A largely Christian town in Syria of 1700 people has been captured by rebels linked to al-Qaeda. The town of Kassab is populated by Armenian-Syrians, descendants of Christians who fled the Armenian genocide in what is now Turkey in 1915. The town’s inhabitants have criticised modern Turkey for allowing the rebels to transport arms across the Syrian-Turkish border easily.
The UK’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which is responsible for deciding which drugs should be made available by the NHS and under what conditions, has been criticised for saying that the morning-after pill should be made readily available to school girls, including those under the age of consent, without parental knowledge. The most powerful argument against this policy is that NICE’s statement that “availability of contraception reduces the rate of unwanted pregnancies” is unwarranted; one academic study in the UK, and a systematic review of 23 studies in the USA, found that making emergency contraception available increased rates of unprotected sex but had no effect on the teen pregnancy rate.
The atheist-turned-Christian university professor from North Carolina who sued his university for discriminating against him because of his beliefs has won his case. However, the Pakistani Christian woman who was accused of blasphemy remains on death row after her appeal was postponed. The "blasphemy" offence that she allegedly committed was to drink water from a well owned by a Muslim.
The US-based Christian charity World Vision decided to remove its ban on employing couples in gay marriages. “The issue of gay marriage has been tearing World Vision apart over the last few years,” said a spokesman. “Our employees come from 50 different denominations so we decided to leave the issue to the local churches to decide.” However, the USA Assemblies of God, among other groups, called for its members to re-direct their charitable giving away from World Vision as a consequence, and World Vision has now announced that it will not change its policy after all.
Gunmen have killed 6 worshippers at a church in Kenya, in what was apparently a revenge attack against Kenya for using its forces to fight Islamic militants in neighbouring Somalia.
A newly released Christian film called “God’s Not Dead” has taken $8.5 million and reached number 5 in the US box office, despite being released in only 850 cinemas. It’s based on a book about a Christian college student who accepts a challenge from his atheist professor to provide a defence for God and Christianity. Two members of the “Duck Dynasty”, who play themselves in the film, said that while some Christian movies had acting or stories that weren’t as good as other films, they found this one very compelling.
In sport, football’s Premier League saw forty-one goals scored by the twenty teams. The top three clubs – Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool – scored seventeen goals between them.
And finally, a maths teacher in France found an unusual and effective way to keep his class quiet; he threatened to write spoilers to the TV series “Game of Thrones” on the blackboard, having already read the entire set of books. When the class tested his resolve, he wrote the names of all the characters who died in Season 3 on the board. The class was quiet and attentive after that.
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