A biological woman who identifies as a transgender man and gave birth to a child lost an appeal Wednesday to be listed as the father on the birth certificate.

Freddy McConnell was born female and had a mastectomy as an adult but became pregnant via sperm donation. The baby was born in 2018. 

McConnell wanted to be listed as the child’s father on the birth certificate but was told by the registrar that British law would not permit it. 

McConnell then filed suit. A lower court ruled against McConnell last year. This week, the Court of Appeal also ruled against the transgender man.

“In our view, it is not possible simply to say that Parliament has ‘de-coupled’ the concept of ‘mother’ from gender,” the three-judge panel unanimously ruled.

The word “mother,” the court said, has special significance in British law. The justices pointed to the Children Act of 1989, which it said benefits the child by requiring a mother to be listed. 

“[The Act] provides that a mother has automatic parental responsibility for a child from the moment of birth,” the justices ruled. “No-one else has that automatic parental responsibility, including the father. … The fact of giving birth to a child has that effect as a matter of operation of law. It can readily be understood why this could be important in practice. 

“From the moment of birth someone must have parental responsibility…

(RNS) — President Trump’s job approval ratings among some faith groups jumped in March as the number of coronavirus infections began to spread across the country.

But that “Trump bump” has all but disappeared.

A new poll released Thursday (April 30) from PRRI shows Trump’s approval has fallen on average by 6 percentage points and is now more in keeping with 2019 levels among most demographic groups.

Among white evangelicals, Trump’s favorability ratings fell to 66% from a high of 77% in March. White Catholic approval ratings of the president dropped to 48% from 60%. Perhaps the largest drop was among white mainline Protestants. Only 44% approved of the president in April, down from 62% in March. (Among nonwhite Protestants, Trump’s favorability ratings did not change.)

Overall, 43% of Americans hold mostly or very favorable views of Trump (about the same as in February shortly after he was acquitted of impeachment charges).

In mid-March, it was 49%.

“The jump we saw in March was unusually high, particularly for white evangelicals,” said Natalie Jackson, research director at PRRI. “It was one of the highest favorability records we saw for Trump among that group. What we’re seeing in April is a return to where they had been previously.”

Jackson attributed the March bump to a “rally around the flag” effect, as more Americans saw Trump on TV daily responding to the virus as…

JOS, Nigeria, May 4, 2020 (Morning Star News) – Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed 13 Christians and kidnapped 13 others in attacks on April 23-25 in north-central Nigeria, sources said.

The attacks on five villages in the counties of Kajuru and Chikun in Kaduna state displaced more than 1,000 people from their homes. The sources said those killed were members of Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), Catholic, Baptist, United Church of Christ in Nations (HEKAN) or Assemblies of God churches.

The herdsmen invaded Kikwari and Kujeni communities in Kajuru County on April 25 at about 3 p.m., said Luka Binniyat, spokesman for the Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU), in a press statement.

“The armed herdsmen stormed Kikwari Village, Kajuru LGA, and shot three persons and carted away livestock and foodstuff in large quantities as residents fled for dear lives,” Binniyat said.

He identified those killed as Ado Maisamari, a 56-year-old father of eight children; Titus Amos, 27, survived by his wife and three children; and Habila Amos, 25, survived by his wife and child.

“All the villagers numbering over 1,000 are now taking refuge with relations in nearby towns under tough conditions in this grim period of coronavirus lockdown,” Binniyat said.

The herdsmen attacked Kujeni village on April 23, killing three Christians and kidnapping 12 others, he said. The armed herdsmen…

With the surge in COVID-19 cases now considered manageable, Samaritan’s Purse’s Central Park field hospital unit has stopped receiving new patients and will pack up and leave in approximately two weeks.

The Christian ministry and its partner hospital, Mount Sinai Health System, released a joint statement Saturday saying the partnership had resulted in 315 coronavirus patients receiving “high-quality medical care” within the field hospital tents.

“We are grateful for this opportunity to work together to save lives and reduce suffering,” the statement said, according to New York City Public Radio. “Now that the surge in COVID hospital admissions is reaching manageable levels, we will stop admitting new patients to the Central Park field hospital as of [Monday] May 4.”

New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson previously had said Samaritan’s Purse wasn’t welcome in the city due to the organization’s biblical views on sexuality. “Hate has no place in our beautiful city,” he tweeted last week. But Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, said on Monday his organization treated “everybody the same.” The organization is privately funded.

