Is Messi A Believer!

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APPALLING!

 Police were lectured about Farage in Islamophobia talk.

Training session compared Reform UK leader’s doubts about Islam’s compatibility with British values to a racially aggravated offence.

Craig SimpsonShow biography

Published 29 September 2026 6:00am BST

North Yorkshire Police officers were asked to consider the ‘harm’ done by Nigel Farage Credit: Getty Images/Dan Kitwood

Police officers were lectured about Nigel Farage in a publicly funded talk about Islamophobia, The Telegraph can reveal.

Officers at a hate crime conference attended training sessions that compared the Reform UK leader’s opinions, specifically his doubts about the compatibility of Islam with British values, to a racially aggravated offence.

The North Yorkshire Police officers were asked to consider the “harm” done by Mr Farage, and then told that the politician would be “locked up” if he were similarly critical of Jewish people.

The lecture was part of a training programme titled Project Unity, which The Telegraph understands has also been presented to students, council staff and civil servants responsible for the counter-extremism Prevent programme.

It also took issue with criticism of pro-Palestine “hate marches” levelled by “people like Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick” – both Reform MPs – and concerns about Muslim integration raised by Matthew Goodwin, a former Reform parliamentary candidate.

Police have been repeatedly criticised for failing to adopt a sufficiently robust stance on Islamism and anti-Semitic abuse.

Last week, Policy Exchange, a Right-wing think-tank, revealed that the National Association of Muslim Police had published papers defending Hamas and describing terms such as “Islamist” as Islamophobic.

Abbas Najib, a former police officer who is now the chief executive of Better Communities Bradford, gave the talk 

The Project Unity training was delivered by Abbas Najib, a former police officer and now the chief executive of Better Communities Bradford, a charity.

Since 2019, the charity has received £490,000 in public funding from the National Lottery Communities Fund, including a £35,000 grant to roll out Project Unity, which covers training sessions that include “media and political narratives” and “myths and misconceptions about Islam”.

In 2025, the latter session was delivered for free to North Yorkshire Police officers at the York and North Yorkshire Hate Crime Conference.

Attendees were shown a 2024 interview with Mr Farage in which he warned that “growing numbers of people do not subscribe to British values”, going on to say that this cohort included Muslims and attendees of pro-Palestine marches in London.

The Reform leader then cited a survey published by the Henry Jackson Society that found 46 per cent of British Muslims supported Hamas.

After that, attendees were asked to “think about the relationship” between Mr Farage’s statements and a hate crime offence that took place in 2024. They were shown footage of a man racially abusing a Muslim bus driver.

They were then told to “draw your own conclusions” about the Reform leader, and asked to “think about whether this commentary has any influence on something like this”.

Attendees of the conference were told to ‘draw your own conclusions’ about Mr Farage regarding things he had said 

Mr Najib said to the audience: “Ask yourself, who is going to get into trouble between those two gentlemen? And who did the most harm?”

He added: “Sitting in a national news studio and saying ‘Jews hate Britain’. He’d be locked up before he left the studio, and too right too.”

The lecture made the case that Muslim values are compatible with British values, in particular the official list pulled together under David Cameron’s government, which included a belief in democracy, the rule of law, respect and tolerance, and individual liberty.

Written material that accompanied the training also claimed that women were not oppressed by the stipulations of Islam.

Footage of GB News presenter used

The session also said pro-Palestine marches were “protesting genocide”, and Mr Najib complained that they were labelled “hate marches” by “mainstream, high-profile politicians” such as “Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, Michael Gove”.

One of Mr Jenrick’s most prominent interventions about the issue came before his defection to Reform. Then in the Conservative Party, Mr Jenrick raised concerns about members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group that hopes to establish a global caliphate, chanting “jihad, jihad” close to one of the marches in 2023.

Robert Jenrick raised concerns about chants of ‘jihad, jihad’ by members of Hizb ut-Tahrir

The talk used footage of Mr Goodwin, a GB News presenter, and the leader of Reform’s student wing, hosting a TV segment on British values. He presented a YouGov survey that found more than half of Britons believed Islam was not compatible with British values.

This was contrasted in Islamophobia training material with a section claiming that the specific teachings of Islam were compatible with British values, including a belief in democracy and religious tolerance.

The training also defended immigration more broadly, and claimed that “Muslims, the immigrant, the brown person” were scapegoated for a flatlining economy, when it was in fact “the rich”.

‘One standard is applied to everyone’

The training – which is targeted at authorities handling hate crimes and counter-radicalisation – can be revealed after concern about the application of the law by police forces across the UK.

Earlier this year, Stephen Gray, a retired police officer, was fined for sharing posts online that were critical of Islam.

