9KGfX0LX via @financialtimes

— david pilling (@davidpilling) February 29, 2020

As a dangerous new coronavirus has ravaged China and spread throughout the rest of the world, the outbreak’s toll has sown fear and anxiety. Nearly 3,000 deaths. More than 82,000 cases. Six continents infected.

But government officials and medical experts, in their warnings about the epidemic, have also sounded a note of reassurance: Though the virus can be deadly, the vast majority of those infected so far have only mild symptoms and make full recoveries.

It is an important factor to understand, medical experts said, both to avoid an unnecessary global panic and to get a clear picture of the likelihood of transmission.

“Many people are now panicking, and some actually are exaggerating the risks,” said Dr. Jin Dongyan, a virology expert at the University of Hong Kong. “For governments, for public health professionals — they also have to deal with these, because these will also be harmful.”

Read it all.

More than 80 percent of confirmed coronavirus cases are not severe, according to a large Chinese study. But mild symptoms could also make the epidemic harder to contain. https://t.co/A9JmiCFm3i

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 27, 2020

The discovery that a California woman was likely infected with the novel coronavirus by a previously unrecognized case in her community is proof of an enormous problem the country is facing at the moment, according to public health experts. It’s clear that the virus is spreading undetected in the United States — but how broadly it’s spreading is an utter mystery.

Before Thursday, a perfect storm of problems in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s development of test kits — and the agency’s reluctance to expand its recommendation of who should be tested given the limited availability of kits — meant very little testing has been done in the country. As of Wednesday, the CDC said that 445 people had been tested — a fraction of the number of tests that other countries have run.

The new case in California makes it clear the virus is spreading undetected in at least one area of one state. The woman is not believed to have traveled outside the country and had no contact with a known case. As her condition worsened — she is on a ventilator — health officials in California asked the CDC to test her for the virus. Because she had not been to China and had not been a contact of a known case, the agency said no.

Read it all.

.@CDCgov has broadened its testing protocol, telling healthcare providers to look for #Covid19 cases in people who’ve traveled to Iran, Italy, Japan & South Korea as well as China. Other changes too.
I’ve updated my story: https://t.co/ILiTIvTp8B

— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) February 27, 2020

What’s happened since Lambeth 1998?

The Anglican Reality Check takes a look at the recent history of the Anglican Communion. It reveals how predominantly Western church leaders have relentlessly sought to undermine Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference which reaffirmed the clear teaching of Scripture on marriage and specifically rejected homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.

In 1 Chronicles 12:32 certain men of Issachar are described as those ‘who had understanding of the times’. This quality is very much needed by faithful Anglicans today. In a global culture of instant communication and soundbites, there is a danger that we live in the moment and lose our capacity for godly discernment. The Bible continually warns of the danger of forgetfulness and the need to remember, both to recall the goodness and mercy of God and to learn the lessons of past failure and disobedience.

Read it all.

Today we launch this brand new resource: Anglican Reality Check website as a convenient way of accessing essential facts so that Gafcon supporters around the world will be equipped for action and prayer, with thanksgiving.

Check it out here: https://t.co/6EcjpDknM0 pic.twitter.com/uKg8iKnVnn

— GAFCON (@gafconference) February 7, 2020

The coronavirus almost certainly will begin spreading in communities in the United States, and Americans should begin preparations now, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a news briefing.

In the event of an outbreak, communities should plan for “social distancing measures,” like dividing school classes into smaller groups of students, closing schools, canceling meetings and conferences, and arranging for employees to work from home.

“We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad,” Dr. Messonnier said.

Read it all.

The CDC warned today that it expects the coronavirus pandemic to hit the United States. It recommends making preparations. https://t.co/A2FSt4aFxf

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 25, 2020

On Monday Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Bahrain reported their first cases, all involving people who had come from Iran.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had warned that the window of opportunity to contain the virus was “narrowing”.

Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia in the UK, echoed his fears, saying the spike in cases outside China was “extremely concerning”.

“The tipping point after which our ability to prevent a global pandemic seems a lot closer after the past 24 hours,” he said on Monday.

Read it all.

Updated location of confirmed #covid19, or #coronavirus, cases around the globe. #Italy and #SouthKorea on high alert as cases have suddenly spiked. https://t.co/6KhctHVBCl pic.twitter.com/o2pvne96Mz

— Statista (@StatistaCharts) February 24, 2020

An alarming surge of new coronavirus cases outside China, with fears of a major outbreak in Iran, is threatening to transform the contagion into a global pandemic, as countries around the Middle East scrambled to close their borders and continents so far largely spared reported big upticks in the illness.

