RELIGIOUS PEOPLE ARE ‘HAPPIER’
As reported in Eternity News, “People who are active in religious congregations tend to be happier and more civically engaged than either religiously unaffiliated adults or inactive members of religious groups,” according to a new Pew Research Centre analysis of survey data from Australia, the United States and more than two dozen other countries.” Australia comes across as a relatively happy country: 45 per cent of people active in religious communities report themselves as “very happy,” with unaffiliated and inactive religious people closely bunched at 33 and 32 per cent respectively. The happiest of all is Mexico with 71 per cent of people active in religious communities telling researchers they are very happy; religious but inactive people at 64 per cent, and the unaffiliated at 61 per cent.

ASIA BIBI OFFICIALLY FREE
ChristianHeadlines.com reported a few weeks ago that Pakistani judges upheld their acquittal of Asia Bibi and she was free to leave the country to join her family in Canada. After being imprisoned and placed on death row for some eight years for purportedly insulting Islam, the Christian mother was finally a free woman. Bibi was arrested in 2010 when several Muslim women sparked an argument with her for offering water to other Muslim women after she, a Christian, had already sipped from the cup. Bibi was arrested for insulting the prophet Muhammad under the Islamic country’s blasphemy laws. Bibi was held in prison until October 2018 when a panel of three-judges reversed her sentence for lack of evidence.

FRANKLIN GRAHAM IN AUSTRALIA
Franklin Graham’s tour of Australia began on 9th February in Perth, with over 13,200 people in attendance at the city’s RAC Arena. The tour continued through Darwin on 13th February and last night in Melbourne. Other cities to be visited this month include Brisbane tomorrow night, Adelaide (20th) and Sydney on the 23rd and 24th. Music at the meetings is supplied by Planetshakers Band.