Remembering Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize: The power of trusting your past to God

Elie Wiesel, 81 year old Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winning author, smiles during a press conference in Budapest, Hungary, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on this day thirty-four years ago for his role as “the world’s leading spokesperson on the Holocaust.” Wiesel lived through the horrors of the Holocaust after he was sent to the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps as a teenager. 

After his release, he became a journalist, but it took him ten years before he felt able to write on what he experienced. His memoir was originally published under the title And the World Remained Silent but is better known to English-speaking audiences as Night. He has since written over forty books on the Holocaust, but Night remains the most prominent. 

While it’s been at least fifteen years since I last read it, his haunting account of what he and others went through remains a powerful and formative influence on my understanding of the period, and the same is true for countless others. 

The platform he gained by poignantly sharing his experiences gave him the platform to become “the leading figure behind the establishment of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.” and positioned him to become an advocate for other persecuted minorities as well. 

How God can redeem your past

My hope and prayer is that no people group ever has to experience what the Jews faced at the hands of the Nazis in World War II, though even now there are people groups like the Uighur Muslims in China who are coming to know something of that struggle. Still, we don’t have to face a historical atrocity for God to be able to use us to help others. 

The willingness to be open about our past is often all the Lord needs to redeem those hardships and struggles in a way that helps others today. 

And it’s all right if it takes a process to reach the…

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Group Creates Site to Help Christian Voters Understand Candidates’ Platforms Through a Biblical Lens

Group Creates Site to Help Christian Voters Understand Candidates’ Platforms Through a Biblical Lens


The Salt & Light Council has created a new political resource to help biblically-minded voters parse through the candidates’ positions in line with a biblical worldview.

Biblical Voter”, created two years ago by the council, has information on local, state, and national candidates for every government election.

The website informs voters by providing handouts, showing videos, and comparing Democrat and Republican candidates’ policy positions to what the Bible teaches. The website even has links to the four major Christian and Conservative Congressional Scorecards to showcase how each candidate aligns with a biblical worldview.

The scorecards come from a libertarian think tank Freedomworks, The Family Research Council, The Heritage Foundation, and Christian Coalition, which was co-founded by Pat Robertson.

The website also provides links to help visitors register to vote and find out where their polling place is.

There is also a link to help register others to vote by helping them with a voter drive. On the voter drive page there is a biblical voter pamphlet one can order online in addition to a voter registration kit.

In statements to The Christian Post, Salt & Light Council President Dran Reese explained, “If pastors aren’t making voting a priority treated equal to other priorities of the church, people are not going to…

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Amy Coney Barrett Defends Her Pro-Life Beliefs: It’s the ‘Position of the Catholic Church’

Amy Coney Barrett Defends Her Pro-Life Beliefs: It’s the ‘Position of the Catholic Church’


Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on Tuesday stood by her signing of a newspaper pro-life ad and her membership in a faculty pro-life group, although she did not disclose to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee how she may rule in future abortion cases.

If confirmed by the full Senate, Barrett would replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and become the fifth woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She also would – according to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) – become the first “woman who’s unashamedly pro-life” to serve on the high court.

Multiple Democratic senators, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Kamala Harris (Calif.), referenced a 2006 pro-life newspaper ad that included Barrett’s name and said the undersigned “oppose abortion on demand and support the right to life from fertilization to natural death.”

Barrett told GOP Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) she signed the ad while walking out of church with her family. It was sponsored by the St. Joseph County Right to Life.

“At the back of church there was a table set up for people on their way out of mass to sign a statement validating their commitment to the position of the Catholic church on life issues,” Barrett said. “… The statement that I signed, it was affirming the protection of life from conception to natural death.”

