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  • MAG Church disaffiliates from Assemblies of God over Chi Alpha abuse scandal
    on March 25, 2024 at 8:23 pm

    Former Assemblies of God pastor J.R. Armstrong of MAG Church in Orange, Texas, announced that his congregation recently voted to follow in his footsteps to disaffiliate from the world's largest Pentecostal denomination amid a sexual abuse scandal impacting its Chi Alpha Campus Ministries. #MAGChurch #ChiAlpha #DanielSavala #SexAbuse #Disaffiliation #Pentecostal #Clergyabuse #JRArmstrong

  • Trump agrees to pay $175 million bond in fraud case
    on March 25, 2024 at 7:06 pm

    A state appeals court released an order Monday that Trump, who along with his company and top executives had been ordered to pay a judgment of $464 million after being found guilty of fraud, will have the judgment paused if he can pay a $175 million bond within the next 10 days. Trump indicated on social media that he plans to do so. #Trump #fraud #NewYork #TrumpOrganization #appealscourt #TruthSocial #president

  • Planet Fitness staffer accompanied man in woman's locker room, ex-member says
    on March 25, 2024 at 6:34 pm

    A woman who lost her Planet Fitness membership after recording a video of a queer-identifying man shaving in the women's locker room claims she was told that a staffer has since accompanied the man while he used the women's facilities following the viral encounter.  #PlanetFitness #womenslockerroom #transgender #genderidentity #womensspaces

  • Healthcare workers continue legal battle against Maine's COVID-19 vaccine mandate
    on March 25, 2024 at 5:10 pm

    A group of Maine healthcare workers is appealing the dismissal of their lawsuit against the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which they believe violated their religious freedom rights. #Maine #vaccine #mandate #COVID19 #healthcare #religiousliberty #LibertyCounsel

  • Major US chains to close on Easter, giving employees the day off
    on March 25, 2024 at 3:57 pm

    As believers across the United States prepare for Easter, one of the most celebrated holidays on the Church calendar, several major U.S. store chains plan to close on the holiday, giving employees the day off.  #Easter #Chains #Stores #Closures #Target #Marshalls #Walmart #ChristianHoliday

  • Christians in India facing surge in attacks ahead of elections
    on March 25, 2024 at 2:47 pm

    A prominent civil society group has sounded the alarm over a surge in attacks and discrimination against Christians across India, raising concerns about the erosion of fundamental rights and protections for religious minorities ahead of the upcoming general elections. #India #Christianpersecution #Indiaelections

  • Nicaragua again bans Holy Week processions amid crackdown
    on March 25, 2024 at 1:56 pm

    Nicaragua has banned the Catholic Church’s public Holy Week celebrations for a second straight year amid other repressive measures that have included Protestant organizations. #HolyWeek #Easter #Nicaragua #Persecution #Catholic #Christianpersecution #Ortega #DanielOrtega

  • France raises terror alert level after deadly Moscow attack by ISIS-K kills over 130
    on March 25, 2024 at 1:08 pm

    France has escalated its terror alert to the highest level following the Islamic State’s claim of orchestrating a devastating attack in Moscow, Russia, which resulted in the death of at least 137 individuals. #France #TerrorAlert #IslamicState #ISISK #Attack #Moscow #Fatalities #Deaths #PrimeMinisterGabrielAttal #ParisOlympics #Security #PresidentEmmanuelMacron

  • 'RuPaul's Drag Race' star accused of multiple sexual assaults: report
    on March 25, 2024 at 11:47 am

    A former "RuPaul's Drag Race" contestant known as "Shangela," who attended a 2022 LGBT pride event at Vice President Kamala Harris' residence, has been accused of sexual assault by five people between the ages of 18 and 23.  #dragshow #dragqueen #KamalaHarris #LGBT #RuPaulDragRace

  • From pizza to burgers: What Chick-fil-A's spinoff restaurants have on their menus
    on March 25, 2024 at 11:45 am

