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WASHINGTON, D.C., August 13, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray admitted Monday that he made the final decision to remove gospel singer Donnie McClurkin from the lineup of performers at a city-sponsored concert held Saturday at the Martin Luther King memorial in respond to complaints by gay activists. McClurkin was to have been a headline performer at the event , called “Reflections on Peace: Ghandi to King,” which marked the beginning of a planned series of events to commemorate King’s life during the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s “I Have a Dream” speech. But...

Homosexual activists and advocates often state that they merely want recognition and certain legal rights, and that churches and other objectors to their life style remain free to have their opinions and state them in a free culture. And any expressed fears regarding compulsory recognition or punitive measures directed against objectors are dismissed as fear mongering.Never mind that these fears are based in real experiences in Canada and Europe where clergy have been arrested and fined for presenting the biblical case against homosexuality in the pulpits of their own churches or the pages of their bulletins.In the end we who...

He writes: - A Pentecostal church in the favela is located in front of the place the Pope spoke to the people. This church lead a vigil the whole night before the visit making a lot of noise and pestering the neighbours as a form of protest and resistance against the Pope’s presence in the community. When the Pope arrived, he saw the church and said “let’s go there to salute them�. He went to the church, praised the pastors, prayed a Our Father together with them saying that we all who follow Christ are His children. The church then...

Give Rachel Held Evans credit. She was able to generate a lot of discussion with her post, “Why millennials are leaving the church.” Evans’s contradictory article, however, is merely another polemic against the conservative evangelicalism she’s been battling for years. The solution to winning back? Churches just need to follow her lead and go liberal!

A misdemeanor trespassing trial for a gay Baptist minister and his partner who refused to leave a city clerk’s office after being denied a marriage license was postponed Monday when attorneys were unable to come up with an impartial jury. Attorneys for Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard and Dominique James and prosecutors questioned prospective jurors Aug. 6 in Jefferson County District Court in Louisville, Ky. After people were eliminated for various reasons, not enough remained in the jury pool for the trial to proceed. The trial was rescheduled for Nov. 25. Blanchard and James tried to apply for a marriage license in...

During a past ministry trip to Hungary, I heard a painfully familiar story. Through a translator, a tearful young woman living near Budapest explained that her Christian husband was angrily demanding her absolute submission. This included, among other things, that she clean their house according to his strict standards and that she engage in sexual acts with him that made her feel uncomfortable and dirty. This lady was not demanding her rights or trying to be disrespectful. She was a godly, humble woman who obviously wanted to please the Lord. But she had been beaten to a pulp emotionally, and...

In our time, people of faith, acting on their consciences shaped by the Judeo-Christian tradition are being accused of hate. "Hate" has got to be the most overused word of our time. If someone is politically incorrect in their views, they are often falsely accused of hate. According to Webster's, hate means "To feel great hostility or animosity toward." Some atheists took offense recently to a military chaplain's quoting of the old saying, popularized by Dwight Eisenhower, "In battle, they learned the great truth that there are no atheists in the foxholes." Some atheists in the military have taken issue...

Proverbs 29:2 King James Version (KJV) 2 When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.

No sincere follower of Jesus would ever wish hatred, violence or discrimination against anyone. But behaving in a way that honors God is not the same as declaring that God must somehow changed His mind on sin. Tutu is an ardent supporter of gay rights and said that he "would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven." "No," he said, "I would say sorry – I mean, I would much rather go to the other place. I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this." The former Archbishop may have been...

August 6, 2013 (Breakpoint) - If I asked you to name the “hot button” social issues of concern to Christians, you’d probably cite abortion and gay marriage right away. Of course, the coarse and hyper-sexualized nature of popular culture might also come to mind. But what probably wouldn’t come to mind is the high incidence of divorce. Given the clear biblical teaching on the subject and its impact on families and children, that is, to put it mildly, more than a little odd. Actually, as one Christian leader rightly puts it, our lack of attention to the subject is a...

We look back in time, and say the universe is 15 billion years old. But as every scientist knows, when we say the universe is 15 billion years old, there's another half of the sentence that we rarely bother to say. The other half of the sentence is: The universe is 15 billion years old as seen from the time-space coordinates of the earth. The key is that the Torah looks forward in time, from very different time-space coordinates, when the universe was small. Since then, the universe has expanded out. Space stretches, and that stretching of space totally changes...

