2. The Electoral College ensures that we still have a president even if no one wins a majority of the popular vote

Former White House Counsel Peter J. Wallison argued on RealClearPolitics.com that the Electoral College is necessary, especially when third party candidates are introduced. 

“The most important [thing] that we want the presidential election to settle [is] the question of legitimacy—who is entitled carry on the office of the president,” Wallison asserts. 

Well, he argues, the Electoral College makes this decision clear especially when no candidate has won a popular majority. 

Wallison uses the example of the 1992 election which landed Bill Clinton in the White House. Wallison notes that while Clinton won the Electoral College, he was nowhere close to winning a majority of the popular vote. In fact, Clinton won a plurality of the popular vote, only receiving 43 percent of the popular vote with 19 percent going to a third-party candidate. When Clinton won the Electoral College, it made it clear that he had legitimacy over the presidency.

Why not have a system that allows the candidate with a plurality of the popular votes win, you may ask. Wallison tackles that too. 

“If we abandoned the Electoral College, and adopted a system in which a person could win the presidency with only a plurality of the popular votes we would be swamped with candidates. Every group with an…

A new study from the Barna Group found that a majority of Protestant pastors and about half of Catholic priests believe school is a negative influence on a child’s spiritual development.

According to the Christian Post, Barna and religious think tank Cardus surveyed 650 Protestant and Catholic church pastors and priests for their study.

The pastors and priests were asked to choose whether certain people and organizations have a positive or negative influence on a child’s spiritual development. The categories were “parents/family,” “church,” “school,” “peers/friends,” “Christian community,” and “culture/society.”

According to the results released this week, 65 percent of Protestant leaders and 50 percent of Catholic priests said that school has a negative influence on a student’s spiritual development.

“In fact, schools are ranked alongside a child’s friends and peers as primarily negative influences — a view held by 61 percent of Protestant leaders and 65 percent of Catholic leaders,” the study said.

“In some cases, the perceived negative influence of a child’s school or friend group outweighs a perceived positive influence by double.”

Barna added that some Catholic priests may have been considering Catholic school education as the influencing factor and thus, rated “school” as a…

Christians are far more likely to say their mothers had a bigger influence on their faith than did their fathers, according to a new Barna study that examines the roles that moms and dads play in the development of children.

The study found that 68 percent of U.S. Christians who grew up with someone who influenced their faith say their mother’s faith impacted them. That was followed by the father (46 percent) and a grandparent (37 percent).  

That pattern also was found among Christian teens, who are more likely to say they have prayed with or talked about God with their mom in the past month than with their father. 

The research was conducted in 2018 and is part of a new book, Households of Faith.  

“We are incredibly good as churches at supporting, empowering and encouraging motherhood, and encouraging mothers to take that active role in their children’s faith lives,” Barna’s Roxanne Stone said last month when the research was unveiled. “It seems that we’re falling behind on how we are supporting and empowering fathers to really become a part of the spiritual guidance, as well as the emotional guidance for their children.”

Christian teens are more likely to say their mother: “encourages me to go to church,” “talks with me about God’s forgiveness” and “teaches me about the Bible,” the research shows. Christian teens also are…

A 150-year-old Bible that survived a church fire this week in Plover, Wis., also survived a church fire half a century ago in the same community. 

“It’s a great testament to our faith that stands strong even in the midst of this [fire],” Pastor Tim O’Brien of The Springs United Methodist Church in Plover told the Stevens Point Journal newspaper. 

A Monday fire severely damaged the church’s building. The same Bible survived a church fire in the mid-1900s at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Stevens Point, Wis. The two churches merged in 2014. 

The Bible was displayed in a glass case at the time of this week’s fire and was pulled out by firefighters. 

About 50 people gathered Tuesday in the church’s parking lot to share memories of their time in the building, which was built in 1964, the Stevens Point Journal reported. 

“I’m overwhelmed with feelings,” said Trisha Moody, who had moved out of town but came back to see the building. She was baptized there. “I have lifetime friendships that happened because of this church.”

Firefighters responded to reports of a fire Monday around 11 a.m., and gray clouds of smoke soon could be seen across town. Plover deputy fire chief Ken Voss called it a “total loss” for the building. 

Tonya Kowalski of Stevens Point has been a member of The Springs for two…

HYDERABAD, India, March 22, 2019 (Morning Star News) – Three pastors in western India have been criminally charged in retaliation for refuting a false account of a Hindu extremist attack on six Christians that left a teenage girl unconscious, sources said.

Three of the six Christians beaten in Maharashtra state this month were also charged in retaliation for reporting the assault that left them with injuries requiring hospital treatment, said pastor Pandharinath Bhagya Gowri, one of the accused church leaders. 

Police who took exception to Pastor Gowri and two other pastors trying to correct a false report about the beating later charged them with the same accusations filed against the assailants, such as house trespass with intent to assault, even though the church leaders were not even present during the attack, he said.

Hard-line Hindus in Bandhan village, Palghar District in February had cut the Christians’ water supply and warned them that worse would happen if they did not renounce their faith, Pastor Gowri told Morning Star News. On March 1 a mob of Hindu extremists showed up in the neighborhood of three Christian families, burst into their homes and started beating and kicking them, he said.

“At least six Christians including women and children got injured in the attack,” Gowri told Morning Star News.

Teenage Christian…