Barrett also was a member of…

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COVID-related mental health disorders will increased suicides

Amid a dramatic increase in suicide over the last two decades, a number of faith leaders have weighed in on whether or not those who commit suicide are condemned to hell. | (Photo: Pexels)

A second wave of devastation stemming from the novel coronavirus pandemic including soaring suicides and drug overdoses is imminent with the declining mental health of communities, medical researchers warn and it is expected to disproportionately impact the poor, older adults, blacks and Hispanics.

The warning came in Mental Health Disorders Related to COVID-19–Related Deaths published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on Monday. The article was authored by NYU Grossman School of Medicine researchers: Dr. Naomi M. Simon from the Anxiety and Complicated Grief Program; Dr. Glenn N. Saxe from the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Dr. Charles R. Marmar from the Center for Alcohol Use Disorders and PTSD.

“While nations struggle to manage the initial waves of the death and disruption associated with the pandemic, accumulating evidence indicates another ‘second wave’ is building: rising rates of mental health and substance use disorders,” the doctors wrote. “This imminent mental health surge will bring further challenges for individuals, families, and communities including increased deaths from suicide and drug overdoses. As with the first COVID-19 wave, the mental health wave will disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic individuals, older adults, lower socioeconomic…

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SBC Seminary Votes to Retain Slaveholders’ Names on Buildings

SBC Seminary Votes to Retain Slaveholders’ Names on Buildings


(RNS) — The flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention decided Monday (Oct. 12)  to maintain the names of campus buildings named for school founders who had connections to slavery. At the same meeting, the trustees of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary created a multimillion-dollar scholarship fund for African American students.

“We’re not going to erase our history in any respect or leave our history unaddressed,” said the school’s president, R. Albert Mohler Jr., in a statement. “We are seeking to respond to the moral and theological burden of history by being a far more faithful institution in the present and in the future than we’ve been in the past and in this central respect we acknowledge a special debt to African American Christians.”

Starting in the 2022-23 academic year, the school will earmark $1 million of restricted and endowed funds for the Garland Offutt Scholars Program to honor the first African American full graduate and assist Black students at the seminary. It plans to contribute an additional $1 million every three years until a $5 million goal is reached.

The seminary trustees also declared vacant the Joseph Emerson Brown Chair of Christian Theology, which was held by Mohler. Brown, governor of Georgia during the Civil War, earned a substantial part of his fortune from the exploitation of mostly Black convict-lease…

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Liberal States May Consider Secession If Trump Wins Again Like 2016, NYT Columnist Says

Liberal States May Consider Secession If Trump Wins Again Like 2016, NYT Columnist Says


Left-leaning states may consider secession if President Trump wins the electoral college but loses the popular vote as he did in 2016, a columnist for the New York Times says in a new podcast.

Michelle Goldberg, an op-ed columnist for The Times and a contributor to MSNBC, made the comments during the Oct. 8 edition of The Argument, a podcast hosted by her and fellow columnist Ross Douthat. Much of the podcast focused on what would happen if Trump loses the election and refuses to leave office, but Douthat proposed a different scenario: What if America experiences a repeat of 2016, but “with an even bigger gap between the popular vote and the electoral college”?

Douthat suggested in his hypothetical: Trump wins Pennsylvania, Texas and Georgia narrowly and wins the electoral college but loses California “in an unprecedented blowout” and the popular vote to Biden, 53-45 percent. Douthat continued his hypothetical: “John Podesta, sort of embodying the Biden campaign and refusing to concede and literally urging California and other blue states to threaten some kind of secession if there isn’t some kind of negotiated deal that gets Trump out of office.” (Podesta served in the administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.)

Goldberg said calls for secession in such a scenario would begin in the states.

“It’s not going to come from John Podesta. It’s not…

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Ben Carson’s HUD Investigates Religious Discrimination Complaint Made by Elderly Apartment Resident

Ben Carson’s HUD Investigates Religious Discrimination Complaint Made by Elderly Apartment Resident


The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is investigating a complaint made by an elderly resident of an apartment complex in Oklahoma after management allegedly demanded the removal of Bibles and religious decorations from a Christmas tree.