In Iran, which had insisted as recently as Tuesday that it had no cases, the virus may now have reached most major cities, including Tehran, and has killed at least four people, according to health officials. Already, cases of travelers from Iran testing positive for the virus have turned up in Canada and Lebanon.

The number of cases also soared in South Korea, with the sudden spread tied to a secretive church where hundreds of congregants attended services with numerous people infected with the virus.

The United States now has 34 cases, with more expected, and Italy experienced a spike from three cases to 17 and ordered mandatory quarantine measures.

Read it all.

Our story page 1 Saturday:
With 4 Deaths in Iran and More Cases on 3 Continents, Fears of Coronavirus Pandemic Rise #irancoronavirus #کروناویروس https://t.co/99egL4vR84

— Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) February 22, 2020

H

The window of opportunity to contain wider international spread of the coronavirus is closing, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Friday, and countries must act fast if they are going to control it.

Asked whether the outbreak is at a “tipping point” — after new cases appeared in, or were traced to, Iran — WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he still believed it could be stopped.

“Although the window of opportunity is narrowing to contain the outbreak, we still have a chance to contain it,” he said, adding that China’s “serious measures” in Wuhan and Hubei province could help contain the coronavirus. However, he noted that the outbreak “could go any direction.”

He encouraged countries around the world to keep working on containment while also stepping up measures to prepare for the possibility of more widespread transmission.

“What I’m saying is — it’s in our hands now. If we do well within the narrowing window of opportunity … we can avert any serious crisis,” Tedros said.

Read it all.

#Covid19 cases in Iran – we are hearing more about disease activity there.

“Iran confirms 13 more cases of COVID-19 and 2 more deaths, for a total of 18 cases and 4 deaths.”

But with 4 deaths, and an exported case, there are likely +++ cases there.https://t.co/9HWiLnMyVZ

— Isaac Bogoch (@BogochIsaac) February 21, 2020

Sudan’s former strongman president, Omar al-Bashir, has spent years evading justice for alleged war crimes committed almost two decades ago. But the ex-dictator now seems set to face the music after Sudan’s transitional government said that it would hand the 76-year-old over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face charges including an allegation of genocide. Here’s what you need to know about Omar al-Bashir and the events that led him here.

The wily and brutal Omar al-Bashir assumed power in Sudan in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989, and quickly ramped up the Arab-dominated government’s long-running war against black and Christian separatists in the country’s oil rich South. Al-Bashir, who was ousted by mass protests against his longstanding autocracy last year, has been wanted by the top international court since 2009 over mass atrocities committed by government militia in the western region of Darfur, where 300,000 people were killed and almost 3 million were displaced.

Since being pushed from power, Al-Bashir has been sentenced by a Sudanese court to two years in a correctional facility on corruption charges (in Sudan people over the age of 70 can’t serve jail terms) but his years of alleged crimes against humanity have not been reckoned with.

Read it all.

Sudan’s former strongman president, Omar al-Bashir, has spent years evading justice for alleged war crimes in Darfur. Is he finally going to be sent to the International Criminal Court to face the music? https://t.co/hhl4EurV75

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) February 14, 2020

Manchester City will appeal UEFA’s decision to ban the club for two seasons from European competition — including the Champions League — after the governing body found them guilty of breaching financial fair play rules.

UEFA announced on Friday that the reigning Premier League champions will be excluded from the Champions League for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 campaigns and have also been fined €30 million ($33 million) for “overstating its sponsorship revenue in its accounts” and failing “to cooperate in the investigation,” according to findings by the UEFA Adjudicatory Chamber.

In response, City said they were “disappointed but not surprised” by the ruling and gave notice of their intention to lodge an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Sources have told ESPN that City believe UEFA’s process has been flawed and that they remain confident they will be cleared of any wrongdoing once their appeal is heard by an independent body. Sources have told ESPN that, until then, the club will go about their business “as usual.”

Read it all.

Breaking: Manchester City has been banned from the Champions League for the next 2 seasons after being found guilty of breaching financial fair play rules, UEFA has announced. (h/t @ESPNFC) pic.twitter.com/QZXI6AxxvV

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 14, 2020

Coughing badly, Zhu Chunxia sat on a sidewalk in the rain on Monday, awaiting transport to a facility where her apartment complex’s residential committee said she could be treated for the new coronavirus sweeping through this central Chinese city.

