Kirk Franklin’s Response to TBN

Kirk Franklin responds to TBN, alongside Dr. Tony Evans, Robert Morris and TBN’s Matt Crouch. Kirk Franklin and Dr. Tony Evans share some of their experiences with systemic racism and discuss racial reconciliation and a way forward.

Kirk Franklin, Dr. Tony Evans, Robert Morris: The Church Cannot Be Silent Anymore

Kirk Franklin responds to TBN, alongside Pastor Robert Morris, Dr. Tony Evans and TBN’s Matt Crouch. The group discusses how the church has been complicit in racial division, and why it cannot be silent anymore.

Kirk Franklin, Dr. Tony Evans, Robert Morris: Healing the Racial Divide

Kirk Franklin responds to TBN, alongside Robert Morris, Dr. Tony Evans and TBN’s Matt Crouch. The group discusses HOW to begin healing racial division and WHERE the healing has to start.

Source: TBN Praise

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After denying any wrongdoing on his part for nearly two years, prominent Houston pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, who served as a spiritual adviser to former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, has admitted to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection to his role in a multimillion investment scheme that preyed on the elderly.

Last summer, Caldwell, who was indicted in 2018 for defrauding investors — including elderly members of his Windsor Village United Methodist Church — of more than $1 million, maintained his innocence as his co-defendant, Gregory Alan Smith, pleaded guilty to wire fraud.

“These defendants used their positions as religious leaders and investment advisors to defraud Louisiana residents — many of whom are elderly and retired,” U.S. Attorney David C. Joseph said in a release Wednesday. “In doing so, the defendants abused the trust and respect of their victims for the sole purpose of stealing their money. This type of deceit can be devastating for victims, especially when life savings are lost. My office will continue to vigorously prosecute those who use confidence schemes to prey upon the elderly and people of faith.”

Caldwell and Smith, who is an investment adviser based in Shreveport, Louisiana, were both charged with 13 counts, including conspiracy to commit money laundering when they raised around $3.5 million in Historical Chinese bonds from 29 investors between 2013 to 2014.

Caldwell and Smith reportedly tricked investors into believing that they were buying the Historical Chinese bonds through a Shreveport-based company called Smith Financial Group LLC. The Department of Justice noted that the bonds were issued by the former Republic of China prior to losing power to the communist government in 1949.

“They are not recognized by China’s current government and have no investment value. Smith and Caldwell promised high rates of return, sometimes three to 15 times the value of the investments. Instead of investing the funds, the defendants used them to pay personal loans, credit card balances, mortgages, vehicle purchases and other personal expenses,” the DOJ said.

Caldwell received $760,000, which he used for personal expenses, including mortgage payments. His limited liability company also received $1 million, of which $175,000 was transferred to the pastor. Smith received $1 million of the funds invested which he splurged on luxury vehicles, the DOJ said.

According to a KTBS report, a woman who was a victim of the pastor’s scheme lost her entire life savings of $200,000 and is now living as a “hovel.” She is so destitute she struggles to pay her utilities.

In court on Wednesday, Caldwell entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Maurice Hicks who allowed him to remain free on bond until sentencing on July 22.

Source: Christian Post

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Police are investigating Päivi Räsänen, a Christian Parliament Member in Finland, for a 2019 tweet of Romans 24-27, which questioned her church for supporting a LGBT event.

According to The Christian Post, Räsänen has been a member of Parliament since 1995 and chaired the Christian Democrat Party. Police are looking into interviews she also gave to a television program and radio station on her beliefs.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a US-based international law firm, is representing Räsänen and says this is not the first time she’s been investigated for alleged “hate speech.”

“The Prosecutor General initiated a second, third, and fourth investigation,” said ADF. “These concerned a pamphlet that Räsänen wrote more than 16 years ago outlining the official teaching of her own church on human sexuality, a television interview, and a radio interview. Despite the police previously concluding that no crime had been committed, the Prosecutor General re-opened the file.”

In 2018, Räsänen was interviewed on TV and discussed religious beliefs with the presenter. The next year, Räsänen answered the question, “What would Jesus think about homosexuals?” in a radio interview that stirred controversy.

Source: Christian Headlines

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YANGON, Burma, March 11, 2020 (Morning Star News) – A rights group has confirmed reports that suspected Muslim, ethnic Rohingya beat and kidnapped Rohingya Christians on Jan. 26-27 in a refugee camp in Bangladesh.

