Washington DC’s Museum of the Bible has played host to a one-of-a-kind event — a fashion show inspired by scriptural themes.

The unusual function, which took place on Tuesday night, featured “Biblically inspired couture and design,” according to a press release issued by the museum. However, the centerpiece of the fundraising event was in the form of an “exclusive, one-of-a-kind couture gown by Chiara Boni that will be donated to the Museum of the Bible Collection.”

A silent auction and luncheon were also part of the occasion, which was styled by “Style Bible” author and renowned D.C. fashion guru, Lauren Rothman.

“I think that the Bible impacts fashion because fashion was based in history, and what was old always becomes new again and like any other trend biblically inspired clothing is really something that never goes out of style,” Rothman told CBN News.

Of course, most would admit that the Bible is not the first thing you’d associate with the multi-billion dollar fashion industry.

“When you think of all these designers, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, you really don’t think of them as Bible followers,” event producer Linda Koldenhoven admitted to the outlet. “I don’t want to be judgmental, but look at the creations that they make that are inspired by the Bible.”

Many offered their own personal opinions on the event online — the sentiments, it has to…

Thanks to a court ruling, a representative of the make-believe Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster led prayer at a government meeting in Alaska this week.

The prayer at the government meeting in Homer, Alaska, followed a 2018 decision by an Alaska state court that ruled the previous policy – only permitting individuals from government-approved religious groups – was unconstitutional. The ACLU brought the suit, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly could have abandoned the prayer tradition altogether, but instead adopted a new policy that allows anyone to sign up to pray.

On Tuesday, Barrett Fletcher, a pastor of Pastafarianism – also called the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – offered a prayer. He wore a colander on his head

“So, I’m called to invoke the power of the true inebriated creator of the universe, the drunken tolerator (sic) of the all lesser and more recent gods, and maintainer of gravity here on earth. May the great Flying Spaghetti Monster rouse himself from his stupor and let his noodly appendages ground each assembly member in their seats,” he said, according to the Associated Press.  

No one stood up for the prayer, and one man turned his back. Other men refused to remove their hats, AP reported.

Pastafarianism was created in 2005 as a way to protest the Kansas…

JOS, Nigeria, September 20, 2019 (Morning Star News) – A decade after Boko Haram began a bloody campaign to impose sharia (Islamic law) on all of Nigeria, Christian leaders say some areas are still under the control of the terrorists.

The Rev. Mohammed Abubakar Naga, chairman of the Borno state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Morning Star News that the terrorists are still active in the northeastern part of the country where the group originated and has displaced thousands of people, effectively closing many churches.

“Gwoza East, especially the hills, has been taken over by Boko Haram,” Pastor Naga said by phone. “The terrorists still attack Christian communities there. This is even with the presence of personnel of the Nigerian army in the area.”

After beginning a violent campaign to establish an Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria 10 years ago, Boko Haram has killed an estimated 35,000 civilians, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The agency said 37 aid workers lost their lives in the course of serving those displaced by the attacks.

Two of the many pastors Boko Haram killed in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state include the Rev. Faye Pama Musa, then secretary of the CAN’s Borno state chapter, slain on May 14, 2013 after the terrorists followed him from his church…

The only abortion clinic in Toledo, Ohio, is no longer offering surgical abortions.

Capital Care of Toledo – formerly Capital Care Network and under new ownership – surrendered its ambulatory surgical facility license effective Sept. 10, according to the Toledo Blade. 

The Ohio Department of Health inspected the facility in June, and the clinic had submitted a plan to correct deficiencies, the newspaper said. But the clinic chose to forego the license.  

“ODH made a follow-up phone call to CCN to clarify some information in the plan of correction at which time staff reported that CCN was under new ownership who did not wish to renew its ASF license and was performing non-surgical [medical] abortions only,” a department spokesman told the Blade. 

Pro-life groups celebrated the news, even though medical abortions still will be offered at the facility. 

“After years of legal trouble with proper licensure and inadequate safeguards, this is a victory for not only the pro-life movement, but for the women of Ohio,” Stephanie Ranade Krider, vice president of Ohio Right to Life said in a statement. “This clinic has acted in a reckless and above the law manner, putting women’s health and safety at risk for years. Two years ago, this same facility perforated a woman’s bowel before shuttling her in an employee’s vehicle to a nearby…

A psychiatry professor at Johns Hopkins University says children should not be allowed to medically change their genders because the treatments are similar to a “frontal lobotomies.”

“[Doctors] don’t have evidence that [the treatment] will be the right one,” said Dr. Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “Many people are doing what amounts to an experiment on these young people without telling them it’s an experiment,” CBN News reports.

“You need evidence for that, and this is a very serious treatment. It is comparable to doing frontal lobotomies.”

McHugh said there could be longterm negative impacts in using the hormonal treatments used for gender transitions, which McHugh says are “reckless and irresponsible.”

McHugh said he believes that children struggling with gender dysphoria are likely dealing with mental health issues or “being driven by psychological and psychosocial problems.”

“I think their mental problems, often depression, discouragement, are the things that need treatment,” he said. “I’m not positive about this. It’s a hypothesis, but it is a very plausible hypothesis, and it would explain why many of the people who go on to have treatment of their body discover they are just as depressed, discouraged, and live just as…

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (RNS) — Poor people have often told pastor Brian Combs that the hardest thing about standing at highway intersections holding up a cardboard sign and begging for money is not watching the windows roll up or hearing the click of automatic doors locking.

It’s seeing people avert their eyes.

So when Combs, pastor of Asheville’s Haywood Street, and his friend artist Christopher Holt began talking about collaborating on a project, they envisioned a fresco on an entire wall of the sanctuary featuring images of the poor and downtrodden.

When completed later this month, the 27-foot-by-10-foot composition will illuminate in bright colors the faces and gestures of the people who visit Haywood Street Church’s principal ministry — The Welcome Table, a dining room with a reputation as one of the best places to eat in this mountain town known for its creative spirit.

To Combs and to the hundreds of poor who stop in for a meal each week, the fresco is intended to make the invisible visible.

“The primary intent of church, in my opinion, is to communicate something about sacred worth,” said Combs. “In God’s sight, you are anything but a throwaway. You’re priceless. You’re royalty. That’s one task of urban ministry we take seriously.”

The fresco’s composition is loosely based on the Beatitudes, the nine blessings recounted by…