The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of BCNN1.

In a recent study from Barna, more than 15,000 people between the ages of 18 and 35 rated the church’s impact on issues of poverty and injustice. The results were surprising. 73% of the respondents who identified as practicing Christians believe that the church as a whole is making a positive impact in its effort to fight injustice.

However, that is a significant contrast from their non-Christian counterparts, 68% of whom are not at all convinced that church is effective in its efforts for justice.

These two very different perceptions cannot both be true. So, which group is right, and what is the cause of the different view of the other group?

Is the church really making a difference or not?

According to the same study, Christians are “almost twice as likely as those with no faith to be inspired to give of their time to help others in need (56% to 32%)… [and] to report that their beliefs compel them to give of their own resources (46% to 26%).”

The reality is, Christians, churches and parachurch non-profit organizations across the world are doing a lot to help those in need. One recent example is a church in Missouri that erased $43 million in medical debt for families living in the state. Another relevant example is the many churches on both sides of the US/Mexican border that are providing shelter for asylum seekers by building bunk beds in their Sunday school classes.

Some Christian organizations have also brought in volunteer lawyers to help these people understand the immigration laws. “We don’t refer to them [as migrants and asylum seekers],” one pastor said. “We refer to them as our guests.”

These are just a few of the many ways churches and parachurch organizations fighting injustice across the world. Contrary to popular opinion, many churches actually have a tremendous impact.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Kenneth Reid

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A megachurch in Georgia has decided to pursue a multisite model for worship by adding a second campus that will have its own pastoral staff.

Christ Place Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Flowery Branch headed by pastor Jeff Crook that boasts approximately 8,000 members, plans to add the new campus by October of this year.

The new campus will meet at the North Hall Community Center and Park in Gainesville, which is about 30 minutes’ driving time from their main campus.

The church forwarded The Christian Post an FAQ document explaining that the new campus will not simply broadcast the main campus’ worship, but rather will have a level of autonomy.

“Our mission is to reach and raise the next generation to live out God’s truth. We feel that a part of this mission is to reach and raise the next generation of preachers and worship leaders,” the church explains.

“Pastor Jeff will lead a preaching team that will develop and deliver messages together — same text, same message title, same outline. Each pastor will then preach with their own style to fit their context in their location.”

The congregation was founded in 1955 and originally named Blackshear Baptist Church, with pastor Crook beginning his tenure in 2004.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Michael Gryboski

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On a recent Christian Q&A podcast, a question came from a woman who said she had been praying for God to give her His heart, and ever since she has gone through a very difficult time of pain and suffering. It was clear she was confused and hurt. The raw emotion in her voice left me heartbroken, while the question itself is something I’ve heard countless times before in different forms.

Unfortunately, the answers given to her weren’t helpful. They centered on why evil exists, with a focus on the free will argument, which posits that evil occurs because God gave us free will to choose both good and bad. Whether that’s true or not, it misses the mark of answering the woman’s real question of why she was in the midst of a hard trial.

It’s a good bet that if you’ve been a Christian for some time, you’ve had similar heartache that’s caused you to cry out to God for answers. I believe the Bible gives us understanding in this area, even if the explanations are sometimes difficult to accept.

When I was going through very difficult times, I searched for answers, came up empty, and was left both exasperated and depressed. That is, until I came upon an essay in a book (“That Incredible Christian”) written by A.W. Tozer entitled “The Ministry of the Night”, which begins with this sobering statement:

If God has singled you out to be a special object of His grace you may expect Him to honor you with stricter discipline and greater suffering than less favored ones are called upon to endure.

Go ahead and read it again. Doesn’t get any easier the second time around does it? What Tozer says is similar to what Phil Yancey wrote years later about pain being “the gift that nobody wants”.

Tough as it was to read, it was the first piece of contrarian truth I’d be given that gave me hope that answers – even if they were hard ones – were available. Was Tozer right and did the Bible back up his claim?

Long story short, the answer is yes.

Do your research and you’ll find there is not one person highlighted in Scripture and used mightily by God (e.g. Joseph, Moses, Elijah, Daniel, David, etc.) that didn’t go through painful trials. This fact runs completely contrary to the statements made by prosperity preachers who see hardships as something foreign to people blessed by God.

While a lot of people do their best to get God off the hook for pain and sufferings, the Bible doesn’t seem to follow suit. Scripture affirms God’s sovereignty over everything including both of them: “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’” (Is. 46:9–10).

