Not The BBC News: 28 September 2014

A new translation of the Bible into Farsi has been completed by Wycliffe Bible Translators, and there are plans to take 300,000  copies into Iran. The church in Iran is underground, but is thought to be 400,000 strong, and to be growing at 20% per year – one of the fastest church growth rates of any country in the world.  An Iranian woman in London told how she had put her faith in Jesus at the age of 13, after her father was executed for his faith, and how she used to evangelise by writing out Scripture verses by hand and leaving them in strategic places -- she once wrote out the entire Gospel of John. Unsurprisingly, she sees the planned delivery of Bibles to Iran as an answer to prayer.

It has emerged that the Equality Commission failed to take legal advice from any senior barrister before launching their legal case against the Christian bakers in Northern Ireland. A Freedom of Information request for relevant emails reveals that they only took such advice after the issue was raised at Prime Minister’s Question Time.

A high-level ethics council in Germany, consisting of academics, doctors, scientists and lawyers, has recommended to the German government that incest should be decriminalised. The council apparently followed the same logic that has been applied to gay marriages in arguing that consent and commitment between adults are the most important things, and that it should not be the court’s responsibility to uphold social taboos. It concluded that “The fundamental right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination is to be weighed more heavily than the abstract idea of protection of the family.” However, a spokeswoman for Angela Merkel said, “Eliminating the threat of punishment against incestuous acts within families would run counter to the protection of undisturbed development for children.”

International Justice Mission, a charity that works to rescue people from slavery, entered an alleged brothel in Mumbai last week in a co-ordinated raid with the police. There were no girls to be found, but after 45 minutes of tapping on walls, they found one low wall that sounded hollow. The police agreed to break in to that wall, and they found a large hidden room with six girls, who appeared to be in their early teens, inside it. The girls have been released and the brothel owner arrested. (An interview with the director of IJM Mumbai, who took part in the rescue, can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpgY7Di0pso).

Another Christian film which has just been released in the USA is “The Song,” which is based on the Song of Solomon. It stars Alan Powell, lead singer of the band Anthem Lights, as a singer who meets and marries his true love.  After they marry he writes “The Song” for her; it becomes his breakout hit, but he finds himself torn between family life and the music industry. Trailers and details can be found at www.thesongmovie.com.

In technology news, I’m going to start a short series on things to do and things not to do in Facebook. First of all, did you know that you have two mail inboxes on Facebook? Click (left) on the double speech bubble in the top toolbar and you’ll see “Inbox” and also “Other;” the latter is used for spam messages and also messages that Facebook thinks might be spam.  I found a message from a friend sent four years ago in my “Other” inbox. To move a message to your usual Inbox, simply reply to it.

And finally, a bride-to-be from Chengdu in southern China decided, with her fiancé’s acquiescence, to break the world record for the longest ever train for a wedding dress. The end result is a train of lace that is three miles long, weighs 50kg, will require 40 bridesmaids to carry it, and which cost about a year’s average wage for a Chinese worker. Her fiancé said, “It’s her day, so what she says goes.”

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Not The BBC News: 26 September 2014

John Paul Jackson, the well known prophetic minister who was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago, has had his tumour removed and is recovering. He had a very rare type of cancer in his leg. The tumour that was removed weighed twelve pounds, and he also lost a good deal of leg muscle; one therapist compared it to a shark bite. However, the tumour was not attached to his sciatic nerve;  it seems very unlikely that the cancer has metastasised; and his physical recovery is progressing more quickly than expected – some predicted he would be bedridden for up to two months, but in fact he can now walk two miles per day.

The Missouri pastor who hit the headlines for organising a Father’s Day competition to get men into church, with two AR-15 assault rifles as the prize, has become known for his no-nonsense real-man approach to Christianity. “We’re just a bunch of dudes with beards and beer guts and hot wives,” he said. “We love our God. We love our country. We love our trucks. And we love our guns.” Unfortunately, he was arrested two weeks ago for driving while intoxicated, and has been asked to relinquish direct leadership of the church while he seeks counselling. “I have made an incredibly foolish and reckless mistake,” he said. “It’s not just this one event, though, but rather a lifestyle of rebellion and unnecessary reckless behaviour that has continually put the very mission I passionately love in real jeopardy.” ​

It has been reported that two Liberian women from separate (but nearby) villages, who died of Ebola and were both due to be buried on Monday, have risen from the dead. One woman was in her 60s and the other in her 40s. There are reports of panic in their home villages, with villagers being unwilling to have a ‘ghost’ living among them. The same area also recently hosted a “native doctor” who claimed to be able to cure people of Ebola, but recently died of the disease himself.

