A true life spy thriller whose central character was a
Muslim who converted to Christianity has won the prestigious Audience Award at
the Sundance Film festival. The Green Prince tells the story of the eldest son
of one of the founders of the terrorist/guerrilla group Hamas, Mosab Hassan
Yousef, who not only became a Christian but worked as a double agent for the
Israeli secret police for ten years. Yousef is one of the narrators of the
documentary. An Israeli newspaper said, “Perhaps the most difficult thing about
watching the new documentary is feeling that you should not be there, that
everyone in the theater should be asked to leave before any more Israeli
intelligence secrets are divulged."
While Britain suffers from flooding and most of the USA from
a very cold winter (there was recently snow in Georgia and Florida), Christians
in California are praying for rain. A group from Merced, south-east of San
Francisco, have been encouraged to carry umbrellas around with them to remind
them to pray. “We need a real weather miracle,”” said one intercessor. 2013 was California’s
driest year on record; Los Angeles received less than 4 inches of rain in the entire year.
Three men who were charged with stealing food from waste
bins behind a supermarket in London had the case against them dropped, as the
Crown Prosecution Service (supported by the supermarket) decided that
prosecutions were “not in the public interest.” The actions of the men, who were
living as squatters, have been interpreted in two very different ways; some see
it as highlighting the increasing problems of poverty triggered by the
Coalition government’s cuts in benefits, while others think the men were “skipping””
– removing usable items from bins in order to minimise the waste that goes to
landfill.
The title track from the low-budget Christian film “Alone Yet
Not Alone”, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song, has been
disqualified from the Oscar voting. A previous attempt to get the song
disqualified, on the grounds that the film had not “been advertised in Los
Angeles County” during 2013, failed; the film makers confirmed that they had spent
no money on advertising, but Oscar rules state that advertising a showtime for
the film met the standard. Now the song has been disqualified because one of
the songwriters, who is on the executive committee for the Oscars, had emailed
members of the Oscars’ music branch to make them aware of his submission during
the nomination period.
In response to the affirming of same-sex relationships by
leading evangelicals Steve Chalke and Rob Bell, a group of UK evangelical leaders
have decided to reveal that they are “post-gay”; i.e. they still experience same-sex
attraction, but they hold to the Bible’s traditional views, so two have
remained celibate while one felt his feelings change sufficiently that he is
now married with three children. One of them described his teenage years thus: “I
just felt that I was very dirty and that therefore other Christians might want
to keep a distance. But I heard a liberating sermon which said, ‘All of us are
sexual sinners. There will be some who experience unwanted homosexual feelings.
If that’s you, then you are not alone.’ ”
In sport, one of the quarter finals of the Copa del Rey (the
Spanish FA Cup) was called off when one of the teams went on strike over unpaid
wages. Racing Santander were already 3-1 down from the first leg; when the
second leg began at their home stadium, they refused to challenge for the ball.
The tie is likely to be awarded to their opponents, Real Sociedad, who will face
Barcelona in the semi-finals.
In technology news, Facebook has released a news-reading app
called Paper. Available only on mobiles, it will deliver personalised news, and
make it easier to share stories from major publications amongst friends.
And finally, the issue of religious statues around the State
Capitol building in Oklahoma has taken an even stranger turn. Republicans had
set up a statue of the Ten Commandments and had claimed that it was
sufficiently non-religious to be placed on State property. A local Satanist
temple then asked for permission to place their own statue, and recently
unveiled their proposed design – a seven-foot goat-headed demon. Now other
groups including the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (whose Pastafarian members
apparently wear colanders on their heads) have applied to set up monuments in
the grounds of the Capitol too.
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