A community college in Michigan has cancelled its annual Montcalm County Pastors Appreciation lunch after a member of an atheist organization complained.

According to Christian News, Mitch Kahle, co-founder of the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists, filed the complaint, saying the lunch violated the constitution law on separation of church and state.

“The 2018 Montcalm County Pastor Appreciation Lunch scheduled for Oct. 11 at Montcalm Community College’s Greenville campus has been cancelled due to concerns expressed by an outside organization,” the college wrote in a press release.

“The concerns expressed have distracted from the true intent of the event, and the college does not wish to have its involvement negatively impact the community service opportunity provided by the Pastor Appreciation Lunch, the release added.

Kahle wrote in his complaint that the event uses public tax dollars.

“MCC is a public institution of higher learning and knowledge – not a church of Christian ideology,” he said. “Public tax dollars, resources, and employees, may not be used to fund, organize, support, coordinate, promote, or hold religious activities or events.”

But Montcalm Community College Bob Ferrentino said the event was for fellowship for pastors.

“We felt it was kind of harmless,” he said. “It was certainly not in any…

A man who put an abortion pill in his girlfriend’s drink has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for attempted first-degree intentional homicide of an unborn child. 

Manishkumar Patel, 45, was sentenced Tuesday after admitting to slipping an abortion-inducing drug in his girlfriend’s smoothie in 2007. The woman didn’t drink it, but still miscarried weeks later, according to the Post Crescent newspaper. Patel had been on the run from police for a decade. 

Patel obtained the drug in the mail from India. 

“I have had plenty of time to think about what I did,” he said during sentencing. “I have no excuse or explanation for my actions.”

A decade ago, he told investigators he “didn’t need any more babies,” and “didn’t want more problems,” the Post Crescent reported.

Patel and the girlfriend had a child together in 2004. In September 2007 – a month after she became pregnant again – he plotted to force her to have a chemical abortion. He took her to an ice cream shop in Appleton, Wis., bought them a smoothie, and then poured it into two different cups. 

As she waited in the car, he put a powdery substance – the abortion pill – into her cup and gave it to her. But she saw the powder in the cup and never drank it. She sent it to a lab for testing and discovered it was RU-486. 

“He knows what he did was wrong,” his defense…

The United States has brokered a deal with Turkey for the release of North Carolina pastor Andrew Brunson, after almost two years of him being held in a Turkish jail. 

According to NBC News, the White House reached a deal with the Turkish authorities that will allow for Brunson to return to the U.S. in the next several days.

Under the agreement made between senior White House officials and the Turkish government, Brunson should be released after specific charges are dropped against him at his next court hearing on Friday. 

The pastor was being held on charges of conspiring to overthrow the Turkish government and being a part of a terrorist group. 

Though specific details of the deal have not been released, a source told NBC that in exchange for Brunson, the U.S. has committed to easing economic pressure on Turkey.

When Brunson was moved out of the Turkish prison and placed under house arrest in July, many people were hopeful that Brunson would be returned to the U.S. soon after.

Now, after several months under house arrest, the Turkish government has decided to release the pastor. According to Fox News, on October 12, Brunson stood before a Turkish court for a final hearing and it was decided that the pastor would be released and sentenced to time served.

The exact date of his return to the U.S. is not yet known, but President Trump has voiced on Twitter…

Christian families must not forsake family members who identify as LGBT, says Andrew T. Walker, director of research and senior fellow in Christian ethics at the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“Do not abandon them. I do not know how this poisonous thinking infected evangelicalism, but in my role at the ERLC I’ve heard from parents who have a gay or lesbian or transgender child who think that because their child is identifying as one of those categories, it means they have to abandon them and banish them away,” said Walker at the ERLC’s annual national conference in Grapevine, Texas, on Thursday.

“If you have that attitude toward others, you should crucify it. If you have that attitude yourself about your child, you need to crucify it. Here’s why: because there is nothing, I repeat, nothing that can nullify the relationship between a parent and a child.”

Walker also denounced how so many issues on transgenderism are “politicized,” noting that it’s not just a “culture war”…

On Friday, Pope Francis accepted Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s resignation after he was accused of aiding in the cover-up of two sexual abuse scandals.

In a letter released by Wuerl’s office, the Pope reluctantly accepted the cardinal’s resignation, noting that he was a longtime ally to the pope and suggesting that Wuerl became a scapegoat amid sexual abuse allegations.

Wuerl’s resignation makes him the most prominent figure in the church to resign amid the Catholic church sex abuse scandal after his predecessor as Washington archbishop, Theodore McCarrick. 

McCarrick was forced to resign in 2018 from the College of Cardinals after being accused of sexually assaulting at least two minors and adult seminarians.

The Vatican released a statement Friday to announce Francis’ acceptance of Wuerl’s resignation, but noted that the pope has not named a replacement for the cardinal and as such has asked Wuerl to stay on until a new archbishop can be found.

This decision came after months of Wuerl insisting that he had no knowledge of the sexual abuses by clergy. Nonetheless, many people in the Catholic community lost faith in Wuerl’s leadership and soon the cardinal reached the conclusion that he could no longer lead the archdiocese.

“The Holy Father’s decision to provide new leadership to the Archdiocese can allow all of the faithful, clergy, religious and lay, to focus on…