“The French government has announced a plan to combat religious groups that are judged ‘potentially violent’ including both militant Muslims and traditionalist Catholics.”  According to the Interior Minister, “the government will protect the French tradition of secularity in government by fighting religious extremism which he called ‘an offense to the Republic.’”  He stated that his office “will try to determine ‘when it’s suitable to intervene to treat what has become a religious pathology’” (

So, now it is official! With the publication of the police report investigating the Jimmy Savile scandal, the full extent of Savile’s “staggering and grotesque” six decades of sexual abuse has been laid bare. This man who spent his life as a popular disc jockey, television presenter, charity fundraiser and media personality has in death seen his reputation destroyed by an avalanche of allegations.

In his 2012 Christmas speech, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the long-standing Catholic view that heterosexual marriage is the only godly union. “When such commitment [heterosexual marriage] is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child—essential elements of the experience of being human are lost” (Reuters UK, December 21, 2012).

Your phone rings. You pick it up and say, “Hello?” A voice on the line says, “Hello... is your refrigerator running?” You say, “Y-yes.” The voice on the line, snickering, bursts out with, “Well, you better go catch it!” That “age-old” prank call is somewhat innocuous compared to what has played out recently in the news. What does the Bible say about this kind of humor?

2012 was a year of dramatic predictions that failed!  On December 21, expectations based on the Mayan calendar that the world would end were dashed when that prediction failed. One source stated,  “Apparently, doomsday theorists have been prepping for a fiery comet hitting the earth, ice storms destroying our power grids and other heinous catastrophes in vain” (emphasis ours) (ABC Action News, December 21, 2012).