At least 12 Rohingya Christians were hospitalized with injuries from an attack in Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar District on the evening of Jan. 26, according to a March 6 report from international human rights group Fortify Rights. Citing survivors who said they were attacked because the assailants thought the Christians were converting Muslims, Fortify Rights also documented the destruction of the Rohingya Christian refugees’ makeshift church building.

“More than 50 people destroyed the church. They are Rohingya from different areas,” a Rohingya refugee woman told Fortify Rights.

She said the attackers claimed Christians were trying to convert Rohingya Muslims. The predominantly Muslim Rohingya themselves are severely persecuted in Burma (Myanmar), resulting in mass refugee flows to Bangladesh and other countries. Fortify Rights estimates there are 1.1 million Rohingya refugees from Burma in Bangladesh, most Muslims except for “at least several hundred” Christians.

Another Rohingya woman said a group of Rohingya men entered her shelter near the church the night of Jan. 26 and stabbed her husband, according to Fortify Rights.

“They had long swords,” she told the rights group. “I couldn’t see clearly how many of them there were. They all had masks on…My door was kicked in and broken. They entered into my home. They first stabbed my husband with a sword, and my husband fell unconscious.”

Her husband and other Rohingya Christian refugees were hospitalized.

Fortify Rights also found that Bangladesh authorities threatened and beat a Rohingya Christian for recording the attack using a mobile phone.

“If security forces beat a Rohingya for collecting video evidence, we have concerns about the seriousness of their investigation and their continued use of excessive force,” Matthew Smith, chief executive officer of Fortify Rights, said in the statement. “As part of an investigation, Bangladesh authorities should take appropriate measures against officers found to have beaten Rohingya bystanders. Dhaka should not tolerate excessive and unnecessary use of force against refugees.”

The group corroborated findings by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which last month reported the abduction of a pastor identified only as Taher and his 14-year-old daughter from their shelter at the Kutupalong camp on Jan. 27.

A witness also told Fortify Rights that a Rohingya group used sticks, knives and guns in the abduction of 53-year-old Pastor Taher and his daughter from their shelter in Kutupalong refugee camp in the morning of Jan. 27.

“He [Pastor Taher] was beaten so badly with sticks,” the unidentified witness told Fortify Rights. “He was beaten and kicked with their fists and legs. They put a mask on his face and tied his hands. He was abducted because he is a Christian leader, and they will try to make him Muslim.”

HRW reported on Feb. 13 that Taher’s wife feared her husband has been killed.

“No one can give me any clear information, but my relatives told me that my daughter has been forced to convert to Islam and marry,” she told HRW.

The attacked families were reportedly relocated to a United Nations transit center and filed a police case against 59 alleged assailants. Refugees in the camp suspect the assailants were linked to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), but a representative of the armed group denied and condemned the attacks.

HRW estimates there are about 1,500 Rohingya Christians among more than 700,000 predominantly Muslim Rohingya who were forced to flee to Bangladesh due to the Burma military’s 2017 ethnic cleansing campaign.

Source: Christian Headlines

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The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest, is a Senior Analyst at RNS. Previously he was a columnist at the National Catholic Reporter (2015-17) and an associate editor (1978-85) and editor in chief (1998-2005) at America magazine. He was also a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University (1985-98 & 2006-15) where he wrote Archbishop, A Flock of Shepherds, and Inside the Vatican. Earlier he worked as a lobbyist for tax reform. He has a doctorate in political science from the University of California Berkeley. He entered the Jesuits in 1962 and was ordained a priest in 1974 after receiving a M.Div from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.

The Christian faith is not just a personal commitment, it is also a communal experience. From the very beginning, Christians have gathered to share the Word of God and break bread in confined spaces. They drank from the same cup and shared a holy kiss. They also cared for the poor and the sick.

All of these Christian practices are now seen as ways that the coronavirus can spread through populations. That is why the coronavirus is so threatening, not only physically but also spiritually.

In a pre-scientific age, we might carry on and ask God to protect us. Many saints died caring for plague victims. Aloysius Gonzaga, patron saint of the Jesuit high school where I live, died in 1591 at the age of 23 while caring for victims of the plague in Rome.

