Billy Graham pays tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Monday, January 16, was Martin Luther King Jnr day in the United States - a time of remembering a quite remarkable religious and civil rights leader who led an inspirational non-violent resistance to legalised racial prejudice.

Another world renowned Christian leader, Billy Graham, who is now well into his 90's, paid tribute to King, who he counted as a good friend.

"One night civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom I was pleased to count a friend, gave an eloquent opening prayer at the service; he also came at my invitation to one of our Team retreats during the Crusade to help us understand the racial situation in America more fully," Graham wrote in his autobiography.

King himself credited Graham for using his fame as America’s most famous Christian figure of the 60’s and 70’s to assist in giving momentum to his civil rights protests.

King once said, "Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the civil rights movement would not have been as successful as it has been."

During the civil rights movement, Dr. Graham preached: "Jesus was not a white man; He was not a black man. He came from that part of the world that touches Africa and Asia and Europe. Christianity is not a white man’s religion, and don’t let anybody ever tell you that it’s white or black. Christ belongs to all people; He belongs to the whole world."

Graham also recounted the moment he learned of King’s tragic death. Graham was touring Australia when he was told that King had been assassinated.

"I was almost in a state of shock,” said Graham. “Not only was I losing a friend through a vicious and senseless killing, but America was losing a social leader and a prophet, and I felt his death would be one of the greatest tragedies in our history."

Graham also shared how his thinking on racial equality changed very early on.

"I cannot point to any single event or intellectual crisis that changed my mind on racial equality. At Wheaton College, I made friends with black students, and I recall vividly one of them coming to my room one day and talking with deep conviction about America’s need for racial justice.

"Most influential, however, was my study of the Bible, leading me eventually to the conclusion that not only was racial inequality wrong but Christians especially should demonstrate love toward all peoples."

Scientists show how internet addiction alters the human brain

In a groundbreaking study using MRI scanners, a team of scientists have shown how Internet dependency will effect the same brain abnormalities that people addicted to alcohol, cocaine and cannabis have. It is hoped that the findings will throw light on other behavioural problems and lead to the development of new approaches to treatment.

There are an estimated 5 to 10 per cent of Internet users thought to be addicted. By addicted it is meant that they are unable to control their use. The majority of these are games players who play for so long they will go without food or drink for long periods, while their education, work and relationships will suffer as a result.

The team of Chinese researchers scanned the brains of 17 adolescents diagnosed with "Internet addiction disorder" and compared them with scans from 16 of their peers. The results displayed impairment of white matter fibres in the brain connecting regions involved in emotional processing, attention, decision making and cognitive control. This is very similar to the changes in white matter that have been observed in other forms of addiction to substances such as alcohol and cocaine.

"The findings suggest that white matter integrity may serve as a potential new treatment target in Internet addiction disorder," the scientists wrote in the online journal Public Library of Science One.

Henrietta Bowden Jones, a consultant psychiatrist at Imperial College, London, who is in charge of Britain's only NHS clinic for Internet addicts and problem gamblers, told The Independent that: "The majority of people we see with serious Internet addiction are gamers – people who spend long hours in roles in various games that cause them to disregard their obligations. I have seen people who stopped attending university lectures, failed their degrees or their marriages broke down because they were unable to emotionally connect with anything outside the game."

Bowden Jones added that while most people spend more time online than they did ten years, this is not evidence of addiction.

"It is different. We are doing it because modern life requires us to link up over the net in regard to jobs, professional and social connections – but not in an obsessive way. When someone comes to you and says they did not sleep last night because they spent 14 hours playing games, and it was the same the previous night, and they tried to stop but they couldn't – you know they have a problem. It does tend to be the gaming that catches people out."

However, Professor Michael Farrell, director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia, warned that the study did have its limitations.

"The limitations [of this study] are that it is not controlled, and it's possible that illicit drugs, alcohol or other caffeine-based stimulants might account for the changes. The specificity of 'Internet addiction disorder' is also questionable."

National Human Trafficking Awareness Day marked across the world

The 5th annual National Human Trafficking Awareness Day was marked across the globe on Wednesday by organisations keen to bring this massive problem to the general public’s attention.