The recent health care reforms of Barrack Obama is being associated with the mark of the beast 666 . A controversial section of the Health Care Reform act talked of ‘(ii) a class II device that is implantable, life-supporting, or life-sustaining’. One of the class (ii) devices is an implantable Verichip or RFID-Chip. Verichip is an inject-able identification chip that can be inserted under the skin of a human being to provide biometric verification. It is about the size of a grain of rice and holds an identification number, an electromagnetic coil for transmitting data, and a tuning capacitor all...

When evangelical preachers lose their way and turn their backs on biblical Christianity, why is it they end up in the Episcopal Church? As a preacher who traveled in the opposite direction and left the Episcopal Church 22 years ago—or I should say the Episcopal Church left me—I think I have a clue. On March 18, the Huffington Post reported that Rob Bell, the one-time evangelical pastor who rejected the core of Christian faith, has endorsed homosexual marriage. Where was that endorsement made? Surprise, surprise: Grace Cathedral, the Episcopal Cathedral of the Diocese of California. Grace Cathedral is located in...

WASHINGTON—Whenever I write sympathetically about religion, I get bombarded by tweets and notes from readers who normally agree with me but cannot abide the idea that religious belief should be seen as intellectually serious. And because I have written favorably about Pope Francis, I get more than my share of angry comments about the Catholic pedophilia scandal, which continues to haunt the church and troubles even its most loyal members. Getting lambasted doesn’t bother me. On the contrary, citizens talking back to the purveyors of opinion is a glorious aspect of free speech. But my correspondents underscore the existence of...

Question: Does the OPC use the crucifix in the church? If not, are they opposed to it? Answer: Thank you for your question. The answer is, so far as I know, the crucifix is not used in OPC churches, and here is why: 1.The Second Commandment (Ex. 20:4-6 and Deut. 5:8-10) forbids any picture or image of God, and that would include the Son of God, even as man. At any rate we do not know what Jesus looked like as there is no physical description of him. 2.The crucifix will always end up being an object of worship—regarded as...

He died because he acted like the incarnate Son of God; spoke like the incarnate Son of God What infuriated the establishment most were the claims to Lordship, the posture of authority, the exalted titles, the exercise of Messiahship, the presumed right to forgive, the way in which Jesus put himself in the center of Israel’s story, the delusions of grandeur, the acceptance of worship, and the audacity of man being God. Jesus did not die because the Jerusalem nasties couldn’t stand a souped up incarnation of Sesame Street.

Christianity is not just about being happy and feeling good and being liked by others What’s at the root of this movement to back away from moral issues? Here’s what I think is the problem. When you advocate for moral causes like protecting the unborn, or school choice, or freeing the slaves, a bunch of people are not going to like you. Christians in the time of Jesus knew that being bold about their Christian convictions would make a lot of people think bad things about them – they expected it. But young evangelicals have gotten the idea that being...

On March 13, 2013, around 12:25 pm, I was standing behind a podium in a classroom at the law school at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I was speaking there at the invitation of the school’s Federalist Society. Unexpectedly, in mid-sentence, my cell phone vibrated. I pulled it out of my pocket, flipped it open, and saw on the screen, “New Pope has been elected.� It was a text from my wife, Frankie, and was followed by similar texts from my three siblings and a phone call from my parents, who, wisely, don’t text. Seconds later, from the...

If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of...

From his website "Coming August 26: Exodus A dark stranger arrives in the middle of the night ripping open a centuries old wound in post-apocalyptic Harpers Ferry. Religious zealots have risen from the south conquering all that stands before them. Now Jason must help his fellow villagers escape to a land far away to preserve their culture and buy enough time to build a defense. Can they succeed without any technology in the face of a rugged American continent? Blogger and author Geoff Livingston confronts America’s worst fears with a world destroyed by technology and dominated by Christian fundamentalism. Don’t...

More and more my children are walking in the Beatitudes of my love for truly they are rooted in my endearment and promise of safety and rest, yet I correct the ones I love so they do not waiver from one fact "Be holy as I AM". Obedience to the fullness of my word keeps you from lack and the Leviathans of a lukewarm life. I establish all things in me for I AM HOLY and my fire(spirit) determines what is holy or chaff for the wind ! So STAND tall my children and BE in me for I AM...

I’d heard rumors that Phil Robertson, patriarch of the Louisiana family that stars in the hit TV show “Duck Dynasty,” was a faithful Christ follower. I confess I wasn’t convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. Not the least because there is always hearsay about this celebrity or that public figure, which, upon close scrutiny, turns out to be fiction. (Indeed, it’s often been said that Barack Obama is a Christian. But no true Christ follower would undermine the institution of marriage, as Obama has. And only a false-hearted Christian, like Obama, would pledge allegiance to America’s unGodly abortion-industrial complex.). Anyway, I...

