It’s Never Too Early to Talk to Your Children About Jesus, Billy Graham Says

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It’s Never Too Early to Talk to Your Children About Jesus, Billy Graham Says

Christian Post Report – Evangelist Billy Graham speaks during his Crusade at Flushing Meadows Park in New York, June 25, 2005. Graham, 86, has preached the Gospel to more people in a live audience format than anyone in history – over 210 million people in more than 185 countries. His followers believe that the New York Crusade which runs from June 24 to 26 will be his last live appearance.

It is never too soon for Christians to talk to their children about God, the Rev. Billy Graham tells parents.

Responding to a question posted to the Kansas City Star, the evangelical leader explained that just as parents don’t hesitate to tell their children they love them, so they should not wait to tell them of Christ’s love too.

While Christian parents will tell their children they love them “the first moment you hold your newborn child in your arms,” so they should also do the same to express God’s love for them.

Graham goes on to say that the best way to teach young children about Christ’s love is through actions, so they may witness the love first-hand.

“At first we may do it only by our actions — loving them, praying in their presence, perhaps taking them to church. Will they see Christ in you — in your love, your patience, your character, your peace in the midst of life’s storms?” Graham questioned, adding that “our example often speaks far louder than our words.”

Early on, parents can also educate children about Christ by telling them about His life, reading Bible stories and sharing prayer with them.

Graham concludes by saying that ultimately, parents should strive to have their children remember a Christ-filled childhood as they grow and move on to form their own families.

“What will [your children] remember about you? Will they remember only the good times (as well as the hard times)?” Graham asks. “Or will they also remember your love for Christ?”

The 97-year-old evangelical leader, who shares five children with his late wife Ruth Graham, has previously spoken on the importance of telling children about faith and Jesus, no matter their age.

In an October 2014 post, Graham explained that even the youngest children can reap the benefits of attending church, although they may seem uninterested or distracted.

The famed Baptist minister encourages parents not to “conclude that children never get anything out of church,” adding that while they may not necessarily understand the sermon, “they’ll have an opportunity to learn hymns, and they will also realize that God listens when His people pray.”

“They’ll also understand that God is real, and one reason you and the other members of your church come together each week is so you can learn about Him,” Graham adds.

Most importantly, by bringing young children to church, they get to witness the importance of Christ in their parents’ life, the preacher says, suggesting that leading by example is greatly important for young children.

When older children express rebellious behavior that may include turning away from God, Graham encourages parents to pray for their children, asking God to help their child turn back to their faith and encounter Christ-like people in their life.

Although a rebellious child may be experimenting with atheism, it is important that Christian parents continue to express their love, Graham adds.

“Do all you can to let your son know that although you disagree with him, you still love him and want what is best for him,” Graham wrote in a December 2015 post

Source : Christian Post

Controversial Christian Singer Cee Lo Green Proclaims ‘God Is a Woman’ in New Song

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Controversial Christian Singer Cee Lo Green Proclaims ‘God Is a Woman’ in New Song

Christian Post Report – Singer Cee-Lo Green performs on NBC’s “Today” show in New York July 22, 2011.

Controversial performer Cee Lo Green released a new song this week titled “God is a Woman.”

Green, who is known for the hit 2006 song “Crazy,” released the new tune via SoundCloud on Tuesday in honor of International Women’s Day.

The soul singer included a brief description to accompany the song that read: “Manifesto of thought and intention, master of plan, light in every direction encouraged by affection, mother of the moon and stars, matter, and mountainous plains, and even prouder mother of man, a song of praise to echo forevermore, and always.”

“From my own mothers [sic] womb here I stand as a witness that..GOD IS A WOMAN,” the descrption added.

Green states in the song that “Although this idea is untraditional, I think God is a woman.”

The 41-year-old musician, whose parents are both Baptist ministers, has spoken about his Christian faith before.

Green received criticism during his 2011 New Year’s Eve performance in New York’s Times Square when he changed the lyrics to John Lennon’s “Imagine” to include a pro-religion message.

