Forty-three people fell ill after a revival at a Pentecostal church in Illinois. Of those 43, 10 have tested positive for COVID-19.

The Daily Herald reports that 80 people gathered at The Life Church of Glenview for a revival service on March 15, days before a statewide stay-at-home order was issued in Illinois. Pastor Anthony LoCascio says he considered canceling the meeting but decided not to, since the number of cases in the state were so low at that time. Plus, he reasoned, they were hosting an out-of-town guest speaker and had been promoting the event.

“A lot of people are sick,” LoCascio says. “My whole family has the same symptoms.”

When LoCascio woke up the morning after the service, he thought he had the flu. He had leg cramps and a fever of 102. A week later, he started coughing.

“My lungs felt very hardened and stiff, like leather,” he says.

SOURCE: Charisma News

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I know it sounds like an April Fools’ headline. But it is not. On March 30, MSNBC host Craig Melvin asked Rev. T. D. Jakes to pray for America in the midst of the coronavirus scare. Melvin even bowed his head as Jakes prayed. This is a sign of the times. Americans are turning to God.

And note this: Jakes prayed in Christ’s Name. On live, national TV. On MSNBC. Did I say this was not April Fools?

Melvin said, “For folks who aren’t able to get to church yesterday, I’ve never actually done this on the air. Can you lead us in prayer for 30 seconds?”

These are unprecedented times, and even TV hosts are doing unprecedented things.

Jakes responded immediately with this prayer: “Our Father and our God, we bow our heads to you in humility, understanding that we are not competent in and of ourselves to handle this kind of global calamity. We look to You, Lord, to be the source, the strength, the help, the light that we need. Strengthen our first responders, strengthen even our broadcast people, strengthen all of us whose lives have been devastated and disrupted and give us the peace that passes all understanding. In Christ’s Name we pray, Amen.”

Yes, this happened live on MSNBC.

In keeping with this, the Drudge Report carried the headline, “AMERICANS TURNING TO PRAYER,” linked to a Pew Research article that shared the results of Pew’s latest survey.

The survey indicated that “the coronavirus outbreak is having profound impacts on the personal lives of Americans in a variety of ways. Nearly 9 in 10 U.S. adults say their life has changed at least a little as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, including 44% who say their life has changed in a major way.”

Not only so, but the virus “also has impacted Americans’ religious behaviors. More than half of all U.S. adults (55%) say they have prayed for an end to the spread of coronavirus. Large majorities of Americans who pray daily (86%) and of U.S. Christians (73%) have taken to prayer during the outbreak—but so have some who say they seldom or never pray and people who say they do not belong to any religion (15% and 24%, respectively).”

Indeed, “Religious ‘nones’—especially self-described atheists and agnostics—are less likely than those who identify with a religion to say they have prayed for an end to the outbreak, though 36% of those who describe their religion as ‘nothing in particular’ say they have prayed about the virus.”

SOURCE: Charisma News

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As I shared last week, governors in multiple states are issuing executive orders to halt “elective surgeries”—including abortion procedures—during this pandemic crisis. Rightly so, they recognize the need to fully allocate resources and medical professionals to the service of saving lives, not the business of killing our most vulnerable. Yet Planned Parenthood and its cronies will stop at nothing to continue their wicked business of death. They have filed multiple lawsuits in federal court and have already persuaded judges to grant orders allowing abortions to continue in the states of Texas, Ohio and Alabama. This is outrageous!

In the state of Texas, at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas Austin Division, Judge Lee Yeakel granted a temporary restraining order against Governor Abbott’s order to stop elective abortions. In response to this ruling, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed for an immediate appellate review. In a swift turn of events, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted a temporary stay, allowing Governor Abbott’s executive order to remain in place until the underlying case is heard.

Within his original ruling that stopped Governor Abbott’s decree halting abortions, Judge Yeakel stated that (the) “Plaintiffs’ patients will suffer serious and irreparable harm in the absence of a temporary restraining order. The attorney general’s interpretation of the executive order prevents Texan women from exercising what the Supreme Court has declared is their fundamental constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus is viable. It is well established that, upon a plaintiff’s demonstrating a constitutional violation, no further irreparable injury is necessary.” He further wrote, “A delay in obtaining abortion care causes irreparable harm by ‘result(ing) in the progression of a pregnancy to a stage at which abortion would be less safe and eventually illegal.’”

SOURCE: Charisma News

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Dear Mayor de Blasio,

As a religious leader born and raised in New York, I’m appealing to you to reconsider your threats to the synagogues and churches of your city. Your words, sir, were reckless and could actually provoke people of faith to defy you. What on earth prompted you to say what you said?