Sunday, June 21, marked the 90th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial decision. The questions surrounding evolution—meaning, in particular, the origins of humans—still raise large and important questions for how we understand human nature and the doctrine of original sin. But Jason Stellman thinks that the obsession with our physical origins, though understandable, is perhaps theologically off-kilter. Where we've come from biologically is not as important as where we're heading. It's not the beginning of the journey, man—it's the destination. Stellman's The Destiny of the Species (Wipf and Stock, 2013) is a brief, rollicking, and readable apologetic, notable not...

Who is Jesus? Is He just a man? Is He just a Great Teacher? Is He just a Great Prophet, another in several sent by God over the centuries? The Biblical answer to these questions is found below. Some may believe that only the narrow-minded would not be ready to accept a universal Jesus; One popular with and accepted by all non-Christian religions. However this is not what the Bible teaches. True Belief in Christ allows room for none other. Let's look at the Scriptures and find out what the Biblical portrait of Jesus is. We learn Who Jesus is,...

A friend of mine attended a Christian college where almost all of the students, including her, grew up in non-denominational, evangelical Protestant churches. A few years after graduation, she is the only person in her graduating class who is not Roman Catholic, high Anglican or Lutheran. The town I live in has several “evangelical� Protestant colleges: on Ash Wednesday you can tell who studies at them by the ash crosses on their foreheads.Young Christians are going over to Catholicism and high Anglicanism/Lutheranism in droves, despite growing up in low Protestant churches that told them about Jesus. It’s a trend...

I’ve just returned from Heidelberg, Germany, where I joined brothers and sisters from around the world to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the Heidelberg Catechism. In addition to illuminating papers and warm fellowship, we enjoyed one of the city’s several museum exhibits celebrating the anniversary. Of special note was the Heidelberg Palace exhibit, “The Power of Faith: 450 Years of the Heidelberg Catechism.” Frederick III, ruler of the Palatinate and imperial elector, was nicknamed “the pious” by fellow princes. Embracing Reformed teaching, he was distressed with the low level of knowledge of even the basics of the Christian faith in...

You are always on my mind , As you inhibit mankind, For there can be no hint of you , Just Me through and through ~ ~ ~ A justice of true love, An eternal bond Hand ~ Ring and Dove , My Spirit and you "AS ONE", My Signet seal pressed into The Father's Will "DONE" , So ALL of us are woven together into Heaven's Tapestry "8" , The dance of The Groom and Bride is heavenly, The Father's GRACE you in Me , Together "AS ONE" with ALL 3 , Song of Songs 6:1-9 Friends 6 Where...

Two days ago, we had a couple of converts to the Catholic Faith come by the office here at Catholic Answers to get a tour of our facility and to meet the apologists who had been instrumental in their conversions. One of the two gave me a letter she received from her Pentecostal pastor. He had written to her upon his discovery that she was on her way into full communion with the Catholic Church. She asked for advice concerning either how to respond or whether she should respond at all to the letter.As I read through the multiple...

There are no curses left you see, For they all belong to me , The adversary only has a lie , Do not believe it or you may die, It is Faith in Spirit that is your cause , I Said " IT IS FINISHED " with NO pause ! It was DONE in My blood for you , An eternal covenant unbreakable through and through , I AM your hedge to every lie, Let Me remove the speck from your eye, You are "FORGIVEN" I AM your Seal ! This is an ETERNAL DEAL ! I AM the same...

R.C. Sproul: There Is No True Prophecy Today By Julio Severo According to Charisma magazine, Calvinist theologian Dr. R.C. Sproul says he was “deeply immersed” in charismatic circles in the 1960s and that after receiving about 50 false prophecies, he said to himself, “You know, I’m going to live my life by what it says in the Word, because I know the Spirit has superintended that.” So, with his bad experience with prophecy, Dr. Sproul concluded that there is no genuine gift of prophecy for today. By coincidence, his personal bad experience aligns itself with a strong theological view in...

One of my favorite stories about former Louisiana Gov. Huey Long involves one of his early political campaigns in the 1920s. While stumping in the northern part of the state, he would tell a story about waking at 6 o'clock every Sunday morning, hitching his family's old horse to a buggy, and bringing his Baptist grandparents to church. When addressing audiences in south Louisiana, he would tell the same story, only this time his grandparents were Catholic. It was an effective speech that played well to Louisiana's geographic religious divide. Once, after a rally, a local politician remarked, "Why Huey,...

