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Other stories from the past week:
The gods must be angry
This week, we e-mailed my husband's English cousin, Caroline, to ask if she was under water yet. Her garden backs on to the Thames, and we were worried that she might be washed away. In Britain, tens of thousands of people have evacuated or been left stranded by epic flooding that cut off entire towns and threatened to drown all of Oxford. Not long ago, people would have blamed the cruel whims of Mother Nature for the rising waters. Now we know who's really to blame. Us.
Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail, July 27
Praise be to Nacho Libre (and Rambo, too)
There is nothing divine about Jack Black in tights. But his strutting dinner roll of a belly has been playing for laughs -- and prayers, presumably -- across the churches of North America. . . . For a long time, on wingclips.com, one of several websites providing free movie clips for ministers to use during sermons and Bible studies, the "baptism" scene in Nacho Libre was the No. 1 download -- that is, until two offerings from the recently released Evan Almighty knocked it down to No. 3.
Globe and Mail, July 28
Earlier: Evan Almighty keeps Noah's Ark story "safe" for families
Immigrant family loses mother, daughter in fire
A Princeton man who should have been celebrating his birthday Sunday was instead grieving the deaths of his wife and daughter after a weekend blaze. David Bae and his 14-year-old son Luke attended morning service at St. Paul's United Anglican Church Sunday, one day after Bae's wife, Kim, and 12-year-old daughter Jane died in a fire in their Princeton apartment. The family had recently immigrated to Canada from Korea, sponsored by a North Vancouver relative. But they chose to stay in Princeton because of the climate and got closely involved in the church community, attending services together every Thursday and Sunday, church board chairman Derek Hodgson said.
Vancouver Sun, July 30
Son of a (fallen) preacher man
Born to Jim and Tammy Faye, Jay Bakker lost faith in the conservative Christianity -- so he started his own church
Globe and Mail, July 30
Jerusalem's other religious divide
Rapid growth in ultra-Orthodox Jewish community is increasing tensions among other Israelis in city
Toronto Star, July 30
Biblical icons to fight for sales at Wal-Mart
Parents in the United States will soon be able to buy their children Jesus, Goliath and Moses action figures at Wal-Mart. The faith-based toy line, which will appear in the preschool aisle of 425 select Wal-Mart stores in mid-August, is produced by one2believe, a California toy company urging parents to join "the battle for the toy box" by bringing home muscular Samson and Goliath action figures instead of the usual Transformers and Spider-Men. The toys' release is billed as the first time Wal-Mart has offered a full line of faith-based toys.
National Post, July 31
Mormon temple groundbreaking set for Saturday
Ground will be broken on the Mormon temple and meeting house in Willoughby on Saturday. Construction was approved by the township council only after some controversy over its size and lighting.
Langley Advance, July 31
How ethno-politics poisons democracy
The quest for votes means politicians are less willing to differentiate between moderates and extremists: Whoever is seen to control the microphone at the local temple -- and is therefore in a position to guide voting decisions -- gets the cash. Hence, federal and provincial politicians now shamelessly attend Sikh and Tamil events where terrorists are glorified. The same phenomenon may well explain why Liberal leader Stephane Dion had his party vote down crucial expiring provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act, a law introduced by his own party in 2001.
Naresh Raghubeer, National Post, July 31
Forces chaplain to use difficult past as healing tool in Afghanistan
Capt. Charles Deogratias remembers that his first dream of freedom came to him in the form of long-haired women dressed in white walking amid a squalid refugee camp in Tanzania. Deogratias was just five, but he has never been able to shake the memory of those nurses who braved infection and disease to immunize the camp where he was raised.
Canadian Press, August 2
The Book of Bergman
Marc Gervais, a leading authority on Ingmar Bergman, got quite the shock Monday evening on his return from a brief vacation in Maine. News of Bergman's death hit the airwaves Monday morning, but the Montreal writer and scholar didn't learn of the passing of the iconic Swedish film auteur until he arrived home to a slew of telephone messages Monday night after driving home from Goose Rocks with his brother and wife. . . . Bergman was raised by a strict Lutheran clergyman father, and Gervais believes that dour strain of Lutheranism was central to Bergman's films. But for reasons even Gervais doesn't fully comprehend, there were, for quite some time, a number of what he calls "Bergman priests" scattered across the globe. These Catholic men of the cloth were all fascinated by the religious themes at the core of so many Bergman flicks. "I was the official Bergman priest for Canada," said Gervais.
CanWest News Service, August 2
A city of subdivisions
What makes a Calgarian? The city is now past the million mark, and is still growing. Those who live here are quick to complain about the problems of growth: traffic and sprawl and high housing costs and even, remarkably enough, high gas prices. But Calgarians are unusually proud of their city, and Calgary does seem singularly successful in forging a common identity out of people who have come from elsewhere to make this city their home.
Fr. Raymond J. de Souza, National Post, August 2
August 2/2007
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