Not The BBC News: 31 March 2015

The Equalities Commission’s court case against Ashers, the Christian bakers from Northern Ireland has concluded – and the judge has reserved judgment, meaning she will take more time to think it over. There has been enormous interest in the case in Northern Ireland – a rally that was held in support of the bakers filled a 2,500 seat venue and had to turn 500 people away. The Commission’s case against the bakery seemed to have altered slightly from the original complaint, which was that the bakery discriminated against a gay customer by refusing to bake a cake with a pro-gay-marriage slogan on it. The Commission’s emphasis in court was that businesses should not be allowed to breach contract law for reasons of conscience; their lawyer then claimed that the case also involved discrimination against the customer on the basis of his “likely” sexual orientation. When the lawyer was challenged about other possible freedom-of-conscience cases if Ashers were found guilty, he answered based on contract law; for example, he said that a Muslim-run printing business could not refuse to print a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed unless its terms and conditions prohibited the printing of all cartoons. Ashers’ arguments were that they had accepted the order and taken the money (thus forming a contract) in order to avoid creating a confrontation in their shop; and that their problem was with the message on the cake, not the customer, who they had served several times previously. The judge’s conclusion was that the case involved complex legal issues which needed further consideration.

Three major supermarkets have declined to stock Easter Eggs that have a picture of a cross on their packaging and include a leaflet explaining the resurrection. Asda have never stocked eggs from The Meaningful Chocolate Company while Sainsbury’s and the Co-op stopped doing so, apparently due to poor sales last year. One supermarket allegedly asked the company “what does Easter have to do with the church?” The eggs are listed on Waitrose’s website but are currently unavailable.

A Muslim judge fined a Christian street preacher ₤1,400 for making “homophobic” remarks by reading and preaching from the book of Leviticus – and told him he should have preached from a different part of the Bible. The judge said that the preacher, from Taunton in Somerset, should not have preached from Leviticus 20, which describes homosexuality as an “abomination,” but used Leviticus 18 instead. The unrepentant preacher told the judge his ruling was “flawed and way out of line” and added, “ You will answer to the same God as me.”

A former Muslim who is now a Christian pastor has told Christians that the way to reach others, including Muslims, is to reach out to them with love, even when society hates them. Afshin Ziafat has born in the USA but his family moved to Iran when he was 2 – and then escaped back to America when he was 6, at the time of the Muslim revolution in 1979. He tells of persecution against him and his family because they were Iranian; but a “Christian lady” who treated him with love and kindness, his second grade English tutor, gave him a Bible one day and made him promise to read it when he got older. “Had any other American given me that book,” he said, “I would have thrown it away. But she earned the right to be heard by loving me.”

The vote by the Presbyterian Church of the USA to accept gay marriage has led to a breach of fellowship with the National Black Church Initiative, a coalition of 34,000 black churches. The NBCI described the redefinition of marriage as “a universal sin against the entire church and its members.”

In Canada, a six year legal battle has ended with a Supreme Court decision that a Catholic school is entitled to teach ethics and world religions from a Catholic viewpoint rather than a secular viewpoint. The decision stated: “A secular state respects religious differences; it does not seek to extinguish them.”

In sport, British success in disabled sport continued with Dame Sarah Storey winning two gold medals in the Para-cycling world championship in Apeldoorn, Netherlands. Britain won a total of nine cycling medals.

And finally, passengers on a Virgin Atlantic flight from Manchester airport had their flight cancelled for a very unusual reason. The flight was due to be the first to fly from Manchester to Atlanta, Georgia, and airport fire crews decided to give the plane a rousing send-off with their water cannons. However, one of the fire engines accidentally set its hose to squirt fire-retardant foam rather than water, and the foam clogged the plane’s engines, causing it to be taken out of service for a safety check. Passengers were accommodated in local hotels and re-booked for the following day.

Not The BBC News: 23 March 2015

As the date approaches of the Equality Commission’s legal case against the Christian bakery from Northern Ireland, press coverage of the related issues is increasing. The Christian Institute decided to commission a legal opinion on the implications if the bakers were found guilty of discrimination for refusing to bake a cake that said, “Support Gay Marriage” on it. The opinion said that the Commission could then potentially have to pursue cases against any of the following: a Muslim printer refusing a contract requiring the printing of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed; an atheist web designer refusing to design a website presenting as scientific fact the claim that God made the world in six days; a Christian film company refusing to produce a “female-gaze/feminist” erotic film; a Christian baker refusing to take an order to make a cake celebrating Satanism; a T-shirt company owned by lesbians declining to print T-shirts with a message describing gay marriage as an “abomination”; or a  printing company run by Roman Catholics declining an order to produce adverts calling for abortion on demand to be legalised. However, the head of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland has said, in an interview with Guardian, that Christians who want to run businesses  should either “look at the law” or change career. This is despite religious belief being one of the characteristics that is especially protected under the Equality Act.

