More students take religion at A-level

More schoolchildren are both sitting and passing Religious Studies (RS), as the government prepares to exclude it from the new Baccalaureate. This year, 18,463 teenagers chose to take A-level RS – 4.3 per cent up on last year. Nearly a third more pupils now take the subject than in 2005. The pass rate is up too: 80.4 per cent gained a grade A*-C, 2.2 per cent more than 2010. It was expected that GCSE RS results would also show a similar improvement this week. But Premier Christian Media’s Peter Kerridge, a key player in the RE.ACT campaign to include RS in the new Baccalaureate qualification, said: ‘All this good work could be undermined following the exclusion of RS from the English Baccalaureate.’
Source: Christian Today (23/8)

• http://www.christiantoday.com/

East African Food Crisis - please help!

Over 12 million people across east Africa are facing severe food shortages caused by a combination of drought, irregular harvests, high food prices, conflict and displacement. The crisis has been building for some time, and is fast escalating across the region.

Christian Aid is responding in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan. The appeal funds received so far are enabling our partners to provide urgent, life-saving assistance including providing water to villages experiencing the worst drought conditions, food for families in remote areas, and animal feed to protect the livestock that are so crucial to the survival of the pastoralists. Through our partners we are also providing urgently needed food and shelter for people in camps across the region.

However, as you will have seen in the news, the unfortunate reality is that the crisis is only going to get worse in the coming months – so more funds are desperately required to continue to provide aid and help communities rebuild their lives. Tens of thousands of people have already died – many of them children.

We urgently need your support to help save lives:

• £7.50 could buy enough food to feed a goat for a month – and provide a family with milk to supplement their diet.
• £22 could pay for a mosquito net, blankets, sleeping mats, plastic sheeting for housing and other essential items to meet the immediate needs of refugees arriving in camps.
• £61.50 could pay for the labour needed to maintain one borehole, providing water to 1,000 people affected by drought.
• £108 could pay for the parts needed to repair a pump at one borehole, restoring water to more than 140 families.
• £150 could pay for beans, maize, salt and vegetable oil for a family for five months in a camp.

Please, if you can, send a gift TODAY. Because the sooner we receive your donation, the sooner we can turn your compassion into action – and save lives.

World Youth Day event 2011

Please pray for the World Youth Day event in Madrid (16-21 August). Young people from all over the world will be gathering before the Pope at the five day event. The average age of participants is 22. Let us pray that this event is a real and lasting inspiration to the young people of the church, and that their enthusiasm and missionary zeal may inspire the rest of us especially the church in Western Europe.

Thanks to Fr Ian Hellyer for the reminder.

Sad reflection on our times!

The Christian employee who successfully won his appeal to display a palm cross in his company van has been suspended.

Colin Atkinson had faced dismissal after refusing to remove the eight-inch woven palm cross from his dashboard after a complaint from a tenant. He had placed them in his van throughout the 15 years he had been working for the Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) association and had never previously received any complaints.

Despite a dramatic U-turn by his employers, which allowed him to display the cross, Mr Atkinson has reportedly continued to face problems at his work.

"WDH have broken faith with me and not restored me to my job as they promised," said Mr Atkinson.

After a holiday in June, he says he returned to find the agreement, which was made in April, "completely blown apart" when he was told to transfer to a new workplace, Winston House in Wakefield.

He said that he had no van at his new workplace and was told to either use his own or use public transport.

"I was told to travel in by bus and I suffered harassment at work. This is all because I wanted to keep a small palm cross in my van. I have not done anything wrong and I just want to return to my normal workplace."

"They said I could go back to a normal workplace and a normal job but I was told I must transfer to a new workplace. I was absolutely appalled by it. I was flabbergasted - I couldn't believe what I was hearing. So I lodged a grievance, saying they had broken the initial agreement signed in April."

Mr Atkinson was then suspended after speaking to the media about what happened to him.

"I've got a right to speak out in the national interest, the interest of the British public and a right to defend myself," he said.

Monastery and Cathedral go Green

Europe’s biggest new monastery will harvest rainwater and plant 1,500 trees, while Bradford Cathedral becomes the first UK cathedral to be solar powered. A new £3m Carmelite monastery for 30 nuns will be built in Allerton, Liverpool, with a wildflower meadow, solar panels and ground source heating. The new building will restore a peaceful atmosphere for the nuns, who are currently surrounded by two growing schools in west Derby. Sister Mary said: ‘The new monastery will allow us to be much more energy efficient and the gardens will also enable us to be self-sufficient.’ Meanwhile, Bradford Cathedral will be the first in the world to install solar panels to provide its electricity. Costing £50,000, the panels will be fitted on the roof of the south aisle.

Cross to be banned from Ground Zero?

A group of atheists in New York have filed a lawsuit to prevent a cross from being displayed at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

American Atheists, a Texas-based group that describes its mission as protecting civil rights for non-believers, claims the government installation of the cross is an unconstitutional "mingling of church and state".

The group’s president, Dave Silverman, insists that no religious symbols should be included in the memorial of the 9/11 terror attacks at Ground Zero if the Christian cross is the only symbol being represented.

As a public accommodation, the memorial must allow us (and all other religious philosophies) to include our own display of equal size inside the museum, or not include the cross. Equality is an all-or-nothing deal.

The lawsuit names the museum, New York and New Jersey, as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Chris Christie, among others, as defendants.

The cross is made up of two intersecting steel beams that were found intact amid the rubble of the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York. Originally erected on the side of St. Peter's Church on nearby Church Street, the cross was placed inside the 9/11 memorial museum during a ceremony on Saturday.

According to museum organisers, construction worker Frank Silecchia discovered the 17-foot-tall cross in the vicinity of 6 World Trade Center after the attacks. Since then, the cross, the only thing left standing amid the rubble, has become a symbol of hope and comfort for many citizens of New York.

Joe Daniels, the 9/11 Memorial president, described the cross as:

an important part of our commitment to bring back the authentic physical reminders that tell the history of 9/11 in a way nothing else could. Its return is a symbol of the progress on the Memorial and Museum that we feel rather than see, reminding us that commemoration is at the heart of our mission.

In 2010, the same atheist group also challenged the constitutionality of roadside memorial crosses erected to honour fallen Utah state troopers. A federal court ruled in favour of the crosses, but an appeals court ruled against them.