Instead of singing the lyrics “Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too,” Green instead sang “Nothing to kill or die for, and all religion’s true.”

Green then sought to defend himself in a now-deleted tweet, writing: “Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyrics guys! I was trying to say a world were (sic) u could believe what u wanted that’s all.”

Green, who has previously served as a judge on NBC’s “The Voice,” also released a Christian Christmas song in 2012 titled “Mary Did You Know.” The song includes clips from the highly-acclaimed History channel miniseries “The Bible,” produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett.

Green’s rendition of the popular Christmas song received praise from Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, whose ministry group said via Facebook that Christians will ” be inspired by CeeLo Green’s beautiful rendition of ‘Mary Did You Know’ from the Bible Series.”

While Green has been expressive of his Christian faith throughout his career, the topic of God’s gender has long been debated in some Christian denominations.

In June, a group of female priests in the Church of England called on church leaders to describe God as both a “he” and a “she.”

“Orthodox theology says all human beings are made in the image of God, that God does not have a gender. He encompasses gender — He is both male and female and beyond male and female. So when we only speak of God in the male form, that’s actually giving us a deficient understanding of who God is,” the Rev. Jody Stowell, a member of Women and the Church group, told The Guardian last year.

The Rev. Kate Bottley, an Anglican vicar in England, has argued that the gender of God does not matter, as God is a power that transcends human definitions like race and sex.

In a June op-ed in The Guardian, Bottley argues that to question God’s gender is to “miss the point.”

“God is not a woman. And God is not a man. God is God,” Bottley wrote. “But we can only describe God in the terms we can easily comprehend, comparing God to something we know better.”

Source : Christian Post

Rosie O’Donnell Says Donald Trump ‘Will Never Be President’

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Rosie O’Donnell Says Donald Trump ‘Will Never Be President’

Christian Post Report – Actress Rosie O’Donnell arrives for the opening night of the play “Hamilton” on Broadway in New York, August 6, 2015.

Comedian and actress Rosie O’Donnell continued her feud with Donald Trump this week, saying the businessman “will never be president.”

The 53-year-old television personality made her comments while attending the premiere of the Broadway musical “Disaster!,” telling “Entertainment Tonight” that Trump will be defeated.

When ET’s Carly Steel asked O’Donnell if she could hypothetically entertain the idea of Trump as commander-in-chief, the entertainer again replied: “He will never be president.”

Despite O’Donnell’s confidence, Trump has been leading in multiple national polls, with the Republican politician recently winning primary elections in Hawaii, Michigan and Mississippi.

The former host of “The Apprentice” and the former host of “The View” have been engaged in a years-long feud with each other, with the two first exchanging words in 2006, when Trump, then a co-owner of the Miss USA pageant, let one contestant keep her crown despite reports of drug use.

The decision resulted in O’Donnell calling Trump a “”snake-oil salesman” on “The View,” as well as attacking his history of multiple divorces.

Since that exchange a decade ago, the barbs between the two have continued, with Trump hurling insults at O’Donnell that include “imbecile,” “loser,” “fat,” “obnoxious,” and “dumb,” among other mean-spirited descriptions.

“She’s an extremely unattractive person who doesn’t understand the truth. … I think she’s a terrible person. … She has failed at everything she has done. … She’s a bully and she sucker punches people,” Trump told the New York Post in 2006.

O’Donnell has also said her fair share of negative things about Trump, including calling him an [expletive] in 2011.

When asked to explain her thoughts on Trump’s current presidential campaign in November ahead of her cameo on Fox’s “Empire,” O’Donnell told Entertainment Weekly: “It’s a nightmare. That’s my quote.”

O’Donnell has long been an outspoken liberal, and even had her contract with “The View” canceled in 2007 after she had an on-air dispute with fellow host Elisabeth Hasselbeck regarding the Iraq War.

In 2014, O’Donnell detailed the “bullying” she experienced by Trump over the past several years, telling People magazine that she was embarrassed by the national attention she received from the nasty comments.

