A US TV show is to feature an episode in which a father, a
megachurch pastor who doesn’t believe in climate change, is verbally pitted
against his daughter, an activist trying to shut down the local coal-fired
plant. She wants to convince her father to make global warming the topic of his
next sermon. What makes this show unusual is that it’s not fiction but a
documentary; the father is Rick Joyner of Morningstar Ministries in North Carolina. His daughter Anna argues that “climate
disruption is not a political issue; it’s a moral issue, it’s a justice issue,
it’s a spiritual issue.” The series is called “Years of Living Dangerously.”
The CEO of Mozilla, Brendan Eich, has quit his post because
some people objected to the fact that he once made a donation to a group
campaigning against gay marriage. On top of the earlier protests, a boycott of
Mozilla had been begun by a popular online dating site, on the grounds that
Eich “was an opponent of equal rights for gay couples”. Eich co-founded Mozilla
and invented the widely used programming language JavaScript. Mozilla’s executive
chairwoman issued an apology -- to the protesters, for not acting quickly
enough. Eich received a valediction from Silicon Valley veteran Marc
Andreessen, who tweeted, “Brendan Eich is a good friend of twenty years and has
made a profound contribution to the Web and to the entire world.”
A court case brought in the UK by a former Mormon against
the head of the Mormon church for peddling false beliefs has been thrown out.
The judge described it as “[intended] to provide a high-profile forum to attack
the religious beliefs of others … it’s an abuse of the court process.” The
judge’s decision was supported by the head of the National Secular Society, who
wrote that if this case went ahead, “How long before someone takes the
Archbishop of Canterbury to court to prove the virgin birth or the
resurrection? How long before Richard Dawkins is taken to court and forced to
prove his beliefs are true? … If someone freely chooses to follow a particular
belief system but then becomes disillusioned with it, they should accept their
mistake and move on.”
A recent interview with Bono, the lead singer of U2, found
him speaking out about his faith in Christ. “He went around saying he was the
Messiah, that’s why he was crucified,” said Bono, “so he either was the Son of
God or nuts. […] I find it hard to believe that millions of lives, half the
earth for 2000 years, have felt their lives touched and inspired by some
nutter.”
The Hollywood film “Noah” has been released in UK cinemas.
Film critic Mark Kermode called it “a sweeping science fiction/dystopian future
film in the vein of Transformers, Lord of the Rings and Waterworld that happens
to be based on the story of Noah … it’s completely bonkers.” However, apart
from rock monsters bursting into flames, serpents shedding magical skins, Noah
having an adopted daughter and Noah slowly going mad, the film doesn’t seem to
have too many digressions from the Biblical story.
In sport, England’s women’s cricket team have reached the final
of the World Twenty20 tournament after beating South Africa by nine wickets.
They will play Australia, who are in the final for the third year in a row, on
Saturday.
And finally, a Christian ghostwriter carried out an April
Fool which involved labelling a number of toilets as prayer spaces. The labels
carried “relevant” Bible verses, such as “I have wiped out your transgressions
like a thick cloud”; “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity”; “[Jesus] had to be
made like his brothers in every respect”; and “thanks be to God who […] through
us spreads his fragrance everywhere.” Users of these prayer loos were
encouraged to connect with others on Twitter using the hashtag #prayasyoupoo.
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