Though former atheist Thomas Roberts was dying of lung cancer, bound to a wheelchair, and fully dependent on oxygen, he had one request in his last days: to be baptized.

The wish would require extensive work, but Robert’s care team at the University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital made it work, according to UAB News.

“It was a major effort by a lot of moving pieces and different teams to pull this off,” Corey Agricola, chaplain at UAB, said. “If it had not been for the team, this could not have happened.”

The team first sought approval from Roberts’ physician, Dr. Ashley Nichols, to remove his oxygen tubes so that he could be fully submerged under water.

“Dr. Nichols made it clear he would only be able to be off oxygen for a few seconds, which meant we couldn’t roll him down the ramp in the pool wheelchair, so we had to use the chairlift to place him in the pool,” Agricola said.

Once the rehabilitation pool was available, the team worked together to make his wish a reality.

Roberts’ wife, son, two sisters, niece and nephew attended the baptism and watched as Roberts was lowered into the water.

“I have served in the ministry over 20 years and seven of those at UAB. This is the greatest day of my career,” Agricola told Roberts and his family. “Thomas, you never thought you would preach a sermon in your life; but you preached today. You…

A federal judge handed pro-choice groups a major loss Monday by upholding multiple restrictions on abortion clinics, including a requirement that pregnant women receive an ultrasound 24 hours before obtaining an abortion and a stipulation that only physicians perform the procedure.

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, also struck down two clinic requirements, including one that requires second-trimester abortions be performed in a hospital.  

Despite the mixed ruling, pro-life groups expressed satisfaction. Hudson’s decision said the state has a legitimate interest in promoting childbirth over abortion. 

Virginia Society for Human Life (VSHL) said it was “pleased” with the decision.

“Each one of these laws protects women and their babies,” the pro-life organization said in a statement. “VSHL knows that laws like the Ultrasound requirement and 24-hour waiting period provide women with critical information about their unborn child and time to reconsider the irreversible decision they might be about to make for themselves and their child.”

Pro-choice groups, though, criticized the ruling. The lawsuit was brought by abortion clinics, including the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood.

“We’re disappointed that our patients did not get their constitutionally-protected right to…

On the heels of his newest release, “Jesus is King,” Kanye West says he will no longer release secular music.

Andrew Barber, owner of the music media company Fake Shore Drive, shared the announcement on Twitter writing, “Kanye also announced that he is no longer making secular music. Only Gospel from here on out,” CBS News reports.

Kanye also announced that he is no longer making secular music. Only Gospel from here on out.

— Andrew Barber (@fakeshoredrive) September 29, 2019

According to Fox Business, West made this announcement at a listening party for his upcoming album. At the listening party, West also reportedly said that he’s “done being an entertainer.”

In an interview with The View, West’s wife, Kim Kardashian West, said his conversion to Christianity has made a lasting impact on him.

“Kanye started this to really heal himself and it was a really personal thing, and it was just friends and family,” she said. “He has had an amazing evolution of being born again and being saved by Christ.”

The “Jesus is King” album features tracks such as “Follow God,” “New Body,” “Sunday,” and “Selah,” according to a tweet last week from Kardashian.

West’s album was set for release at the end of September, but it has still not been released. While it has not been confirmed, some are speculating that West’s label was not…

Two months after losing in court, the city of Anchorage, Alaska, has decided it won’t try and force a Christian women’s shelter to take in biological men who identify as women. 

The city on Monday announced it would pay $100,001 to settle a lawsuit against it by the Downtown Hope Center, which received a complaint in 2018 after it turned away a biological man who identifies as a woman and referred him to a hospital. The complaint with the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission said the Hope Center’s action violated the city’s ordinance banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity. 

The Hope Center, which operates according to Christian principles, provides shelter to abused women, many of whom have been beaten by men.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represented the Hope Center, argued in court the women would be fearful of sleeping in the same building with a biological man – and might leave the shelter altogether. 

In August, a judge ruled the Hope Center is exempt from Anchorage code and not a public accommodation.

ADF applauded the judge’s ruling and the settlement. 

“All Americans should be free to live out their faith and serve their neighbors – especially homeless women who have suffered sexual abuse or domestic violence – without being targeted or harassed by the government,” said ADF senior counsel…

A Democratic senator has proposed a bill that would stop Illinois from requiring employees to go on sponsored travel to states with pro-life protections.

