Author and Pastor Tim Keller said he’s making progress in his fight against cancer, telling his social media followers that this health situation has caused him to seek God and depend on Him.

In a Twitter thread posted Friday, Keller thanked his friends for their prayers and support, noting that as of yesterday he has finished his sixth round of chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer.

“[W]hile there are indeed some side effects, my doctor says I’m tolerating the treatment very well. I have not been seriously debilitated and I can still do some work and ministry,” Keller shared.

“Yesterday we also met with my oncologist to go over the scans taken on Monday to assess the effectiveness of the chemotherapy. The report is very encouraging. There has been shrinkage of the tumors and so we are continuing the chemo in order to diminish the cancer further.”

He added: “Our situation has driven us to seek God’s face as never before. He is giving us more of his sensed presence, more freedom from our besetting sins, more dependence on his Word — things that we had sought for years, but…

BALTIMORE (RNS) — Vice President Mike Pence closed out his speech before the Republican National Convention on Wednesday evening (Aug. 26) with a mashup of Bible references, into which he inserted American symbols and ideals.

Speaking before a crowd at Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, Pence, a self-described “born-again, evangelical Catholic” known for infusing his political rhetoric with religious language, sprinkled his address with references to God and prayer.

But Pence, who accepted his party’s nomination for vice president during the speech, sparked outcry in some Christian circles as he closed out his remarks when he combined at least two Bible verses — and replaced references to Jesus with patriotic imagery.

Let Religion News Service explain.

So What Did Pence Say?

Here’s the full quote from Pence’s speech that has people talking:

“Let’s run the race marked out for us. Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents. Let’s fix our eyes on this land of heroes and let their courage inspire. And let’s fix our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith and freedom and never forget that where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom — and that means freedom always wins.”

That Seems Vaguely Familiar

That may be because Pence references two different Bible verses in his remarks.

One is 2 Corinthians 3:17, which according to…

Evangelist Franklin Graham, the president and CEO of the Samaritans purse and the Billy Graham Association, opened up the fourth and final night of the 2020 Republican National Convention in a word of prayer for America.

“Let us pray,” Graham said on Thursday. “Our Heavenly Father, which art in Heaven, we thank you for the great bounty you have bestowed on this nation and the many blessings we have received the past four years. We are forever grateful”.

“As we come tonight, our country is facing trouble. Tens of thousands are in the path of a deadly storm. The pandemic has gripped millions of hearts with fear. We are divided. We have witnessed injustice. Anger and despair have flowed into the streets. We need your help. We need to hear your voice at this crucial hour.”

“We ask that you would unite our hearts, to be one nation under God,” Graham pleaded. “For you are our only hope. We declare today our total dependence upon you and our need of repentance as a people.”

“I thank you tonight for our President Donald J. Trump. We pray that you would give him wisdom from on high, clarity of vision, and strength as he leads this nation forward. Bless him. We pray for our first lady Melania. Their son Barron and all of the family. Protect them and keep them strong and safe.”

“We thank you for Vice President Mike Pence. For his steady hand and clear voice. We pray for second lady Karen Pence and their…

LAHORE, Pakistan, August 27, 2020 (Morning Star News) – The Muslim who regained custody of a 14-year-old Christian girl he had kidnapped threatened to kill her and her family unless she gave court statements that she had married him and converted to Islam of her own free will, the girl told Morning Star News.

Maira Shahbaz, who escaped from Nakash Tariq five days ago, told Morning Star News by telephone that he had raped her and filmed her naked in order to blackmail her into giving the court statements. The Lahore High Court on Aug. 4 ordered her return to Tariq after dismissing documents proving she was a minor and evidence of a fake marriage certificate because she testified that, “she’s 18 years old, recited the Kalma Tayyaba to prove she had embraced Islam without any duress, and married Nakash Tariq by choice.”

Tariq and accomplices kidnapped Maira, of Medina Town, Faisalabad, on April 28, according to family members.

“Nakash and two other men took me to an unknown place at gunpoint, where Nakash repeatedly raped me,” Maira told Morning Star News. “He also videotaped me naked and threatened that he would kill me and my family and also upload the video on social media if I told anyone what he had done to me.”

She said she had been forced to sign blank papers and denied that she had willfully become a Muslim.

“I was coerced into making those statements in…

Labeling this year’s presidential race the “most important election” in the nation’s history, President Trump accepted the Republican Party’s nomination Thursday and warned about a “socialist agenda” he said would be implemented if Democrat Joe Biden wins in November.

Trump spoke for more than an hour to a large, boisterous crowd on the White House lawn, drawing a distinction between the visions and agendas of the two parties. Democrats, he said, “do not see America as the most free, just and exceptional nation on earth.” 

“Instead, they see a wicked nation that must be punished for its sins. Our opponents say that redemption for you can only come from giving power to them,” Trump said. “This is a tired anthem spoken by every repressive movement throughout history. But in this country, we don’t look to career politicians for salvation. In America, we don’t turn to government to restore our souls. We put our faith in almighty God.”

Biden, he said, is a “Trojan horse for socialism” who has joined forces with Bernie Sanders on multiple issues, including on immigration and public safety. 

Trump also criticized Biden on abortion. 

“Joe Biden claims he has empathy for the vulnerable. Yet the party he leads supports the extreme late-term abortion of defenseless babies, right up until the moment of birth. Democratic leaders talk about moral…

One in five churches may shutter their doors in the next 18 months, according to Barna Group president David Kinnaman.

Kinnaman of the Christian research organization recently sat down with NPR to discuss the state of church giving in light of the pandemic. As churches slowly reopen under new restrictions across the country, Kinnaman believes some may not survive the economic downturn.

“The disruptions related to giving, and maybe even as important to all that, is that even for those churches that have reopened, they’re seeing much smaller numbers of people show up,” he said, as reported by The Christian Post. “So simply reopening a church doesn’t fix the underlying economic challenges that you might have.”

He also predicts that the “digital church is here to stay” as online attendance continues to climb.

Many pastors have expressed their discouragement in whether or not their churches will weather the storm. At the beginning of the pandemic, 70% of pastors responded that they were “very confident” they would make it. More recently, however, that number has dropped to 58%.

“We’ll look back at this pandemic as a fundamental change…” Kinnaman said. “I think also it’s really going to change the way people think about their donation relationship with local churches as well. There’ll have to be even greater demonstration of the value that a church…

A 32-year-old TikToK user says she prayed to God for the first time since becoming an atheist after she watched other videos about God on TikTok.

The user, identified as Felicia and under the username “inkydoeshair,” posted in her own now-viral video that she needed “help” learning how to be a Christian, Faithwire reports.

“If you’ve been on my page before, you know I’ve posted things about being an atheist and I took it down because now I’m really confused. Because all I see are videos about God and Jesus, and I actually prayed the other night, and I don’t know why,” she said in the video. “I guess I need help, because I just don’t know where to start. I just don’t get how, if you guys claim He loves me so much, I don’t understand why I have denied him so many times.”

@inkydoeshair

Hardest video I’ve made. Please don’t judge me. If you see this please help me on why I’m so confused right now ##jesus ##god ##askingforhelp

♬ empty crown – YAS

Felicia said in the video that she was raised as a Christian but became an atheist several years ago. Other TikTok users have asked her if she will now delete some of her past videos, in which she curses and asks the universe to manifest things in her life.

“I can see where I was when I felt lost, and you can see it in those videos, and now you can see where I am now,” she said in a