Jesus song takes Grammys

A song about Jesus saving a young mother and her baby after their

car skids on black ice won two Grammy awards and was nominated for a third. “Jesus, Take the Wheel” was written by singer-songwriter Gordie Sampson (above) from Big Pond, Nova Scotia with Brett James and Hillary Lindsey. The three won for Best Country Song. The song also won Best Female Country Vocal Performance for Carrie Underwood. It is the first track from  Underwood’s debut album Some Hearts.

The ballad describes a young mother driving home to her parents’ home on Christmas Eve: “Fifty miles to go and she was runnin’ low/On faith and gasoline/It’d been a long hard year.” Suddenly she loses control of her car and pleads, “Save me from this road I’m on/Jesus, take the wheel.” Some Christians find the “let go and let God” theme too passive; others admire the way the mother recommits her life to Christ.

Samson said that the song was inspired by the death of an acquaintance on a Nova Scotia highway. “Jesus, Take the Wheel” topped the Billboard charts for six weeks and was certified Platinum by the recording industry. It was also nominated for Best Song of the Year.

Telus rejects porn

After hundreds of customer complaints and service cancellations, Telus is withdrawing its offer of pornographic images and videos on its cell phones. Both individual and corporate customers had complained. Since the service was offered in January, several thousand customers had registered to download the sexually explicit content.

Ray Roussin, the Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver, had told about 130 schools and churches in his diocese not to renew their Telus mobile phone contracts. Gordon Keast, a B.C. businessman and devout Lutheran was suing Telus after the phone company refused to release him from a threeyear contract. “At the time I renewed my contract with Telus in November, they didn’t market and sell pornography. Now they do, and as a subscriber I don’t want my fees to underwrite their pornography business.”

A Telus spokesman said the company had not been offering “X- rated material” but single model nudity that involved no sexual activity.” The company had added age-verification software. However on Feb. 20 the spokesman announced that providing pornography “is not a business our customers want us to be in.”

Lord’s Prayer opposed

A group of atheists and agnostics called Secular Ontario is threatening to take to court any town council that recites the Lord’s Prayer. The Ottawa-based group said there are 18 Ontario municipalities that still say the Lord’s Prayer in council meetings despite a 1999 Ontario ruling that found the practice violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Napanee’s Town Council still prays the prayer. “We’ve been carrying on with the Lord’s Prayer here for probably 100 years and there’s been no problem with it,” Councillor Peter Veltheer told the CBC. Secular Ontario has complained to the Ontario government but the Minister of Municipal Affairs, John Gerretsen said he would not interfere. He told the CBC, “It’s been part of our standard procedure here [in the Ontario legislature] for over 210 years.”