NEW DELHI, September 30, 2020 (Morning Star News) – Incited by Hindu extremists, thousands of tribal animists in Chhattisgarh, India last week drove Christians in three villages from their homes in assaults that police declined to prevent or stop in spite of prior warnings, sources said.

The attacks on Sept. 22-23 by mobs that swelled to more than 3,000 agitators damaged homes, sent Christians fleeing for their lives and left a woman hospitalized with serious injuries, but police officers’ only response was to pressure Christians to contribute to the Hindu festivals that were the touch point of the hostilities.

Sivram Koyam, a resident of Kakadbeda in Kondagaon District, said he and other Christians were at the local police station on Sept. 22 trying to warn officers of impending violence when they received calls from relatives saying fierce mobs were attacking their homes.

“From three in the afternoon till eight in the night, I pleaded with and begged the police officers to go and stop them, but they did not go,” Koyam told Morning Star News. “The furious mob came in search of me, and not finding me home, they picked up my wife and smashed her on the ground three times.”

The mob of about 3,000 animists were chanting Hindu slogans as they damaged homes in Kakadbeda village, he said.

“One of them tore my wife’s blouse [the garment worn beneath a saree],” Koyam said. “Besides grievous…

Smaller churches have not been able to host their online services at their requested time on YouTube. The online video-sharing platform has been moving the times for some users with less than 100 subscribers allegedly due to heavy traffic, but without informing them.

Pastor Stuart Chaplin of Bushy Hill Park Community Church in London recently complained about it on Twitter.

“If like @BHPCC you have less than 100 subscribers, you won’t be getting access to that feature (‘premiere’ an event at a set time) any time soon. Unfortunately, our attempts to mutually boost subscribers with other @theFIEC churches didn’t get us to the magic 100 figure, so we’re relying on a work round,” he wrote.

Later, Chaplin wrote, “I have at last discovered why @YouTube suddenly stopped premieres on the hour or at half-past for some churches. Basically, because of the increase in traffic due to COVID, YT decided to throttle access to these prime times for small channels.

“It’s pretty poor show from @YouTube to make a big change that affects a large number of users, and not inform them that…

(RNS) — LifeWay Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, has sued its former president and CEO, accusing him of violating a noncompete clause in his contract.  

Thom Rainer, who announced his plan to retire as president and CEO in 2018, still serves as chief advisory officer for LifeWay. Under terms of a transition agreement, he was prohibited from working with a competitor for 12 months after his retirement, LifeWay claims in a suit filed in Williamson County, Tennessee, on Monday (Sept. 28).

Rainer, 65, was earning the same salary he received as president, plus a car, which he could keep after his term as chief advisory officer concludes Oct. 31, according to the transition agreement he signed with LifeWay in 2018.

But in April, the suit alleges, Rainer and Tyndale, a publisher of Bibles and other Christian books, reached “a multi-book, multiyear agreement” for publishing Rainer’s books, which LifeWay says violates the transition agreement.

“Tyndale is ecstatic about our long-term partnership with Thom Rainer and Church Answers. Thom is a gifted leader, teacher, and communicator whose personal mission aligns perfectly with Tyndale’s,” Tyndale senior VP and publisher Ron Beers was quoted saying in a news release.

Rainer, a prolific writer, runs a business called Church Answers, which is intended to help church leaders with…

Nearly three of four pastors are concerned that the presidential election and its fallout will negatively impact their congregations, according to a newly reported study by the Barna Group.

Barna recently released the findings of week 18 of their Church Pulse leader survey, which drew from a poll of 475 Protestant pastors taken Sept. 24-28.

Since each week has a different total of respondents, the margin of error varies week to week, being between 4.77% to 7.65% depending on the sample taken.

When asked by Barna about how concerned they were that the election will impact their church, 33% of respondents said they were “very concerned,” while 41% said “somewhat concerned.”

While 74% of respondents expressed a level of concern that the election will impact their congregation, 26% responded that they were “not concerned.”

Despite the concern about an impact, the surveyed pastors indicated confidence on handling the divisiveness of the political campaign season at their respective…

By Leonardo Blair, Christian Post Reporter Follow | Wednesday, September 30, 2020

A West Virginia pastor recently completed a 175-mile walk over eight days to draw attention to extreme poverty and homelessness being faced by people across the state who are often ignored by society.

“As someone who strives to emulate Jesus, I believe it is my responsibility, and the responsibility of all people of faith, to advocate and care for people who are up against it the most,” the Rev. Zac Morton of First Presbyterian Church Morgantown wrote in a note on a website dedicated to his campaign for the poor and homeless.

“It is my hope that any conversation generated around #WALK4WV and the stories we are able to highlight will help reshape and refocus the way we approach the complexity of houselessness and extreme poverty. Instead of offering top-down solutions, we can partner with individuals and create networks of positive relationships that can lead to a better future for all West Virginians.”

Morton began walking from Morgantown on Sept. 21 and arrived at the State Capitol in Charleston on Monday where he completed his 175-mile journey with plenty of…

Two major pro-choice groups and a prominent Democratic representative are criticizing President Trump’s executive order that requires medical personnel to protect babies who survive an abortion.

Trump issued the executive order on Friday, two days after he told a Catholic group he would be signing a “born-alive executive order to ensure that all precious babies born alive, no matter their circumstances, receive the medical care that they deserve.”

Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette (Colo.) criticized Trump the day he signaled he would be signing the order. She is co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus.

“President Trump just announced he will sign an executive order that seeks to limit women’s access to reproductive care,” DeGette tweeted. “This is yet another egregious attack on women’s rights. We will not sit idly by and allow this administration to strip away our rights!”

🚨BREAKING: President Trump just announced he will sign an executive order that seeks to limit women’s access to reproductive care.

This is yet another egregious attacks on women’s rights.

We will not sit idly by and allow this administration to strip away our rights!

— Rep. Diana DeGette (@RepDianaDeGette) September 23, 2020

The order, known as the Executive Order on Protecting Vulnerable Newborn and Infant Children, was released Friday and states that “every…

Atheists and agnostics in the United States and many countries around the world are far more likely than religious individuals to identify with the political left, according to a new Pew Research Center report.

The Pew Fact Tank report, released Sept. 28 and based on Pew’s most recent Global Attitudes Survey, found that atheists, agnostics and those unaffiliated with religion are more likely to identify with the political/ideological left in 11 countries, including the United States.

In some countries, such as Spain, the U.S. and Canada, the differences are significant. In the U.S., 50 percent of this group – which Pew calls the religiously unaffiliated – identify with the ideological left, compared to 24 percent of the religiously affiliated who do so, for a difference of 26 percent. In Canada, 39 percent of the religiously unaffiliated but only 13 percent of the affiliated identify with the left (a 26 percent difference), while in Spain, 47 percent of the unaffiliated but only 19 percent of the affiliated identify with the left (a 28 percent difference).

“Religiously unaffiliated” individuals in multiple countries, Pew said, are “more likely to identify with the political left than are adults who identify with a religion.”

Pew also found double-digit differences on the issue in France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Germany and Sweden, with…