SOURCE: Christian Post, Robin Schumacher

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Barna Groups’ recent research, The Connected Generation , was released on January 9, 2020, and, guys of Gen Z, you broke our hearts. Writing as those who love you, as a daddy boomer and a gal who is Gen X, we read what 15,369 interviews in 25 countries and nine languages reveal about you; you really don’t want to get married and you really don’t want to have children. Sad. Our hearts hurt for the 18 to 35-year-olds who are the focus of the study.

So what went wrong for you that marriage and family are downers and low priorities? You could blame it on your parents’ divorce, maybe mom or dad spent more time with the latest girlfriend or boyfriend or maybe even the dog had priority over you. Did you find that you were always caring for yourself and your needs because mom and dad were neglectful? Did this create your ‘me’ mentality? But did you know that marriage can actually improve your health, wealth and contentment. The Harvard Medical Health Publishers stated that a healthy marriage can elongate one’s life, improve mental health and deter heart attacks and strokes.

And, what was it that turned you against children? Was your childhood that horrific? Maybe your heart got twisted for the little ones because you saw so many children thrown away into the abortion dumpster?  Climate change?  “I can’t bring any more bodies into the world, especially those big massive carbon footprint stompers and devourers called ‘babies’”. Those critters are the ones that are filling the landfills of the world with uncompostable dirty diapers. With all the heartache and angst of your generation, we thought you would want to do “it“ differently than your dysfunctional parents generation; but you have fizzled out. Oh! Wait for it… having and raising children in that healthy marriage can heighten your financial success? YES! Two loving people committed to each other for life laser focused on the same goals breeds a bank account with goals for babies’ nursery, children’s swing sets, monumental vacays, then college then weddings then grandchildren. Did you know that children from a healthy marriage have increased literacy, higher education goals, decreased incarceration and decreased anxiety and depression?

Along with discarding children, family and marriage, the Barna study revealed you weren’t (and aren’t) overall interested in caring for the poor, the needy, the widows and the orphans. You just threw Saint James 1:27 over the cliff. Sure, Gen Z spends lots of time opening their Birch Boxes, sipping their 6 oz. $10 mocha caramel lattes, nightly excursions at the latest organic fusion restaurant, walking their adopted doggies and never missing a Barre class or Pilates class. And you do all these things so very well with that smug expression of, “I am doing something amazing because I only eat organic.” So, what’s dope? We both will sum it up in one word according to Barna: Narcissism.  Our words; not his.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Carla D’Addesi and Dr. William Devlin

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The Louisiana state senator set to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court in March in defense of a law she authored believes the pro-life movement has reached a critical juncture in history.

In an interview with The Christian Post Thursday following the third annual gala for the pro-life group Save the Storks at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Building, Louisiana state Sen. Katrina Jackson, D-Monroe, said the movement to save the unborn has reached “the turning point.”

“I really believe that through prayer, we’re at the turning point,” she emphasized, “that people are going to turn from an extreme view and people who have been scared to speak up and say, ‘Look, I’m a Democrat, I’m a Republican, I’m this, I’m that, but I’m pro-life.’ And I think we’ll see that, and we will finally begin to see an end, an eradication of the shedding of innocent blood,” she said.

“But it will happen through prayer. It will happen that people come together and really say, ‘This is no longer a party issue, this is a God issue; this is a United States issue. And we’re going to stand together and protect our children.’ And I believe this is the turning point.”

In March, Jackson will present oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case June Medical Services v. Gee in defense of a bill she authored requiring abortionists in the state to have admitting privileges at a hospital within a 30-mile radius of the abortion clinics where they work. Jackson has also sponsored an amendment to the state constitution called No Right to Abortion that will be on the 2020 ballot.

The Gee case is the first major abortion matter to be heard at the high court since President Trump appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the bench. Over 200 members of the U.S. House and Senate signed an amicus brief in support of the Louisiana law and asked the court to scrap the central holdings in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey that have enshrined abortion as a constitutional right for decades.

When asked how Christians might pray for the success of the legislation and that the heart of the Supreme Court will be turned toward women’s health, Jackson added that people should pray that the Supreme Court will “reinstate what they said, that we can regulate in the area of abortion when it concerns women’s health.” She also asked that believers pray for her family as well, because they are facing a “heavy battle” as spiritual warfare surrounds this issue.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Brandon Showalter

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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 views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily represent those of BCNN1.

