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Stories about the premiere of Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy):
Monty, Messiah, but please, not Merlin
Now that his Tony Award-winning musical Spamalot (a recycling of his film Monty Python and the Holy Grail) is touring North America, [Eric] Idle has turned the Pythons' deliciously sacrilegious comedy Life of Brian into an orchestral work entitled Not the Messiah. The mock-oratorio makes its debut next month at Toronto's Luminato Festival, with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra playing backup.
Globe and Mail, May 18
Eric Idle
If you don't know Eric Idle you may remember in the final scene of 'Monty Pyton's Life of Brian.' With Brian slated to be cruxified under the hot sun, Eric Idle was the character who started singing 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.'
The Hour, CBC TV, May 24
The afterlife of Brian
Eric Idle and cousin Peter Oundjian talk about giving Life of Brian the classical treatment
Toronto Star, May 27
Monty Python takes symphonic turn with oratorio 'Not The Messiah'
Monty Python is taking over the Toronto Symphony Orchestra with silly songs and a very naughty boy named Brian. Eric Idle's cheeky oratorio "Not The Messiah" makes its world premiere this week with the comic's Canadian cousin at the helm conducting the unconventional piece.
Canadian Press, May 28
Stories about Islam and the West:
Walking in shoes of the poor
'Making Education Count' is theme of 2007 Aga Khan World Partnership hike
Toronto Star, May 24
Modest and forgiving - unless you insult God
Meet the man staring down Lebanese troops
Globe and Mail, May 25
Pilgrimage to Mecca left me feeling blessed
The hajj, required of all Muslims, creates an amazing experience of fulfilment
Salima Ebrahim, CanWest News Service, May 26
In the Christian Cemetery, 'we are all God's children'
At Kabre Ghora, you'll find the graves of foreign soldiers, fresh memorials to Canadian and other casualties of the latest war ... and three generations of a Pashtun family that tends to the infidel dead.
Toronto Star, May 27
Professor who attended Holocaust conference blasts critics as Islamophobes
A Canadian political scientist excoriated for attending what was widely labelled a Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran has retaliated with a blistering published attack on his university president and his colleagues for being illiterate Islamophobes. Writing in the influential Literary Review of Canada, Shiraz Dossa, a tenured professor at Nova Scotia's St. Francis Xavier University, said that his academic integrity and academic freedom were grossly impugned by the university administration, an assault on his reputation that he said has yet to be remedied. He accused the president and chancellor of authorizing a "small Spanish Inquisition" to denounce him - a campaign he said was initiated by two Jewish professors and the Christian chair of the political science department.
Globe and Mail, May 28
When rights collide with freedoms
True story: man kills wife, stabbing her in the neck 19 times with a steak knife, is convicted of first-degree murder and appeals on basis that she was unfaithful and, as a devout Muslim, he was protecting family honour. Nice try, and maybe elsewhere in the world Adi Abdul Humaid might have been acquitted. But the United Arab Emirates citizen made the mistake of murdering Aysar Abbas in Ottawa in 1999 and, ultimately, the Ontario Court of Appeal rejected his appeal.
Toronto Star, May 28
Earlier: Stories about Islam and the West
Other stories from the past week:
Religion in a box
Preacher Jerry Falwell died last week, and if you're more interested in the state of his bank account than the state of his soul, Toronto artist Mitch Robertson forgives you. After all, Falwell connected high finance with high morals to the tune of a US$69-million Moral Majority, and Robertson plays with similar links in 5, 6, 7: Economies of Good and Evil, a new touring exhibition that opened at Winnipeg's Plug In ICA last week. Robertson gives the conceptual gravitas a cheeky touch, with charcoal rubbings of smalltown houses numbered 666, modular churches that could be sold at IKEA and cola-war-friendly saviours. Here, Leah Sandals chats with Robertson about Satan's suburban bungalows and other quirky banalities of evil.
National Post, May 25
Top court overturns decision to scrap tax on legal fees
The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday overturned the lower court victory of a Vancouver activist who died during his crusade to scrap a tax on legal fees in British Columbia. The top court announced Friday it had overturned a 2005 B.C. Supreme Court decision in favour of lawyer Dugald Christie, who had argued that the tax discriminates against the poor by making it harder for them to hire legal counsel.
