Religious Groups Say New Washington DC Laws Breach Their Constitutional Freedoms

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Religious Groups Say New Washington DC Laws Breach Their Constitutional Freedoms

Christian Today report– Religious groups express opposition to the passage of two laws in Washington D.C. on grounds that these laws will violate their constitutional freedoms.

According to the Catholic News Service, eight groups have signed a joint statement dated February 5 and addressed to the U.S. Congress requesting representatives to disapprove the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act of 2014 and the Human Rights Amendment Act of 2014.

These organisations are the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archdiocese of Washington, the Archdiocese for the Military Services, The Catholic University of America, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the National Association of Evangelicals, CNS reported.

According to the group, the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment Act of 2014 will violate the freedom of “religious institutions, faith-based employers and pro-life advocacy organizations in the District of Columbia” to make employment decisions that are based on their beliefs, faith and principles on the “sanctity of human life.”

On the other hand, the letter stated, the Human Rights Amendment Act of 2014 will force religious educational institutions to “endorse, sponsor and provide school resources to individuals or groups that oppose the institutions’ religious teachings regarding human sexuality.”

The groups claim that the two laws violate their rights under the First Amendment as well their rights under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

“While we will continue to serve the city and the nation,” the group’s letter stated. “[W]e cannot surrender the constitutional freedoms that the framers of the U.S. Constitution rightly reserved to all of us.”

CNS stated that the laws have not yet been conveyed to Congress, in which they will have to undergo a 30-day review. Both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives have to sign a joint resolution to overturn the two bills, which have already been signed by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. The President also has to sign the joint resolution.

Source: Christian Today

Evangelism is Expected of Any Church, Says Archbishop Justin Welby

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Evangelism is Expected of Any Church, Says Archbishop Justin Welby

Christian Today report– The Archbishop of Canterbury today reaffirmed his commitment to evangelism, telling the Church of England’s General Synod that it is “the calling of the whole Church”.

Addressing the synod in London yesterday afternoon, the Archbishop opened his presidential address with a joke at his own expense.

Noting that many Christians respond to the thought of witnessing with “nervousness, uncertainty and guilt” rather than delight, he said: “The strategic response to this is clearly for a long-term, iterative and interactive, metric-based, evidence generated development of competencies across the widest possible range of stakeholders in order to achieve maximum acceleration of disciple input with the highest possible return on effort and capital employed.

“That last paragraph is, of course, complete rubbish. To be honest, I just put it in in order to reassure you, as it is well known that I am in fact a businessman who put on the wrong clothes this morning.”

In his first presidential address to the synod last July, Welby labelled evangelism as one of his three main priorities in ministry. “We need new imagination in evangelism through prayer, and a fierce determination not to let evangelism be squeezed off our agendas,” he said.

Today, he returned to this commitment, telling the synod: “Witness and evangelism are expressions of the overflow of the love and joy of the grace of God into our lives, and the life of His whole Church and His whole world.”

Sharing the Good News should be “about as guilt-inducing as breathing”, he added. “They are as much a part of the life of the Church as worship.”

The Archbishop said, however, that St Paul’s assertion that the “love of Christ urges us on” in evangelism is not always evident in the Church of England.

The final aim of the Church is to call Christians “to be those who worship and adore God in Christ, overflowing with the good news that we’ve received, making Christ known to all so that the good news is proclaimed effectively throughout the church,” he said.

“It is the most compelling of announcements. It comes as a gift to us, not of our own creation. It is news because it tells us of what we do not already know. We have not deduced it ourselves or worked it out by our own power of reason: the good news is the power of God.

“In our good news we speak of Him who really does not sweep our human needs, concerns, cares, desires and problems under the carpet, but takes them up and makes them His own.

“And if we allow ourselves to be gripped by this gospel, this good news of Jesus Christ, it will overwhelm us, for it seems too good to be true. As Pope Francis said in Evangelii Gaudium: ‘the Gospel constantly invites us to rejoice’.”

It is a constant challenge to Christians, Welby concluded, and the Church must work to encourage and facilitate the witness of believers. “That change will not just happen, we can’t just hope for something magical to occur,” he said.

“My fear is that many of us have lost all confidence in the Gospel. We have thought that you need to be an expert or a professional to be a witness. But we do not. We simply need to be able to tell of the love that has grasped hold of us and the difference it has made in our own lives.”

