Christian Florist Sued for Turning Down Same-Sex Couple Appeals Case to U.S. Supreme Court

Christian Florist Sued for Turning Down Same-Sex Couple Appeals Case to U.S. Supreme Court



A 74-year-old Christian florist in Washington is fighting for her religious freedom by asking the Supreme Court to once again take up her case.


Barronelle Stutzman, the owner of Arlene’s Flowers, told a long-time gay customer that she could not arrange flowers for his wedding because of her religious convictions. 


“We hugged and I told Rob about other florists he could use,” Stutzman shared with Fox News.


But several weeks later, the Attorney General with the ACLU sued Stutzman for refusing services.


“It was exceptionally hurtful to our clients,” Jack Ewart, attorney for the same-sex couple, said to K5 News. “And after thinking about it for some time, they got in touch with the ACLU of Washington, who got in touch with us. We filed a lawsuit under the Washington law against discrimination and the consumer protection act.”


The court agreed with the same-sex couple in 2017, as did the Washington Supreme Court when the decision was appealed. Stutzman appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but failed when the court pushed the case back to the state level. She’s trying again.


“Your religious liberty is in danger if I lose mine,” she wrote in an opinion piece for Fox News.


She continued: “In June, my state Supreme Court reaffirmed what it said just over two years ago: that I must use my skills as a creative professional…

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Thousands Show Up for Kanye West’s Sunday Service in Salt Lake City

Thousands Show Up for Kanye West’s Sunday Service in Salt Lake City



At least 7,000 people filled in a Salt Lake City outdoor mall on Saturday to listen and participate in Kanye West’s “Sunday Service,” according to Deseret News.


As part of his tour around the country, West has brought free worship services featuring a choir to several cities. He only sang “Jesus Walks,” one of his biggest hits, during the service, and used the rest of his time to preach on topics such as social media and race.


“Do not read comments on the internet,” he said to the crowd. “These people don’t know you like that. Social media is designed to make you think slower … They want to slow you down and control you.”


“I ain’t never make a decision based only on my color,” he continued. “That’s a form of slavery—mental slavery. I ain’t drink from the white person foundation. … I ain’t playing with them. All these mind controllers, the media, all of these mind controllers. I find that wherever Christ is where I’ve got my mind at. We find that the love of Christ is where I’ve got my mind back.”


According to CBN, the rapper even defended his support of President Donald Trump, arguing that the Republicans freed the slaves.


West’s new album, called “Jesus is King”, will feature several worship songs imploring listeners to focus on Jesus and religion.


“By having the luxury of having an amazing choir around me…

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Israeli Research Team Discovers Massive Bronze Age City, Dub it ‘New York’ of the Middle East

Israeli Research Team Discovers Massive Bronze Age City, Dub it ‘New York’ of the Middle East



Israeli archaeologists have discovered a sprawling 5000-year-old city so enormous that it has been dubbed the “New York” of the Bronze Age.


The massive town, which was uncovered during an excavation funded by the Netivei Israel Company, was located in northern Israel’s Ein Iron area as workers prepared to undergo roadwork construction in the area. It is thought to have been home to some 6,000 people and featured public roads, neighborhoods, a ritual temple and fortifications, according to the BBC.


“This is the Early Bronze Age New York of our region; a cosmopolitan and planned city where thousands of inhabitants lived,” the excavation directors explained in a statement.


“There is no doubt that this site dramatically changes what we know about the character of the period and the beginning of urbanization in Israel.”


The city is roughly 161 acres and offers researchers a distinct insight into the lives and culture of the people living in the area at the time. Indeed, amongst the treasure trove of ancient artifacts was a huge stone basin for liquids, thought to be used during religious ceremonies in the temple courtyard.


“What we are calling a temple is a very unique building, we don’t know of anything like it,” said Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeologist, Dina Shalem, according to Bloomberg.


“Even in our wildest…

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NFL’s Benjamin Watson Shares How He Uses His Career to Bring Glory to God: ‘We Do Exist for His Glory’

NFL’s Benjamin Watson Shares How He Uses His Career to Bring Glory to God: ‘We Do Exist for His Glory’



NFL player Benjamin Watson told the senior pastor at a church in Rhode Island that his faith has made a significant impact on his life.


