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Bob Jones University is what most would call a fundamentalist school. No one, however, should think that it has low academic standards or is anti-cultural. The heavy emphasis on producing Shakespeare’s plays, the gallery of great religious art, as well as an exact replica of the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey tell us otherwise. One thing nearly all of us Protestants who have visited this beautiful and well-presented gallery cannot help noticing is the heavy preponderance, not only of Roman Catholic artists, but also of specifically Catholic themes. When Bob Jones, Jr. was challenged with the question, “Why do you...

Beloved I AM your Kingdom for ALL resides in me, Therefore I AM your Being "Zion" Do You see? For I AM the Movement within You I speak you do, It is just this simple ~ Zion living and moving through you, I AM your innate Being ALL You need to see, I reside in and through you The Wellspring you set free, I AM your true existence My Kingdom can not lie, Just let go of your existence and in me rely, Not just in steps or breathing but in each beat of your heart, For its desire must...

The old argument that defends abortion now has a new twist. This time, it’s wearing a clerical collar. It’s not enough these days to champion abortion by mere reason. Trying to convince women that ending a pregnancy is actually a shame-free “positive good” is starting to ring hollow as well. So now the latest wave in promoting abortion comes from a most unlikely source. A social ethics professor of religious studies at Elon University makes her case for declaring that abortion can actually be considered Christian. Rebecca Todd Peters writes in her new book, “Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument...

Due to action of The United Methodist Church’s 2012 General Conference and to negotiation of church leaders, the General Board of Church and Society held listening sessions on the Social Principles throughout the church. From them, Church and Society learned that the Social Principles need to become “more theologically grounded, more globally relevant, and more succinct” (according to a 04/12/18 press release). Then the 2016 General Conference voted to continue Church and Society’s work in revising the Social Principles. On April 11, 2018, “The United Methodist Social Principles”/“Working Draft 1” was released. Church and Society aims to propose a complete...

Protestants cannot and must not view these events with a kind of detachment or distance, for numerous reasons. First, we cannot forget that each and every revelation of abuse is the revelation of a life-altering (and sometimes life-shattering) event for the victim and a faith-crippling moment for friends, family, and countless others. Second, given the plethora of recent sexual scandals in Evangelical churches and seminaries, the Catholic catastrophe should remind us that perhaps only the lack of an equivalent hierarchy has spared Evangelical churches from similar, systemic sin. “Our” scandals are more fragmented only because our churches are more fragmented.

The Widow's mite a PENCE to you The widows mite a Pence to you, But soon shall rise from where now it is viewed, Humility about to rise, Where wisdom lives and no demise, So watch My choice begin to show, When "others" preach a Trump to grow, Truly this Pence shall be my choice , A man of God that speaks only My voice, Luke 21:1-4Tree of Life Version Teaching in the Temple 21 Then Yeshua looked up and saw the rich dropping their gifts into the treasury box. 2 He also saw a poor widow dropping in two...

I have not forsaken you, even now you stand in my courts beside me as I in all My majesty release my justice and blessings . You see you are on display in my courts as one wise and esteemed for you know IAM and in the precipise of this revelation all of creation stands before The living God awaiting My desire for I AM All in All and this is who you know to be True and Faithfull as Creator Lord and God . Yahweh is My name and there is nothing before I AM. Therfore fear not oh...

The first Ely Pride Festival will be held this weekend (August 11).Ely Cathedral will fly the rainbow flag for the first time this year to mark the start of the city's new Pride Festival. Pride in Ely aims to celebrate people of all backgrounds, regardless of age, ethnicity, sexuality or gender. The rainbow flag will fly from the cathedral tower from Friday afternoon (August 10) ahead of the event on Saturday (August 11). The dean of the cathedral, the Very Reverend Mark Bonney, said: "I am pleased to lend my backing to this community event because it celebrates the breadth...

Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistan-born former Bishop of Rochester, has weighed into the controversy around the burqa to call for a near-total ban on full face veils, supported by former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey. The senior clergyman told the Mail on Sunday that, while a small minority of women might be choosing to cover their faces voluntarily, that there was no doubt “the burqa or niqab is being weaponised by Islamists to impose what they consider to be ‘Islamic’ character on communities, neighbourhoods and even nations.” He added: “In Britain, this has serious implications for the freedom of women, but...

A week or so ago the Vatican announced a change in the Catechism of the Catholic Church which changed the teaching regarding the capital punishment.  It was now deemed inadmissible -- whatever that means -- or no longer moral (though Scripture clearly allows this).  Now another change, perhaps more devious and clandestine than the announced change on the death penalty.  This represents the removal of one sentence and replacing it with something that is completely different, one that fails to acknowledge homosexuality to be objectively disordered and instead sympathetically suggests that homosexual tendency is not at all a choice...

