Some contemporary biblical scholars and historians believe that the early church was awash with gospels, epistles, and apocalypses that are not found in today’s New Testament.  These other texts, according to this view, were allowed to circulate within the early church more or less freely and were judged heretical and tossed out only after Emperor [...]

David and Fiona Fulton have each been sentenced to a year’s hard labour by a court in The Gambia, West Africa. The Fultons, who have three children including a two-year-old adopted daughter, were charged with sedition over e-mail correspondence in which they criticised President Yahya Jammeh and the influence of Islam in the tiny [...]

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has accused Korean Air Lines of sex discrimination because the airline refuses to hire male flight attendants. The company forthrightly admits that it won’t even entertain applications from men who want to be flight attendants.
Korean Air told the commission to shove off respectfully declined to comply.
Korean Air [...]

Assyrian International News Agency reports on female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kurdistan.
Sheelan Anwar Omer, a shy 7-year-old Kurdish girl, bounded into her neighbor’s house with an ear-to-ear smile, looking for the party her mother had promised.
There was no celebration. Instead, a local woman quickly locked a rusty red door behind Sheelan, who looked bewildered when [...]

Researchers studying the mating behaviour of bison discovered something remarkable: The more noise a bull makes, the less likely he is to sire offspring.
During bison mating season, the quietest bulls score the most mates and sire the most offspring while studs with the loudest bellows see the least action, according to a surprising new study [...]

Pigs fly in Holland.
The biggest left-wing political party in the Netherlands, the Dutch Labour Party, has released a position paper calling for an end to the country’s failed model of “tolerance”.  Immigrants should be expected to integrate into Dutch society, and the government must be free to criticise cultural practices it finds repugnant.
The paper said: [...]

The collect for today, the commemoration of John Wycliffe, (c 1320-84),  Scholar, translator of the Scriptures into English, (source):
O Lord, God of truth, whose Word is a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path: We give you thanks for your servant John Wyclif, and those who, following in his steps, have labored [...]

On Saturday, 20 December, a sample of residents of Shiqiao, a town near Nanjing, China, received a call from the provincial Statistics Bureau and were asked questions about personal happiness and income and other fascinating stuff. The survey found that they were exceedingly happy indeed. Shiqiao residents reported a satisfaction index of over [...]

Dylan gives a great performance of one of his more obscure songs, which has been one of my favourites from the first time I heard it.  First recorded during the Oh Mercy sessions, “Dignity” was not released until Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Volume 3 (1994).  The following year, he sang it live for MTV Unplugged.
An [...]

For well over a thousand years, the world of Christianity looked something like this map, a flower with three petals—Africa, Asia, Europe—centred around Jerusalem. Not until around 1500 did Christianity and Europe become synonymous: Christianity became essentially European and Europe essentially Christian. Before then, the Christian church survived and flourished in Egypt and [...]

The collect for today, the Feast Day of Thomas Becket (1117-1170), Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr (source):
O Lord God,
who gavest to thy servant Thomas Becket
grace to put aside all earthly fear
and be faithful even unto death:
grant that we, caring not for worldly esteem,
may fight against evil,
uphold thy rule,
and serve thee to our life’s end;
through Jesus Christ [...]

An Egyptian girl who was brought to California to work as a domestic slave lived in a garage and was compelled to perform household chores for long hours and pitiful pay.
Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in northern Egypt to work in their California home. She awoke [...]

Turkey’s parliament has been in an uproar over the campaign for a public apology to Armenians for the atrocities of 1915. Uncivil language and threats of physical violence are increasing.
Last weekend, a brawl broke out after a Democratic Society Party (DTP) member stated that the World War I-era killings were planned by the sultan [...]

This morning’s processional hymn on Innocents’ Day/Sunday After Christmas-Day at Christ Church, Windsor. Hymn #79 in The Book of Common Praise (1938), official hymn book for the whole of The Church of England in Canada (later Anglican Church of Canada).
Of the Father’s love begotten
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the Source, [...]

The collect for today, the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, from the 1962 Canadian Book of Common Prayer:
O Almighty God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths; Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy [...]