Despite significant debate about falling attendance figures in the UK, Justin Welby has previously insisted that he has no fears for the future of the Church.

“But I would really like, and I believe it’s part of God’s plan, that that future of the church of God includes a renewed, invigorated, confident, wonderful, celebratory, humble, delighting Church of England,” he said in November. Evangelism isn’t about using God “to ensure the Church keeps going”, he added.

“What you’re doing in evangelism isn’t a tool of the Church, it’s not some sort of thing we do so we can still be there in a generation or two. It is the revelation of the nature of God. It is intrinsic to being the people of God.”

Source: Christian Today

Obama Has Unfailing Support for Muslims, Mike Huckabee Says

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Obama Has Unfailing Support for Muslims, Mike Huckabee Says

Christian Post report– Former Baptist pastor and Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has said that President Barack Obama has shown an “undying support” for Muslims, while his actions are against Christians and Jews. Huckabee’s criticism stems from last week’s National Prayer Breakfast, where Obama used the Crusades as an example of Christians doing “terrible acts” in the name of Christ.

“Everything he does is against what Christians stand for, and he’s against the Jews in Israel. The one group of people that can know they have his undying, unfailing support would be the Muslim community. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the radical Muslim community or the more moderate Muslim community,” Huckabee said on “Fox and Friends” on Monday.

Obama said in his speech on Thursday: “Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

Obama has been criticized by a number of Christian leaders for comparing the actions of terror group ISIS to the Crusades, with The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue pointing out that the comparison is inaccurate.

“The president should apologize for his insulting comparison,” Donohue said. “Obama’s ignorance is astounding and his comparison is pernicious.” He added that the Crusades, which were initiated by the Roman Catholic Church’s Pope Urban II in 1095, were a “defensive Christian reaction against Muslim madmen of the Middle Ages.”

Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Dallas megachurch in Texas, added that Jesus would be incensed at Obama’s comparison.

“I would imagine that Jesus would be outraged that the president would willfully mischaracterize a movement like Christianity that bears Christ’s name,” Jeffress asserted. “I believe that Jesus, who said that it would be better to be cast into the sea than to harm a child, would be incensed that Obama would dare link Christianity to ISIS, an organization that tortures children, buries them alive and crucifies them. I think he’d be outraged by it.”

Obama spoke on a number of faith topics during the prayer breakfast, and said that believers need to be humble and turn to God.

“Our job is not to ask that God respond to our notion of truth. Our job is to be true to Him and His Word and His Commandments. We should assume humbly that we are confused and don’t always know what we’re doing, and we’re staggering and stumbling toward Him and have some humility in that process,” the president said.

Obama has received praise from some other Christians, such as pastor Saeed Abedini, who is imprisoned in Iran for his faith. After Obama visited his wife and two children in Boise, Idaho, Abedini wrote the president a letter to thank him for the gesture and inform him that his actions inspire persecuted Christians around the world.

Abedini wrote: “They have had a heavy burden to carry in my absence, and your presence helped to relieve some of that burden. … Thank you again for standing up for my family and I, and for thousands of Christians across the world who are persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ. President Obama, you have my prayers from inside of these walls.”

Obama mentioned the pastor’s letter on Thursday, and said that the U.S. will continue fighting for religious freedom rights, and will “keep up this work for Abedini and all those around the world who are unjustly held or persecuted because of their faith.”

Source: Christian Post

 

Sweden: Church Gets Death Threats for Showing Support to Muslims

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Sweden: Church Gets Death Threats for Showing Support to Muslims

Christian Today report– A church in Sweden has received death threats for holding a service in support of Muslims.

The church, St Petri’s in Malmö, was responding to a demonstration held by anti-Islamist organisation Pegida in the city last night – the first to be held in Sweden. The group, whose name stands for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, began in Germany and has since spread throughout Europe.

Malmö parish vicar, Anders Ekhem, told reporters last week that his church wanted to stand in solidarity with the local Muslim community, and “express joy for our city and our Muslim friends”.

“There is strong support for diverse cultures in Malmö and it is important that the church is there to support that,” he said.

“You can choose to stay silent and let them give a voice to something you don’t accept. Or, we can choose to show what we believe in, which is a multi-religious society where everyone is given the freedom to preach their own religions.”

