LAHORE, Pakistan, August 25, 2020 (Morning Star News) – A church pastor in Karachi has languished in jail since May on a baseless charge of extortion leveled against him in retaliation for taking a stand against alleged land-grabbers who demolished homes of poor Christians there, family members said.

Falsely accusing pastor Sohail Latif Sandhu of extortion, the alleged land-grabbers told his wife they would get him freed if she had sex with them, and then tried to rape her when she refused, said Pastor Sandhu’s wife, Kanwal Sohail.

“My husband has been falsely accused of demanding a 500,000-rupee (US$2,955) extortion from a Muslim man named Jibran, but the fact is that the complainant is a part of the land mafia that has been eyeing the homes of poor Christians for a long time,” she said.

Founder and chairman of River of Life Ministries, Pastor Sandhu is a father of five who leads a church in Surjani Town, a neighborhood in the northern Karachi borough of Gadap Town.

“Our troubles started in March when the land mafia demolished the homes of our four congregation members with the intention of taking possession of the plots,” Kanwal Sohail said. “My husband led the families to the police, but we didn’t know that they were working hand-in-glove with the land-grabbers.”

On March 10 she was in the hospital, where she had given birth three days prior, when…

Jerushah Duford, the granddaughter of the late famed evangelist Billy Graham, is speaking out against Evangelicals who have shown unwavering support for President Trump. 

In an op-ed for USA Today, Duford explained that despite being a lifelong churchgoer who makes every major decision based on her faith, in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency and how it has molded the church, she feels “homeless.”

“Like so many others, I feel disoriented as I watch the church I have always served turn their eyes away from everything it teaches,” she wrote on Monday. “I hear from Christian women on a daily basis who all describe the same thing: a tug at their spirit.”

Duford went on to criticize evangelical leaders for praising President Trump while remaining silent on Trump’s desire to push low-income housing out of the suburbs.

She also brought up Trump’s photo-op in front of St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square back in June. She asserted nearby protestors were dispersed with tear gas so that the President could have a photo taken of him holding a Bible in front of the church.

“He held a Bible, something so sacred to all of us, yet he treated that Bible with a callousness that would offend anyone intimately familiar with the words inside it,” Duford argued. “He believed that action would honor him and only him. However, the church, designed to…

Rev. John Gray of Relentless Church in Greenville, South Carolina, believes he’s being blackmailed and extorted over allegations of an inappropriate relationship, according to The Christian Post.

A woman from Houston, who identified as “Mary,” told online personality Tasha K on Friday that she and Gray had several interactions in which Gray allegedly asked for partially nude photos. In April, Mary met Gray at a funeral for her brother’s wife, where Gray delivered the eulogy. She claims that Gray continued to pursue her.

However, attorneys for the megachurch pastor Devon Puriefoy and Kimberly Thomason told Greenville News that there is no evidence of an inappropriate relationship.

“There are allegations that there were phone conversations between the two parties, and that’s essentially the extent of the allegations,” said Puriefoy. “When you take her own words, she says there was no affair, no physical contact, they never met each other, they never saw each other.”

Evidence of extortion will be handed to the Greenville County Solicitor’s Office and the Greenville office of the FBI.

“A formal investigation will be conducted into extortion claims about the individual that’s making the allegations. There’s clear evidence of extortion from the release of this information,” Puriefoy continued. “I don’t think there’s a question under South…

The U.S. House of Representatives could consider legislation that would make it illegal to perform sex reassignment procedures or interventions on minors.

According to Faithwire, Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) has introduced H.R. 8012 into the House. The proposal is called “Protecting Children from Experimentation Act.”

“Our society has quickly ‘normalized’ gender experimentation under the guise of an ‘accepting’ political ideology rather than biological reality,” he said in a tweet this week.

“Our children should not have to pay the high price for these unethical medical interventions,” he added.

Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action for America, said the bill would “protect our children.”

“Children are precious and our future,” she said, “and they are worth defending. No child should be forced to undergo medically unnecessary, life-altering procedures in the name of progressive gender ideology.

“No taxpayer should be forced to pay for these harmful ‘reassignment’ procedures for any individual. I applaud Rep. LaMalfa for taking action to protect our children.”

Ryan T. Anderson, author and teaching fellow at the University of Dallas, also tweeted “kudos” to LaMalfa.

“His bill would prevent experimental, unethical medical interventions from being performed on minors in the U.S. who say they are transgender,”…

The pastor of a California church fined $10,000 for holding indoor worship services despite adhering to social distancing guidelines has begged Gov. Gavin Newsom to allow churches to reopen, warning that ignoring the spiritual health of the community will result in “chaos.” 

Last Friday, North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara was fined $5,000 for holding a morning service and $5,000 for the evening service in violation of orders from Gov. Newsom, who has mandated that churches in some counties refrain from indoor services amid the pandemic.

The church was also served a written citation for singing in each worship service although social distancing was practiced in the auditorium that seats 3,000 people, according to a statement sent to The Christian Post. 

The four-page letter posted on the front door of the church accused North Valley Baptist of “failing to prevent those attending, performing and speaking at North Valley Baptist’s services from singing.” In the letter, county officials revealed they had been…

Speakers during the second night of the Republican National Convention commended President Trump’s contributions to religious freedom, criminal justice reform and economic growth.

According to CBN News, faith was the primary focus during the opening of Tuesday night’s event under the theme, “Land of Opportunity.”

Eric Trump, the President’s son, started off the night by promising “all houses of worship” and “all people of faith stripped of religious freedom and religious liberties” that President Trump “will fight for you.”

As Christian Headlines previously reported, Cissie Lynch Graham, the daughter of evangelist Franklin Graham, expressed her gratitude for Trump as an advocate for religious freedom.

“Our founders did not envision a quiet hidden faith, they fought to ensure that the voices of faith were always welcome, not silenced, not bullied,” she said.

In January 2019, Nicolas Sandman faced off against a Native American man at the Lincoln Memorial in a viral video. He told the RNC on Tuesday that the media constantly bullied him following the incident while ignoring the full context of the story.

“My life changed forever in that one moment,” Sandmann said in a pre-recorded speech from the Lincoln Memorial. “The full war machine of the mainstream media revved up into attack mode. They did so without ever researching the full video of the incident, without ever…

As many as one in five churches could permanently close as a result of shutdowns stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, according to David Kinnaman, president of the prominent Christian research organization Barna Group.

In an interview with NPR Monday regarding the status of American churches after months of shutdowns, Kinnaman said although churches were handling things “pretty swimmingly” at first, circumstances have changed for some.  

He noted that although many churches have opened as states’ shutdown orders are loosened, their services have had “a lot less people coming.”

“They’re recognizing that the relationships that they thought were much deeper with people were actually not as deep as they expected,” Kinnaman told NPR.

Kinnaman then explained that, in keeping with research from earlier this year, he still expected to see about one in five churches permanently close within the next 18 months.

“If anything, I think that prediction was based on data about two, two-and-a-half months ago, and I think we’re even more likely to see that to be the case today,” he noted.

“The disruptions related to giving, and maybe even as important…