In November, various Western media outlets reported that Han Chinese men had been assigned to monitor the homes of Uighur women whose husbands had been detained in prison camps.

The reports came out after an anonymous Chinese official gave an interview with Radio Free Asia, confirming the program but denying there was anything sinister about it.

As part of the “Pair Up and Become Family” programme, Han Chinese men stay with and sleep in the same beds as Uighur women.

According to the Chinese Government, the programme is designed to “promote ethnic unity”.

But to Rushan Abbas, a Uighur activist whose family members have been detained in the Xinjiang camps for more than a year, it’s nothing more than systemised rape – part of the Government’s brutal ongoing crackdown against the country’s ethnic minority.

“This is mass rape,” she told news.com.au. “The Government is offering money, housing and jobs to Han people to come and marry Uighur people.

Read it all.

First, then, the flag. Numerous reporters have asked whether the ministry supports what was stated in the editorial. Was Mark Galli speaking on behalf of the institution? CT does not have an editorial board. Editors publish under their own names. Yet Galli has stood in the trenches for men and women of faith for over three decades. He has been an outstanding editor in chief. While he does not speak for everyone in the ministry—our board and our staff hold a range of opinions—he carries the editorial voice of the magazine. We support CT’s editorial independence and believe it’s vital to our mission for the editor in chief to speak out on the issues of the day.

As an institution, Christianity Today has no interest in partisan politics. It does not endorse candidates. We aim to bring biblical wisdom and beautiful storytelling both to the church and from the church to the world. Politics matter, but they do not bring the dead back to life. We are far more committed to the glory of God, the witness of the church, and the life of the world than we care about the fortunes of any party. Political parties come and go, but the witness of the church is the hope of the world, and the integrity of that witness is paramount.

Out of love for Jesus and his church, not for political partisanship or intellectual elitism, this is why we feel compelled to say that the alliance of [some of] American evangelicalism with this presidency has wrought enormous damage to Christian witness. It has alienated many of our children and grandchildren. It has harmed African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American brothers and sisters. And it has undercut the efforts of countless missionaries who labor in the far fields of the Lord. While the Trump administration may be well regarded in some countries, in many more the perception of wholesale evangelical support for the administration has made toxic the reputation of the Bride of Christ.

Read it all.

Following CT’s editorial on Trump, our president @TimDalrymple_ answers some questions about our ministry and why we see this discussion as so important.

We are planting a flag and setting a table. Fellow evangelicals, we invite you to join us. https://t.co/2rvz2WDXzu

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) December 22, 2019

Swinney, an evangelical Christian, is reluctant to elaborate with reporters about his faith; he declined an interview request for this story. But in the moments after Clemson’s 44-16 win over Alabama in the College Football Playoff national championship game Jan. 7, he made a bold statement in front of a global audience.

“We beat Notre Dame and Alabama. We left no doubt. And we walk off this field tonight as the first 15-0 team in college football history,” he said. “All the credit, all the glory, goes to the good Lord.”

Recruiting new talent is perpetually on the minds of college football coaches, and Swinney, who will lead Clemson against Ohio State in the Dec. 28 Fiesta Bowl, has struck a chord with prospects who come from strong Christian backgrounds.

Players insist Swinney doesn’t force his views on others, but it’s clear faith is imbued in the program.

The results are the envy of the sport: five straight College Football Playoff appearances, two of the last three national titles, 28 consecutive wins.

“Only God can do this,” Swinney said Jan. 7 inside Levi’s Stadium, purple and orange confetti clumping on his pullover. “That’s a fact. People may think I’m crazy or quacky, or whatever.

“But only God can orchestrate this.”

Read it all.

The Post and Courier spoke to 13 current and incoming @ClemsonFB players for this story.

