Not The BBC News: 28 August 2015

One of the more controversial policies introduced by the previous Coalition government in the UK, and continued by the current Conservative government, concerns the new system for rating whether people will get disability benefit, or are deemed fit for work. It recently emerged that, over a three year period, more than 2000 British people deemed fit for work died less than six weeks after their assessment. Some had even appealed unsuccessfully against the decision.

Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn has proposed introducing women-only carriages on British trains, if he wins a position of authority in the next Government. Such a policy already exists in India. Fellow candidate Yvette Cooper has strongly criticised Corbyn’s suggestion, saying that women should not have to “hide themselves away.”

Two South Sudanese pastors who were arrested in December after going to preach in a church in (largely Muslim) Sudan have been released. They faced charges of espionage and waging war against the State, but were released after an international outcry. They were prevented from boarding an aeroplane under the orders of the Sudan’s security services, but somehow managed to leave the country by another route, and are now back in their country’s capital, Juba.

An Egyptian Christian who was arrested for handing out Bibles in a Cairo shopping mall has had his detention extended, and faces charges of “inciting sectarian strife”, “harming national unity” and “insulting religion”. A journalist said, “They use pre-trial detention as a punishment. There is no reason for his detention.”

In Pakistan, a young woman who converted from Islam to Christianity was threatened with death by her family. She and her young Christian husband fled to a town 37 miles away, but were found, abducted, beaten up and shot; her husband was killed and she was severely injured, with two bullets in her abdomen. After the incident, Muslim mobs chanting anti-Christian slogans surrounded the hospital where she was being treated and the police station, and have also threatened her attorney unless she drops the case.

In Auburn, Alabama, the Freedom from Religion Foundation is demanding the resignation of the University chaplain, Chette Williams, because he has initiated a revival in the university’s gridiron team; more than 50 players have been baptised in the past 15 years. Neither Williams not the university have responded to the demands.

A new Christian film has been hailed by reviewers for being “actually quite good.” The film “Captive” is a crime drama, based on a true story of a violent escaped prisoner (played by David Oyelowo, whom played Martin Luther King in “Selma”) who takes a drug addict hostage in her own home. It has been praised for examining the complexities of the feelings of the two main protagonists as well as for covering the Christian content in a natural and unforced way.

In technology news, further details have emerged from the data from the Ashley Madison affair-seeking website that was leaked by hackers. A staff member has claimed she was asked to create so many fake profiles of female members of the website that she suffered from repetitive strain injury, and analysis of active accounts (i.e. those who ever checked their e-mail inbox, suggesting they were actually interested in an affair) shows a massive preponderance of men active on the site over women; there were around 20 million active profiles for men, but fewer than 1,500 for women. Other evidence suggested that around 12,000 women had visited the site in the past, but had paid to have their data deleted; their data had not been removed from the database.

And finally, a formerly homeless man in Johannesburg has found a (literally) novel way to make money: he sells used books to passing motorists, but only after he’s read them first. Philani Dladla gives his customers a book review, and sells them at prices ranging from one dollar for books he dislikes to six dollars for his favourites. He credits motivational books with breaking his drug habit, and uses the money to buy food for other homeless people. He has also started a “Pavement Bookworm Book Readers Club” in a local park where children can come and read books until their parents get home from work.

Not The BBC News: 22 August 2015

The Hilton hotel chain has decided to remove all pornography channels from its televisions in all countries. Such channels are usually pay-per-view and can make big profits for hotels, but a recent email campaign saw Hilton executives getting up to 1000 emails per week calling for the removal of these channels; also some conferences and conventions chose not to use Hilton because of the availability of these channels. A spokesman for the campaign said, "They realized it didn't make sense to be against the use of their hotels for sexual exploitation while promoting pornography, which is so closely connected to it.” Hilton did announce the new policy to guests alongside another announcement that made it clear that unfiltered material was still available through the hotel wi-fi.