In the summer of 2008, Bill Hybels stood in front of thousands of pastors and other church leaders gathered at Willow Creek Community Church and admitted his megachurch had failed. “We made a mistake,” he told the crowd gathered for the 2008 Global Leadership Summit (GLS). A detailed Willow study had found that the church had helped many people find new faith in Jesus, but had failed to teach them how to practice the spiritual disciplines needed to grow their faith. He vowed the megachurch would do be better in the future. Ten years later, Willow Creek’s leaders confessed even...

Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio has said that the German bishops’ policy, allowing for Protestant spouses of Catholics to receive Communion on a regular basis, is consistent with the laws of the Church. Cardinal Coccopalmerio— who recently retired from his post as president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, the Vatican body charged with interpretation of canon law— told Vatican Insider that the law currently allows for Protestants to receive Communion under exceptional circumstances. However, he went on to say that when a Protestant attends Mass together with a Catholic spouse, “We can honestly answer that it is an exceptional case.”...

LEXINGTON, Kentucky, Pro-homosexual dissident 'Catholic' groups see in Pope Francis' ‘changing’ of the Church’s teaching on the death penalty the hope that the Church will one day also change its teaching against homosexuality. New Ways Ministry called the change in the Catechism proof that "Church teaching can change." "It's important for Catholic advocates for LGBT equality to take note of this change because for decades Catholic opponents of LGBT equality argued that it is impossible to change church teaching. They often pointed to the fact that condemnations of same-sex relationships were inscribed in the Catechism, and so were not open...

Baltimore Rev. Jamal Bryant had strong words for the influential inner-city pastors who met with President Donald Trump on Thursday for a meeting about prison reform, job growth and other issues affecting inner cities. “This is a stain on the body of Christ. This is a stain on our community,” the pastor said in a 25-minute Periscope video Thursday night. “I need to know how all of ya’ll were smiling at that table while the whole world frowns at what this represents and what it looks like. The blood is dripping off your hands.” The pastors have been heavily criticized...

There is a dominant belief that Christianity and Christians are againt abortion. In point of fact, many Christian communities recognize several circumstances in which abortion is accepted. The fact that abortion is acceptable in some cases means that the real social question is not whether women can have abortions, but which women and for what reasons? Prenatal health, Rape, Incest, and health of the Mother – PRIM. Evidence indicates widespread consensus and acceptance among many Christian denominations that abortion for PRIM reasons is justifiable. Of the 11 Christian statements included in a 2013 Pew Research Center study, only Roman Catholics...

Over the last reporting decade the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has lost more than 1 million members or 25% of membership, now down to 3.5 million, from 4.7 million ten years ago. At this rate of decline the denomination won’t exist in 30 years or so. Newly elected ELCA bishops might be expected to address this existential crisis with fresh eyes and energy. But a recent Religion Service News interview, capably conducted by Emily McFarlan Miller, with six new women bishops shows no such interest. Instead, they seem determined to double down on the heterodox theology and political...

Glide United Methodist Church in San Francisco, California, may be on the brink of breaking away from the UMC. The church, as a whole, has systematically distanced itself from the governance and theological beliefs long held by the UMC, and yet has still clung to the title of being a United Methodist congregation, according to Bishop Minerva Carcaño. Bishop Carcaño addressed an open letter to the California-Nevada Conference, outlining issues within Glide that she found to be troubling. She described Glide’s “Sunday Celebrations” as “uplifting concerts,” which “lack the fundamentals of Christian worship.” She went on to write that the congregants don’t want...

Biblical worship invades the human soul. It is the soul that too often has been banished from modern worship. We are a people preoccupied with self-image, self-esteem, and self-gratification. Yet in all this we don’t even know what a “self” is. The human soul is in exile from our thinking. No wonder, then, that it is not considered relevant to worship. Heaven is too distant to contemplate. Our lives are lived within the restricted boundaries of our terrestrial horizon. We have so despised the notion of pie in the sky that we have lost our taste for it altogether. But...

The Uniting Church in Australia's Assembly voted Saturday to change the denomination's definition of marriage and allow ministers to officiate weddings for same-sex couples. In a statement posted on the Church's website, Uniting Church in Australia President Deidre Palmer announced the changes that were made by the 265-member assembly that gathered in Melbourne, saying: "To honor the diversity of Christian belief among our members, we will hold two equal and distinct statements of belief on marriage." The first statement of belief regarding marriage is one that the Uniting Church has been following for a long time. "The existing statement of...

LONDON -- The oldest Methodist chapel in the world is about to be the site of an LGBT “celebration,” in direct contradiction of Scripture and the chapel’s own founder. On Saturday, the pro-homosexual group Christians At Bristol Pride will hold a “Service of Celebration” at The New Room in John Wesley’s chapel in London, Christian Concern reports. The chapel was built in 1778 under the direction of English theologian John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. The pro-gay group says the event will be “an affirming service with songs, prayers and symbolic actions,” after which attendees will be invited to attend...