Chinese authorities bulldozed a registered church building July 17 without warning to make way for construction of a new neighborhood and train station.

International Christian Concern (ICC) reported that more than 70 police officers and workers showed up to take down the Liangwang Catholic Church building in China’s Shandong province. They lacked the proper documentation, but it didn’t matter.

Church officials Gao Rongli, Zhang Siling and Li Xiangmei – who were inside the building — had their phones confiscated and destroyed. It took only 15 minutes to demolish the building using bulldozers and pickaxes, according to ICC. Officials spared nothing, destroying the altars, benches and furnishings.

“The disproportionate manpower used to demolish this church goes to show that China is fearful of Christians,” said Gina Goh, ICC’s regional manager. “The government knew that the demolition in the name of urban zoning would be met with resistance, so it ensured success by taking extreme measures. Despite their best efforts to intimidate the Church with actions like this, the government cannot destroy the faith and resilience of Chinese Christians.”

It isn’t uncommon for China to destroy churches for commercial purposes, ICC reported. Last year, a Catholic church near a highway exit in Shaanxi province was demolished, likely for commercial purposes.

Participants for the LGBT Christian conference Revoice are defending the event from criticism that the gathering will promote pro-LGBT ideas at the expense of biblical teaching.

The Revoice Conference, a multiday event scheduled for July 26–28 at Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, Missouri has garnered controversy well before its opening session.

According to its website, Revoice seeks to “encourage, support, and empower gay, lesbian, and other same-sex-attracted Christians so they can experience the life-giving character of the historic, Christian sexual ethic.”

Though organizers of the event hold to the traditional biblical teaching of marriage, some argue that the conference is designed to advance an LGBT agenda in churches at the expense of sound Christian teaching.

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Stephen Black, executive director of First Stone Ministries, an organization that seeks to help people with what the group calls “sexual brokenness,” is one of the critics.

In an interview with The Christian Post earlier this year, Black…

Four female inmates at a women’s jail in West Yorkshire say a transgender prisoner sexually assaulted them.

According to The Daily Mail, the first assault happened within days of the transgender prisoner, Karen White, arriving at the jail.

One woman says the transgender prisoner was visibly aroused during the attack. Another female inmate says the transgender prisoner talked inappropriately about oral sex, and a third inmate says the transgender prisoner attacked her. The fourth inmate says the transgender inmate kissed her on the neck.

The BBC says the offenses took place between September to November 2017.

The transgender prisoner has been sent to a Category B men’s jail. She will appear at Leeds Crown Court in August.

According to The Daily Mail, there were 125 transgender prisoners in England and Wales at the end of March 2017. The year prior, there were only 70.

Transgender women can legally change their gender with a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and have lived as a woman for two years.

Judges use this law to decide which gender facility that transgender prisoners will be sent to— male or female.

Officials from the Ministry of Justice told the BBC that in the “great majority” of cases, transgender inmates are allowed to “experience the system” in the gender they identify.

Officials also said “strict safeguards” were in place to…

A federal appeals court is set to decide this year if a historic black church in Pittsburgh has a First Amendment right to fire its pastor after church expenses doubled and membership plummeted under his leadership.

Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church of Pittsburgh, a historic church founded in the late 1800s and located in one of the city’s poorest communities, is defending its right to choose its own religious leaders free from government interference, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

The church’s former pastor, the Rev. William David Lee is suing the church for $2.6 million for breach of contract for dismissing him in 2015. The church hired Lee in 2012 and approved, at his insistence, a 20-year contract early in his tenure as senior pastor, according to court documents cited by Trib Live. Lee’s lawsuit was previously rejected by a federal trial court, citing Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, which Becket won at the Supreme Court in 2012.

Lee is appealing that decision, arguing that the First Amendment shouldn’t apply because his failure to “attract new souls to Christ” was a “secular” failure, in the same vein as a sports manager failing to “attract new fans to…