After years of planning, a bronze statue of evangelical leader Billy Graham will be unveiled next week at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. A private dedication ceremony is scheduled for May 16 in the National Statuary Hall.

According to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), which shared details with Fox News Digital, speakers at the ceremony will include House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and president of the BGEA. Christian recording artist Michael W. Smith is slated to perform.

RELATED: A New Billy Graham Archive Opens on the Late Evangelist’s Birthday

The Rev. Billy Graham, who preached the gospel for 80 years and ministered to a dozen sitting U.S. presidents, died at age 99 in 2018. Lawmakers in North Carolina, his home state, had been trying to expedite the statue process.

Each state is permitted two statues in the Capitol, and honorees must be deceased. Graham’s statue will replace that of former North Carolina Gov. Charles Brantley Aycock, a prominent segregationist in the early 20th century who held white-supremacist beliefs.

Statue of Billy Graham: A ‘Rare Honor’

The 7-foot statue of Billy Graham, created by North Carolina sculptor Chas Fagan, shows the evangelist with an open Bible in his hand. The base is inscribed with John 3:16 and John 14:6. A plaque on the statue that identifies Graham as “Preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” is similar to one on his grave.

In a statement, the BGEA called it a “rare honor” for Graham to be represented this way. Franklin Graham said his father would be “humbled and grateful” yet “would not want the attention on himself but on God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He continued: “This isn’t just a statue of my father. It represents the One that he surrendered his life to and the message that he preached for more than 80 years, that God loves us and He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins.”

“What I appreciate most,” said Franklin, “is that this is an opportunity for everyone in future generations who sees the statue to be reminded of God’s love, grace, and forgiveness.”

Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., who worked to bring the statue to the Capitol, said, “The legacy of Rev. Billy Graham is based on his simple message of forgiveness based on John 3:16. He was the first private citizen from North Carolina to lie in honor in the United States Capitol, and his likeness should stand in the U.S. Capitol forever.”

Statue of Billy Graham Has an ‘Inviting Mode’

When a clay model of the statue was approved back in 2020, Franklin Graham said, “I like that it’s simple and my father has an open Bible in his hand—that’s what his life was all about.” He added, “I like that they have his eyes recessed. It looks like he’s staring at you, sharing the Bible with his eyes open. The sculptor has done a remarkable job.”

Country musician Colt Ford, whose real name is Jason Farris Brown, suffered a severe heart attack that almost ended his life following a show in Phoenix on April 4.

Ford’s bio on his website describes him as a person who is “about God, family, friends, and America. I’m just a guy who loves life. I love people. I love knowing I could make a difference in somebody else’s life with a song.”

Colt Ford Gets a Second Chance at Life

During an interview on the “Big D & Bubba” show, Ford shared that he doesn’t remember a thing about the show he played before he collapsed while walking to his tour bus.

“It’s been just [a] traumatic crazy experience,” Ford told the nationally syndicated radio show. “I didn’t even remember coming out here to do a show in Phoenix, and apparently we played this great, sold-out show and it was incredible.”

RELATED: TobyMac Stopped Reading the Bible After His Son Died. This Is Why He Started Again

Ford then said he was told he “walked back to the bus, texted [his] fiancée, ‘Hi baby,’ and fell over dead.”

The 54-year-old country music star didn’t die once, but twice. He was taken to a hospital, where staff revived him, and he died again en route to a second hospital. “I died two times,” he explained. “Luckily, my band came out to check on me” due to it being really hot in the venue in which he just got done playing.

Ford also credited award-winning country musician, Brantley Gilbert, who was at the show, in assisting with saving his life because Gilbert helped get Ford to the hospital.

“God could not have had me in a better place,” Ford added. He informed Big D and Bubba that after he woke up in a hospital room two days later, the doctor told him, “I wouldn’t have given you 1%; I would have given you 0.1% that you would have survived.”

RELATED: ‘I Almost Died’ on the Set of ‘Fuller House’—Candace Cameron Bure Remembers a Stunt Gone Wrong

DURHAM, N.C. (RNS) — On the same day that United Methodist delegates voted to repeal their denomination’s condemnation of homosexuality from its rulebook, the Rev. Charles Daly drove a big hulking church bus to the Charlotte Convention Center with a handful of church members in tow.

