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Every once in a while, someone of note questions or denies the classic Christian belief of a literal hell with eternal, conscious suffering. Then a debate rages and becomes personal between representatives of various perspectives on the issue... Hell is real and terrible. It is eternal. There is no possibility of amnesty or reprieve. Daniel says that some of the dead will be resurrected “to shame and everlasting contempt.” Jesus says, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment.” Paul tells...

(CHRISTIANPOST) — A Texas megachurch pastor recently claimed that President Barack Obama’s re-election victory would lead to the rise of the Antichrist. Robert Jeffress, senior pastor at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, made remarks on Sunday before the election that should Obama win, his victory would lead to the reign of the Antichrist. “I want you to hear me tonight, I am not saying that President Obama is the Antichrist, I am not saying that at all. One reason I know he’s not the Antichrist is the Antichrist is going to have much higher poll numbers when he comes,”...

The executive director of GeorgiaCarry.org, a state gun rights group, took to the airwaves yesterday on Atlanta’s NBC 11 Alive to weigh in on Wednesday’s shooting at Pastor Creflo Dollar's World Changers Church International, a College Park megachurch. Jerry Henry faced questions from news anchor Ted Hall and assertions by disarmament advocate State Senator Donzella James to explain why his group believes the choice should be left to the churches. Henry’s group is leading a fight to overturn a state law dictating disarmament, and has submitted a petition to the United States Supreme Court, presenting a single question: "Does a...

COLORADO SPRINGS, October 22, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Ted Haggard, the megachurch leader whose dalliances with a male prostitute toppled him from his church in 2006, has now endorsed same-sex “marriage.” “I don’t think the state has any role dictating or mandating” morality, he said. “Though we would oppose that in our churches, [same-sex weddings] should be allowed by the state.” Haggard, who founded the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, served as president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) until he admitted that he paid male prostitute Mike Jones for sex, used crystal meth, and viewed pornography featuring...

I was on a conference call yesterday regarding intelligence gathered from a highly placed source that liberal Obama surrogates are planning to target Evangelical mega-church parking lots with bigoted anti-Mormon flyers the final weekend before the election in key battleground states like Ohio, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Mega-church pastors are being notified to have parking lot attendants be on the lookout for such a lit drop. But please forward this post to all pastors of both Protestant and Catholic churches, particularly in battleground states. It may surprise you to learn that most of anti-Mormonism is on the LEFT, not the Right....

America’s first mega-church, defined as a congregation of 2,000 attendees or more, held services in the capitol building inside the House of Representatives. It remained there until 1868 as the congregation raised money for building a new sanctuary they could call their own. According to the diary of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States, church services were also held in the Treasury building and the Supreme Court Building. He describes the Reverend James Laurie, pastor of a Presbyterian Church, that had settled into the Treasury Building, preaching to an overflow audience in the Supreme Court Chamber,...

One night over dinner, a friend of mine told me that he had seen a very pregnant homeless woman on the corner of a busy Austin intersection. I knew the intersection he was referring to…there is a huge non-denominational church on the corner. I felt confident that she had probably received some assistance from them. Maybe they were in the process of trying to help her find resources. One of the friends with us at dinner, Heather, is the executive director of the Austin Coalition for Life, a non-profit group who holds daily vigils outside of Austin’s four abortion clinics....

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A 17,000-member megachurch deep in Oklahoma's Bible Belt has been rattled by allegations that five employees waited two weeks to report the rape of a 13-year-old girl in a campus stairwell, allegedly by a church worker. Tulsa police say the girl is among at least three victims of alleged sex crimes by two former employees of Victory Christian Center who face criminal charges. A child crimes investigator says more victims could surface as police continue to investigate. Authorities, however, fear some parishioners in the large, tight-knit south Tulsa congregation may choose to pray about the allegations...

Preaching magazine editor Michael Duduit takes on the challenging task of naming the most important preachers from the recent past. When Preaching magazine was launched in 1985, a look at our list of contributing editors gave you a sense of who would be listed among the most influential preachers in America. That original group included Stuart Briscoe, Maxie Dunnam, Jim Henry, David Allan Hubbard, John Huffman, D.E. King, James Earl Massey, Calvin Miller, Lloyd John Ogilvie, Stephen F. Olford, Haddon Robinson, J. Alfred Smith, John Wesley White and William Willimon, along with several more.Thankfully, many of those preachers are still...

Salaries for megachurch pastors have increased over the last two years after a short period of stagnation, a new report reveals. According to the 2012 Large Church Salary Report by Leadership Network, senior pastor salaries rose about 2 percent per year for the last two years. These pastors were found, for the most part, to be leading growing churches. The study is the largest-scale project of its kind. Leadership Network has been conducting salary surveys of large churches since 2001. "We were the pioneers in doing so," said Warren Bird, director of Research and Intellectual Capital Development at Leadership Network,...