I’m speaking specifically of your threat to “permanently” close synagogues and churches that refuse to comply with the ban on public gatherings.

Mr. Mayor, what gives you that authority?

Mr. Mayor, who gives you that authority?

Please know that I have been using my platforms (radio, internet and writing) to urge pastors and leaders to comply with bans on public gatherings.

I have urged fellow believers to use wisdom and to love their neighbors, accepting these restrictions as something necessary for the public good.

And I have made clear to concerned pastors that these bans are not an attack on their religious freedoms, since the bans affect movie theaters, restaurants, strip clubs and bars as much as churches, synagogues and mosques.

Yet when you specifically threaten to permanently close synagogues and churches that do not comply, you immediately raise concerns. This certainly does look like religious discrimination.

You said, “I want to say to all those who are preparing for the potential of religious services this weekend: If you go to your synagogue, if you go to your church, and attempt to hold services after having been told so often not to, our enforcement agents will have no choice but to shut down those services,” making clear that you did not “say this with joy.”

SOURCE: Charisma News

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This is not the first time something like this has happened. A national tragedy occurs, and Christians get scapegoated and blamed. Remember Nero blaming the Christians for the burning of Rome? Today, it is an op-ed writer for the New York Times who blames evangelicals for the spread of the coronavirus in America—and that would mean white evangelicals, to be sure.

The Times’ original headline was bold and provocative: “The Road to Coronavirus Hell Was Paved by Evangelicals” (yet they’ve since changed the headline to “The Religious Right’s Hostility to Science Is Crippling Our Coronavirus Response”).

Yes, “Trump’s response to the pandemic has been haunted by the science denialism of his ultraconservative religious allies.”

According to Katherine Stewart, the author of the article, “Donald Trump rose to power with the determined assistance of a movement that denies science, bashes government and prioritized loyalty over professional expertise. In the current crisis, we are all reaping what that movement has sown.”

Is there any substance to her claims?

Stewart quotes prominent evangelical leaders (one of whom is Hispanic, for the record) who downplayed the danger of holding public gatherings to the point of ridiculing pastors who chose to follow the government’s guidelines. (My own stance has been quite the opposite, encouraging pastors to comply out of love for their neighbors as well as out of wisdom; see here and here.)

Stewart also notes that some evangelical leaders in high places in the government have scorned the danger of the virus, outside of church settings.

But where is her evidence that these pastors and leaders influenced Trump’s policy decisions? What proof does she have?

To be generous, we could call it specious. To be precise, we could say she has none. A court of law would not even find her reasoning worthy of being called circumstantial.

SOURCE: Charisma News

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WASHINGTON – A delegation of religious freedom watchdogs is back from Azerbaijan where Christians and other religious minorities are feeling some relief when it comes to worshiping freely.

“They are trying to move in the right direction,” said Gayle Manchin who serves as vice chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, and recently visited Azerbaijan to meet with leaders and monitor conditions on the ground.

Many of the nation’s issues stem from a 2009 law that serves to control all religious activity. 

Religious groups are required to register at least 50 people at the same time along with their place of worship. 

“And, of course, in a large city like their capital, Baku, finding 50 members of a particular religion is not that much of an ordeal, but when you get out to the rural areas of the country then it is very difficult where you have groups of maybe 10 or 15 that want to worship together in a home and they can’t do that. If they are not registered they are considered illegal or in violation and then can be arrested, harassed, their homes destroyed,” Manchin tells CBN News.

There are also government controls on the content, production, and distribution of religious materials. The state also must approve religious education to preach, teach religion or lead ceremonies.

Azerbaijani’s found in violation of the law face hefty fines, amounts that are often many times their monthly salaries. 

Although the government recently relaxed enforcing parts of the law, religious communities fear that could change at any moment and continue to limit their activities. 

The majority of Azerbaijani’s are Shia Muslims and US officials say historically Protestant Christians and Jehovah’s Witnesses have been targets of the harshest treatment. 

However, Manchin is encouraged that the government is willing to address every issue the commission brought up and believes they are working towards moving in the right direction.

“Some of their actions have been more positive in terms of more registrations, less apprehensions, and violence in the outlying areas,” she says.

Part of the problem, Manchin says, is the chemistry of the government doesn’t lend itself to religious freedom.

“When you look at religious freedom and then that they are a government that is very structured and very controlled and so control and freedom are not synonymous and I think that’s where some of the issues arise in their effort to totally control and yet say they completely allow religious freedom,” she explained.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom works to advance religious liberty across the globe while advising the Trump administration.

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