Leading Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias has opened up about his recent cancer diagnosis and offered Christians some wisdom as to how they should be responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Earlier this month, Zacharias revealed that doctors had completed an operation to repair his spine, but noted that he was still in the most excruciating pain. Shortly afterward, a biopsy taken during the operation confirmed that Ravi had developed a rare form of malignant cancer called a “sarcoma.”

“We have been meeting with specialists to determine the next course of action,” Ravi wrote at the time. “They will wait until I am fully healed from the back surgery, and in 4-5 weeks, will begin treatment to shrink the tumor.”

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Speaking to the Ben Shapiro Show, the famed intellectual opened up about the terrifying ordeal. “It was a shock,” he said of the diagnosis. “I had gone in for back surgery and they discovered atypical.. it turned out to be a tumor. I’ll begin the treatment in a little while.”

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Zacharias noted that the greatest challenge to his recovery was the pain caused by the tumor pressing on his spine. “Frankly, I’ve never felt such pain in my life.. night pain they call it.. pressure from the tumor,” he explained. “But you know what, I’ll get through it, and I should be on the road full-time hopefully by June or July.”

“I value your prayers,” Ravi added. “I know there’s a bit of a journey ahead for me, but I know the prayers of people and God’s strength will carry me through.”

Speaking into the coronavirus situation, Zacharias said believers must “combine our faith and trust in God with wisdom” when responding to the crisis. Trust in God, he said, but heed the advice to keep yourself and others safe.

“We get so used to comfort and answers, that when we find something is out of our control, it is very daunting,” Zacharias added.

“Be sober-minded about it, don’t be cavalier about it. Make sure at all times, your life and relationship with God and your family is strong. That’s what is going to matter at the end of it all.”

Adding some thoughts on the purpose of prayer at this time, Ravi warned against Christians looking at this vital spiritual practice as something of a “slot machine” — where we “put the right coin in and get the right product out.” Instead, he said, prayer is about acknowledging God’s sovereignty and seeking his guidance at times of trouble — apt advice as COVID-19 continues to spread like wildfire across the globe.

“Prayer is about communion with God,” Ravi concluded. “It is the process with which our hearts get conditioned to receive his will and come into alignment with what it is He has for us. Prayer is a surrender to the will of God.”

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Operation Blessing is meeting several needs in the Philippine Islands where medical masks and other protective gear are in big demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

OB workers braved the threat of viral contraction when they delivered protective equipment to hospitals in Manila, giving away disposable head and shoe covers, gowns, masks, alcohol, gloves and soap.

Sulfate, ascorbic acid tablets and gospel tracts with Bible verse postcards were also distributed.

Dr. Rafael Martinez with Manila’s Valenzuela Hospital said the much-needed supplies will protect the individuals working on the frontline.

“It’s truly an honor and a blessing for us. This will help our frontliners in their protection against this coronavirus scare as of the moment.”
    
Operation Blessing will be making the distributions to 20 hospitals in the coming days.

A local pastor joins them at each distribution, leading the volunteers and hospital staff in prayer for the COVID-19 patients and the health care workers.

The virus has greatly affected the Philippine economy, and many families are facing financial hardships. 

Thanks to your ongoing support, Operation Blessing is actively working with distribution partners to make more supplies available for individuals in need during the coronavirus crisis. 

OB will continue monitoring this global pandemic to determine where help is needed most.

You can find out more about what Operation Blessing is doing by visiting ob.org.

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When deciding to close the doors of black churches, congregational leaders across the US wrestle with unique considerations. Paul J. James, pastor of CareView Community Church in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, noted in an interview with The Undefeated how closing is “counterintuitive to most churches, especially the black church… where we’re just glad to get together because of how hard life has been historically for us here in America. Church has been a safe place for us. It’s been a safe harbor. Now here we are faced with the inability to come together.”

Last week, the federal government strongly urged Americans not to gather in groups of more than 10, and restrictions keep coming. We suspect that many churches will close in the near future, but the decision will not been easy.

