The panel of Christian women writers described the night Donald Trump won the presidency as, in the words of one, “a nightmare.”

“As the numbers rolled in, (there was) just this sense of this nightmare is really true – our family, the body of Christ, is actually going to vote in a way that dehumanized our presence here in this country,” said Sandra Maria Van Opstal, a second-generation Latina and the executive pastor of Grace and Peace Community in Chicago.

Speaking at a session Friday (April 13) at Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing, the writers recalled the shock for them of the election of a man who had spoken so disparagingly about women and minorities.

But the worst part, said panelist Kathy Khang, was realizing the next day in what force evangelical voters came out for Trump. She recalled “when the number of 81 percent was published and the sneaky gut suspicion you had all along was confirmed in a way that cannot be denied and was printed and reported over and over and over.”

That number is now familiar to those who follow politics and evangelicalism closely as the percentage of white evangelical Christians who voted to elect President Trump. (It was actually between 80 percent and 81 percent.)

More than a year into Trump’s presidency, the writers on the ethnically and racially diverse panel — called “Still…

While some churches are decrying Facebook’s bias against conservatives and Christians, one megachurch is actually partnering with Facebook in an effort to better connect with their congregation and community.

CBN News reports that Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee has now been partnering with Facebook for several months in an outreach effort.

As pastors of a 30,000-member megachurch, Mt. Zion’s leaders felt that they needed to find a better way to connect with people–and that is where Facebook comes in.

“The biggest challenge of the church is getting people connected,” said Bishop Joseph W. Walker III, senior pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church. “Often, people see a church and don’t know where to connect.”

The church recently had employees from Facebook’s faith-based partnership division present at a Sunday morning service to greet congregants and to point them to laptops where they were shown how to get more connected with the church.

“People are becoming more and more isolated, but I think today was evidence that when you bring people together for the shared purpose and vision of community of faith … there’s tremendous energy there,” shared Nona Jones, who is a Facebook employee and the manager of the company’s faith-based partnerships.

Walker adds that this new form of outreach can be part of fulfilling the Great Commission:

“He [Jesus] called…

A new Hebrew-English Bible with a distinctly Israeli flavor will be published in honor of Israel’s 70th anniversary.

The anniversary begins at sundown Wednesday (April 18) and ends at sundown the next day.

The Israel Bible “is the world’s first Bible centered around the Land of Israel, the People of Israel and the unique relationship between them,” according to Israel365, the organization that produced it in conjunction with Menorah Books, a division of Koren Publishers Jerusalem.

Israel365 teaches Christians about the biblical significance of the land of Israel and the Jewish people’s connection to the land, based on the text of the 24 books that constitute the Tanakh, the Hebrew name for the Bible, and what Christians call the Old Testament.

The group’s newsletter is read by 300,000 subscribers, the majority of them evangelical Christians — among the strongest supporters of Israel.

Maayan Hoffman, vice president of marketing and brand strategy at Israel365, wrote in The Jerusalem Post that the aim of the new Bible is “to convince a divided Jewish people, Christian Zionists and what sometimes seems like an anti-Israel world that Israel belongs to the Jewish people.”

The founding of Israel, which became a refuge for Jews after the Holocaust, in which one-third of the world’s Jewish population was murdered, is called the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) by…

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the use of taxpayer dollars to fund church repair projects that support religious activities is unconstitutional, even for historic preservation.

The decision comes after a longstanding legal battle between the Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders and the Wisconsin-based atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Through its taxpayer-funded historic preservation trust fund, Morris County had granted $4.6 million to a dozen churches that used the money to repair stained glass windows with religious imagery, slate roofs, building towers and ventilation systems, according to NJ.com.

Since at least 2015, the FFRF has sued to stop Morris County freeholders from awarding grants to historic churches for restoration or repairs by arguing that it violates Article I, paragraph three of the state constitution that reads, in part: “Nor shall any person be obliged to pay tithes, taxes or other rates for building or repairing any church or churches, place or places of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right or has deliberately and voluntarily engaged to perform.”

Despite legal…

Kay Warren, co-founder of Saddleback Church and wife of Rick Warren, has said that hundreds of anguished people have asked her how to cope with mental illness and fears of suicide surrounding their loved ones, five years after her son, Matthew, took his own life.

Warren reflected in an emotional Facebook post on Tuesday that even though she prayed and begged God every day for a miracle, there came a point during Matthew’s struggles where she realized he was not going to make it.

“In the last five years, hundreds of people have asked me how to help their loved one — particularly an adolescent or young adult child — who is living with severe mental illness and/or substance use disorder,” she began.

“Many weep — mostly against their will, because these brave mamas and dads have steeled themselves to not break down in public AGAIN over the anguish they feel for their beloved sons and daughters who are barely holding on, cycling through repeated ‘episodes,’ relapses, jail time, rehab, hospitalizations, ODs and suicide attempts,” she continued.

Warren said that some parents go even further in what they ask her: “A few manage to cobble together THE question through tight lips that can…

Presbyterian Church (USA) may soon remove the term “racial-ethnic” from offices and documents, replacing when possible with the term “people of color.”

PC(USA)’s Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns recently recommended that the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination change their terminology and office names.

The recommendation would go before the denomination’s 223^rd General Assembly, scheduled to be held this June in St. Louis, Missouri.

“Direct all six agencies of the PC(USA) to move toward changing ‘racial ethnic people’ to ‘people of color’ in all documents, parlance, and programs from this point forward,” reads ACREC’s recommendation.

“Direct the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board (PMAB) and the Committee on the Office of General Assembly (COGA) to change…

A grieving young boy recently asked Pope Francis a difficult question, and the Pope’s gentle response is touching the hearts of many.

The Huffington Post reports that the Pope made a visit to St. Paul of the Cross parish near Rome where he interacted with children of parishioners and answered questions.

A young boy named Emanuele approached the Pope to ask a question, but then he began crying, overcome with emotion. The Pope beckoned to the boy to whisper the question in his ear. The two talked for a short time, and then Francis told the crowd that Emanuele had given him permission to share his question.

The young boy had shared with the Pope that his father had recently died, and although he was a good father and had baptized his children, he was an atheist. “Is Dad in heaven?” the worried and grieving boy asked.

“A boy that inherited the strength of his father also had the courage to cry in front of all of us,” the Pope told the crowd. “If this man was able to create children like this, it’s true that he is a good man.”

“That man did not have the [gift] of faith, wasn’t a believer. But he had his children baptized. He had a good heart,” Francis added.

The Pope acknowledged that only God knows who will be taken to heaven, but that God has “the heart of a father.” He then asked the gathered children if they thought God…