Maneuvering the bus into a parking lot that Thursday was tricky. The bus was too tall to clear the overhang at the entrance to one lot, and he had to carefully back out, allow his passengers to step off, and search for another lot.

The end run appeared in his Sunday (May 5) sermon at Epworth United Methodist Church, a suburban congregation in Durham, as a metaphor for his denomination’s predicament.

RELATED: United Methodists Redefine Marriage, End Official Condemnation of Homosexuality

“After an unbelievable amount of moving traffic and backing and forthing, finally, the General Conference of the United Methodist church was pulling around and driving out of a place that had been stuck for 52 years,” he told his congregation. “The big bus of the denomination is now free from the alley that it backed itself into.”

In Charlotte, members of Epworth United Methodist watched history being made when their denomination repealed a declaration that said the practice of homosexuality was “incompatible with Christian teaching.” A day earlier it also dropped a ban on the ordination of gay clergy.

But for Daly, a 42-year-old gay man, the actions of his denomination carried personal symbolism, too. As the first same-sex married minister in the North Carolina Conference or region, he was freed of the heavy burden of having to negotiate his identity in a denomination that until last week officially sanctioned and censured people like him.

There are an estimated 324 clergy, including candidates for ordination, in the U.S. -based United Methodist Church who identify as LGBTQ+. Of those, about 160 are in same-sex marriages, according to the Reconciling Ministries Network, an advocacy group for LGBTQ+ people.

These gay clergy were allowed in stealthily, as attitudes toward LGBTQ+ clergy candidates began to change among some church leaders.

“A lot of people who I worked with did their very best not to treat me as a special case,” said Daly. “But it felt like an elephant in the room sometimes.”

On the first Sunday after the conclusion of the denomination’s General Conference, many United Methodists celebrated their release from those tight and narrow spaces that had confined so many queer members and clergy.

Others settled into the realization that despite the dramatic votes to expunge all punitive measures against LGBTQ+ people, not all United Methodists were happy.

Over the past five years, some 7,600 more traditional U.S. churches, or about 25% of all U.S. congregations, voted to leave the denomination, fearing the church was about to lift the LGBTQ+ bans.

Some have remained in the pews.

(RNS) — It took a little more than a day for Father Justin, an artificial intelligence avatar posing as a priest, to be defrocked. After Catholic Answers, a site devoted to evangelizing for Catholicism, introduced the character to answer questions about the faith, Catholics on social media called the character a “scandalizing mockery of the sacred priesthood” that offered only “a substitute for real interaction.”

On April 24, Catholic Answers apologized for the experiment, and Justin was reintroduced as a lay theologian.

RELATED: The Catholic Church Wants To Have a Say on the Future of AI

Catholics close to the Vatican’s work on artificial intelligence say that Justin captures the possible problems with AI evangelization and the reasons for caution in Pope Francis’ and other church officials’ attempts to tackle AI, even as the technology is becoming an increasingly buzzy topic at the Vatican.

The Rev. Philip Larrey. (Photo courtesy Boston College)

The Rev. Philip Larrey, a professor in the department of formative education at Boston College, said that while he thinks Catholic Answers are a good group, “they were a little bit too quick to enter into something which is extremely complicated, and that is interactive artificial intelligence.”

San Jose, California, Bishop Oscar Cantú, who leads the Catholic faithful in Silicon Valley, said that AI doesn’t come up much with parishioners in his diocese. Nonetheless, as a leader in the computing capital of the world, Cantú said he has engaged with AI as a global and moral issue, even if he hasn’t “delved into it too much.”

Pointing to the adage coined by Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, “move fast and break things,” the bishop said, “with AI, we need to move very cautiously and slowly and try not to break things. The things we would be breaking are human lives and reputations.”

Experts agreed that Father Justin’s imitation of the sacrament of confession was highly inappropriate.

Cantú said, “If we have some sort of a robot in the guise of a priest, it can confuse” people about the fact that the sacraments must be celebrated in person. “Just because Father Justin recites the formula, that doesn’t make it a sacrament,” he said.

The bishop cautioned that AI chatbots should make very clear that they are AI. “It’s so critical that we be as transparent as possible, for the sake of the people we’re trying to guide,” Cantú added.

Even Justin introducing itself as a lay theologian is problematic. “A person who may be incredibly knowledgeable of Scripture and of church teaching but is not a person of faith does not do theology, because theology begins with faith,” the bishop said.

