UK & Ireland in Brief

Christian charity Stewardship has reported a £30.2 million increase in 2020 ‘Pandemic Year’ grants, with £115 million distributed to churches and charities, and an increase in its donor base from 35,000 to 40,000 individuals.

Additional grants were made possible thanks to growth in the number of individuals and families choosing to use Stewardship‘s giving accounts, as well as a surge in online donations and gifts from over 40,000 generous Christians. Stewart McCulloch, Stewardship’s CEO said: ‘In 2020, local churches and the charities equipping these 50,000 community-based beacons for hope became the fourth Emergency Service.’ Stewardship was created in 1906 by a small group of Christians uniting to release generous gifts and financial support to Christian ministries in the UK and overseas.

The evangelical organisation CARE – Christian Action, Research and Education – has announced a new Chief Executive Officer.

Ross Hendry, currently at Spurgeons Children’s Charity, will succeed Nola Leach, who is due to step down this Autumn. He and his wife Melinda attend All Souls Langham Place, where they have leadership roles. Chairman Lyndon Bowring says: ‘CARE is needed more today than ever, and Ross is determined for us to leave a legacy so that our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren can continue to stand for truth and speak up for the voiceless in Christ’s name.’

The Evangelical Movement of Wales has held its ‘Aber Lite’ conference 2021.

Sinclair Ferguson, previously Senior Minister of First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, who now lives in retirement in Scotland, spoke at Newport, Aberystwyth and Mold. Organising Committee chair Jeremy Bailey said: ‘The Lord has taught us many lessons through the last 18 months. For the Aber Organising Committee these have included being flexible, and using whatever opportunities our God of providence opens up for us.’

A record quarter of recorded pregnancies in 2019 ended with abortion, new figures from the Office for National Statistics has revealed. Out of 821,809 pregnancies, more than 200,000 babies were legally aborted. This represented an increase for the second year in a row across all age groups.

Catherine Robinson of Right to Life UK called it a tragedy. She commented: ‘Every one of these abortions represents a failure of our society to protect the lives of babies in the womb and a failure to offer full support to women with unplanned pregnancies’. Figures for 2020 have not yet been published, but an increase is expected because of the temporary lifting of restrictions on home abortions during Covid-19.

A move by NHS trusts to allow male patients who identify as women onto female wards has been strongly criticised by Conservative peer Baroness Nicholson.

Writing in the Daily Mail, she described the situation as a ‘scandal’ and said female patients ‘have understandably been left distraught, forced to share some of their most intimate and vulnerable moments alongside a member of the opposite sex’. Those criticising the move have been accused of transphobia and hate crime. Her comments follow a news report that NHS trust guidance says patients should be admitted based on the gender they identify with. This enables male patients to choose which ward, lavatory and shower facilities they use.

A council’s decision to remove bus adverts publicising a Christian festival because of guest speaker Franklin Graham’s views on sexuality and marriage, has cost it £25,000 in compensation for discrimination and £84,000 in costs.

Blackpool Council admitted its actions unlawfully discriminated against Christians, and that the posters were inoffensive. Earlier this year, the council was found to have shown ‘wholesale disregard for the right to freedom of expression’. Judge Claire Evans described the council’s actions as ‘the antithesis of the manner in which a public authority should behave in a democracy’.

The next president of Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary (WPTS) in Newcastle has been named as The Revd Dr Ian Hamilton.

A pastor for 37 years, he has previously ministered at Loudoun Church of Scotland, Ayrshire and Cambridge Presbyterian Church and is a trustee of the Banner of Truth Trust. He succeeds founding president Bill Schweitzer.

Hamilton said: ‘Westminster exists to promote the glory of God and to train men to be passionate promoters of that glory.’ WPTS trains men from all theological backgrounds for ministry in pioneering situations.