A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a Missouri law that requires abortion clinics give every woman a booklet stating that life “begins at conception.”

The unique case involves a female member of “The Satanic Temple” who became pregnant and then sued the state, asserting the law violates her religious beliefs and also violates the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.

The woman was called “Judy Doe” in court documents.

The law requires abortion clinics give women a booklet stating: “The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.” Women are not required to read the booklet, which also includes illustrations showing the development of an unborn baby every two weeks.

Doe believes the “‘Human Tissue’ that she was carrying was ‘part of her body,’” the judges noted.

“As she stated in her complaint, her ‘body is inviolable’ and ‘[s]he alone’ gets to decide what to do with it, regardless of ‘the current or future condition of the Human Tissue’ within,” Judge David R. Stras wrote.

The court, in a 3-0 decision, ruled the Missouri law does not violate the U.S. Constitution.

A state, Stras said in the opinion, “does not establish religion by passing a law that just ‘happens to…

George Floyd’s brother, Philonise, testified before Congress on Wednesday to petition lawmakers to make sweeping changes to prevent police brutality.

“I’m here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain,” he said, according to AP News. He hoped that his brother is “more than another face on a T-shirt, more than another name on a list that won’t stop growing.”

Congress gathered to review the Democrats’ proposed bill on police reform. The Republicans, led by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), are working to create their own bill.

“I think the best way for the Senate Republicans to go forward on this is to listen to one of our own, who’s had these experiences—he’s had them since he’s been in the United States Senate,” said Mitch McConnell, as reported by CBN News.

Scott will be meeting with President Trump to discuss his bill, which would require states receiving federal funding to report officer-related shootings.

The Democrats’ bill hopes to ban chokeholds, as well as racially and religious profiling. It would also allow the federal government easier ability to prosecute misconduct police cases and create a database of police misconduct.

In his testimony, Philonise urged Congress that reform is long overdue.

“George wasn’t hurting anyone that day,” he said. “He didn’t deserve to die over $20. I am asking you, is that what a black man is worth? $20?…

Acts of persecution are on the rise in India, as evidenced by several acts of violence and exclusion carried out against the Christian community. 

According to Open Doors USA, ADF India said that six acts of violence against Christians took place in April, even as the nation was locked down due to COVID-19.

According to CBN News, several of the incidents involved Christians being forced to attend village meetings where they declined to take part in Hindu rituals. They said that they would not take part because it would violate their conscience. As word of their non-participation spread, large mobs attacked them.

ADF India also reported that there were three incidents in which Christians were not allowed to bury deceased relatives in the village cemetery. They were told that since they did not participate in the village rituals, they would have to pay restitution and a fine before they could bury their dead.

ADF India took the case to police. The police protected the funerals from attacks and in a couple of cases provided the land for the burial. Christian leaders reported that they plan to petition the government for protection from these acts of “social exclusion and physical violence.”

India’s current government came to power in 2014 and attacks from Hindu radicals against Christians have increased significantly since then. Open Doors USA has India ranked 10^th on their World Watch…

Allahu Akbar became a near-constant sound in the prison cell. It’s part of the Muslim call to prayer, and each man repeated it incessantly over the course of the day, one hundred times each time they prayed. Confined in the tiny room, I watched my cellmates bow and listen to the words from the Koran. In the midst of all the murmuring voices and repetitious prayers, I started to worry about my mental health and felt a strong need for something besides their voices to occupy my mind.

In the final days of January, as my Muslim cellmates were praying, the Lord began to give me songs. Watching the Muslims bow their faces to the ground triggered the memory of a hymn that my father taught me when I was a little child: “Every Knee Shall Bow.”

During our underground church discipleship meetings in Czechoslovakia, we sang the hymn spontaneously and often, and in my prison cell, those same words began to rush into my mind. As the Muslims prayed, I sang the song in my mind, over and over, and it helped me to exalt the name of my Lord. Five times each day, as I stood near the bathroom of the cell to face the toilet, I remembered the refrain: “Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that You

are the Lord.” By reminding myself that one day, every person’s knees will bow before my Lord, I began to internalize the eternal reality of my…

Christian author Randy Alcorn is refuting the idea that people will have no recollection of their earthly life when they reach Heaven.

In a post titled “Let Go of Life About Heaven” on Desiring God’s website, Alcorn addressed eight myths people believe about the afterlife, The Christian Post reports.

Alcorn rejected the notion that people will not remember their former life upon reaching Heaven noting that that belief is more akin to Hinduism than Christianity.

“You will be you in heaven”: Alcorn wrote. “Who else would you be? Since we’ll give an account of our lives on earth, we must remain us, and our memories will have to be better, not worse.”

He also argued that “Scripture gives no indication of a memory wipe causing us not to recognize family and friends.”

“In fact,” he continued, “if we wouldn’t know our loved ones, the comfort of an afterlife reunion, taught in 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18, would be no comfort at all.”

Alcorn also asserted that since Christ identified Himself to his disciples following his death and resurrection, he illustrated that memory will be present in Heaven.

“He proclaimed, ‘It is I myself’ (Luke 24:39). When Thomas said, ‘My Lord and my God,’ he knew he was speaking to the same Jesus he’d lived with for years,” Alcorn said.

Several other myths Alcorn debunks in his list include the ideas that we will spend heaven in the…

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Informal evangelical Christian advisers to President Donald Trump have long championed religious freedom as a key issue that should be embraced by the administration, often arguing passionately against government infringement on religious activities.

That’s why some have framed the president’s recent (June 1) photo-op in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, in which he held aloft a Bible for cameras, as an expression of support for religious freedom.

“(Trump) walked FOR the protection of the right of peaceful protest,” Johnnie Moore, who helped organize the Trump campaign’s evangelical advisory board in 2016 and now serves as a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, said in an email to Religion News Service. “He walked AGAINST the violent anarchists and looters who were disrupting those peaceful protests and dishonoring the memory of George Floyd.”

Other evangelical supporters of the president such as Franklin Graham and Texas pastor Robert Jeffress have also praised Trump’s walk to St. John’s, calling it an “important statement” and “absolutely correct.”

Moore and others have less to say about what happened before the president’s visit to the church — when police working with the federal government forced hundreds of demonstrators away from Lafayette Square and expelled clergy…

The Trump Department of Justice has sided with a Catholic foster care agency in a major religious liberty case that could resolve the conflict between governments and faith-based adoption agencies that won’t place children in same-sex homes due to religious beliefs.

The case began in 2018 when the Philadelphia Inquirer published a story saying Catholic Social Services – which had a foster care contract with the city – does not place children in same-sex homes. The city subsequently terminated the contract, asserting the agency’s policy violated a city law prohibiting contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

Catholic Social Services then sued. Although lower courts ruled against the agency, the U.S. Supreme Court took up the case and is expected to hear oral arguments this fall.

The Justice Department, in a brief to the high court this month, said Philadelphia has “displayed hostility toward religion” and violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Further, the city authorizes some exemptions to its policy it doesn’t offer to religious organizations, the brief says.

“In short, the City’s actions and words reflected ‘animosity to religion or distrust of its practices,’” the Justice Department brief says.

Catholic Social Services “adheres to the belief that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.” Because of…