A federal judge handed a Washington, D.C. church a major religious liberty victory Friday, ruling it could gather outdoors for worship services during the pandemic in spite of city restrictions.

At issue were restrictions by the city and Mayor Muriel Bowser that ban religious gatherings larger than 100 individuals, even if they are held outside. 

Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC), which had around 1,000 attendees each Sunday prior to the pandemic, sued the city and asserted the restrictions violated its rights under the U.S. Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 law. Its pastor is Mark Dever, a well-known author and speaker. 

The congregation asked District Judge Trevor McFadden to allow it to gather outside its building, provided it practices social distancing and uses masks. McFadden agreed.  

“The District’s current restrictions substantially burden the Church’s exercise of religion. More, the District has failed to offer evidence at this stage showing that it has a compelling interest in preventing the Church from meeting outdoors with appropriate precautions, or that this prohibition is the least-restrictive means to achieve its interest,” McFadden wrote in a 26-page opinion in issuing a preliminary injunction. The congregation likely will succeed in its suit, he wrote. 

The church would have faced fines of $1,000 per violation if it…

Friar Travis Clark, a 37-year-old priest of Sts. Peter and Paul in Pearl River in New Orleans, was removed from his position after filming himself having sex with two dominatrix women on a church altar, The Christian Post reports.

The Archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, condemned him in a statement uploaded to YouTube.

In his statement, which also makes mention of another priest, Pat Wattigny, who was removed from his post for a different reason, Aymond describes Clark’s act as “demonic,” stating, “What has happened concerning Pat Wattigny and Travis Clark is unacceptable, it’s sinful, and it cannot be tolerated.” He also went on to say, “Let me be clear. Both were removed from ministry immediately and will never serve again in Catholic ministry.”

Reportedly, Travis Clark, with two sex workers, outfitted the church’s altar with stage lighting in order to record themselves being intimate with one another. While the shooting was happening, a local passerby saw the lights, alerted the police and, upon looking in the window, witnessed the sex act. 

According to Nola.com, the two women who performed the sex act with the priest, Mindy Dixon and Melissa Cheng, were both dominatrixes and one was a porn star. Mindy Dixon made a tweet stating she was going to “defile a house of God,” Nola reports. All three of them were arrested on obscenity charges because…

During a rally on Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence defended Judge Amy Coney Barrett prior to her confirmation hearings on Monday in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

According to Fox News, Pence reminded attendees at The Villages retirement community in Sumter County, Florida of when several Democratic Senators grilled Barrett for her Catholic faith during her Court of Appeals hearing back in 2017.

“The American people expect Democrats in the Senate to give Judge Barrett a dignified hearing, this time,” Pence said. “But we have reason to be concerned.”

The Vice President proceeded to bring up California Senator Diane Feinstein, who at the time told Barrett, “the dogma lives loudly in you.”

“Well, I’ve got news for the Democrats and their friends in Hollywood – the dogma lives loudly in me,” Pence said as the crowd cheered.

“The dogma lives loudly in you, and the right to live and work and worship according to dictates of our conscience, lives loudly in the Constitution of the United States of America,” he asserted.

Should Barrett be confirmed before the 2020 presidential election, several congressional Democrats threatened to pack the Supreme Court, which would expand the number of justices.

Pence criticized the move as “the biggest power grab in American history.”

Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden, however, accused the…

Republican senators during the first day of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Monday defended Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic faith and said she had been a victim of “religious bigotry” in recent days.

The comments from GOP Sens. Ben Sasse (Neb.), Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Joni Ernst (Iowa) came amidst a media infatuation with Barrett’s membership in a Christian community, People of Faith, and a spotlight on her devout Catholic beliefs as a former professor at the University of Notre Dame. In 2017, when Barrett was confirmed to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif) famously told Barrett, “The dogma lives loudly within you.”

President Trump nominated Barrett to fill the seat held by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“Whatever you or I or Judge Barrett believe about God isn’t any of the government’s business,” Sasse said.

Religious liberty, he said, “is the default assumption of our entire system.”

“We don’t have religious tests,” Sasse said. “This committee isn’t in the business of deciding whether the dogma lives too loudly within someone. This committee isn’t in the business of deciding which religious beliefs are good and which religious beliefs are bad, and which religious beliefs are weird.

“And I just want to say, as somebody who’s self-consciously a Christian, we’ve got a whole…

A group of Catholic women in Britain are supporting an online petition that asks the Church of England and Wales to reverse the decision to use the “gender-exclusive” English Standard Version of the Bible instead of the Jerusalem Bible translation at mass, The Christian Post reports.

