A Los Angeles federal judge overturned on Tuesday a jury’s verdict that found pop star Katy Perry and her collaborators guilty of copying a Christian rap song for her hit song, “Dark Horse.” 

U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder said she did not believe the 2008 Christian hip-hop song “Joyful Noise” by rapper Marcus Gray was distinctive enough to be in violation of the copyright law as the jury found.

“It is undisputed in this case, even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, that the signature elements of the eight-note ostinato in ‘Joyful Noise’ is not a particularly unique or rare combination,” Snyder wrote in her decision.

Perry, Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald, Capitol Records, and others had been ordered to pay $2.78 million by a California jury for copyright infringement in 2019. They appealed and asked the California courts to overturn the verdict or grant a new trial.

Gray, professionally known as Flame, plans to appeal the new ruling.

“When the jurors returned a unanimous verdict of infringement, I cautioned my clients that we had only finished Round 11 of a 15-round match and that the next round would take place in the court of appeals,” Gray’s attorney, Michael A. Kahn, said in a statement to the Associated Press. “We believe the jury was right and will do our best to restore their verdict on appeal.”

In the initial trial, Gray and his song’s co-creators had argued in their lawsuit that Perry’s 2013 single “Dark Horse,” featuring Juicy J, copied the beat of their song “Joyful Noise,” featuring Lecrae.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Jeannie Law

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Millennial-aged Christians are more likely than older generations to fact-check sermons while they are being preached, according to a new report by the Barna Group.

In a report titled “Do Americans Replace Traditional Church with Digital Faith Expressions?” that was released last week, Barna analyzed what American Christians do during a sermon.

While 75 percent of respondents said they “listen carefully,” 17 percent acknowledged that they “get distracted” while 10 percent reported that they “’fact check’ the sermon.”

Millennials were the generation with the highest percentage of respondents who said they fact-check, with 16 percent admitting that they do this, compared to 12 percent of Generation X and only 7 percent of Baby Boomers.

Millennial church attenders were also the most likely to report checking their social media, emails, and text messages during a sermon, with 17 percent responding that they do this.

This was larger than the 10 percent of Generation X who reported doing the same during a sermon and the 4 percent of Baby Boomers who responded the same.

A possible factor for this, according to Barna, is that younger church attendees are likely “more device-dependent” than older attendees.

“It’s possible that, for more device-dependent younger generations, having a smartphone or tablet on hand during church simply feels normal, another opportunity to either aid or diminish their engagement with a sermon,” explained Barna.

“In the same way, for an older Christian, a spiralbound notebook might become a sermon staple for writing down notes or just doodling in the margins—and, in fact, Boomers are less likely than younger generations to be taking notes during a service.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, Michael Gryboski

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This is Daniel Whyte III, president of Gospel Light Society International with the Whyte House Family Devotional Reading of Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening podcast. This is Episode #63.

Charles Spurgeon was a prominent English Particular Baptist preacher. He was very influential among the Christians of various denominations during his age and even today, and is commonly called the “Prince of Preachers”. After some time of alternately searching for God and running from God, he had a powerful encounter which led him to give his life to Christ. Spurgeon was only 16 when he preached his first sermon and he began publishing books shortly afterward. At the time of his death, he had preached nearly 3,600 sermons and published 49 volumes of commentaries, sayings, anecdotes, illustrations and devotions. Spurgeon said, “encouraging thoughts are like honey to the heart”, and wrote this devotional in hopes that its uplifting messages for each day of the year would bring comfort and refreshment to our walk with God. He was inspired by Isaiah 50:4 which reads, “He wakeneth morning by morning. He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned” and Psalm 63:5-6 which says, “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips; when I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches.”

Psalm 138:5 reads: “Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the glory of the Lord.”

The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord is when they first lose their burden at the foot of the Cross. Not even the songs of the angels seem so sweet as the first song of rapture which gushes from the inmost soul of the forgiven child of God. You know how John Bunyan describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at the Cross, he gave three great leaps, and went on his way singing—

“Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!”

Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you remember the place when Jesus met you, and said, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love; I have blotted out as a cloud thy transgressions, and as a thick cloud thy sins; they shall not be mentioned against thee any more forever.” Oh! what a sweet season is that when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarce refrain from dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set at liberty, that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my deliverance. So full was my soul of joy, that I wanted to tell every snow-flake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels. But it is not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have reason for song; as long as they live they discover cause to sing in the ways of the Lord, and their experience of his constant lovingkindness leads them to say, “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” See to it, brother, that thou magnifiest the Lord this day.

“Long as we tread this desert land,
New mercies shall new songs demand.”

PRAY.

Thank you for listening to the Morning and Evening podcast. If you do not know the Lord as your Savior, here is how you can be saved from Hell and walk with the Lord morning and evening until you go to that wonderful place called Heaven when you die:

First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…”

Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 18:8: “Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Now that is bad news, but here’s the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.

Romans 10:9 & 13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and today I choose to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I trust Jesus Christ as my Savior and I choose to follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.

If you believed in your heart that Jesus Christ died on the Cross, was buried, and rose again, allow me to say, congratulations on doing the most important thing in life and that is accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour! For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

If you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior today, please email me at [email protected] and let us know. There is some free material that we want to send you. If you have a prayer request, please e-mail that to us as well, and we will pray for you until you tell us to stop.

God loves you. We love you. And may God bless you.

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The final line of the Eagles’ song “Hotel California” accurately describes the current state of LGBTQ so-called “rights,” especially gender affirmation clinics: “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Last week, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden unveiled his campaign commitments on these issues, and included everything on the sexual left’s Christmas list: rollbacks of religious liberty protections, the passage of the so-called Equality Act, adding a “third gender” option on government forms, and of course, supporting a total ban on so-called “conversion therapy.”

That pejorative term no longer applies, by the way, to things like “shock therapy.” Anyone who counsels or psychologically treats someone with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria, to help them bring their feelings in line with their body, is accused of conversion therapy.

The newly invented standards of care now call for so-called gender “affirming” therapy, which instead tries to bring the body in line with feelings, often through lifelong doses of cross-sex hormones and mutilating “sex-change” operations.

The former vice-president’s campaign promises to closely resemble new legislation in Canada that would ban all non-affirming forms of therapy for LGBTQ patients. In fact, Canada’s measure is severe, not only banning but criminalizing so-called “conversion therapy,” threatening jail time for professionals who offer it, or even, apparently, parents who might seek it for their children.

Such a ban is justified by the medically and ethically deficient things done in the name of helping those with unwanted attractions or dysphoria, supporters say. But largely ignored is the growing evidence that so-called “affirming” therapies often fail to help people and even can leave them worse off.

For example, as we mentioned recently on another BreakPoint commentary, a movement of hundreds of young people has emerged in Great Britain, who are “de-transitioning” after coming to regret their gender switch. One woman is suing the British National Health Service for the decision to so quickly place her on puberty-blocking drugs, at age 16, after a “gender-affirming” clinic proclaimed she was a boy.

SOURCE: Christian Post, John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris

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