The ride never came. Though her doctor was almost certain she was infected with the virus, a throat-swab test she had taken came back negative, which meant the facility wouldn’t take her.

“They said we didn’t qualify,” said the 36-year-old mother of two girls. “They wanted positive results.”

In Wuhan, the epicenter of a viral outbreak that has sickened more than 40,000 people and killed more than a thousand, doubts are proliferating among residents over the accuracy of the testing kits that Chinese health authorities are using to diagnose cases.

Medical experts around the globe have expressed fears that the scale of the outbreak could be much larger than Chinese data suggests—in large part because of concerns about potential flaws in testing. Independent experts say many tens of thousands of Wuhan residents are likely infected by the coronavirus, while the city’s government puts the tally at less than 20,000.

Read it all.

At Outbreak’s Center, Wuhan Residents Question Accuracy of Virus Testshttps://t.co/bgBfi53v7P

— Charley Grant (@CGrantWSJ) February 11, 2020

The repatriation of 565 Japanese citizens from Wuhan, China, in late January offered scientists an unexpected opportunity to learn a bit more about the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) raging in that city. To avoid domestic spread of the virus, Japanese officials screened every passenger for disease symptoms and tested them for the virus after they landed. Eight tested positive, but four of those had no symptoms at all, says epidemiologist Hiroshi Nishiura of Hokkaido University, Sapporo—which is a bright red flag for epidemiologists who are trying to figure out what the fast-moving epidemic has in store for humanity. If many infections go unnoticed, as the Japanese finding suggests, that vastly complicates efforts to contain the outbreak.

Two months after 2019-nCoV emerged—and with well over 20,000 cases and 427 deaths as of 4 February—mathematical modelers have been racing to predict where the virus will move next, how big a toll it might ultimately take, and whether isolating patients and limiting travel will slow it. But to make confident predictions, they need to know much more about how easily the virus spreads, how sick it makes people, and whether infected people with no symptoms can still infect others.

Some of that information is coming out of China. But amid the all-out battle to control the virus, and with diagnostic capabilities in short supply, Chinese researchers cannot answer all the questions. Countries with just a handful of cases, such as Japan, can also reveal important data, says Preben Aavitsland of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. “It’s up to all countries now that receive cases to collect as much information as possible.”

With the limited information so far, scientists are sketching out possible paths that the virus might take, weighing the likelihoods of each, and trying to determine the fallout. “We’re at this stage where defined scenarios and the evidence for and against them are really important because it allows people to plan better,” says Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. These scenarios break into two broad categories: The world gets the virus under control—or it doesn’t.

Read it all.

What does the new coronavirus have in store for humanity? Nobody knows, but let @kakape and @sciencecohen walk you through a couple of scenarios. https://t.co/L1Lcjk3jmU

— Martin Enserink (@martinenserink) February 5, 2020

A religious literacy programme will be rolled out to ensure that civil servants and diplomats are no longer ignorant of the dire threats facing Christians around the world.

Sir Desmond Swayne, a leading Conservative campaigner for religious liberty, said: “This is all part of global Britain… This is us now reaching out with our soft power, using our diplomacy to defend religious freedom.”

The new training package will also give Government staff a crash course in the importance of religion to billions of people – and it may make damaging diplomatic blunders less likely.

There was embarrassment in 2018 when Britain’s most senior diplomat had to apologise for calling one of the holiest Sikh sites a mosque.

Research by the campaigning charity Open Doors suggests the persecution of Christians is getting worse, with “an average of eight Christians” killed for their faith every day last year, and 23 were “raped or sexually harassed for faith-related reasons”. It found North Korea was the country with the worst record on persecution, followed by Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya and Pakistan.

Read it all.

How Christian persecution overseas is set to become UK priority
The issue has risen up the Government’s agenda and will be debated by MPs this week.https://t.co/d5O8fMn1xY

— APPG FoRB (@APPGFoRB) February 3, 2020

Every day, 8 Christians worldwide are killed because of their faith.

Every week, 182 churches or Christian buildings are attacked.

And every month, 309 Christians are imprisoned unjustly.

So reports the 2020 World Watch List (WWL), the latest annual accounting from Open Doors of the top 50 countries where Christians are the most persecuted for their faith.