A newspaper article (in the Guardian, surprisingly) questioned the link between religion and historical wars (as posited by the likes of Richard Dawkins, who wrote: “only religious faith is a strong enough force to motivate such madness in otherwise sane and decent people.”) The gist of the article is that secularism is a modern invention, and that before that, religion, politics and life were inextricably intermingled – indeed, in some languages the word that we translate as “religion” has a much wider connotation (the Arabic word din means ‘an entire lifestyle’; the Sanskrit dharma covers law, politics and social institutions; and there is no word for religion in Hebrew at all). The article adds that, if religion had been the main motivator of all mediaeval wars, there would not have been wars between Catholic France and the Catholic Habsburgs, with the latter regularly supported by various Protestant princes.

A proposed anti-abortion bill in Spain has been dropped  by the government due to polls showing 70%-80% public opposition.  The heavily Catholic country currently allows abortion on demand up to 14 weeks, and up to 22 weeks in cases where the mother’s health is at risk, under legislation introduced by the previous (more left wing) government. The new bill would have banned abortion except in cases of rape or a risk to the woman’s health. However, with an election due next year, the government fear passing the bill would be political suicide.

In technology news, a company called 3dsystems.com is about to release the ChefJet Pro, a 3-D printer that uses water, sugar and colouring to make “full-colour cocktail decorations, architectural cake supports, interlocking candies and beautiful sugar sculptures.”

And finally, the approach of the Christian Resource Exhibition (North) in Manchester provides an excuse to examine some of the daftest Christian souvenirs available. Visitors to Wittenberg in Germany can buy “Here I stand” socks, inscribed with the phrase “Luthersocke” and Martin’s famous words; Iphone users can download a do-it-yourself confession app; Crucifix Shoes offer canvas shoes bearing Catholic-style images; and I’m not even going to advertise the seller of a toilet seat cover inscribed, in Jewish font, with the words “Let My People Go.” (Credit to – and more details available from -- http://www.ship-of-fools.com/gadgets/new/index.html)

Not The BBC News: 24 September 2014

The Catholic Archbishop of Chicago has accused the US Government of forming its own “State religion” based on “progressive” secular ideals. He spoke after the government decided to continue legal action against a Catholic convent (a charity) seeking exemption from the birth control components of “Obamacare”, even though the Supreme Court decided recently that many private companies could be exempted from those components. He said, “Since the biblical vision of what it means to be human tells us that not every friendship or love can be expressed in sexual relations, the church’s teaching on these issues is now evidence of intolerance for what the civil law upholds and even imposes. … Swimming against the tide means limiting one’s access to positions of power and prestige in society … Since all public institutions will conform their activities to the demands of the official religion, the practice of medicine and law will become more difficult for faithful Catholics. It already means that in some States that those who run businesses must conform their activities to the official religion or be fined, as Christians and Jews are fined for their religion in countries governed by Sharia law.”

Meanwhile, Britain’s most senior Catholic bishop has called for the Catholic church to create a ‘culture of mercy’ at the start of an international Synod which is to decide whether remarried divorcees will be allowed to take Mass. Pope Francis has made mercy the theme of many of his public messages.

The debate in Oklahoma that was triggered by state legislators allowing the Ten Commandments to be displayed outside the State Capitol building, and which led to other religions demanding similar access, reached the point where Satanists held a black mass at the Civic Center on Sunday. Despite protests, public officials refused to ban the group‘s use of a public building. However, the rituals were toned down to comply with health and safety laws – for example, vinegar was substituted for urine – and the number of protesters outside the event far outnumbered the 40 or 50 participants.

A BBC undercover investigation has discovered that fake gay marriages are being used by criminal gangs to obtain residency status for illegal immigrants in the UK. It is thought that in parts of London, up to 30% of heterosexual marriages are intended to avoid immigration control; some of these marriages are  stopped each year after tip-offs from registrars and church ministers to authorities. However, fake gay weddings are apparently much harder to identify – a criminal gang organiser contacted during the BBC’s investigation said, “You say you are gay. No problem. Easy for you.”

Students in several high schools in Denver, Colorado staged a walk-out on Tuesday in protest against a proposed new history curriculum that is intended to focus on topics that "promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights" and don't "encourage or condone civil disorder, social strike or disregard of the law." The proposal is a response to a new national framework for teaching history that supporters say encourages discussion and critical thinking; however, opponents fear it could over-emphasise the nation's problems.

