2 Church-Goers Help Police Locate Kidnapped 8-Year-Old Girl

2 Church-Goers Help Police Locate Kidnapped 8-Year-Old Girl



Police are calling two church-goers in Fort Worth, Texas, ‘heroes’ after they helped authorities locate a missing girl.


According to CBS News, two local church-goers went out looking for eight-year-old Salem Sabatka, after she was kidnapped in broad daylight on Saturday.


Reportedly, the eight-year-old was walking around her neighborhood with her mom when a man, now identified as 51-year-old Michael Webb, shoved her into his car. 


According to police, Sabatka’s mother jumped into the car in an attempt to hold on to her daughter but was pushed out of the vehicle. Once Sabatka’s mother was ejected from the car, the suspect sped off with the young girl still inside.


Thankfully, a neighbor’s doorbell camera captured the whole ordeal on video and helped police identify the car the suspect was driving. This also allowed authorities to issue an amber alert with the vehicle’s description. 


Soon after the alert was issued, two local church members called the police and told them that they had located a vehicle matching the description in a hotel parking lot.


Police identified the car owner and found that he was using a room in the hotel. Authorities were then able to force themselves into the room, where they found Sabatka.


Police were also able to apprehend the suspect.


In a news conference, the Fort Worth Police Department Spokesperson Buddy Calzada told…

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Taylor University Students Walk Out on Mike Pence’s Commencement Speech

Taylor University Students Walk Out on Mike Pence’s Commencement Speech



Dozens of students and faculty walked out in protest before Mike Pence’s commencement speech at private Christian school Taylor University’s graduation. 


“Inviting Vice President Pence to Taylor University and giving him a coveted platform for his political views makes our alumni, faculty, staff and current students complicit in the Trump-Pence Administration’s policies, which we believe are not consistent with the Christian ethic of love we hold dear,” read a petition on change.org


As Christian Headlines previous reported, thousands of alumni, faculty, staff, and outside voices expressed their disagreement to the private school’s invitation to Mike Pence to speak at their graduation ceremony.


However, a majority of the over 400 graduating students stayed seated during the ceremony, then rose to a standing ovation for the vice president after the planned walkout, according to USA Today. 


Pence used the opportunity to encourage and strengthen the graduating class. “Throughout most of our American history it’s been pretty easy to call yourself a Christian, but things are different now,” Pence said. “Lately, it’s become acceptable, even fashionable, to malign traditional Christian beliefs.”


He also outlined “the Trump administration’s message on the state of the economy, the nation’s number of job openings and its low unemployment…

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Student Petitions Supreme Court for Religious Freedom Violation after Assignment Requires Her to Write Islamic Conversion Creed

Student Petitions Supreme Court for Religious Freedom Violation after Assignment Requires Her to Write Islamic Conversion Creed



In 2014 as an 11th-grade student at La Plata High School in Maryland, Caleigh Wood believed her religious freedom was threatened when she was asked to write the Islamic conversion creed in a homework assignment. 


But, the Charles County Public School District, as well as the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. “A reasonable observer, aware of the world history curriculum being taught, would not view the challenged materials as communicating a message of endorsement,” said Appeals Court Judge Barbara Keenan, according to the Maryland Independent.


According to the Appeal’s Court decision, as part of the class’ study on Islam, the worksheet Wood was assigned included a line, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah,” in which students had to fill in the blanks. Caleigh didn’t complete the homework and received a failing grade. 


With the help of the Thomas More Law Center, Caleigh’s father, Kevin Wood, is now bringing the case to the Supreme Court. “The general point is that there’s nothing wrong in teaching about other religions, whether it’s Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism,” Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for TMLC, said to the Maryland Independent. “The question is when you cross the line between giving an objective, accurate…

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LGBT Equality Act Sweeps the House

LGBT Equality Act Sweeps the House



The LGBT Equality Act passed the Democrat-dominated House of Representatives on Friday with a 236 to 173 vote.


As Christian Headlines previously reported, the ill-named Equality Act seeks to make “gender identity” a covered category under the Civil Rights Act, thereby overriding the protections based on biological sex. The act also moves to repeal the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 and would make abortion a federally protected civil right; require the funding of abortion through Medicaid, Medicare and other sources; and encroach on parental rights to their children’s healthcare among other things.


According to Fox News, the bill had nearly unanimous support…

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Trump Administration to Release Part of Its Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan

Trump Administration to Release Part of Its Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan



The Trump administration will release part of its Israeli-Palestinian peace plan on June 25 and June 26.


According to CBN news, President Donald Trump will unveil the plan at the “Peace to Prosperity” workshop in Bahrain. The White House has said the plan could “radically transform” lives in the area.


“I look forward to these important discussions about a vision that will offer Palestinians exciting new opportunities to realize their full potential.  This workshop will engage leaders from across the entire Middle East to promote economic growth and opportunity for the people in this important region,” said United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin.


Jared Kushner, senior adviser to Trump, said the plan points to economic progress.


“The Palestinian people, along with all people in the Middle East, deserve a future with dignity and the opportunity to better their lives. Economic progress can only be achieved with a solid economic vision, and if the core political issues are resolved. We look forward to presenting our vision on ways to bridge the core political issues very soon,” Kushner said.