There are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today, with three out of four being women. Based on last year’s figures, it is believed that in 2012, 800,000 people will be sex-trafficked; with 80 percent of those being women while 50 percent will be children.

One group in particular were so passionate about bringing attention to the problem of human trafficking, they even climbed a mountain together. As part of an Operation Mobilization initiative, 46 women from all over the world tackled Mt. Kilimanjaro in Kenya.

Known as the Freedom Climbers, none of these women were professional climbers but participated because some of them had been victims of sex trafficking and other human injustices and were keen to become a voice for the voiceless. Their climb was symbolic of the long and harsh journey that trafficking victim’s face.

"I talk to friends here in the States, and they say, ‘What can we do with such a huge problem?’" said Cathey Anderson, leader of The Freedom Climb. "I tell them, ‘We can all make a difference for one woman or child at a time! We can see freedom for them!’"

"Freedom for one woman will not only change her future but all the generations after her!," Anderson insisted. "We know we will not end slavery and human trafficking with this climb. We can, however, bring hope and an opportunity for freedom to women and children who currently have none."

The Bible, Justin Bieber and Facebook

Pop music star Justin Bieber recently leapfrogged the Bible in popularity on Facebook. Bieber’s page was rated by AllFacebook.com as the third most engaged Facebook page, just head of The Bible in fourth place.

The list of “Facebook's Most Engaging Pages” is released ever week, and is determined by totaling the number of interactions – or the “likes” and comments – that fans post to each page over the course of seven days.

Bieber’s page garnered around 1.3 million interactions, just slightly ahead of The Bible, but he has some way to catch up to the page in the number one spot, Jesus Daily, which attracted nearly 4.7 million interactions in the last week. Second place belongs “Dios Es Bueno,” which means “God Is Good,” with about 2.1 million interactions.

While Bieber's Christian faith is well known, the teenage pop sensation recently created controversy when he informed V Magazine that he feels no need to attend church.

“I don’t think I’m religious. I am spiritual. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe that he put me in this position, and that I have to always give him the glory he deserves for putting me here. But I don’t consider myself religious,” Bieber said to V Magazine in an interview.

“A lot of people who are religious, I feel like they get lost. They go to church just to go to church. I am not trying to disrespect them at all, you know, whatever works for you; but for me, I focus more on praying and talking to Him. I don’t have to go to church. I haven’t been to church in a long time, but I know I have a relationship with Him. People can be like, 'If you don’t go to church, what do you mean, how are you a Christian?' But I am. I talk to Him, and that’s all.”

Bieber posted the link to the V Magazine interview on his Facebook account on Monday, and since then nearly 37,000 people “liked” it, while approximately 7,000 have commented on the post.

(Image from Online News Resource).

Mars Hill bids farewell to Rob Bell

Members of Mars Hill bid an emotional goodbye to their renowned pastor and teacher, Rob Bell, on Sunday. Bell has become known for his brilliant teaching through the NOOMA series, and recently courted controversy in evangelical circles for his book ‘Love Wins,’ which speaks about heaven and hell.

Bell announced last year that he would be leaving Mars Hill Bible Church to involve himself more fully in his speaking and writing. Bell started the church 12 years ago and it has since grown to tens of thousands of members. Bell is planning on writing three new books, while he is also co-creating a new ABC television drama with Carlton Cuse, the producer of “Lost”. Bell has also already launched in new speaking tour entitled “Fit to Smash Ice.”

At his farewell ceremony, Mars Hill co-pastor Shane Hipps presented Bell and his wife, Kristen, with a book carrying stories and good wishes from church members.

“Grief is like a sprinter and joy is like an endurance runner,” The Grand Rapids Press quoted Hipps as saying. “I hope this community joins with me in the journey of grief fading and joy searching.”

Hipps added jokingly, “I’m hoping 10 years from now you will say, ‘Rob Bell? That sounds familiar.’” Mars Hill, he insisted, “is not Rob Bell. It’s a whole lot bigger than Rob and Kristen. It’s as big as God himself.”

Singer and songwriter David Crowder also appeared in the service to lead worship.

