An Iowa man has been sentenced to about 16 years in prison after he burned a church’s LGBT flag.

Adolfo Martinez, 30, was found guilty of stealing an LGBT banner that was being flown at Ames United Church of Christ. He then went to the Dangerous Curves Gentlemen’s Club and set the flag on fire outside the club, FaithWire reports.

He was charged with third-degree arson in violation of individual rights, including committing a hate crime, third-degree harassment and reckless use of fire as a habitual offender.

Pastor Eileen Gebbie of the Ames United Church of Christ posted a statement on the church Facebook page saying the church did not press charges against Martinez.

Martinez told police that he lit the banner on fire with lighter fluid and a lighter, according to the Des-Moines Register.

The hate crime charges were added because Martinez is suspected of criminal mischief against someone’s property because of “what it represents as far as sexual orientation,” Story County Attorney Jessica Reynolds said.

He is the first person in the county to be convicted of a hate crime, she added.

Martinez faced a maximum of five years in prison for the hate crime and arson charge. He also faced a maximum of 13 months for the other charges, but because he is a habitual offender, he was eligible to be sentenced to a longer term.

“Basically, he was looking at three years but as soon as he…

More than a dozen Chinese Communist officials and religious advisors last month discussed how to re-interpret religious texts, presumably including the Bible, “to keep pace with the times” and not offend Chinese senses, according to the country’s official government news agency.

They even talked about forming a new religion.

The Beijing meeting was headed by Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and attended by 16 advisors, experts and scholars from religious circles, according to Xinhua news.

The panel suggested “conducting a systematic study of the thoughts of various religions” and “making accurate and authoritative interpretations of classical doctrines to keep pace with the times,” so as to “effectively resist the erosion of extreme thoughts and heresy,” Xinhua reported.

Wang supported “gradually forming a religious ideological system with Chinese characteristics in line with the requirements of the times,” Xinhua said. Further, Wang labeled the re-interpretation of “religious doctrines and rules important and fundamental work.”

Xinhua is China’s official state-run news agency.

The symposium was held by the committee for ethnic and religious affairs of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which is an advisory body for the Chinese…

Santa wasn’t the only one who delivered gifts on Christmas.

Rapper Kayne West, who has made national headlines with his pop-up Sunday Service worship gatherings, dropped a new gospel album called Jesus is Born on Christmas Day. The album – which West announced via Twitter on Wednesday – was released under the name of Sunday Service, not his own.

https://t.co/S6LFIK5KDv pic.twitter.com/siQxZHOXSs

— ye (@kanyewest) December 25, 2019

The album is made up of 19 tracks including one called “Revelations 19:1” and another called “Father Stretch.” I-Tunes has marked both of these songs along with two others – “Back to Life” and “Souls Anchored” – as popular tracks on the newly released record.

The Grammy winner began hosting large gatherings known as Sunday Services, with its fiery Sunday Service Choir and gospel sermons, in January. As Christian Headlines reported last month, West appeared at Joel Osteen’s mega congregation, Lakewood Church, where his Sunday Service Choir performed. West then brought his gospel choir to a local jail where they performed for inmates. In April, they played at the prominent Southern California music festival, Coachella and in November, 1,000 people accepted Christ during a Sunday Service in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

In a press release shared on PJ Media, the Sunday Service was described as “an idea we had to open up our hearts to make music that…

Countless Americans this week learned about the birth of Christ and were directed to a website about Christianity thanks to full-page newspaper ads by Hobby Lobby.

The ad ran in newspapers across the county and shows a star in the sky above a simple message against a blue background: “It’s a boy.” A Bible verse was printed underneath: “‘Today in the town of David a savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord’ – Luke 2:11.”

The bottom of the ad included information for those who weren’t Christians: “If you would like to know Jesus as Lord and Savior, visit Need Him Ministry at ChatAboutJesus.com. To download a free Bible for your phone, go to Mardel.com/Bible.”  

The names of Hobby Lobby and its sister store, Mardel, were also listed.

“This ad serves as a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas and celebrates what millions of people around the world and for centuries have considered a turning point in human history – the birth of Jesus Christ,” Hobby Lobby said in a press release. 

Hobby Lobby runs Christian-themed ads each Christmas, Easter and Independence Day.

The first Christmas ad ran in 1997. Hobby Lobby’s website includes images of each holiday ad from the past two decades.

Hobby Lobby founder David Green came up with the concept for the ads during the 1995 Christmas season.

“Green was reading the Christmas -s, including those for his own…

(RNS) — The impeachment process is getting biblical. Literally.