Black Church leaders in England have made history by gathering together and declaring that civic political engagement must be encouraged at every Black church. This is a big change for churches that have traditionally focussed on spiritual and pastoral care. The meeting coincided with the publication of a Black Church Manifesto, which sets out views on education, health and the justice system, with many supporting Scriptural quotes.

The largest Presbyterian church in the USA has decided to approve gay marriage. It has changed its constitutional definition of marriage to: “Marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives.” Each individual presbytery can decide whether its church will offer gay marriages.

Five Christians in Kenya have been killed, and one critically wounded, by a grenade attack and separate shooting by the Somali Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabaab. However, a church in India whose building was destroyed by the authorities, and its pastor arrested, is rejoicing – because the demolition brought the church to the attention of a Christian aid organisation, who provided the church with 50 Bibles in local languages.

The same Christian organisation helped to free a 19 year old Ethiopian woman who had been kidnapped and tortured by her own family in an attempt to get her to reconvert to Islam, having become a Christian. She is now living in a supervised apartment and learning to run her own business.

The fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have raised  a storm of controversy after speaking out in support of children being born into traditional families, despite being gay themselves. Two other famous gay men – Elton John and Ricky Martin – launched a boycott of Dolce & Gabbana products as a result. An open letter in support of Dolce and Gabbana, written by six children raised by gay parents, notes: “Those who receive the most vicious attacks from the gay lobby are often those within the gay community themselves who dare to speak out in favour of traditional marriages and families.”

A judge in Oklahoma has dismissed a lawsuit from a woman who claims she, as an atheist, was offended by the Ten Commandments monument that sits in the grounds of the state Capitol building – because the woman had travelled to 600 miles to visit the monument so that she could be offended by it and file the lawsuit. It is not the first legal challenge to the monument; the last one was led by a liberal Baptist minister who argued that “mixing the secular with the sacred cheapens the display.”

In film news, the producers of one of the most successful Christian films of 2014, “God’s Not Dead”, are releasing another film this year called “Do You Believe?” The film tells the story of 12 people united by the symbol of the cross. Actors include Mira Sorvino, Sean Astin, and Lee Majors.

Also in film news, A-list actor Mark Wahlberg has talked publicly about his faith in God, and prayer. Wahlberg was a drug addict by the age of 14, and ended up in prison at 17; but he met a Catholic priest, and is now an active practising Catholic. He also does a lot of youth work in inner cities.

In technology news, a quadriplegic woman in America has learned to control a robotic arm using her thoughts, successfully feeding herself chocolate and high-fiving researchers. Now they have connected her brain to a flight simulator and she has successfully used her thoughts to fly a simulated jet plane.

And finally, a trade school is to be set up in a village in Bihar, India, to honour the legacy of the “Mountain Man” who single-handedly built the road into the village. The village is on the far side of a steep mountain from the nearest public services, and when Dashrath Manjhi’s wife was injured in 1960, he had to drive 70km to get her to hospital. He proceeded to sell the family’s three goats to buy a sledgehammer and chisel, and started to build a road through the mountain, working in the evenings and through the night. It took him 22 years to build a road that is 360 feet long, 30 feet wide and passes through a cutting that is 25 feet deep in the centre; now the public services are just 1km away. He died in 2007 and was given a State funeral; now a lifelong friend of his, an 82 year old social worker, is raising money to build a trade school to offer the youth of the village a better future.

Not The BBC News: 17 March 2015

Churches in Germany have re-started the ancient tradition of providing sanctuary to those in trouble with the law; specifically, asylum-seekers. They have done so in protest against new EU rules which they say make it hard for genuine refugees to claim political asylum. The new rules require asylum-seekers to claim asylum in the first EU country they enter, but when one Shi’a Muslim Afghan family (who fled Taliban persecution, and threats to “marry off” their daughter as soon as she turned 13) attempted to claim asylum in Greece, they were merely encouraged to move on to another EU country. Having narrowly escaped deportation on a couple of occasions, they ended up in a church in northern Frankfurt, where they must stay for six months after which the new EU rules no longer apply and they can legally seek asylum in Germany. An estimated 411 people are currently staying in 222 German churches of various denominations, funded entirely by donations.

