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.
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