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Sex education which is ‘fully inclusive of all genders and sexualities’, and covers schoolchildren from the age of five, was announced by the Welsh Government in May.

Re-branded as Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE), the subject will be embedded within the curriculum – although the parental right of withdrawal is set to remain in Wales, but not in England.

‘The Christian Union should be banned from having a freshers’ stand.’

This was the unilateral announcement last October (2017) of two rogue members of Oxford’s Balliol College Junior Common Room Committee. This was to make the Balliol freshers’ fair a ‘safe, secular space’. This decision was subsequently overturned by an irate student body, but the incident caught the attention of the national media.

Schools will apparently be issued with guidelines on transgender pupils in March.

They are being drafted by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (ECHR) and are likely to suggest that pupils should be allowed to change gender ‘at any time’, and that parents and pupils should refer to children by their ‘preferred pronoun’. It is reported that cross-dressing should be allowed and that a pupil’s chosen gender may be kept confidential from the child’s parents.

On 23 September it was reported that a psychotherapist had a university research proposal approved and then turned down with the claim that it ‘would be politically incorrect’ to publish results concerning people reversing their ‘gender reassignment operations’.

James Caspian, a psychotherapist who has worked with transgender and transsexual people for over ten years, wanted to conduct research for a Master’s degree in counselling and psychotherapy at Bath Spa University. His research proposal was influenced by a conversation with Dr Miro Djordjevic of the Belgrade Centre for Genital Reconstructive Surgery who in 2014 conducted an unprecedented seven reversals at his clinic.

en staff

Date posted: 1 Aug 2017

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) published new guidance for pharmacy professionals on 22 June.

It provides a kind of ‘reasonable accommodation’, something that many Christian pharmacists feared would be dispensed with despite the consultation process earlier in the year.

Superficially we did the usual things: passing obscure legal provisions.

For example, there was giving official permission not to have to wear robes at main services (which I realise you all have done faithfully up until now); the valiant effort to put something to do with mission on the agenda. We even had the obligatory ‘current affairs’ motion, this time from the Archbishops following the surprises at the General Election, generally calling for more prayer and appropriate lobbying.

A play which portrays Jesus as a transsexual has faced strong criticism, ahead of its launch at a publicly-funded LGBT festival in Northern Ireland, it was reported in mid-November.

The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven is part of the Outburst Queer Arts Festival in Belfast, and is advertised with the tagline: ‘Jesus is a transsexual woman. And it is now she walks the earth’.

Freedom of the press is necessary for a healthy society.

The ability to report both incidents of anti-Christian persecution and the ideology motivating such attacks is central to what organisations like en and Barnabas Fund have done for many years.

Is it true that Jesus said nothing about homosexual practice? Can we be sure that the children of same sex couples suffer no disadvantages from their parents’ lifestyles and ideologies? Is ‘transgender’ mainly about individuals receiving compassion, or an altering of reality for all of us? Should Christians spend time analysing and countering the effects of the sexual revolution, or does this detract from gospel ministry?

These were some of the questions being asked at ‘The New Normal’, a conference organized by Christian Concern which took place at the Emmanuel Centre, London on 11–12 November.

The inaugural Weekend Minister’s Wives Conference organised by the Proclamation Trust, was held on 7-9 October at Ettington Chase, near Stratford-upon-Avon.

With 40 in attendance, there was a significant representation from the independent churches. The main speakers were Adrian Reynolds, Director of Ministry of the Trust, and Andrea Trevenna, associate for Women's Ministry at St Nicholas Church, Sevenoaks.

Children as young as four will be encouraged to ‘explore’ their sexuality at a primary school’s planned ‘transgender day’, according to press reports in March.

St Mary the Virgin Primary School, East Sussex, announced that they would be hosting a series of talks and workshops looking at issues around gender and in particular the acceptance of transgender people.

John Stevens

Date posted: 1 May 2016

The week after Easter some 4,250 people from all over the UK decamped to Prestatyn in North Wales for Word Alive.

This year the main Bible Readings were given by Vaughan Roberts from the book of Job. While the reasons for our sufferings might remain obscure and unknown, he exhorted us to put our faith and trust in God’s sovereign goodness and to look forward to the day when we will finally share in the glorious resurrection victory of the Lord Jesus.

In cases including that of the Christian school which the government closed, Ofsted admitted in early May that it did not interview any pupils or parents over claims its inspectors asked children inappropriate questions about sex. This was despite the head of Ofsted claiming investigations had taken place.

The Christian Institute (CI) established this, using a Freedom of Information request, that Ofsted did not interview the pupils, parents or staff behind the complaints. Simon Calvert, the CI’s deputy director, said: ‘It defies belief that anyone could think such an inquiry could take place without speaking to those who complained, the children, parents and teachers – but this is exactly what happened.

en staff

Date posted: 1 Mar 2015

Ofsted has been described as being ‘at war’ with the Government regarding the evaluation of ‘British values’ as further school reports in the North East of England in mid-January saw a top school placed into Special Measures and another told to close.

Grindon Hall, a Christian school in Sunderland with some of the best exam results in its area, was given the worst possible grading by Ofsted in a report blasted as ‘defying logic’. The report stated that its performance is inadequate and a draft version of it also included a paragraph attacking the school’s Christian ethos. This paragraph was removed by Ofsted in the report it eventually released.