A British policy advisor has developed an index of the world’s “best” countries, as judged by the contribution that country makes to the rest of the planet. Countries are ranked on 35 factors, and the ranks are summed to produce the overall index. The number of refugees that a country accepts is one of the 35 factors. The factors exclude moral judgments, thus avoiding major controversy; while some might be mildly controversial, the reasons for including them are obvious (for example, involvement with the United Nations affects 3 or 4 factors – while some may question the UN’s effectiveness or specific policies, most would consider its overall goals worthwhile). According to these rankings, the world’s “best” country is Ireland. Ireland scored very highly on making investments abroad; consumption of Fairtrade goods; charitable giving; UN treaties signed; press freedom; pharmaceutical exports; and humanitarian aid. The top 10 countries also included all four Scandinavian countries; the UK (which was 7th, scoring especially well on “science and technology”, but poorly on its involvement with the UN); the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and New Zealand. The highest-scoring non-“First World” countries were Costa Rica, Chile, Kenya, and Guatemala, all falling between 20th and 30th on the list; the lowest scoring large countries were Indonesia, China and Pakistan, all falling below 100th place. The full list can be found at www.goodcountry.org

The Government’s plans to compel universities to tackle extremism, which might have led to Christian Unions being required to submit names of speakers/talks for approval weeks in advance, have been first scaled back and then abandoned. They were scaled back (by making the guidance more precise) because of protests from religious groups but were then abandoned completely because the Liberal Democrats voted against them for being too restrictive on free speech. The new law now places no duties on universities to combat extremism, but does still place some requirements on schools and other establishments.

The private prosecution brought against the two doctors who were caught in an undercover operation agreeing to sex selective abortions is to be dropped. The prosecution was brought because the Crown Prosecution Service originally decided that it was not in the public interest to prosecute the two doctors, despite what appeared to be an obvious breach of the Abortion Act. The rules surrounding private prosecutions are that, when they reach a certain stage, the CPS subjects it to the same tests that it uses for public prosecutions; once again, the CPS have decided that this prosecution is not in the public interest. This follows a recent Parliamentary vote against making sex-selective abortions unquestionably illegal.

Christians in Pakistan and India are suffering violent persecution, with the police being part of the problem rather than the solution. In India, where numerous churches have recently been burned, Christians (peacefully) marched through the streets of Delhi demanding that police investigate the incidents; instead, police arrested hundreds of marchers, including nuns and priests, and are accused of “roughing up” some of them. However, police have arrested some men following the gang-rape of a 71 year old nun who tried to prevent a group of 7 or 8 men robbing her convent school north east of Calcutta (following mass sit-down street protests and the emergence of CCTV showing the robbers). And in Pakistan, a 20 year old Christian who was arrested by police, in an attempt to obtain evidence of a crime allegedly committed by his mother, was apparently tortured to death – his dead body was dumped outside his mother’s door the following day—and 15 people (11 Christians and 4 Muslims) have been killed in two suicide bombings against churches in Lahore.

The man from Detroit whose 21-mile walk to and from work every day recently hit the headlines has received so many donations from crowd-funding that he now has a new car and also a new apartment. On the downside, he also has extortionists and a lawsuit against him; he moved house because people in his old neighbourhood started threatening him for money, and his ex-landlady (and ex-girlfriend) now wants $50,000 to repair the apartment he used to rent. He has apparently taken out a restraining order against her and has not disclosed the location of his new apartment.

In technology news, researchers at Michigan State University have invented a type of glass which is both fully transparent and also works as a photovoltaic cell (solar panel). It works because the solar energy that it gathers is taken from the non-visible infra-red and ultra-violet spectra.

And finally, Peak District confectionery company Swizzels Matlow has published a job opening for a part-time sweet taster – to be paid in sweets. Successful applicants will win a year’s supply of sweets; be invited to taste all the company’s current products; and be involved in future product development. Despite the fact that the application form appears to have a secondary purpose of gathering names for marketing purposes, a large number of applicants for this “dream job” is expected.

