Call for an end to Christian assemblies in schools
Legislation stating schools must hold a daily ‘broadly Christian’ assembly is at risk of being abolished. The National Governors' Association (NGA) has declared the law, as set out under the 1944 Education Act, to be ‘meaningless’, and has urged the government to put an end to its application in non-faith schools. ‘Few schools can or do meet the current legislative requirement for a daily act of collective worship, partly because there isn't space in most schools to gather students together, and often because staff are unable or unwilling to lead a collective worship session. There is also the added issue that worship implies belief in a particular faith - if the 'act of worship' is not in your faith then it is meaningless as an act of worship,’ a policy statement from the NGA reads.
Brazil: The evangelical revolution
Brazil: Much of Latin America and the Caribbean is in the midst of what believers proudly call an ‘evangelical revolution’. According to the IBGE, Brazil's census board, the country's Catholic population fell from around 89% in 1980 to 74% in 2000, while its Pentecostal flock grew from 3% to 10%. A public expression of this new evangelicalism is the ‘March for Jesus’. Over half a million Christians gathered in Rio de Janeiro in early June this year. The annual event was held under the slogan ‘I belong to Jesus. I am a champion’, in honour of the participants' faith and the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which Brazil is hosting this year. Another ‘March for Jesus’ is planned in Sao Paulo on 12 July, a day before the World Cup final. This one is expected to draw 2 million participants. It’s the country’s largest religious gathering, and more popular than the Salvador Carnival.
Israel: Hamas 'will pay the price' after teenagers found dead
Israel has vowed retribution against Hamas, the militant Palestinian group it says kidnapped and murdered three teenagers in the occupied West Bank. The bodies of Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach were found on Monday evening, after they had been missing for more than a fortnight. Israel PM Benyamin Netanyahu said: ‘Hamas is responsible and Hamas will pay.’ Hamas denies any involvement. Israel launched more than 30 air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight. The strikes came in response to 18 rocket attacks on southern Israel from Gaza since Sunday night, the Israeli military said. Israeli troops also flooded into the Palestinian town of Halhul. The bodies were found under a pile of rocks near the town. An Israeli official said it appeared the teenagers were shot soon after their abduction. (See also Prayer Alert 23-2014) Tensions rise further after Israeli police found the body of a Palestinian teenager on Wednesday, apparently a revenge attack.
Iraq and Syria: ISIS rebels declare 'Islamic state'
Jihadist militant group ISIS has said it is establishing a caliphate, or Islamic state, on the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria. It also proclaimed the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as caliph and ‘leader for Muslims everywhere’. Setting up a state governed under strict Islamic law has long been a goal of many jihadists. Meanwhile, Iraq's army continued an offensive to retake the northern city of Tikrit from the ISIS-led rebels. The city was seized by the insurgents on 11 June as they swept across large parts of north-western Iraq. In a separate development, Israel called for the creation of an independent Kurdish state in response to the gain made by the Sunni rebels in Iraq. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) announced the establishment of the caliphate in an audio recording posted on the internet on Sunday.
