Archaeologists in Israel have unearthed a 1,300-year-old Christian church that is a short distance from the traditional site of Jesus’ transfiguration.

The church, about 118 feet by 39 feet, includes “ornate mosaic floors” and was recently found in an excavation in the Israeli village of Kfar Kama, which is about a two-hour drive north of Jerusalem. Kfar Kama is a few miles from Mount Tabor, which Origen – a third-century theologian – said was the site of Jesus’ Transfiguration.

The archaeological find was announced in a press release by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Catholic Archbishop Youssef Matta of Israel visited the site.

“The new discovery hints at the apparent importance of the Christian village settled in the Byzantine period close to Mount Tabor, a site of primary religious significance for Christianity, identified as the site of the Transfiguration,” the press release said.

The excavation took place prior to the building of a playground. It was directed by archaeologist Nurit Feig on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority in collaboration with Moti Aviam of Kinneret Academic College, according to the press release.

The church includes a large courtyard, a narthex foyer and a central hall, Feig said.

“Particular to this church is the existence of three apses [prayer niches], while most churches were characterized by a single apse,” Feig…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) – For French Catholics, the recent fire at the cathedral of Nantes is yet another sign that their religion is in danger. 

Over the past week, they’ve felt both anger and profound sadness after seeing another beloved cathedral in flames, only to learn that the fire was deliberately set by one of their own.

A volunteer who worked as an altar server at the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in Nantes, France, confessed on Sunday (July 26) to setting the fire that damaged stained-glass windows of the historic Gothic church.

“We are split by contradictory feelings: stupor, incomprehension, anger towards a man who has abused the trust which was placed in him; but also compassion for this man who made this crazy gesture,” read a statement by the Diocese of Nantes published on its website on Tuesday.

The fire at the medieval church came only 15 months after an accidental blaze destroyed the vault and spire of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris during Holy Week.

For some Catholics, the fire at Nantes is yet another heavy blow to the shrinking community, but also a symbol of Catholicism becoming a minority religion in France.

While Catholics make up 41% of the French population, the number of practicing faithful may be as low as 5%.

And attacks on Christians have been on the rise in recent years.

In 2019 there were 1,052 anti-Christian hate…

A Vienna-based observatory has highlighted a sharp uptick concerning the anti-religious violence in France in the past 12 years. More recent incidents included last week’s fire inside the historic Nantes Cathedral.

At the present time, The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDACE) serves as the sole observatory in the continent that addresses the discrimination that European Christians face.

On Monday, OIDACE Executive Director Ellen Fantini highlighted the matters of the ongoing incidents in an interview with The Christian Post.

“The French government reported 275, what they call, anti-Christian acts [in 2008],” Fantini noted. “So that is anything from targeting a church in some way with vandalism or a public Christian statue, it could be a Christian cemetery or it could be actual assaults against French Christians with an anti-Christian bias.”

“If we look at 2018 and 2019, the numbers are little over 1,000 [per year]. So the increase from 275 to a little over 1,000 works out to 285% increase,” she added.

A report by France’s Interior Ministry found that there was about 1,052 recorded anti-Christian incidents committed in 2019. They incidents were mainly acts of vandalism. Last year’s acts were separated into two categories, “acts” with 996 incidences and “threats” with 56 incidences.

“What is shocking about that actually is…

Two leaders at a well-known Christian ministry say they respect John MacArthur’s church for defying an order from the state of California but believe other churches can reach a different conclusion and still be obedient to Christ and Scripture.

Mark Dever, the president of the church-equipping ministry 9Marks, and Jonathan Leeman, the editorial director of the same organization, discussed the issue this week during an episode of Pastors Talk, a 9Marks podcast.

“I just wanted to carve out a little Christian freedom there. … I hope we can demonstrate that Christians can love one another and disagree about these kinds of judgments,” Leeman said.

Dever and Leeman recorded the podcast the same weekend MacArthur’s church – Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Calif. – released a pastor- and elder-backed statement that said the congregation would not obey a California order prohibiting in-person religious gatherings.

“When any government official issues orders regulating worship (such as bans on singing, caps on attendance, or prohibitions against gatherings and services),” the statement said, “he steps outside the legitimate bounds of his God-ordained authority as a civic official and arrogates to himself authority that God expressly grants only to the Lord Jesus Christ as sovereign over His Kingdom, which is the church.”

Leeman…

(RNS) — An independent investigation into accusations of spiritual and psychological abuse by popular Enneagram teacher and best-selling author Christopher Heuertz found no evidence of misconduct after those who raised the allegations declined to cooperate with the inquiry.

The third-party investigation was undertaken by the board of Heuertz’s organization, Gravity, a spiritual retreat center based in Omaha, Nebraska.

It included interviews with “nearly all” of the past and current employees and interns of Gravity.

According to a statement posted to the Gravity website, “None of them reported being manipulated, abused, subjected to unhealthy crossing of boundaries or grooming behaviors. They said there were no inappropriate jokes or flirtations and that there was no chaos, confusion, self-doubt, tokenism, manipulation, or bullying.”

The investigation followed a public post on the platform Medium signed by 33 women and men who wrote that Heuertz “has harmed many people and we cannot remain silent anymore.” 

The June 10 post described a pattern of spiritual and psychological abuse by Heuertz, a liberal Christian active in social justice causes as well as the contemplative tradition borrowed from Catholicism. But it was not clear if the allegations of misconduct by Heuertz were new.

“The important thing that came about is the specific allegations and the language…

A coalition of 18 states is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, pointing to “advances in science” and “brutal” abortion procedures that involve “ripping a fetus apart” limb by limb.

The Mississippi law, passed by the legislature and signed by the governor in 2018, prohibits abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation except in medical emergency and in cases of severe fetal abnormality.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law, but the multi-state coalition is asking the Supreme Court to uphold it. In a July brief, the states argue “much has changed since Roe,” with fetal viability decreasing from 28 weeks’ gestation in 1973 – the year Roe v. Wade was handed down – to 21 weeks today.

The coalition says the Fifth Circuit’s decision conflicts with Roe’s legal framework but also the framework of the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision and the 2020 June Medical Services decision. All were abortion-related cases.

“The Fifth Circuit refused to follow Casey and instead applied a novel test that renders irrelevant both the impact of a law and whether the State has an interest in the excruciating pain an unborn child experiences as it is torn limb from limb during an abortion,” the states argue.

The brief was signed by the attorneys general of Texas, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona,…