A man in the UK was warned recently by police that the Christian cafe that he owns is in breach of public order laws because it shows Bible verses on a TV screen.

Jamie Murray, owner of Salt and Light Café in  Blackpool, was told by Lancashire Police that a customer had complained about offensive material being displayed in the cafe, but the police did not specify what the offending Bible verses were.

The Café regularly plays a DVD version of the Watchword Bible, which contains the entire New Testament on 12 DVDs, on a TV screen. It had been doing so without incident for eight years.

The DVDs combine video, narration, text, sound effects and music to portray all 27 New Testament books from the Contemporary English Version of the Bible.

The police told Murray that a customer was offended by a Biblical passage and said that this was in breach of the Public Order Act, Section Five. Murray told BBC that he asked the two policemen, “Are you seriously telling me I could be arrested for playing the Bible quietly on a screen?”

Murray told the BBC, “I was quite incredulous at the way they treated me. I was told, ‘it’s offensive and homophobic material we are against.’” However, no specific Bible verse was cited by the police.

Murray told The Gazette, “I’m not here to insult or offend anyone, but the Bible is the Bible. We’re always being told we’re a tolerant and diverse nation. Yet the very thing that gave us those values – Christianity – is being sidelined.”

Murray asked the two policemen if he could display Bible verses that didn’t talk about homosexuality. The police replied that they would be looking for anything that would be viewed as insulting or offensive by people.

Murray told BBC, “I was just incredulous because we all know the list of things that we find offensive is massive and varied and we don’t expect the police to get involved.”

The Lancashire Police denied to The Gazette that they had asked Murray to stop showing the Bible verses, but did admit that they spoke to him because a customer had complained.

Murray is considering filing a complaint.

In 2005, the Lancashire Police were sued by Joe and Helen Roberts from Fleetwood, whom they interrogated over allegations that the couple had made homophobic remarks.

The police also stopped the couple from placing Christian tracts beside gay rights literature in Poulton’s civic center. Because of this, the Roberts’ filed a case with the help of The Christian Institute and the police had to pay some $15,000 to the couple.

Sam Webster, solicitor-advocate of the Christian Institute told WorldNetDaily, “Mr. Murray … may well have grounds for a legal action against the police for infringing his rights to free speech and religious liberty.”

Mike Judge, Christian Institute spokesman, told WND, “I’d have thought Lancashire constabulary would have learned their lesson after paying out 10,000 [British pounds] to a pair of Christian pensioners who they had interrogated over their views on gay rights.”

“Duty bound”

The Lancashire Police told The Gazette that they were “duty bound” to act on the complaint they received and to visit the Christian café. A spokesman told The Gazette, “The officer discussed the matter with the cafe owner and explained to them the legislation that is in place around materials that are displayed or broadcast in a public environment.

“At no point did the officer ask the cafe owner to remove any materials or arrest the man and we took a common sense and objective approach in dealing with the complaint.

“We believe our response was completely proportionate and our officers are always available should the cafe owner want to discuss the matter or need any advice in the future.”

Murray, however, disagreed. He told WND, “It felt like an interrogation. … We are approaching a state where people can be possibly arrested just for displaying the Bible in public. What’s next? Police going into churches and saying you can’t say this or that?”

Murray temporarily stopped the display of Bible verses, but now that he is getting legal advice from the Christian Institute, he has since restored them.

Judge, of Christian Institute, told WND, “We’ve all seen the police stand by while extremist Muslims hold placards calling for infidels to be beheaded, but woe betides a Christian café displaying Bible text.”

Webster told WND, “It ought to go without saying that reading the Bible out loud in a public place, or displaying Bible texts in a Christian café, is not of itself a criminal offense. I am alarmed that I even have to point that out.”

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Pro-abortion posters saying ‘God raped Mary’ were plastered on the walls of the construction site of a Christian youth center, a church, and a bakeshop in an inner city neighborhood in Winnipeg, Canada a few days before Christmas.

The posters showed Mary riding on a donkey that was pulled by Joseph, heading towards a Women’s Health Care Services building. Underneath it said, “We wish you a pro-choice because God raped Mary Christmas.” It was signed, “Youth Against Christ,” according to LifeSiteNews.

The posters were placed on the walls of the Center for Youth Excellence construction site which is a project of Youth for Christ, the St. Margaret’s Anglican Church and the Tall Grass Bakery, LifeSite News said.

John Courtney, executive director of Youth for Christ told the Toronto Sun, “I had thought it’s specifically an attack against Youth for Christ. I’m not convinced of that now. I think it is an attack against Christianity. If this were any religion other than Christianity, it would quickly be labeled a hate crime.”