State Rep. Daniel Didech says the bill would prohibit travel to states with strict abortion laws, such as laws banning abortions after eight weeks, laws that restrict abortion after a heartbeat is detected and laws that do not allow abortions for victims of rape and incest, Faithwire reports.

The bill would let the state attorney general publish a list of states with those types of laws.

Didech says the proposed law is not meant as a “boycott” of those states.

“This is not like a boycott of those states or anything like that, although, in effect, it may look similar,” Didech told The State Journal-Register. “The purpose of the bill is to protect women who may not be able to get the health care they may need when they’re traveling on official state business.

“What these other states are doing is, to me, very dangerous. To a large extent, yes, abortion is a big part of it, but it’s not entirely about abortion,” Didech said. “As a member of the legislature, I have the responsibility to protect our state employees.”

But pro-life advocates say the proposal is a more political move than one meant for the care of women.

“This bill is yet another indicator that Illinois legislators will…

Christian French teacher Peter Vlaming is suing the Virginia school district that fired him in December 2018 for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred masculine pronoun.

According to WTVR, the West Point school board unanimously decided to terminate Vlaming when a 9th-grade student transitioned to male and requested to be referred to as “he” or “him.” Vlaming refused to use the pronouns because he believed he would be lying, but he compromised initially and told the school that he would use the student’s full name instead of the pronouns.

However, later in the school year, all of Vlaming’s students were using virtual reality goggles and walking around the classroom, Faithwire reported. The transgender student was about to collide with the wall and Vlaming shouted, “Don’t let her hit the wall.”

The student withdrew from Vlaming’s class after the incident and school officials suspended Vlaming for insubordination, later firing him.

“By failing to follow the directive he was therefore discriminating and creating a hostile environment,” Superintendent Laura Abel said.

Vlaming has filed a lawsuit against the school district for violating his freedom of speech and religion. Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm, represents him.

“Vlaming’s conscience and religious practice prevent him from…

Several days after announcing an impeachment inquiry against the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told MSNBC that she lifts Trump up in prayer.

“I pray for the president all the time. I pray for the safety of his family—wish that he would pray for the safety of other families and do something courageous on guns—but I also pray that God will illuminate him to see right from wrong. It’s very problematic,” she said to MSNBC’s Morning Joe, according to the Washington Examiner. “There is no cause for any joy. This is a very sad time for our country.”

Pelosi has mentioned her prayers several other times, including in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar.

“At night and in church on Sunday, I pray for him,” she said. “The prayer is that God will open his heart to meet the needs of the American people. I said to my pastor, ‘These prayers are not working.’ He replied, ‘Maybe you’re not praying hard enough.’”

According to the article, Pelosi believes her parents, a powerful Italian-American Catholic Democrat and “his politically savvy wife”, raised her “to be holy.”

In December of last year, the House Speaker also said that she gave a mini-Bible lesson to the president during one of their meetings, Faithwire reports. She talked about 1 Kings 3, which explains Solomon’s prayer after taking over from King David.

“I told [Trump]…

NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct. 2, 2019 (Morning Star News) – A 36-year-old Christian near Kampala, Uganda is mourning the deaths of his son, daughter, mother and stepfather, who were killed when Muslim extremists set their house ablaze seven weeks ago, sources said.

Before the radical Muslims set Ali Nakabale’s house on fire on Aug. 20 in Nakaseke, Nakaseke District about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Kampala, his wife and other area Muslims had become enraged that he and his mother had converted from Islam to Christianity, Nakabale said. He and his 56-year-old mother, Nankya Hamidah, had put their faith in Christ at an open-air evangelistic event in August 2018.

“I had just visited my aunt only to receive sad news of the burning of our house,” the distraught Nakabale told Morning Star News by phone. “Upon arriving home, I found the house destroyed by fire that burned my four family members, including my two children. On reaching the mortuary, I found their bodies burned beyond recognition.”

Killed along with Hamidah were Joseph Masembe, who had also left Islam to follow Christ and had married Hamidah in November 2018 after her husband’s death earlier that year; Nakabale’s 9-year-old daughter, Afsa Lawada; and his 6-year-old son, Yakubu Njabuga.

A neighbor told Morning Star News that he and others became aware of the fire at 1 a.m. on Aug….