“Probably the Trump stuff was the most bullying I ever experienced in my life, including as a child,” O’Donnell said at the time. “It was national, and it was sanctioned societally. Whether I deserved it is up to your own interpretation.”

The celebrity feud has also played a role in the 2016 presidential election. During a Fox News Republican debate in August, moderator Megyn Kelly asked Trump: “You’ve called women fat pigs, dogs, slobs, disgusting animals. Your Twitter account has several —,” to which Trump interrupted “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”

Trump then defended his comments on “Fox and Friends” after the debate, saying that Kelly “hit [him] with a very, very hard question.”

“That was when I came up with the Rosie O’Donnell statement, which really got tremendous applause. That was the biggest applause in the evening actually, so it was sort of interesting,” the real estate mogul added.

Source : Christian Post

The Word ‘Genocide’ Fails to Describe What Is Happening to Christians in the Middle East, Chaldean Pastor Says

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The Word ‘Genocide’ Fails to Describe What Is Happening to Christians in the Middle East, Chaldean Pastor Says

Christian Post Report – Chaldean priest Douglas al-Bazi holds up the blood-stained shirt he was wearing when he was abducted and tortured for nine days by Islamic terrorists in 2006 during a press conference hosted by In Defense of Christians and the Knights of Columbus in Washington D.C. on March 10, 2016.

WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of displaced Iraqi Christians who fled from their ancient homelands over a year-and-a-half ago to escape the the barbarity of the Islamic State feel as though their plight has been forgotten by the rest of the world, a prominent Chaldean priest explained Wednesday.

Father Douglas al-Bazi, who left his home in Baghdad for the protection of the Kurdish North in 2013, now runs the Mar Elia Church in Ainkawa. As over 125,000 people fled from the Mosul area to Kurdistan following the rise of IS in the summer of 2014, Bazi’s church currently shelters over 112 displaced Iraqi families, as it and 16 other churches in the area are being used as refugee centers.

Although refugee families living in the Mar Elia center have just a 10-by-15-foot iron container to call a temporary home and are struggling to find jobs and educational opportunities, the 43-year-old priest said in an interview with The Christian Post that he foresees Iraqi Christians living in refugee centers long after IS is defeated because of the lack of trust that they will be protected in their homelands.

“With the situation, the people that are in my center, they are going to stay for another 15 years at least,” Bazi explained. “It is not just about the Islamic State. It is a problem there. I believe ISIS, sooner or later, they are going to go out, but how can we build the trust again for people?”

“One of the big issues is the trust because [the people that] turned against our people were their neighbors,” Bazi continued. “Trust that if we are going to our home, will we be safe or are we going to be targeted again?”

Bazi, who visited Washington this week to call on the United States government to label IS’ crimes against Christians and other minorities as “genocide,” explained that the persecution of Mesopotamian Christians is not something that began with IS but rather is a centuries-long phenomenon that IS has culminated. He believes the persecution of Christians will continue even after the terrorist group is destroyed.

“We are victims. The word [genocide] sometimes doesn’t make sense to us. Genocide is a big word here. To me and to my people, ‘genocide’ is a polite word. I think we need to find another word to be fitting for what has happened to my people,” Bazi argued. “We are talking about systematic genocide. We are not talking about one [instance] just happening by the Islamic State. We are talking about a huge history of targeting our people. We are are one of the oldest groups — Christians in Iraq and Mesopotamia. Just suddenly we find ourselves losing everything.”

Although each of the displaced victims has their own horrifying personal story to tell about their ordeal of fleeing IS, Bazi says the most painful thing that these people have to deal with is losing their sense of belonging.

“They wake up in the morning with a question mark about what is going to be at the end of the day. They are the same questions,” Bazi said. “‘Am I still living in the same container?’ ‘Am I going to stay in the same place?’ ‘Are my kids going to have a good education?’ ‘If one of my family members is going to be sick, will we find someone to take care of him?’ ‘If ISIS is gone and I go home, will I find my home?'”

“To lose the sense of [belonging], this is actually more harder to our people because my people actually miss the sense of having a country to call home,” Bazi added. “We don’t have that. My people think, ‘Where’s my home?'”