“We cannot let this stand,” said David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, during the 2020 list’s unveiling in Washington, DC, this morning. “People are speaking out and we have an obligation to hear their cry.”

The listed nations comprise 260 million Christians suffering high to severe levels of persecution, up from 245 million in last year’s list.

Read it all.

Every day, 8 Christians worldwide are killed because of their faith.

Every week, 182 churches or Christian buildings are attacked.

And every month, 309 Christians are imprisoned unjustly. https://t.co/kM5uZ6QfCW

— Akosua Sarfo 🇬🇭 (@AkosuaSarfo5) January 21, 2020

Dali’s work serves but a tiny number of the millions of women around the world who suffer from persecution. Of the 245 million Christians attacked for their faith last year, many are women and girls who are specifically and most frequently targeted through forced marriage, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. These are the findings of Gendered Persecution, an Open Doors report that examined the differences in persecution by gender in 33 countries for women and 30 countries for men. (An updated report will be released this March.)

While forced marriage is the “most regularly reported means of putting pressure on Christian women” and “remains largely invisible,” when analyzing the data on female persecution, researchers Helene Fisher and Elizabeth Miller found that

Among all forms of violence… the one most often noted [for women] was rape. The research found it to be a common characteristic of persecution of Christian women in 17 countries, with other forms of sexual assault being listed for exactly half of countries with available data. There are no mentions of this form of violence against men, nor is domestic violence one of the pressures mentioned as a tactic used against Christian men.

Not only must Christian women like the Boko Haram captives deal with their own trauma, they often can’t find sanctuary within their faith communities when they come home.

“Unfortunately, it is all too common that Christian communities do not distinguish themselves from their surrounding cultures and, as a result, will stigmatize their women and girls who have been victims of violence,” Fisher and Miller, the authors of the report, wrote in a statement to CT.

Read it all.

What persecution looks like for Christian women:

-forced marriage
-rape
-lack of access to education, healthcare or infrastructure
-forced divorce
-travel bans
-trafficking
-widowhood
-incarceration in a psychiatric unit
-forced abortions or contraceptionhttps://t.co/6FIgDoR2Sb

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) January 23, 2019

Enjoy them all.

Epiphany Celebrations Around the World https://t.co/5TEHj4t1Ld

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 6, 2018

An eight-year-old YouTube presenter has topped its list of high earners, making $26m last year.

Ryan Kaji (real name Gaun) made his toy review empire unboxing toys on YouTube from when he was just three. Now the eight-year-old has his face on toys and gets spotted in the supermarket.

A video from four years ago shows him woken from a toy-car bed by his parents, to find a giant egg with toys inside next to him. His speech is not yet fully developed – in the intro he says “welcomes to Ryan toy review”.

He plays with a series of toys that he retrieves from the egg, including a large racetrack that he puts toy cars on. Everything in the room, from his bed to the toys he plays with, is on the theme of the popular Pixar movie Cars.

Read it all.

The highest YouTube earner this year? An eight-year-old https://t.co/mbrZZqyPF5

— Guardian Tech (@guardiantech) December 20, 2019

The Vatican is praying that this year’s must-have Christmas gadget will not be an Apple Watch or Kindle, but rather its eRosary device.

The £99 bracelet, which is activated by making the sign of the cross with it, is aimed at tracking a devotee’s progress through a range of prayers and is accessed using an app called Click to Pray. It even doubles as a fitness monitor, tracking the wearer’s steps, location and calories burnt.

In increasingly secular western societies, technology and religion may seem at odds. Since 1993, for example, the number of Britons who think “we believe too often in science and not enough in feelings and faith” has fallen from 43 per cent to 27 per cent, according to the British Social Attitudes annual survey.

Some organised religions, however, are using technology to interact with communities in an attempt to forge connections between devotees and fuel engagement. Religious education, relationships, habits and knowledge are being transformed as social media allows laypeople to network with clerics and other religious figures.

Read it all.

Religions show faith in power of technology https://t.co/okWvcq1Pkr

— Financial Times (@FT) December 4, 2019

The military’s most frequent battles are not fought on land, by sea or in the air. They’re fought online, every day, and South Carolina’s defense contractors are trying to stay ahead of the enemy.

Katie Arrington, a former state lawmaker who was appointed in January as a consultant for the Department of Defense, said Charleston in particular is key when it comes to cybersecurity against China, terrorist groups and individuals attempting to undermine government security.

