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THE BapTisT TimEsThursday, October 18, 2007

Israeli churches to raise funds for Ayyad’s widow

By DANIEL GROTE

BAPTISTS in Israel have been urged to help the widowed wife of Rami Ayyad, the prominent Palestinian Christian murdered last week by suspected religious extremists. Association of Baptist Churches in Israel general secretary Bader Mansour has written to churches throughout the country urging them to give to the family of Mr Ayyad in the

wake of his death. The Palestinian Bible Society has said it will provide some financial support for Mr Ayyad’s family, including wife Pauline, who is four months pregnant, and sons George (1) and Wisam (10 months). But the society has also set up a fund for the family, in a bid to provide ‘the best long term care for all of them’. Baptist churches throughout Israel have been informed of the

Baptists back Patriarch

By TOM RICHES

RUSSIAN Baptists have thrown their weight behind a Russian Orthodox Church leader under fire after a recent controversial speech to the European Parliament. Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow was criticised after the speech and subsequent question and answer session over his claim that homosexuality is an ‘illness’. He also said gay pride parades are ‘propaganda and advertisement of sin’. The Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (RUECB) sent Patriarch Alexy II a letter saying it backs the speech.

RUECB said it supports the Orthodox position on ‘the need to publicly uphold Christian moral values’. ‘The general position of both churches is similar. While respecting the rights of individual homosexuals as human beings created in the image of God, public propagation of their lifestyle should not be accepted. Its practice is regarded as sin,’ claimed the RUECB in a statement. It also backed the Orthodox stress on the Christian roots of European society, culture and science and Alexy’s argument that the right to accumulate wealth can impinge on the social rights of others.

Campolo boost for Hillary campaign

By TOM RICHES

HILLARY Clinton may not be the most favoured politician in certain US Baptist circles, but Baptist evangelist the Revd Dr Tony Campolo has sprung to her defence. Speaking in glowing terms of the Democrat candidate, Dr Campolo said that she was possibly ‘the most astute political genius of our time’. Dr Campolo said Hillary is an even stronger candidate than her husband was.

‘She’s the most effective candidate I’ve ever seen,’ he told Illinois newspaper the Marion Daily Republican. ‘It’s a strong statement, but I’ve known a lot of politicians, and in terms of developing strategy, Bill Clinton is a great strategist, but in terms of knowing constituencies, nobody beats this woman,’ he added. Mr Campolo said he isn’t affiliated with either the Democrats or the Republicans but has previously been labelled as a ‘reluctant Democrat’.

Unite in Prayer

Join Christians across the globe during January 2008 for the 100th anniversary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

“that all of them may be one” John 17:21

Readings and meditations focus on Paul’s advice to “pray without ceasing”. without ceasing”.

A printed pamphlet, prayer cards and poster may be ordered from MPH, telephone 01733 325002 or email sales@mph.org.uk Th e service and other resources are also available online from www.ctbi.org.uk

fund, with Mr Mansour’s own church pledging the proceeds of Sunday’s collection to it. One member has even pledged all the money she won as part of a scholarship, approximately £500, to Pauline. Mr Mansour said that churches in Israel were in ‘total shock’ at the killing. ‘The response has been in many ways one of anger, but also of trying to see the best way to respond – people have

been calling the family, the Bible Society, and the Baptist church in Gaza,’ he said. Gaza Baptist Church on Sunday held a special memorial service for Mr Ayyad, which saw all of his family attend. In her testimony at the service, Pauline Ayyad said, ‘I don’t know if Rami can hear us or not, but I want to tell Rami, “I love you very much!”. Rami lifted our heads up high, by being martyred for his faith in

Christ. Rami’s martyrdom was a great testimony to his love for the Lord.’ Gordon McBain, BMS World Mission regional secretary for the Middle East, said he was ‘incredibly saddened’ at the news of Mr Ayyad’s death, adding that BMS had pledged a small sum towards the family’s fund. Mr McBain is currently in Israel as part of a 10-day visit to the region, and said the killing

had led to an ‘increased fear’ among Palestinian Christians that it could lead to a ‘further exodus’ from the Palestinian territories. BMS is looking to set up partnerships with ABCI and Palestinian Baptists, with a view to supporting reconciliation projects run by local churches. ‘Strategically, if BMS is seriously about the Middle East and Africa, it needs to have a presence here,’ said Mr McBain.

Bolivians light up in prayer

Picture:Taizé é

Community – Young people gathered in Bolivia last week for a Taizéé meeting, forming part of a 30-year-old tradition

By TOM RICHES

THOUSANDS of young Christians came together in Bolivia last week as part of a 30 year-old tradition which has stretched across all corners of the earth. Approximately 7,000 young people

gathered in Cochabamba for the latest conference held by the Taizéé community. Young people from almost every country in South and Central America took part in the meeting, as well as many from elsewhere in the world. Similar events have been held in India

and Thailand this year while December will see a gathering in Switzerland. Brother Alois, leader of the Taizéé Community, gave a meditation on each evening of the conference and the young people took part in prayer and worship every day.

