Going, going, gone! A small town loses THREE banks in a year as branches continue to close all over Britain, Daily Mail.

One year ago there were four banks on the High Street in the north Essex town of Brightlingsea. By this autumn only one will remain.

First Nationwide shut, then NatWest said it would leave, and now Barclays has followed suit. The closures are threatening to bring this thriving community to its knees. 

Susie Bowes has only been running Vintique antique shop on the High Street for two months and the Barclays branch is six doors down. She knew NatWest - further down the road - was going to close when she was looking to open a business bank account. She chose Barclays. It never said it was going to go, too.

Read more here

Romanian family of 17 who lied to get a house live in a three-bedroom London semi.

A Romanian migrant family of 17 who lied to get a three bedroom house but take home £55,000 a year in benefits say they put up with the overcrowding because life is better in Britain.

The Toma family arrived in Britain in 2012, but after struggling to find a letting agency prepared to house all 15 of their children they told a landlord there were just six of them to get a home.

Although electrician father Mihai Toma, 47, earns £1,800 a month which covers the rent at the house in Harrow, north-west London, because of the number of children the family get £55,000 a year in tax credits and benefits.

  Toma family arrived in Britain from Romania in 2012 'for a better life'

  Family of 17 struggled to find letting agents who would accept them

  They then lied to a landlord, saying there were only six family members

  Father Mihai earns £1,800 a month as an electrician

  They say they get £4,600 in monthly benefits due to the number of children

  Tomas want a bigger house, but councils says they are not eligible

Read more here

The Flaming Herald, by Bert Farias, Charisma Magazine. The Raw, Naked Truth About Homosexuality

Gay rights and gay marriage have become one of the major issues of our culture today. In such times, Christians cannot afford to lose their moral compass or compromise the scriptures.

Here is a reminder that will strengthen our moral bearings:

The devil hates it when someone brings the truth out into the open. He likes to keep all light and truth hidden in the darkness. He hates it when someone speaks plainly and clearly about sin. On the other hand, he loves to promote all that is abominable and evil. "Off with his head," has always been the cry against those who confront sin and preach repentance.

So here is the raw, naked truth on homosexuality that we must never forget:

The Bible says that homosexuality is unnatural. Men in gay relationships have given up the natural use of the woman and women the natural use of the man.  

Read more here

Further Reading

A Call for Humility and Repentance in the Gay Community,  Flaming Herald.

How Obama's LGBT Executive Order Endangers Religious Liberty, Todd Starnes, Charisma Magazine

President Obama signed an executive order Monday barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity—ignoring the pleas of Christian and other faith leaders to include an exemption for religious organizations.

"Thanks to your passion and advocacy and the irrefutable rightness of your cause, our government—the government of the people, by the people and for the people—will become just a little bit fairer," the president told a gathering in the White House.

The executive order would prevent Christian and other religious organizations with federal contracts from requiring workers to adhere to the tenets of their religious beliefs. Christianity Today reports the order could impact religious non-profits such as World Vision, World Relief and Catholic Charities.  To read more please click here

President Obama, You Have Crossed a Dangerous, Unprecedented Line, Michael Brown, Charisma Magazine

Dear Mr. President, I write to you today as a concerned citizen of our great nation, standing as a witness against your historic actions on the morning of July 21, 2014, actions which I hope you will one day repudiate with deep remorse and regret.

I am referring, of course, to your signing an executive order Monday banning "discrimination" by federal contractors against LGBT people, allowing for no religious exemptions of any kind.

This was an outrageous act of discrimination against religion in the name of anti-discrimination—an act of bullying people of faith in the name of the prevention of bullying.

How can you, as a man who professes to be a person of faith and a follower of Jesus, throw religious Americans—in particular Christians—under the bus?

How can you attempt to force Christians, Jews, Muslims and others to violate fundamental aspects of their moral codes in order to appease a small but powerful special interest group, one that is not, in fact, suffering daily economic hardship by being fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientation or expression?

Have you forgotten entirely that our nation was founded on the concept of religious freedom?,  please read more here President Obama

T

Curb EU benefit tourism, Whitehall told

: Report finds growing concern among Britons about access to the welfare state by migrants.

Daily Mail Story

A  major overhaul is needed to curb  migrants’ access to British benefits, a Government review has concluded.

The report finds growing concern among Britons about access to the welfare state by the hundreds of thousands of arrivals from Europe taking advantage of EU free movement rules.    

If the system is not urgently reformed it could ‘significantly undermine’ public support for freedom of movement, it concludes.

Please read the full story here

Persecution of Mosul Christians 'Unprecedented in Modern Times'

Persecution of Mosul Christians 'Unprecedented in Modern Times

David Curry, president/CEO of Open Doors USA, has condemned the latest action of Islamic State militants who ordered all Christians in the Iraqi city of Mosul to leave the city over the weekend or face execution.

"The persecution and treatment of Christians in Mosul is unprecedented in modern times," he says. "This latest forced exodus of Christians further shows why Western governments and the people in the West need to cry out in support for religious freedom in the Middle East and elsewhere. If this does not move us concerning the near extinction of Christianity in the Middle East, it's likely nothing else can."

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of Interfaith Affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, adds: "Too many of us thought that forced conversions and expulsions of entire religious communities were part of a distant, medieval past. There was little that we could do to stop this horrible episode.

"It is not too late to realize that many others—Christians today, but certainly Jews, Baha'i, Hindus, Muslims and others—are mortally endangered by a potent religious fanaticism that threatens tens of millions, and which still can be resisted."

According to Open Doors, the Islamic State gave Christians an ultimatum over the weekend: 1) Stay and convert to Islam; 2) Pay Islamic tax (which is too much for most families to pay); 3) Leave Mosul taking nothing but their clothes. Christians who stayed would be executed.

Most Christians have left Mosul now. At the checkpoints of ISIS, Christians had to leave everything behind (cars, gold, money, mobile phones). The only possessions they could keep were their clothes. They had to walk to safer places, mostly in northern Iraq, while traveling in blistering heat.