Bishop Oscar Cantú. (Photo courtesy Creative Commons)

Noreen Herzfeld, a professor of theology and computer science at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict and one of the editors of a book about AI sponsored by the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education, said that the AI character was previously “impersonating a priest, which is considered a very serious sin in Catholicism.”

The leaders don’t dismiss the usefulness of AI when used properly. Cantú said that AI can do “tremendous work” as “a tool that can be used for good for doing research.” But, he added, “A person of faith doing theology then needs to judge the credibility of each source and the authority of each source.”

Larrey, who has worked closely with both Vatican and AI leaders on the ethical issues surrounding AI, emphasized that Pope Francis is interested in “person-centered AI,” meaning that AI must be used “for the good of human beings” and “not the detriment of people.”

The best example of AI being used for evangelization, Larrey said, is Magisterium AI, a chatbot developed by Longbeard, a digital strategy firm founded by a former seminarian named Matthew Harvey Sanders, a friend of Larrey’s. The bot explains church teaching in a format like ChatGPT, by drawing on official church teachings, as well as select writings such as the works of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, linking to the documents that informed its answer.

Larrey distinguishes such automated research from generative AI, which learns and experiments with its newfound knowledge. “When you have a generative AI, if you’re not careful, it gets out of hand,” he said.

On May 6, information pertaining to the cause of death of Mica Miller, wife of Solid Rock at Market Common’s pastor, John-Paul Miller, was released by the North Carolina Medical Examiner’s office.

According to Dr. Richard Johnson, 30-year-old Mica died by suicide last Saturday, April 27.

The conclusion is “based on the nature of the wound, that it is consistent with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. And it was not in the back of the head, as it has been speculated,” Johnson said.

Johnson informed local news outlets that he wasn’t the medical examiner on call at the time Mica was discovered but assisted the on call medical examiner at the scene of her death.

RELATED: SC Pastor Uses Service To Tell Church His Wife Died by Suicide; Family Says She Filed for a No Contact Order and Divorce

Following the news from the examiner’s office, Robeson County Sheriff’s office posted a statement on Facebook informing the public that they are “aware that information pertaining to death of Mica Miller has been released by the North Carolina Medical Examiner’s Office.”

“Sheriff Burnis Wilkins has scheduled a meeting with the family of Mica and will be releasing more detailed information to substantiate the medical examiner findings tomorrow evening,” officials said. They added that “Sheriff Wilkins is also asking for everyone to please await the full timeline of events before making assumptions and coming to conclusions.”

The pastor shocked his congregation on Sunday, April 28, when he abruptly informed them that his wife took her own life at the end of the worship service.

“We’re not going to do altar call today,” John-Paul told the congregation Sunday. “Instead, I’m going to have you stand up and I’m going to make an announcement. And after the announcement I’m going to ask that you leave church quietly and don’t talk about the announcement here in the building.”

RELATED: ‘If I End Up With a Bullet in My Head…It Was [the Pastor]’—Mica Miller’s Siblings Submit Troubling Affidavits

On May 2, Mica Miller’s brother, Nathaniel Francis, and Mica’s sister, Sierra Francis, submitted sworn affidavits to a South Carolina probate court in regards to their sister’s estate.

Miller was found dead on April 27 from what her husband, Pastor John-Paul Miller of Solid Rock of Market Common in Myrtle Beach, called suicide. (On Tuesday, May 7, the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office released a statement concluding that Mica Miller died by suicide on April 27 at Lumber River State Park.)

Since her death, however, Mica Miller’s family has said that Mica (30) had filed for divorce and a no-contact order and that the Millers were no longer living together.

While John-Paul has said that his wife battled mental illnesses, recently telling The Christian Post that she had been diagnosed with “bipolar II, schizophrenic and dependent personality disorder,” Mica’s friends and family have disagreed that she took her own life.

According to Sierra’s affidavit, John-Paul was served divorce papers on April 25, just two days before Mica’s death.

RELATED: SC Pastor Uses Service To Tell Church His Wife Died by Suicide; Family Says She Filed for a No Contact Order and Divorce

Mica’s younger sister, Sierra, said in her affidavit that she frequently spoke to Mica and that Mica “expressed abuse and violence against her by her husband.” Mica believed that she was being tracked by people her husband had hired, something Sierra said that John-Paul “later confirmed” in a sermon Sierra watched.

