HYDERABAD, India, August 13, 2020 (Morning Star News) – Pastor Ramnivas Kumar had been attacked before, but in the latest instance he was stunned that police in eastern India arrested his bleeding guests based on transparently false accusations that they were robbers, he said.

Christians Avinash Kumar and Rambali Ram were visiting Pastor Kumar’s home in Ranjitpur village, Bihar state on July 13 with two Hindu friends who had met them on the way from their fields in Sitamarhi District and requested the pastor pray for them, the church leader said.

The two Hindus had told their two Christian friends they wanted the pastor to tell them the story of Jesus and to pray for them, he said. As he and the four guests chatted over tea, Pastor Kumar asked if recent flooding had affected their harvests, explained the gospel to the Hindus and began praying for them, he said.

“As I was praying, we heard the neighbors shouting at us from the main door,” Pastor Kumar told Morning Star News. “They were hurling abuses at me, accusing me of accepting a foreign faith and following a foreign God.”

He and the two Christian guests went out to ask why they had intruded onto his property and were using filthy language against him and his faith.

“They started beating us with steel rods and wooden sticks. Both the brothers received blows on their heads, and they were soon bleeding profusely,” the…

A New Jersey mom says she wants an apology after a Catholic church priest “kicked” her autistic son out of a private baptism ceremony.

Julia Vicidomini said Rev. Luke Duc Tran, the priest at Christ the King Church in Hillside, told her 7-year-old son to leave the church.

Her son, Nicky, has autism and is nonverbal. His sister, Sophia, was being baptized.

Vicidomini said Nicky is comforted when he brings toys with him to public places, but while playing in a candle room adjacent to the baptism, Nicky dropped and toy and it made a noise.

“Out,” the priest says in a now-deleted video Vicidomini posted on Facebook. “This church is not for play.”

Nicky’s mother-in-law then left the mass with him.

Vicidomini said the baptism was a private celebration for just a few family members, but she still felt the priest was “disrespectful.”

“Yes, he was playing with a toy where he should not have been, however, the way the priest kicked him out of the church was completely rude and disrespectful,” Vicidomini wrote in a caption accompanying the video.

“I was told it would, in fact, be a private celebration for just our family, no one else,” Vicidomini said. “With this information, I felt more comfortable taking Nicky as he doesn’t do well with a full Mass and large group settings.”

She said she has spoken with the priest, but the family will still be leaving the church.

“My husband told him…

The vast majority of Americans believe churches should operate according to the same social distancing guidelines as other organizations, according to a recent survey by Pew Research Center. 79% of those surveyed said that houses of worship should “be subject to the same social distancing rules as other organizations.” Only 19% of those surveyed disagreed.

Three out of four Christians who responded to the survey, which was conducted between July 13^th and 19^th, also agreed that churches should follow the same rules. 74% of all Christians said churches should follow the same guidelines as other businesses while 25% said churches should be given more flexibility.

When Christians were polled about what they believed their churches should be doing right now, only 13% believed that their congregation should be operating in the same manner as it did before the outbreak of COVID-19. 28% believed their churches should still be closed to public gatherings and 57% said their churches should be opened with modifications.

These numbers tracked closely with the current practice of churches in the United States. Only 6% of respondents said their churches were meeting just as they were before the pandemic. 31% of those surveyed said their churches were still closed and 55% replied that their churches were open with modifications. Those modifications included social distancing,…

Acclaimed theologian Tim Keller recently addressed the issue of critical theory which has become popularized in some Christian circles. 

In a lengthy essay published at Life in The Gospel, the former pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan articulated the differences in the many theories of justice presently swirling in culture, including postmodernism.

“There have never been stronger calls for justice than those we are hearing today. But seldom do those issuing the calls acknowledge that currently there are competing visions of justice, often at sharp variance, and that none of them have achieved anything like a cultural consensus, not even in a single country like the U.S. It is overconfident to assume that everyone will adopt your view of justice, rather than some other, merely because you say so,” Keller wrote.