However, St Petri’s received some severe criticism for its decision, “and in this critique there are more-or-less clear threats,” Ekhem told Sydsvenskan.

“I’m concerned about Pegida,” he told Germany’s Deutsche Welle last night. “They are preying on people’s fears. Most Muslims in Sweden support democracy.”

Weekly protests in Germany have attracted up to 25,000 people, though counter-demonstrations have garnered even greater support. In Malmö on Monday night, a police spokesperson told AFP that only 30 Pegida protestors marched while at least 3,000 people came to denounce what many see as the group’s “racist” agenda.

Pegida’s Swedish leader Henrik Roennquist said as many as 150 supporters turned up, however. He claims that “hundreds and thousands” of people contacted him expressing support for the movement, but were afraid to join the demonstration.

“There is an unmet need for this in Sweden. It’s not about racism, it’s not about shutting out immigrants. It’s about our values and traditions,” he told broadcaster SVT.

A reporter from anti-racist magazine Expo, Daniel Vergare, told news agency TT that it is unlikely Pegida will become a significant movement in the country.

“But I still think you should always worry when a group takes its mistrust of minorities to the street. Partly because it galvanizes the tension and partly because it points the finger at minorities,” he said.

“We need to show them that everyone is welcome here,” a counter-demonstrator, Alma Karlssen, told Deutsche Welle last night.

A fellow protestor accused Pegida of “driving a wedge between Swedes and creating more problems than there already are.”

“They don’t know their history,” added another. “This is exactly how Nazi Germany came to power.”

Source: Christian Today

Man Sues Church Over Cathedral Bells

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Man Sues Church Over Cathedral Bells

Christian Today report– An Austrian man is suing a Catholic church in Linz over the cathedral’s bells, which chime around the clock.

Wolfgang Lassy claimed in court documents that he suffers from a sleep disorder that can be attributed to the chiming.

The New Cathedral, also known as Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, has bells that chime every 15 minutes, night and day. Lassy, an architect, bought his “dream home” near the church in 2004, and allegedly was suffering from fatigue by 2010.

“For the last few years he’s been having problems sleeping at night and been feeling exhausted, and it’s not only influenced his personal life but also his performance at work,” his lawyer, Piotr Pyka, told RT.

“We respect the church and acknowledge the rights to practice one’s religion but we would also like the church to acknowledge our client and anyone else to have a peaceful sleep.”

Lassy even wrote a letter to Pope Francis, urging the Church leader to use his influence to grant him some relief.

“The bells in the Linz Cathedral clock tower ring every quarter of an hour at night. Between 10pm and 6am … they ring 222 times,” he wrote, according to AFP.

“We therefore beseech you, Holy Father, to intervene … to ensure that the human right of the people of Linz to a healthy and refreshing night’s sleep is respected and that the bells no longer chime at night.”

The 57-year-old said his last resort would be to sell the home. The court hearing began on Friday, and Lassy rejoiced that “the trial has finally begun.”

Source: Christian Today

Lecrae Celebrates Jesus As He Won Grammy

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Lecrae Celebrates Jesus As He Won Grammy

Christian post report– Lecrae took home his second Grammy this week as he won the award for Best Contemporary Christian Song/Performance for his song “Messengers,” which also features the Christian music group for KING AND COUNTRY.

During his acceptance speech he took some time to reflect on his faith in Jesus Christ.

“Love and respect to everybody out here because this is a celebration of gifts. And there’s so many people out here who are gifted, but obviously you can’t celebrate gives without celebrating the giver of all gifts. So I want to celebrate Jesus for gifting us all with the gift of love and sacrifice,” he said.

He also thanked his family, his label Reach Records, and all the writers on the song that includes for KING AND COUNTRY. He also thanked the band during a brief interview that took place after he received the Grammy award.

“This is Lecrae and I would love to thank for KING AND COUNTRY for their incredible contribution,” he continued.

Some of the other writers chimed in thanking the “original messenger” and the “true creator of all music.”

This makes for Lecrae’s second Grammy win as he took home the award for Best Gospel Album for Gravity in 2013.

Aside from this big win, the rapper’s had an amazing six months scoring the No. 1 album on Billboard Top 200 with Anomaly, and performing on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” twice. He’s also been vocal about current events, including the racial conflict in Ferguson, Missouri, which took place after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot by officer Darren Wilson during a physical confrontation that took place after Brown committed at strong-arm theft at a QuikTrip convenience store that was later burned to the groud by protesters.

