The Pope has stated that a belief in evolution is not
inconsistent with the notion of creation (and therefore, by extension, with
Christianity), although he does envisage God having a major role in starting the
process. He said, “God [did not] do everything with a magic wand … he created
human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave
to each one so that they would reach their fulfilment … Evolution requires the
creation of beings that evolve.” A recent survey in the USA found three types of
belief about evolution amongst Christians: the belief that humans had existed
in their present form since the beginning of time; belief in evolution guided
by a supreme being (which seems to accord with the Pope’s words); and belief in
evolution due to natural processes. Catholics were roughly evenly split between
all three beliefs; more than half of evangelical and black Protestants supported
the first belief, with a corresponding drop in the third; and non-evangelical
Protestants believed more strongly in
evolution than people with no church affiliation did.
In Indonesia, it is becoming increasingly hard to find
Christian churches; over 200 have been destroyed in the past seven years,
according to official figures, and it is nearly impossible to rebuild them. The
reason for the latter is that the Government has devolved power for making
religious decisions to religious groups, and Muslims control the key
voting bloc. So there is now a law that any new construction of a religious
building requires the permission of the local leader, and a petition signed by
60 Muslims, before it can proceed.
The legal case against an Idaho wedding chapel for refusing
to perform gay marriages may be withdrawn.
The city authorities brought the case on the basis that the city’s
discrimination rules (recently amended to include same-sex marriages) only
exempted non-profit institutions, and the wedding chapel is a for-profit
venture. However, the city attorney now says that he has looked at its rules
again, and the basis for exemption is not profit-making, but whether the
organisation is a religious corporation.
The Oregon bakers who were found guilty of discrimination
for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay marriage were fined $150,000. Now
a gay Christian has started a campaign to raise money to help them pay the
fine. He said, “The family say the fines will bankrupt them, I’ll send whatever
money we raise to them along with a message of love and peace. I don’t want
them to suffer.”
The case of the Christian school in Reading that has been
told by Ofsted inspectors to include other religions in its teaching and
worship has reached the Houses of Parliament, with an MP questioning the
Education Secretary about whether the new standards are truly upholding “British
values.” The response was effectively a dismissal of the MP’s concerns: “That
is clearly a matter for Ofsted … I think
we would all agree that the fundamental British values of respect, democracy
and tolerance are shared by all schools and by people of all faiths.”
In technology news, a Japanese man has become the first in
the world to be jailed for manufacturing a working gun with a 3D printer. The man made five guns out of
plastic and a few screws, and successfully fired blanks from two of them. He
also published his designs on the Internet, apparently in protest against
Japan’s strict gun laws.
And finally, a website that aims to look at the lighter side
of Christianity has started a competition to find Advent calendars that are as
far away from the message of Christmas as possible. So far it has tracked down
a heavy metal Advent calendar (Santa Claus is shown giving a devil’s horns
salute; the caption is “Be Bad for Badness’ sake); a Barbie Fashion Accessory
Advent calendar; and an Ann Summers Advent calendar featuring a nude male model,
with strategically placed windows. When one of the website’s authors was
interviewed on BBC radio and was asked if such calendars detracted from the
true meaning of Christmas, he said that kitsch had always been a feature of the
strange marriage between Christmas and the Yuletide midwinter festival; but he
did bemoan the shortage of charity Advent calendars or calendars with fairly
traded chocolate. The final question from the interviewer was “Still, sales of
ten million calendars a year aren’t to be scoffed at?”; the reply was “No, but
they will be scoffed.”
No comments:
Post a Comment