Saturday evening, only one day after announcing his decision to discontinue medical treatment, war hero and senator John McCain succumbed to his illness. McCain, 81, had been publicly battling an aggressive brain cancer for the past year.

The senator’s wife, Cindy McCain took to twitter on Saturday writing, “My heart is broken. I am so lucky to have lived the adventure of loving this incredible man for 38 years. He passed the way he lived, on his own terms, surrounded by the people he loved, in the the place he loved best.”

McCain’s daughter Meghan McCain posted a heart felt letter to her father on twitter saying, “My father, United States Senator John Sidney McCain III, departed this life today. I was with my father at his end, as he was with me at my beginning.”

She continued, “In the thirty-three years we shared together, he raised me, taught me, corrected me, comforted me, encouraged me, and supported me in all things. He loved me, and I loved him.”

On Friday the family issued a statement on Twitter saying, “Last summer, Senator John McCain shared with Americans the news our family already knew: he had been diagnosed with an aggressive glioblastoma, and the prognosis was serious. In the year since, John has surpassed expectations for his survival. But the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict. With his usual strength of will, he…

30-year-old Lead Pastor, Andrew Stoecklein, of Inland Hills Church in Chino, California died by suicided on Saturday. According to The Christian Post, an announcement made by the church stated that Stoecklein had been battling with depression and anxiety.

In an announcement that was posted to Facebook by the church on Sunday the church said, “Inland Hills Church grieves with heavy hearts as our Lead Pastor Andrew Stoecklein was welcomed into Heaven on Saturday night after battling depression and anxiety. It’s not the outcome we hoped and prayed for, and today we grieve as a church family.” 

The announcement went on to say, “In his time leading Inland Hills, Andrew reached so many with his warm wit, passionate heart for God, and teaching that always, always pointed others to Jesus. The loving husband, father, son, and friend that he was will continue to inspire us in leading others into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ,”

On Friday the church posted on their Facebook page asking for prayers for Stoecklein saying, “IHC Family and friends, please pray for our lead pastor, Andrew Stoecklein. He tried to take his own life Friday morning, and is now in the hospital on life support. We love and serve a God of miracles, and we ask you to press in and respond in prayer and in faith. #godsgotthis.”

Andrew Stoecklein had only recently returned to preaching at…

A Nashville, Tennessee area church has hosted a community-wide block party centered on the themes of the classic kids television series “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood.”

City Road Chapel United Methodist Church of Madison hosted the first-ever Beautiful Day Neighborhood Festival on Sunday, with hundreds attending the 3-hour event.

The Reverend Jay Voorhees, lead pastor of City Road Chapel UMC, told The Christian Post Monday that the festival came in response to a Mister Rogers-themed sermon series he oversaw titled “It’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: Being a Good Neighbor in a Divided World.”

“Our church takes seriously Christ’s call to love our neighbors, but we recognize that in our current climate neighborliness is a lost art,” explained Voorhees.

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“Our church is located in a very diverse area of Nashville, with a high rate of poverty, homelessness, and youth violence, so there is sometimes a perception of a neighborhood that is struggling. However,…

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican ambassador to the U.S., shared on Sunday that he told Pope Francis about accusations of sexual abuse made against a prominent priest in 2013. Vigano reported that despite being told about the accusations, Francis took no action. The Archbishop is now urging Francis to step down. 

In a statement released by Vigano on Sunday he said, “In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he [Pope Francis] must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example to Cardinals and Bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.”

CBS News spoke with Vigano who said, he decided to speak out now “to combat the grave situation in the church, to protect the church and also to stop future abuse.” 

CBS News reports that Vigano told the producer Anna Matranga that he had no agenda in releasing this statement and that he was simply stating facts. 

The Archbishop recalled a conversation he had with Francis in June 2013, shortly after Francis became pope. The pair talked about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who is the former archbishop of Washington, D.C. McCarrick resigned last month after claims came out that he sexually abused seminary students and an altar boy.

In his statement Vigano states that he told…

Members of Inland Hills Church in Chino, California, are now grappling with grief after their lead pastor, Andrew Stoecklein, succumbed to self-inflicted injuries Saturday after a battle with depression and anxiety, his church said. He was 30.

“Inland Hills Church grieves with heavy hearts as our Lead Pastor Andrew Stoecklein was welcomed into Heaven on Saturday night after battling depression and anxiety. It’s not the outcome we hoped and prayed for, and today we grieve as a church family,” the megachurch said in an announcement on Facebook late Sunday.

“In his time leading Inland Hills, Andrew reached so many with his warm wit, passionate heart for God, and teaching that always, always pointed others to Jesus. The loving husband, father, son, and friend that he was will continue to inspire us in leading others into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ,” the announcement continued.