The Little Sisters of the Poor are back in court litigating the birth control mandate of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which the sisters claim forces them to act contrary to their faith.

Seen as one of the signature achievements of the Obama administration, the ACA, also known as Obamacare, requires most employers to provide free birth control coverage to their employees through their health insurance plans. The sisters, who run nursing and retirement homes for the elderly, say this infringes on their religious freedom, since they would be paying for a practice that violates church teaching.

Haven’t we seen this movie before? Didn’t this issue get resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 when it heard Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell? Is this rerun truly necessary?

The answers are yes, no and, I would argue, no: The Supreme Court shouldn’t be required to settle what the parties ought to have settled themselves.

As someone who believes that women have a right to birth control but also believes that government should respect people’s religious beliefs, I see this controversy as both a tragedy and a farce. If there had been goodwill on both sides, litigation would not have been necessary. In fact, each side was suspicious of the other and any kind of deal became impossible. A pox on both their houses.

It all started badly when the Department of Health and Human Services published proposed regulations for implementing the contraceptive mandate. To say that they were poorly written is being polite. The HHS lawyers were experts in health care law, not issues of religious freedom. Asking government regulators to foresee the objections of Catholic nuns was like asking a divorce lawyer to defend you in a murder trial.

I know this is true because I got a call from one of the HHS lawyers asking for help. If they had to call me for help, they were in big trouble. I recommended they speak to Melissa Rogers, a brilliant lawyer and good Baptist.

The original regulations left the administration open to severe criticism both from religious groups and from Republicans who hated the ACA. They saw the regulations as a planned assault on religion rather than merely a case of incompetence.

Remember, at the same time, HHS had denied the refugee agency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops a government grant for helping trafficked people because it would not refer its clients for birth control or abortion services. It looked like an organized conspiracy against religious believers.

After a few more tries, the Obama administration finally issued regulations that completely exempted churches and provided a workaround for religiously affiliated employers like the Little Sisters of the Poor. The workaround was complicated because the insurance and constitutional questions are complicated, but in effect it allowed the institutions to offer insurance without birth control but required someone else — the insurance company itself or a third-party administrator — to provide birth control to their employees without charging the institution. The administration hoped that this would resolve the conflict.

There were problems with the workaround.

First, the institutions said the notion that insurance companies would provide birth control without charging them was a fiction. The administration responded with an economic study showing that it was in the insurance company’s financial interest to provide free birth control because it was cheaper than paying for births, especially complicated births. There really was no net increased cost for providing birth control.

Second, the government required the institutions to sign and send in to the government a form stating that they did not want birth control in their insurance plan. The Little Sisters maintained that even signing the government-mandated form would be “cooperating with evil.” They described it as a “permission slip” that would allow someone else to provide contraceptives.

Most Catholic moralists, as well as most Catholics, had no problem with Catholic institutions providing birth control through their health insurance plans. After all, Catholic institutions in Europe pay employee taxes for health insurance that provide not only contraceptives but even abortions.

Only the most scrupulous conscience would have a problem with notifying the government of their opposition to birth control. But the Catholic bishops and Little Sisters were being advised by extremely conservative moralists and lawyers. In addition, some bishops and Republican Catholics saw a fight over religious freedom with the Obama administration as politically advantageous. One cardinal archbishop, Francis George of Chicago, admitted he had hated Democrats ever since Mayor Richard J. Daley fired his father from a city job.

At one point, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York met with President Barack Obama to try to work out their differences. After the meeting, Dolan said he was hopeful matters could be resolved, but he was forced back off by other bishops.

Source: Religion News Service

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A court in Iran has sentenced a 65-year-old convert to Christianity to three years in prison for “insulting Islamic sacred beliefs” even as he is yet to be tried in the court for two other charges, a religious freedom watchdog group has reported.

The U.K.-based group Article 18 reported this week that Ismaeil Maghrebinejad has 20 days to appeal his sentencing and that the court referred to Article 513 of the Islamic Penal Code, which provides for a punishment between one and five years in prison.

Maghrebinejad was convicted for forwarding a message on his phone that allegedly made fun of Iran’s ruling clerics.

The convert was arrested at his home in the south-central region of Shiraz last January. Iranian security officials have regularly harassed Maghrebinejad for 40 years ever since he accepted Christ, the group said.