His Reach Records imprint also inked a deal with Sony Red distribution which the rapper also took time to thank during his Grammy speeches.

Source: Christian Post

Iraqi Archbishop Calls for British Boots on The Ground to Fight and StopISIS

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Iraqi Archbishop Calls for British Boots on The Ground to Fight and StopISIS

Catholic Herald report– Iraq needs British “boots on the ground” to halt the genocide of the country’s Christians and other minorities at the hands of Islamist terrorists, a Chaldean archbishop has told Parliament this week.

Archbishop Bashar Warda of Irbil pleaded with Parliamentarians to do all in their power to persuade the Government to authorise the deployment of British troops to help to drive out ISIS fighters from the Nineveh Plain.

“It is hard for a Catholic bishop to say that we have to advocate a military action but we have to go for that. There is no other option,” he told a meeting in the House of Lords where he was a guest of Lord Alton on Liverpool.

Archbishop Warda’s diocese covers the Kurdish-controlled territory which since last summer has become the home to more than 120,000 Iraqi Christian refugees who fled as ISIS overran such cities and towns as Mosul, Qaraqosh and Karamles.

He said that US-led airstrikes have made some impact on the activities of ISIS but that they were “not enough” to liberate the Christian settlements on the Nineveh Plain.

“If you are politicians I beg you to focus on that, to speak about this,” Archbishop Warda said.

“Military action is needed, a powerful one where they could really get those people out of these villages so that our people and others can return. Please use all of your efforts to make this happen.”

Edward Leigh, the Conservative MP for Gainsborough and a Catholic, asked the archbishop outright if he was “suggesting that this country sends in troops again?”

Archbishop Warda answered: “Yes,” adding that the Iraqi army and the Kurdish Peshmerga militia were insufficiently well-trained or equipped to defeat ISIS, which, he said, also posed a greater threat to the West than Afghanistan under the Taliban and Al Qaeda and which was attracting increasing numbers of fighters to their cause.

“Someone has to do the fighting,” he said.

Pope Francis, he added, was also convinced of the moral case for international military action to defeat ISIS.

Source: Catholic Herald

Franklin Graham Says Father Billy Graham Supports His Outspokenness

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Franklin Graham Says Father Billy Graham Supports His Outspokenness

Christian Today report– Evangelist and missionary Franklin Graham has been criticised for his remarks against gays, secularists, and Muslims, but there is at least one person who apparently doesn’t mind his outspokenness – his famous father, Rev Billy Graham.

Franklin said his father also has a history of speaking out against issues he disagrees with, and has been particularly vocal about gay marriage.

“My father was also critical,” Franklin said. “He was critical of communism. He was critical of sex and violence in Hollywood.

“In recent years, he certainly came out in support of Amendment One in North Carolina which is the state’s voter-approved gay marriage ban. It’s the same one federal judges struck down recently.”

The Samaritan’s Purse CEO has been a staunch opponent to gay marriage, and remains committed to upholding the institution’s biblical definition.

“Marriage is defined between a man and a woman. And it`s never been defined between two women or two men,” said Graham.

“God is the one who instituted marriage and for our politicians and our judges to say something contrary to God`s law and teaching is a sad day.”

Graham went on to assert that the nation’s moral foundation is eroding, and said he is unsure if it will ever be restored.

“I`m not sure that this country can ever turn around and be saved,” he admitted.

“I have no faith in the Democratic Party. I don`t have any faith in the Republican Party. I don`t believe that there`s a candidate out there that can change this.

“Because both parties, and I don`t even know who the Tea Party is. I just don`t have faith the politicians of this nation can take a stand for the moral issues we face and turn it around.”

Source: Christian Today

Bishop Libby Lane to launch anti-human trafficking campaign

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Bishop Libby Lane to launch anti-human trafficking campaign

Christian Today report– Bishop Libby Lane is today launching a campaign against human trafficking, her first official engagement since becoming the Church of England’s first female bishop.