CBN News reports that Dr. Ben Carson, secretary of HUD, sent a letter to the Carriage Crossing complex in Tulsa, Oklahoma, warning the management that “barring religious materials infringes upon [religious liberty], and the Trump administration will not stand for discrimination against any group for practicing their religious traditions.” Carriage Crossing is owned by Vintage Housing, Inc. and managed by Wilhoit Properties.

The investigation will determine if there is enough evidence to violate the Fair Housing Act. If so, HUD will “seek conciliation and voluntary resolution.” The issue could also be resolved “through settlement, an administrative determination, or referral to the Department of Justice.”

According to The Oklahoman, representatives from both Vintage Housing and Wilhoit Properties have not yet responded to the statement.

“A Secretary-Initiated Complaint will result in a formal fact-finding investigation,” according to the statement. “The party against whom the complaint is filed will be provided notice and an opportunity to respond.”

Earlier this year, another senior resident…

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Roe v. Wade Is Not a ‘Super Precedent’ that Can’t Be Overturned, Amy Coney Barrett Says

Roe v. Wade Is Not a ‘Super Precedent’ that Can’t Be Overturned, Amy Coney Barrett Says


Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on Tuesday said the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide is not a “super precedent” of the court and also not “well-settled” like Brown v. Board of Education.

Barrett made the comments to Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) on the second day of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering her nomination to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Klobuchar asked Barrett if Brown v. Board of Education – the 1954 case that ruled school segregation was unconstitutional – was precedent that “could be overruled.” Klobuchar was referencing a 2013 article by Barrett in the Texas Law Review that distinguished between “precedent” and “super precedent.”

Barrett called Brown “super precedent.”

“People consider it to be on that very small list of things that are so widely established and agreed upon by everyone,” Barrett answered. “Calls for its overruling simply don’t exist.”

Klobuchar then asked her if Roe v. Wade, which was handed down in 1973, is super precedent. Barrett referenced her 2013 article, saying only about six Supreme Court cases can be called super precedent. Roe is not in that group, she said.

“People use super precedent differently. The way that it’s used in the scholarship and the way that I was using it in the article that you’re reading…

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Nothing Else Matters by Brian Mayes

New Release Nothing Else Matters by Brian Mayes

“A Dose of Optimism” for the pandemic: The daily key to empowering hope

(Adobe Stock)

Donald McNeil is the New York Times science and health reporter focusing on plagues. He has “become a household name for many over the past several months” due to his early and consistent reporting on the coronavirus pandemic. His article this week in the Times, titled “A Dose of Optimism, as the Pandemic Rages On,” has therefore drawn significant attention.

McNeil reports that “non-pharmaceutical interventions” such as mask-wearing and social distancing have “made a huge difference in lives saved.” Now he focuses on pharmaceutical interventions such as vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. On this front, he has become “cautiously optimistic,” citing experts who “are saying, with genuine confidence, that the pandemic in the United States will be over far sooner than they expected, possibly by the middle of next year.”

We have already fared far better than we did during the Spanish influenza, the pandemic to which this one is often compared. It cost 675,000 lives in a country of 103 million, a toll equivalent to two million dead today. 

In addition, the flu season in the Southern Hemisphere was almost nonexistent this year because of social distancing and mask-wearing. As a result, if Americans get their flu shots, we can hope to avoid a “twindemic” of coronavirus and influenza. Monoclonal antibodies such as the regimen given to President Trump are making progress, and the FDA is likely to begin approval of vaccines sometime in the next three months. 

Such progress is expected to catalyze markets and jumpstart the global economy. 

The first person in the US to contract coronavirus twice 

This is very good news, coming at a time when we need such pandemic-related hope. 

A twenty-five-year-old man in Nevada with no history of significant underlying conditions has become the first confirmed US patient to become reinfected with COVID-19. He has now recovered, though his second case was more…

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