Mr Najib defended the need for training on the issue of Islamophobia and misconceptions about Muslims.

Mr Najib, seen here giving a talk, says Project Unity exists to ‘reduce anti-Muslim hostility’ 

He said: “Project Unity exists to reduce anti-Muslim hostility and strengthen trust between communities. We work with as wide a range of groups and organisations as possible, from councils and police to colleges, charities and community groups, to help them understand how prejudice takes hold and how public language can feed it.

“Statements made on national platforms reach millions, so the workshop looks closely at the words themselves and how they land.

“Participants consider how the same words would be heard if they were said about Jewish people, black people or any other minority community, so that one standard is applied to everyone, whoever is speaking and whatever their politics.

“That same standard means we challenge generalisations wherever they appear, including the labelling of voters as racist. As a charity, our role is to bring people together, not to take political sides.

“Since the riots of 2024, more organisations have recognised the need to address anti-Muslim hostility and build trust within communities. The training delivered through Project Unity is one of the ways we help them meet that need.”

DT.

Verse For Today - And Every Day!

 

Birdie.

 

Sigh!

                                        

Costa Rican Evangelical Alliance asks opposition lawmaker to identify pastor who allegedly offered votes for money

The Costa Rican Evangelical Alliance Federation (Federación Alianza Evangélica Costarricense, FAEC) has asked opposition lawmaker Abril Gordienko to identify the Christian pastor who, she said publicly, offered her 42,000 votes in exchange for 420 million colones (about $940,000) during the most recent election campaign.

Burnham and Co Are Despicable!

 The triple lock to go under this wretched government?

Crackers. Malicious. Meanspirited.

The nation is overflowing with foreign nationals, many of whom have not come here to work but rather to set themselves up dragging multiple benefits out of the pockets of honest working people.

If Labour does take this nasty route, there is a single benefit. It will vastly increase the chances that Nigel Farage will head the next government.

Melanie Phillips Explains ... Meanwhile, I Despair!

 The revelation that a senior Hamas official was living in Britain while plotting a major terrorist attack abroad is deeply shocking. To anyone who’s been paying attention, though, it’s not remotely surprising.

The problem is that hardly anyone has been paying attention.

The details that have emerged are extraordinary. Mr X, who cannot be named for legal reasons, served as a bodyguard for the former Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh. Mr X, who was the son of another senior Hamas official, had previously been arrested in Egypt for smuggling guns and gold through a tunnel into Gaza.

Despite these details being public knowledge, in 2015 Britain gave Mr X asylum and then citizenship. He changed his legal name more than once and reinvented himself as an IT consultant.

Now the Sunday Times has disclosed that he was an “essential” figure in a plot last October to attack Jewish and Israeli targets in Germany or Austria. He had used his British passport for routine trips to Qatar and Turkey — global hubs for Hamas — as well as to Egypt as he co-ordinated with terrorists in Europe.

The German indictment says he pre-recorded a video in which he appeared masked and armed in front of a Hamas flag, describing the planned attack as an act of retribution on behalf of its military wing, the Izzedine al Qassam Brigades.

People are asking in horror how Britain could have knowingly harboured such a man. Merely to ask the question is to answer it. Britain did so because it has long been in denial over the threat that predatory Islamism poses to Britain...

Sadly Unarguable.

Dear All, Around the world, Sharia law is used by many Muslim-majority countries as a comprehensive legal system to address family law, contracts, criminal law, financial transactions, and property rights. The record of its application tells a troubling story. It does not treat women as equal to men. It discriminates on the basis of religion. It prohibits, and in some jurisdictions criminalises, on threat of death, conversion away from Islam. It imposes serious limits on free expression, particularly speech relating to faith. Those who bear the greatest cost of this are often Christians and religious minorities. A death sentence for a song lyric In Nigeria, a young Sufi musician, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, shared song lyrics he had written on WhatsApp and his community deemed the lyrics as “blasphemous”. Before Yahaya reached the courtroom, his house was burnt down by a mob. The Hisbah (Islamic religious police) then arrested him, and a Sharia court swiftly convicted him without legal representation. Yahaya was sentenced to death by hanging. That sentence was later overturned on procedural grounds, but Yahaya now faces retrial on the same charge, awaiting a ruling by the Supreme Court of Nigeria that could either set a precedent against Sharia-based blasphemy law across northern Nigeria, or worryingly, confirm it. Forced into a faith she never chose In Iraq, a young Christian woman named Maryam was automatically registered as Muslim under a law assigning children the religion of a parent who converts to Islam - in her case, her mother, after remarrying a Muslim man. Upon reaching legal age, she challenged the designation, and with support from ADF, won her case - first in a lower court, then before Iraq's Court of Cassation, the country's highest appellate court for personal status matters, in July 2026. Her sisters, however, remain legally registered as Muslim, illustrating how state-assigned religion can strip individuals of the right to choose their own faith and expose non-Muslims to Sharia court jurisdiction. The story the headlines miss To most of the world, the term “Sharia law” brings to mind images of targeted attacks of terrorism - crimes committed by extremists acting outside the law. But Yahaya and Maryam were victims of the law – and this is the fundamental issue and danger with Sharia law that the headlines don’t always cover. ADF continues to advocate for freedom in these regions through litigation and advocacy to ensure protection of the God-given right to live and speak the truth. Will you stand with them today? Thank you for standing with the persecuted and for all your support. With gratitude, Alliance Defending Freedom