Samaritan’s Purse requires its volunteers to agree to a written affirmation “that marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female.”

Hate has no place in our beautiful city. 6/6

— NYC…

A senior army chaplain is under fire from twenty-two chaplains under his command because he sent them an email encouraging them to read John Piper’s new book Coronavirus and Christ. They are calling for him to face military discipline, including a possible court-martial for what they say is a violation of their freedom of religion, Desiring God reports.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper asking him to investigate the action taken by Colonel Moon H. Kim, who is the command chaplain of U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys in South Korea. Kim sent an email to thirty-five military chaplains from his Army email address with a link to a free copy of Piper’s e-book and told them, “This book has helped me refocus my sacred calling to my savior Jesus Christ to finish strong. Hopefully, this small booklet would help you and your Soldiers, their Families and others you serve.”

In the letter to Secretary Esper, the MRFF said Colonel Moon’s actions were “clearly meant as a full-fledged endorsement and validation of what the book espouses and proclaims. This, in CLEAR effect, especially to the recipients of his shocking e-mail, Chaplain (Colonel) Kim is likewise endorsing and validating the same dictates as established by the author of this book.”

The MMRF specifically took issue with the theology Piper is known to…

As churches continue to stay closed amid COVID-19, free resources are being offered by Tyndale Bible and the Institute for Bible Reading (IFBR) for communal Bible studies.

“One of the things that we’ve seen recently in the midst of this is that reading the Bible by yourself can be lonely. You’re there alone to wrestle with your questions. And so … we want to bring people together,” senior director of mobilization for IFBR Paul Caminiti, told The Christian Post.

In the past few years, Tyndale, a book publisher, and IFBR, an activist think tank, have collaborated to produce the Immerse Bible Reading Experience, which has been growing in popularity.

The program features a six-volume Bible aimed at providing the “best reading experience possible.” Each chapter of the Bible is displayed “according to its literary genre” and void of annotations, section headings and chapter and verse numbers. Additionally, the Scripture is formatted in a “single-column setting.”

Amid stay at home orders due to COVID-19, together the organizations decided to launched a new 10-day virtual Bible “book clubs,” called Immerse From Home. The program offers an online communal Bible study of books Luke through Acts.

“This initial engagement with Scripture would be centered around the big stories of the first century: the life of Jesus, and the birth of the early church,” Caminiti…

The governor of a province in Pakistan is encouraging all universities to require that a study of the Quran become part of the college syllabus.

According to The Christian Post, Punjab Gov. Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar said the Quran will help students “win favor of Allah Almighty” and become “good human beings through the right understanding of the Holy Quran.”

The governor, who is chancellor of universities, has asked a seven-member committee to bring him recommendations on how to implement a study of the Quran into the syllabus.

The group’s recommendations are due May 22.

Meanwhile, a statement from CLAAS-UK, a Christian legal advocacy organization, says forcing non-Muslim students to study the Quran will have a “negative impact.”

“It is sad that for minorities, especially Christians who are living in large numbers in Punjab, their religious and fundamental rights are totally ignored,” Nasir Saeed, director of CLAAS-UK, said. “No alternative program has been announced for non-Muslim students of Punjab universities.

“It will promote bigotry and hatred against non-Muslims in Pakistani society, something which is already on the rise,” he added.

In 2017, the National Assembly and Senate in Pakistan voted to pass a bill that would make the teaching of the Quran mandatory in all schools and colleges in the country.

The Compulsory Teaching of…

Nine out of 10 Protestant churches in the U.S. did not meet in-person during the month of April amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and few pastors say they will resume all normal activities right away when government restrictions are lifted, according to a new LifeWay Research poll.

The survey of pastors showed that 90 percent of Protestant churches did not meet in-person during April – a similar finding to a previous poll in which 93 percent of churches did not meet in-person the final week of March. Most state and local governments did not begin restricting in-person meetings until the middle of March.

Even on Easter Sunday, 93 percent of Protestant churches did not meet.

Churches out West are the most likely to say they never halted in-person meetings.

“By the end of March, the gravity of the pandemic had changed churches’ behavior across the nation,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research. “The need for precautions did not change throughout April and churches maintained their temporary avoidance of gathering physically.”

Few churches have plans to resume all normal activities when government restrictions and guidance are lifted. For example:

• 16 percent of pastors say they’ll resume “all normal activities” right away.
• 23 percent will wait a few additional weeks and then resume activities gradually.
• 7 percent will resume meetings for…