According to Politico, the plan will reportedly have four major parts: infrastructure, industry, empowering and investing in people and governance reforms.


Meanwhile, some Palestinian officials have already said the plan will fail.


“All…

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Jeremy Camp: The World’s ‘Only Hope’ Is Focus of New Song, Movie

Jeremy Camp: The World’s ‘Only Hope’ Is Focus of New Song, Movie



Jeremy Camp says the message behind his newest single mirrors the message of his forthcoming album and movie: 


True hope is found only in Christ.


Camp’s newest single, Dead Man Walking, was released Friday alongside an accompanying music video. 


His next album is scheduled to hit stores this fall, while the movie based on his 2003 song I Still Believe – a tune written after his first wife’s death to cancer – will film this summer and release in 2020.


Dead Man Walking is based on Colossians 2:13: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all our sins.”


He recorded it and the album when he was dealing with a personal crisis. 


“I’ve always loved that Scripture,” Camp told Christian Headlines. “Before we gave our life to Christ, we weren’t really alive. We were dead. That was stirring in me. [The song] is a reflection back on what God has done in my life.”  


The video shows Camp meandering through a desert and in an abandoned building. At the end of the video, he discovers a cross atop a hill. The song includes the lyric, “You are the key to all of my chains / to all that I was, now I’m not a slave.”


The song and video, Camp says, have a lesson for the audience: “You’re going to be searching. You’re not gonna find it until you find…

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Christian charity says churches are filling hunger gap government should be preventing

The non-profit organisation says the UK is breaching international duties by ignoring families in hunger.

It is blaming the introduction of Universal Credit, cuts to welfare spending and a falling standard of living.

 

 

Jubilee+, a charity that equips churches to engage more effectively with communities and to help them increase their capacity to serve the poor, told Premier it has seen evidence of the Human Rights Watch’s claims.

Head of communications and policy for Jubilee+, Natalie Williams, told Premier: “We are seeing people struggling on a day to day basis in ways that we haven’t in the past.

“The food bank I’m involved with in Hastings has seen a 113% increase in referrals in the last two and a half years since Universal Credit came to our town, so these figures aren’t really a surprise to me, but I do think it’s deeply troubling.”

Natalie told Premier’s News Hour that churches are spending almost £400m a year on helping the poorest in their communities through a range of initiatives, from food banks to debt centres to education coaching and mentoring to tackling modern slavery.

She said: “I think there’s also a personal responsibility for us as Christians, if we know that someone is struggling, if we know that someone’s in need, and if we can afford to help, then to actually kind of live sacrificially and give to those in need around us as well.

“But I think…

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Abortion Restrictions Are ‘Against Christian Faith,’ Democratic Presidential Candidate Kirsten Gillibrand Says

Abortion Restrictions Are ‘Against Christian Faith,’ Democratic Presidential Candidate Kirsten Gillibrand Says



Democratic presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand says laws that restrict or ban abortion are “against Christian faith” and violate the tenant of free will.


The procedure, she added, should be funded by taxpayers. 


Gillibrand spoke Thursday in Atlanta at the Georgia state capitol, addressing new laws in Mississippi, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama that either restrict abortion when an unborn baby’s heartbeat is present or mostly ban it. 


“If you are a person of the Christian faith, one of the tenants of our faith is free will,” Gillibrand said, according to CBS News. She was backed by pro-choice advocates. “One of the tenants of our democracy is that we have a separation of church and state, and under no circumstances are we supposed to be imposing our faith on other people. And I think this is an example of that effort.” 


The Hyde amendment – which prohibits taxpayer funding of abortion – should not be renewed by Congress, Gillibrand said. She also has pledged only to nominate Supreme Court justices who support Roe v. Wade. Gillibrand is a U.S. senator from New York. 


R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called Gillibrand’s free will argument “theological gibberish.” 


“We do not elevate free will to the point that we do not put restrictions…

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Churches oppose post office closures

The National Rural Officer for the Methodist and United Reformed Churches, the Reverend Elizabeth Clark, says cuts to the post office network could be “quite devastating”.

Elizabeth Clark warned: “It feels as if it’s just another thing that’s gone. It could start to feel a bit siege-like. Everything is pulling out and leaving us.”

The survey has been carried out by the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters.

 

 

The Federation’s Head of Policy, Peter Hall, told Premier some businesses face closure while others would consider cutbacks in services or opening hours.

“In a small village the post office might be the only shop in the village. So if it closes there’s no alternative besides an outreach service.

“That’s a mobile van or opening up in another space like a church hall for a few hours each week.”

Elizabeth Clark says Christians should support local businesses by making sure they use them regularly.

“It’s no good lamenting that the shop’s closed if we never actually went in and bought anything there.

“Perhaps that’s part of our Christian duty, to support the services and facilities that are in our communities so that others can benefit too.”

But Elizabeth Clark thinks if a local post office is forced to close, the churches in the area should consider radical solutions. She praised communities which have agreed to provide post office services in church buildings.

“Some…

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