Source : Christian Post

Duggar Family ‘Thankful’ After Josh Completes 6-Month Rehab for Porn Addiction

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Duggar Family ‘Thankful’ After Josh Completes 6-Month Rehab for Porn Addiction

Christian Post Report – Former “19 Kids and Counting” stars Josh Duggar and his wife, Anna, welcomed the birth of their fourth child on July 19, 2015.

Reality television star Josh Duggar has ended his six-month stay at a Christian rehabilitation facility, his family confirmed Thursday.

Duggar, who admitted to a pornography addiction last August, has been staying at the Reformers Unanimous healing program in Rockford, Illinois, for the past several months.

The Duggar family, which previously starred in TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” announced on Thursday that the 28-year-old had completed his rehab stint.

“Josh has completed his residential rehabilitation program,” the family said on their website. “We are so thankful for everyone who worked with Josh in this program. It was a crucial first step in recovery and healing for Josh. Josh has now returned to Arkansas, where he will continue professional counseling and focus on rebuilding relationships with his family.”

“We look to God for help and guidance and place all of our trust in Him. We are forever grateful for the love and prayers offered by so many and hope you will continue to pray in the days ahead,” the statement concluded.

The Duggar family received national media attention last year after it was revealed that Josh, the eldest son to Michelle and Jim Bob, had molested five underage girls when he was 14 and 15. Two of the victims were his sisters, Jessa and Jill.

It was also revealed that Josh held two accounts on the Ashley Madison extramarital affairs website. The 28-year-old is married to his wife, Anna Duggar, and the two share four children.

Duggar admitted to his pornography addiction in an online post last August on the Duggar family website, describing himself as the “biggest hypocrite ever” for his actions.

“While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife,” Duggar wrote. “I am so ashamed of the double life that I have been living and am grieved for the hurt, pain and disgrace my sin has caused my wife and family, and most of all Jesus and all those who profess faith in Him.”

While TLC subsequently canceled “19 Kids and Counting” following Josh’s scandal, it has announced the premiere of a new spinoff series, “Jill and Jessa: Counting On” that follows the lives of the two Duggar sisters, their husbands Derick Dillard and Ben Seewald, and their new adventure into motherhood.

Several Duggar family members are set to appear on the new series, including Josh’s wife, Anna, who says in a sneak-peak for the new show that she is taking things one step at a time.

“I don’t know what I’m stepping into,” she says in the preview.

“I don’t know how to handle each situation. It’s not anything I ever would have thought I would walk through. [I tell myself to] just do the next right thing, have the next right response for the next 15 minutes,” Anna adds.

TLC’s “Jill and Jessa: Counting On” is set to premiere on March 15 on TLC.

Source : Christian Post

Pakistani Police Release Muslim Man Who Killed 17-Y-O Christian Boy, Is Threatening to Rape Young Girls

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Pakistani Police Release Muslim Man Who Killed 17-Y-O Christian Boy, Is Threatening to Rape Young Girls

Christian Post Report – A member of the Pakistani Christian community holds a placard as he shouts slogans during a protest rally to condemn Sunday’s suicide attack in Peshawar on a church, with others in Lahore September 23, 2013. A pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the 130-year-old Anglican church in Pakistan after Sunday mass, killing at least 78 people in the deadliest attack on Christians in the predominantly Muslim country.

A Muslim man has reportedly shot dead the 17-year-old son of a Christian family in Pakistan after the boy’s mother rejected his advances.

The British Pakistani Christian Association, which reports on crimes and legal cases concerning Christians in Pakistan, said the crime occurred on Feb. 27 in the town of Qayum in Faisalabad City

The Muslim suspect, 57-year-old Tahir Jutt, who had a “known long-term infatuation” with 42-year-old Shazia Tahir, apparently got involved in a family argument she was having with her husband, Tahir Qadeer, and persisted trying to intervene even when Shazia turned down his help.