Courtney said the perpetrator was likely “someone who was very angry and very resentful towards Christians,” LifeSiteNews reported. Courtney also told The Gazette, “It is very low…it’s not a responsible way to handle their cause. It is in such poor taste I don’t know where you cross the line from poor taste to a hate crime.”

The posters, which seemed to be professionally designed and printed, were glued on top of signs that Youth for Christ placed on the gate outside the construction area, and on top of a sign in St. Margaret’s church that contained the schedule of church services, The Gazette said.

The $13.2 million Center for Youth Excellence will provide inner city youth with a recreation center that includes a multi-sport gym, fitness center, dance studio, drop-in center, climbing wall, skate-and-BMX park, theatre, counseling facilities, classrooms and a job-training center, LifeSiteNews said.

Courtney told the Toronto Sun that Youth for Christ doesn’t advocate any stance on abortion, but it does help to pass on parenting skills to girls who are pregnant, to “help them become good mothers.”

Lyle Barkman, a co-owner of the bakery, told LifeSiteNews that he believes that his being openly Christian is the reason why he was targeted. “It’s not the first graffiti we’ve had—we’re in the inner city. It comes with the territory.”

Lorna Dueck, Globe and Mail faith columnist, was in Winnipeg when the incident occurred. She told The Gazette, “It must be denounced…In many parts of the world the freedom of religion we have in Canada is unthinkable. To not guard it would be to say that the human-rights abuses others suffer in wanting freedom of religion, and the accounts of the violence they suffer, does not matter.”

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Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington D.C. was included with 23 other men that Pope Benedict XVI elevated recently to the College of Cardinals, the Catholic Church’s most powerful body, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Wuerl, who became archbishop of Washington D.C. in 2006, was a shoo-in to becoming a cardinal. In 2008 he organized Benedict’s highly successful visit to Washington, The Washington Post said.

Furthermore, former Washington Cardinal Theordore E. McCarrick turned 80–a cardinal must be 79 or younger to vote in papal elections, and usually, only one cardinal is permitted per diocese, The Washington Post reported.

The Washington Post said Wuerl will be the titular head of the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, a popular tourist attraction for its marble statue of Moses, made by Michelangelo.

Wuerl told The Washington Post that becoming a cardinal was “exciting [and] humbling.” He said the three major challenges in the church are secularism, materialism and individualism.

Cardinal Wuerl told The Washington Post he would address these challenges by giving more emphasis to “new evangelization” that was begun by Benedict to “help people reconnect with their faith.”

Wuerl, who shepherded his native diocese of Pittsburgh for 18 years prior to Washington D.C., is known for being very diplomatic and gifted in mediation. Parishioner Kathleen Asdorian, 67 of Silver Spring told The Washington Post that Wuerl would bring stature to the archdiocese adding, “He is a phenomenal catechist, and very bright, a real intellectual.”

Same tailor

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said Wuerl used the same tailor in Rome that he had as a seminarian in the 1960s, Gino Barbiconi. Although Barbiconi retired, he still made Wuerl’s scarlet vestments for consistory, or the ceremony for cardinals.

Barbiconi proudly said, “I did it when he became a priest, I did it when he became a bishop and I’m going to do it when he becomes a cardinal,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Wuerl ordered two sets, one to remain in Rome for many anticipated cardinals’ meetings. A complete set includes two cassocks—a scarlet one for liturgical services, and a formal black one with scarlet trim for meetings with the pope and other important occasions, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Consistory

During the consistory, Benedict placed a three-cornered red cardinal’s hat on the Wuerl as he pledged faithfulness to God and Church. The Associated Press said of the 24 new cardinals, Wuerl got the loudest applause from a delegation of 400 people from the U.S.

They included family, friends and Catholics who wanted to support Wuerl. When the crowd clapped appreciatively Wuerl smiled slightly, then bowed before the pope, The Washington Post reported.

Work cut out

The 24 new cardinals have their work cut out for them. In a pre-consistory meeting with the pope the issues discussed included the church’s response to clergy sexual abuse, the recent ordination by the Chinese church of a bishop not chosen by the pope, the hostage-taking and massacre of churchgoers in Iraq, and the newly-created Ordinariate for disaffected Anglicans in England, The Washington Post said.

In a statement, the Vatican said guidelines on the church’s rejoinder to the clergy sex scandal will be disseminated to all bishops’ conferences. They include prevention of clergy sex abuse, education on the protection of children, and improved screening of candidates for the priesthood, The Washington Post said.

