KIGALI, Rwanda (RNS) – Grace Umutesi has secretly been conducting services in her house in the Bannyahe slum on the outskirts of the capital since officials shut down her church in July for failing to comply with building safety standards and other regulations.

“I’m very disappointed by the decision of the government to close our church,” said Umutesi, 35, a mother of four. “But we cannot stop to pray and praise God because our church has been closed. God is everywhere and he listens to our prayers.”

Umutesi, an elder at Joy Temple Ministries, said her church was closed because the pastor had no theological degree from an accredited institute as the government requires. She also said her church lacked proper toilets and bathrooms for guests and congregants — and can’t afford to comply with government regulations.

“It’s expensive for the church and it’s wrong for the government to tell us not to worship,” she said.

Joy Temple Ministries is one among thousands that authorities have shut down in recent months. An estimated 8,000 churches and 100 mosques have been closed across this East Africa nation of 12 million people, according to the government’s latest figures. Muslims comprise around 5 percent of the Rwandan population.

At the beginning of this year, Rwandan lawmakers enacted new laws requiring pastors to be educated and church buildings to be renovated, offer two bathrooms for men and women and provide paved access to churches on a half hectare of land or more.

Critics of President Paul Kagame said the crackdown is an…

Grammy-winning gospel singer Marvin Winans and the Perfecting Church in Detroit, Michigan, are facing a lawsuit from a former housekeeper who claims she was fired for refusing to pay tithes from her $18,000 a year salary.

Winans wasn’t immediately available for comment when contacted by The Christian Post Friday but the lawsuit cited by the Detroit Free Press names the housekeeper as Lakaiya Harris.

Harris was employed by Perfecting Church from March 2012 until January 2017. Winans is the founder and president of Perfecting Church, which owns at least 90 commercial and residential properties in Detroit. Harris was among about 40 workers hired to clean and maintain them.

She alleges in the lawsuit that she spent the first several weeks on the job cleaning the Marvin L. Winans Academy of Performing Arts, an elementary and middle school led by Winans. She was later transferred to Perfecting Church’s main campus in Detroit’s east side.

During a staff meeting in 2016, Harris, according to the Free Press, complained openly about not being paid. In October that year, Winans allegedly called Harris to his office to find out why she had not been attending church. She…

On Thursday, columnist Matthew Schmitz tweeted a letter written by the CEO of Legatus, an organization of Catholic businessmen and women, which stated that they will be delaying their annual tithe of almost $1 million to the Vatican. 

Legatus, a large association of Catholic businessmen, announces that it is placing its annual tithe to the Vatican in escrow pic.twitter.com/OQuFgGnfLa

— Matthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) September 6, 2018

Chairman and CEO of Legatus Thomas S. Monaghan – also the Co-founder of Domino’s Pizza – wrote a letter to fellow members of the organization saying, “regarding our (Legatus’) annual tithe to the Holy See… we believe it appropriate to respectfully request clarification regarding the specific use of these funds.”

Monaghan notes what has caused the organizations concerns saying, “Events over the past few weeks have prompted many members to contact the national office and members of the Board of Governors regarding the current crisis in the Church.” 

The CEO is referring to the Catholic church sexual abuse scandal that broke last month after the release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report which documents the results of a two-year long investigation into several Penn. dioceses. 

Monaghan writes, “We are certainly blessed with the leadership of Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the…

Ball State University in Indiana has agreed to pay the university’s chapter of Students for Life $300 as a part of a legal settlement. The Students for Life organization had requested the money from the Student Activity Fee Committee earlier this year but was denied the funding because of their pro-life ideology. 

Since the settlement, the college has changed its previous policy on student activity funding allocation which allowed discrimination against “religious, political, or ideological” expression and generally awarded funding to left-leaning political groups on campus.

According to The Christian Post, the fee committee granted funding to other politically aligned student groups including, Feminists for Action, Secular Student Alliance and the LGBT group Spectrum. 

After being denied funding in February – that reportedly would have been used to share educational resources with pregnant and parenting students – the BSU Students for Life chapter filed suit in June.

The lawsuit notes that the university gave the fee committee authority to decide which groups would receive funding from the mandatory activity fees paid by all students. Reportedly, members of Students for Life paid a collective student activities fee totaling to more than $1,000 this year but were still denied access to funding.

According to the lawsuit, Students for Life accused…