The news of Stoecklein’s death came shortly after the church revealed that he had tried to take his own life on Friday morning and was placed on life support.

“IHC Family and friends, please pray for our lead pastor, Andrew Stoecklein. He tried to take his own life Friday morning, and is…

A federal court ruling has reversed rules that regulate the pornography industry. 

The change, which was ruled on in early August, alters U.S. Code Title 18 section 2257 that says producers in the pornography industry must keep records of the age of actors. The law also said that government officials could review those records at any time. 

Gail Dines, author of Pornland: How Pornography Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, and University of Massachusetts-Boston professor David L. Levy, said the changes are “the only way to verify and track performers’ ages and serves as a major incentive for businesses across the complex supply chain to monitor content.”

Judge Michael Baylson of the U.S. 3^rd Circuit of Appeals ruled that many of the section’s requirements were unconstitutional. Under the new law, porn producers will use an age verification form.

“A lot of the lawyers that I’ve spoken to did say it’s pretty much a rabbit hole of law. So it might be better for us to think of another way to try and prevent children from being used in pornography,” Dines said.

“We’ve got to act quickly because I don’t trust them to not be uploading images of children,” she said.

In previous years, the federal government has strongly enforced the section 2257 law. In 2006, the company behind the “Girls Gone Wild” series was fined $2.1 million for violations.

The Free…

Marriott International bought hundreds of copies of the Bible and the Book of Mormon two years ago and is now placing them in hundreds of hotels. 

All total, about 300,000 rooms will have the two religious books by year’s end, according to the Associated Press. The Bible and the Book of Mormon are being put in rooms of hotels that fall under the Starwood brand, which Marriott bought in 2016.  

The founders of Marriott are members of the Mormon church.

“There are many guests who are not digitally connected who appreciate having one or both of these books available,” Marriott told AP in a statement. “It’s a tradition appreciated by many, objected to by few.”

The Marriott family has been placing the two books in its hotel rooms since opening their first hotel in the 1950s, according to AP. It’s so important to the family that the Marriott corporation places language in the contract with franchisees that a Bible and Book of Mormon be placed in every room.

Not everyone agrees with the tradition, though. John Ollila, founder of the travel blog LoyaltyLobby, told AP that publicly traded companies should remain neutral in religious conversations. 

“Why wouldn’t they want to target the widest possible market?” he asked.

Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com.

Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Shelby Miller

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This weekend, at a Madden gaming tournament in Florida, a gunman opened fire, killing 2 and injuring several others before turning the gun on himself.

Sunday’s tournament was located at the GLHF Game Bar in Jacksonville, Florida, and was supposed to be a fun event for gamers to compete, hoping to win the opportunity to advance to the next competition in Las Vegas, where they could play for cash prizes. Instead, the event turned into tragedy.

Shortly after the tournament began, gunman, David Katz, opened fire. The competition was being live-streamed on the gaming website, Twitch, and ended “abruptly… after several shots were heard.”

“Shortly after 1:30 p.m., 911 calls started pouring in about a shooting…” CNN says, mentioning that “Officers were on the scene within two minutes.”

As people started fleeing the Game Bar, nearby firemen, who happened to be training across the street, ran to the scene. They saw victims running with gunshot wounds and administered first aid. Other firemen were able to locate a police officer. The firemen began treating people at the scene “and found three victims, including Katz’s body.”

The other two victims have been identified on social media as Taylor Robertson of Ballard, West Virginia, and Elijah Clayton of Woodland Hills, California. Both were esteemed players of Madden and had won prizes in the past,…

Televangelist Ernest Angley and his megachurch, Grace Cathedral, are being sued for sexual misconduct and for allegedly forcing a former associate pastor to go through with a vasectomy.

According to the lawsuit, filed last week in Summit County Clerk of Courts, former Grace Cathedral employee Brock Miller is accusing Angley of “predatory, harassing, and offensive behavior,” including being asked to masturbate and strip naked for massages. 

Miller also alleges that Angley, who is now 97, forced him “to undergo a vasectomy — to ensure that he was never able to have children” as a condition of his employment at Grace Cathedral in January 2004. Miller was 18 at the time.

At the time of his employment, Miller lived across the street from Angley. A few months into his employment, Miller invited Angley to his house because he wanted to ask the preacher questions about his upcoming marriage. Some of those questions were sexual in nature but Miller says he felt comfortable asking them “because he (Angley) was a man of God and a father figure to him.”

During that conversation, Angley allegedly asked Miller to masturbate in front of him to “make sure he was…