All attributed their college decision in large part to Swinney’s transparency about his faith. https://t.co/0xuygpvqBY

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) December 21, 2019

Christians focused almost exclusively on the theme of martyrdom. In particular, they were fascinated by a narrative found in 2 Maccabees about an anonymous Jewish woman and her seven sons who allowed themselves to be tortured and killed by Antiochus rather than violate their faith. Early Christian writers understood the Jewish martyrs as role models, who achieved the ultimate goal of escaping this world for a better one. According to Ambrose, the fourth-century bishop of Milan, the mother could have encouraged her sons to avoid death, “but she considered that her maternal love lay in [urging] her sons to a life that is everlasting rather than an earthly one.”

The authoritative story of the Maccabean era in Jewish tradition is quite different. Jewish rabbinical literature in antiquity didn’t focus at all on the Maccabean martyrs in the context of Hanukkah. Instead it emphasized the role of the Jewish fighters and what happened after their victory. Like the Christian retellings, Jewish tradition focused on the partnership between man and God. But rather than locating that partnership in heaven, it identified it here on earth.

Jewish tradition’s emphasis on the Hanukkah miracle of the oil reinforces this point. In a story popularized in American culture by Jewish celebrities like Adam Sandler, rabbinical literature records that when the Jewish fighters finally recaptured the Temple in Jerusalem, they sought to rekindle its seven-branched oil lamp, best known by its Hebrew name, menorah. Although they only had enough oil for one night, it lasted miraculously for eight nights until the Jews were able to procure a new supply. This tradition focuses on temporal existence. The miracle of the menorah allows the Jews to work at resuming their regular lives here on Earth.

While Christian tradition connected the story of the Maccabean era to the Temple’s menorah, it did so in a different way. In praising the Maccabean martyrs, the Syriac Christian writer Severus of Antioch wrote: “Not so [truly] did the candlestick of seven lights which made glorious the temporal Temple give light, as did this woman with the seven human lights, her sons, give light to the Church.” Severus played down the significance of the Temple’s menorah by comparing its seven branches with the seven martyrs who left this world behind.

Read it all.

I think one can clearly state the nature of the myth of some kind of monolithic evangelical support for President Trump.

The evangelical movement is quite broad and diverse and comprises nearly ¼ or so of the USA population.

In this movement in terms of the last election (2016) there were four groups.

In the first group are evangelicals who voted for Hillary Clinton with varying degrees of enthusiasm, either for her policy or party stance in terms of things like support for the disenfranchised. This also includes also a number who voted for her because they saw no choice but to vote against Donald Trump.

In the second group are evangelicals who voted for a third party, or stayed at home and didn’t vote because even though they opposed a number of the Democratic nominee’s proposals they were horrified by Donald Trump’s character and modus operandi and could not in good conscience support him.

In the third group were people who were adamantly opposed to a number of Hillary Clinton’s proposals, but who reluctantly concluded that the only way they could influence public policy was to vote for one of the two people who were going to win. They therefore held their nose and voted against Hillary Clinton but very much thinking that they were worried about Trump as a person and what his character would do to the office.

In the fourth group were people who enthusiastically supported Donald Trump. The reasons for this support vary a great deal under the surface, one of the most interesting being a who number felt that the culture war had been shoved down their throat during the Obama years, and actively wanted a person who would enable a kind of payback, even with his modus operandi.

The main distortion comes from the NEARLY COMPLETE FOCUS on group four, and even a minority of leaders among group four. There may be an occasional nod to group three, but often it is falsely implied that group three are enthusiastically behind the current President, whereas they are not at all but saw no alternative given the American two party system. Groups one and two are hardly even talked about.

Therefore the picture given of the movement as a whole is entirely false. I would like to say personally how sorry I am for the Hispanic, African American, and mainly younger evangelicals whose voices are nearly entirely silenced by the false picture–KSH.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.

Read it all.

From Christianity Today’s editor in chief https://t.co/NVdQjg4odC

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) December 19, 2019

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Almighty God, who didst call thy servant Katharina von Bora from a cloister to work for the reform of thy church, grant that all of us may go wherever thou dost call, and serve however thou dost will, for thy honor and glory and for the welfare of thy whole church. All this we ask through Jesus Christ, our only mediator and advocate. Amen.