NORWOOD, Mo. -- The Wright County Sheriff’s Department spent some time in church Sunday around 11:30 when a man armed with a handgun walked into First Baptist Church in Norwood and fired two shots into the floor. Church was in service at the time of the incident and two men sitting in the pews tackled the gunman to the floor. The gun sounded again when the gunman was tackled, sending a bullet to the ceiling, according to the Wright County Sheriff Glenn Adler. One of the men who tackled the gunman suffered a minor shoulder injury during the struggle. No...

Frederic C. Rich's speculative novel "Christian Nation" is about the rise of an authoritarian theocracy in the United States. The author's disclaimer calls the book a "warning" and not a prediction. But as the book's cover says, in a twist on the Sinclair Lewis novel, "It could happen here."The book opens in 2029. Greg, an ambitious lawyer who also serves as the tale's narrator, has been asked to write his memories of the circumstances and events that led to the nation's condition. Greg is a college student in 1998 when the memoir begins. At that point, he isn't too concerned...

Jan's guests are a rep from the Zionist Organization of America, Joseph Sabag, and friend of Israel, Bob Naegele. Anti-Semitism is raging in the world and particularly on U.S. college campuses. It says in Psalms 102 that when the Lord builds up Zion, He shall appear in His glory. Thus, Christians need to be paying attention but most aren't. Nor are pulpits in the Western world. As last days' events play out, Israel is almost always in the center of them. The three have a lively discussion about many issues, including why Jews are usually supportive of liberal candidates who...

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! ( Isaiah 5:20)The various reactions to the recent George Zimmerman verdict indicate just what a violent, morally inverted, topsy-turvey, ‘inmates running the asylum’ kind of world we currently live in. From the complicit silence at the White house, as boisterous gangs of young afro-American criminals beat senseless any unfortunate whites they come across, for Trayvon” of course, (without making any distinction between men, women or children), to revelations that the U.S.”Justice” department...

A Word of Breakthrough for ministries around the world ! Your Voice (ministry) is about to be , A living testimony , A SHOFAR of Spirit and Truth , No longer hampered but flowing through ~ ~ ~ So ALL IS behind you now , You have ceased to exist it is ALL ME your vow ! And so it begins "TRULY" you in Me, Woven in to My TAPESTRY , YOUR VOICE "IS MY WILL" no longer you , I WILL SPEAK AND YOU WILL DO, All that you were is gone and void, I AM YOUR ALL I...

Jim Wallis is a loosey-goosey religious leader who has been leading foolish followers out into left field in recent years. Jim used the tragedy in Sanford, Florida as an excuse to jump into the diseased depths of demagoguery where he is still trying to keep his head above the stinking, swirling water. If Jim would stop struggling, I could pull him out to safety. Jim referred to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and suggested it failed Trayvon Martin. King’s desire to have everyone judged by their character rather than the color of their skin is one of...

Many of us grew up in theological backgrounds where the psalms were known, but not sung. These theological backgrounds are anomalies throughout the history of the Church. E.F. Harrison observed that "Psalmody was a part of the synagogue service that naturally passed over into the life of the church." Calvin Stapert speaks of the fathers' "enthusiastic promotion of psalm-singing" which he says, "reached an unprecedented peak in the fourth century." James McKinnon speaks of "an unprecedented wave of enthusiasm" for the psalms in the second half of the fourth century. Hughes Oliphint Old argued that Calvin appealed to the church...

This message was put on the sign at New Era Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on Sunday, July 14, 2013.The flip side of the sign refers to a 1983 rape case for which the three black assailants are still serving time in prison.BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - New Era Baptist Church Pastor Michael R. Jordan has expressed his outrage over the George Zimmerman not guilty verdict with a bold statement on the church sign. On one side of the sign it says, “George Zimmerman jury supported white racism.” On the other, he posted a reference to the 1983 Baby Doe's rape case...

Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter's House in Dallas was admittedly shocked by the not guilty verdict given Saturday evening in the George Zimmerman case, and broke away from his normal message during the majority of the worship service on Sunday to discuss the case from the church's stage. Along with a panel of leaders in various professions, including in law and psychological counseling, and who are church members of The Potter's House, Jakes hit on a wide range of issues that the court case with its racial overtones raised. "I cannot imagine the devastation of this man and woman...

