An employment tribunal in Watford has decided that a nursery nurse who was sacked for “gross misconduct”, after being asked by a homosexual colleague about whether the colleague would be welcome in a church and giving a Bible-based “hate the sin but love the sinner” reply, was unfairly dismissed. Because the colleague raised the issue in conversation, the tribunal decided that the nurse had not sought to force her faith on anyone else; the nurse’s internal appeal had been “hampered by stereotypical assumptions about evangelical Christians which the employer did not challenge”; and the attempts of the employers’ lawyer to characterise Christian beliefs as discriminatory, homophobic or akin to racism were “unhelpful”. Andrea Minichello Williams of the Christian Legal Centre said, “We have been in the employment courts for over a decade now and at last we have a sensible decision.”
86 Eritrean Christians, who were attempting to migrate to Europe, have been kidnapped by Islamic State, according to an Eritrean human rights activist. They were abducted from a smugglers’ truck near Tripoli in Tunisia. Those captured include 12 women and several children. Six Muslims were released unharmed, and three Christians managed to jump from the smuggler’s truck and are now lost in the desert.
A woman who suffocated a terminally ill Christian pensioner because she thought it was merciful to kill him has been found guilty of murder and given a life sentence. The 54 year old, who had met the 81 year old man at church in Thirsk and was visiting him in his care home, phoned Macmillan Cancer Care and told the call handler that he was “all skin and bone” and in “a dreadful state”. She asked if putting a pillow over his face would make her a murderer, and received an affirmative answer. She replied, “if he was a dog, he would have been put down months ago” – and killed him two hours later. Macmillan had notified the police but the police were unable to locate her in time. The court heard how, as a Christian, the pensioner was strongly opposed to euthanasia – he believed it should be God’s decision, and His only, when it was time to meet his Maker.
A doctor and nurse have been charged with manslaughter of a mother who died shortly after an abortion at a clinic in London in 2012. The woman had suffered a painful and complicated previous pregnancy, and chose to terminate her second; but she died on the day after the operation, of a heart attack brought on by extensive internal bleeding.
An anti-abortion group that uses graphic pictures of unborn babies has made a complaint against the police for illegally preventing them from setting up their display outside Buckingham Palace. Once the display was erected, police stood in front of it to block it from view.
At Saddleback church in California, pastor Rick Warren finished an 11-week subject on the topic of “Daring Faith” with an offering which raised a record $70 million (the church’s various sites normally have a total congregation of around 20,000 people). Warren said, “Every time we give it breaks the grip of materialism on our lives.” The way the money will be spent is not fully clear yet, but the last major offering (10 years ago) was spent on tackling poverty, sickness, and lack of education, including building a ‘state of the art student structure’.
The Hillsong church group has withdrawn an invitation to controversial pastor Mark Driscoll to be interviewed at their annual Australian and UK conferences. Driscoll stepped down from Mars Hill church in Seattle last year after being charged with being arrogant and domineering. However, media reports claim he has recently made more controversial statements that denigrate women, and a petition had started to ban him from the conference. Hillsong pastor Brian Houston said, “I will not write off Mark simply because of the things people have said about him or for things said years ago for which he has repeatedly apologised; however, we do not want unnecessary distractions during this conference, and the 30 minute interview was only a small part of the 5 day event.”
Another book has been released arguing that not all gay sex is wrong according to the Bible. “God and the Gay Christian” argues that the Bible writers were not forbidding all gay relationships, but only exploitative ones (pederasty, prostitution and rape) because they had “no concept of mutual loving same-sex relationships”. It also argues for gay relationships from the opposite viewpoint: “Leviticus forbids gay sex but it also forbids eating shellfish. But we no longer regard eating shellfish as wrong, so why can’t we change our minds on homosexuality?” But a reviewer of the book says of the first argument, “These arguments were first made in the 1980s and this book is essentially repopularising them – but the preponderance of historical scholarship since the 1980s, by secular, liberal and conservative researchers, has rejected this assertion.” As for the second argument, he says “The author rejects the New Testament understanding that the ceremonial laws of Moses around the sacrificial system and ritual purity were fulfilled in Christ, but the moral law of the Old Testament is still in force.” And he added, “It saddens me that this book concentrates on the Biblical prohibitions on sexual behaviour rather than giving attention to the glorious Scriptural vision of sexuality”.
A Moldovan priest is to be investigated by the Orthodox Church after being video-ed attempting an exorcism by riding the “possessed” man like a donkey. The cameraman asked the priest how far the man needed to carry him, and the priest replied, “To Jerusalem and to the sacred mountain of Aphone”. The man screamed out that he could not go on and asked to carry the priest in his arms instead.
And finally, a major feminist award, which has previously been given to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; journalist Connie Chung; and author Toni Morrison has been awarded this week to Miss Piggy. Elizabeth Sackler of the Sackler Center said the award was for Miss Piggy’s “determination and grit” in teaching important lessons through television and film. Miss Piggy was also given the opportunity to publish an essay on feminism in TIME magazine; she wrote, “Feminism’s future must be proud, positive, powerful, perseverant, and wherever possible, alliterative.”
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