Christian Newswire reports:
The Virginia Coalition for Life, in partnership with The Radiance Foundation, has launched a bold ad campaign to challenge the abortion industry and the culture of fatherlessness that it has fostered. Throughout October in the Hampton Roads area, 21 billboards and over 100 bus and light rail posters will declare the message: “Fatherhood Begins in the Womb”
Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, challenges ministers of the gospel who are more than willing to empower congregants who don’t want accountability, but affirmation. In Moore’s view, “If you have a church member who has been warned or disciplined by another pastor or church, you have a responsibility to investigate what’s going on.”
A new study shows that Hollywood has included a significant number of gay, lesbian and bisexual characters into its programming in what many people see as an effort to normalize sexual perversion. The study, “Where We Are on TV,” reported that “4.4 percent of actors appearing regularly on prime-time network drama and comedy series during the 2012-13 season will portray lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender characters. This is up from 2.9 percent in 2011, which saw a dip in what had been a growing annual trend.”
With the American presidential election still over a month away, many Christians find themselves conflicted as to how they can or ought to vote. The question on many believers’ minds is: Is it okay for a Christian to vote for a Mormon? Seeking to present differing opinions on this topic, CRN already has shared articles that may answer this question in the negative. Here, Dr. John MacArthur offers a contrasting view and his input on the issue.
Pastor and Bible expositor John MacArthur recently lamented the fact that the Democrat party has adopted the sins of Romans 1 as their platform. Though MacArthur typically refrains from preaching politics, in this election season it seems that “politicians have stepped—overstepped—into spiritual and moral areas, promoting horrific wickedness and blasphemous immorality.” God’s Word is neither silent nor ambiguous about these things.
Paolo Gabriele claims he was “divinely inspired to bring the church back on the right track” by leaking copies of sensitive papers to an Italian journalist. UPI now reports that Gabriele “testified in a Vatican courtroom Tuesday his jail cell was so cramped that he couldn’t extend his arms and that the light was never turned off during his first 20 days of detention before he was transferred to a larger cell.”
A coalition of African American clergy announced that they cannot support either political parties so they have formed the New Independent Christian Party. According to their website they intend to “promote Christian values and address the issues and concerns in the forefront of American lives” and “advocate for the Christian agenda and rights.” In a press release they state:
There does not exist a reliable political party that purely represents the overall Christian agenda in America. We can neither ignore the overwhelming contrast to our Godly principles of the marriage equality and abortion rights agendas, which the Democrats strongly support, nor can we be oblivious to the arrogant, greedy, unsympathetic Pharisaic practices of the Republicans.
Baptist Press reports:
President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney differ on a wide range of significant issues, with abortion being among the most substantial.
They are so far apart, in fact, that Obama’s campaign made abortion an issue in campaign TV ads and at the Democratic National Convention, where at least 25 speakers referenced Obama’s pro-choice and Romney’s pro-life views.
Joseph Backholm, executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, points out that 39 percent of Protestants support same-sex marriage, and this puts them on the wrong side of the debate. “For a Christian,” says Backholm, “the inability to get this question right brings into serious question the ability to get anything right, biblically speaking. You can’t do calculus if you don’t know how to add or subtract.” He believes the job of church leadership is to train the church to think biblically about everything.
At the Truth for a New Generation apologetics conference that begins Friday, politics will take center stage when Dinesh D’Souza, president of The King’s College and co-producer of the film, 2016: Obama’s America, will participate in a Q & A with leading apologist Alex McFarland following a screening of the movie. According to McFarland, “People who haven’t seen the movie may ask, ‘What does this have to do with Christian apologetics?’ It has a lot to do with biblical worldview and the freedom that we have in America.”
Marsha West addresses the use of profanity and crude examples some pastors employ to drive home a theological point. She begins:
There seems to be a growing trend in the Church for the clergy to feed the sensual appetite through their sermons. What we are dealing with are pastors who have dirty minds and potty mouths. The word that best describes them is profane.
The Christian Post reports:
Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church was hospitalized Tuesday after experiencing pain in his arms.
The renowned Southern California pastor will be undergoing a series of tests to determine what the cause is though the doctor’s “diagnostic guess” is that he has an inner ear virus that may have spread to the nerves in his neck and down his arms.
Tim Challies reports on Lakeland: The Movie, a documentary about Todd Bentley and the Lakeland Revival. During the so-called revival it was alleged that great manifestations of the work of the Holy Spirit were occuring. Bentley and his crew claimed that the sick were getting healed and around 30 people were raised from the dead, but not a single miracle could be verified.
This documentary,” said Challies, “made me both angry and sad. I was outraged to see Bentley’s complete disregard for Scripture, his disregard for what the Bible tells us about the miraculous gifts, about maintaining good order in services, about so much else. What made me sad were the many looks at the people who had followed Bentley. There were many people, well-intentioned, I am sure, who gave up everything they had to follow him.”
Knox News reports:
To the surprise of few who follow religion closely but to the chagrin of many even casual observers, researchers at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life documented a disturbing rise in restrictions on religion in the United States between mid-2009 and mid-2010. The U.S. was one of only 16 countries to record a rise in both government restrictions and social hostility toward religion. This was the first time in the course of Pew’s research the U.S. saw a rise in both measures.