Britain 'selfish and hedonistic'
Edmund Adamus, an adviser to the Archbishop of Westminster, said five decades of liberalising abortion and gay rights laws had made Britain more anti-Catholic than countries where Christians can be subjected to violent persecution. The director of pastoral affairs in the diocese of Westminster blamed Parliament for allowing the country to become ‘the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death’. His remarks are likely to cause tension ahead of the Pope's state visit to Britain later this month. He said ‘ Britain, and in particular London, has been and is the epicentre.’ The expression ‘culture of death’ is often used to refer to liberal policies on abortion and euthanasia. He added that Parliament over the last 50 years had been ‘the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage, in essence one of the most anti-Catholic landscapes, culturally speaking, more even than those places where Catholics suffer open persecution.’ Pray: for God’s guidance as we weigh these cautionary comments. (1Co.14:29)
Religion more important in poor countries
Surveys conducted by Gallup in 2009 revealed that religion plays a greater role in the daily lives of people in poor countries than those in wealthy countries. The number of adults worldwide who say religion is an important part of their day remains high, at 84 per cent. The surveys, which looked at 114 countries, found a strong link between religiosity and a country’s socioeconomic status, with each of the most religious countries having a per-capita GDP of less than $5,000. In the UK, just 27% agreed that religion was important to their daily life, placing it in the bottom 10 alongside Russia (34%), France (30%), Hong Kong and Japan at 24%, Denmark (19%) and Sweden at (17%). There were 10 countries and regions where at least 98% of people said religion was important to their daily life, including Bangladesh, Niger, Yemen, Indonesia, Malawi and Sri Lanka where the figure was 99%. Pray: for the richer nations - that their peoples’ poverty of spirit may be filled with your presence. (Job 3:20)
Call for debt cancellation for Pakistan
The Jubilee Debt Campaign is calling on the British government to exert pressure on international institutions to cancel Pakistan's debt. The Pakistani government is currently in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country’s most important creditor, to ask for debt relief for the disaster-stricken country. The IMF is believed to be insisting that Pakistan introduces a value-added-tax system and removes energy sector subsidies in order to receive further loans. A range of charities, church and campaign groups, including the Methodist Relief and Development Fund and Christian Aid, have joined the call for Western borrowers to take some responsibility for Pakistan's heavy indebtedness. They argue that Pakistan needs an immediate freeze on debt repayments, expressing fears that the country's annual $3 billion repayments dwarf current levels of emergency aid. Campaigners argue that it is inappropriate for the IMF to hold the country to ransom amidst the current disaster. Pray: for governments and the IMF to review their stance and grant debt relief to Pakistan. (Dt.24:6)
Stephen Hawking again
In his new book, The Grand Design, Professor Hawking challenges traditional religious beliefs. He asserts that the laws of physics were behind the Big Bang instead of God. The professor is maintaining his well-known atheistic views and earning a good living from publishing material such as his The Grand Design. He concludes: 'Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.' He sets out to contest Sir Isaac Newton's belief that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have been created out of chaos. Hawking’s sophism deliberately ignores both the source of ‘laws’ that he references and simple historic and revealed human experience. Pray: that the Holy Spirit would bring true revelation to Stephen Hawking. (Ac.10:38)