The late Martin Luther’s wife Katharina von Bora died six years after her husband on December 20, 1552. Her cart was involved in a bad accident near the city gates, seriously injuring her and Katharina passed away about three months later aged 53.https://t.co/kTdtU2cyBC pic.twitter.com/wZFz5SApTF

— Trivia Encyclopedia (@edpearce080759) December 20, 2019

Gavin Ashenden, a former Honorary Chaplain to the Queen in the Church of England who was consecrated a bishop in a Continuing Anglican ecclesial community, will be received into the Catholic Church on Sunday.

He will receive confirmation Dec. 22 during a Mass at Shrewsbury Cathedral from Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury.

His wife, Helen, became a Catholic about two years ago in the Diocese of Shrewsbury.

“Having come to believe that the claims and expression of the Catholic faith are the most profound and potent expression of apostolic and patristic belief, and to accept the primacy of the Petrine tradition, I am grateful to the Bishop of Shrewsbury and the Catholic community in his diocese for the opportunity to mend 500 years of fractured history and be reconciled to the Church that gave birth to my earlier tradition,” Ashenden has said.

Read it all.

R
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
R1
Marriage and God’s purpose
We affirm, as the church in every age has done, that marriage, as the lifelong partnership of a man and a woman, is fundamental to God’s purpose for the whole of society. It meets the physical and emotional needs of individuals made in God’s image and affords a stable environment for the birth and upbringing of children. This most-welcome gift of God has an abiding strength and continuity that will outlast the ebb and flow of cultural change, yet it demands fresh appropriation within the cultural terms of each new generation. Sexual union and the marriage covenant belong together; the one is the appropriate expression of the love involved in the other. The tendency of modern society to separate them–in promiscuity, group sex and other experimental patterns–is one to be opposed at every point.

R2
The calling to a single life
Together with marriage, we affirm afresh the calling of God, given to some, to live singly. This is not a sign of personal failure, nor need it lead to dissatisfaction; on the contrary, the single person can enjoy a rich and fulfilled life in God’s purposes, yet there are special needs attaching to this state that can be met by a caring church fellowship.

R3
Homosexuality
We recognise the growing problem of homosexuality and our need for a better-informed understanding of this condition. There should be a full welcoming place in the Christian fellowship for the Christian homosexual. Nevertheless, we believe homosexual intercourse to be contrary to God’s law and not a true expression of human sexuality as he has given it. More thought needs to be given to the pastoral care appropriate to those with this particular need.

Read it all.

Appealing to what Richard Baxter and C.S. Lewis famously called “mere Christianity,” the 6,500 word document drew primarily from New Testament precepts and the Trinitarian doctrine of the Nicene Creed. Affirming a common Christ as Lord and Saviour, ECT declared that “Evangelicals and Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ.” Recognising the saving power of the cross and the authority of a divinely-inspired Bible, ECT affirmed “together that we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ,” and that “Christians are to teach and live in obedience to the divinely inspired Scriptures, which are the infallible Word of God.”

At the same time as affirming a common Christianity, ECT did not seek to paper over the real and ongoing differences existing between the two traditions — most notably in their ecclesiology, doctrines of the sacraments and scriptural authority vis-à-vis church tradition. Realistic about its scope and ambition, the agreement made it clear that it could not, in itself, resolve these doctrinal disputes stemming from the Reformation.

Shifting to the Christian church’s engagement with society, the ECT recognised the enormous degree of overlap between the Catholic social teaching of the papal encyclicals and Evangelical social ethics, articulated in books such as John Stott’s Issues Facing Christians Today. As such, it called for Evangelicals and Catholics to cooperate in contending for the importance of marriage and family, the sanctity of human life at all stages of development and a free society based on a market economy with humane safeguards to protect the poor and weak from poverty or exploitation.

Prominent Evangelical signatories to ECT included: the Reformed Anglican theologian, J.I. Packer; the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, Bill Bright; the Evangelical historian, Mark Noll; and the author and cultural commentator, Os Guinness. Meanwhile, from within the Catholic fold, ECT attracted the endorsements of Michael Novak from the Institute on Religion and Democracy; George Weigel, the acclaimed biographer of Pope John Paul II and Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Centre; Cardinal John O’Connor of New York; and Archbishop Francis Stafford of Denver.