    The popular American fast-food restaurant Chick-fil-A is already one of the largest chains in the country, but the company also operates five spinoff restaurant brands that offer unique items not on the standard Chick-fil-A menu.  #ChickfilAmenu #chickfila #ChickfilAmenu #ChickfilA #fastfood #restaurantchain #chickensandwich


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  • The Myth Behind the Meaning of Paul’s Words on Women and Childbearing
    by Madison N. Pierce on March 25, 2024 at 4:00 pm

    Sandra Glahn studies the record of an Ephesian goddess to aid our reading of a challenging passage. As a female New Testament scholar, I simply do not have the luxury of avoiding 1 Timothy 2:11–15, where Paul, after stating that women should “learn in quietness and full submission,” claims they “will be saved through childbearing.” The “saved through childbearing” verse has been quoted to me by more strangers and (possibly) well-meaning acquaintances than any other, but one particular time stands out. I don’t remember what context could have possibly made his statement appropriate, but one day about ten years ago, a young man said in a conversation about my teaching, “Well, you are saved through childbearing.” In this instance, I was in a position of authority over him, and I could tell that his “joke” sought to return me to my rightful place. “Then I guess I am not saved,” I quipped back, knowing that his interpretation of this verse depended on my literal procreation. I also knew, unlike him, that my body was giving many signs that I might never bear a child. (As a side note, by God’s grace, I eventually did become somebody’s mother.) My story provides a minute glimpse into the horrendous ways that women have been hurt by the misuse of 1 Timothy 2:11–15, and in the introduction to her recent book Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament, Sandra L. Glahn gives a heartbreaking picture of her experiences with infant loss as well as encounters with this text in cultures where it stands supreme in determining how women might participate in the church. She, like I, internalized messages about womanhood and how the worth of women is measured. There must be many arrows in our quivers, they ...Continue reading...

  • How One Indonesian Church Is Fighting Food Insecurity
    by Philip Situmorang in Gunungkidul Regency, Indonesia on March 22, 2024 at 3:00 pm

    In the village of Kemadang, long dry spells threatened local farmers’ livelihoods until a church-led granary brought hope. Standing in her rice field in the rural village of Kemadang along the southern coast of Java, 53-year-old Marni Mariani pointed to the dry soil at her feet. “This is the land that we will harvest in three weeks,” she said. Yet due to the lack of rain this season, two of her four rice fields have already failed. She noted that she doesn’t sell the rice harvest from her plot, which measures 32 by 49 feet, but rather that the food is for her family to eat. “But sometimes if there is a famine and the harvest is small, we are forced to buy [rice] from outsiders,” she said. “That’s what burdens us here.” Yet since 2020, Marni hasn’t needed to worry about buying rice at a high price. Her 70-year-old neighbor, Mbah Gepeng Harjo, also no longer struggles to buy the expensive seeds and fertilizer he needs to cultivate the rice fields that he tends to. (Mbah means “old man.”) That’s because of an innovative church-run granary program created by local pastor Kristiono Riyadi of Kemadang Javanese Christian Church that seeks to maintain community food reserves, especially during times of drought. It provides a grain savings and loan program and a produce buyback program. It also sells seeds at an affordable price. The granaries are a local solution to tackling food insecurity in Indonesia, a widespread problem facing nearly 1 out of every 10 Indonesians and that is only increasing as the climate becomes more unpredictable. The poverty rate in the regency of Gunungkidul, where Kemadeng is located, is about 16 percent, with about 6,000 families living in extreme poverty. The church also sees their work as an outreach to share the love of God to the community by helping with ...Continue reading...