He is under trial for two other charges: “propaganda against the Islamic Republic” and “membership of a group hostile to the regime.”

Last November, a court dropped another charge, of apostasy, which is punishable with the death penalty in Iran. He was initially charged for apostasy due to his conversion to Christianity. In its hearing at the time, however, the court said the case against him for engaging in “propaganda against the Islamic Republic” would still apply as he allegedly started a Telegram channel to promote evangelical Christianity.

The convert’s daughter, Mahsa, believes that her father has been targeted at least partially because she and her husband, Nathan, both of whom now live in the U.S., minister to Christians inside Iran over the Internet.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Anugrah Kumar

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With thousands upon thousands in attendance, the 2020 National March for Life kicked off with probably as much if not more anticipation as any march in the movement’s 47-year history.

Not only was it the first March for Life to be attended by a president of the United States, it’s also a moment in time in which there is much speculation about the future of abortion rights in the U.S.

With the U.S. Supreme Court set to hear its first abortion-related case since two Trump-appointed justices were confirmed to the bench, the tone of the gathering was seemingly more optimistic than it was four years ago during the last year of President Barack Obama’s administration.

In the following pages are 5 notable things that happened at the 2020 March for Life, the largest pro-life human rights demonstration in the world.

President Trump, who many pro-lifers call the “most pro-life president,” made history by becoming the first sitting president to speak in-person at the annual march launched the year after the Supreme Court made abortion a national right in 1973 with its Roe v. Wade ruling.

Trump, who has addressed the March for Life rally by video in the past, highlighted his pro-life accomplishments throughout his three years in office. Adoring fans cheered as they held up signs that read, “Most Pro-Life President Ever” and “I Vote Pro-Life First.”

As he has at other pro-life gatherings, Trump bashed congressional Democrats for their support of late-term abortion.

“Together we are the voice for the voiceless,” Trump told the crowd. “When it comes to abortion, Democrats … have embraced the most radical and extreme position taken and seen in this country for years and decades and you could even say for centuries. Nearly every top Democrat in Congress supports taxpayer abortion up until the moment of birth.”

Trump assured that “every child is a precious and sacred gift from God.”

“Together we must protect, cherish, and defend the dignity and the sanctity of every human life,” he said. “When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God’s creation. When we hold a newborn in our arms, we know the endless love that each child brings to a family.”

Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, also addressed the march via video after meeting with Pope Francis in Rome. As the March for Life has always been a Catholic-majority movement, the Pences thanked Catholics for their advocacy on the abortion issue.

“To all the people of faith who are marching here today, we want to thank you for your witness and thank you for your compassion and thank you for standing for life,” Karen Pence said. “Your prayers have sustained this important movement for nearly 50 years. We cannot be more proud to be on this journey with you.”

Highly respected Southern Baptist megachurch pastor David Platt gave the closing prayer for the pep rally before the official start of the march.

Platt is the former head of the SBC’s International Mission Board, an author and lead pastor at McLean Bible Church in Vienna, Virginia.

Platt, who is not really seen as a political pastor, made headlines last year when he prayed for the president after he showed up at one of the McLean church services.

Before beginning his prayer, Platt told the crowd that his family is growing.

“One year ago, God used this march along with a variety of other means for my wife and me to begin the process of adoption,” he explained, followed by cheers from the crowd. “So we have adopted two of our four kids. We thought our family was complete but God felt different. So we began praying for a child not knowing if we would adopt a boy or a girl.”

“Our kids decided that until we met this child, we would just call him or her ‘Wonderfully Made’ because this is what God calls them in Psalm 39,” Platt, 40, said. “We prayed month-after-month over the last year for ‘Wonderfully Made’ until we were matched with a 3-year-old little boy. Next week, he will officially become part of our family.”

Platt told CP before going on stage that the adoption is international but could not yet disclose what country “Wonderfully Made” is from.

“I share this because I praise God for a mom, a woman who is herself wonderfully made, who chose to give life to a precious boy I will soon call my son,” Platt told the crowd. “As we pray, let’s pray that God would use this not as a memorable experience or political event but as a means by which more lives wonderfully made by Him might be saved.”

The popular Irish Christian worship band We Are Messengers performed the hour-long pre-rally concert.

In between songs, frontman Darren Mulligan declared that the band is unapologetically pro-life, even if it does cost them some fans.

He explained that the band took a risk by attending the event because there are many who oppose the band’s decision to perform at the march.