In St. Louis, the mayor hosted a teleconference with 300 clergy, including many of black churches, to urge them not to hold services. While some chose to stop meetings and modify their ministries, others struggled to make the change.

In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer banned gatherings of more than 50 but then exempted churches from penalties. This will give some churches more options, though many are choosing to modify in some way. Triumph Church, which has seven locations in the Detroit area, will continue to gather in person, for now, though it expanded the number of services to reduce congregation size and is asking members to register ahead of time so it can maintain at least six feet between worshippers. It is also providing an online service and a drive-in service.

A lot of things inform these responses to the coronavirus outbreak: culture, histories of discrimination, and marginalization, as well as faith-based values. People experience events like COVID-19 not only as individuals but also in communities and in the social locations we inhabit. As social scientists—Deidra as a black woman doing research on HPV and Elaine as a white woman who studies how religious organizations respond to science—we offer some observations based on our research for the past 10 years at the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University. We have been gathering upwards of 150 religious and civic leaders regularly to talk about how we can use social science research on religion to build common ground for the common good.

Among the congregations we have checked in with during the past two weeks, it seems to us that in our city of Houston, Texas, black churches, in particular, have continued to gather in person. In our city, Windsor Village United Methodist Church, which has about 16,000 members, and Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church, which has more than 2,500, both initially responded with statements informing members that while they would be exercising precautions, they would still be holding corporate worship services. They have since modified their approaches: Windsor Village transitioned to all virtual services last Sunday; Good Hope met for corporate worship while requiring adjusted practices, such as liberal hand washing and greeting by waving instead of hand shaking.

In African American communities where “Go Down, Moses” is commonly sung, a unique history of knowing God as protector and deliverer means faith, not fear, in the midst of this pandemic.

But pastors are now being forced to exercise a different kind of faith—trusting God as provider in the midst of financial and other kinds of threats, as they are having to make the difficult decision of closing church doors in order to protect the flock within communities that deeply prioritize collective strength and uplift.

Social scientist of religion Cleve V. Tinsley IV says that “There are multiple reasons these large mega-churches may keep their doors open, reasons that relate to a complex web of fear of paying large mortgages and staff salaries, smaller black churches collapsing because of lack of institutional and financial support; they also may not have the kind of larger structural resources to maintain their buildings that some mainline churches have when their doors close and giving inevitably drops off.

“There also may be differences between older and younger generations of black Americans. Those who have been through Jim Crow may go to church no matter what. We need to be considering the structural, economic, and generational divides that shape responses to COVID-19,” said Tinsley.

Public health scholars also offer the Health Belief Model to explain why some might continue to meet despite public health warnings. The model suggests that people engage in health-promoting behaviors, such as social distancing, when perceived threat of a disease is high (meaning preventive action is the product of one’s perceived susceptibility of contracting a disease as well as their beliefs about the severity of it). For some black Americans—and many other Americans—myths about immunity to COVID-19 coupled with WHO reports that 80 percent of the cases are “mild” might factor into the equation.

Source: Christianity Today

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NASHVILLE (BP) — In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting has been canceled for the first time in 75 years.

Citing authority provided by the SBC Constitution “in the case of grave emergency,” the decision was made Tuesday (March 24) in a unanimous vote of a body composed of SBC officers, the SBC Executive Committee and leaders of the SBC’s boards and institutions.

The Annual Meeting, which was originally scheduled June 9-10 in Orlando, is not being rescheduled. SBC President J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area, said he was “saddened” to make the announcement, but described it as necessary in light of the ongoing crisis and the uncertainty of when it might end.

“We are a people committed to keeping the Gospel above all,” Greear said, “and our sole purpose in coming together is to support one another in that mission, catalyzing our collective mission efforts. This year, our unusual circumstances mean we can best meet that goal by not meeting together.”

At the time of publication March 24, almost 400,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection had been reported worldwide, with more than 17,000 deaths. In the United States, more than 46,000 confirmed cases had been reported, with almost 600 deaths; the numbers continued to increase significantly each day.

