Despite having pointed to July 1 as his initial target date to begin the annexation of the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated on Tuesday that the move would be delayed.

According to the Associated Press, on Tuesday, after speaking with White House envoy Avi Berkowitz and the U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Netanyahu noted that discussions with the United States about the controversial annexation plan would continue in the days ahead.

“I spoke about the question of sovereignty, which we are working on these days and we will continue to work on in the coming days,” Netanyahu said.

The annexation, which is a part of President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, or the “Peace to Prosperity” plan, has been met with widespread criticism on the international stage. Among the plan’s critics are the United Nations secretary-general, the European Union and several Arab countries. Many of these same entities believe that Israel’s annexation of the West Bank – a highly disputed area between Palestine and Israel – would violate international law and hinder Palestine’s ability to become a viable independent state.

As Christian Headlines previously reported, Trump’s plan calls for an independent Palestinian state and declares Israel as sovereign over the West Bank settlements. Also under the plan, Jerusalem would remain Israel’s capital.

After the plan was…

It’s Saturday morning and I can hear Derek Watkins’, also known as Fonzworth Bentley, and Louis Upkins’ morning routines in the background.

Upkins is an established business consultant and coach to influential leaders and Watkins is best known for being the host of MTV’s reality TV show “From G’s to Gents” and for working as Sean Combs’s personal assistant.

Just as in their morning routines, while the two African American men are much different, they have in common their strong relationships with Jesus and their desire to raise their children to have faith in Christ as well. For this reason, while the two men live in different parts of the country, they hold each other accountable to be the best fathers that they can be.

It doesn’t take long into the conversation before the two men start talking about what they love about their role as a father and their desire to raise Godly children of color.

“I love being a dad and the role that it provides me to be there for my kids, to give them the love and wisdom that they need,” Watkins shared.

Somewhat fatigued with the level of racial injustices they are currently seeing in our country, both men also admitted that being a father to children of color can, at times, be stressful.

Sharing with his kids that “they are created in the image of God” is an important reminder, Upkins asserted, adding that while God made…

Grammy Award-winning artist Kanye West has new music in the works following his 2019 gospel album Jesus Is Kingand his Sunday Service Choir’s companion album Jesus Is Born.

On Monday, the rapper turned gospel artist revealed the cover of his latest single “Wash Us in the Blood” on Twitter using the hashtag #WESTDAYEVER.”

WASH US IN THE BLOOD COVER BY ARTHUR JAFAhttps://t.co/Oqvrhku0QE

VIDEO TOMORROW 10 AM EDT#WESTDAYEVER pic.twitter.com/FPOIMwKXwm

— ye (@kanyewest) June 30, 2020

West also revealed that the title of his next album will be God’s Country. The album’s release date is yet to be announced.

The new song features faith-centered lyrics such as “Holy Spirit come down, Holy Spirit come down, Holy Spirit help now, Holy Spirit help now, Wash us in the blood …”

The music video for “Wash Us in the Blood” is directed by Arthur Jafar, mixed by Dr. Dre and features guest vocals by fellow rapper Travis Scott.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the first image of the music video features smartphone video footage of a police officer shouting at Black Lives Matter protests. Additionally, the video showed black people breathing heavily while wearing COVID-19 protective face coverings.

The music video ends with a clip of West’s seven-year-old daughter North West dancing as the artist’s Sunday Service Choir rehearses in the background.

“Wash us in the…

A Christian photographer filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday seeking to overturn a Virginia law that would force him to take pictures at same-sex weddings under the threat of $50,000 to $100,000 fines.

At issue is the Virginia Values Act, which was signed by Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam in April and prohibits “unlawful discrimination because of” sexual orientation in “places of public accommodation.” It defines a public accommodation as “all places or businesses offering or holding out to the general public goods, services, privileges, [or] advantages.”

Virginia law permits a civil penalty of up to $50,000 against first-time violators and up to $100,000 for each subsequent violation.

The law went into effect Wednesday.

Alliance Defending Freedom filed the suit against Virginia’s attorney general and another state official on behalf of Chris Herring, who owns Chris Herring Photography.

Herring is a Christian who derives his views on marriage from the Bible, the denominational teachings of the Southern Baptist Convention, and “other Christian leaders, pastors, and theologians that Chris admires,” the suit says. His formal policy, the suit says, is “to only offer wedding photography services celebrating weddings between one man and woman and to decline any photography requests celebrating any other weddings – including those for same-sex engagements or…

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana pro-life law Monday in a much-anticipated abortion case, and the four dissenting justices didn’t mince words in criticizing the majority’s position.

