As theologyontheweb.org.uk celebrated its
14th anniversary on 1 September,
the
25,000+ theological articles that it hosts are
equipping millions of visitors around the
world to study in-depth, not only the Bible,
but also church history, biblical archaeology
and Christian missions without the need to
access a university or Bible College library.
Launched in September 2001 the original
website biblicalstudies.org.uk has developed
into eight inter-linked sites which provide
their resources free of charge.
Rich marry more than poor
Bible Society’s Newswatch (Premier)
A study by the Marriage Foundation published in August, has shown that the trend
away from marriage was largely confined to
low income groups prior to the 1990s.
However, families on middle incomes are
now increasingly likely not to marry.
RE: watered down
Bible Society’s Newswatch
(The Daily Telegraph)
The Church of England’s chief education
officer, the Revd Nigel Genders, said
in
August that changes to the GCSE system are
creating a ‘moral vacuum’ which is fuelling
extremism.
He said: ‘Young people are looking for
some sort of religious identity and they’re
finding just a moral vacuum, because religion has been side-lined or its been treated as
a subject that you can actually water down to
be something about values or something
about citizenship.’
Prayer, mate?
http//app.prayermate.net/
The mobile app designed to help Christians
pray more regularly, reached a major milestone
in September after
receiving
its
100,000th download across both iOS and
Android.
The free app, shortlisted three times for
the Premier Digital awards, is developed by
Andy Geers in his spare time. Geers says that
he is only just getting started on the app. PrayerMate is currently being translated into
various other languages by a team of volunteers. There are also always new
features
being developed.
‘No morality please’
The Christian Institute
A Manchester City council chief said in
August that street preachers should not talk
about morality.
Councillor Pat Karney said that the police
would be continuing to try to clampdown
on ‘noisy’ preachers, and he said that preaching which covers sexual orientation is ‘not
proper at all’. He said: ‘Preachers do have a
right to be out on the streets but I do not
think it right if they are talking about morality. They’re perfectly entitled to talk about
Jesus and the Word of God, but not to make
anyone feel insecure or threatened.’
UK bankrolls persecution
Bible Society’s Newswatch
(The Daily Telegraph)
It was revealed in August that the government donates £2.7 billion a year in aid to
countries where Christians are suffering
some of the most extreme religious persecution in the world.
Analysis of official aid statistics shows that
four out of five countries listed on a global
human rights watch list receive money from
the overseas development budget or through
other official agencies.
Broken promise on Sunday
The Christian Institute
The government looks set to try to relax
Sunday trading laws still further via a consultation which finished on 16 September.
However
it has come to
light that the
Keep Sunday Special Campaign was told
ahead of
the General Election
that
the
Conservatives believed that the current system ‘provides a reasonable balance’ and that
they had
‘no current plans
to
relax
the
Sunday
trading
laws.’ Colin Hart of
the
Christian Institute warned of the damaging
effect of further relaxation of the law.
