An Australian man accused of trying to hijack a commercial aircraft to crash it into the Walls of Jerusalem National Park in northern Tasmania, yesterday told a court that he believed he was on a mission from God and that the hijacking would rid the world of the Devil. Read more

Danish pastor Thorkild Grosboell faces an ecclesiastic court for “sowing ‘deep confusion'” within Denmark’s state Lutheran Protestant Church last year when he publicly declared that he did not believe in God, resurrection or eternal life. The court, consisting of one judge and two theologists, will decide whether Grosboell’s remarks are incompatible with his position as pastor.

‘Once I’ve got rid of this stock, that’s it. I can’t take it any more, I’m shutting down…I’m going to sell everything and then get out of this country,'” 52-year-old Abu Anthony, a Baghdad liquor shop owner, told Reuters’s Luke Baker. Abu Anthony, like many alcohol sellers in Iraq, fears attacks that began last year, wherein at least two store owners were killed and their shops fire-bombed by suspected Muslim militants.

“They’re all ‘values questions.'” Sojourner’s Jim Wallis and Jerry Falwell talk over Tavis Smiley on NPR’s AM 820 this morning. Listen, or read more about Wallis’s attempts to recover “a hijacked faith,” in today’s Boston Globe.

No more families for Scandanavia. “In Norway, Denmark, and Sweden,” Dr. James Dobsonsays, “the family is destroyed.” So how do they settle their living arrangements? Alphabetically? By height? No answers were provided at a 10,000 strong anti-same-sex marriage rally in Memphis, but a brave new position in favor of no-sex marriage was staked out by former Seattle Seahawk-turned-preacher Ken Hutcherson, who told the crowd: “Do not touch God’s creation.” Ok, we admit we’re being a little snarky about this Christian News Service report, so we’ll even things out — by being snarky about the secular press that ignored this rally and many others like it. Why did we have to learn about it from CNS instead of CBS? And how about some reporting on one of the arguments many anti-gay marriage activists seem to find compelling: the alleged destruction of the Scandanavian family. Much of the Christian press takes it for granted. Almost all of the secular press finds the notion too absurd to consider. And nobody asks the important question: Who will take care of all the little orphaned Olaafs and Olgas?

Iowa City — home of the famous Iowa MFA — bans book burning. “The new plan calls for members of [The Jesus Church] to throw materials into garbage cans and then light candles to symbolically ‘burn’ the material.” Burn this…