Bell last preached at Mars Hill on December 18, where he said:

“This church, this place, this community, was once simply a hunch. A dream. A vision. A picture in the mind of a new kind of church for the new world we find ourselves in. I will never be able to fully, adequately explain what it has been like to have imagined you, conceived of you – this church – and then have you exist.

“When people ask, ‘what about Mars Hill?’ or ‘what’s Mars Hill going to do?’ It’s as if Mars Hill is a disembodied reality with a life of its own,” Bell added. But, “here’s the twist: the church is not an inanimate, impersonal product. There is no ‘Mars Hill’ in theory. There is no abstract, disembodied entity Mars Hill apart from the people in this room who ARE Mars Hill.

“I feel like I’m just getting started,” Bell concluded. “Like I’m a rookie, a freshman. I believe that that God has made this day. That it’s good. And you can have joy in it, even if you’re limping.”

Scientists create monster 'super-soldier' ants

In a move that proves scientists have learnt nothing from watching B-grade horror movies, a group of genetic specialists from Canada have created freakish monster ants with giant heads and jaws.

The ants were created by dabbing normal ant larvae with a special hormone, after which the larvae develop into 'super-soldiers' rather than normal soldier or worker ants.

The scientists believe the monster ants could be a genetic throwback to an ancestor that lived millions of years ago and claim that the experiments show that ordinary ants of the species Pheidole morrisi contain all the genetic 'tools' needed to turn them into 'super-soldiers,' since all they need is a hormonal push for the development to occur.

Dr Rajendhran Rajakumar, from McGill University, Canada, and colleagues wrote: 'We uncovered an ancestral development potential to produce a novel 'super-soldier' subcaste that has been retained throughout a hyperdiverse ant genus that evolved 35 to 60 million years ago.'

These 'super-soldier' ants do occur in the wild, but only rarely. In the deserts of America and Mexico, they exist to protect their colony from raids by using their enormous heads to block the nest entrance and attack any enemy ants who venture too close.

(Image source: Alex Wild/alexanderwild.com).

Our Father is Younger Than We

Joy is at the very heart of WHO God is! Joy is a fruit of God’s Spirit and it is part and parcel of God’s nature. And because joy is at the heart of who God is, then it should be at the heart of who we are as well.

In his wonderful little book called ‘Orthodoxy,’ G.K. Chesterton writes about how the joy that one sees in a little child is just a fraction of the joy that exists in the heart of God:

“Because children have a bounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again.’ And the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead, for grown up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again!’ to the sun, and every evening, ‘Do it again!’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike. It may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy, for we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we.’

Isn’t that an incredible thought? We have sinned and grown old, jaded, tired, worried and irritated, rushed and blind; we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we!

We see this rather wonderfully throughout the story of Creation. Day 1 - God creates and then pronounces, ‘It is good!’ Day 2 – God creates and then pronounces, ‘It is good!’ Day 3 – God creates and then pronounces, ‘It is good!’ And so it has gone every day from that day until this one. It is good!

That is how it is with God … but not with us: For we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we are.

Joy is more than happiness because joy celebrates ALL of life. God did this in Jesus by sharing in both our laughter and our tears. Jesus laughed out loud with lepers being healed and he wept alongside grieving families.

Remember what Jesus once said to his disciples as he prepared them for the day he would leave them. ‘I have given you all my teachings so that MY joy might be in you, and that your joy might be complete, it might be filled up to the brim!’

God is a God of incredible joy and so the source for all life’s joy is God himself. Don’t spend your life pursuing happiness, don’t even pursue joy, instead pursue the God who is the source of all these things and more!

We come to God because none of us has it within ourselves, except momentarily, to be joyous. Joy is not us concentrating so hard on being positive that beads of sweat pop out on our foreheads! As Eugene Peterson reminds us, joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence! We don’t have to be joyful in order to follow Jesus; it’s what gradually happens within us when we do follow Jesus.

Joy is God’s dancing ’it-is-good and lets-do-it-again’ nature being lived out in us.

PRAY AS YOU GO
Lord you are the source of all life and all joy. Joy is something that you form within us as we faithfully follow you and obey your commandments. We pray that your joy would indeed be within us so that our joy might be filled to overflowing. In Jesus name. Amen.

FOCUS READING
John 15:9-11 (NIV)
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.