ATLANTA (AP) — Megachurch pastor and televangelist Creflo Dollar was arrested early Friday after authorities say he slightly hurt his 15-year-old daughter in a fight at his metro Atlanta home. Fayette County Sheriff's deputies responded to a call of domestic violence at the home in unincorporated Fayette County around 1 a.m., Investigator Brent Rowan said. The 50-year-old pastor and his daughter were arguing over whether she could go to a party when Dollar "got physical" with her, leaving her with "superficial injuries," Rowan said. Dollar faces misdemeanor charges of simple battery and cruelty to children. He bonded out of Fayette...

Much has been made about Mormonism, now that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney looks to be on his way to the Republican presidential nomination. But should he win the general election in November, would it be accurate to say that Romney is a Christian president? On Sunday’s “This Week” on ABC, fill-in host Jake Tapper posed the question of Romney’s religion to Rick Warren, the pastor of the California mega-church, Saddleback Church. “Mitt Romney will almost certainly be the Republican nominee and if that happens, which it looks like it will, he’ll be the first member of Church of Jesus...

The bankrupt megachurch is to be sold to the Diocese of Orange.GARDEN GROVE – Crystal Cathedral's head pastor spoke optimistically about the future of her iconic megachurch at Sunday morning services, telling a congregation of about 400 that it was not too late to ask God to intervene and stop the church's impending sale to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange. Senior Pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman, the daughter of the church's founder, offered a prayer thanking God for "intentionally delaying" a miracle, and indicated that the bankrupt church would continue to pray and wait for God to reveal His final...

Portland, OR - Black-clad demonstrators gathered in front of the Mars Hill Church in Southeast Portland this morning to protest the church's stance on homosexuality. About 20 protesters lined Southeast Taylor Street carrying flags and shouting obscenities as church-goers left when the service ended. "Shame on you bigots," one woman yelled at worshippers as they left. "Shame on you homophobes. You're not welcome here. You're going to burn in hell." She declined to comment for this story. Brad Salyers came to Mars Hill from Wilsonville Sunday with his wife and two young children. . It was his first visit to...

The Crystal Cathedral, seeking a way to resolve its debt woes, will sell its church and 40-acre campus for $46 million to an Orange County developer, according to the federal bankruptcy plan filed Friday. Greenlaw Partners of Newport Beach will buy the property in Garden Grove, Calif., and plans to build apartments on the land, the Chapter 11 exit plan filed at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana disclosed. The real estate developer will lease the property back to Crystal Cathedral for $212,000 a month and guarantee exclusive lease rights for 15 years, according to the reorganization plan. The church...

On February 9, the Let’s Move! anniversary, the First Lady will deliver a major address focused specifically on the campaign’s efforts to meet the needs of parents. Mrs. Obama will reach out to parents to commend them for the impact they have had on fundamentally shifting the conversation on childhood obesity this year. In a speech hosted by North Point Community Church and Ray of Hope Christian Church at North Point’s congregation in Alpharetta, Georgia, Mrs. Obama will share personal reflections about how she came to this issue, discuss the issues parents deal with, and what has been achieved together.

On 18 October 2010, Southern California's landmark Crystal Cathedral, the prototype of all late 20th Century American Megachurches, filed for bankruptcy. I drove up the following Sunday to get a look at the place while it was still in operation. The Crystal Cathedral proper, a spectacular glass structure designed by Philip Johnson and completed in 1980, dominates a landscaped campus that includes the congregation's original church building, designed by Richard Neutra, Richard Meier's "Welcoming Center", and a variety of other buildings, reflecting pools and religiously themed statuary. A German tourist prevailed on me to take a picture of him and...

Around 2,000 ministers and religious leaders are expected to attend Glenn Beck’s “Divine Destiny” event Friday night ahead of the television and radio personality's more publicized “Restoring Honor” rally on Saturday. Beck will hold Friday’s faith-based event at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington to rally conservatives of different faiths around their shared values, principles and strong belief that faith can play an essential role in reuniting the country. “Whether we care to believe it or not, our country is in our danger’s hour,” says Beck. ”And there’s only one answer.” For the event, Beck spent the past year...

"Everybody sing ee-oo," declaims the clean-cut thirtysomething at the front of the vast auditorium. Ten thousand Californian voices respond. Over a backing of soaring power chords, the soloist launches into an ecstatic, 1980s-style anthem: "If you're alive and you've been redeemed,/Rise and sing, rise and sing." Pastor Rick Warren, America's most im­portant religious leader since Billy Graham, emerges from the wings, wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, a trimmed CEO beard and a little more weight than his doctor might recommend. When he speaks, his words are as warm as the Orange County sunshine: the homily is a practical one,...

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, founder of Southern California's Crystal Cathedral megachurch and host of the "Hour of Power" televangelism broadcast, announced Sunday he will retire after 55 years in the pulpit and his daughter will take over. The 83-year-old Schuller told his congregation that Sheila Schuller Coleman will become sole lead pastor, after sharing that role with her father for the past year. Coleman previously served as principal of a private Christian school run by the cathedral and head of the Orange County church's family ministries division. She was ordained just a month before she...