(RNS) — Grammy Award-winning artist Michael W. Smith hopes to share the secrets of his success with students at Liberty University this coming fall.

He’ll be joined by Kevin Jonas, the father and original manager of the Jonas Brothers, the megapopular sibling rock trio.

Both will play key roles at the new Michael W. Smith Center for Commercial Music, which opens Aug. 1 at Liberty, a conservative evangelical Christian university based in Virginia.

Smith, a Christian artist with crossover success, will direct the center.

Jonas’ role is still being defined but will involve working with Liberty students to record and promote their work and connecting with mainstream artists interested in signing with the new music label it plans to launch alongside the center.

The school hopes the center and label — working name: Liberty Music Group — not only will give students experience recording an album but also will attract artists — both mainstream and Christian — from across the country, according to Vernon M. Whaley, dean of the School of Music.

“Our mission for the university is training and equipping champions for Christ,” Whaley said. “What I tell my students is it doesn’t matter what kind of music you’re going to go into, God’s called you to take worship to the nations.”

Liberty’s School of Music has about 980 resident…

A former advisor to President Obama says the Democratic presidential candidates are “out of step” with Americans and even Democratic voters on abortion and must moderate their views if they are to defeat President Trump.

“President Trump’s best chance for re-election lies in getting Democrats to approach complicated, tender issues with a tone-deaf, incoherent stridency that approaches his own. Unfortunately, he may be well on his way to doing just that,” Michael Wear, an advisor to Obama and a part of Obama’s faith-based initiative, wrote in The New York Times. 

Wear’s column was titled, “Democrats Shouldn’t Be So Certain About Abortion.” 

During the first Democratic presidential debate, he noted, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was unable to think of any abortion restriction she supported. Wear also bemoaned the party’s ridiculing of Joe Biden for his previous support of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits most taxpayer funding of abortion.

“And yet a Politico/Morning Consult poll from June showed that slightly more Democratic women support the Hyde Amendment (at 41 percent) than oppose it (at 39 percent),” Wear wrote. “Overall, 49 percent of registered voters support Hyde, compared with 32 percent who oppose it. It is not so much that Mr. Biden was out of step with the Democratic electorate, but that the 2020 Democratic candidates…

A weekend tweet from President Donald Trump in which he targeted “progressive Democrat congresswomen” by telling them to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” has drawn backlash within the Christian community.

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

….and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019

“Whew. Racists love that ‘go back to Africa’ line even though many of us have been here for 5+ generations. Then turn around and want sympathy because their…

Rev. Franklin Graham is voicing opposition to pushes by the LGBT community for the passage of the Equality Act.

According to Life Site News, Graham said the Equality Act will have what he called “catastrophic consequences” for women and religious groups.

The Equality Act would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include “sex, sexual orientation and gender identity” in the “non-discrimination” categories for public accommodations. The change would also require employers with 15 or more employees to recognize an employee’s chosen gender identity.

“If the Senate majority changes or if enough Republican senators change their position, it would be up to the president to veto the bill,” Graham said in the July-August issue of the Billy Graham Association magazine Decision. “And if that office were to change hands in 2020, I have little doubt this would become the law of the land.”

In May, the House of Representatives, which is predominantly Democrat, voted to pass the bill.

Graham said Christian employers “would lose all protections to hire people who adhere to their biblical statements of faith.

“Christians will be persecuted for their sincerely held beliefs as never before. The clear teachings of the Bible on the sins of homosexuality and abortion will no doubt be considered ‘hate speech.’ It will be a…

A transgender woman won two gold medals and a silver medal at the Pacific Games in Samoa Saturday. Laurel Hubbard, a weightlifter from New Zealand, won in the snatch lift and combined and finished second in the clean and jerk for women weighing more than 192 pounds.

According to the Washington Times, Hubbard, formerly known as Gavin Hubbard, is 41-years-old and transitioned in the last decade. 18-year-old Feagaiga Stowers of Samoa finished 2^ndbehind Hubbard.

Hubbard’s name had also been in the news recently for a court case related to an October car crash. The athlete’s car “fishtailed” in a curve and hit a vehicle carrying an Australian couple in their 60’s. The driver spent 12 days in the hospital for spinal surgery. A judge discharged Hubbard without charge after ordering the 41-year-old to pay $12,774 to the victims.

According to the New Zealand Herald, the judge also ordered that Hubbard’s name be suppressed in the record until September 30, 2019. The judge in the case believed that the “publication of Hubbard’s name at that point would be likely to cause extreme hardship” in the athlete’s bid to qualify for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

After an appeal by Stuff Ltd., Judge Gerald Nation overturned the suppression order. He said the “Publication of Ms. Hubbard’s name in connection with these proceedings may head to hurtful and…

The defunding of Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers has begun. 

With the green light from two federal courts, the Trump administration this week officially began enforcing a new rule that could result in Planned Parenthood losing up to $60 million in annual funds from Title X, a family-planning program, The Hill reported.    

The Department of Health and Human Services told The Hill the rule would take effect immediately following a Thursday decision from an 11-judge panel from the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals, which refused to block the rule while a lawsuit proceeds. Earlier, a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel also said it could go into effect. 

The new HHS rule prohibits Title X funds from being used to “perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.” It also requires Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers to financially and physically separate their abortion services from their non-abortion services.   

Planned Parenthood said it would pull money from an emergency fund to make up for the shortage, The Hill reported. It previously said it would not follow the new rule.  

“While we are incredibly concerned by this harmful rule, our doors are still open,” said Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen.

Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers call it the “gag rule.” 

Carol…