Additionally, Sierra said that Mica claimed that Miller had been moving assets out of his name and putting them into his son’s and church’s names.

According to the affidavit, Miller moved Mica’s personal possessions from their home while Mica was in the Waccamaw mental health facility this past February. Before being admitted, Mica was gathering divorce evidence to “support her claims against” her husband’s “abuse, character, his paramours, and associates he paid off or blackmailed.”

Sierra said Mica informed her that John-Paul went through Mica’s devices and personal items that were used to collect the evidence and that he deleted Mica’s findings.

“My sister also expressed that she was fearful that she would not make it to the divorce and that her life would be taken from her. It is my belief, based on conversations with my sister, that she told multiple people, including other family members,” Sierra said.

On May 1, the Thompson-Boling Arena at the University of Tennessee was transformed into a worship event focused on “college students united to lift the name of Jesus.” Thousands of students gathered together, and hundreds were baptized.

“What began in Auburn, Alabama, has continued to grow into a movement reaching college campuses across the nation,” said Unite.

Unite Headliner Jennie Allen Celebrates Hundreds of Baptisms at the University of Tennessee

According to the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), 8,000 college students gathered on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

More than “120 students chose to make their decision public with water baptism,” according to the event’s Facebook page. “God is doing something special at college campuses across the country, and we believe there is even MORE to come!”

Jennie Allen, founder of IF:Gathering, served as one of the keynote speakers at the recent Unite gathering. From her extensive work and research on the roles thoughts and emotions play in our everyday lives, Allen related well with the students in attendance.

RELATED: Jennie Allen: Why Church Leaders Need To Pay Attention to Their Emotions

“There has been so much brokenness and weight on our campus and we have been praying for a move (of God) and I just pray that that continues,” a female student told FOX & Friends.

Just after the release of her new book, “Untangle Your Emotions: Naming What You Feel and Knowing What to Do About It,” Allen joined “The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast” to share why church leaders need to pay attention to their emotions.

“A thought can sometimes be redirected. But when you’ve been trying to redirect it for a week, a month, a year, and it’s not really moving, that’s probably a signal that there’s more to it, and there’s probably something deeper that you’ve got to look at,” said Allen.

Jonathan “JP” Pokluda shared the Unite stage alongside Allen and spoke from his experience as lead pastor of Harris Creek Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, and host of the “Becoming Something Podcast.”

“Last night once again thousands gathered and hundreds responded to Christ and were baptized,” said Allen. “It’s just too good!”

She expressed her appreciation to Tona Prewett, the team at Unite, students, and local pastors who came together to plan and promote the event.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Jennie Allen (@jennieallen)

Several students who attended Unite spoke with FOX & Friends. One student told of her favorite moment from the event: “Just seeing the presence of the Lord fill the room and how people from all different backgrounds came together for one reason and to worship Jesus is just so awesome.”

“We have been waiting for a move like this all school year,” another student shared. “At the finale of the event, we were singing ‘Speak the Name of Jesus,’ and students just rushed to the front. I brought my buddy, and it brought us to our knees. There are just no words for the experience.”

With nearly 100,000 likes and more than a thousand comments on Allen’s post, the event and student participation are getting noticed around the country.

Most people are encouraging while they celebrate with event leaders and students. Others spoke up against the event taking place at all.

“This! So beautiful and such a stark contrast to news on other campuses!” a user named Nancy said. “Go God, and go Jennie and team! Love this so much! Praise God!”

RELATED: ‘We Are Prepared for You To Be Unprepared’—Tennessee Church Sees 93 Spontaneous Baptisms

Carolyn was excited to have a personal interest in the event as her son and niece were both in attendance. She shared, “@seancroker so proud of you, son!!! And walking your cousin @oliviavdesmond through baptism….God is so good!!!!”

In contrast, a user named Patrick argued, “Do this at church, not on campus.”

“I hope they know that it takes more than just being baptized to be saved,” mentioned Charlotte.

Sunday worship took a frightening turn yesterday (May 5) at Jesus’ Dwelling Place Church in North Braddock, Pennsylvania. While Pastor Glenn Germany was preaching, a man walked up to the front of the church and aimed a gun at him. The gun didn’t discharge, and congregants quickly jumped into action.

