Church Issues

• Danish Bible translation removes ‘Israel’ references: A revised translation of the New Testament published by the Danish Bible Society (a project of the Evangelical Lutheran Church) purges all but one mention of ‘Israel’. Read more here.

World Scene

• Dutch relax euthanasia rules: Doctors in the Netherlands will now be able to euthanise patients with advanced dementia even if they have not expressed a wish to die. Read more here. Also this week, the UK Justice Secretary confirmed that the Government has no plans to change the law on assisted suicide. Read more here.
  
• Youtube censors Covid discussion: Youtube videos about coronavirus which do not comply with the World Health Organisation’s position on the matter will be removed, according to the social media giant. Read more here.
  
• Trump to redirect WHO funds to Samarian’s Purse: US funding temporarily being withdrawn from the World Health Organisation will be re-routed to other groups doing similar work, including Franklin Graham’s evangelical Christian charity Samaritan’s Purse. Read more here.
  
• Canadian Army bans male/female pronouns: In new official guidelines, the Army is to no longer use ‘he’ and ‘she’ in official documents, but ‘they’ and ‘them’, in order to be inclusive of transgender people. Read more here.
  
• Pakistani Christians denied food aid amid pandemic: Christians and other minorities in the Muslim-majority country are facing starvation as they are denied official coronavirus food aid unless they convert to Islam. Read more here. Persecution charity Open Doors has said that believers around the world are becoming the targets for conspiracy theories about the pandemic, with attendant abuse.

Israel & Middle East

• Israel agrees a unity government: After a lingering impasse, Likud and Blue and White made last-minute progress in negotiations last week and finally reached a coalition deal, with Netanyahu remaining as PM. Read more here. With the deal agreed, parts of the West Bank are expected to be annexed by Israel in early July. Some concerns are being raised regarding the deal’s impacts on Israel’s democracy.
  
• Fears for Middle East stability: The collapse in oil prices (also affecting the US) adds to several crises already threatening the stability of the troubled region. Threatening advances by Iranian vessels towards US ships in the Persian Gulf remind that relations between the two countries remain extremely tense. Israel is reportedly continuing to strike Iranian assets in Syria.
  
• Iran unveils military space programme: This week Iran has successfully launched its first military satellite into space, heightening tensions with the US and revealing to the world a formerly secret space programme that could aid its terrestrial military activity. Read more here.

Events

• Day of prayer for deliverance (Saturday 25 April): Voice for Justice UK calls for an international day of prayer. Find out more here.
  
• San Remo 100 (Sunday 26 April, 2pm): Join a live broadcast from Jerusalem through the European Coalition for Israel. Find out more and watch at www.sanremo100.org.
  
• Family Watch Worldwide Webinar (Tuesday 28 April, 5pm): ‘The World Health Organization Exposed: Sexual Rights vs. Sexual Health’. For more information go to www.familywatch.org/webinars.

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: