More details are emerging about the death of Dr Myles Munroe
of Bahamian Faith Ministries in a plane crash. The crash has been attributed to
bad weather, but his daughter Charisa was not on the plane and is alive and
well. Tributes have been paid from around the world; Dr Munroe was a regular visitor
to Israel, and the youngest recipient of the Order of the British Empire in
1998. He was on his way to an international conference for Christian leaders
from his ministry, at which he planned to speak about a dream that he had had;
the dream showed an athlete in a coffin with the baton still in his grasp, and
spoke of the need to pass on the baton of leadership before it became too late
to do so.
A so-called “lost gospel” has been discovered that allegedly
states that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had two sons. It turns out that
the document actually tells the story of Old Testament patriarch Joseph and his
marriage to an Egyptian princess; the document can only be applied to Jesus if
it is assumed that the whole document is written in code (Joseph represents Jesus,
and so on). Furthermore the document, which was written around 590 AD, has been
in the British Museum since 1847. One Christian commentator summarised the
situation: “It wasn’t lost and it isn’t a gospel.”
The Court of Session in Scotland ruled in 2012 that two
Catholic labour ward co-ordinators are entitled to claim conscientious
objection to “the full range” of abortion services, including delegating,
supervising or supporting anyone else to perform abortions; this week, the UK
Supreme Court began to review the case, and judgment is expected next year. The
chief executive of abortion providers BPAS said it would be “grossly unjust” if
an interpretation of the conscience clause should allow a small number of
individuals to disrupt abortion clinics and prevent them from “helping women.”
A proposed UK law to criminalise anyone who seriously harmed
a child’s “physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development”
has been dropped from the forthcoming Serious Crime Bill. This has been hailed
as a victory by Christian organisations who had campaigned against the measure,
because its wording was considered so broad that it could be used against parents
who brought their children up to believe a particular religion.
Three Northern Irish MPs have launched a petition against
the Equalities Commission’s decision to bring charges against a Christian
bakery. Northern Ireland’s First Minister has called the decision “bonkers.”
In sport, the argument of the future of ex-Sheffield United
footballer and convicted rapist Ched Evans has intensified after the club allowed him to train at their ground. Some
sources have argued that he should not been convicted of rape at all, or at
least of a hypothetical ‘lesser rape’ offence, since the woman involved apparently
consented while drunk; however athlete Jessica Ennis-Hill, who has one of the stands
at United’s ground named after her, has asked for her name to be removed if he
is re-signed.
In technology news, a Frenchman has designed the fastest
bicycle in the world – by putting a hydrogen peroxide powered jet engine on the
back of it. The bicycle can do 0-60mph in 1.1 seconds (more than twice as fast as a Formula One car) and has a
top speed of 207mph.
Also in technology, a company called Husk Power has found an
innovative way to supply electricity to the poorest parts of India – by burning
rice husks. Set up by four Indians in the USA, the company’s machines burn 50kg
of husks per hour to supply 32 kW of power. They sell the power in the
extremely poor state of Bihar – customer pay $1.75 per month to power one 30
watt lightbulb and to charge mobile phones for 6 hours per day. The company has
also saved money by stripping out automated parts of their machine (e.g. waste
extraction) in favour of hand cranking; getting their fee collectors to double
as door to door salesmen; and selling the burned rice husks to incense stick
manufacturers.
And finally, a Canadian teenager had her school locker broken
into by bullies; one of them found her Ipad and used it to post a status on her
Facebook account encouraging her to die. The girl’s response was to write out
positive notes about all 800 students in the school, and to stick them on their
lockers. Although the school’s response was to criticise the girl for littering
(because some of the notes fell off), a number of the students say they have
kept the notes, and the idea has gone viral around the world – one stationers
in Airdrie, Scotland even offered to give away Post-It notes in advance of
World Positive Post-It day on October 9th.
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