  • From Passion to the Pews, Major Conferences Inspire Local Worship
    by Kelsey Kramer McGinnis on March 22, 2024 at 2:56 pm

    Arena events serve as the proving grounds for new music. The 2024 Passion conference opened with a countdown video. The crowd of 55,000 students packed into Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta cheered with anticipation. What would the first song be? Who would lead it? What was the Holy Spirit about to do? Flashing lights and a drum track led into the opening of Elevation Worship’s “Praise,” with the chant, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” Worship artist Brandon Lake and a team of singers emerged on the stage. After days of music and teaching, during the final session of the conference, attendees and leaders were surprised by a spontaneously extended worship session. Most people don’t get to worship with a crowd of 55,000 on a regular basis. That immersive experience is one reason thousands of Christians travel to events like Passion, Worship Together, and Sing! each year. These conferences also serve as settings where worshipers encounter and fall in love with new music. Though the stage production and arena energy isn’t replicable in their local contexts, the songs themselves are: Recent research found that worship leaders are more likely to use a new song if they encounter it at a live event. These events are the latest iteration of practices that have a long history in the church: pilgrimage and temporarily gathered corporate worship. Christians in Europe during the Middle Ages walked miles from shrine to shrine to venerate saintly relics and temporarily adopt the monastic practice of living a life set apart for devotion and worship. Before stadium sets and big screens with lyrics, 19th-century tent revivals attracted participants with passionate preaching and spirited music, which often fused new refrains set to folk tunes with ...Continue reading...

  • Why Character Doesn’t Matter Anymore
    by Russell Moore on March 22, 2024 at 2:00 pm

    The “cheerful prudery” of Ned Flanders has given way to vulgarity, misogyny, and partisanship. What does this mean for our witness? This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here. I guess Ned Flanders goes to strip clubs now. Until this week, I hadn’t thought about the caricatured born-again Christian neighbor on the animated series The Simpsons in a long time. New York Times religion reporter Ruth Graham mentioned him and his “cheerful prudery” as examples—along with Billy Graham and George W. Bush—of what were once the best-known evangelical Christian figures in the country. Indeed, a 2001 Christianity Today cover story dubbed the character “Saint Flanders.” Evangelical Christians knew that Ned’s “gosh darn it” moral demeanor was meant to lampoon us, and that his “traditional family values” were out of step with an American culture this side of the sexual revolution. But Ned was no Elmer Gantry. He actually aspired to the sort of personal devotion to prayer, Bible reading, moral chastity, and neighbor-love evangelicals were supposed to want, even if he did so in a treacly, ultra-suburban, middle-class North American way. As Graham points out, were he to emerge today, Flanders would face withering mockery for his moral scruples—but more likely by his white evangelical co-religionists than by his beer-swilling secular cartoon neighbors. As Graham says, a raunchy “boobs-and-booze ethos has elbowed its way into the conservative power class, accelerated by the rise of Donald J. Trump, the declining influence of traditional religious institutions and a shifting media landscape increasingly dominated by the looser standards of online culture.” (This article you are reading right now represents something of this shift, as I spent upward of 15 ...Continue reading...

  • Southern Baptists Finally Name New Executive Committee President
    by Bob Smietana - Religion News Service on March 22, 2024 at 1:04 pm

    Seminary head Jeff Iorg steps in after multiple resignations, failed searches, and back-to-back interim leaders. After more than two years of uncertainty and at times, chaos, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee has a new president. At a special meeting in Dallas, members of the committee—which oversees the work of the 13 million-member denomination in between its annual meetings—unanimously elected Jeff Iorg as its new president and CEO. The meeting was held in executive session, and Iorg’s election was announced in the early afternoon on Thursday. Iorg, longtime president of Gateway Seminary, a Southern Baptist school in Ontario, California, is well respected in Southern Baptist circles for his steady and low-key approach to leadership. In a press conference following his election, Iorg said he would focus on earning trust in his new role. “Organizational trust is earned by two things: sacrificial service and demonstrated competence,” said Iorg, 65, who will begin his new role in May, after Gateway’s school year ends. “You don’t gain trust by asking people to trust you. You gain trust by doing the right thing, serving sacrificially and demonstrating competence. And people trust organizations that do that.” Iorg is the Executive Committee’s first permanent leader since 2021 and its third since 2018. His predecessor, Ronnie Floyd, resigned in October 2021 after a two-year tenure overshadowed by the SBC’s sexual abuse crisis. Floyd’s predecessor, Frank Page, resigned in 2018 for misconduct. Finding a new leader for the committee was an arduous process. Committee members had hoped to approve a different candidate—Georgia Baptist leader Thomas Hammond—in February, but Hammond withdrew at the last moment. In May of 2023, the committee voted ...Continue reading...