“We’re at war,” Arrington told The Post and Courier. “Cyberwar is real. To think this community isn’t exposed to what our adversaries are trying to do every day in the cyber realm would be remiss. Our cyberwarriors, the people who work in the Charleston defense contractor community, are the first layer of defense.”

That was the theme this week when more than 1,400 business leaders, military officers and government employees gathered in North Charleston for the Charleston Defense Contractors Association’s 13th annual conference to discuss the evolution of warfare. For decades, the federal government has looked to the private sector to come up with solutions. And cyberwarfare is now big business in the Palmetto State.

Read it all.

The military’s most frequent battles are not fought on land, by sea or in the air.

They’re fought online every day, and South Carolina’s defense contractors are trying to stay ahead of the enemy.https://t.co/k0ZWCRR5Xn

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) December 13, 2019

Our households – who lives with us, how we are related to them and what role we play in that shared space – have a profound effect on our daily experience of the world. A new Pew Research Center analysis of data from 130 countries and territories reveals that the size and composition of households often vary by religious affiliation.

Worldwide, Muslims live in the biggest households, with the average Muslim individual residing in a home of 6.4 people, followed by Hindus at 5.7. Christians fall in the middle (4.5), forming relatively large families in sub-Saharan Africa and smaller ones in Europe. Buddhists (3.9), Jews (3.7) and the religiously unaffiliated (3.7) – defined as those who do not identify with an organized religion, also known as “nones” – live in smaller households, on average.

Read it all.

NEW from @PewReligion: Religion and Living Arrangements Around the Worldhttps://t.co/0m38uWhq2b

— Pew Research Global (@pewglobal) December 12, 2019

The Rev. Fred Ochieng, Vicar of Emmanuel Church in the Shaurimoyo Parish in the Anglican Diocese of Maseno South, Kisumu-Kenya, invited those present to take steps to form relationships with brothers and sisters in his area. “Pray for us,” he said. “Be our friend. Relationships are more important than anything. Consider coming for a mission. Be a sender. Consider supporting us financially.” Ochieng stressed that while his congregation is seeking to be self-sustaining, they need assistance to move in that direction. He invited attendees to support theological training for their clergy. “Support one of our clergy to go to (the theological training in) Marsabit.”

Thirteen guests spoke that evening including

Bishop Probal Dutta, Bishop of Grace Trust, India
The Rev. John Chol Daau, Episcopal Church of South Sudan
Bishop Daniel Wario Qampicha, Diocese of Marsabit, Kenya
Bishop Stephen Kaziimba, Diocese of Mityana, Uganda
Bishop Seth Ndayirukiye, Bishop of Matana, Burundi
Bishop Francis Matui, Bishop of Makueni, Kenya
The Rev. Bernard Bisoke Balikenga, Provincial Youth Coordinator, Anglican Church of the Congo
Bishop Johnson Gakumba, Diocese of Northern Uganda
The Rev. Fred Ochieng Onyango, Vicar, Emmanuel Church, Shaurimoyo Parish in the Anglican Diocese of Maseno South, Kisumu-Kenya
The Rev. Canon Dr. Rebecca Nyegenye, Provost of All Saints Cathedral, Kampala, Uganda
Bishop George Kasangaki, Diocese of Masindi-Kitara, Uganda
Bishop Joseph Kibucwa, Diocese of Kirinyaga, Kenya

“I’ve got to give our bishop credit,” said the Rev. Gary Beson, Rector of St. Timothy’s, Cane Bay, after the evening presentation. “He’s really emphasized ‘Biblical Anglicanism for a Global Age.’ (My wife) Sue and I were having dinner with Fred (the Rev. Fred Ochieng of Kenya ) and Qampicha (The Bishop of the Diocese of Marsabit, Kenya) the other night. They said, ‘There’s not another diocese in the US as interested in what’s going on in the world as you are.’”

Read it all and note that the full audio presentation is available (and do enjoy the pictures).

Archbishop Sir David Moxon has called on churches in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia to recognise and respond to human trafficking in our region.

In a seminar at Vaughan Park, Archbishop David Moxon has joined fellow advocates for the elimination of human trafficking to outline how we can help identify and put a stop to trafficking in the Pacific.

As an isolated and supposedly clean, green and pure country, we don’t usually associate the dark and sordid crime of human trafficking with Aotearoa.