In an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which threatened to overwhelm the nation’s healthcare system, government officials at national, state and local levels have declared states of emergency and encouraged or required extreme social-distancing practices, as well as the closure of many businesses, stores and restaurants. Current federal guidelines, including a recommendation to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people, have been adopted at various levels — sometimes as mandatory orders. In some places, residents have been ordered to stay home.

Convention organizers had anticipated the 2020 SBC Annual Meeting might draw the largest number of messengers since nearly 12,000 participated in the 2010 Annual Meeting, also in Orlando. But Ronnie Floyd, president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, said continuing uncertainty over whether and when large groups would again be able to gather — as well as concern about when it would be prudent to do so — prompted the move to cancel.

Calling the SBC Annual Meeting “the most pivotal gathering we have as we advance our commitment to reaching the world for Christ,” Floyd said SBC leaders were “faced with a decision that none of us believed we would ever face,” and described the cancellation as “heartbreaking,” but said, “the reality around us nationally and globally cannot be ignored.”

“We know it is the right thing to do,” Floyd said. “We are extremely disappointed in having to make this decision, but God will see us through and give us a way until we are able to meet in person together again. … We know our churches need to focus on ministering to their communities and to those who have been impacted by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

“While we will not physically be coming together in June in Orlando, we will be going together in unity as we minister to our churches, our missionaries, our church planters, our seminary students and our own communities.”

The last time the SBC Annual Meeting was canceled was 1945, during World War II, when the United States government banned meetings of groups larger than 50 people. The SBC was preparing to celebrate its 100th anniversary, but instead skipped a year.

The protocol followed Tuesday was instituted by messengers to the 1946 SBC Annual Meeting. The historic decision, set out in SBC Constitution Article XI, Section 4, was reached during two video conference calls.

In a roll-call vote, the SBC Executive Committee voted 75-0 for cancellation, with seven members absent. It was followed by a unanimous vote of the body composed of the Executive Committee, convention officers and leaders of convention boards and institutions.

Mike Stone, chairman of the SBC Executive Committee and pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, Ga., said while the decision involved consideration of legal, financial and constitutional factors, he viewed the decision “as a pastor, not a board chairman.” He added that the fact it was the first cancellation in 75 years “proves this is not a decision that is made lightly.”

“While the constitutional process of voting to cancel is a simple one that involves around 100 leaders,” Stone said, “the information needed to actually make the wisest decision is quite involved. The EC staff, officers and legal counsel worked diligently to consider the various results of cancellation.”

Jeff Iorg, president of Gateway Seminary and chairman of the SBC’s Great Commission Council, called the decision “prudent given the governmental directives, travel uncertainties and advance planning needed for the convention meeting,” adding:

“The goal right now for Southern Baptists is to ensure our global missions, education and ministry enterprises continue to function effectively – which we are all working together to accomplish.”

The 2021 SBC Annual Meeting is scheduled for June 15-16, 2021, in Nashville. According to the SBC’s governing documents, postponement of an annual meeting is only an option “if the entertaining city withdraws its invitation or is unable to fulfill its commitments.”

Source: Baptist Press

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LONDON (AP) — Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, has tested positive for the new coronavirus, his office said Wednesday.

The 71-year-old is showing mild symptoms of COVID-19 and is self-isolating at a royal estate in Scotland, his Clarence House office said.

It says his wife Camilla, 72, has tested negative.

“The Prince of Wales has tested positive for Coronavirus,” Clarence House said. “He has been displaying mild symptoms but otherwise remains in good health and has been working from home throughout the last few days as usual.’’

Britain’s Press Association, citing a source, said the prince and the duchess remained in good spirits, and that Charles was not bedridden.

The tests were carried out by the National Health Service in Scotland.

“It is not possible to ascertain from whom the prince caught the virus owing to the high number of engagements he carried out in his public role during recent weeks.”

Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth II remains at her home in Windsor.

“Her Majesty the queen remains in good health,” the palace said. “The queen last saw the Prince of Wales briefly after the investiture on the morning of 12th March and is following all the appropriate advice with regard to her welfare.”

Charles’ last public engagement was March 12. He has had a number of private meetings, and participants at those sessions have been made aware of his condition.

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