Following the arrest of a street preacher in Manchester, the Christian Institute asked a city councillor to clarify whether street preachers would be arrested in future, and if so on what legal basis. The councillor replied, in the Manchester Evening News that “They’re perfectly entitled to talk about Jesus and the word of God, but not to make anyone feel insecure or threatened … I do not think it right if they are talking about morality, and talking about sexual orientation is not proper at all.” He did not provide a legal basis for his comments, except to comment that street preachers were also sometimes “noisy”.

A UK judge has described attempts by Muslim parents in Tower Hamlets to indoctrinate their child to believe that Islamic State is a wonderful organisation to have caused psychological and emotional harm “as bad as in child abuse cases.” Their 16 year old daughter attempted to travel to Syria last December, after which she was made a ward of court and her parents appeared to cooperate with social workers. But a recent search of the family home uncovered a mass of pro-Islamic State propaganda on electronic devices. She will now be removed from the parental home.

Australia is debating whether to make gay marriage legal, but the pro gay marriage cause has been attacked for an unusual reason – that it is illiberal. Gay marriage is usually seen as a liberal cause, but a magazine editor being introduced on the ABC network’s Q&A programme said, “Anyone who opposes gay marriage is demonised, harassed. We’ve seen people thrown out of their jobs because they criticise gay marriage.” The comments follow the refusal of Australia’s Foxtel network to broadcast a ‘moderate’ advert opposing same sex marriage, which tried to make the point that same sex marriage was “the tip of an iceberg”.

A gay Anglican lay preacher, who preaches in six churches around Howden, East Yorkshire, has been told by the Archbishop of York that he will lose his preaching licence if he marries his gay partner. He has decided to go ahead with the wedding, and also says he no longer feels he has a place in the Church of England.

Slovakia has announced that it will accept refugees fleeing from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, but it will not accept Muslims. “We have no mosques in Slovakia,” said a spokesman, “so how are Muslims going to be integrated if they do not like it here?”

Wadi al Nasera in Syria literally translates as “Valley of the Christians”, and lies between the city of Homs and the border with Lebanon. It consists of about 40 villages, most of which are Christian, but a few of which house Alawite Muslims – who are considered even more heretical than Christians by radical orthodox Muslims. Although the village suffered shelling, sniper attacks and night raids from the Syrian rebels, its population is about the same as it was before the recent conflict; around 25% of the people have left but their places have been taken by refugees from Homs and elsewhere, of all faiths. Also, a group of nuns who were captured and then released in a recent prisoner exchange have established a temporary orphanage at a monastery in the valley until they are able to return to their home convent. The valley is currently relatively peaceful and aims to establish a Christian population that works together with Muslims.

A statue has been erected in the Chinese city of Tianjin to commemorate Olympic athlete and Christian missionary Eric Liddell, for his dedication to the Chinese people. Liddell, who died in a prisoner of war camp in China in 1945 of a brain tumour, is also to be commemorated in a new film – “The Last Race”, starring Joseph Fiennes – which will focus on the second half of his life, as a missionary. Liddell’s daughter Patricia said, “I find it extraordinary that a statue has been raised – it’s not something the Chinese normally do.”

In sports news, plaudits are being offered to Doncaster Rovers manager Paul Dickov for his sportsmanship. Close to the end of a recent match against Bury FC, a Doncaster player was injured. Bury sportingly kicked the ball out of play to allow the medics time to treat the injured player, and Doncaster player Harry Forrester then passed the ball back to the Bury goalkeeper after the restart – but he hit it too firmly and it sailed over the keeper’s head and into the net. Dickov tried to persuade officials that the throw-in should be re-taken, and when that failed, told his players to allow Bury to walk the ball into their goal unopposed for an equaliser. Forrester said afterwards, “Totally accidental. I haven’t got that placement from 40 yards, I assure you.”

In technology news, mathematician Kurt Gödel famously published a mathematical proof for the existence of God, commonly known as the “ontological proof”. Two German computer scientists have now verified Gödel’s theorem as mathematically correct using higher modal logic, processed by a computer, to represent and reason about Gödel’s statements of modal logic. Their published paper is called, "Formalization, Mechanization and Automation of Gödel's Proof of God's Existence."

