NEW DELHI, May 5, 2020 (Morning Star News) – An attempt by Hindu nationalists and media in western India to blame Christians for the mob killing of three Hindus threatens to provoke violence against Christians, sources said.

A tribal mob on April 16 killed the three men, two of them Hindu ascetics, in Gadchinchale village, Palghar District in Maharashtra state.

“Linking this gruesome incident to the church looks like a deliberate attempt to malign the Christian community and can increase attacks on Christians not just in Palghar district but also elsewhere,” Vijayesh Lal, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), told Morning Star News. “Rumors spread through social media, and vicious attacks by cow vigilantes have resulted in several incidents of lynching throughout India in the recent years, and we condemn each and every one of them. The Christian community has lost at least four of our own to these senseless killings; the Muslim community has lost many more.”

Hindu ascetics Mahant Kalpavruksha Giri, 70, Sushilgiri Maharaj, 35, and their driver, Naresh Yelgade, were traveling when forest guards who had previously stopped them due to the coronavirus lockdown stopped them again as they were returning to Mumbai. At a check post near Gadchinchale, about 55 miles from Palghar town, they were in an area tense from social media warnings against gangs…

Israeli scientists searching for an antidote for the coronavirus announced a major advancement Monday in a joint statement with the Ministry of Defense.

Scientists at the Israel Institute for Biological Research said they had isolated a key coronavirus antibody and developed a “monoclonal neutralising antibody” that “can neutralise” the coronavirus “inside carriers’ bodies,” Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said in the statement, according to Reuters.

Bennett visited the research facility Monday and was briefed on a “significant breakthrough in finding an antidote for the coronavirus,” the statement said.

“I am proud of the Biological Institute staff, who have made a major breakthrough,” Bennett said. “The Jewish creativity and ingenuity brought about this amazing achievement.”

The research team has completed the development phase and is seeking a patent, the statement said. After it is patented, the Israel Institute for Biological Research will seek a “contract for its commercial development,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

The antibody is the latest positive development in the battle against the coronavirus.

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said last week he believes it’s possible to have hundreds of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine ready for the general public by January. It’s part of…

The Trump Department of Justice has sided with a small Virginia church in its effort to hold in-person church services for society’s disadvantaged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pastor of Lighthouse Fellowship Church in Chincoteague Island, Va., was cited with a criminal citation April 5 for holding a 16-person church service, even though each attendee in the 225-seat sanctuary was sitting at least six feet apart and the church had sanitized the common surfaces and required everyone to use hand sanitizer, DOJ says. 

An order from Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam bans in-person gatherings of more than 10 people.

The Department of Justice filed a Statement of Interest May 3 urging a Virginia federal court to issue an injunction favoring the church. It questions why Virginia carves out exceptions for liquor stores, home improvement stores, and dry cleaners but not churches.

“For many people of faith, exercising religion is essential, especially during a crisis,” said Eric Dreiband, the DOJ’s Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Commonwealth of Virginia has offered no good reason for refusing to trust congregants who promise to use care in worship in the same way it trusts accountants, lawyers, and other workers to do the same. The U.S. Department of Justice will continue to monitor any infringement of the Constitution and other civil liberties, and…

The sprawling Dunwoody Baptist Church campus is usually brimming with activity, from their childcare center to the many daytime activities that usually take place on their campus. Driving onto an empty and quiet lot almost seems off-centered.

As I entered the chapel area, it was clear that things had changed at Dunwoody. A sign hung on the door indicating that church services would be recorded from the sanctuary, but in-person services would not be held.

Like many churches across America, Dunwoody Baptist has been closed for weeks amid the COVID-19 outbreak and has shifted all of its activities online. 

As I waited for my time to interview praise and worship artist Al Denson and minister of music Robert Comeaux, I sang aloud in the empty chapel and thought about how much our world had changed in the last 7 weeks. 

Denson, who lives in Houston, was in town to record three worship services for Dunwoody, which Comeaux couldn’t be more thankful for.

“Before COVID-19, having Al come in and do three weeks for us would have been next to impossible,” Denson shared with Christian Headlines. 

It’s not unusual for Dunwoody, or other churches, to record music for upcoming weeks. 

When asked what it has been like leading without an audience in front of them, Comeaux shared that he misses the congregation’s energy and participation. He also noted, however, that leading alone can have some…

Minor league baseball star Blake Bivens has opened up about the death of his wife and young son. Speaking at The River Church in Danville, Virginia, Bivens, who plays in the Tampa Bay Rays’ organization, revealed how he found out about his family’s deaths via social media while waiting for a flight.

“First headline I see is two females and a small child were gone,” Bivens said, according to ESPN. “I immediately knew that was them. I found out my family was gone over a Facebook headline. I just immediately began to scream in the middle of the airport.”

Blake’s wife Emily Bivens and his 14-month-old son, Cullen Bivens, had been shot dead, along with his mother-in-law Joan Bernard. Emily’s brother, 19-year-old Matthew Thomas Bernard is accused of murder, though he is unfit to stand trial at this time due to mental illness.

Speaking candidly to the church congregation, Blake recalled the raw shock that followed such brutal and life-changing loss. “I think the hardest moment for me was when I got home and I walked in my son’s bedroom for the first time and realized I was never going to see him on this Earth again,” he said. “That was the worst moment in my life. Nothing ever will come to being, to feeling the way I felt at that moment. Then again, I know I will see him again one day, and it won’t be long.”

Incredibly, the Christian baseball…

(RNS) — It’s been a year since beloved progressive Christian author and speaker Rachel Held Evans died unexpectedly — and in that year, a common refrain sounded again and again online among her many readers and friends.

“I wish Rachel was here,” they would say, when her closest friends and collaborators release books she had encouraged.

“I wonder what Rachel would say about this,” they would mourn, as theological and political divides deepen and a pandemic sweeps the globe.

Matthew Vines has had those moments, too.

“Let me count the ways,” Vines said.

The author of “God and the Gay Christian” said he finds himself spending less time on Twitter now that Evans is no longer there.

Evans had a way of shaping the conversation online, he said. She provided a “grounding center in conversations and discourse” for all kinds of people — those on similar journeys from conservative evangelical Christianity to progressive Christianity, those who were beginning to doubt or ask hard questions about their faith, those who had walked away from church years ago or who were made to feel unwelcome there and never looked back.

“She was threading a lot of needles that are very difficult to thread, and in so doing, she was a bridge and a bridge who was able to reach a very broad spectrum of people,” Vines said.

He misses that.

But, he said, Evans put so much of herself…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — After nearly 50 days of a strict lockdown in their homes, Italians flocked to parks and strolled the streets on Monday (May 4), the first day of “Phase Two,” when the Italian government loosened some of the restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Over the weekend, the Italian Catholic bishops, after a prolonged and sometimes strained debate with local authorities, also secured a deal with the government with the hopes that by the end of May, Italian Catholics will also be able to attend Mass.

“It feels like a dream,” a woman told Religion News Service on Monday, her voice muffled by a protective mask as she enjoyed a walk around the grounds of the Villa Pamphili in Rome.

After nearly three months of staying indoors, the cohesion that marked the worst of the pandemic had begun to wear off. As the “curve” of rising coronavirus cases flattened, fewer and fewer Romans joined to sing from their balconies in the evenings with neighbors, and more and more of them attempted to leave their homes, testing the boundaries of the ever-changing decrees and regulations.

Catholics, many of whom were disappointed to have been denied in-person services since before Easter, have also begun to raise questions about religious freedom as the government refused to allow them to attend Mass in the first wave of openings.

In Italy, which still has…