A Taylor University professor, who has worked in Christian publishing for years, has stepped down from his teaching position after being accused of inappropriate sexual conduct with students 14 years ago.

Dennis E. Hensley is accused of hugging and kissing a student in 2004 after she told the professor that she had been recently raped. The university was notified of the incident but it did not force him to resign.

The student, Rachel Custer, was 23 at the time. She said she told him she had been raped and had reported the assault to police. Custer says Hensley held her hands while she cried, hugged her, kissed her tears and then kissed her on the mouth.

Custer said she pulled away and left the room before Hensley told her that the incident would be their “little secret.”

“It’s just hard to explain how much this messed with me,” she said. “After the situation I’d been through, I thought I was in a place that was completely safe.”

Hensley, however, says he has meant for his actions to be supportive and not sexual.

“I was trying to be gracious. I was trying to be comforting. I meant nothing in the way of any harm to her,” Hensley said in an interview with Inside Higher Ed. “Now this is coming out 14 years later, with this whole ‘Me Too’ kind of thing, and everyone is piling on the bandwagon.”

Because of his experience in the…

The pastor whose church is hosting the Revoice conference next weekend is addressing the confusion many have expressed about the event amid concerns unclean spirituality is being allowed into the Church.

The Revoice conference says it intends to “support, encourage, and empower” LGBT Christians and promote their “flourishing” within the historic Christian tradition and its doctrine of marriage and sexuality. It is scheduled to take place next weekend at Memorial Presbyterian, a PCA congregation in St. Louis, Missouri.

In a lively interview on the CrossPolitic podcast Sunday, Greg Johnson, who pastors Memorial Presbyterian, insisted the conference is approaching this in a way that attempts to cut through semantics and instead engage the issues of substance when it comes to Christians who may identify themselves as “gay.”

Right from the start, Johnson was asked by host Jason Farley if he would allow his church to be used for a conference aiming to speak to Christians who say they have sexual attractions to children.

“If you’re talking about people who have sexual brokenness, and they…

Pratibha Stephen was immersed in worship at the house church her husband pastors in Tamil Nadu state, India when a man suddenly burst through the back door, shouting angrily.

The intruder interrupted an elderly man’s singing and cymbal-playing by twisting his hands behind his back at the Jesus Power Ministries house church in Sathyamangalam, Erode District that Sunday morning, July 8, causing him to howl in pain. Stephen went over to stop the harassment.

The intruder pushed her away, shouting, “Don’t you understand what my boss Guruswamy told you people? Don’t you have shame? How many times must you be told that there should not be any Christian prayer meetings in the area?”

The Hindu extremist, identified as Ajith Kumar, became uncontrollably angry and started beating her, Stephen told Morning Star News.

“I reprimanded him that he must not touch me and should leave immediately,” she said. “He continued spewing abusive words, and within minutes, he touched me again, and he forcefully pulled my sari off of me. I resisted him with all my strength and shouted for help.”

Her husband, pastor Paul Stephen, was away leading a worship service in Bhavani Sagar, about six miles away. The elderly church member and a few others tried to push Kumar off, but he held tightly to her sari, stripped it off and kicked her to the floor,…