Another (loosely) Christian film being released this year is “8 Days,” which looks at the growth of human trafficking and sex slavery in the USA. The South African director’s own sister is a former sex slave; she won a singing competition “similar to American Idol but smaller” at the age of 11, but a year later her music manager raped her and kept her as a sex slave for five years. She admits turning her back on God for part of those five years – “how could God love me and put me through something like that?” – but now credits her faith in Jesus for helping her overcome the abuse.

In sports news, Liverpool and Middlesbrough played a Capital One Cup match that went to extra time, then to a penalty shootout (because Middlesbrough equalised with a penalty in extra time stoppage time), and was still equal by the time all 22 players had taken a penalty (one had been saved by each goalkeeper). So the first few penalty takers had to be recalled, and five more penalties were scored before a Middlesbrough player finally missed. The Liverpool manager admitted that his side had practised penalties before the game.

And finally, a sci-fi fan submitted a Freedom of Information request to Essex County Council, asking for the number of UFO sightings and investigations into paranormal activity dealt with by the authority in the last decade, and also for a copy of the council’s business continuity plans in the event of a zombie invasion or pandemic virus. The Council gamely replied that the services had all been contracted out to external service providers, and then gave names and contact details – from the TV series X-files, and the films Ghostbusters, Shaun of the Dead, and 28 Days Later. 

Not The BBC News: 17 September 2014

The brother of the top leader of ISIS in Iraq had become a Christian. Mohammed Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose brother Abu is now the self-proclaimed Caliph of Islamic State, has not spoken to his brother for 14 years after going to Texas to train as an oil engineer; Abu became a cleric in Samarra, Iraq. On hearing the news, Abu disowned his brother and ordered a fatwa (death sentence) against him. Mohammed and his family now have new identities under the US Witness Protection program.

The youngest contestant on this year’s Great British Bake Off has given an interview to “Christianity Today” about her Christian faith. “Being a Christian is such good news, I don’t think it would right to keep it a secret” said 17 year old Martha Collison.

There have been no recent official developments in the case of the Christian bakery in Northern Ireland who are being pursued by the Equalities Commission for refusing to bake a cake supporting gay marriage. However, a relative of the owners, who is herself gay and in a civil partnership, was interviewed by the BBC. She commented “I don’t know whether they should have baked the cake or not. I do a lot of equality and diversity training within my job, and the Equality Act protects both religion and sexual orientation; how can you prioritise one over the other? I think they have the right to express their faith and I have the right to live how I want to live.”

Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese Christian woman who was sentenced to death (while pregnant) for being a Christian before being released after international pressure, has given an interview. She said that Imams regularly read the Koran to her in prison in order to try to convert her; also, other Christian prisoners were told that if they converted, all their debts would be wiped out. She also said she was told she would be allowed to give birth in hospital before that promise was broken, and she was forced to give birth in prison, with her legs still shackled. Of her new life in New Hampshire, she says, “I’m still not settled, but it’s a lot better than prison;” of her faith, she said, “Faith means life. If you don’t have faith, you are not alive.”

The Christian film “Holy Ghost” is now available for purchase by download as well as on DVD.

In technology news, a short stretch of pavement in Chongqing, China, has been divided into two lanes: one for people using mobile phones, and one for those who aren’t. The intention was to remind people that it’s dangerous to tweet while walking down the street. However, the experiment has proved its point in an unexpected way – the lanes are only heeded by people who aren’t using mobiles phones; users don’t notice them.

If tomorrow's Scottish independence referendum succeeds, it will be good news for High Ercall, a village near Shawbury in Shropshire, which will become the geographical centre of the UK. The current centre lies in Morecambe Bay.

And finally, a wedding photograph showing five people that was recovered from the New York rubble on 9/11 has finally been traced to its owner. The photo was found in the street and the finder posted it on social media around the anniversary of 9/11 every year. This year, the photo was finally identified, by the one man in the picture who was looking directly at the camera, who now works in Colorado. “I kept that picture above my desk on the 77th floor,” he said, “but I was late for work that morning and was still coming out of the subway when the plane struck.” He confirmed that everyone else in the picture is alive and well. The picture will probably be donated to the 9/11 museum in New York.

Not The BBC News: 12 September 2014

The first British clergyman to enter a gay marriage is taking the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Nottingham to an employment tribunal under the Equality Act. The reason is that he was told that he could no longer officiate at services or act as a hospital chaplain because his marriage constituted inappropriate conduct for someone in holy orders.