“When I get home tonight, I am going to get thousands of emails slamming me for taking this stance,” Mulligan said. “And, I don’t give one iota because I am a free man and nobody can tell me who I can love and who I cannot.”

Mulligan, who now lives in Tennessee, was critical of where he sees America’s priorities lying.

“America, if you are going to be obsessed with plastic straws and what bathroom people can use, then you are missing the big picture,” he warned.

He recalled his family’s own story. Mulligan said he was a “bad man” who found Christ thanks to his wife 11 years ago. But because she struggled with an eating disorder, they were told by doctors that they might never be able to have children because of the damage done to her body.

However, he said that God “had different ideas.”

“He is the author of life and He is the creator of life,” he said in his thick Irish accent. “He is the one who gives and takes away. So He has given us four of the most incredible gifts.”

“I look [at my kids] and they tell me it is just a fetus,” he continued in disgust. “Go away with that nonsense. That is not just a fetus. That is baby boys and baby girls.”

Mulligan said that when people are “walking around dead,” they “try to convince everybody else that is OK.”

Mulligan went on to criticize the people of his home country, who in 2018 legalized abortion by a democratic vote.

“I am ashamed of that,” Mulligan said. “We don’t get to choose who lives and who dies. It is not our right to do that.”

Mulligan also called on those who say they are pro-life to be active in the lives of mothers who give birth rather than abort and their children.

“We are pro-life, pro-baby. But we are also pro-woman,” Mulligan said. “Don’t go telling someone they can’t have an abortion if you are not willing to take care of them and if you are not going to sew your time and your energy and your money and your passion.”

“America, you do a lot of talking sometimes and not a lot of doing,” he added. “It is time to put your money where your mouth is. If you are going to march here today, you better be sure tomorrow that in [your heart] you are marching as well and giving everything you got.”

Mulligan praised care clinics in inner cities that are on the “frontlines that are counseling young girls considering abortion because they don’t believe they have a choice.”

He apologized on behalf of men to the women in the audience who have had abortions because they felt they had no other choice.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Samuel Smith

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You know that American culture has hit an all-time low when it takes a drag queen to tell “woke” parents to keep their kids out of drag bars. Who would have thought?

I just did a search for “drag queen lectures parents,” looking for articles related to the subject of this article.

The results of the search were telling, yielding headlines like this on a wide variety of drag-related stories:

“School Board Scolds Parents for Opposing Drag Queen’s Makeup Lesson.”

“Some Parents Outraged After Drag Queen Speaks At School Career Day.”

“Viral Video Shows Drag Queen Teaching Children To ‘Twerk’ As Parents Look On.”

“Drag Queen Prostitute Visits Texas School.”

“Parents outraged after X-rated drag queen speaks to 11-year-olds at school career day.”

What on earth is going on?

There is even a debate as to whether or not a drag queen flashed toddlers during a recent reading event. I am not making this up.

Adding to this madness is the new phenomenon of little boys being celebrated as drag queens, most famously the little boy known as Desmond Is Amazing. And little Desmond actually performed in a gay bar, leading to a firestorm of criticism. Reporting on this controversy, Pink News reported that, “Drag kid Desmond is Amazing’s mum defends gay bar performance.”

Well, one drag queen has said enough is enough, scolding parents for the insane practice of bringing their children into gay bars where drag queens perform.

As reported by Will Maule on Christian Headlines, “A popular drag queen known as ‘Kitty Demure’ has issued a stark warning to parents who are seeking to involve their children in the crossdressing scene.”

In the video, which is going viral, “Kitty” asks pointedly, “What in the h*** has a drag queen ever done to make you have so much respect for them, and admire them so much, other than put on makeup and jump on the floor and writhe around and do sexual things on stage?”

Precisely so!

How in the world did drag queens, who are almost all gay men, become exemplars for our children? What on earth happened to our society that the American Library Association could actually support Drag Queen Story Hours for our toddlers?

In response to one of my articles addressing this perverse phenomenon, some drag supporters protested, “What’s the big deal? Do you have a problem with clowns performing for your children?”

But that’s the thing. Clowns are not making ridiculous gender statements. Clowns are not parading their sexuality. How can anyone not see the differences?

In the words of Kitty, “I have absolutely no idea why you would want that to influence your child. Would you want a stripper or a pornstar to influence your child?”

SOURCE: Charisma News, Michael Brown

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