(RNS) — Trinity Broadcasting Network said it will no longer air the daily Texas-based Kenneth Copeland Ministries program known as “Believer’s Voice of Victory.”

Instead, the network will replace it with programming by Steven Furtick, a megachurch pastor who is widely known for his appearances on PreachersNSneakers, an Instagram account that features influencer pastors and their expensive shoes.

The change will be effective Oct. 2.

Nate Daniels, Trinity Broadcasting Network’s marketing director, said the move is part of a number of changes the network “has been making over the last several years.”

“Just like the world in which we live, TBN is constantly evolving, seeking to provide exclusive programming that is uniquely built for the challenges facing Christians in this moment,” Daniels said in a statement provided to Religion News Service on Wednesday (Aug. 19). “As the leading global religious broadcaster, we want to provide our viewers with compelling and dynamic preaching, teaching, news and entertainment.”

Kenneth Copeland Ministries announced it on Facebook on Monday. However, Copeland had already said as much in a blog post on Aug. 3 on the Kenneth Copeland Ministries website. In that blog, Copeland said he’s partnered with Trinity Broadcasting Network for 40 years.

“This is a big change, but one we are ready for because we understand change,” Copeland wrote.

“We are…

The Democratic National Convention highlighted Joe Biden’s Catholic faith on Monday.

The DNC released a 60-second ad on Twitter that showed Biden meeting Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica and talking to a group of nuns outside on a street in Rome.

In a voiceover, Biden noted that he was raised in the Catholic faith and “educated by the nuns.”

Biden added that the nuns he met in Rome epitomized Pope Francis’ teaching on generosity to other people, reaching out and stressing that “we are our brother’s keeper.”

“This is the kind of moral conviction we need in the president of the United States, ” the DNC wrote on Twitter.

This is the kind of moral conviction we need in the president of the United States. pic.twitter.com/iJKAOVoFns

— 2020 #DemConvention 🇺🇸 (@DemConvention) August 9, 2020

“He is viewed as having an authentic faith,” Richard Mouw, the former president of Fuller Theological Seminary and professor of faith and public life, said in a statement. “He may not be the conservative Catholic that a lot of evangelicals would like him to be, but when he talks about his faith, it rings true.”

Mouw, alongside evangelical leaders Chuck Colson, Bill Bright, and the late J.I. Packer, signed the historic ecumenical document “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” in 1994.

The “Evangelicals and Catholics Together”…

On Monday, a lawsuit was filed by multiple religious schools that have taken issue with California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent school closure order.

According to The Christian Post, the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California, aims to obtain an injunction on the order.

Private Schools from various faith backgrounds are listed on the complaint including three Jewish schools based in Los Angeles and two Christian schools. Individual parents are also listed on the suit.

In part, the suit asserts that the “Plaintiffs bring this particular suit to advance their rights as religious schools, parents, students, and educators to choose — again, consistent with sound science, data, and their own individual circumstances — to hold in-person religious education in a manner consistent with their faith.”

It continues, “Our laws are clear that government shall make no law abridging the free exercise of religion. Laws that treat religious institutions, including schools, unequally must be narrowly tailored to minimize the burden they place on a fundamental right.”

Taking issue with how “similarly situated entities” have been permitted to reopen, the suit argues that “Parents have the right to direct the education of their children in the religious setting of their choice.”

Sebastian Petz, superintendent of Montebello…

A congregation in Illinois has taken steps to help curb the spread of COVID-19 and allow for a safer in-person worship experience by temporarily installing Plexiglas barriers for some of their pews.

Progressive Church of God in Christ of Springfield recently added the barriers, which can be removed from the pews when deemed necessary, and has used them during worship.

Pastor Glenn Jackson of Progressive Church told The Christian Post in an interview on Tuesday that the idea and creation of the barriers occurred a couple of months ago.

Jackson felt it was “extremely important” to have the church members be “able to come together in a faith environment to have fellowship” to counter the many who were “experiencing some level of depression or sense of isolation.”

“We wanted to create an atmosphere where people can come, young and old,” explained Jackson. “I thought it was important that for their emotional, physical, mental, and more importantly for their spiritual health…

An Ohio mother says her 9-year-old daughter is saying she is “going to be with Jesus” after the girl tested positive for COVID-19.

According to The Christian Post, doctors have told Dorielis Reyes’ mother that she is in “the process of dying.”

“She always said, ‘I’m going to be with Jesus,” Doranny Escolastico-Paula told the Journal-News of her daughter, Dorielis Reyes. “I want to go be with Jesus. I want to go first.”

Paula says that Reyes began showing symptoms on May 10 and then was hospitalized May 19.

“She always had a curious spirit, was never afraid to make new friends, and loved to go to church,” Paula wrote. “On the 10th of May of this year, she began walking a little strange, and later began to drag one of her feet because she couldn’t walk on it. I took her to the hospital because it was obviously not normal for her. She later lost movement in parts of her body and there at the hospital, she was tested for COVID-19 where the results came out positive.”

In a GoFundMe campaign page, Paula says that doctors aren’t sure why her daughter’s brain is swelling, but they sent the family home for treatment.

“After a week of being home, she lost the ability to walk, was beginning to lose the ability to speak, and was beginning to have severe headaches when on July 19th she had an epileptic seizure and was then admitted once again to the hospital, now…

Bestselling author and distinguished pastor of Los Angeles’ Zoe Church, Chad Veach, says he wants to help everyone tap into their leadership potential. 

The pastor’s new book, Help! I Work With People: Getting Good at Leadership, Influence, and People Skills, was birthed out of something God deposited into his heart a few years ago.

“God was speaking to me about writing my first leadership book. … There’s nothing that God loves more than humanity,” Veach told The Christian Post in a recent video interview.

John 3:16, he said, is the most famous verse in the whole world because it resonates with everyone that God gave His only Son, for the “whomsoever’s, anyone.” 

“I wanted to write a book that was all about people because we really need to turn our heart toward humanity,” added Veach, who leads one of the fastest-growing young adult ministries in the United States. “I feel like in this political climate, in this culture that we’re in right now, opinions are not going to change people, but the love of God will.

“The spirit of it (the book) isn’t, ugh … ‘Help! I work with people!’ It’s more like the Apostle Paul; I want to win with people. So I become…

A California bill that would set up a taxpayer-funded “transgender wellness” fund for children and adults who wish to change genders has passed the state Assembly and two Senate committees, meaning the state’s citizens could soon be funding hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery for minors and adults.

Critics, including the California Family Council, say the money would be used to “sterilize children” who want to change genders.

The bill, AB 2218, would establish a “Transgender Wellness and Equity Fund” within the State Department of Public Health to benefit organizations, hospitals and health care clinics that “provide gender-conforming health care services and have an established partnership with a Trans-led organization,” according to the bill’s text.

It passed the state Senate appropriations committee 7-0 on Monday. It sailed through the Assembly in June.

The money would be used for a variety of purposes, including educational materials and arts programs, but it also would be used for “gender-affirming health care services, such as hormone therapy or gender reassignment surgery,” according to the bill’s text.

The bill sets no age limit for hormone therapy or gender reassignment surgery. The bill’s findings quote a study that found that 27 percent, or 796,000, of youth ages 12 to 17 in California are “viewed as gender nonconforming…