More on child witches in Africa

Thoughts on blogging on a blogiversary
Today is the fourth anniversary of the starting of this blog, which prompts thoughts about blogging generally.This wasn't my first blog. I started an online diary back at the beginning of the millennium, but it seemed a bit clunky, so don't write much there any more.Then I was invited to LiveJournal by Bishop Seraphim Sigrist, and it was a combination of an online journal and a social networking site. I still use it for personal things. But there were two problems with it: first, while it was fairly easy to network with other people on LiveJournal, it wasn't so easy to

The deterrent effect of capital punishment
From The West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser. Friday 20th July, 1849EFFECT OF EXECUTION - A correspondent informs us that JOHN VANSTONE and WILLIAM LEE, were executed at Bodmin on the 1st of September, 1802, for burglary; the daughter of one of them saw her father executed and immediately afterwards went into the town and stole a loaf of bread.

After the rain
As usual we went to church in Mamelodi this morning, for the Hours and Readers Service (Obednitsa), and sang "Many Years" to old Mary Nthite, whose name day it was yesterday.The sun was shining brightly after the wet and cloudy weather of the last few days, with fluffy white cumulus clouds, and even the old and rather rundown shopping centre looked quite attractive.

Rain and renovations
I went down to the post office today, to collect a parcel someone had sent me. It took a while to open it, as they were busy mopping the floor. There had been a flood, with all the rain we've had lately.They are also busy renovating the exterior. It was done about 20 years ago -- actually the entire interior was rebuilt, and modernised, and they just kept the facade -- they had to do that, as it is a historical monument, and part of Church Square in the centre of Pretoria. Back then they renovated the facade too, but it was built of sandstone, which doesn't weather very well, and it took only about 10 years for the repairs to wash off. So now it looks as though they are preparin

Jesus loves money
Notes from a Common-place Book: "Jesus loved money too!": Hanna Rosin looks for connections between the recent housing crisis and the 'prosperity gospel' in Did Christianity Cause the Crash? The short answer to her question is, of course, 'No, Christianity didn't.'Approximately 50 of America's 260 largest churches are prosperity-gospel churches. And 66% of all Pentecostals and 43% of 'other Christians' believe that 'wealth will be granted to the faithful.' Clearly, these American believ