JESUS STEPS INTO CAGE TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT

By Martial News Reporter

JESUS is making his way into the MMA cage as more and more churches in the United States embrace the sport.

Now its not uncommon to see "Jesus didn't Tap" legends emblazoned across T-shirts and hoodies at MMA events across the US.

Churches see the sport as a way of reaching young people that normally they couldn't reach.

Now they are holding fight night television viewing parties or use MMA as an analogy for what Christ fought for.

Some pastors and priest have even gone further and now host events or participate in them.

According to the New York Times, clergy they spoke to want to infuse some machismo into their ministries

"Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too," said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. "But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter."

There are fears in some quarters that Christianity has become too feminised and that traditional male attributes such as strength and responsibility are downplayed by churches excessive promoting of female orientated traits such as kindness, empathy and compassion.

Paul Robie, 54, a pastor at South Mountain Community Church in Draper, Utah. "You have a lot of troubled young men who grew up without fathers, and they're wandering and they're hopeless and they're lousy dads themselves and they're just lost."

Fighting as a metaphor has resonated with some young men.

Mike Thompson, 32, a former gang member and an church MMA student who fights under the nickname the Fury, said: ."I'm fighting to provide a better quality of life for my family and provide them with things that I didn't have growing up.

"Once I accepted Christ in my life, I realised that a person can fight for good."

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KARATE KID GETS TEST AUDIENCE THUMBS UP

(Caption): The new Karate Kid has been given the second highest audience rating of any any movie

JACKIE Chan's Karate Kid re-make has been given a huge thumbs up by test audiences.

At the same time his latest film offering - a family movie - has been panned by the film critics.

The Karate Kid, also starring Will Smith's son Jaden, has been given the second highest test audience rating in movie history.

Its a double triumph for father and son as Will Smith's 2005 comedy Hitch remains the top film in test audience satisfaction.

Sony, the company behind Karate Kid, released the results to Entertainment Weekly.

Test audiences, however, are picked by the studio and generally fit the demographic profile of the film on offer, in the Karate Kids case teenagers and those in their early 20s.

Older fans who remember the original Karate Kid starring Pat Morita, as the handyman, Ralph Macchio as Daniel the bullied boy, and Elizabeth Shue, have been quite vocal in their opposition to the re-make.

Purists point out that its Chinese Wu Shu that is taught to Jaden not Karate and therefore the title is highly misleading.

Even Macchio questioned the worth of making a new version and asked how a young Jaden Smith would be able to push the romantic angle of the original when he is hardly into double figures in age.

But, if the test figures are correct, then it looks like Sony has a world-wide hit on its hands, the critics may be silenced.

Yet at the moment Chan will have to bear the universal panning his latest offering The Spy Next Door has suffered at the hands of critics and box office receipts which are weak in the extreme.

Unlike Karate Kid, which has been given a 97% positive rating, The Spy Next Door has been just 9%. It was in sixth position on its opening weekend and is believed to have only made £10m on its release.

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TEN YEARS IN JAIL FOR ABUSING 13-YEAR-OLD

(Caption): Former Karate instructor Paul Barr who abused a young girl

By Martial News Reporter

A FORMER Karate instructor has been jailed for 10 years after being found guilty of abusing a young teenager.

Paul Barr, 46, was given the maximum sentence after the jury found him guilty of two counts of second-degree child molestation in Washington state, USA.

His defence lawyer Blaine Connaughton said the conviction would be appealed.

The court heard that Barr had taught at the Yakima School of Karate school in 2002 when the girl had joined the class.

It wasn't until 2007 that the allegations he had raped the girl had come to light. The jury had settle on a lesser charge to reach a verdict.

A charge of voyeurism had previously dismissed because of police mistakes with a search warrant. The charge related to two other young girls.

But the prosecution had said Barr had often been seen doing inappropriate stretching exercises with the girl. The court also heard from a former karate student who said she had sex with Barr when she was 16-years-old.