The Washington Post reports:
Pastor Su Tianfu slides into the back seat and tells the driver to hit it.
He looks over his shoulder: “Is there anybody following us?”
It is days before Christmas, but instead of working on his sermon, Su is giving his tail the slip.
The slight and soft-spoken Protestant preacher is no stranger to surveillance. Su has worked for years in China’s unregistered “house churches,” and he said he has been interrogated more times than he can count.
International Business Times reports:
More American Christians are accepting LGBT people, even if their churches strongly oppose gay and lesbian relationships, according to a Pew Research Center report of U.S. religious beliefs and practices released Friday. While more non-Christians accept gay relationships than Christians, the number of Christians who say LGBT relationships should be accepted and not discouraged has grown by 10 percentage points since 2007, the study found.
Overall, 54 percent of Christians say gay people should be accepted, compared with 76 percent of non-Christians and 83 percent of religiously unaffiliated people. Across the general U.S. population, 62 percent accept gay relationships, up from 50 percent in 2007. Most churches teach gay relationships are an act of sin or “intrinsically disordered,” the Pew study said.
According to Christian News Network:
Remarks from Billy Graham asserting that Muslims and those of other religions who “turn to the only light they have” without consciously trusting Christ are saved—despite clear warning in Scripture—have come back to light after his son Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), expressed disagreement with a Wheaton professor who contends that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.
As previously reported, associate professor Larycia Hawkins posted to Facebook two photos of herself wearing a hijab earlier this month, and stated in a lengthy explanation that she plans to wear it everywhere she goes during the Advent—including at the professedly Christian college and to church.
“I stand in human solidarity with my Muslim neighbor because we are formed of the same primordial clay, descendants of the same cradle of humankind—a cave in Sterkfontein, South Africa that I had the privilege to descend into to plumb the depths of our common humanity in 2014,” Hawkins wrote.
Christian News Network reports:
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, also known as “Mother Teresa,” will be sainted next year as she is being credited with the purported healing of two people through what Roman Catholics believe is her intercession after her death, the Vatican announced on Friday.
Jorge Bergoglio, also known as “Pope Francis,” approved a decree on Thursday that Bojaxhiu was responsible for a second miracle 11 years after she died.
Christian News Network reports:
A number of students from a prominent Christian-identified university are demanding that school officials reinstate an associate political science director who posted photos of herself wearing an Islamic hijab, stating that she was doing so to show solidarity with Muslims.
As previously reported, Larycia Hawkins posted to Facebook two photos of herself wearing a hijab last Thursday, and stated in a lengthy explanation that she plans to wear it everywhere she goes during the Advent—including at the Christian college and to church.
From Berean Research:
Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren once again unites with the apostate Roman Catholic Church, this time to talk about “The Joy of the Gospel of Life,” which is ironic because he’s fully aware that the RCC’s gospel does not bring joy. Why? Because it is a false gospel, a gospel that saves no one. In fact, Protestants hold that the RCC’s man centered gospel is in opposition to biblical Christianity. Pastor Warren knows perfectly well what the Bible says about those who teach a false gospel — let him be accursed!:
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:8, 9)
So – why would a shepherd lead his sheep into a den of wolves?
Recorder Standard has the story:
According to Fox News:
Some parents outside Detroit were questioning a Catholic high school’s decision to allow a special room for Muslim students to pray, Fox 2 reported Wednesday.
Brother Rice High School, an all-boys school in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, reportedly granted a request from Muslim students to use the religious reflection room throughout the day. Roughly a dozen of the school’s 800-plus students are Muslim, according to WXYZ.
One unnamed parent told the news station the room was “unconscionable,” arguing that her son’s paid Catholic education would be “undermined.” Fox 2 reported receiving similar criticism.
LifeSiteNews reports:
The House’s new Speaker has unveiled a $1.67 trillion budget that fully funds Planned Parenthood for the next nine-and-a-half months.
The budget comes five months after a series of videos showed Planned Parenthood officials haggling over the price of unborn baby parts, as well as appearing to discuss illegal partial-birth abortions and illegal modifications to abortion.
