ReutersA relative of one of the victims reacts after a church explosion in Tanta, Egypt, during a Palm Sunday service.
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Sun
31 Dec 2017
It's
been a momentous year. As well as the usual views and reviews, these are some
of the news stories covered by Christian Today during 2017.
January
Donald
Trump was inaugurated after a bitter and bewildering election campaign.
Evangelical luminaries including Paula White and Franklin Graham took part in
the ceremony, despite protests against the latter's inclusion because of his
well-known views on Muslims and gay people. One of Trump's first acts was to
attempt to ban Muslims from the US; the courts overruled him and the issue is
ongoing.
In
other news, the Provost of St Mary's, Glasgow, Kelvin Holdsworth, held a
service which included
a reading in Arabic denying the divinity of Christ. Jill Saward, a
much-loved and respected campaigner for sexual assault victims after her own
traumatic experience, died
suddenly.
February
Evangelicals
in the US scored their first big win with the nomination of conservative judge Neil
Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
Traditionalist
bishop Philip
North was appointed to the diocese of Sheffield. There is an outcry
among supporters of women priests and he is ultimately forced to step down,
casting an unflattering light both on the Church of England's episcopal
selection procedures and its vulnerability to pressure groups.
John
Smyth, an evangelical leader associated with the Iwerne camps for public school
pupils, was revealed to have been a sadistic abuser. Among his victims was the
future Bishop of Guildford.
March
Conservatives
were up in arms about Disney's first openly gay character and love scene, in Beauty
and the Beast – but is there a better
way of handling this? The head of the Southern Baptist Convention's
Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Russell Moore, comes under
fire for his criticisms of racism and of Donald Trump, but wins
backing as well. Donald Trump has another go at banning
Muslims. The former Queen's Chaplain Gavin Ashenden quits the 'liberal'
Church of England. There's a Church in Wales row over
whether Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Albans, is to be the next Bishop of
Llandaff; he is gay and there are accusations of homophobia after he's passed
over. Westminster is attacked by a terrorist with a van; Khalid
Masood killed and injured more than 50 people.
April
The
Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, attended Spring
Harvest. 'Jesus prayed that we would be united. Our witness depends upon us
being united,' he said. 'How we experience the love of Christ is transformed by
unity.' The National Trust got into a row over egg
hunts – not Easter egg, note. God forbid a national body should have
anything to do with religion.
In
Egypt, 44 people were killed in bomb
attacks on churches on Palm Sunday, April 9. Egypt's Coptic Christians
have been frequent targets of Islamists. GAFCON, the conservative Anglican
grouping, decided to appoint a 'missionary bishop' to England for congregations
unhappy with the CofE.
May
A
horrific attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester left 22 people dead
and many injured. 'There is a proper anger and rage in the face of events like
this,' said the Bishop
of Manchester.
Agroup
of Coptic Christians traveling to a monastery in central Egypt were attacked
by Islamists. At least 29 died and 24 were wounded. Many children were
among the victims.
President
Trump sacked FBI director James Comey and has had to fight off suspicions about
his motivation. The Archbishop of Canterbury visited the Middle East, holding
meetings with political leaders as well as religious figures.
At
home, the CofE was showing increasing
strains as moves by conservatives to create parallels structures
gained pace.
June
Britain
went to the polls in an election designed to cement the Conservatives' hold on
power as the country entered negotiations on Brexit. It didn't work out like
that. A disastrously poor campaign from Theresa May and a surge of support for
Jeremy Corbyn saw a hung Parliament. The Liberal Democrats were badly hit and
the Tories were forced to rely on the Democratic Unionist Party to prop them
up.
The
Scottish Episcopal Church, part of the Anglican Communion, voted to
allow gay marriage.
Grenfell
Tower burned down. It would emerge later that warnings about safety were
ignored and that fire regulations were wholly inadequate. Churches ministered
to the survivors. It was an appalling tragedy.