UN support for Christian campaigners

By TOM RICHES

CHRISTIAN campaigners can play a vital role in the fight against global poverty, according to the UN secretary general. Speaking to Christian leaders in Virginia recently, Mr Ban Ki-Moon said that Christians were ‘good allies’ in the fight against poverty. ‘The UN can and must do

better, we cannot do it alone,’ he told leaders of anti-poverty campaign Micah Challenge and the US National Association of Evangelicals. ‘Your engagement can push governments to push through on their own commitments. Do not underestimate your power,’ he added. The Micah Challenge encourages Christians to campaign for world leaders

to meet the UN development goals. The news comes as more than 200 churches across the UK celebrated Micah Sunday this week. Among them was Central Baptist Church in Southampton, which gathered approximately 60 harvest pledges from its congregation. One member committed to retiring early and running a

weekly meal for the homeless at the church while another pledged to buy extra tins of food when they go shopping to give them to a local antipoverty charity. The Revd David Masters, minister of the church, said the response was ‘very encouraging’. ‘We have 60 commitments to make poverty history, so I’m thrilled.’

The Guild of Health Ltd Day Seminar: Introduction to Aromatherapy Led by:Joan Millett (therapist & teacher) Saturday 27 October. All Welcome. St Marylebone Parish Church, 17 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LT (between Regents Park & Baker Street tubes) 020 7563 1389details / to book www.gohealth.org.uk

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THE BAPTIST TIMES Thursday, October 18, 2007

COMMENT • 

Joanne Appleton discovers how praying for schools is a significant way for churches to minister to the community

IT’S official. Out of the 21 richest countries in the world, UNICEF have ranked UK children in the bottom third when it comes to relative poverty and deprivation, quality of their relationships with their parents and peers, health and safety, behaviour and risk-taking, and subjective well-being. At home children may face family breakdown and abuse, poverty or parental neglect. At school, exam pressure, bullying and violence in the classroom are only a few of the issues. And as far as church attendance is concerned, the latest figures from Christian Research show there were 44,000 fewer children and young people in Baptist Churches in 2005 than in 1979. Christians are responding to the crisis in a wide variety of ways. One place they can make a difference is within children’s schools, and one way to do this is to pray for the needs of their local schools, staff and children. Andy Levett is youth worker at Station Hill Baptist Church in Chippenham, Wiltshire. ‘Prayer for local schools, young people and our schools work is pretty high profile in the life of the church,’ he says. ‘For example for the last few years we ran a Pray Day for Schools in November – setting up 24/7 prayer-style prayer rooms in our church building and inviting members of our church and others to pray. We wrote to schools to tell them about it and some head teachers responded thanking us and listing some prayer requests. ‘I am sure that this foundation of prayer

sometimes only by the faithful few - is a key part of our work with local schools and young people. Some quite amazing things have happened here over the last few years – not least the increasing opportunities to work with our local secondary schools, where in many places this door has seemed closed to Christians.’ Andy is part of the Schools Prayer Network (SPN), whose vision is to see every school in the UK covered by prayer. The SPN began after children prayed about the vandalism problems at their Glasgow school – and the vandalism stopped almost immediately.

This foundation of prayer sometimes only by the faithful few - is a key part of our work with schools

Michael Philip, a peripatetic music teacher, believed that if this could work in one school, then why not with others across the city? The Network spread across Scotland then eventually the UK, with around 2000 schools currently registered. Groups are made up of parents, teachers, governors – and local church members. So why should churches get involved with the network? ‘Schools are at the centre of our communities and have a

‘Would you like us to pray for you?’ huge role in shaping the lives of our nation’s children,’ says Celia Bowring, prayer coordinator of CARE and overseer of the SPN. ‘Through prayer we can make a difference to our schools.’ The Revd David Barker agrees. ‘We have a saying, “your church, your school, your responsibility”. We want to encourage churches to pray for and serve local schools in whatever way they can – and we have a list of around 120 suggestions of what they could do.’ David, who used to be a teacher, is assistant pastor at Cheriton Baptist Church. The church is part of the Churches Together Schools Team linked to What4 (www.what4.org.uk) - a schools work team involved in 17 schools, and reaching over 7000 children every year. Cheriton Baptist prays specifically for one secondary and four primary schools in the area. ‘We pray for staff and pupils and to support Christians within the schools,’ says David. ‘A school’s openness to your praying for them comes out of having a good relationship with them, and the boldness to say “As Christians we believe prayer is important: would you like us to pray for you?” ‘We’ve been able to actually go into the staff room to pray when there’s been a tragedy in the life of the school, or pray over the children during an assembly.’ And prayers are answered. ‘We’ve had comments like “I don’t know what happened, but we appointed just the right person to that post” (after our praying about the interview process) or “I had a peace when you prayed for my wife’s illness,” or that our prayers have made a difference.’ David’s philosophy is to encourage the whole church to pray for the school as part of prayer for the community, rather than having a separate prayer meeting. ‘Christians in the school hear