Warren Throckmorton of Patheos informs us that shamed former pastor Mark Driscoll is in the process of starting a new church in Phoenix, AZ. In July Driscoll confirmed his move to Phoenix but said there are “no concrete plans for ongoing local church ministry as of yet.” Five months later he is listed as a director of The Trinity Church. According to Throckmorton:
The next big thing appears to be just around the corner.
Mark Driscoll is listed as a director of recently registered The Trinity Church in Phoenix, along with Randall Taylor and Jimmy Evans. The address is the same UPS store listed as the Mark Driscoll Ministries address (the church has a different box number):
Mark Driscoll Ministries 21001 North Tatum Blvd Ste 1630-527 Phoenix, AZ 85050
According to Christian Examiner:
President Obama’s indifference to Christian persecution in the Middle East is part of a “scandal of enormous proportions,” the editorial staff of the Washington Times has written in a scathing rebuke of the administration.
“Expressions of concern by the leaders of the West are few. The fact is that Christians face more persecution, in more countries, than any other religious group,” the editorial said before launching into an attack on the president’s human rights record with respect to Christian refugees from Syria.
Christian News Network reports:
A prominent Christian-identified university in Illinois has suspended an associate political science director after she posted photos of herself wearing an Islamic hijab this past week, stating that she was doing so to show solidarity with Muslims.
“Wheaton College faculty and staff make a commitment to accept and model our institution’s faith foundations with integrity, compassion, and theological clarity,” the college said in a statement on Tuesday. “As they participate in various causes, it is essential that faculty and staff engage in and speak about public issues in ways that faithfully represent the college’s evangelical Statement of Faith.”
According to Christian Examiner:
Wendy’s, Coca Cola and Walmart were among the most responsible advertisers in 2015 by supporting positive programming, while Microsoft, McDonald’s and Target were among the least responsible advertisers, according to the Parents Television Council’s annual “best and worst” advertisers list.
The companies on the “best” list demonstrated a “willingness to support positive TV programming,” while the “worst” companies “supported TV shows that routinely feature sex, violence, and profanity” and “have not responded to calls to reevaluate their sponsorship behavior,” PTC said.
The “worst” list contains some surprising names, especially for families who don’t track commercials. McDonald’s, for example, is generally thought of as a family-friendly restaurant thanks to its Happy Meals and indoor play areas. But it made the “worst” list after a one-year hiatus. It also was on the 2012 and 2013 “worst” lists.
According to Christian News Network:
A judge in Montana has halted the lawsuit of a polygamist who sought “marriage equality” after was denied a license to tie the knot with a second woman.
As previously reported, Nathan Collier, 46, went to the Yellowstone County Courthouse in July with his partner Christine to seek a second marriage license.
As the U.S. Supreme Court had just opined days earlier that homosexuals should be able to “marry,” he stated that if the court really believes in equality, then he should have the right to marry as he wishes as well. Collier cited language from dissenting Chief Justice John Roberts, who stated that the “gay marriage” ruling “would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.”
Christian Examiner reports:
In an effort to be more inclusive, Ole Miss is excluding the word “Christmas” from its annual Christmas event.
“We really wanted to change the atmosphere from last year and that would explain the name change,” Kayp Maye, co-director of special events for the university’s Student Activities Association, said in an interview with News Watch 99.
For the previous six years, the celebration has been called “A Grand Ole Christmas,” but now it will be called “Hotty Toddy Holiday,” perhaps a reference to an Ole Miss football cheer or to the beverage hot toddy.
According to Christian News Network:
A professor at a prominent Christian university in Illinois posted photos of herself wearing an Islamic hijab this past week, stating that she was doing so to show solidarity with Muslims.
Larycia Hawkins is an associate political science director at Wheaton College, one of the most renown Christian schools in the world. On Thursday, she posted two photos of herself wearing a hijab, and stated in a lengthy explanation that she plans to wear it everywhere she goes during the Advent—including at the Christian college and to church.
The Washington Post reports:
“I’m guilty,” Robert L. Dear announced at his first in-person court appearance since he allegedly fired on a busy Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs three weeks ago, killing two civilians and a police officer in the assault and subsequent shootout with police.
Dear, 57, now faces charges on 179 counts of murder, attempted murder and other crimes.
But on Wednesday, startling those in the small Colorado courtroom, a handcuffed Dear declared, “There is no trial.”
“I’m a warrior for the babies,” he said.