“We attach our value to our performance, and God is saying ‘No, you have value because I’ve created you in my own image and you have dignity because of that,’” he said, according to CBN News.


Watson was speaking with senior pastor Jordan Boyce as part of an interview at the church. In the interview, Boyce asked the football player how he uses his platform as an NFL star to point to Jesus.


“I think the biggest part of that is realizing that we must decrease, and he must increase,” Watson said. “We do exist for His glory, God created man and woman to glorify Him. Our ultimate purpose in life is to glorify God. He’s given us all talents and abilities, which we use, but ultimately, He created us to glorify Himself because He is God and He can do that.


“Ultimately we need to realize that. While we do exist to make Him famous and glorify Him, we also realize on the flip side that He doesn’t need us. That we are part of a larger body, globally, internationally, and it’s simply our turn to carry the torch,” he added.


He said Christians are meant to “carry the torch” in the same way the disciples and early church members did.


He also spoke about the idea of celebrities and…

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Charity highlights pressing issues Pope will address at Amazon synod

There are 146 items on the agenda for the three week synod meeting which began on Sunday.

They include lengthening the longevity of Church the region, supporting with indigenous communities, proposing married elders could be ordained priests to address the chronic priest shortages in the region, protecting human rights campaigners and addressing global warming effects on the rainforest.

 

Clare Dixon from Catholic charity CAFOD said climate change is a big theme in the series of meetings.

“The Amazon generates a fifth of the Earth’s freshwater supply and a fifth of the Earth’s oxygen supply. But its trees are being torn down and its rivers polluted at an alarming rate, and as the Synod will discuss, is now a place of pain and violence,” she said.

“Indigenous communities in the Amazon have been living in harmony with nature for many years, but they are being killed defending their lands, and criminalised in their struggle to protect the precious Amazon rainforest that we all depend on to survive.

“Human rights and land defenders’ tireless pursuit of social and environmental justice to prevent agribusiness and extractive industries destroying the Amazon entails great risks to their own lives, including threats of violence, murders and criminalisation with no recourse to justice.”

Dixon said she believes the meeting will have a big impact on these issues and encouraged…

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Pastor of Vandalized Church Says He Forgives Vandals, Offers Them Help: ‘There Is Help for You’

Pastor of Vandalized Church Says He Forgives Vandals, Offers Them Help: ‘There Is Help for You’



The pastor of a church in Memphis, Tenn. says he forgives the vandals who destroyed pews and musical instruments, cut off the power in the church, and painted the walls of the building.


“I would love for whoever is responsible to consider my heart when I say, ‘I love you and God still loves you. And that this is not the end, there is life after this,” Pastor Devante Hill of One Church told WMC. “And that whatever it is that has you broken, whatever it is that has you destroyed on the inside, there is help for you.”


Police are investigating and say that there is some $15,000 to $20,000 in damage to the church property. Hill says he estimates the damage at up to $50,000, Fox News reports.


“A lot of the money that it took to start the church, came out of my personal finances,” Hill said.


Hill found the church vandalized Sunday morning. He said the vandals destroyed property inside the church and stole money and speakers from the church.


“When I walked in… what broke me, was not the condition of the sanctuary, what broke me was the condition of someone’s heart to be willing to do such a thing,” the pastor said, according to WREG News.


Hill’s church launched only five months ago.


“To my surprise that I would find not only myself but our church, a beacon of light for this community, to be going through a storm…

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Sistine Chapel comes to…Hull

Thousands of people have already booked to attend “Michelangelo – A Different View”, which opens to the public in Hull Minster on Tuesday.

 

The exhibition features more than 50 detailed reproductions of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, including the famous “Creation of Adam”, a depiction of God giving life to the first man, and a six metre square reproduction of “The Last Judgment”.

The touring exhibition gives the public the opportunity to admire the works, famously created by Michelangelo over four years in the 1500s, in a religious setting other than the Vatican for the first time.