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Paulo Guedes, Mr Bolsonaro’s economy minister, was spotted in Congress recently wearing a bracelet with a Bible verse given to him by an evangelical pastor. “These guys support the president,” he beamed. Mr Guedes is leading his own crusade to bring the free-market economics he learnt from Milton Friedman in Chicago to his homeland. The Universal Church’s message that state handouts are no way to live is music to his ears.

The Sunday service featured on its giant screens the story of a believer who raised himself from scavenging on a rubbish dump at the age of 17 to the ranks of the bourgeoisie. Now a successful lawyer and the proud owner of three apartments, he was invited on stage by Mr Macedo to explain how his devotion to the church had transformed his life. His strict adherence to a rule that believers tithe one-tenth of their income to the church — even when eking out an existence on a rubbish dump — was emphasised repeatedly.

Mr Mendonça says the message is an entrepreneurial one. “The same things you hear at a seminar for people starting their own business — the need to believe in your potential and in what you do, to be creative and to take risks — are exactly the same” as the advice in church, he says.

The formula has worked for Mr Macedo. His personal wealth has been estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.1bn, making him one of the world’s richest religious leaders.

Read it all.

Michael Stott: The values promoted by Brazil’s Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and its evangelical siblings are not just reshaping Brazil’s religious beliefs but also its politicshttps://t.co/XGrhOlAdNB

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) December 16, 2019

At a packed 11 a.m. Mass at Holy Child Church in Bridgeville, the Rev. Dennis Yurochko explained he was wearing rose-colored vestments to mark Gaudete Sunday — the third Sunday in the Advent season that signifies a time to rejoice as Christ’s birth approaches.

Another reason for celebration, he told the Roman Catholic congregation, is that Holy Child will officially merge on Jan. 6 with nearby St. Barbara and St. Mary churches to create the new Corpus Christi Parish.

Unlike many parishes in the Diocese of Pittsburgh grappling with empty pews and uncertain futures, Corpus Christi “is thankfully managing growth rather than decline,” Father Yurochko said.

About 10,000 individuals are registered in what will be the new parish, he said, including about 6,600 at Holy Child; 2,700 at St. Barbara, also in Bridgeville; and about 1,500 at St. Mary in Cecil, Washington County.

Read it all.

A new Catholic parish merger is ‘managing growth rather than decline’ https://t.co/Qsm2d04wgU

— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (@PittsburghPG) December 16, 2019

Listen to it all (and note the handout link if desired).

Faced with so many unknowns, British evangelicals are trying to remain focused on things that don’t change.

“It is essentially important our attitude to each other remains fueled by love,” Webster said. “As Brexit stumbles towards actually happening, evangelicals should not lose sight of loving our neighbor.”

In the end, the question of “how to Brexit like a Christian” has as many possible answers as the question of “how to Brexit” at all. Friendships have been tested, harsh words said, zealous positions taken.

That is because, John Stevens said, “there is no specific ‘biblical’ position on Brexit.” Stevens believes evangelicals have “to speak wisely and model unity-in-disagreement.”

“This will no doubt become easier once decisions are made and the uncertainty is ended,” he said. “In the meantime we need to keep praying for wisdom and grace, and keep trusting the good sovereign purposes of God. Who will win? At this point God knows. And that is the only true comfort.”

Read it all.

Wondering what British evangelicals think about Brexit? My take on it, in @CTmagazine #brexit #evangelicals https://t.co/2yWRfaaAeD

— Katie Gaddini (@gaddini_k) December 15, 2019

As a Jew, I have a deep love for and admiration of Christianity. I identify with Jesus’ protests against mechanized, nascent rabbinic practice, and the well-established priestly cult of his day. Jesus knew what many committed Jews have long known: Rabbinic law runs the risk of becoming an end unto itself. Halacha, the Hebrew term for Jewish law, doesn’t directly translate to “law.” It means “way” or “path.”