A
damning report into
the Church of England's handling of abusive Bishop Peter Ball found it
'colluded' in the abuse and excoriated former Archbishop of Canterbury George
Carey.
July
The
Church of England voted to
back special services marking new identities for transgender people and to call
for the banning of 'conversion therapy' for gay people. The Charlie
Gard case, where the parents of a baby with a life-threatening
condition fought to keep him alive against doctors' advice, continued to make
headlines; he died at the end of the month. Bible scholar and translator Eugene
Peterson drew conservative ire with an apparent statement of support for gay
marriage, but retracted
it.
August
Canadian
pastor Hyeon Soo Lim is released from
prison in North Korea. He had been in jail for more than two years accused of
'trying to use religion to destroy North Korea' and was in poor health.
Christian Aid warned the East Africa famine crisis
was the worst in a generation. President Trump faced fierce criticism over his
response to disturbances in Charlottesville in which he appeared to blame 'both
sides', leading to charges he was defending fascists. Evangelicals defended his
statement as 'bold and truthful'.
The
US city of Houston faced catastrophic floods after Hurricane Harvey.
Conservative church leaders issued the 'Nashville
Statement' condemning homosexuality and transgender ideology. Others
condemned their condemnations.
September
Indian
priest Fr Tom Uzhunalil, kidnapped in Yemen by Islamic State, was freed.
Unfounded rumours that his captors planned to crucify him had circulated.
Myanmar's vicious programme of ethnic cleansing against its Rohingya minority
was denounced by
the UN. The systematic purging of the Rohingha has seen horrific acts of
violence committed by the army including rape, torture and the burning alive of
children. Aung San Suu Kyi has failed to acknowledge the army's actions.
Evangelical
Christians mourned the death of Muslim convert Nabeel
Qureshi, a writer and speaker, who died of cancer at aged 34.
October
The
worst mass shooting in modern American history sees Stephen Paddock kill 58
people and injure 546 more as he shot from the window of a Las Vegas hotel
room. Church leaders led calls
to prayer, while the stock price of firearms manufacturers rose.
A
meeting of Anglican
primates took place in Canterbury and despite tensions over gay marriage
was judged a success at the time, though later conservative press releases
appeared to contradict this.
The
500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation was celebrated, recalling the
occasion when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle
Church in Wittenberg, though he probably didn't. Four British missionaries are kidnapped in
Nigeria; one will die.
November
A
gunman killed 26 people and wounded 20 others at First Baptist Church, Sutherland
Springs, Texas, in America's worst church shooting. Devin Patrick Kelley
was wounded as he left the church and later shot himself in the head. A
pregnant woman and three of her children were among his victims.
Australia
overwhelmingly backed same-sex marriage in a vote that
left conservative Christian leaders 'deeply disappointed'.
Zimbabwe's
ageing President Robert Mugabe resigned, giving the country some hope after
years of misrule and corruption.
A
minister in the Scottish Episcopal Church, Kelvin Holdsworth, sparked outrage
when he suggested
praying for young Prince George to be gay and in due course 'blessed
with the love of a fine young gentleman'.
December
Pope
Francis visited Myanmar and raised the plight of the Rohingya privately with
its leaders.
Donald
Trump announced the US would unilaterally recognise Jerusalem as Israel's
capital, alarming and outraging most of the rest of the world but delighting
his evangelical backers. Also in the US, controversial Republican Roy Moore is
hit by allegations about serious sexual misconduct. Despite heavy backing by
evangelicals, he loses the Alabama Senate race to Democrat Doug Jones in a stunning
upset. Moore is challenging the result.
The
Church of England is lambasted in an official review of the way it handled the George
Bell case, in which a revered bishop was assumed to have been a
paedophile on insufficient evidence.
An
attack on Bethel
Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, Pakistan, left 11 dead and more
than 50 injured.
The new
Bishop of London is to be a former nurse, Sarah Mullally.
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