“Today a majority of the Court perpetuates its ill-founded abortion jurisprudence by enjoining a perfectly legitimate state law and doing so without jurisdiction,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote.

The court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned a Louisiana law that required abortion doctors to acquire admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic. The goal of the law, supporters said, was to protect the health of a woman if the procedure didn’t go as planned.

Thomas criticized the court’s abortion opinions from the past five decades and argued Roe v. Wade, handed down in 1973, should be overturned.

“Roe is grievously wrong for many reasons, but the most fundamental is that its core holding – that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to abort her unborn child – finds no support in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Thomas wrote.

The “right to abortion,” he wrote, was “created out of whole cloth, without a shred of support from the Constitution’s text.” Roe and its subsequent cases, he argued, “should be overruled.”

“The idea that the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment understood the Due Process Clause to protect a right to abortion is…

Herman Mendoza had it all—money, success, mistresses, and a beautiful home in the Poconos. But the kingdom he had built came toppling down when he was arrested for selling drugs, forcing him to his knees where he eventually accepted Christ.

According to CBN News, Mendoza’s experience with drugs started young as a teenager with his brother. He continued experimenting for years until he lost his job in his 20s.

“I was married and living with my wife and I was laid off from a job that I was working at,” Mendoza told The PureFlix Podcast. “And so I was desperate for money.”

He partnered with his brother and the two sunk deep into the drug trade, largely selling cocaine. Soon, the money started to flow in and Mendoza felt on top of the world. He bounced around from party to party, traveling the Eastern Seaboard with his brother distributing drugs and collecting mistresses. Eventually, he had a home in the Poconos for his nuclear family and a string of apartments around the city for his mistresses.

“I thought, ‘Hey, this is an easy way to make money and get rich,’” he said.

But the high didn’t last long. Mendoza’s newfound success stopped when police discovered cocaine in the trunk of his car, marking his first arrest. He was stunned, terrified of what might happen to his wife and child while he was in prison.

He faced 25 years to life but struck a deal with prosecutors…

A U.S.-based evangelical broadcaster will be pulled from Israeli airwaves, Israeli regulators announced.

Asher Biton, chairman of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, told GOD TV last week that it had seven days to stop the broadcast of the Shelanu channel.

“The channel appeals to Jews with Christian content,” he wrote. “Its original request,” he said, stated that it was a “station targeting the Christian population.”

Shelanu’s satellite provider, HOT, has also dropped the channel.

Ron Cantor, Shelanu’s Israeli spokesman, said their license in Israel “state unequivocally” that the station would broadcast its content in Hebrew. Most Christians in Israel speak Arabic.

In its original application, Shelanu describes itself as a “Christian religion channel broadcasting Christian content … for the audience of Israeli viewers … [in] Hebrew and English.”

In Biton’s initial approval of the station, he said that “the channel is intended for the Israeli viewing audience.”

Avi Mizachi, a Shelanu board member, said it was “absurd” that the channel was being pulled off the air.

“It is absurd that anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist content is broadcast freely every day on cable television in Israel, and a pro-Israel Zionist channel like ours is under investigation,” he said. “We should be free to broadcast content of our…

(RNS) — The Rev. Traci Blackmon was at home outside of St. Louis when a local hospital called. It had been sending people with mild coronavirus home to recover, but it didn’t have enough masks to send with them.

Now the hospital had a question: Could Blackmon’s church help sew some masks?

“That moment still haunts me,” said Blackmon, senior pastor of Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant, Missouri, and a registered nurse. She knew how crucial it was for those people to protect others from contracting the disease.

She was also ready and able to help. Christ the King is part of a network called Masks for the People that is distributing surgical masks and hand sanitizer in low-income and minority neighborhoods. She told the hospital the church would be happy to help.

As coronavirus cases surge again, churches across the U.S. have stepped up, providing medical supplies to help slow the spread of the virus and food to those who have lost their jobs. Still others are serving places affected by the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests after the death of George Floyd. Through it all, church leaders have had to navigate how to meet people’s needs while keeping their volunteers safe.

None said it has been easy. But in interviews this month, all said it is what their faith demands.

The U.S. has had more than 2.5 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and more than…