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How would we respond if we found out that two million refugees would be coming into Scotland? Refugees who needed medical help, housing and food. Refugees who are fleeing a civil war in their homeland. Refugees, many of them children, who have witnessed the death of family members at close quarters and have been severely traumatised by such experiences?

As Christians we would say that we would welcome them and want to help. But, stop for a moment. Think of the consequences of so many people coming to our small country.

Would we, could we, find shelter for everyone? How and where would we educate the children? Would our much loved NHS cope with such an influx of people, many of them children, who have been physically and mentally scarred by their experiences?   The task would be extremely daunting. But that is the reality for our brothers and sisters in Lebanon.

Over 6.5 million Syrians are displaced within their own country and nearly five million have fled into neighbouring countries like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.

Fr. Paul Karam, the Director of Caritas Lebanon, visited SCIAF recently to explain the work he and his colleagues are doing to support many of the 1.5 million refugees now living in his country.

He told us how the number of refugees continues to grow as the situation within Syria worsens.  Reception centres and mobile clinics have been set up to feed and care for people but the impact on the people of Lebanon has been severe.  Schools are operating on a shift system to try to ensure every child has an education. The whole social infrastructure is under severe pressure.

Such a huge challenge requires all the support we can afford to give. In material terms money donated to SCIAF’s appeals is helping to provide basic necessities: food parcels, clean water and wash kits containing soap, nappies, sanitary towels and other essentials to help stop the spread of disease; accommodation and blankets to protect against the cold winter nights; and heaters and cooking equipment to keep body and soul together.

But they also need our prayers, and to know that, as we approach the Christmas season and look forward to family gatherings, they and their families are in our hearts and our prayers.

“Accept one another, then, for the sake of God's glory, as Christ accepted you.” Romans 15:7

Lost in a sea of strangers, stripped of any sense of belonging, security or identity, our sisters and brothers are scared and at the mercy of others.  Lord, we pray for all refugees throughout the world.   Help us to follow your example of reaching out to the stranger, the poor and the marginalised. Help us to create a world where refugees find the peace and acceptance they desperately need. 

To give to the SCIAF Syria appeal visit: ww.sciaf.org.uk or telephone 0141 354 3555

I have to admit that I could not claim any great knowledge of Interfaith Week in the past but this year it really impacted my awareness with two events in particular raising its profile in Glasgow: the launching of Interfaith Glasgow as a separate charity at Glasgow City Chambers on 14th November and the signing of the Interfaith Food Justice Declaration at the new Glasgow Central Gurdwara on 17th November.  

It was good to attend the City Chambers launch event and witness the formal setting out of Interfaith Glasgow as a separate entity from its “parent” Interfaith Scotland, although as the speakers at the event reminded us, there has been a long tradition of migration, integration and interfaith work in Glasgow. Indeed, as Sr. Isabel Smyth,  the Secretary of the Bishops' Committee on Interreligious Dialogue, said, in the area of interfaith work, the Glasgow Sharing of Faiths Group was the first in Scotland, and one of the pioneers of interfaith work had been the late Stella Reekie, through the International Flat.

The second event gave me a chance to visit the new and splendid Gurdwara in Berkeley Street and to witness something practical that the various faith communities in Glasgow are doing together as a result of identifying what they have in common and building on that.  

The event had been organised by the informal Interfaith Food Justice Network, co-ordinated by Interfaith Glasgow and the Transformation Team of Faith In Community Scotland.  It centred around the formal signing, on behalf of the faith communities, of the Food Justice Declaration (full text accessible at http://bit.do/foodjustice ) which sets out in clear and simple language the beliefs of the signatory faiths that food is a basic human right and no one should have to turn to foodbanks or other forms of emergency food aid.  he declaration finishes with a pledge of the signatories to support each other in working for effective change.

Before the declaration was signed by those present, there were short inputs from Martin Johnstone , who chaired the Independent Working group on Food Poverty set up by the Scottish Government and which reported in June this year; Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities; and Dr. Inderjit Singh from the Gurdwara.