Lane, who was consecrated last month, is visiting Manchester Airport to raise awareness of the issue. Staff will be given training on the identification of at-risk passengers as part of the Travel Safe Week initiative in partnership with Border Force, the airport chaplaincy and local organisations who work with victims.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Bishop Lane said the training would allow staff to “be alert to…those indications that perhaps relationships between people are not all that they seem, and to be able to spot the signs that people are at risk and are vulnerable.

“We hope that the publicity and the information in and around the airport will give those people the courage and hope to be able to turn to those…who may be able to help them.”

Bishop Lane branded human trafficking “a growing and very significant problem,” adding that faith communities “and all those that work for good across the world” are working urgently to address it.

“The scale of it is something that’s very difficult to identify because so much of it is hidden,” she said. “But last year at a gathering in Rome for faith leaders…the Archbishop of Canterbury identified that perhaps up to 30 million people across the world at any time are being exploited in human trafficking”.

“That perhaps is only the tip of the iceberg,” she warned.

Justin Welby and Pope Francis last year backed the Global Freedom Network – a landmark initiative that will see the Anglican and Catholic Churches unite to combat modern slavery and human trafficking.

“Evil will thrive if humanity stands by and does nothing while the most vulnerable suffer at the hands if traffickers and slavers,” Welby has said.

An estimated two million fall victim to sexual trafficking each year, and a further 20,000 are forced to give up an organ. Figures indicate that there could be as many as 10,000 slaves in the UK alone.

“We are now being challenged…to find more profound ways of putting our ministry and mission where our faith is; and being called into a deeper unity on the side of the poor and in the cause of the justice and righteousness of God,” the Archbishop said in a statement last March.

Source: Christian Today

 

Alabama Begins Issuing of Marriage Licenses to Gay Couples

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Alabama Begins Issuing of Marriage Licenses to Gay Couples

Christian Post report– Alabama started issuing marriage licenses to gay couples on Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court denied the state’s request for a hold. The court’s decision comes just one day after the state’s Chief Justice Roy Moore released an order barring probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

USA Today reported Monday morning that at least one probate judge has issued gay marriage licenses, but other probate judges have refused to issue them.

Whether or not the state will enforce Moore’s directive against probate judges issuing marriage licenses and thus nullify the ones being issued Monday morning is also unknown.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule later this year on whether or not state level bans on gay marriage are constitutional.

Following a judge’s ruling striking down Alabama’s marriage amendment last month, Moore issued an order Sunday evening stating that the decision will not be recognized.

“Effective immediately, no probate judge of the state of Alabama nor any agent or employee of any Alabama probate judge shall issue or recognize a marriage license that is inconsistent with Article 1, Section 36.03, of the Alabama Constitution or § 30-1-19, Ala. Code 1975,” read the Moore order.

“The state of Alabama shall not recognize as valid any marriage of parties of the same sex that occurred or was alleged to have occurred as a result of the law of any jurisdiction regardless of whether a marriage license was issued.”

Moore reasoned that since “neither the Supreme Court of the United States nor the Supreme Court of Alabama has ruled on the constitutionality of either the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment or the Marriage Protection Act” the state was not bound to the recent decision striking down the marriage law in Alabama.

“… [C]ases are currently pending before The United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama that could result in orders that conflict with [the gay marriage rulings], thus creating confusion and uncertainty that would adversely affect the administration of justice within Alabama,” added the order.

In June 2006, Alabama voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative to add an amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage.

Known as Amendment 774 or the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment, it was approved with over 80 percent of the vote.

In response to the amendment, two same-sex couples filed suit against Alabama charging that the marriage ban was unconstitutional.

Two same-sex couples, Cari Searcy and Kimberly McKeand, and James Strawser and John Humphrey, were the plaintiffs.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Callie V. S. Granade ruled the state’s ban on gay marriage unconstitutional.

Granade granted a two week stay in the decision to give Alabama time to file an appeal and to seek an injunction against the ruling.

However, on Monday morning the U.S. Supreme Court refused to put the decision on hold, allowing at least in principle the Granade decision to take effect.

“In a 7-2 order, the justices rejected Alabama’s bid to stop a federal trial judge’s legalization order from taking effect Monday,” reported Greg Stohr of Bloomberg.

“The state now will become the 37th where gays can marry. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.”

It is not entirely clear whether or not the probate judges will issue marriage licenses or if said licenses will be legally recognized, due to the Moore order.

Source: Christian Post

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