But it’s here.

Police have documented cases of people who were brought to Aotearoa under false pretences to work in forced-labour conditions. This happens especially when there are unfilled labour demands in our hospitality, nursing, horticulture, construction and fishing industries.

Sr Gemma Wilson from Aotearoa New Zealand Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ANZRATH) spoke about the challenges of anti-trafficking work, while Rev Chris Frazer (a Diocese of Wellington deacon for social justice) shared how she works alongside the Department of Immigration and other churches to help authorities intervene in human trafficking situations. Also speaking on the issues was Clare Mercer, a young Christian leader who has taken part in anti-trafficking work in Greece.

Human trafficking is the second largest illicit crime in the world, reaping billions of dollars in illegal profits every year….

Read it all.

“The image of God inside people is at stake.” Most Rev. Sir David Moxon, KZNM. A discussion on the refugee and #humantrafficking #laycentre pic.twitter.com/a1UtEpFbd3

— The Lay Centre (@LayCentre) February 3, 2017

Pope Francis begins a three-nation visit to Africa later on Wednesday.

It will be his fourth visit to the continent since he became the head of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013, compared to the two his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, made during his eight-year papacy.

The importance of Africa to the Catholic Church can be summed up in a word – growth.

Africa has the fastest growing Catholic population in the world, while Western Europe, once regarded as the heartland of Christianity, has become one of the world’s most secular regions, according to the US-based Pew Research Center.

And many of those who do identify themselves as Christian in Western Europe do not regularly attend church.

In contrast, Christianity, in its different denominations, is growing across Africa. The Pew Research Center predicts that by 2060 more than four in 10 Christians will be in sub-Saharan Africa.

Read it all.

Pope Francis in Africa: Is the continent the Catholic Church’s great hope? https://t.co/n3SfiI3LUW

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) September 3, 2019

Make up your own list and then read it all.

The world’s top 50 thinkers 2019 https://t.co/mflixuvtYG

— 선대인 (@kennedian3) July 21, 2019

As of this month, the world’s population is 7.63 billion, according to the United Nations, which celebrates World Population Day today. More than half of all people around the globe (3.97 billion) live in just seven countries, according to the UN’s estimates. China has the world’s largest population (1.42 billion), followed by India (1.35 billion). The next five most populous nations – the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan and Nigeria – together have fewer people than India.

As recently as 2014, half the world’s population was concentrated in just six countries – the same nations as above, with the exception of Nigeria. Recent population growth, however, has been faster in the rest of the world than in these six nations, meaning that the top six now hold slightly less than half (49.4%) of the world’s people. Including Nigeria’s nearly 200 million people puts the world’s seven most populous countries at 52% of the global population.

The demographic future for the U.S. and the world looks very different than it did in the recent past. Growth from 1950 to 2010 was rapid — the global population nearly tripled, and the U.S. population doubled. However, population growth in future decades is projected to be significantly slower and is expected to tilt strongly to the oldest age groups, both globally and in the U.S.

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More than half of all people around the globe (3.97 billion) live in just seven countries: 🇨🇳 🇮🇳 🇺🇸 🇮🇩 🇧🇷 🇵🇰 🇳🇬https://t.co/4z8KyU6lxe pic.twitter.com/8Mqv9bLaix

— Pew Research Global (@pewglobal) July 21, 2019

“I always say,” Karen Armstrong admits with a conspiratorial grin, “that God bought me that place.” She is referring to the north London house she paid for with the proceeds of her series of bestsellers on religion — and Islam in particular.

If there was one specific book that underpinned the foundations of her Islington home, it was her short history of Islam. Published in 2000, this was perfectly timed for the west’s agonising over religion and the potential for a clash of civilisations sparked by the September 11 attacks the following year.

“I never saw the inside of a library” after that, she tells me as we are steered to our table. Instead, she was on the radio nonstop, “talking about Islam ” — as indeed she has been virtually ever since. She sees it as a civic duty to defend the religion — against both the misconceptions of non-Muslims and against what she sees as the corrupting influence of certain strains of Islamic theology, notably Saudi Wahhabism.

It is, Armstrong says of the latter, “as if a tiny sect in the [American] Bible belt had petrodollars and international approval to export their form of Christianity over the rest of the world.”

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Karen Armstrong: ‘Religion is a matter of imagination’ https://t.co/AMXV4nD1Hg

— Financial Times (@FT) July 19, 2019