A South Carolina foster-care program is prepared to function without government funding if they are told that they must work with families who do not align with their Christian mission. 

According to the Washington Post, a Christian based foster-care program called Miracle Hill Ministries in Greenville, S.C., is being subjected to an Obama-era policy change that forbids foster-care organizations which receive federal funding to have a religious preference. This means, that in order to receive federal funding, the Christian organization would be asked to perhaps defy their religious convictions. 

In an interview with the Washington Post, Miracle Hill Ministries president and CEO Reid Lehman said the ministry would sooner drop out of the federal program then go against their religious values. He said, “Our existence and identity is tied to our faith in God and belief in Jesus Christ.”

The Christian Post reports, however, that the organization has received significant funding from both the federal and state government. The outlet reports that in the last fiscal year, Miracle Hill received almost $600,000 from the government. 

South Carolina’s governor has reportedly reached out to President Trump – who is now the third president to really have to grapple with the issue of federal funding going toward religious organizations – and…

Melissa Joan Hart was the latest guest on ABC’s podcast, Journeys of Faith with Paula Faris. Hart talked about her faith in God – how it’s grown over the past few years and how it affects her everyday life. 

For years she really struggled to connect with faith and understand the Bible. 

“I would try,” she told ABC’s Paula Faris. She even read Revelations by herself as a teen, but had a hard time understanding. “I was always trying to learn more about the Bible, but just couldn’t figure out how,” she said.

Hart was raised Catholic like most other families living on Long Island, New York. But when she and her Baptist-raised husband were looking for a faith community together in Los Angeles, they settled on a Presbyterian church.

When Hart started going to the church’s mom group, she noticed, “everybody knew the Bible so well. Everyone was quoting Bible passages, and I still to this day cannot retain Bible passages. I can memorize lines as a job,” but memorizing Bible verses felt impossible. “I felt really lost in that group,” she said. 

Things changed when their family moved to Connecticut. 

A friend invited her to the local Community Bible Study, “and that just changed everything,” she said. “We’ve been on this journey together here – the women in my neighborhood.”

Last year, Hart even gave Revelations…

Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, is vowing to oppose the “ideology of gender” and “respect our Judeo-Christian tradition” as part of sweeping reforms that will tilt the country rightward. 

Bolsonaro made the remarks during his inauguration Jan. 1, saying the country’s goal should be to “prepare children for the job market, not political militancy.” 

“I call on all congressmen to help me rescue Brazil from corruption, criminality and ideological submission,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

His position on gender was mirrored by Damares Alves, who is Brazil’s new minister of women, family and human rights. 

Alves tweeted, “Attention, attention! It’s a new era in Brazil: Boys wear blue and girls wear pink.” Alves also has said that under a Bolsonaro administration, “a girl will be a princess and a boy will be a prince.”

Alves, who is a Christian, opposes abortion, too. 

“When I talk about life, I’m talking about life from conception,” she said, according to LifeSiteNews. “I wanted our ministry to be called the ‘Ministry of Life and of Joy,’ but that wasn’t possible.”

In December, Alves said the “greatest human right” is the “right to life.” 

“I am against abortion,” she said. “We want a Brazil without abortion. How? A Brazil that prioritizes public policies of…

Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib says supporters of new anti-Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions are forgetting “what country” they live in.

“They forgot what country they represent. This is the US where boycotting is a right & part of our historical fight for freedom & equality. Maybe a refresher on our US Constitution is in order, then get back to opening up our government instead of taking our rights away,” she tweeted.

The proposed legislation would allow states to stop working with companies that adopt BDS policies and boycott Israel, but Tlaib’s tweet has some calling her anti-Semitic.

“This ‘dual loyalty’ canard is a typical anti-Semitic line,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tweeted. “#BDS isn’t about freedom & equality, it’s about destroying #Israel.

“And if boycotting #Israel is constitutionally protected, then boycotting companies that boycott #Israel is also constitutionally protected.”

The Anti-Defamation League also released a statement this week, saying her tweet was “deeply problematic.”

Earlier this month, Tlaib nabbed headlines for using expletive language to call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. She has since said that her comment might have been a “distraction,” but she believes in calling for the impeachment.

“I’m very unapologetically me,” Tlaib said. “And I know people back home that…

TIZI-OUZOU, Algeria, January 9, 2019 (Morning Star News) – A 32-year-old convert in Algeria has not seen much of his two young daughters since his wife divorced him and charged him with undermining Islam more than two years ago.

Ahmed Beghal (name changed for security reasons) has legal rights to visit his daughters, ages 4 and 6, but his wife’s family keeps them away from him. They began blocking him from seeing his daughters, and pressuring his wife to divorce him, when the Algerian police declined to arrest him in 2017, he said.

“They took my two daughters to prevent me from seeing them – whenever I asked to see my daughters in accordance with the rights granted by the judge, my wife’s brothers created impediments and threatened me,” Beghal told Morning Star News. “This happened to me several times.”

His wife had agreed to become a Christian three months after he converted in 2013. Of all the things he has withstood since then – death threats, job loss, criminal charges and a night in jail – his wife turning against him pains him most, he said.

He had long had doubts about Islam when, in his early 20s, he came across a Christian station with programming geared toward Muslims. Its critiques of Islam confirmed his doubts, he said, and he called the telephone number of the station’s Algeria contact, which put him in touch with a pastor in Algiers.

From his…

Chinese officials entered a church in recent weeks and ordered the removal of one of the Ten Commandments – the first one – In another example of the nation’s crackdown on Christianity.

Unlike previous cases of persecution, this one took place in a government-approved “Three-Self Church” and not in an illegal, unregistered congregation.

About 30 government officials from the “patrol inspection team” took part in the November examination of the church, according to Bitter Winter, which monitors persecution in the country. An “official inspected the church thoroughly, stopped in front of the pulpit, and pointed to one of the Ten Commandments” on the wall, Bitter Winter reported.

“This must be removed,” the official said. 

He was referencing the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me.” 

When church officials protested, the government official responded that President Xi Jinping “opposes this statement.” 

“Who dares not to cooperate? If anyone doesn’t agree, they are fighting against the country,” the official said, according to Bitter Winter. He warned the church, “This is a national policy. You should have a clear understanding of the situation. Don’t go against the government.”  

Church members removed the Ten Commandments sign. 

“This isn’t appropriate,” one member of the church 

Lauren Daigle, Billboard Music Award’s 2017 Top Christian Artist of the Year, said in a radio interview last week that she wouldn’t necessarily label herself as a Christian artist. 

This decision comes following several choices from last year that landed Daigle in hot water. The singer first faced criticism when she appeared on the Ellen Show and later for skirting around a question about her stance on LGBT rights in a radio interview. 

The popular singer, who is typically considered to be a Christian artist, met with Dave Styles from 104.3 MYfm last week to talk about her success in mainstream culture. 

During the interview, Style asked Daigle how she would define herself as an artist – meaning would she consider herself a Christian artist or simply just an artist. He said, “You are known, as far as your music, you’re known as more of a Christian artist but now with all of this mainstream, I mean you’re here, you’re at MYfm.” 

He asked, “What do you call yourself? How do you name yourself? Do you call yourself still, a Christian artist?” 

Daigle’s response was that labels are constructs that other people assign you. She said, “I feel like those labels get put on you by other people.” 

She continued, “I was reading an article, I read them like here and there, gotta stay away sometimes but then other times I’m like indulge,…