Though the Bible established a comprehensive vision for justice, because of the failures of some contemporary Christians to see the…

California senator and Vice-Presidential nominee Kamala Harris is considered to be the most liberal senator of 2019, according to an analysis by GovTrack.

GovTrack is a nonpartisan organization that was founded by Josh Tauberer in 2004. The group tracks U.S. Congress members and their legislative records, using year end statistics.

The 2019 report looked at the members who served throughout the legislative year (Jan 3, 2019-Dec 31.2019).

In the report card for U.S. senators, each one was given a score from 1 to 100, where number one is most conservative and number 100 is most liberal.

“Our unique ideology analysis assigns a score to Members of Congress according to their legislative behavior by how similar the pattern of bills and resolutions they cosponsor are to other Members of Congress.” GovTrack’s website states.

“The score can be interpreted as a conservative-liberal scale, although of course it only takes into account a small aspect of reality,” GovTrack added.

Regarding Sen. Harris, D-CA., she was ranked as the “most liberal” out of all the U.S. Senators. Coming in second is Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT., followed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, as the third most liberal, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-OR., as the fourth most liberal.

On the other hand, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN., was scored as the most conservative senator. Blackburn is followed by Sens. Joni Ernst,…

An Idaho congregation of the United Methodist Church has removed an image of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a stained glass window.

First United Methodist Church of Boise, also known as the Cathedral of the Rockies, held a deconsecration service outside last Friday to remove the Lee image.

Those in attendance at the service of deconsecration included Cathedral pastor the Rev. Duane Anders, Bishop Elaine Stanovsky of the UMC Greater Northwest Episcopal area, Phillip Thomson of the Idaho Black History Museum, and Church Council Chair Susie Pouliot.

“We believe continuing to have a window that includes Gen. Lee, who led the Confederate army in a war that was fought over slavery is inconsistent with our mission as a church and our values as Christians,” stated Pouliot, as quoted by the UMC Oregon-Idaho Conference.

“We cannot have a banner above our door that says, ‘all means all – you are welcome here’ and continue to have a symbol of white…

(RNS) — Church conflict is a growing pressure point for pastors during the coronavirus pandemic, a new report shows.

The report, based on a July survey by LifeWay Research, found that 27% of evangelical and mainline pastors cited maintaining unity and addressing conflict and complaints when asked about the pressure points they are feeling most.

Just 8% cited disagreement and conflict as issues in an April survey, according to the research firm based in Nashville, Tennessee.

The findings appear to be a barometer of the division in the country over the best ways to respond to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“Shutting everything down was a whole lot less complicated than the debates over how to reopen,” said Trevin Wax, a senior vice president at LifeWay Christian Resources, an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. “There’s a sense in which the pastor, in trying to care for the congregation, feels beat up right now.”

Wax, a former pastor, said the divides are different from what he saw as a congregation leader. In the past, he said, he saw people of different political parties serving together on the same deacon board because of their greater agreement on gospel issues.

“There are people that are shocked and appalled to find out that there are other people in their congregation that have completely different views on the best way to handle a pandemic,” he…

A regional body of Mennonite Church USA has entered into a period of discernment over possibly leaving the denomination in part over LGBT issues. 

The South Central Mennonite Conference opted to begin a process, known as “Discovery 20.21,” which began after the regional body held its July 25-26 online annual assembly.

In an overview of the process provided to congregations, South Central leadership explained that the third part of the three-year discernment came over LGBT issues.

“We are in a time of moral discernment, theological realignments and changing affiliations in Mennonite Church USA, with the result that MC USA  has significantly changed in its composition of churches and its theological orientation,” explained the overview, as reported by Mennonite World Review on Wednesday.

“The advocacy for the sanctification of same-sex relations in Mennonite Church USA, some pastors conducting same-sex covenant services with the approval of their area conferences and a few pastors living in same-sex relationships has brought us to a tipping point.”

Howard Wagler, a former pastor and conference leader who will chair the Discovery Process, told MWR that it was not just the…