Both Martin and Dr. Singh made clear the importance of food in their faith communities. Martin began by recounting one of the late Bishop Mone’s stories about a little boy sharing a biscuit he had given him with his friends and how this had given him a whole new insight into the Eucharist. He also quoted the words of Pope Francis which he had at a Mass in St. Peter’s Rome the previous Sunday “There can be no peace in the homes of the prosperous as long as justice for all is lacking.” 

He made it clear that in Scotland people should not be having to make the choices between eating and heating, or going without to feed your children.  Places of worship, he suggested, can be places where community is built through food growing, preparation or sharing.  He finished with the reminder that for the Christian faith tradition, a meal is at the heart of our faith.

Dr. Singh in turn explained the centrality of the langar (common kitchen) in Sikhism.  Listening to Dr. Singh, I appreciated how very fitting it was for us to be signing the Food Justice Declaration in the Gurdwara because for Sikhs, the provision of food is an important part of their religious practice, and the langar open to all without distinction of race or religion. It expresses in a very practical way equality and community inclusion, as well as providing the opportunity for service and voluntary giving.  The whole family is involved in the work of the kitchen as we saw later when we were given the opportunity to sample a langar meal.  

Angela Constance expressed her agreement that it is a disgrace in our advanced economy that food poverty exists, and this is just a symptom of wider poverty.  She drew attention to the government’s Fairer Scotland Action Plan, which was published at the beginning of October, and she appealed to the Network to help, acknowledging that the government cannot build a faire Scotland on its own.  One idea she raised was that the right to food could be enshrined in Scots law – what would this look like? 

Stop Funding Hate aims to challenge the upsurge in hate speech - and hate crime - seen across the UK during 2016.

Look through the front pages any day of the week and you'll likely see a headline demonising refugees and migrants. Scare stories about a “swarm” of “invaders”, “milking Britain's benefits” and “stealing jobs” have become so commonplace we almost stop noticing them.

And yet hateful headlines can have hateful consequences. Last year, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a strongly-worded statement after one newspaper ran a story likening African migrants to “cockroaches”. The High Commissioner highlighted “decades of sustained and unrestrained anti-foreigner abuse, misinformation and distortion” by UK media, and warned that:

“History has shown us time and again the dangers of demonizing foreigners and minorities... it is extraordinary and deeply shameful to see these types of tactics being used... simply because racism and xenophobia are so easy to arouse in order to win votes or sell newspapers.”

The UN also highlighted another UK newspaper that it said had run nearly 50 front pages on migrants or refugees during 2015  – almost all of them negative.

Earlier this year, amid a series of attacks on EU migrants, experts at the University of Leicester warned that hate crime was being “fuelled and legitimised... by the media”.

In October, the Council of Europe warned that “It is no coincidence that racist violence is on the rise in the UK at the same time as we see worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in the newspapers, online and even among politicians”.

Amid divisive rhetoric across the political spectrum - with people both left and right labelling each other as “traitors” and even “vermin”, it seems as though something has gone badly awry.

So how can we restore a more humane way of talking to - and about - our fellow human beings? 

Most of us shop with a company that helps fund newspapers’ activities through advertising and the sad truth is that whipping up anger - and hate - can help papers boost their readership, and hence their advertising revenue. But if we could find a way to shift this balance - so that running dehumanising headlines was no longer profitable, perhaps something effective could be done. 

Since we launched our first video in August, tens of thousands have supported our campaign. Our first big win came when Specsavers issued an apology and withdrew one of their advertisements from the Daily Express. 

More recently, the Co-op Group have agreed to review their advertising policies days after we launched our second video, which has already been viewed over 300,000 times. That same week, the Phone Co-op (separate from the Co-op Group) became the first UK company to commit publicly not to advertise in the Daily Express, Mail or Sun. 

As public support builds, we are hopeful that more companies will start to take account of the social impact of their advertising. If you’d like to find out more about the campaign, please follow us on Twitter (​www.twitter.com/stopfundinghate ​) and like us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/stopfundinghate ​).