According to Christian Examiner
YouVersion, a digital Bible app that works on every device, just shared its 2015 statistics, including its most shared verses by country—and John 3:16 isn’t one of them.
YouVersion is celebrating its 200 million downloads, 1,200 Bible versions, and 900 languages, a staggering increase from the 12 versions and 2 languages it offered when it was launched in 2006 by LifeChurch.tv, based in Oklahoma.
What God is doing through YouVersion is incredible—changing mobile devices into Bibles that people carry with them everywhere they go,” Bobby Gruenewald, pastor and innovation leader at LifeChurch, told Christianity Today.
CNS News reports:
Chaldean and Yezidi leaders described the genocide of their people at the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to members of Congress Wednesday at a hearing on assisting victims of ISIS.
“Because we are not Muslims, and because our path is the path of peace… we are being burned alive,” Mirza Ismail, chairman of the Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International, told members of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.
Ismail went on to describe the desperate plight of the Yezidis, an indigenous ethno-religious group from Kurdistan who are being targeted by ISIS because they are not Muslim.
According to MRCtv:
Forget being transgender like Caitlyn Jenner or transracial like Rachel Dolezal, there’s a new “trans” frontier: people who are transage.
In an interview with the gay news site The Daily Xtra, Stefonknee (formerly Paul) Wolscht details his struggles with being a male-to-female transgender person.
The Daily Xtra video, however, glosses over a tiny bit of important information about Wolscht: he thinks he is actually a six year-old girl—not just a woman, but a six year-old girl—stuck in the body of a 50-something man.
Christian Research Network reports:
A street preacher in the UK who was charged with making “homophobic” remarks and was ordered to pay a fine for his speech, including to a man to whom he quoted Scripture from the book of Leviticus, has been vindicated of his conviction of causing “emotional harm.”
As previously reported, Mike Overd, a street preacher for five years, was accused of speaking against homosexuality and Islam last June and July on two separate occasions. He was leveled with two charges of using threatening and abusive words and a charge of causing racially or religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress under the Public Order Act.
According to Christian News Network:
Several homosexuals in North Carolina have filed suit to challenge a law that was passed this year that allows judges to opt out of officiating “gay weddings” because of their religious convictions.
As previously reported, S.B. 2 was introduced earlier this year by Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, to allow magistrates to recuse themselves from officiating over the services, as well as to permit register of deeds workers to opt out of issuing licenses due to religious objections.
According to Christian News Network:
The highest criminal court in Texas has ruled that it is permissible for police to form human barricades to physically block dissenters from engaging with attendees of “gay pride” events in situations where there is a possibility that the hearers might become violent.
On Wednesday, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reinstated the conviction of a preacher and a member of his congregation who had been previously found not guilty of “interfering with public duties” for crossing a barricade that was meant to separate them from attendees of a homosexual festival in Fort Worth.
Christian Examiner reports:
An irreverent Kickstarter project by NerdTalk Toys features a five-figurine nativity of Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus, an angel, and a donkey—but all of them are zombies.
“I just like to be weird and come up with crazy ideas that typically offend people,” says Ashley Gojic, founder and CEO of NerdTalk Toys, in a promotional video on the Kickstarter site.
According to John Lanagan of My Word Like Fire:
Like the saying goes, It is deja vu all over again. In 2012, the Catholic Church was scheduled to participate in the International House of Prayer’s Onething conference. While this startling information was available on Catholic sites online, there was virtually nothing about it on the IHOP-KC and Onething websites.
In 2012, Catholic participation was canceled, and this spiritual partnership never took place. In 2015, the Catholics are once again scheduled to participate at Onething, and IHOP-KC founder Mike Bickle has determined yet again to keep this information off the IHOP-KC and Onething websites.
Baptist Press reports:
In an address on a “new phase” in America’s war on terror, President Obama said committing acts of violence in the name of Allah represents a perversion of Islam.
Presenting a televised speech from the Oval Office for just the second time in his presidency, according to the Associated Press, Obama called Muslims “to speak out against … those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect and human dignity.” He called all Americans “to reject discrimination” against Muslims.
Evangelical scholars of Islam responded to both points, noting a debate among both Christians and Muslims over the compatibility of Islam and violent jihad, the Muslim term for holy war.
