These articles were first published in our March edition of the newspaper, click here for more.
In a legal challenge to the law surrounding end of life issues, campaigners have said they will continue to protect the most vulnerable despite losing an appeal in mid-January.
Disability campaigners Nikki and Merv Kenward lost an appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice where they were protesting amendments to guidelines which make it less likely that medical staff will be prosecuted for wilfully ending a patient’s life.
On 17 January, an undisclosed settlement was reached on the amount of costs to be paid as a result of the gender abortion case taken up by Aisling Hubert.
£36,000 costs were awarded against her after she tried to bring two ‘gender-abortion’ doctors to justice. The judge said he could not amend or reduce the costs. Instead a settlement was reached and Aisling now has until 18 August to pay the agreed amount.
The results were published in January of a Bible reading survey. 3,700 Christian people who could be reached for the survey via their computer took part. Two thirds were women and two thirds were aged 45 and over. 40% were from the south of England.
63% of people in the survey read the Bible every day. Some groups read the Bible more frequently than others, for example 45% of 18–34 year olds read the Bible every day, compared to 79% of those over 65.
Conservative MPs blocked plans to force schools to teach ‘LGBT inclusive’ sex and relationships education (SRE) in mid-January.
A Public Bill committee voted 10-5 against the plans. Despite this positive step, while discussing an exemption to the clause for faith schools, Tory MP Simon Hoare said that: ‘LGBT inclusive SRE should be taught [in faith schools] because it is part of human nature – people are born straight or gay’.
A former Stonewall campaigner was made Director of Corporate Strategy at Ofsted in January.
Luke Tryl served as a special advisor to previous Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, who championed the Government’s controversial ‘British values’ regulations and is a proponent of statutory sex education. Stonewall lists statutory sex-ed in primary and secondary schools in England as its number-one manifesto aim.
All Nations college received outstanding results in the QAA Higher Education Review it underwent in late 2016.
A governmental review that takes place every four years, the rigorous examination by the QAA focuses on four specific areas and All Nations met UK expectations in each of them.
Barnabas Fund are challenging a statement made by the BBC on 29 January which claimed that there was no factual basis for believing that more Muslims than Christian refugees were allowed into the USA in 2016.
However, statistics appear to show that around 99% of Syrian refugees to the USA in 2016 were Sunni Muslims. The other 1% consisted of 56 Christians and 37 non-Sunni Muslims. A fuller account of this complaint will appear in the April edition of en.
Ray Evans will become the FIEC’s first Church Leadership Consultant when he joins the team in April 2017.
Ray will be seconded to the FIEC for two days a week from Grace Community Church, Bedford where he is Senior Pastor. He will offer help and advice to leadership teams in FIEC churches around the country, while still serving at Grace for the rest of the week. Ray said: ‘I’m passionate about helping church leaders to focus on church growth; from thinking through evangelism and mission, to facing the common obstacles to growth.’