Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church has filed a lawsuit against the state of California and its leaders for its lockdown restrictions and religious suppression during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Thomas More Society, the suit was submitted on Wednesday by attorneys Jenna Ellis and Charles LiMandri who are representing MacArthur as special counsel.

“We are simply continuing to do today what we have done for the past 63 years, that Grace Community Church has been open to welcome the Los Angeles community and serve their spiritual needs,” MacArthur said in a statement. “We will remain open and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all who decide they want to come worship with us.”

The complaint noted the dichotomy between the strict COVID-19 guidelines imposed on religious gatherings such as Grace Community Church and the lack of guidelines for the thousands of people took part in the Black Lives Matter protests.

“Instead of enforcing the public health orders, public officials were all too eager to grant a de facto exception for these favored protestors,” the suit said.

Ellis noted that Grace Community Church had “voluntarily complied with state orders for nearly 6 months” but California officials have overstepped their boundaries as edicts have called for an “indefinite shut down” after the church resumed indoor services last month.

“This isn’t about…

President Trump on Wednesday urged the nation’s schools to reopen safely and repeated his belief that government funding allocated for schools should go to the parents if their child’s school remains closed.

“This way, you can make your own choice” about a school, Trump said.

Trump made the comments at a White House event alongside parents and teachers who want schools to open again.

“I’d like to see the money follow the student. … Why are we paying if a school is closed?” Trump said, referencing government funding of schools. “Why are we paying the school? I’d rather give it to the student, the parents, and you do your own thing. And, to me, it makes a lot of sense.”

At a news conference later in the day, Trump expanded on his remarks.

“If a school is closed, the family can go to another school, maybe in another area,” Trump said. “… We cannot indefinitely stop 50 million American children from going to school and harming their mental, physical, emotional and academic development, and inflicting long-term, lasting damage. … Those advocating for a never-ending, blanket, nationwide lockdown have no answer for what it would do to the mental, physical and social health of millions of American children and people.”

A July Kaiser survey found that two-thirds of parents are concerned about their children falling behind academically (65…

Sohail Masih, a Pakistani Christian, is facing blasphemy charges after making a controversial remark on Facebook about eating sacrificial meat on a Muslim holiday, according to The Christian Post.

The comment on the social media platform claimed that “it is not possible that the blood of goats and bulls can wash away sins.” He further explained his belief that the incident of Miraj, an Islamic belief that Muhammad ascended to Heaven to talk with the prophets, is a lie.

Masih was arrested on August 5 in the Nowshera Virkan in Punjab province after a mosque leader reported him. According to the Union of Catholic Asia News, the police didn’t plan on pressing any charges until a large mob of angry Muslims surrounded the police station.

Eventually, Masih was charged under sections 295-A and 295-C of the Pakistani Penal Code, which prohibit the use of derogatory comments against Islam or Muhammad. Any remarks are punishable by death. Asia Bibi, a Christian mother who spent a decade in prison and made headlines for her acquittal, was charged under the same section.

“This is not the first case of its kind,” said CLAAS-UK Director Nasir Saeed. “…It is difficult to prevent the abuse of social media platforms like WhatsApp when others can easily harass Christians and ‘plant evidence’ on them. An example: if someone shares blasphemous content to a Christian’s page,…

Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday night denounced the Democratic presidential ticket as having “have been overtaken by the radical left” and said if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are elected, Americans will experience higher taxes, public funding of abortion, “socialized medicine,” “activist” judges and open borders.

“The choice could not be clearer,” Pence said on Fox News’ Hannity, the same day Biden and Harris appeared together in public for the first time as the presumptive Democratic ticket.

“Joe Biden’s decision to add Kamala Harris to the ticket confirms everything President Trump and I have been saying, and that is that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have been overtaken by the radical left,” Pence said. “Kamala Harris, like Joe Biden, supports higher taxes, socialized medicine, open borders, abortion on demand. And where Joe Biden said he’d be willing to cut funding to police, she said recently that she thought that we should reimagine the police in this country.”

“I like the matchup,” Pence said.

The vice president claimed the Trump administration has “created more jobs in the last three months than Joe Biden and Barack Obama created in their eight years in office.”

Pence also said Trump “has done exactly what he told the American people he would do.” Pence said Trump…

Liberty University has appointed an acting university president while current president Jerry Falwell, Jr. is on an indefinite leave of absence.

According to Fox News, on Tuesday, Jerry Prevo was appointed by the Board of Trustees to serve as Liberty’s acting president.

