A selection of the week's happenings to aid your prayers.

Society & Politics

• Anti-Semitism rally to be held in Parliament Square: This weekend (7 December) a solidarity rally is being held in London to stand with Jewish citizens and against anti-Semitism. Find out more here.
• World’s first de-transition conference held in Manchester: Over 200 delegates attended the first conference on gender de-transitioning at the end of November. The sell-out event was organised by an independent feminist collective. Read more here.
  
• Divorce rate falls: The divorce rate has dropped to the lowest since 1971, when the Divorce Reform Act came into force making separation easier. Research is finding that children of divorced parents seem to be more committed to making their own marriages work. Read more here. In related news, pro-marriage and pro-family policies in Hungary are precipitating a boom in weddings.
  
• 1 in 5 students fear speaking their minds: A significant proportion of students no longer feel able to express their opinions openly on campus. The percentage rises to nearly 60% for students on the political right. Read more here. Students at six universities have set up new free speech societies to counter this threat to freedom on campus. Read more here.
  
• Lesbians share motherhood in world first: A British lesbian couple have become the first to jointly mother a child, with one woman the biological mother (providing the egg) and the other the gestational mother, carrying the baby to full term. Read more here.
  
• Pro-life medical students at risk of being ‘squeezed out’: The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is coming under fire for impressing the importance of abortion skills on trainee medics but making no provision for conscientious objection. Read more here.

Church Issues

• CofE restates opposition to abortion liberalisation: After hundreds of Anglicans signed an open letter calling on their leaders to take a stand against attempts to liberalise the UK’s abortion laws, two bishops have responded on behalf of the Church re-affirming its commitment to a pro-life position. Read more here.

World Scene

• Polish anti-paedophilia bill rejected by MEPs: The citizen-led bill would have criminalised the encouragement of minors to have sex and protected the rights of parents to educate their own children on the matter. 471 MEPs have voted to condemn it, which will pressure the Polish Parliament to do likewise. Read more here.
  
• 14 Christians, including children, shot dead in Burkina Faso: Worshippers were attacked by Islamist militants during a Sunday morning service in the south-east of the country, 1 December. The attack leaves only one male in the entire congregation. Read more here.

Israel & Middle East

• Europe ignores Iranian massacres, helps regime: Six more European countries joined INSTEX, the trading instrument being used to circumvent US sanctions on Iran, this week. Meanwhile, news is emerging of hundreds of unarmed protestors being shot by the Iranian military in a vicious bloodbath. Also this week, an Iranian weapons depot in Syria has been targeted in an airstrike, while the US has intercepted Iranian missile parts headed for Yemen.

General Election 2019 Resources

• Election briefing and campaign resources from the Christian Institute
  
• Campaign resources, analysis and prayer advice from Christian Concern
  
• Election resources from Voice for Justice
  
• Prayer resources from CARE
  
• For campaigns and resources relating to the pro-life movement, see SPUC and Right to Life.

If you know of others, please post them below.

Recommended Sources

At Prophecy Today UK we are aware that the world is moving very quickly and it is difficult to keep up with all the latest developments – especially when the material circulated by our mainstream media is increasingly far from reality and definitely not devoted to a biblical perspective!Though we are not a news service, we want to help keep you informed by passing on updates and reports as we are led. This will be a selective, not an exhaustive, round-up, which we hope will be helpful for your prayers. Click here to browse our News archive.We recommend the following news services for regular updates from a Christian perspective: