Virginia has become the latest state in the U.S. to ban sexual orientation conversion therapy for minors.

Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam signed House Bill 386 into law on Tuesday, which bars healthcare providers and counselors from counseling youth to treat unwanted same-sex attraction.

“Conversion therapy sends the harmful message that there is something wrong with who you are,” said Northam in a statement. “This discriminatory practice has been widely discredited in studies and can have lasting effects on our youth, putting them at a greater risk of depression and suicide.”

Introduced by Democratic Delegate Patrick Hope in February, HB 386 passed the House of Delegates in a vote of 66 to 27 and then the Senate in a vote of 22 to 18.

The Family Foundation of Virginia denounced HB 386 and its companion legislation, Senate Bill 245, as one of the “worst bills” being considered by the General Assembly.

“HB 386 and SB 245 prohibit counselors to counsel a minor in a way that would encourage them toward their biological sex,” stated the foundation.

“Referrals for ‘conversion therapy’ are also prohibited under state law and could affect state grants toward entities who refer. There is no religious exemption.”

Also called sexual orientation change efforts therapy or “reparative therapy,” the process involves counseling efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual.

The practice is controversial among some, with prominent American psychological organizations rejecting it as harmful and several left-leaning states, beginning with California, banning it for minors.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Michael Gryboski

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A Christian coalition in Charlotte, North Carolina is claiming that megachurch pastor Steven Furtick does not believe in the traditional Christian view that the Trinity is three distinct, divine entities in one.

According to a post from Reformation Charlotte, a group of evangelists, journalists and apologists in North Carolina, a recent sermon from Furtick – a pastor at Elevation Church – shows that he has rejected the orthodox view of the Trinity and instead is embracing modalism, where God is one person who has revealed himself in three forms at separate times.

Modalism says that God is a single person who has manifested as Father, then later the Son, and finally the Holy Spirit. Modalism is unlike the belief in the Trinity, where God exists as all three persons at once.

In the sermon, Furtick quotes John 16:7, which says, “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away.”

“How could you say something like that Jesus?” Furtick says. “How could you say it is good that you are going away? We followed you. We trusted you and now you are leaving us.

“No, I am not leaving you,” Furtick adds. “I am changing forms. Up until now I have walked with you, but when I send my spirit I will be in you, so I am not leaving you, I’m just changing locations.”

The coalition wrote in its post that Furtick “twisted” the passage.

Source: Christian Headlines

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Iran’s Supreme Leader fast-tracked an unfair case against an Iranian pastor after he acted “against national security,” sentencing him to five years in prison.

The pastor, Matthias Haghnejad, was teaching in his church when police arrested him last year, according to Faithwire. They also brought in eight other people from the congregation. Judge Mohammed Moghiseh denied the pastor his own legal representation and quickly transported him to Evin Prison in Tehran.

Behind the scenes, Moghiseh maintains a reputation of handing out unfair sentences against Christians. In Haghnejad’s case, the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, granted Moghiseh the authority to override court procedure and jail the men without legal cause or defense. The other eight men were told they must accept court-appointed legal representatives but refused. Their trial was suspended, and the judge increased their bail terms.

Now all nine Christians have been sentenced to five years in prison, despite the lack of a proper hearing. During one trial in July, the judge falsified the Bible and called the men “apostates.”

Source: Christian Headlines

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Christian band Tenth Avenue North are calling it quits as they have embarked on their farewell tour. A lengthy post entitled “Farewell” was made on Instagram by the band’s frontman, Mike Donehey.

He begins with, “Words always seem to fail when it comes to farewell. Even the best goodbyes are bittersweet. Maybe we’re made for eternity after all.”

Then he addresses as to how far the band has come from its inception two decades ago and their surreal impact along the way.

“20 years ago, Tenth Avenue North was nothing but three friends goofing around in a PBA dorm room. We never dreamt it would take us around the globe, not in a million years. But here we are, two decades, shaking our heads, grateful, in all. We’re grateful for all the stories, all the tears, for all the memories we’ve made. Did I mention the music?”

Donehey indicates that the breakup is not “a sign of unhealth, quite the opposite.” Instead, it’s a new phase for the band individually.

“We’re dreaming new dreams. It’s time to encourage one another to go, go and do all that is in our hearts to do.”

What was initially the “Finally Living Tour” is now the “Farewell Tour” which is currently ongoing. Tenth Avenue North will also release new music along with playing some summer shows and festivals before closing out for good.