The senior pastor at Seattle’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church told followers to “raise Cain” in response to Saturday’s acquittal of George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman was accused of shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin to death nearly a year-and-a-half ago. His defense was Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. In his morning sermon, Rev. Aaron Williams said it was important for the African-American community to “not allow this to die down” and to highlight perceived “injustice” within the nation’s criminal justice system. “We should be raising Cain because if we don’t,” Rev. Williams said, “history has a way of repeating itself. “There...

Churches are beginning to add a stipulation in their bylaws that their ministers perform only traditional marriages on their premises, in response to the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage decisions in late June. Greg Erwin, a Baton Rouge attorney who represents the Louisiana Baptist Convention, the Baptist Message state paper and several Louisiana Baptist entities, said it is hard to speculate on what the decisions may mean for churches. "The ruling means the same for Louisiana churches as for churches in all states except that in states where they have banned discrimination based upon sexual orientation, churches are more at risk...

She is a political analyst, blogger, columnist and commentator. She is a Democrat who regularly contributes to USA Today, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal among other publications. She formerly served under the Clinton administration from 1993-1998 and was appointed Deputy Assistant U.S Trade Representative for Public Affairs. In an interview with Focus on the Family, she shares how she converted from atheism to Christianity. She said: “I was not looking to be a Christian. The last thing in the world I wanted to be was a Christian. I had grown up as an Episcopalian,...

You may be an evangelical and be an Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, Brethren or other. You may be Calvinist or Arminian. But we generally need more agreement on points of theology and worship if we are to live and serve together as a church. One of the ways in which churches identify themselves is by calling themselves ‘Reformed’. So - what does ‘Reformed’ mean? Historically the name comes from the period of the Reformation: ‘Reformed’ churches were those that followed Calvin rather than Luther. It is broadly accurate therefore to say that ‘Reformed’ is equivalent to ‘Calvinistic’. Men who studied under...

My love for you is endless and so must your faith in me to overcome for you as I Am the one that rebukes the enemy ,chastises My children into obedience and causes the waters of their ways to part so that My righteousness "becomes" the grounded path unto Me "their inheritance" and I AM your All . These are days of blessing for those that seek My face for I AM your Shewbread of placement "The Manna of Revelation for YOUR DAYS IN ME ", I AM THAT I AM ForEverMore. Joshua 3 New International Version (NIV) Crossing the...

Nick Palacios struggled to get his conservative Pentecostal parents to accept him as a gay evangelical Christian for nearly a decade before his family found a common ground through faith. Now, as an openly gay seminarian, the 29-year-old hopes to carve out a similar acceptance for other gays in the broader evangelical community through his role as president of the nation's first LGBT student club sanctioned by a major evangelical seminary. The group, called OneTable, formed last fall at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, one of the world's largest multi-denominational seminaries, and has attracted about three dozen students. "It quickly...

Today is the 504th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin (July 10, 1509) — and the 497th anniversary of misunderstanding Calvinists. To commemorate the event, let’s look at a recent notable example provided by The Economist. The article is out-datedly titled, “Dippers divided� and the subhead is “Where evangelicals disagree.� Where evangelicals disagree, apparently, is on whether to maintain, the “theocon� alliance in American politics between Catholics and evangelicals, who have set aside their doctrinal differences (over the Virgin Mary, for example) to take a joint stand against abortion and in favour of the traditional family. What could be...

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.(Genesis 2:23-25)There is a wedding at very near the beginning of the Bible, and a wedding at the end of it.The union of man and wife is the fundamental human relationship. Before any other relationship, father/son, Brother/brother, or...

Some 45,000 people attended a youth festival hosted by evangelist Luis Palau in Venezuela last weekend, with thousands committing to sexual purity until marriage during the event. Festival goers descended upon the bicentennial fairgrounds of Barquisimeto, Venezuela, for Juventud Libre 2013, where Palau preached about faith and change under the theme, "Venezuela, open your heart to hope." The event focused on offering an optimistic outlook for the nation's future in light of its current political and social unrest, which caused 4,000 youths to dedicate their lives to God while the crowd chanted "yes to sexual purity." "If each and everyone...

Here is what I know: God is bigger than my sin. And God is sovereign over Supreme Court decisions and shifting worldviews. He has had the first and he will have the last word on all matters of sin and grace. The Church, Christ’s bride, is a God-made institution and will sustain herself in majesty in times of persecution or revival. Context matters not. Providence will paint the walls of this worldview. Who Owns Your Heart But Jesus, the Word made flesh, will not be drawn and quartered. He came to fulfill the whole law, every jot and tittle. And...