Prevo previously served as the chairman of the university’s board of trustees. He also served as a pastor at the Anchorage Baptist Temple in Anchorage, Alaska for 47 years.

“I want to thank my fellow board members for having confidence that I could be entrusted with the responsibility of serving as the Acting President during this time of Jerry Falwell, Jr’s indefinite leave of absence,” said Dr. Prevo in a statement on Tuesday. “Please pray for us as well as the Falwell family as we embark on our academic year and so we may continue to be united in our common purpose and our faith in Christ.”

As Christian Headlines previously reported, after posting a photo to Instagram of himself and his wife’s assistant with their pants unzipped and their stomachs out, Liberty’s Board of Trustees asked Falwell to take an indefinite leave of absence. 

Falwell has since apologized for the photo and explained in an interview on WLNI’s MorningLine on last week that he was at a Trailer Park Boys themed costume party.

Talking about his wife’s assistant, Falwell said on the radio show, “She’s…

August 12, 2020 (Morning Star News) – An 84-year-old Christian in Shanxi Province, China was among people in at least five provinces ordered to remove Christian imagery from their homes and replace them with pictures of President Xi Jinping, religious rights magazine Bitter Winter reported.

“The township [Chinese Communist] Party [CCP] secretary asked me to take down and throw away the cross and told me to pray to Xi Jinping from then on,” the unidentified Christian told Bitter Winter. “Xi Jinping is a man, not God. I feel saddened for the cross being taken down, but there is nothing I can do.”

That was in June. Since May, CCP officials in Shanxi, Henan, Jiangxi, Shandong and other provinces have threatened to withdraw the social welfare benefits poor people rely on for food, especially during the COVID-19 epidemic, if they refuse to replace Christian imagery with that of Xi, the magazine reported.

“In June, a village official in Lin County, administered by the prefecture-level city of Lüliang in the northern province of Shanxi, repeatedly notified villagers through social media to remove all religious symbols from their homes,” Bitter Winter reported. “He stated that the cross symbolized heterodox teachings, which should be purged as per orders from higher authorities. If not, they will be held criminally accountable. The official stressed that impoverished…

For the first time, an upcoming Hallmark Channel movie will feature a same-sex wedding.

The new film, Wedding Every Weekend, debuts Aug. 15 on the Hallmark Channel and follows a couple, Nate and Brooke, who agree to tag together as “wedding buddies” to four weddings in order to avoid the singles tables and set-ups. Eventually, though, Nate and Brooke fall in love.

Although other plot details aren’t known, one of the weddings attended by Nate and Brooke involves a same-sex wedding with a lesbian couple. The trailer shows the two smiling women holding hands and facing the crowd, celebrating the day.

The LGBT-inclusive plot is in line with comments made this summer by George Zaralidis, the vice president of network program publicity at Hallmark’s parent company, Crown Media Family Networks. Zaralidis told NBC News that “diversity and inclusion is a top priority for us and we look forward to making some exciting programming announcements in the coming months, including announcements about projects featuring LGBTQ storylines, characters, and actors.”

“We are committed to creating a Hallmark experience where everyone feels welcome,” Zaralidis said.

NBC News also reported on the new LGBT-inclusive film.

One Million Moms, an organization of Christian moms and social conservatives, said in a statement it is boycotting the Hallmark Channel.

“The once conservative…

Members of religious communities in China are being called on by officials to donate to coronavirus relief funds or else they cannot reopen following lockdowns over the coronavirus.

According to a report by Bitter Winter, a Three-Self church director from Heze, a prefecture-level city in the eastern province of Shandong, explained that state-run churches were urged to collect money for areas affected by COVID-19.

Additionally, officials from the local Religious Affairs Bureau threatened numerous church closures if its members failed to donate.

In February, Three-Self churches were told by officials in Zhangcun town to make donations ranging from 4,000 to 10,000 RMB (between $ 560 and $1,400). In the county of Xianju, members of Three-Self churches were ordered to donate 100 RMB (about $14) to Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak.

“Churchgoers in Zhejiang’s Hangzhou city were also forced to donate,” a Three-Self church director from the city said. “Some elderly congregation members live alone and have no sources of income, but are also forced to give money.”

It was reported by China’s official media that the Two Chinese Christian Councils of Shanghai Municipality donated $420,000 towards COVID-19 affected areas.

Buddhist temples were also subjected to forced donations to the state in order to reopen. Some of its members ended up selling food as…