Unfortunately for too many Jews, Halacha became a veil—an intermediary—between the individual and God. Rulings on Jewish law are frequently engulfed in a labyrinth of casuistic hairsplitting debate. Great rabbinic minds often have been diverted away from timeless moral issues only to rule on the superficial, like whether aluminum foil or bottled water is kosher.

My time at Brentwood Presbyterian also has made me reflect on the decline of Christian affiliation in the U.S. Christianity has become increasingly marginalized alongside Judaism.

Read it all.

Judaism and Christianity #religion #faith #Judaism #Christianity https://t.co/izfPNPdFPa

— Dr. Michael K. Ong (@MichaelOngRisk) December 13, 2019

A year ago, clerics here in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country expressed alarm over China’s treatment of ethnic-minority Muslims—around a million of whom have been detained in re-education camps, according to human-rights groups.

An inside look at China’s public-relations campaign to persuade one Muslim nation to stay silent on Xinjiang’s re-education camps for Uighurs https://t.co/R4JHvVsG9K

— WSJ China Real Time (@ChinaRealTime) December 12, 2019

The Federal Government has overhauled its proposed religious discrimination laws in an effort to win over faith leaders who rebuked the Coalition’s earlier attempts.

Attorney-General Christian Porter outlined 11 changes to the draft bill, which the Government opted against introducing to Parliament last month after facing criticism from religious and groups advocating for racial and sexual equality, and for those with disabilities.

As flagged, the new bill will allow religious bodies — such as hospitals and aged care providers — to continue to hire people on the basis of their religion.

The other changes include defining the word “vilify” as inciting “hatred or violence” and exemptions to allow religious camps and conference centres to take faith into account when deciding to provide accommodation.

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Judging by its shops, Short Creek seems more like a trendy suburb of somewhere like Portland than a small town on the Utah-Arizona border with just shy of 8,000 people. There are two health-food stores, a bakery and a vape shop. The occasional sight of women in prairie dresses and the huge houses with thick walls are the only conspicuous evidence Short Creek was once home to an American theocracy.

When the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (lds), better known as the Mormon church, abandoned several controversial doctrines in 1890, there were dissenters. Some, seeking to preserve abandoned institutions such as “plural marriage” (polygamy) and communal ownership, formed communities practising “Old-Fashioned Mormonism”. By the early 1930s Short Creek was such a place….

Read it all.

Take the time to enjoy them all and note that several have links to handouts that accompanied the talks.

Sept 16 The ReNew Conference in England starts today. This conference is for faithful Anglican leaders in England. Pray for good fellowship and partnership in the gospel. Archbishop Ben Kwashi is speaking at the conference. Pray for him as he brings a global Anglican perspective. pic.twitter.com/rbKYy1OHIt

— GAFCON (@gafconference) September 15, 2019

Two of the book’s editors provided standard definitions, In an introduction to a 1984 book, Marsden said “we may properly speak of evangelicalism as a single phenomenon” with “conceptual unity” around five points: “the final authority” of the Bible, the “real, historical” character of God’s work recorded in the Bible, “eternal salvation only through personal trust in Christ,” “the importance of evangelism and missions,” and “the importance of a spiritually transformed life.”

That last point, often mis-characterized, does not require a dramatic moment of “born again” conversion or commitment. People in biblically conservative churches are often “transformed” gradually, but thoroughly.

Bebbington’s 1989 history of British evangelicalism defined the “special marks” as “conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible, and what may be called crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.”

Confusingly, both the Marsden and Bebbington criteria depict not some distinctive evangelical ideology but ardor for pretty much what all of Protestantism stood for till recent times.

The Religion Guy advises writers to refine those definitions by adding traditionalism in doctrine and morals. Thus evangelicalism embraces the ancient belief in God as the Trinity (excluding “Oneness” Pentecostals, Latter-day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses despite some evangelical-like traits), and on morality opposes such innovations as openly gay clergy and same-sex marriages in church.

Note that movement-wide definitions omit certain sectors’ enthusiasm for end-times scenarios or attacks on evolution. Also they involve religious substance, not politics…

Read it all.

Read it all.

