A Louisville church on Tuesday reached an agreement with the mayor allowing it to hold drive-in-services, less than two weeks after the mayor banned such services and a federal judge overturned the mayor’s order.

The agreement allows On Fire Christian Church to hold drive-in services in their parking lot consistent with CDC guidelines. Cars must be parked at least six feet apart and attendees must remain in their cars. Additionally, windows can be no more than half-way open.

“We are grateful to Mayor Fischer and Louisville city officials who worked with us to ensure their policies are both consistent with the Constitution and the CDC’s guidelines,” said Roger Byron, senior counsel for First Liberty Institute, which was one of three legal organizations to represent the church. The others were WilmerHale and Swansburg & Smith.

“During this challenging time, we need to see more of this kind of cooperation between government officials and the religious community,” Byron added.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer thanked the church “for their recognition of the need for social distancing as we battle this deadly pandemic,” the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

“My goal all along has been to protect the citizens of Louisville Metro from this dreadful COVID-19 virus, and I believe this Agreed Order accomplishes that goal,” Fischer said.

On April 11 – the Saturday prior to Easter –…

A majority of Protestant pastors say they believe global warming is real and man-made, although such sentiments aren’t held by evangelical pastors, according to a new LifeWay Research survey.

A total of 53 percent of Protestant pastors said they agreed with the statement “I believe global warming is real and man-made,” including 34 percent who strongly agreed and 19 percent who somewhat agreed. Thirty-eight percent disagreed (24 percent “strongly” and 14 percent “somewhat”), while 10 percent weren’t sure.

The poll’s findings are a major change from a similar LifeWay Research survey in 2010, when only 36 percent of Protestant pastors agreed with the statement and 60 percent disagreed.

“Fewer pastors are rejecting global warming and climate change out of hand,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research. “Yet pastors are still split on the subject, likely following along with political divides.”

Mainline pastors (71 percent) were more likely than evangelical pastors (39 percent) to believe global warming is real and man-made.

Among other findings:

• Methodist pastors (80 percent) were the most likely to agree with the statement, followed by Presbyterian/Reformed pastors (67 percent), Lutherans (63 percent), Christian/Church of Christ (43 percent), Baptists (37 percent) and Pentecostals (32 percent).
• Seventy-eight percent of African American…

President Trump’s temporary 60-day immigration ban has raised concerns from Christian activist and faith-based organizations.

As Christian Headlines previously reported, on Monday, President Trump announced a plan to sign a temporary ban on immigration to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!” the president tweeted.

One top DHS official noted that the order is in response to “22 million unemployed Americans and counting due to COVID-19.”

The new ban, however, has been polarizing to many, including several Christian organizations.

Jenny Yang, vice president of advocacy & policy for the refugee resettlement organization World Relief, said in a statement emailed to The Christian Post that they were “very concerned by the idea of shutting down all legal immigration, particularly now, as the nation is slowly coming out of the COVID-19 shutdown.”

“Immigrants already undergo careful health screenings before being allowed into the U.S. and given that the virus is already spreading widely within the U.S., further restrictions on immigration do nothing to improve the public health situation,” Yang said.

“Instead, they lead to family separation and slamming the door…

HYDERABAD, India, April 21, 2020 (Morning Star News) – A gunman at the door of a Christian family’s home in eastern India on Thursday (April 16) shot the daughter of a pastor who was killed in the same house five years ago, family members said.

Neelam Purty, 25, sustained bullet wounds in her thumb and thigh in the shooting she survived in Sandih village, near Binda village in Murhu Block, Jharkhand state, they said.

“Is this the house of the pastor who was killed?” one of two men asked family members at the door at about 8 p.m., according to Purty’s sister, Sharon Purty.

She said the men were trying to speak in the local Mundari dialect, but that it was clearly not their native language. They resorted to speaking Hindi, she said.

“That pastor was killed, but you did not learn a lesson,” the men said as they shouted at family members at the door, according to Sharon Purty, who said they added, “You have continued assembling in large numbers for Christian prayers. Where is the woman working as spy?”

The sisters’ mother told them that they were not spies and asked them to leave, Sharon Purty said.

“‘Call the woman out, or we will kill you,’ they threatened us,” she said.

One of the men, masked in black cloth, handed a pistol to the one standing behind him and told him to load it, Sharon Purty said. At that point she, her mother and younger brother were near the…

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the majority Monday in a decision requiring unanimous verdicts in state criminal cases, but it was his citation of Roe v. Wade that left a few court observers wondering what he meant.

Meanwhile, Justice Clarence Thomas didn’t mince words in criticizing Roe.

The justices, in a 6-3 decision, overturned a 1972 Supreme Court case in ruling that the Sixth Amendment requires unanimous verdicts. The case involved a Louisiana man who was convicted of murder on a 10-2 verdict.

Much of the discussion among the justices focused on the legal doctrine of stare decisis, a Latin term meaning “to stand by things decided.” In essence, it’s the doctrine of precedent and is often discussed when the Supreme Court overturns a past case.

“The doctrine of stare decisis does not mean, of course, that the Court should never overrule erroneous precedents,” Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion. “All Justices now on this Court agree that it is sometimes appropriate for the Court to overrule erroneous decisions. Indeed, in just the last few Terms, every current Member of this Court has voted to overrule multiple constitutional precedents.”

Kavanaugh then listed seven recent cases. 

His mention of Roe v. Wade came in the next paragraph after he wrote, “Some of the Court’s most notable and consequential decisions have entailed overruling…

A Harvard University professor has come under fire for arguing that homeschooling should be banned, claiming that it is “dangerous” for parents to have “authoritarian control” over their children.

According to Faithwire, Elizabeth Bartholet, Wasserstein Professor of Law and faculty director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program was featured in a Harvard Magazine article, “The Risks of Homeschooling.”

The image atop of the article shows a child behind prison bars at home while the rest of the children are playing outside. Moreover, the sidewall of the house is in the form of books labeled “Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Bible.”

Regarding homeschooling, Bartholet says that children are deprived of a “meaningful education” as it prevents them from “contributing positively to a democratic society.”

She implies that parents are abusive to their children, though she failed to provide statistics.

“We have an essentially unregulated regime in the area of homeschooling,” Bartholet says, piling on the imagery of abusive homes with a “regime” that’s taking over large swaths of the country. “If you look at the legal regime governing homeschooling, there are very few requirements that parents do anything,” she added.

Therefore, Batholet believes that parents should not have complete autonomy over their children.

“The issue is, do we think that…