Not The BBC News: 13 March 2015

Two reports have been published that finally provide official acknowledgement of the discrimination that Christians in the UK are suffering because of equality law. The first came from the biggest ever consultation carried out by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, as part of plans to issue guidance over resolving religious disputes in the workplace. Over 2500 people of various or no faith responded claiming they had seen or experienced discrimination. Some of the alleged discrimination was carried out by Christians; for example, an unmarried humanist woman who became pregnant was advised to wear a fake wedding ring because she worked in a Catholic school. However, the largest number of responses concerned discrimination against Christians, and the report’s summary noted that many workplaces seemed to assume that any open expression of Christian views would be opposed by “gays, Muslims, Hindus or atheists.” The head of the Evangelical Alliance said, “We warmly welcome the new constructive tone of the Commission … after many years of ignoring Christian beliefs and actually opposing them in court.” The deputy director of the Christian Institute was more direct, however, “Equality legislation is often part of the problem rather than the solution.”

The second report was submitted to the Council of Europe by a Moldovan MP who is a member of the Moldovan equivalent of the Equality Commission. It was entitled 'Tackling intolerance and discrimination in Europe with a special focus on Christianity', and was overwhelming backed by a Council vote; this means the report is recommended, though not compulsory, for national governments. The report highlights that although freedom of religion is protected there is still hostility towards religion in Europe, including acts of violence and vandalism; it urges member states to “promote reasonable accommodation”, “uphold freedom of conscience in the workplace” and “respect the rights of parents to provide their children with an education in conformity with their religious or philosophical convictions”; and calls for states to “ensure national legislation does not unduly limit religiously motivated speech”.

A Christian school in Durham has decided not to challenge in court the Education Secretary’s decision to close it down. The school, which is directly funded by the Department of Education, has called the closure a “miscarriage of justice” and said it is based on an OFSTED report that “contradicts a whole raft of evidence”. But they have accepted that even if their legal case (which is based on the unfairness of the procedures used to announce and push through the closure) should succeed, it would not guarantee that the school stayed open. More than 50 of the school’s 94 pupils wrote to the Education Secretary to beg her not to put political preferences ahead of their education, but she was unmoved.

A Christian radio station in Nigeria that broadcasts in eleven indigenous Nigerian languages has turned at least one Muslim away from belief in jihad to believe in Christ. He said, “Just as Boko Haram is trying to keep people in bondage through terror, the terrorists themselves are in bondage to a belief system that demands that they kill and terrorize. Only the gospel message has the power to bring peace to those terrorized and to rescue the terrorists.”

However, in America, radical Muslims have found a way to restrict the free speech of Muslims who have converted to Christianity; if they make a death threat against such a man, the police prevent him from speaking in public for reasons of public safety. This happened to Kamal Saleem at a high school in Michigan, when he was due to speak about the threat that Sharia law posed to America’s internal workings. The death threats were not even recent ones; however, a woman phoned police to make sure they were aware of the threats just before the talk was due to start. A lawsuit against the police’s actions was dismissed.

In the Netherlands, two new approaches to caring for the elderly have been trialled with considerable success. Budget cuts have raised the price of, and therefore reduced the demand for places in care homes; so in the town of Deventer, the council has started letting students live in the spare rooms rent-free as long as they spend time interacting with the elderly residents. And near Wheesp on the outskirts of Amsterdam, the village of Hogewey is entirely populated by elderly people with dementia and their carers (who pretend to be gardeners or shop staff), plus friends and family who visit. This benevolent version of “The Truman Show” is intended to be familiar to residents, so their homes are designed to reflect the decade they remember best. Also, because elderly folk often have difficulty with finances, there are no cash transactions in the village. The village has been such a success -- residents at Hogewey require fewer medications, eat better, live longer, and appear more joyful than those in standard elderly-care facilities – that versions have opened in other countries; for example, a non-residential 1950s village has been built in the grounds of a nursing home in Huddersfield.

In sports news, the drivers for the new Formula 1 season have been announced. For the first time ever, one of the reserve/test drivers is a woman – Susie Wolff, a Scot who married the head of the Williams team in 2011. She was development driver for Williams last season.

And finally, TV advertising is often criticised, but can occasionally be a force for good. Samsung decided to advertise its new video call centre for the hearing impaired by visiting an area of Istanbul where a deaf man lived, teaching sign language to everyone in his neighbourhood so they could communicate with him, and then setting up lots of hidden cameras. The video of the event has been viewed more than 5 million times; you can view it at 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrvaSqN76h4.

Not The BBC News: 6 March 2015

The proposed amendment to the Serious Crimes Bill in the UK to make sex-selective abortion unquestionably illegal failed its first reading by 290 votes to 201. The Labour Party’s front bench had intervened to advise Labour MPs to vote against it (a move that was criticised for a conscience-related vote) but 32 Labour MPs still voted in favour. The Conservative Minister for Women and Equalities, Nicky Morgan, voted against it, as did Ed Milliband; David Cameron and Nick Clegg did not vote.