Picture:image.net

Prayer - Every church has a responsibilty to care for schools in its community

because her grandson, whom she had been looking after every Tuesday, was starting school. It just emphasised how given a prayer and a personal interest, it is possible for the least likely person to be able to join in prayer for the local schools.’ n The Schools Prayer Network website has

things and pray about them, then encourage the rest of the church to pray. Prayer for schools is part of our DNA.’ But even churches with no direct links with children or parents can pray, as is the case of Southmead Baptist Church in Bristol. Irene Thornley, wife of the minister, the Revd Ian Thornley, explains. ‘We are a small elderly congregation, but we are a praying church and like to touch on many areas of everyday life, encouraging our people to take things up on a daily basis in their own prayer times. ‘My husband takes assemblies in a local primary school, and regularly attends community meetings where he hears about any problems the schools have. ‘At the beginning of September we usually produce a sheet of prayers - mainly taken from the CARE Prayer Guide for the new school year. Last year one of our ladies who had never prayed out loud before, read out the prayer for children starting school,

information about beginning to pray, ideas for prayer and a downloadable leaflet. You can register online at www. schoolsprayernetwork.org. uk or contact your regional coordinator. You can also write to Schools’ Prayer Network, c/o CARE, 53 Romney Street, London SW1P 3RF

TREVOR STAMMERS

Moral Medicine

When did you last see your father? ACOMPUTER search on Fatherless Children will readily reveal the depressing facts that such children (and yes, I know that no child is as yet biologically fatherless) are more likely to have mental health problems, to engage in underage drinking, to commit suicide, to do less well at school, to have underage sex, to have more physical symptoms of ill health, to be at greater risk of sexual abuse, to run away from home, to go to prison..... You name almost any parent’s fear for their kids and they are more likely to have it realised if they have no dad. Moreover the sociological evidence for all this is quite unequivocal, even when allowances are made for other factors, such as social class or poverty. So you might wonder about the motives of any government considering passing legislation that, for the first time in the UK, would positively endorse the bringing about of children without fathers. However, that is precisely what is being proposed in the draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill which is going through parliamentary consultations at the moment. This is a contentious piece of legislation, to which I shall doubtless return in this column later in the year, but in this issue of The Baptist Times, it is the ‘no need for fathers’ implication I want to consider.

Reading part three of the draft bill, which deals with parenthood, is like going through the looking-glass into a world where words mean whatever Humpty Dumpty and the Government say they mean. Section 59 (2) states that ‘Any reference (however expressed) to the father of a child who has a parent by virtue of section 48 or 49 is to be read as a reference to the woman who is by virtue of that section the child’s parent.’ Sections 48 and 49 refer to women in a civil partnership or outside of it who have a child by IVF. Interestingly, for an age in which ‘equality’ often trumps all else, the Bill makes no specific provision for men who wish to become parents in a similar way. Any criticism of this clause is easy to denounce as trashing single parents or homophobic prejudice. I hope I am engaging in neither by pointing out that one can have real reservations about the wisdom of positive legislation specifically permitting the bringing about of fatherless families whilst also having a genuine admiration for single and lesbian parents who bring up their children in an exemplary fashion, indicating a level of parenting skills above those of many a married couple. As a general rule however, children do thrive best within families of heterosexual married couples – not least because such

couples are the most likely to actually stay together during the child’s formative years. As Brenda Almond, Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Philosophy at Hull University, wisely points out in her recent book The Fragmenting Family, ‘Even if it is accepted that novel (family) structures ...can be rewarding for the adults involved, it is questionable how far it is reasonable to build that recognition into a new conception of the family, to be widely imitated and promoted, rather than recognising it as an exceptional situation that will inevitably involve some loss for the child.’ That is precisely what the Human Tissue and Embryo Bill seeks to do, however, and is precisely why the Government should reject it. In wanting this, I am not hankering for a return to Old Testament patriarchy. Far from it. I agree with theologian David Atkinson, who writes of the Motherly Fatherhood of God. He suggests that there are three main features of Jesus’ concept of fatherhood in the gospels - an authority that fosters freedom, protection that secures growth and revelation of truth that leads to understanding. If more fathers lived out this divine pattern for fatherhood perhaps we would not have reached the stage where the Government considers us completely expendable. Dr Trevor Stammers lectures in Healthcare Ethics at St. Mary’s University College, Twickenham.