“In choosing this translation over the inclusive Catholic version of the New Jerusalem Bible, the Bishops have chosen to exclude at least 50% of the ecclesial community,” reads the petition to Cardinal Vincent Nichols (Archbishop of Westminster and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

“Their choice of Bible translation can but speak of an attitude that continues to judge women second class citizens in the Church,” it adds. “Language shapes thoughts and attitudes, and the impact of rendering Holy Scripture in this way is to deny the inclusion of female disciples of Jesus, not only in the language of the liturgy, but in the good news of salvation.”

More than 350 people had signed the petition as of Monday morning.

The woman who started the petition, Bridget Kennedy, said there is an importance to the woman’s role in the Bible.

“It was a woman Jesus commissioned first Apostle of the Resurrection. It was the stories of the women of faith that Jesus heard the men repeating as they made their way together to Emmaus. The Bishops might have taken their lead…

Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, California is calling pastors and church leaders across America to reopen their churches despite COVID-19 restrictions by “leftist and secular government officials” who seek to “shut us down.”

According to The Blaze, MacArthur released the video on his official Twitter account on Wednesday, which has since gone viral with over 550,000 views.

OPEN YOUR CHURCH.
Hebrews 10:25; Matthew 16:18#ChurchIsEssential pic.twitter.com/CH28pwcWpL

— John MacArthur (@johnmacarthur) October 7, 2020

“Today’s current crop of politicians are trampling on the Constitution and on the resolve of citizens to demand their rights under the pressure of a manufactured fear,” MacArthur said in the video. “The reality is that the COVID data just doesn’t match the government’s COVID narrative.”

MacArthur, who is in the midst of an ongoing legal battle with California officials for holding church services amid coronavirus restrictions, claimed that people have a high rate of surviving the disease.

“You have a 99.99 percent chance to survive COVID,” the California pastor claimed. “It’s just not what they’re saying it is.”

“That absolutely does not warrant shutting down anything,” he continued. “But especially, absurdly, and arbitrarily, churches that have a special protection from the Constitution. Oh, and at the same…

By Leonardo Blair, Christian Post Reporter Follow | Monday, October 12, 2020

Crediting the prayers of his supporters with his quick recovery from COVID-19 symptoms that “were never that bad,” Harvest Christian Fellowship Senior Pastor Greg Laurie said he expects to return to his pulpit on Sunday.

Laurie, who was among several high-profile leaders diagnosed with COVID-19 after attending the Sept. 26 White House nomination ceremony for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, made the announcement in a video statement on his Facebook page Friday.

“As you know I’ve been dealing with COVID-19 and so many of you have taken the time to pray for me and let me know that you’re praying for me so I’m happy to report that I’m doing great and feel great,” the California pastor said, noting that he had successfully completed 10 days of quarantine.

“The fact of the matter is, my symptoms were never that bad. Thank God for that. I know it isn’t that way for everyone and I attribute that to so many people praying. Let’s remember to continue to pray for all of those infected with the coronavirus that they have a quick and complete recovery,” he…

HYDERABAD, India, October 12, 2020 (Morning Star News) – A Christian and his 20-year-old son have taken refuge at an undisclosed location since an attack on Sept. 2 in Chhattisgarh state left the father with permanent damage to his hearing, sources said.

Jagra Kashyap, 45, and son Asharam Kashyap had to leave their families at home in Badrenga village, Bastar District, as they fear for their lives if they return, pastor Vishwanath Kawasi said.

“Their families back home are also feeling unsafe, but if Kashyap and his son return there, they could be attacked any time again,” Pastor Kawasi told Morning Star News.

Demanding that Kashyap and his son renounce Christianity and return to Hinduism, a mob of about 60 Hindu extremists stormed their home at 10:30 a.m. and struck the elder man’s ear until it bled while delivering severe blows to his son’s back, the pastor said.

Doctors at the district government hospital said the impairment to his ear is permanent, and that he will need a hearing aid for the rest of his life, according to an allied lawyer for legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom India.

Pastor Kawasi said more than 10 Christian families in the village have come under attack in the past month.

“Only seven or eight members muster the courage to attend Sunday worship service,” he told Morning Star News. “The village president and elders from the village go…

By Leonardo Blair, Christian Post Reporter Follow | Monday, October 12, 2020

Redemption Church Pastor Ron Carpenter has announced that he is returning to Greenville, South Carolina, with a new campus in 2021 to provide a spiritual home for former congregants who are now in distress after a botched handover of his longtime church in that city to fellow megachurch leader John Gray.

“I … want you to be ready to welcome a new addition to the family. I think many of you know Hope and I spent 27 years on the East Coast before we were blessed and privileged to come and be your pastors on the West Coast. But we had some things that we felt like we were responsible for and that we needed to go back and pick up. They were not handled exactly like we thought they were going [to] in succession and it left a lot of people who love Redemption, who love this ministry kind of disenfranchised and without a home,” Carpenter said in an announcement posted on YouTube Friday.

“You’ll find out something about me. I’m a very responsible person. And I don’t like people to live within decisions that I made that has caused them to be distressed….