The AP said Benedict has handpicked 40 percent of all the cardinals, who share his conservative, traditional thinking, making it likely that the future pope will continue the path set out by Benedict.

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A Pew survey released last month showed that four out of ten infants, or 41 percent, are born to unmarried mothers.

The Pew Research Center study compares women who gave birth in 1990 to those who gave birth in 2008.

It also showed that out of the 41 percent (or 1.7 million babies of unwed mothers), more than half or 59 percent were younger than 25, their website says.

In terms of ethnicity, the highest ratio is blacks (72 percent) followed by Hispanics (53 percent).

However, Hispanics and whites (29 percent) showed the most increase. Asians were a t17 percent, the Pew Research website showed.

Many of the single mothers were living with their partner although unmarried at time of birth. However unwed couples separate twice as much as do married couples, the Sunday Gazette Mail said.

President Obama launched recently a Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative to strengthen families.

 In his speech he said, “My own father left my family when I was 2 years old. I was raised by a heroic mother and wonderful grandparents who provided the support, discipline and love that helped me get to where I am today, but I still felt the weight of that absence throughout my childhood. It’s something that leaves a hole no government can fill. Studies show that children who grow up without their fathers around are more likely to drop out of high school, go to jail, or become teen fathers themselves,” Sunday Gazette Mail reported.

However Obama’s speech also raised controversy when he acknowledged gay parents saying, “nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a stepfather, a grandfather, or a caring guardian,” CNN said.

This raised the ire of Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council who said, “The President couldn’t resist a shout-out to his homosexual base, marring what should have been a powerful acknowledgement of the family’s importance in American life,” CNN said.

However John Sowers of The Mentoring Project, a Christian group from Portland, Oregon, did not object to the inclusive statement. “We pretty much work with Christian churches. We pretty much have a conservative base. We engage in faith based Christian training, based on love. We don’t discriminate. We focus on the kids,” CNN reported.

Sowers, who also grew up fatherless since he was two years old, authored the book Fatherless Generation. He said, “I had a father shaped hole in my heart [but] the Bible says God is father to the fatherless,” CNN reported.

In his speech Obama said, “Our children don’t need us to be superheros. They don’t need us to be perfect. They do need us to be present. They need us to show up and give it our best shot,” the Sunday Gazette Mail said.

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Elaine Howard Ecklund, in her book, “Science vs. Religion:  What Scientists Really Think,” acknowledges that Americans are almost evenly divided between those who think science conflicts with religion and those who don’t, according to The Journal Gazette.

Both sides have scientific backers, too, with atheist biologist Richard Dawkins who said faith is unnecessary and irrational and geneticist Francis S. Collins  who gathered evangelical scientists to promote a view of harmony between science and faith, The Journal Gazette said.

Ecklund, a Rice University sociologist and director of religion and public life, surveyed 1,700 scientists at elite American research universities with 275 lengthy follow-up interviews, The Journal Gazette said.

Her findings?  Half of the top scientists surveyed are religious. Among them, 18 percent attend religious services once a month, seven percent are conservative to moderate Protestants or Catholics, and 17 percent are liberal Protestants or Catholics, according to beliefnet.

Only five of the 275 interviewed actively opposed religion.

Even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves “spiritual,” The Journal Gazette said.

Ecklund for example cites one biologist who described science as “the skeptical improvement of all knowledge,” but added that “the evidence is never perfect,” according to beliefnet.

The biologist said, “Every fact can be overturned, and we all know this.  But when it comes to talking publicly about creationism, suddenly evolution is a fact.  Darwin is completely right,” beliefnet reported.

Ecklund also spoke to a neuroscientist who “took his beliefs about science being the only type of knowledge worth pursuing to their logical conclusion.  Because science is capable of comprehending the totality of life, human life is no more noble than that of a cockroach,” beliefnet reported.

While noting that the comparison to a cockroach was meant to be a joke, Ecklund cited scientists who objected to this type of thinking.  One scientist noted that “science [should] not pretend to solve spiritual or ethical problems and not pronounce on things it has no authority to pronounce on,” beliefnet reported.

Ecklund noted that several biologists felt that to mix purely biological answers concerning mechanism with philosophical and religious questions of ethics is to make science address questions it is incapable of answering, beliefnet reported.

While Ecklund avoided editorializing, she did encourage a genuine dialogue between scientists and the broader public in order to bridge the divide, The Journal Gazette said.

The Journal Gazette also noted that this book is aimed mainly at scientists, but suggested that even non-scientists could benefit from reading it.

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