The BBC, which has been criticised in the past for being a ‘cheerleader’ for assisted suicide, has been criticised again for a recent drama showing an assisted suicide which failed to point out that assisting suicide is against the law. A TV reviewer said, “Pippa [the assister, who was pregnant] seemed blithely unbothered by the thought that, by the time she was eligible for parole, her child would probably have finished university.”

A Chinese human rights lawyer who ‘disappeared’ in 2009 and was sentenced to three years in prison in 2011 has been released. However, Gao Zhisheng is under effective house arrest, and his treatment in prison was so bad that he lost more than a quarter of his body weight and several teeth due to malnutrition, and is currently only able to speak short and mostly unintelligible sentences. He has not been permitted to see a doctor since his release.

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has now killed almost 1,900 people. Four Assemblies of God pastors from Monrovia in Liberia have died; so have a considerable number of Christians in Sierra Leone, where all public gatherings outside worship places are banned. Many people have turned to the Lord because of fear of Ebola.

In Egypt, there has been an big increase in kidnappings of Christians, mostly young girls or women, for ransom or to marry and convert. Many are abducted in plain view, and the authorities rarely act effectively. One report estimates 550 Coptic Christian schoolgirls have been kidnapped since 2011.

In sport, Arsene Wenger attributes Arsenal’s success in signing Danny Welbeck from Manchester United on transfer deadline day to the Pope. However, it was nothing to do with divine intervention against the Red Devils; it was simply that Wenger had accepted an invitation from the Pope to manage a charity football team in Rome on deadline day, which meant he was awake and available to do transfer business a few hours earlier than he otherwise would have been. Wenger was initially criticised for going to Rome on deadline day, but he said, “Meeting the Pope was an experience I did not want to miss … It was a game for peace and multi-religion understanding. I thought today, when we are a bit in front of an international religious war, it was a very important game.”

Also in sport, non-league Bungay Town offered a free box of mushrooms to any supporters who attended their match against Martham last week. “The former chairman is a mushroom grower,” BBC Sport were told. There was no comment on whether the chairman was a fun guy to work with.

And finally, the US magazine Veterinary Practice News has handed out awards in a contest called “They ate WHAT?” In third place was a Great Dane dog whose stomach was found to contain 43 ½ socks; second place went to a shorthaired pointer that ate a shish kebab, including the metal skewer; and the winner was a frog that ate over 30 ornamental rocks. Honourable mentions went to the bearded dragon that liked to lounge around in Barbie’s Dream House and ate Barbie’s banana; a kitten that ate a toy alien; a pug that ate 105 coins; and a rat terrier puppy that ate a whole brassiere, described as “approximately” 14 inches long.

Not The BBC News: 9 Sep 2014

A Labour MP who has just died was a Roman Catholic and a strong supporter of pro-life issues and traditional marriage. Jim Dobbin had been an MP for 17 years; he was co-chairman of the All-Parliamentary Pro-Life Group. Labour leader Ed Milliband has said that he will “miss Jim’s friendship and decency.”

Malta, the last European country to outlaw all abortion, has a new (Labour party) president. When asked about abortion by a pro-life umbrella group, Marie Preca said that she was “personally dead set against” abortion and that she would never sign legislation to legalise it. Malta has, however, had significantly reduced attendances at Mass over the past 10 years, and with widespread use of contraception and significant numbers of women travelling abroad for abortions, the fertility rate has fallen to an average of 1.45 births per woman, which is low enough for the government to be concerned about maintaining the population. A government spokeswoman said, “We know that we’re up against a change in lifestyle that is promoting the Culture of Death instead of the culture of life.”

The Government is pressing ahead with plans to allow genetic engineers to create three-parent embryos, despite a recent poll finding that only 18% of people supported such procedures (46% were opposed). A Labour MP said, “The Government is pushing this through on the entirely false notion that these [procedures] are cures for mitochondrial disease. Worse, they making those concerned about safety feel as if they somehow want to see people with the disease suffer.”

After Guinness and other organisations withdrew support from last year’s St Patrick’s Day parade in New York because it refused to allow gay groups to participate (despite the Irish Prime Minister participating because he said “the parade is about Irishness, not about special interest groups”), the organisers have decided to allow a gay group to march under its own banner in next year’s parade. Now criticism is being directed at the Catholic Cardinal of New York, Timothy Dolan, for saying that the organisers had his “confidence and support” in making the change, and in agreeing to act as grand marshal of the parade. A blog post by Monsignor Charles Pope read, “It’s time to cancel the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and the Al Smith Dinner and all the other ‘Catholic’ traditions that have been hijacked by the world.”