Perhaps it all started a few days before the impeachment vote, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told journalists that she had been praying for President Donald Trump and rebuked a reporter who asked if she hated the commander in chief.

“I don’t hate anybody,” she said, explaining that her feelings were a byproduct of her Catholic faith.

Or perhaps the God talk really began in earnest during the debate before the House of Representatives made its historic decision to impeach Donald Trump last Wednesday (Dec. 18) when Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Georgia, compared the president to Jesus Christ.

“Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than the Democrats have afforded this president and this process,” he said.

His religious ribbing did not go unanswered. New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quickly fired back on Twitter, responding to Loudermilk’s remark by citing Romans 1:25, which reads, “because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

These are but a few examples of what has become an atypically religious — and particularly Christian — impeachment process, with lawmakers, faith leaders and even members of the same famous evangelical family invoking the Almighty while making the case for and against…

(RNS) — A Northern California church that had gathered to pray for the resurrection of one of its parishioners announced Friday (Dec. 20) that it would be moving on with memorial services for the two-year-old child, who died a week ago.

“Here is where we are: Olive hasn’t been raised. The breakthrough we have sought hasn’t come,” Bethel Church said in the statement. “And so, we are moving towards a memorial service and celebration of her life.”

“The joy of our faith is that, though we haven’t seen the miracle of Olive being raised, she is alive in the presence of God,” the statement read.

Further details about the memorial service are unavailable at this time, said Aaron Tesauro, a Bethel spokesman.

Kalley Heiligenthal, a worship leader and songwriter for Bethel Music, announced on social media Sunday (Dec. 15) that her daughter, Olive Alayne, had stopped breathing and been pronounced dead. She publicly called for people to pray that her girl be resurrected.

The faithful heeded that call and gathered at Bethel Church in Northern California in the following days to worship and pray for Olive’s resurrection. Supporters of Heiligenthal spread the hashtags #wakeupolive and #victoriousawakening across social media and described their prayers as radical worship and a spiritual awakening.

The church, in the statement, noted that seeking a miracle from God to raise her from the…

NAIROBI, Kenya, December 23, 2019 (Morning Star News) – When Florence Namuyiga’s Muslim husband asked her why their 7-year-old son was singing Christian songs, she remained silent.

Namuyiga, a 27-year-old mother of three in central Uganda’s Lwebitati village, Kitumbi Parish in Mubende District, had been secretly attending church services with her 2- and 5-year-old sons since putting her faith in Christ on May 17. She had not chanced taking her 7-year-old son until Nov. 24.

“That evening, while back at home, my son began singing some of the Christian songs that were sung in the church,” she told Morning Star News by phone. “My husband began questioning me where the son picked such kinds of songs, but I kept quiet. He then turned to our son, who narrated what he saw in church of both men and women worshipping together in one big hall. Thereafter we went to bed with no communication with my husband.”

On Nov. 29 her husband, 34-year-old Abudalah Nsubuga, told her she had to go to Friday mosque prayers, she said.

“I refused,” she said. “He started beating me up with sticks, blows and kicks. When I fell down, he left me and went to the mosque. I began bleeding with serious injury on my left arm. That evening he did not come to the house but slept in the house of one of my co-wives.”

Early on the morning of Nov. 30, he showed up at their home, she said.

“He arrived and…

More than 50 years after it first aired, A Charlie Brown Christmas remains one of the most beloved TV specials of the season among people of faith, primarily due to Linus’ bold recitation of the gospel message.

But that famous scene was added to the special over the objections of the producer and the animator, who believed that Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz had crossed a line in wanting Linus to recite the Bible.

The special first aired in 1965.  

Producer Lee Mendelson recounted the controversy in author Charles Solomon’s 2012 book, The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation.

“I said, ‘Sparky, this is religion. It just doesn’t go in a cartoon,’” Mendelson said, referencing Schulz’s nickname and the debate over the scene. “He looked at me very coldly and said, ‘Bill, if we don’t do it, who will? We can do it.’ He was right. That’s been the most commented-on little sequences of that show – Linus telling the true meaning of Christmas. But every time I see that scene, I wince. It’s such poor animation, such bad drawing.” 

Mendelson later told the Huffington Post, “When [Schulz] said, ‘You know, we’re going to have Linus read from the Bible,’ Bill and I looked at each other and said, ‘Uh oh, that doesn’t sound very good,’ But then Schulz said, ‘Look, if we’re going to do this, we should talk about what Christmas is all about, not just do a…