  • Must Social Service Providers Nix Their Faith to Receive Federal Funds?
    by Carl H. Esbeck on March 21, 2024 at 6:05 pm

    Rather than follow the equal protections secured in Supreme Court decisions, the Biden administration opted for a complicated and soul-killing alternative. Nine federal departments have issued new regulations governing social service grants for a range of programs including drug rehabilitation; assisting penitentiary inmates reentering their communities; sheltering the homeless; aiding needy families with dependent children; settling refugees; and providing overseas lifesaving aid in response to natural disasters, war, famine, and public health crises. The regulations take effect on April 4, 2024, governing tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds. And they represent a threat to the many Christian ministries that have long provided these social services with the help of federal grants while maintaining their religious identity and mission. Rather than follow the rule of equal treatment secured in recent Supreme Court decisions, the Biden administration opted for outdated and unwieldy alternatives that will entangle the government in the work of religious nonprofits offering social services. Since the 1996 welfare reform enacted in the Clinton administration, faith-based organizations have been invited to compete on an equal basis for social service grants under the “Charitable Choice” act sponsored by former senator John Ashcroft. At the time, it seemed foolish for federal grants to exclude community-serving organizations that were already embedded in depressed neighborhoods via churches and storefront outlets, and whose mercy workers were known to the poor and trusted by those they were serving. These ministries of hope had a holistic approach that proved especially effective for addressing certain afflictions. Early in 2001, then-president George W. Bush created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to nurture the idea. The hope was that ...Continue reading...

  • Why Every Day This Week Is Holy
    by Ruth Jackson on March 21, 2024 at 5:00 pm

    Christians should celebrate from Palm to Easter Sunday—and everything in between. As a child, my twin and I would often stage elaborate bake-offs during the school holidays. One year, I made an Easter cake with three chocolate crosses and a crown of thorns. I drowned these elements in large pools of jammy blood. Sure, it was gratuitously gruesome—and I’m not surprised my sister’s saccharine fluffy chick cupcakes were the favored choice. But from an early age, I have shirked the propensity to avoid the grittiness of Easter. To me, its bloodiness is the very reason the Cross brings so much hope. Many Christians around the world will celebrate Palm Sunday this weekend to commemorate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Some 2,000 years ago, crowds of Jews laid out palm branches on public streets to welcome their “Messiah”—the conquering king who they believed would overthrow the Roman government and liberate them from its hostile occupation. While many oppressed people today still desperately need this kind of physical deliverance, Jesus’ journey did not end there. Instead, his road to Jerusalem culminated in the Cross, which brought an entirely different kind of liberation. Palm Sunday marks the start of Holy Week, the days leading up to Jesus’ betrayal, death, and resurrection. It is a period from the ancient church calendar when Christians look forward to the victory of Easter Sunday with joyful anticipation. But it is also a time of great sorrow—marked by suffering, betrayal, and brokenness. And because of this, it speaks powerfully to those whose countries, relationships, or mental health situations are increasingly unstable. In a world desperately in need of hope, we cannot just brush past the anguish of Holy Week and ...Continue reading...

  • Make the Internet Modest Again
    by Hannah Anderson on March 21, 2024 at 2:00 pm