Two “Christian” films due to be released this year are coming under different types of pressure. “Unbroken”, directed by Angelina Jolie, tells the true life story of an American Olympic athlete who has an incredible story of survival during World War Two – but Jolie is apparently minimising his Christian conversion after the war, which led him on a mission to forgive the Japanese POW guards who had hurt him. And “Saving Christmas,” starring regular Christian film actor Kirk Cameron, has had its website hacked by a militant Islamic group.

In sports news, Northern Ireland are top of their Euro 2016 qualifying group. Admittedly only one match has been played, but the result was a surprise 2-1 away win for the Irish in Hungary. The Republic of Ireland also obtained a 2-1 win against Georgia, and England beat Switzerland 2-0, but Scotland slipped to a 2-1 defeat against World Cup winners Germany.

In technology news, Dyson have released a robot vacuum cleaner that includes a camera allowing the robot to see where it’s going and where it’s been. James Dyson describes the Eye 360 as “the first robot vacuum cleaner worthy of the name.”

And finally, a former Apple employee called Sam Sung decided to auction his former business card, security pass and uniform for charity. Bidding on Ebay has reached $80,100.

Not The BBC News: 1 Sep 2014

US Secretary of State John Kerry has called on Iran to release jailed Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedini and two other jailed Americans. Kerry acknowledged that Abedini was being held on charges relating to his religious beliefs.

A Jewish family whose car was attacked with rocks while driving through a West Bank village, breaking the windscreen and causing the car to flip over, were rescued by Palestinian passers-by. The wife and baby daughter were rescued with only minor injuries; the father, who was hit by a rock, is in hospital with several skull fractures.

A sex abuse scandal in which Asian men groomed and abused white teenage girls, recently uncovered in Rotherham, was allowed to continue for many years because of “Left wing political correctness which interpreted any accusations as racism,” according to MPs. The accusation is significant because it has been made by several Labour members of parliament.

The maverick president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has announced during a trip to China that he prefers to receive aid from the Chinese rather than from the West because the Chinese don’t force him to accept homosexuality. “Western aid always comes with conditions attached,” he said.

New regulations for abortion clinics in Texas have been blocked by a federal judge. The regulations require abortion clinics to meet the same health and safety standards as other walk-in surgical centres, including having adequate plumbing, heating, lighting and ventilation; having equipment that can properly sterilise surgical instruments; maintaining “sanitary” cleanliness standards; and having doors wide enough to admit stretchers in case of emergency. Although the regulations were announced a year before implementation, less than half of abortion clinics have made the necessary upgrades; a pro-life spokeswoman said, “What the clinics are really saying is: we don’t believe women are worth the extra money it would cost us to increase our safety protocols.”  The judge decided that the regulations were too costly to adhere to and that the closure of more than half the state’s clinics would impose an undue restriction on women seeking an abortion. However, the same judge’s block on a previous set of regulations on abortion clinics was overturned by the appeal court.

In sports news, Manchester United played on Burnley on Saturday with their new ₤59.7 million pound signing, Angel di Maria, on the pitch; that’s more money than Burnley have spent on transfers in their entire history. United could still only manage a 0-0 draw, and their only comfort was that rivals Manchester City lost 1-0 at home to Stoke City. Only two teams in the Premier League have maximum points from their first three games: Chelsea and Swansea City.

In technology news, Britain’s first residential solar powered street light is to be installed in the Derbyshire village of Stanton Lees. The reason is to remove an overhead power line which only powers one street light. The small village of about 30 houses has two modest claims to fame; it is the nearest village to the site of a major eco-protest ten years ago against the re-opening of old quarries in the Peak District (the protesters won); and its Brethren church is the site of an annual August bank holiday Bible school that celebrated its 50^th anniversary this year. 

And finally, the Russian government has complained to the Bulgarian government because Soviet-style war memorials in the capital, Sofia, are being repainted by graffiti artists in anti-Russian protests. Last year, a monument was painted pink in an “artistic apology” for Bulgaria’s participation in repressing the Prague Spring of 1968; earlier this year, a monument was spray-painted in the colours of the Ukrainian flag; and recently, on the eve of the Bulgarian Socialist Party’s anniversary celebrations, a monument was decorated to make all the soldiers look like American superheroes (see picture).

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