All photos here.
Niagara ANiC Churches get-together
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Fatwa 40378
This particular Fatwa saw the light of day – in a manner of speaking – in 2003, so it isn’t exactly news. What makes it interesting is to view its description of Islamic contempt for the Bible in the light of Islam’s maniacal protectiveness of the Koran.
Here are the Rabelaisian ruminations on new uses for the Bible, courtesy of Fatwa 40378. Emphasis mine:
Judgment: Despising the Torah or the New Testament
Question: “Does someone who insults the Torah or the New Testament engage in apostasy, given that these include some words of God?”
Answer: “It would be impermissible to disdain the Torah and New Testament if they contained the truth and the name of the exalted, such as the name of God the Most High. Whoever does this [i.e., disrespect the books] knowingly and by choice would be considered an apostate and would be despised by God. But [in fact] the Torah and New Testament do not have anything exalted in them. They are known to have been corrupted, so there is no problem disdaining them.
Ash-Shams[ad-Din] Ar-Ramli [d.1004 A.D.] said in [his book of fiqh] Nihayat al-Muhtaj: “It is impermissible to use respected books like those of hadith and fiqh for anal cleansing after defecation (al-istinja’,الأستنجاء ), but non-respected books like philosophy, Torah and the New Testament, which are known as corrupt and which do not contain exalted names, can be used for anal cleansing after defecation.”
Welcome to Holy Trinity & St. Mary's
This is an Anglican church which is inclusive (it advertises Changing Attitude), has a rector who asks, “why do some Christians exalt the Bible so much?” and announces its anti-Semitism with this extraordinarily crass cartoon at the top of the About page:
Update: the carton has now been removed.
Oddly enough, there are no riots in Jerusalem, no-one has been beheaded and Anglicans wander unmolested in Israel. But the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Suheil Dawani just can’t understand why he is less than welcome in Israel. It’s not fair.
h/t mcj
John Lennox: Christianity and the Tooth Fairy
Ride on, ride on in majesty
On one hand, I love the aesthetic power of this. On the other, I feel a degree of disgust that starched robes are singing of torture, blood, agony and a redemption which, beyond the song, may have little meaning for the participants.
Still, I will sing it tomorrow accompanied by my guitar – less aesthetically refined and perhaps more torturous.
But I’ll enjoy it – in a way.
The offense of the Cross
From here: 
An electrician faces the sack for displaying a small palm cross on the dashboard of his company van.
Former soldier Colin Atkinson has been summoned to a disciplinary hearing by the giant housing association where he has been employed for 15 years because he refuses to remove the symbol.
Mr Atkinson, a regular worshipper at church, said: ‘The treatment of Christians in this country is becoming diabolical…but I will stand up for my faith.’
Throughout his time at work, he has had an 8in-long cross made from woven palm leaves attached to the dashboard shelf below his windscreen without receiving a single complaint.
But his bosses at publicly funded Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) in West Yorkshire – the fifth-biggest housing organisation in England – have demanded he remove the cross on the grounds it may offend people or suggest the organisation is Christian. Mr Atkinson’s union representative said he faces a full disciplinary hearing next month for gross misconduct, which could result in dismissal.
As you can see, the cross is so conspicuous and, after all, there is nothing quite so damaging to an organisation’s reputation than the insidious allegation that it might be “Christian”; the mere act of writing that makes me want to disinfect my keyboard. I’m surprised that Atkinson wasn’t charge with sedition – or, at the very least, a public order offence.
Good news: Anglicans do not have a monopoly on nutty priests
Catholics have their fair share:
Scotland’s Catholic figurehead has urged the UK government to give up its “shameful” nuclear weapon programme……
“It is shameful to have them. If our government wished to truly be courageous it would unilaterally give up its nuclear deterrent, giving the witness and impetus for other nations to do the same.”
While being less than enthusiastic about the need to keep nuclear weapons, let alone use them is understandable, the bizarre contention that the UK disarming itself would give “impetus for other nations to do the same” demonstrates such a crass naïvety and ignorance of the fundamental depravity of human nature, that one is tempted to wonder what the Cardinal has been putting in his incense.
Cardinal O’Brien’s maunderings will, no doubt, be ignored; just as well, or every thuggish madman from Ahmadinejad to Gaddafi would be rubbing his hands with glee.
Filming The Hobbit
Have a dismal Easter
Is it just me, or is this the most lugubriously dolorous Easter message ever delivered?
How to get thrown out of a Soho pub
Kiss another man.
From here:
A man has told of how he was ordered to leave a central London pub after a staff member objected to him kissing a man he was on a date with.
James Bull, 23, said he and Jonathan Williams, 26, were thrown out of the John Snow on Broadwick Street, Soho.
Mr Bull said he was “shaking” after a woman claiming to be the pub’s landlady removed them for being “obscene”.
The Metropolitan Police are investigating the incident, while the John Snow pub is yet to comment.
Samuel Smith’s brewery, the owner of the pub, declined to comment on the incident.
“I felt belittled. I felt physically sick and we were both shaking,” said Mr Bull, a charity worker from Kentish Town in north London.
“It made me feel dirty. I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”
Mr Bull said a man claiming to be the pub’s landlord first raised objection to their kissing shortly after 0945 BST.
“We were kissing and a guy who claimed to be the landlord came over and told us to stop. I don’t want to see that. It offends me,” he said.
“We had just kissed. It was nothing obscene. He said if we didn’t tone it down, we would have to leave.
When I was much younger, I remember being thrown out of a pub for kissing – come to think of it, there may have been a degree of groping, too – my girlfriend. I put the whole thing down to envy; the BBC didn’t report on it. Also, since I found the experience exhilarating, it didn’t make me feel dirty, I didn’t shake, nor did I feel belittled, physically sick – other than from the after effects of a pub pie – or shocked. In fact, it was a highlight of my university week, and one with which I regaled my friends with considerable relish.
Why has the contemporary pub ejection phenomenon become an occasion for such excruciating angst?
Well, it’s because the kissers were homosexuals and homosexuals are compulsive victims. The actions of a publican who simply wants to sell beer and ejects those who might put his customers off their beer, become headline news, the publican becomes a bigot, the homosexuals become filled with righteous indignation and Tatchell will probably blow a gasket.
Pathetic.