Jutt was allegedly left angry by the rejection, and later that day came back to the family home with a gun where he started shooting at the family members, killing 17-year-old Noel Tahir, and wounding several other family members, including the Christian husband and wife.

While Jutt was initially detained by police, he was set free last week and since then has reportedly been terrorizing the Christian family and threatened violence and rape against the girls in the family.

“This family are in desperate need for help, the perpetrator of violence has shown no remorse for the violence he meted out on this poor family and has increased their tension by stating he will repeat the violence if they dare to challenge him through the courts,” said Naveed Aziz, the Lahore based officer of the BPCA.

“Local police are being extremely slow and sluggish with this case, allowing Mr Jutt to exhort great pressure on the family who have already had to suffer the surprising ignominy of the murderer of their son being set free on bail,” he added.

BPCA Chairman Wilson Chowdhry added that “there is little hope” that the family will see justice for their murdered son, but vowed that his organization will help them by moving them to a safe location .

“The BPCA would like to help this family by providing a temporary safe shelter at the cost of £200 per month, we also seek the finance for the legal counsel for this family initial costs are around £400,” the group added, sharing a link to payment options for people who want to help the grieving family.

Other reported cases of Christians being killed for rejecting the advances of Muslims include an incident in January where a 17-year-old girl was killed and her two other friends were injured after a group of drunk Muslim youths chased after them after the girls rejected their lewd advances.

The family of the killed Christian girl, who was hit by a car by the Muslim youths, is also seeking justice, though the BPCA said that Christians often do not get the fair trial they seek for in Pakistan.

Source : Christian Post

Teenage Yazidi Sex Slave Escapes ISIS, Leaves Her Newborn Behind

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Teenage Yazidi Sex Slave Escapes ISIS, Leaves Her Newborn Behind

Christian Post Report – Yazidi refugees stand behind fences as they wait for the arrival of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Special Envoy Angelina Jolie at a Syrian and Iraqi refugee camp in the southern Turkish town of Midyat in Mardin province, Turkey, June 20, 2015.

Seventeen-year-old Nihad Barakat Shamo Alawsi escaped the Islamic State with her life, but in the process left her newborn baby behind.

In 2014, Alawsi was captured by Islamic State militants after the terror group had taken over her town of Sinjar in northwest Iraq, abducting her and 27 of her family members, according to Daily Mail. Alwasi, 15 at the time, was held captive in Mosul where she was repeatedly beaten and raped by jihadists.

“They raped us, they killed our men, they took our babies away from us,” she recently told AMAR Foundation, an organization that helps people in areas of conflict. “The worst thing was the torture in Mosul. We were beaten and raped continuously for two weeks.”

After the death of a man who had taken her as a slave, Alawsi explained that she was then sold to a married man who had another Yazidi sex slave. The man beat and raped her, and within a month’s time, she was pregnant.

The teen gave birth to a boy. Three months later, after the father of the newborn decided to marry Alawsi to his cousin, she was able to escape to freedom, after managing to make a phone call to her family.

But Alawsi was forced to leave her 3-month-old boy behind.

Presently, Alawsi lives in a camp with her parents and siblings in the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq, and she works with the AMAR Foundation to help raise awareness about what’s happening to her countrymen — four of her siblings are still being held captive by IS.

The Islamic State still holds approximately 3,500 people captive in Iraq, the maority of which are Yazidi women and girls, according to the United Nations.

In late February, The Christian Post reported that a Yazidi girl held captive by IS was so desperate to stop members of the militant group from raping her that she set herself on fire, burning 80 percent of her body. This week, CP reported that IS militants have been raping 8 and 9-year-old girls, according to a report from the Quilliam Foundation.

Alawsi said she cannot truly live until her fellow Yazidis are freed from IS captivity. “It’s not a life, we are not living a life until the rest of our people are released by Daesh [pejorative name for IS],” she told attendees of an event for AMAR. “I beg you to help my people. Save them from Daesh, and free especially the sex slaves, the young girls and children that have been taken.”

Follow me on Twitter: @kevindonporter

Source : Christian Post