We live in a strange and dangerous world, a world so dangerous that Mr. Chamberlain warned us recently to watch our very words lest their echoes, as in the Swiss Alps, awaken an avalanche
which might plunge down the mountain to leap upon the peaceful villages and towns beneath. Once again we must live dangerously.

An old world is disintegrating and we do not know whether this means a definite end or a liberation of the elements of the world, enabling them to aggregate afresh and crystallize into a new and better world.” I quote that passage from Dr. Adolf Keller’s telling little book, Five Minutes to Twelve, because it gives the urgent background to that prevailing perplexity which is the dominant mood of our time. But I have another reason for quoting it. I believe it contains a sentence whose message is the challenge of our opportunity. “Once again,” says Dr. Keller, “we must live dangerously.”

Read it all.

My final question to Keller during our phone interview was his take on the spiritual temperature of the nation. What sorts of yearnings does he see and sense, and how can Christianity, properly understood, speak to those yearnings?

“I think the perplexity I see is that people want to have a foundation for making moral statements, but at the same time, they want to be free, and so they want to talk about the fact that all moral statements are culturally constructed,” he told me. “And so when somebody pushes a little bit on their life, they’d say, ‘All truth and all fact, all facts and all moral statements, are culturally constructed.’”

As Keller pointed out, they’re creating, at least philosophically, a kind of relativism, though of course no one actually lives like a relativist. All except sociopaths believe in certain deep truths about right and wrong, human nature, justice and a good life. “What we need is a non-oppressive moral absolute,” in Keller’s words. “We need moral absolutes that don’t turn the bearers of those moral absolutes into oppressors themselves.”

Keller concluded our conversation with a sentence that summarizes his consequential life: “I actually think the Christian faith has got all the resources you need.”

Read it all.

Well said: “I tend to think a fully formed Christian is somebody who finds Christianity both rationally and intellectually credible, but also emotionally and existentially true and satisfying.” — @timkellernychttps://t.co/EsFevgPXJk

— Andrew T. Walker (@andrewtwalk) December 5, 2019

Radical plans to rescue the Church of Scotland from extinction are at risk of collapse amid rancorous infighting and internal division, one of its most senior figures has warned.

The Kirk registered a deficit of £4.5 million last year and membership is dwindling by an average of more than 100 people a week. It is estimated that the church has lost 80 per cent of parishioners since the 1950s.

In an effort to address its declining fortunes it has approved wide-ranging cost-cutting measures, including merging parishes and closing a number of churches. Earlier this month the Kirk agreed to integrate a number of its policymaking councils and significantly reduce the number of meetings.

The Very Rev Dr John Chalmers, a former moderator and principal clerk of the church’s general assembly, urged members to put aside their differences and work together. Speaking of the reforms he said: “If we do not change the way we think of our colleagues or learn to speak well of our brothers and sisters in Christ — even those we disagree — it may all be for nothing. Ours is a culture that needs to change”.

Read it all (subscription).

Radical plans to rescue the Church of Scotland from extinction are at risk of collapse amid rancorous infighting and internal division, one of its most senior figures has warned https://t.co/UOpZxWxjyj

— The Times Scotland (@thetimesscot) December 2, 2019

That the Chief Rabbi should be compelled to make such an unprecedented statement at this time ought to alert us to the deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews: pic.twitter.com/DNxr0Qxht5

— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) November 26, 2019

Jeremy Corbyn’s handling of antisemitism allegations makes him “unfit for high office”, the Chief Rabbi has said while warning that the “very soul of our nation is at stake” in next month’s general election.

In an unprecedented intervention into politics, which he describes as “amongst the most painful moments” of his career, Ephraim Mirvis says that “a new poison” has taken hold in Labour “sanctioned from the very top”.

In an article for The Times today, the Chief Rabbi says that the Labour leader’s claim to have dealt with all allegations of antisemitism is “a mendacious fiction” and the way that the party has handled the claims is “incompatible with the British values of which we are so proud”.

Read it all (subscription).