    We gained an audience but overexposed our souls. Ten years ago, I published my first book. Like many of my peers, my work draws from personal experience and uses elements of memoir. After all, I became a writer in the heyday of confessional blogging when Glennon Doyle and Jen Hatmaker were writing from their kitchen tables about the struggles of domestic life and womanhood. The first blog I ever read described the pain of childbirth in all its gory detail. But that openness is nothing compared to the kind of self-exposure that today’s platforms demand. As blogs gave way to social media, content became both more staged and, ironically, more intimate. Instead of writing from the kitchen table, influencers go live from their kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms. Nothing is off-limits. Audiences are invited to ride the dramatic arc of personal relationship, sexual experience, and religious doubt. Together, we celebrate milestones in the lives of children we don’t even know. In publishing, the pressure to expose one’s personal life is rooted in the author’s need to drive sales through online presence and platform—what has been deemed the “personal brand.” Writer Jen Pollock Michel, whose career mirrors mine, recently confessed that she’s considering stepping back, not from writing but from book publishing, because “there are fewer and fewer ways to publicize a book that don’t look self-promotional.” All of this makes for a deeply immodest publishing culture—one in which self-exposure is deemed a virtue. To name authorial self-promotion as a problem of modesty may strike you as misplaced. It’s gimmicky, to be sure, maybe even cringe as the kids say, but immodest? Part of the ...Continue reading...

  • Fasting from Food in a Land of Plenty
    by Jeanne Whitlock on March 20, 2024 at 5:00 pm

    Abstaining from eating confronts the cultural lies we believe about our bodies. I stood frozen in the cereal aisle. On either side of me were thousands of boxes and bags of breakfast grains stretched out row after row, in scores of varieties: Vitamin fortified! Extra marshmallows! Cinnamon clusters with organic wheat germ for twice your daily fiber! For the past four and a half years, I’d been living in another country, limited to the street of local food vendors near my house. I’d walk up and down the market past wriggling eels in gallon buckets, steaming dumplings from a little chrome cart, and gritty bundles of bok choy heaped on a card table. I’d buy only what I could fit in my bags and carry back home on foot. Now, just after moving back to America, I was paralyzed by the excess surrounding me at my local grocery store. A land of plenty is a strange place to fast from food. And not just because many of us have not known of fasting by necessity, but also because of our underlying cultural assumptions. On one hand, we embrace the indulgence of hedonism—what the body wants, it must have. We enthrone desire as the highest good, give in to every craving, and let it enslave us. And as a rule, our pleasures are designed for excess. Just as streaming companies encourage binging and smartphones aim for addiction, a lot of what we eat is scientifically engineered to addict us. It’s hard to rightly order our appetites when they have been manipulated by global food conglomerates that profit from excess. On the other hand, we embrace a modern-day iteration of Gnosticism. Strongly influenced by Platonic and dualist philosophies, we split the physical from the spiritual in a false dichotomy. We elevate the supernatural realm as purer and truer than the corporeal—which ...Continue reading...

  • Harnessing the Power of Europe’s Migrant Churches
    by Interview by Bruce Barron on March 20, 2024 at 3:00 pm

    A seminary professor from Sierra Leone shares how African arrivals are changing the church in Belgium and the rest of the continent. Joseph Bosco Bangura is out to reshape how we think about migrant churches. For more than 25 years, he has been exploring how new Christian movements open up opportunities to engage with and transform societies. Bangura’s research on the growing Pentecostal movement in his home country of Sierra Leone revealed both its popular appeal and the creative ways charismatic and Pentecostal churches have accommodated indigenous African religious traditions. Now he’s turning his focus to the impact of migrant churches in Europe. Bangura, who teaches missiology at the Evangelical Theological Faculty (ETF) in Belgium and Protestant Theological University (PThU) in the Netherlands and also pastors a migrant church, spoke with CT about the opportunities and challenges facing migrant congregations in secularized European societies. What motivated you to study migrant churches in Europe? There is always a connection between people’s mobility and the spread of their faith. Any time the Jews migrated—in fact, it is from them that we have the term diaspora—something happened to their faith. The same was true in the early church. They didn’t go immediately; persecution brought about their dispersal. Migration inevitably coincides with the spread of the gospel. It widens the possibility of bringing new aspects of the faith to places where they were not initially known. In Western Europe today, there is a greater awareness among indigenous [i.e., white European] churches of the missionary implications of migrant communities. What can they do for the configuration of the church in a secular Europe? They might be the lifeline for the survival of the faith in a secularized world. Mission organizations are taking the ...Continue reading...