Deuteronomy.

Birdie.

 

Lydia - Acts 16. The Apostle Paul.

 Lydia’s Conversion in Philippi.

11) From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12) From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

13) On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14) One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15) When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

What Protestant Churches Can Learn From Catholic Abuse Crisis.

 https://www.christiandaily.com/opinion/what-evangelicals-can-learn-from-catholic-abuse-crisis

Nigeria.

Africa

At least one Christian slain every 86 minutes in Nigeria, study says

Christians in Nigeria were killed at a rate of one every 86 minutes between Jan. 1 and Sept. 8, most of them in the Middle Belt that receives low priority in Nigerian and U.S. security policy, a new report by a U.S.-based aid agency shows. CD.

Kevin Costner, Eh?

 Review: Kevin Costner brings gritty, reverent lens to Nativity in 'The First Christmas.'

By The Christian Post Dec 9, 2026.

 Courtesy ABC

“Kevin Costner Presents: The First Christmas” takes a direct and reverent approach to the Nativity story, exchanging the traditional holiday cheer for a more historically grounded portrayal of the circumstances, no matter how difficult, surrounding Jesus’ birth. 

The two-hour ABC special, airing Dec. 9 and then the following day on Hulu, blends reenactments, narration from Costner, and commentary from Christian theologians to reframe a story many viewers think they know well.

It’s not a glossy story, and the production’s central strength lies in its emphasis on realism. 

Rather than presenting Mary and Joseph as static religious symbols, the dramatizations depict them as young people navigating fear, uncertainty and danger. The couple’s youth and social vulnerability, the political pressure of Roman rule, and Herod’s mounting paranoia form the backdrop of the journey to Bethlehem.

 

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“This was a pregnant, unwed teenage girl, and Joseph was just as young. They were kids on this incredible journey," Costner recently told The Christian Post. "This story has lived for thousands of years, but they were teenagers, and it was fraught with danger."

"Babies were slaughtered over this issue. A proclaimed king was coming according to prophecy. These were real times, Roman rule, unstable cultures, and the stakes were incredibly high. Life wasn't valued the way we think of it today. They had to protect their lives and protect their child, whom we proclaim as the Son of God. For them, it was a fight for life at such a young age.”

Costner, who at the start of the special shares how church Nativity plays launched his own acting career, guides the special, threading together the dramatized scenes and scholarly interviews. Specialists from both Catholic and Protestant traditions are included to provide historical and theological context. 

Structurally, the special moves deliberately between storytelling and analysis. The dramatized scenes are competently staged and do not avoid darker elements of the biblical account. Violence associated with Herod’s rule is portrayed directly, and several sequences depicting persecution and death are intense (the special is unsuitable for younger audiences or viewers sensitive to graphic material).

But most importantly, spiritually, the special remains firmly aligned with Christian doctrine. The Gospel narrative is portrayed respectfully and emphasizes the resurrection and Christ’s redemptive purpose: “Let’s keep the Christ in Christmas,” Costner reminds viewers. 

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And while some scenes rely on informed speculation to fill narrative gaps, the program does not stray from the biblical framework or suggest reinterpretations of core Christian beliefs.

“The First Christmas” will likely resonate most with audiences seeking a more serious and contemplative approach to the season. Its emphasis on historical context, the reality of the difficult moments surrounding Christ’s birth and emotional realism offer viewers an opportunity to engage with the Nativity story beyond stained-glass window pageantry or nostalgia. 

Ultimately, the special succeeds in its goal: presenting the birth of Christ as an event shaped not only by divine promise but also by genuine human risk and ultimately, the hope of the Gospel. The special provides an excellent opportunity for families to reconsider a familiar story through a more grounded, Gospel-centric and thoughtful lens.

"Kevin Costner Presents: The First Christmas," which will air on ABC on Tuesday, Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. EST and will be available for streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu. 

Originally published by The Christian Post