Sarah Mbuyi, a Christian nursery nurse from London who is claiming unfair dismissal after being dismissed for discussing her Christian views with a work colleague, has heard her employer’s lawyer state that her Christian views may be held in private but have no place being expressed in the workplace. The controversy was (as usual) about homosexuality; the colleague had stated that she would only consider Christianity when she and her lesbian partner could get married in church, and Ms Mbuyi described the Biblical view that homosexuality is a sin. As a consequence, Ms Mbuyi was dismissed for “gross misconduct.” One witness for the employer, in response to a question, said that Ms Mbuyi’s Christian views breached the employer’s equal opportunities policy; another said that “She was not able to do her job, to represent the diversity of the nursery. This indicated other beliefs that would make her unable to fulfil her duties” – a statement which is almost Orwellian in its use of the word “diversity” to mean “uniformity”, and its suggestion that employees must adopt the beliefs of their employer. Andrea Minichello Williams of the Christian Legal Centre said, “This trial demonstrates very clearly the state of our courts and Christian illiteracy in our country – there has been no attempt to cover up blatant hostility and disregard of Christian views.”

An unusual legal case has been launched in India. The Central Bureau of Investigation has brought a case against Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, known as the “Guru of Bling”, on the grounds of causing grievous bodily harm to 400 men by convincing them that having their testicles removed would bring them closer to God. The procedures were apparently carried out 15 years ago in a hospital owned by Singh, but have only come to light now. Singh heads up a socio-spiritual organisation called Dera Sacha Sauda and has an estimated net worth of 40 million dollars; he also stars in films in which he appears to perform miracles.

In Ohio, a bill is being proposed to ban abortion after a foetus’ heart starts beating (which occurs at around 6 weeks’ gestation). The Bill is of legal interest since it marks the first attempt by lawmakers to apply a legal definition of the beginning of life that matches the legal definition of when life ends (which, until recent medical advances, was the moment when the heart stops beating).

A State court in Alabama has ordered a halt to same-sex marriages in the state. Such marriages were banned following a referendum on the issue, but the ban was overturned by a federal court on the grounds that it was discriminatory. The State court’s current argument is that traditional marriage is not discriminatory, since the same restrictions apply to everyone; that love (or the lack of it) has no status in law; and that offering marriage to same-sex couples is not actually an extension of marriage, but a re-definition of it. The status of existing same-sex marriages in the state is currently unclear, but the issue is unlikely to be fully settled until the Supreme Court rules on whether bans on same-sex marriage breach the U.S. constitution.

Pope Francis is to send out 200 families and 31 priests as “missio ad gentes” – better known as church planters. The aim is to establish Christian communities, with one priest and 3 or 4 families, in areas across the world where the Catholic church currently does not exist or cannot reach people. The families will be supported financially and relationally by the church communities that they have come from.

A UK judge has given permission for an unmarried couple to take legal action against the Government to force them to provide civil partnerships for heterosexual couples. The couple say they reject marriage because of the “sexist trappings” of weddings. The Coalition for Marriage has spoken out against the idea because civil partnerships do not carry the implication of lifelong commitment that marriage does. The Government ran a consultation on whether to allow heterosexual civil partnerships last year, but more than three quarters of respondents were against it.

In sport, Billy Clarke of Bradford City is facing a possible dilemma. Bradford have unexpectedly qualified for the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, and will play Reading on Saturday. But if Bradford should reach the final, the game will be played the day before Clarke’s forthcoming wedding. Clarke said, “I’ve told my fiancée that if I’m late, she’ll know where I am.”

In technology news, malicious computer hacking, stalking and other activity has become so high-profile that a US TV series has been dedicated to it. “CSI: Cyber” premieres next week, and will follow a (semi-fictional) agency tasked with solving Internet-related murders; cyber-theft; hacking; sex offences; and blackmail.

And finally, the Finnish entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest is not only highly unusual, it is also currently the 3rd favourite to win the competition with bookmakers. PKN are a punk band composed of four middle aged men with autism or Down’s Syndrome. Their song is about the frustrations of everyday life, such as eating healthily or doing the washing up. They claim that they are “just normal guys with a mental handicap” who want to raise awareness of people with learning disabilities and also “have a f***ing good time.”