Visitors will be able to get close to the images and have the chance to learn how the Italian master created the work and the meaning behind them, organisers said.

The 700-year-old minster is no stranger to hosting high profile art events.

The Turner Prize was awarded there in 2017 – at the end of Hull’s tenure as UK City of Culture.

The exhibition is free to enter but there is a ticketing system for specified time slots.

It runs until November 18.

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Supreme Court to Hear Major Abortion Case that Could ‘Gut Roe v. Wade’

Supreme Court to Hear Major Abortion Case that Could ‘Gut Roe v. Wade’



The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to take up a major abortion case that pro-choice groups fear will “gut Roe” but that pro-life advocates hope will lead to the reversal of the landmark decision.


At issue is a 2014 Louisiana law that requires every abortion doctor to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic. 


The Supreme Court struck down a similar Texas law in 2016, when Justice Anthony Kennedy – who supported Roe v. Wade – sided with the majority in a 5-3 decision. But since then, Kennedy has been replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Neil Gorsuch has taken the seat formerly held by Antonin Scalia, who opposed Roe but who died four months before the decision was released. 


It is rare for the Supreme Court to take up a second case that is so similar to an earlier one – especially within a mere few years of the first decision. Although the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law, the Supreme Court could have reversed that court without hearing oral arguments. The high court is expected to hear the case next year.


Pro-choice advocates and analysts say the Supreme Court appears poised to reverse its 2016 decision. 


It will be the high court’s first abortion case since Kennedy – who was a swing vote on the issue – retired. 


The liberal website Slate.com posted a story under the headline,…

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‘Global impact’ of man who will become England’s first saint of the modern age

Ambassador Sally Axworthy described Cardinal Newman as a “giant” of the 19th century whose poetry, sermons and books went beyond a religious audience and spoke to all people.

The Prince of Wales will lead the UK’s representation at the open-air ceremony in Rome on Sunday, where Pope Francis will declare the cardinal a saint in front of tens of thousands of pilgrims in St Peter’s Square, the first English saint of the modern age.

 

Ms Axworthy, who is Britain’s top diplomat to the Holy See, the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, said: “It’s an important moment for the Catholic Church but also Holy See relations.

“It’s the first British saint canonised in over 40 years and the first post-Reformation saint, and I think Cardinal Newman is important as he’s someone who had a global impact.

“I know he has a strong following in the United States, Latin America and certainly a strong following in the Vatican, lots of people have talked to me about how they’ve been moved by Newman’s writings.

“Obviously he had a huge impact on theology, but he was someone who examined his own faith in enormous detail and that meant also asking some difficult questions about having faith in a world which was becoming increasingly secularised – he thought and wrote about that.”

London-born Cardinal Newman, who died in England in 1890 aged 89, had been hailed by former Pope Benedict XVI…

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Lauren Daigle’s “You Say” Brakes Billboard Record, Becomes Biggest Christian Song of All Time

Lauren Daigle’s “You Say” Brakes Billboard Record, Becomes Biggest Christian Song of All Time



This weekend, Lauren Daigle made history with her hit song “You Say” by staying put as the No. 1 song on Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs for 62 weeks, according to Fox News. At 62 weeks atop the Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs, “You Say” now holds the record for the longest time a song has stayed in the number one spot on the chart. The previous contender, “Oceans” by Hillsong United, was the inspiration behind the 28-year-old’s success. Oceans sat at number one on the chart for 61 weeks.


“I really pondered the journey of the song ‘Oceans,’ and I remember seeing the impact that song made on so many people. It was just so beautiful to me,” Daigle told Billboard. “I hoped that I could be a part of something that shakes the earth like that song. I didn’t know that would ever happen, and I had no idea that ‘You Say’ would be something that would parallel the life of ‘Oceans.’”


Her accomplishment came days after she announced her first-ever headline arena world tour, starting in Australia.


Daigle wrote “You Say” after her first Dove Awards Show.


“This song is just a reminder of identity. A reminder that, when I’m weak, He’s strong, so how do I change that and bring that into my everyday life?” she said. “When I feel inadequate, how is it that there’s always these moments where I feel…

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