JourneyOnline
The Journey team selects stories that got us talking this week.
Ticket to the west if you pass Bible test
RT covers news from Sweden of a Bible quiz being given to Christian asylum seekers escaping religious persecution. While many have slammed the idea as complicated, irrelevant and conflating knowledge with faith, the country’s migration agency has defended the testing with Carl Bexelius—Swedish Migration Agency’s deputy legal director—stating, “It is a reasonable demand that the asylum applicant should show some knowledge of the Bible … this should come naturally, and isn’t something you need to study.”
Questions include, “How many parts are there in the New Testament?”, “Can you tell us about the Trinity?” and “What is the difference between the Orthodox and the Protestant church?”
UK Christianity on the wane, faithless reign
The Independent reports on the latest findings from the British Social Attitudes Survey and the European Social Survey which found more Britons are rejecting religion than those professing to be Christian.
48.6 per cent of UK adults say they aren’t religious, 5.6 per cent more than those who say they are Christian, and Scotland, Wales and England’s south-east were the least religious areas.
Life really does start again at 40?
CBN News reports on a Sydney imam’s claims that Muhammad was a Christian until age 40 which has led to social media outrage: one Twitter user from Saudi Arabia even declaring, “May Allah erase you and your mind.”
Mufti Mostafa Rashed also claimed that Muhammad was an assistant to a Christian preacher and his first wife was Christian. This isn’t the first time Rashed has stirred up controversy; in 2016 he had a shoe thrown at him on live television for suggesting Muslim women weren’t required to wear burkas.
Christians still Un-der attack by Kim Jong
Christianity Today reports on the latest duo of American Christians arrested in North Korea, a risky place to enter for Christians where the dictatorship brutally enforces the state religion of Kim Jong-un worshipping. Two Christian professors were recently arrested by the regime on charges of hostile acts or intent against the government, the same allegation which landed a Youth With a Mission missionary in prison for two years.