NEW: Chief Rabbi says “the overwhelming majority of British Jews are gripped by anxiety” in this election and urges people to think carefully before voting Labour. Says the party’s claim to have dealt with antisemitism is “mendacious fiction”. #GE2019

https://t.co/zLoSBfknlE

— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) November 25, 2019

The internal workings of a vast chain of Chinese internment camps used to detain at least a million people from the nation’s Muslim minorities are laid out in leaked Communist Party documents published on Sunday.

The China Cables, a cache of classified government papers, appear to provide the first official glimpse into the structure, daily life and ideological framework behind centres in north-western Xinjiang region that have provoked international condemnation.

Obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and shared with the Guardian, the BBC and 15 other media partners, the documents have been independently assessed by experts who have concluded they are authentic. China said they had been “fabricated”.

However, the documents are consistent with mounting evidence that the country runs detention camps that are secret, involuntary and used for ideological “education transformation”.

When reports surfaced of mass internments without trial, authorities in Beijing initially denied the existence of the detention centres, whose inmates are mostly Uighurs and other ethnic minorities.

Read it all.

Possibly the biggest human rights scandal of our age. No other words.

“The internal workings of a vast chain of Chinese internment camps used to detain at least a million people from the nation’s Muslim minorities.”https://t.co/gP3MqgUwGi

— Duncan Morrow (@duncan_morrow) November 24, 2019

Anyone who has visited India for longer than a few days is likely familiar with jugaad, a Hindi word that describes a workaround solution to a problem, often a clumsy fix that cuts corners or bends rules. The closest English equivalents are “hack” and “kludge,” methods employed when conventional solutions are costly, arduous or impossible.

Indians usually encounter jugaadin the more humdrum spheres of life—getting a seat on a train, for example, or a low-cost repair to a car. Yet the concept has now moved to a more elevated perch—the Supreme Court of India, which, in a judgment that seeks to resolve the country’s most incendiary religious dispute, has engaged in what can only be described as jugaad jurisprudence.

MPs were told that there are over three million opposite-sex couples that cohabit but choose not to marry for personal reasons. While these couples support a million children, they do not have the security or legal protection that married couples or civil partners enjoy.

The instrument extends civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples in England and Wales, by amending the definition of civil partnerships and the eligibility criteria for registering as civil partners in the 2004 Act, to remove the same-sex requirement.

It also amends Part 5 of the 2004 Act so that certain opposite-sex relationships formed in other countries, which are not marriages, can be recognised as civil partnerships in England and Wales.

The instrument also provides specific protections for religious organisations and persons acting on their behalf. The religious protections recognise the potential for diversity of religious views in this area, particularly whilst some religious organisations may choose not to be involved in any civil partnerships, others may be content to host only civil partnerships between same-sex couples, and others may prefer only to be involved in civil partnerships between opposite-sex couples, the paper explains.

The instrument also introduces a new ‘non-compulsion’ clause so that religious organisations and persons acting on their behalf cannot be compelled to do specified acts (such as allowing religious premises to be used for civil partnerships, or participating in civil partnerships on religious premises), where either the organisation, or the person, does not wish to do so.

Read it all.

The appointment of a new President of Churches Together in England (CTE) has been blocked because the nominee is in a same-sex marriage.

There are six Presidents of CTE, the Churches’ ecumenical instrument. They include the Archbishop of Canterbury and the RC Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols. The fourth presidency became vacant in October 2018, when Billy Kennedy finished his four-year term.

In May, Hannah Brock Womack, an active Quaker, was formally appointed to the position by the fourth presidency group: Quakers in Britain; the Lutheran Council of Great Britain; the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England; German-Speaking Lutheran, Reformed, and United Congregations in Great Britain; and the Church of Scotland.

On learning that Ms Womack had recently been married to a woman, however, a majority of the member Churches of CTE, through its enabling group, voted in September to request that the fourth presidency group “refrain from enacting its Presidency, leaving the Fourth Presidency as an ‘empty chair’ for the current term of office”.

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NEW CTE block appointment of fourth president because the nominee is in a same-sex marriagehttps://t.co/s0vXMhiFTH

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) November 22, 2019