Hardship of Life
Meet Munzir al-Nazzal and his five-year-old son Mustafa. They live in Reyhanli, in the Turkish province of Hatay, at the border with Syria. Munzir lost his right leg as he…
Turkey
Little Amal blesses Cardinal Nichols in Westminster Cathedral
What's this about? Little Amal is a very big puppet, making the journey from Gaziantep near the Turkey-Syria border to Manchester, where "she will shine an urgent light on the stories of the millions of young refugees who are displaced…
Trump shames America by betraying the Kurds
The Kurds have no friends but the mountains. They helped us to defeat the ISIS/Daesh death cult, but now they are being cleansed from their ancient homeland by Turkey, where…
Trump to Europe: “You are losing your culture”
While the media pore over Donald Trump's interview with the Sun, focusing on the possibility a post-(soft) Brexit US/UK trade deal ("..it will probably kill the deal") and Boris Johnson…
You will hear of wars, assassinations and terrorist atrocities… Joy to the world
Christmas carnage in Berlin as Islamic State manage to get someone to plough a 27-ton HGV into a market, killing 12 and injuring 50. Weeping and wailing; mulled wine all…
Mrs Proudie: Sudden Jihadist Syndrome, Sultan Erdoğan, and nasty pieces of work
Goodness! The sun has had his hat on this week and Barchester has been baking hot: we have had to hose down the old gentlemen at Hiram’s Hospital several…
Turkey purge: is military coup a lesser evil than Erdoğan's Islamism?
Following last week's military coup – which is never the answer to anything – President Erdoğan is purging Turkey's civic institutions of every whiff of opposition, dissent, criticism and…
Mrs Proudie: Prayer for Europe and Frau Merkel's ottoman trouble
I have been spending the last six days and nights by my mother’s bedside. I am much relieved that her final days are comfortable and peaceful. My prayers are…
While Erdoğan seizes churches, Cameron fights for Turkey to join the EU
David Cameron has pledged to fight for Turkey to be admitted to the European Union. This, he avers, would place them at "the top table of European politics", where,…
Should Christians vote for Turkey?
The most important 'deal' recently agreed by the EU is not the one negotiated by the UK for a bit of welfare tinkering, but the €6bn settlement with Turkey…
Helen Mirren: "I love Israel – I think it's a great, great country"
In 1967, shortly after the Six-Day War, Helen Mirren worked on a the HaOn kibbutz on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. She hitch-hiked throughout Israel, and slept…
Migrants, refugees, dead babies and 'virtue signalling': WWJD?
This is a guest post by the Rev’d Stephen Heard – Assistant Priest at St Mark’s Church, Enfield. He is a former civil servant with a background in political and…
Aylan Kurdi's drowning reveals our hypocrisy towards Europe's refugee crisis
So far this year an estimated 2,643 people have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean in a desperate search for a new life free from war, persecution and suffering.…
It is time to arm Iraq's anti-ISIS Christian militia
While HM Government faffs around arguing over whether we should be calling the Islamic State 'ISIS', 'ISIL' or 'Daesh' because, according to David Cameron, the Islamic State is neither…
If Labour wins, Islamophobia will become a crime and truth stifled
This is a guest post by the Rev'd Canon Dr Gavin Ashenden – author, theologian and Chaplain to the Queen (one of c35) ___________________ I had never heard of the…
Westminster Abbey acknowledges Mohammed in succession of prophets
"Peace be upon all auspicious prophets of God, from Adam, Noah and Abraham to Moses, Jesus and Mohammed Mustafa.." That wasn't quite how the prayer was rendered in Westminster…
Pope Francis and the Armenian slaughter he didn't call genocide
Pope Francis delivered a speech at St Peter's in Rome to commemorate the slaughter of 1.5million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks during the First World War, a century ago.…
Alan Henning’s compassion made him more Muslim than any member of ISIS
Our prayers and our thoughts have been with the family of Alan Henning over these last weeks, during which his life has been so publicly threatened. In his life Alan…
The difficulties of dialoguing with Islam
"What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" asked Tertullian in his Prescription against Heretics (VII), as he sought to defend the purity of the gospel of faith from the faithless…