And finally, a group of architects have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help them build a replica of the city of Minas Tirith from the Lord of the Rings books. However, not only has their campaign raised only 3% of the required funding, but they now face a challenge from another crowdfunding campaign to raise an Orc army to destroy Minas Tirith. One bit of good news is that, despite donors being told that “your gold will buy many pointy and shiny things that we can stick humans with”, the total raised by the latter campaign has yet to reach single figures.

Not The BBC News: 10 August 2015

Islamic State fighters have abducted a large number of people, many of whom are Christian, from the Syrian town of al-Qaryatain, which they have recently captured. Many Christians had fled there after their own towns were captured.

The Pope has announced that divorced Catholics who re-marry are not to be excommunicated from the church. He said, “The Church knows well that these situations contradict the Christian Sacrament” but also insisted that excommunication was wrong. He said, “How can we recommend these parents do everything to educate their children in the Christian life, giving example of a committed and practiced faith, if we distance them from community life?”

The UK TV programme “Songs of Praise” has filmed an episode inside the makeshift church in the Calais migrant camp, and plans to broadcast it on Sunday August 16. The priest and congregation are mostly Ethiopian or Eritrean. However, the priest has withdrawn permission for him to appear in the episode, as have the congregation, for fear that the episode will be seen by the governments they have fled from and lead to repercussions for their families.

Another Pentecostal snake handler has died after receiving a venomous snake bite. Snake-handling is practised amongst a small group of churches, most of which are in the Appalachian mountains in the USA, who believe that the they should regularly demonstrate the truth of the verse at the end of Mark’s gospel that says, “they shall pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it shall not hurt them.” The Kentucky coal miner who was bitten by a rattlesnake refused treatment and died four hours later. Reports say that he had other health conditions too, and that he is the second person to die of a snake-bite in the congregation this year.

A Christian street preacher has appeared in court in Northern Ireland for making strongly anti-Islamic comments in a public sermon. But an atheist blogger has written, “He did not ‘incite hatred or encourage violence against any Muslim’, he expressed his view about Islam … Freedom of speech isn’t only for polite persons of mild disposition airing their views within Government-policed parameters.”

A young man who is a worship leader and singer at the Hillsong church in New York City has announced that he is gay, and he plans to marry his boyfriend. The announcement was made some months ago, but Hillsong only responded publicly after the announcement went viral on social media. Senior pastor Brian Houston wrote that gays are welcome to attend, worship and "participate as a congregation member" at Hillsong churches. However, Houston added that gay worshippers cannot "take an active leadership role", and that he believed the young man in question had not been involved in worship leading since his announcement.

The new host of flagship US TV programme the Late Show, comedian Stephen Colbert, is an active Christian who teaches (adult) Sunday School in his church. Colbert says “If Jesus doesn’t have a sense of humour, I’m in huge trouble”, but refuses to participate in comedy that he considers blasphemous. He decided to become a comedian because, “humour is an antidote to fear and a sign of joy.”

In sport, England have defeated Australia to win back the Ashes trophy. The series has swung spectacularly, with Australia scoring record high Test batting scores in the second test (they won by over 400 runs) and record low scores in the fourth (their first innings score was 60). One wag wrote a spoof advertisement after the fourth test for “Australian Cricket Bats. Hardly Used!”

In technology news, a pair of US computer hackers have discovered how to reduce the effectiveness of a Wifi-enabled rifle. The gun uses software to improve aiming, and also uses Wifi to allow the view seen through the targeting scope to be streamed to a nearby phone. The hackers found they were able to cause the gun to miss its target by providing fake data about wind conditions or the weight of the bullet; disable the computer; and turn off or permanently change settings on the scope. They emphasised, however, that they cannot hack the act of pulling the trigger.

And finally, a 20 year old man in Texas who appeared in court on a charge of punching his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend was given an unusual choice of sentence by the judge: either marry your girlfriend within 30 days and copy out some Bible verses, or serve 15 days in jail. His 19 year old girlfriend, who was in court when the order was announced, said she “went very red” but agreed to marry. The man was also ordered to undergo counselling.