CBC News, May 25
Earlier: A champion for the poor dies on the road
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Burying the unborn
A growing number of women and their advocates, many of them staunchly pro-choice, are pushing for the formal recognition of the miscarried fetus as a symbol of their grief and loss. In some cases, they're seeking out these rites even when, for medical reasons, they have chosen to terminate the pregnancy. But the fetal funeral could be a Pandora's Box. Some graveyards and funeral-home staff have been reluctant to bury remains for which no burial permit can be issued. Medical staff worry it may push patients to dwell on losses they would rather forget. More profoundly, holding funerals for fetuses raises implicit, uncomfortable questions about when life begins.
Globe and Mail, May 26
St. Paul's nurses mark centenary
Burrard Street was a muddy track through the bush when the overworked Sisters of Providence opened a nursing school to train much-needed help
Vancouver Sun, May 26
Between pop and esoterica
To understand the challenges in getting the humanities to bridge the gap between the conventions of academe and the desire to make sense of their studies to "the real world," consider the case of Kurt Noll, who teaches in the religion department of Manitoba's Brandon University.
National Post, May 26
Jerusalem's changing face
As city marks 40th anniversary of 'reunification,' Jewish-Arab balance is in flux.
Toronto Star, May 26
Students stage a solid production of Remnants
Play shines through excellent staging, dedication of Trinity Western cast
Peter Birnie, Vancouver Sun, May 26
Spiritual journeys
One of today's hottest travel trends is actually one of the oldest. Spiritual curiosity and passion for transformation are among the human race's oldest motivators to travel. In some cultures, this type of journey is a right of passage, as in the native American vision quest or the Australian Aborigine walkabout. Since the beginning of time, people have also visited sacred sites for healing, inspiration and guidance.
Janet Collins, Vancouver Sun, May 26
Genesis of a theory evolves into museum
Starting today, the United States has its own first-class Creation Museum, sparing no expense in its effort to demonstrate that every single word in the Book of Genesis is literally true and scientifically accurate. And if the place is slick and professional and fun, the purpose is intensely serious: to rescue the Bible from liberal interpretations and secular derision, and restore it as the unchallenged word of God. "Everyone has to defend their position in a way that is logical and scientific," explains Ken Ham, the Creation Museum's founder and guiding force. But "if you don't take a stand on a literal Genesis, eventually you'll see Christianity collapse."
Globe and Mail, May 28
Earlier: Creationist extols both science and scripture
Great men overcome war at Wall of Peace
Busts of Mandela, Gandhi, others contrast battlefield imagery at Hindu monument
Toronto Star, May 28
Parents take on state over blood transfusions
Jehovah's Witness couple seek right to cross-examine doctors who ordered treatment that violated religious beliefs
Globe and Mail, May 30
Earlier: Stories about Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions
First-time Church funding for sexually abused males in Ontario 'groundbreaking'
The London diocese has made a "groundbreaking" move by giving $30,000 in funding to provide group counselling for male victims of clergy sex abuse. The money will go to a new organization called Hope & Healing Associates for a project that focuses on helping male victims who were sexually abused by representatives of the Catholic Church in southwestern Ontario.
CanWest News Service, May 30
'Can you will belief into your heart?'
I seem to have emerged from the womb with an antipathy toward organized religion. How to explain this? I attended church with my family as a child -- St. John's Anglican, here in Edmonton. I am quite sure I did not hallucinate my membership in the children's choir. The stately nature of those robes made quite an impression on a seven year old.
Sheila Luck, National Post, May 30
I'm already in 'God's house'
"Come and worship in God's house" -- the sign beckons from outside the small Anglican Church. My stomach tightens a bit when I pass it. I've visited this church many times in the past. And with each visit, my frustration and sadness grew. It wasn't always this way. My father was Catholic, my mother Anglican, my godfather Greek Orthodox. We celebrated Passover each year with Jewish friends who in turn celebrated Christmas Eve with us. I worked for two years as a secretary in the United Church of Canada, and my youngest daughter is pursuing her own calling to the United Church ministry.
Annis Karpenko, National Post, May 30
May 31/2007
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