Today, public health officials recommend that we put distance between ourselves and others so as not to spread the virus. At first blush, this “social distancing” sounds un-Christian, but we need to listen to medical experts. As with doctors, the first rule of a Christian at this time is “Do no harm.” That means not doing anything that might spread the virus to others.

In the time before germs and viruses were understood, people blamed strangers, Jews and witches for sickness. Anyone who was different could be the target of people’s fear. The public was also offered potions that often caused more harm than good. Even today, conspiracy theories abound and fake cures are sold to the gullible. Again, we need to listen to medical experts and not to conspiracy theorists who use any crisis to make money or stir up hatred and division.

The experts tell us that the best ways to avoid the virus are truly simple:

Like Naaman, the Aramean general we read about in the Bible’s Second Book of Kings, who scoffed when the Prophet Elisha told him to wash seven times in the Jordan to cure his illness, we don’t take simple solutions seriously. But we need to listen to Naaman’s servants, who challenged him by saying, “If the prophet told you to do something extraordinary, would you not do it? All the more since he told you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”

Since Catholics gather to celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday, they have had to take preventive measures to avoid the spread of the virus. In China and Italy, services have been canceled and churches have been closed at the advice of public health officials.

Source: Religion News Service

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A proposed plan to split the United Methodist Church is on its way to the denomination’s top court to decide whether the legislation that would implement it is constitutional.

If the Judicial Council rules the plan is constitutional, delegates could take up the proposal, called “A Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation,” at the United Methodist General Conference May 5-15 in Minneapolis.

The protocol was announced in January and later written into legislation — after the deadline had passed to submit legislation for consideration by the General Conference.

But the denomination’s rulebook, the Book of Discipline, allows legislation to be submitted later if it originated at an annual conference session held between 230 and 45 days before General Conference. Other petitions also can be allowed at the discretion of the Committee on Reference, it says.

Over the past month, three regional United Methodist annual conferences have approved measures to send the protocol to the General Conference for a vote.

Members of the unofficial group of United Methodist bishops and advocacy group leaders who negotiated a proposal to split the denomination spoke about the process Monday, Jan. 13, 2020, on a live-streamed panel hosted by United Methodist News Service. Video screengrab via UMNS

Over the weekend, annual conferences in Michigan and Sierra Leone voted to pass along the protocol. The Philippines Annual Conference Cavite previously had approved sending the protocol to the General Conference.

Both the conferences in the Philippines and Sierra Leone also endorsed the proposal to split.

“It is significant in our global church that this legislation is being sent to the General Conference by conferences in Africa, Asia, and the United States,” Michigan Bishop David Bard told the Michigan Annual Conference.

On Wednesday (March 11), the United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops announced it had asked the Judicial Council to decide whether proposed legislation implementing the protocol is constitutional. The court’s spring meeting runs April 29-May 2, just before the start of the General Conference.

Source: Religion News Service

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Normally, there wouldn’t be anything noteworthy about Jane* and her family having other local believers over for dinner. But recently, life has been anything but normal. As the coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread throughout East Asia and other parts of the world, many cities including Jane’s have imposed restrictions on travel and suspended group gatherings, making fellowship and community difficult.

So when Jane heard a few days ago that a local pastor and his wife were bringing their daughter over for dinner, she was excited. They’d not been able to have anyone over to their house for more than a month.

Jane is a nurse, and as the virus spread, she knew it would affect her and her family in some way. She just never expected how extensive restrictions in their city would become. The day she heard that their neighborhood wouldn’t allow visitors, she remembers feeling discouraged and lonely.

Because the coronavirus fell right during the biggest holiday in East Asian culture, many people in Jane’s church and in her neighborhood were already away. She felt isolated.

“That was a really lonely week, because there was no end date [to the restrictions],” she said. “That was hard, just emotionally and spiritually feeling alone. But it also became a time of just being with the Lord and remembering we’re not alone.”

Though the last few weeks have been challenging, Jane says she has seen God continue to work in and through the challenges those in East Asia are facing.

Her background as a nurse, for example, has helped her encourage friends around her who are fearful. The couple that came over for dinner has a young daughter, and they’ve been too scared to let her even go outside to play. Having them over gave Jane and her husband a chance to encourage them not to live in fear.

“We’ve been able to help people see, especially believers, with an eternal perspective. The Father’s hand is still in this. He’s still good, and we’re still under His hand,” she said.

Source: Baptist Press

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