Amanda Casanova | ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor | Tuesday, August 25, 2020
President Donald Trump was officially nominated as the Republican presidential candidate as the Republican National Convention began Monday night in Washington, DC.
The RNC continues Thursday. Here are five key takeaways from the first night:
Knoxville residents participate in a service of prayers and hymns for peace in advance of a planned white supremacist rally and counter-protest around a Confederate memorial monument on August 25, 2017 in Knoxville, Tennessee. People congregated at the Second United Methodist Church, one of two churches holding prayer services, to sing, pray and light candles for peace and racial harmony. | Getty Images/Spencer Platt
In the wake of global protests over inequality and police brutality sparked by the killing of George Floyd, many American Christians and churches are now struggling to strike the right note on racial reconciliation. Some religion scholars and pastors also warn that healing can’t happen without first telling the truth about the Church’s record on race.
And in a field of varied experiences, competing narratives about what racial reconciliation means, warnings against political exploitation in the search for it, claims of apathy from white congregations and fearful leaders during an election year in the middle of a pandemic, telling the truth and engaging in constructive dialogue on the issue can be difficult to do.
“The Church across the United States probably reflects…
Faith Leaders Speak Out against Shooting of Jacob Blake, Subsequent Riots
On Sunday evening, 29-year-old Jacob Blake was critically wounded after being shot by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Several Christian leaders expressed outrage over the shooting as well as the subsequent riots that have taken place as protestors smashed windows and set cars and businesses on fire.
A short clip shows Blake attempting to enter his SUV as officers tried to stop him. A secondary angle shows that Blake had been wrestling with two officers before going towards his car, ignoring police orders as he went.
As Blake opened the door to his car, one officer grabbed his shirt and fired seven shots into his back as onlookers screamed and shouted in horror.
According to BBC News, Blake’s three children were reportedly in the vehicle when the shooting took place. Following the incident, Blake was hospitalized in critical condition. He is expected to survive.
“We shouldn’t have to see one more video of a Black human being brutalized and/or gunned down by police in a clear case of excessive or unwarranted force. Anybody who doesn’t believe we are beyond a state of emergency is choosing to lack empathy and awareness.” wrote Rev. Bernice King, the daughter of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the CEO of the King Center.
We shouldn’t have to see one more video of a Black human being brutalized and/or gunned down by police in a clear case of excessive or…
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) holds its biennial meeting in Detroit, Michigan, June 14-21, 2014. | (Photo: Facebook/PCUSA)
Presbyterian Church USA announced Monday that it might have to limit or even end its tradition of holding a biennial General Assembly as a mass gathering due to financial woes and declining membership.
The Rev. J. Herbert Nelson II, stated clerk of the PCUSA General Assembly, said future general assemblies will not likely resemble past ones in terms of scale.
In a video posted on the PCUSA’s website Monday, Nelson said the denomination “cannot continue” to hold what he called “the big tent General Assembly” in which “we have people from all over coming in and spending six, seven, eight days at a general assembly and utilizing that in a big arena.”
Nelson attributed the reduction in future General Assembly events to financial woes tied to the mainline Protestant denomination’s considerable membership decline over the past several years.
“That is happening, basically, because we are at a place financially with the drying up of per capita as it is and the whole system is strained with regards to the fallout in the denomination with membership loss which…
They were supposedly written by Dr. Andrew Grant, a fictional character who claimed to be a colleague of well-known astronomer Sir John Herschel.
The articles claimed that Herschel discovered the new beings after setting up a powerful telescope at a new observatory in Capetown, South Africa.
The observatory, it turns out, was the only true part of the story.
The articles depicted a lunar geography replete with thriving vegetation, rivers, and massive gemstones. The surface was inhabited by unicorns, two-legged beavers, and furry, winged humans that looked like a cross between angels and bats.
And while the Sun would eventually admit that the articles were intended as satire designed to show the absurdity of other popular theories on extraterrestrial life, they only did so after a solid month of sales helped them become one of the most popular newspapers in the world.
Interestingly, the general public didn’t seem to mind, as sales remained strong even after admitting the articles were a hoax.
Perhaps people were simply grateful for the entertainment and chance to dream regardless of whether or not the impetus for those dreams was real.
And if there were any embarrassment or anger, which there surely was among some, it seems to have dissipated amidst people’s ability to laugh at themselves and appreciate the absurd.
The best at laughing at ourselves
In reading about this story, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if a newspaper tried to do the same thing today.
If a publication found a way to convince the public that intelligent life existed in fantastical colonies on Jupiter, for example, what would be the reaction if they later said it was all made up?
I ask the question because I believe our culture, both inside and outside…
‘Any Real True Believer’ Will Support Trump in November, John MacArthur Says
Pastor and author John MacArthur says in a new interview that President Trump phoned him this summer to offer support and that MacArthur told him “any real true believer is going to be on your side” in November.
MacArthur’s congregation, Grace Community Church in Los Angeles County, Calif., has defied state and county health restrictions that prohibit indoor worship services. He made the comments in an interview with Ryan Helfenbein of Liberty University’s Falkirk Center. The Democratic Party platform, MacArthur asserted, is antithetical to Scripture.