The Christian Post reports of other Christian artists expressing their gratitude and well wishes.

Source: Christian Headlines

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John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview. The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of BCNN1.

As I argued yesterday on BreakPoint, the spread of the coronavirus is a brutal reminder of just how fragile humans are, a direct and uncomfortable challenge to our collective illusion of control. As it spreads, not only are individual lives threatened, but also the intricate and fragile web of global connections that fuel national and international economies. To ask God’s help in all of this shouldn’t be controversial at all.

That’s exactly what Vice-President Mike Pence decided to do. An official White House photo from February 26 captured the Vice-President and the Coronavirus Task Force opening their meeting with heads bowed in prayer. The photo, as they say nowadays, blew up the Internet, unleashing a tidal wave of “prayer shaming,” a term coined a couple of years ago to describe ridiculing people who dare offer their “thoughts and prayers” for the victims of tragedies like mass shootings.

One secular research website headlined the photo with this take: “Symbolic of the moral and intellectual decay at the White House, a photo shows Vice President Mike Pence and his team trying to pray away the coronavirus.” Pence and his team were “wallowing in ignorant superstition and willful ignorance,” the site continued, suggesting that Pence prays because he’s a “religious extremist.”

Another slant, this one from an out-and-proud atheist: “It’s not a joke when people say these Republicans are trying to stop a virus with prayer. What else did anyone expect? Science? Reason? Something sensible?”

One of the most viral tweets of the photo had this caption: “Mike Pence and his coronavirus emergency team praying for a solution. We are so [blanked].”

Never mind that every session of Congress begins with a prayer, as do thousands of public meetings across the country every day. Prayer is, for many today, politically unacceptable, seen as an affront to science, an obstacle to governance, and worst of all, a shameful admission that we are not in control of our own destinies.

Of course, that’s precisely the point of prayer. We are not in control. We think we are. We’ve made remarkable medical, scientific, and technological breakthroughs that have allowed us be less the victims of nature than societies in the past, but we do not control the world. The idea that we do, ironically, reveals the central belief of a technocratic worldview, one every bit as much an article of faith as any held by those who pray.

Source: Christian Headlines

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BETHLEHEM, West Bank, March 5 (Reuters) – The Church of the Nativity was ordered closed on Thursday and foreign tourists were banned from West Bank hotels after four suspected coronavirus cases were found in the Palestinian town of Bethlehem.

The measures announced by the Palestinian Authority’s tourism ministry came as a particular blow to the Biblical town, whose businesses are largely dependent on Christian visitors to the church, built on the traditional site of Jesus’s birth.

Just three months ago Bethlehem was hailing its best Christmas for two decades, the mayor and hoteliers said, even better than the 1.5 million visitors it received in 2018.

The Latin Patriarchate of the Holy Land said the Church of the Nativity, which was first founded in 339 and rebuilt and extended over the centuries, would be closed for two weeks, along with other churches and mosques in the Bethlehem area.

The ban on foreign guests at West Bank hotels will also last two weeks, the tourism ministry said.

“This affects us dramatically,” said Joey Canavati, manager of the 58-room Alexander Hotel in Bethlehem. “Our workers are essentially laid off for the next 14 days. We will be closed down completely. It destroyed our business from every perspective.”

Canavati said groups of tourists from the United States, Poland and Cameroon had already cancelled their bookings.

Palestinian health officials said they were examining whether four workers at another hotel in Bethlehem had contracted coronavirus from tourists who had stayed there recently.

Police surrounded the hotel, as authorities awaited the results of laboratory tests. There have been no confirmed cases of the disease in the West Bank. Fifteen people have been diagnosed with the virus in neighbouring Israel.

The Palestinian governor of the West Bank town of Nablus on Thursday ordered its Muslim and Christian holy sites shut as a public health precaution.

The Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank under interim peace accords.

On Wednesday, Israel ordered travellers arriving from Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Switzerland to go into home quarantine over coronavirus concerns and cancelled a military exercise with troops from the U.S. European Command.

The measure effectively cut off foreign tourism from those countries, whose citizens, the Health Ministry said, would not be allowed into Israel unless they could show they had made quarantine arrangements ahead of time.

Israel has already imposed the edict with regard to flights from Italy, China and Singapore. (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta, Stephen Farrell and Rami Ayyub; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Alex Richardson)

Source: Reuters

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