The city of Shreveport, Louisiana (which was recently described
as one of the top ten Bible-minded cities in the USA) has passed an ‘equality’
law prohibiting discrimination in employment, housing or ‘public
accommodations’ based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. A
Christian councillor proposed a vote to repeal this law, but decided not to
proceed after a transgender ‘woman’ attended the council meeting; quoted the
Bible as saying that practicing homosexuals should be put to death; and offered
the councillor a large rock as ‘the first stone’. The councillor says he will
bring the argument back to the table later, but the repeal seems unlikely to
succeed.
A 65 year old Briton of Pakistani origin has been sentenced
to death in Pakistan for blasphemy, He had been writing letters to various
senior figures in Pakistan claiming to be a prophet, and he repeated that claim
in court. His defence lawyer argued that he was mentally ill; Ashgar had been
treated in the UK for paranoid schizophrenia (his UK doctor said he believed
that the Pakistani and British governments were trying to control him). However, Ashgar had already been declared
sane by a Pakistani medical tribunal (where he produced no witnesses to support
the claim of mental illness), and his lawyer was ejected from court before the
blasphemy trial was over. He is unlikely to be executed any time soon, however,
because Pakistan has a moratorium on hangings for civil offences.
The Church of England has issued nine “commandments” for
Christians who use social media. The Diocese of Bath and Wells has urged
Christians to spread the gospel using Twitter and other social media, but
warned them of some pitfalls to avoid.
Advice includes “Don’t rush in”; “do not hide behind anonymity”;
“respect confidentiality”; “stay within the legal framework”; “you are an
ambassador for the church”; and “be mindful of your own security”.
In sport, American football’s upcoming Superbowl features
two quarterbacks who are both devout Christians. The Denver Broncos’ veteran
quarterback Peyton Manning says he doesn’t pray for victory in games, bur for
safety for both teams. Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks posts Bible
verses on his Twitter feed daily; one that he posted was, “I press on towards
the goal for the prize of the call of God.”
Also in sport, Andy Murray lost his Australian Open quarter
final to Roger Federer. Federer then lost to world number 1 Rafael Nadal, who
proceeded to lose the final (partly due to injury) to world number 8 Stanislaw
Wawrinka.
A third sports item: England’s painfully embarrassing
cricket tour of Australia is finally over. Having lost the test series 5-0,
England had lost three out of four one day internationals. They needed just
eight runs of the last nine balls to win the final ODI as a consolation, but
lost their last experienced batsman in bizarre circumstances when Ravi Bopara
missed a ball completely and it ricocheted off the wicketkeeper’s gloves, and
possibly his chest, onto the bails. Bopara was deemed to have lifted his rear foot
and was given out. England lost by five runs.
And finally (no pun intended), a soon-to-be released
“Christian horror film” has just released a trailer. “Final: The Rapture” is
based on the book of Revelation. You can watch the trailer here.
No comments:
Post a Comment