“He called me after the Sunday morning service, and he was very gracious and said, ‘I just want to thank you for taking a stand. Church is essential, and I’m glad you’re doing what you’re doing.’ And then we talked a little bit about why, from certainly a biblical standpoint, Christians could not vote Democratic,” MacArthur said. “Because there’s no way that a Christian can affirm the slaughter of babies, homosexual activity, homosexual marriage, or any kind of gross immorality – no way we could stand behind a candidate who was affirming transgender behavior, which of course is really the reprobate mind of Romans 1.
“I said these things aren’t even political for us, sir … these things are biblical. These things are laid down by the Word of God, and we love God. We desire to honor him, and upholding…
Liberty University: Jerry Falwell, Jr. Submitted His Resignation, Then Withdrew It
On Monday night, Jerry Falwell, Jr. submitted his letter of resignation to the Board of Directors at Liberty University, but, according to a news statement released by the school, Falwell rescinded the resignation shortly after.
Falwell, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, agreed to a leave of absence two weeks ago after he posted a photo of himself and his wife’s pregnant assistant with their pants unbuttoned to social media, as Christian Headlines previously reported. Falwell also held a cup of dark liquid, which he claimed was dyed water, and his hands high up on the pregnant woman’s waist.
Though the University stated that the leave was indefinite, Falwell reportedly did not agree to leave permanently.
A day after the social media post went viral, Falwell issued a statement to The Washington Examinerexplaining that his wife had an extramarital affair with a business partner, according to the Associated Press. The 27-year-old man, Giancarlo Granda, allegedly attempted to extort the Falwell family.
“Over the course of the last few months this person’s behavior has reached a level that we have decided the only way to stop this predatory behavior is to go public,” a statement from the family read.
However, Granda claimed that Falwell not only knew about the seven-year-long affair but also acted as a voyeur.
“The Executive Committee’s Board of Trustees asked…
Republican National Convention to Include Several Conservative Christian Speakers
(RNS) — The son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, the head of an anti-abortion ministry, and the co-founder of Liberty University’s Falkirk Center are among the conservative Christian leaders scheduled to speak this week at the Republican National Convention.
Several of the political figures scheduled to speak are also known for their faith, including Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, who has spoken often about his Seventh-day Adventist faith. In a break with precedent, the sitting secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, also will speak at the convention. Pompeo, an outspoken Christian, has spoken before on “Being a Christian Leader.”
Neither the convention nor President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, which released the list of speakers over the weekend, has announced the faith leaders who will open and close each day of the convention in prayer.
But the Trump campaign included Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic archbishop of New York, in an email with Monday’s lineup, and Dolan confirmed in a statement last week that he had been invited to pray.
The cardinal said that his prayer is not an endorsement of any candidate, political party or platform and that he would have accepted an invitation to pray at the Democratic National Convention, as well. He previously prayed at the Democratic gathering in 2012 and Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
Emily McFarlan Miller | Religion News Service | Tuesday, August 25, 2020
(RNS) — Vice President Mike Pence has described himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”
That has made Pence pretty popular with conservative evangelical Christians — not just as vice president, but also as a U.S. congressman and governor of Indiana before that.
But his time in the White House hasn’t been without controversy, even among evangelicals.
Pence has raised eyebrows for his refusal to eat alone with a woman who is not his wife or go without her to events where alcohol is being served — a rule popularized by the late evangelist Billy Graham.
His appearance at Notre Dame University, a Catholic school, ended in a student walkout and at Taylor University, an evangelical school, in the resignation of its president. Some delegates also objected to his appearance at the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2018 denominational meeting.
Here are five faith facts about Pence and how his conservative Christian beliefs have made him a polarizing figure.
Chinese Hospitals Conduct Forced Abortions on Religious, Ethnic Minorities
Several reports have revealed that hospitals in Xinjiang, China forced families exceeding the designated number of children allowed under the Communist regime to have abortions.
Hasiyet Abdulla, a Uyghur obstetrician who currently lives in Turkey, spent over 15 years working in several Xinjiang hospitals, as well as the XUAR Hospital of Traditional Uyghur Medicine.
Abdullah told Radio Free Asia that hospitals keep track of the pregnancies from each family planning unit in its archival records and enforce strict regulations intended to limit Uighurs and other ethnic minorities to three children, The Christian Post reports.
She explained that women who did not wait long enough between children to get pregnant again would have abortions done by the hospitals. Additionally, intrauterine devices (IUDs) would be implanted following the pregnancies.
“Every hospital had a family-planning unit that was responsible for implementation — who had how many kids, when they’d given birth to them — they tracked all of this,” she said.
“The regulations were so strict: there had to be three or four years between children. There were babies born at nine months who we killed after inducing labor. They did that in the maternity wards, because those were the orders,” she added.
Even if mothers were “eight and nine months pregnant,” babies still had to be aborted. Abdulla noted that babies…
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