Liberals and others on the Left fearful of President Trump’s Supreme Court choices are now advocating an idea from the past: court packing.

Court packing – which was advocated and abandoned by Franklin Delano Roosevelt – involves adding justices to the Supreme Court to offset any supposed ideological imbalance.

The Supreme Court currently has nine justices, four of which are part of a conservative bloc. If Trump’s next nominee joins that conservative bloc – as is expected – then liberals will be in the minority. The “court-packing” movement proposes expanding the Supreme Court to 11, 13 or even 15 justices when Democrats control the White House and Congress.

“There’s nothing in the Constitution specifying the number of judges, the precise organization of the federal judiciary, or even that the Court be empowered to review acts of Congress,” wrote Todd N. Tucker at the left-leaning JacobinMag.com website. Tucker is a political scientist and fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.

“It is time to push a once-marginal idea to the top of the agenda: pack the Supreme Court,” he wrote. “The conservative majority’s support of Trumpism and opposition to progressive objectives means it will pose a barrier to the agenda of even the most left-leaning president and Congress. This barrier must be confronted head on.”

Even liberal stalwarts are warming to the…

Christian Universalism, which positions that all people, not some, are saved through Jesus Christ, is “alive and well” as a belief system in America, a modern Christianity professor has said, calling for it to be opposed.

Michael McClymond, Professor of Modern Christianity at Saint Louis University, told desiringGod.org in an interview posted on Monday that there is a difference between irreligious universalism and the Christian kind.

As he explains in his new book, The Devil’s Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism, released in June, “full-bore” universalism means that all human beings will be saved at the end, without exception.

“Christian universalism may add something to that that says that all that salvation occurs in and through Christ. Christian universalism, therefore, would be different from an interreligious universalism. There’s plenty of this interreligious universalism in the culture now,” he added.

“It’s the idea that all roads lead to God, and that one need not come through Christ to God. A Christian universalism says, ‘No, it has to be through Christ. Somehow, through Christ all will be saved.'”

The scholar said that there are various strands of Christian universalism in the West, which go about…

Leaders at the Assemblies of God’s Northwest District Council said late Monday that they unanimously decided to fire Pastor Dean Curry of the multicampus Life Center Assembly of God church in Tacoma, Washington, based on the “testimony of two or more witnesses” about alleged misconduct with a former church employee. Curry says the accusations are untrue. 

“After a thorough investigation of the allegations, the Northwest Ministry Network Executive Presbytery, having received the testimony of two or more witnesses and acting in their role as the Ministerial Relations Committee, has unanimously recommended dismissal of Pastor Curry to the General Council of the Assemblies of God,” Greg Stern, senior director of operations and finance with the Assemblies of God’s Northwest District Council, said in a statement to The Christian Post.

“This recommendation requests that Pastor Curry’s credentials with the Assemblies of God be terminated for violating prescribed standards of ministerial conduct, and he be listed as a dismissed minister of the Assemblies of God. This recommendation is within the Northwest Ministry Network’s purview as per Article X of the Assemblies of God General Council bylaws.”

Due to an ongoing investigation, Stern did not…

A California bill that that targets so-called “conversation therapy” for gays could have major consequences for religious liberty and even impact what pastors can say at conferences and in certain sermons, legal experts are warning.

AB 2943, which passed the Assembly in April and is expected to pass the state Senate before the end of summer, would ban the advertising or sale of “sexual orientation change efforts” by counselors, even if an adult wants to pay for it. But it could have more far-reaching consequences that its supporters aren’t acknowledging, says Alliance Defending Freedom, a religious liberty organization. 

The text of the bill says “sexual orientation change efforts” is defined as “any practices that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation.”

“This includes efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex,” the bill reads.

An ADF memo said the bill would mean that:

— “A pastor paid to speak at an event addressing current social topics could not encourage attendees that they can prevail over same-sex desires or feelings that they were born the wrong sex.”

— “A licensed counselor could not help a married mother of three who is experiencing unwanted attraction to a close female friend or confusion over her…

North Point Community Church Senior Pastor Andy Stanley recently explained to popular radio host and Messianic Jewish author Michael Brown why he’s quit using the term “the Bible says.”

In an episode of Brown’s podcast “Line of Fire” that aired Monday afternoon, Stanley explained why, although he considers the Good Book inerrant, the term “the Bible says” doesn’t work with those he’s trying to evangelize.

“Once upon a time that was very effective in our country. Those days are long gone. But unfortunately, church leaders still want to leverage ‘the Bible says,’ which is great for people who take the Bible seriously,” said Stanley.

“It’s not my audience. … I’m trying to recapture the imagination of people, adults and students who’ve left because of what else is in the Bible or because everyone is one click away from information or misinformation about the Bible.”

Stanley described Christianity as “an event-based faith,” telling Brown that he believes if people come to accept Jesus’ Resurrection, “their confidence in the Old Testament and their interest, most importantly,…

The American Charge d’Affaires in Ankara has said that Turkey’s continued detention of pastor Andrew Brunson on spying and terrorism-related charges is impeding US-Turkish relations.

Philip Kosnett said there is a “strong sense of unity in Congress between Republicans and Democrats” on the need for Brunson to be released and “a similar sense of unity between Congress and the administration that in order for the relationship between Turkey and the US to progress, we need to resolve that status not only for Brunson but also for other American citizens and local Turkish employees of US missions who we feel are detained unjustly under the state of emergency”.

According to the Turkish daily Hurriyet, Kosnett said that resolving those cases would improve “prospects for progress” in other areas of co-operation, such as security in northern Syria. He was speaking to reporters yesterday as it emerged that two senators travelled to Turkey last week to lobby Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the release of Pastor Brunson, whom they visited in prison.

Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen met President Erdoğan in Ankara last Friday (29 June) after visiting Pastor Brunson in prison in the Aliağa district of the western city of Izmir earlier that day, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported.

Following their previously undisclosed trip, Shaheen told…