These times aren’t easy. While many continue to lose jobs and employer-based healthcare during the ongoing pandemic, the need for affordable and accessible healthcare has never been greater. How can you maintain your access to healthcare when you or someone in your family loses their job?

With twenty-one states reporting rising rates of coronavirus and the United States Department of Labor reporting an unemployment rate of 19.7 percent, many American workers are no longer able to rely on traditional employer-based healthcare to meet their medical needs.

In addition, if you or a loved one does lose their job, maintaining COBRA coverage is expensive – families pay an average of $1595 per month, and it only lasts for 18 months. What happens then?

One simple way we can maintain access to healthcare, even after losing a job, is to become a member of a Christian-based cost-sharing ministry, which shares funds among members to assist with incurred medical expenses. Joining a cost-sharing ministry is an effective way to make healthcare affordable and accessible without being tied to employment status.

Cost-sharing ministries are communities of like-minded people who agree to the biblical values of sharing to help one another pay their medical bills. While the membership requirements vary by organization, cost-sharing ministries match funds from member contributions to provide access to healthcare…

The Editor in Chief for Yahoo Music wrote a column this week examining the history of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and suggested that the United States might want to search for a new national anthem. She also spoke with a journalist and activist who suggested replacing “The Star-Spangled Banner” with John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Lyndsey Parker referenced several incidents that have happened in recent weeks regarding the National Anthem. First, protestors overturned a statue of “The Star-Spangled Banner’s” author Francis Scott Key in San Francisco. Also, a student at the Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts in New York refused to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a virtual graduation ceremony. Instead, Liana Morales sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which many have called the “Black National Anthem.’

Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” after observing the Battle of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. Key held slaves and said that Black people were “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”

Parker spoke with Kevin Powell, an activist and journalist who starred in the first season of MTV’s The Real World. Powell cited Key’s being born into a slave-holding family, his prosecution of abolitionists during his time as a lawyer, and his friendship with…

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee if responded to Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King’s called to remove all depictions of Jesus as a White man.

As Christian Headlines reported earlier this week, King asserted that statues showing Jesus as a White man are “gross form[s] of white supremacy” and called for them to be torn down.

His controversial remarks set off a firestorm of backlash from Christians.

Huckabee, who also served as a Southern Baptist minister before entering the political arena, criticized King’s comments in a Fox News interview on Wednesday.

“To say that in any way Jesus is a symbol of white anything is absurd, in part because Jesus wasn’t a white guy,” Huckabee said. “He was a Middle Easterner and probably had more olive skin than he did white skin.”

In Huckabee’s words, Shaun King’s proposal is “one of the most unbelievable things I’ve ever heard.”

 “If someone would study Jesus, they would find that he was the ultimate person who loved the unlovable, who cared for the ones that no one else cared for,” Huckabee explained.

“He cared about people who were slaves. He cared about people who were prostitutes. He stepped in the path of those who were ready to stone to death a woman caught in adultery.”

The former governor also noted that people are forgetting that America was founded on…

A bill that protects the religious expression of public school students throughout the school day and even with homework and other assignments was signed into law by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine last week.

The Ohio Student Religious Liberties Act, which passed the Senate 32-0 and the House 90-3, says public school students “may engage in religious expression before, during, and after school hours in the same manner and to the same extent” that “a student is permitted to engage in secular activities or expression before, during, and after school hours.”

Further, the new law prevents school districts from prohibiting a student from “engaging in religious expression in the completion of homework, artwork, or other written or oral assignments.” Teachers “shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student’s work,” the law says.

“Grades and scores shall be calculated using ordinary academic standards,” the law says.

The law defines “religious expression” as:

• Prayer.
• “Religious gatherings, including but not limited to prayer groups, religious clubs, ‘see you at the pole’ gatherings, or other religious gatherings.”
• “Distribution of written materials or literature of a religious nature.”
• “Any other activity of a religious nature, including wearing symbolic clothing or expression of a religious viewpoint, provided that the activity is not obscene,…

Two high-ranking Mississippi elected officials say the Confederate battle emblem should be removed from the state flag and replaced with the words on the state seal: “In God We Trust.”

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and state Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann made the proposal this week amid a growing controversy over the flag, which has incorporated the Confederate battle flag since 1894.

