Happy Star Wars Day!

Across the galaxy, today is the 4th.of May.
May the fourth be with you!
(Hmmm, that line doesn't get any better with age, does it...)
By the way, if you saw those first two Star Wars films way back before you started going grey, here's a quick Lego recap...

What Does This Sign Say To You?

In March, a Napier church group put up a billboard boldly stating "Jesus Heals Cancer".
This angered a family whose child was undergoing leukaemia treatment. They felt "the sign showed no understanding and compassion for people who've journeyed through cancer and lost loved ones" and that "the billboard was saying 'join the church and you won’t die of cancer'." They complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which recently ruled the sign breached advertising standards (by suggesting the church offered something other churches could not).
I got no feeling from the sign that the church was heartless or that it offered an exclusive deal. All I got was a most emphatic statement! It may have been a different story if the family had gone to the church, had hands laid on their child...and no healing happened. But they didn't do that - so was their complaint justified?
As more church groups erect thought-provoking signage, this is an interesting issue. On one hand, the sign states the church's beliefs. Indeed, Napier's Equippers Church claim that very recently six people were "healed from cancer" in their church. Pastor Lyle Peninsula: "All I can say is that it is what we believe. Can Jesus heal cancer? Yes, we believe he can." So is there anything wrong with proclaiming such beliefs on their billboard?

Yea, baby! Who's ya daddy?

The flip-side is the pain of those who've lost out to cancer or who, like the family concerned, are going through the shite of cancer treatment. Should they feel from this sign that their faith wasn’t strong enough, or that they weren’t special enough to make it on to Jesus’ healing list?
All around us are far more problematic billboards than this one, yet we pay them scant regard - they're just life's wallpaper. Should a church conform to a different standard, because their sign is about faith, rather than cars, politics or tampons? Society often uses Freedom Of Speech to justify all sorts of public statements. So, ponder this, if you will:
(a) Does this just boil down to someone's publically-expressed personal faith that someone else didn't like?
(b) How would you feel if you saw a sign in your NZ town saying
"There is one god and Muhammad is his prophet"?

Wills: Poach Eggs, Not Animals

Fresh from celebrating his first wedding anniversary last weekend, Prince William is lined up to highlight the problem of animal poaching in Africa.
He's taking part in an anti-poaching project and doco, fired up by the "senseless slaughter" of Max, a hand-reared rhino, killed last year by poachers at a Kenyan wildlife preserve. Wills' friend, British TV presenter and Royals worshipper Ben Fogle: "I was lucky enough to go out to Botswana with him a few years ago, so it would be nice to do more with him. We're both passionate about stopping poaching."
Prince William has long been interested in conservation. In 2001, he began assisting with the Lewa Wildlife Preserve conservation project in central Kenya, and later became a patron of the Tusk Trust charity. After last week's London screening of African Cats, about Kenya's wildlife, the prince spoke out about endangered animals: "Films like this remind us of the dramatic beauty, and the harshness, of the natural world – and there is nowhere more awe-inspiring or beautiful than the vast plains of Kenya's Maasai Mara. Africa's natural heritage is the world’s natural heritage. We have to preserve places like this – not just for us, but for future generations. We must act now, coherently and together, if the situation is to be reversed and our global, natural legacy preserved. Tomorrow will be too late."
This is all very well and highly commendable, doffed caps and "Mummy would be proud" etc... but Prince William still goes out with shotgun in arm, blasting pheasants and boar into oblivion on a whim.
Just a passing thought...