“We must look for a flag for our collective future to be flown over our collective assets,” Hosemann said in a statement. “… In my mind, our flag should bear the Seal of the Great State of Mississippi and state ‘In God We Trust.'”

My statement on changing the flag. pic.twitter.com/TZz7kfFbBa

— Delbert Hosemann (@DelbertHosemann) June 24, 2020

Fitch made similar remarks.

“It is my personal belief that it is time for us to change our state flag to reflect the love, compassion and conviction of our people,” Fitch said. “The addition of ‘In God We Trust’ from our state seal is the perfect way to demonstrate to all who we are.”

A survey released this week showed 72 percent of likely voters support changing the flag if the new design incorporates “In God We Trust.”

Meanwhile, more than 50 athletic directors and coaches from the state’s eight public universities appeared together at the state capitol Thursday to urge legislators to change the state flag and remove the Confederate…

Unable to perform in arenas due to the pandemic, some of the most well-known names in Christian music have found an alternate way to tour this summer while letting fans socially distance: singing outdoors at drive-in theaters.

TobyMac embarked on a drive-in theater tour June 25 in Watertown, Tenn., while Casting Crowns will begin its own drive-in theater tour in Fayetteville, Ark., July 15. Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman and Mac Powell are joining together on their own drive-in-theater tour starting July 16 in Watertown.

All the concert tours involve multiple cities and are produced by Awakening Events. Tickets are sold on a per-car load basis (up to 6 people), and the concerts will comply with local COVID-19 restrictions.

The drive-in theater tours give fans a rare opportunity to watch live music during a time when most traditional arena-based tours have been canceled.

“We’re excited that we’ve developed a way for our fans to safely come together and enjoy live music again,” said Curtis Pinkerton, director of marketing for Awakening Events. “In the climate of today we need more positivity in the world, and we take great pride in being able to offer some of that positivity safely.”

Smith, in a statement, said he’s “excited about the uniqueness of the Drive-In settings.”

“I think it will be something we always remember about this time, what a…

Six out of 10 Americans disagree with the statement that “human life is sacred,” according to a new survey.

Barna Group surveyed about 2,000 people and asked about feelings on human life. “Sacred” was defined as “having unconditional, intrinsic worth.”

Of the 2,000 people, only 39 percent said they agreed with the claim that “human life is sacred.”

“A substantially larger share of the population combined to offer views such as ‘life is what you make it, but it has no absolute value’ (37 percent); ‘life does not attain its full value until we reach our highest point of evolution and expression’ (11 percent); or other, less popular points of view that concurred that life has no infinite, unconditional value,” the report said.

Of those who said they were evangelical and born-again Christians, 60 percent agreed with the statement. Of those who identified as Pentecostals, that number was 46 percent and 43 percent of Roman Catholics surveyed.

Most (69 percent) said that people are “basically good.” More than 30 years ago, the Barna survey showed that 83 percent of people believed people were “basically good.”

Dr. George Barna, the founder of Barna Group, said the survey’s findings are impacted by demonstrations happening across the U.S.

“A movement to defund police departments might make sense if people are innately good,” he explained. “People with a…

A White Black Lives Matter protester argued with both black and white police officers in Washington, D.C. this week.

A Black police officer told a white Black Lives Matter protester that “America has a sin problem” after the activist said at least one of the officers was racist.

According to Faithwire, the unnamed protester told one of the White police officers that it didn’t matter if he had a Black wife.

“That doesn’t mean that you’re not racist, sir, just because you have one Black friend or a Black wife,” she charged. “You can still be racist. It has nothing to do with your acquaintances.”

She also said she didn’t believe that the White officer was married to a Black woman.

In a video posted to Twitter, a Black police officer said they were willing to have a “conversation” with her, but that there was “no point” because she had a “one-track mind.”

“If it doesn’t fit your agenda, you don’t want to hear it,” one of the officers said.

Finally, the officer told the woman that the problem isn’t racism, but sin.

“America has a sin problem,” said the officer, seconds later referencing John 14:6. “The world has a sin problem ma’am. Jesus said ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ America and the world has a sin problem. You understand me? That’s where racism, injustice, and hate and…