As the church’s livestream footage shows, a cameraman tackled and helped disarm the gunman. Germany, who had briefly taken cover behind a pulpit, assisted, as did other churchgoers. They subdued the alleged gunman, later identified as 26-year-old Bernard Polite, until police arrived.

Pastor Glenn Germany Describes Shooting Attempt and Aftermath

After the incident, Pastor Glenn Germany expressed gratitude to God and parishioners. “I’m thankful to God that I’m still here,” he said, “because [the alleged gunman] definitely pulled the trigger.” Germany said he didn’t know the suspect and had never seen him before.

The pastor said he had noticed a man walking in and out of church Sunday, occasionally making eye contact with him. “He set up in the front corner of the church and smiled at me,” said Germany. “All of a sudden, I just saw a gun pointing right at me. And at that point, all I could try to do is run for cover.”

The pastor credited church cameraman Clarence McCallister for brave, swift actions. “He could have lost his life in that struggle,” Germany said, “but he sacrificed himself for everyone, and he’s the hero.”

McCallister, who said he’s thankful nobody was injured, said, “That was just God.” McCallister added that he was merely doing his job, noting that Pastor Germany would have helped him if the tables had been turned.

Authorities haven’t discussed a possible motive in the shooting attempt. But according to the criminal complaint, Polite told police that “God told him to do it.”

Polite, who was denied bail, was arraigned Monday morning (May 6) on charges of attempted criminal homicide, aggravated assault, and recklessly endangering another person. A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for May 13.

Dead Body Later Found at Alleged Gunman’s House

After the attempted shooting at Jesus’ Dwelling Place Church, police found a deceased man in the shooting suspect’s house. Neighbors expressed shock and indicated that Polite and the deceased man, 56, were related. Police haven’t provided information yet, and no charges have been filed as of midday Monday.

On Facebook Live Sunday evening, Pastor Germany discussed the unfolding events at the suspected gunman’s house. “I was told that…. It is presumed that he kill his cousin in his house before he came to the church,” a caption reads. “Police has his house yellow taped now…. 2 blocks away from the church….. But I am here today to speak about it, I’ve been kept… Praise GOD.”

Christian hip hop artist Lecrae defended presenting a non-sanitized version of his faith in his music, noting that the Bible is not shy about presenting shocking truths about God’s followers. The rapper posted an Instagram video Friday, May 3, addressing a critic of his new single, “Send That,” a collaboration with Christian rapper Wande.

“I feel like you do not have to be explicitly relatable in your music,” said a comment from an Instagram user, whose profile says she is a stay at home mom in Illinois. “I cannot pin point [sic] every lyric, but I feel it’s just too much like regular hip hop in some of your lyrics.”

“Again [you’re] just trying to relate with others and bring them to your music I’m sure!” she added. “But it seems at times too ‘normal’ and not so clean so I flip the channel. Still love alot [sic] of the music!”

RELATED: ‘To Hell With the Devil’—For KING & COUNTRY Team Up With Lecrae and Stryper

Lecrae and Wande Drop ‘Send That’

Lecrae is a Grammy Award-winning hip hop artist and co-founder of Reach Records. He recently started a podcast called “Deep End With Lecrae,” where he aims to tackle difficult topics “with vulnerability and honesty.”

Wande is a Nigerian American hip hop artist who in 2019 became the first woman to sign with Reach Records. She and Lecrae dropped the single, “Send That,” last week, their second collaboration together.

The lyrics to Verse 1 (Wande) read in part:

God He got me in the zone, whoa
Praying for my haters too, yeah
What’s the secret to the moves?
Ayy, prayer got me breaking through, yeah
If God is for me, who can come against me?
Send them prayers up and watch Him move

Lecrae’s lyrics read in part:

I’m in my lane, go ahead and call me lame
Catch me leanin’ on the King
They want the fame
I just wanna lift his name
I already won the game
They cannot beat me
After I met my savior in Atlanta off of Peachtree
I know how it’s gon’ end

The Instagram user who took issue with the song initially commented on a post of Lecrae’s announcing the new single, saying, “I like Lecrae but he needs to slow down and be careful with what he is actually saying in those songs. Sometimes something feels [off] .. that’s my gut telling me, use your discernment,” she said. “Wande is amazing and I’ve always felt light through her music! Ready to listen to this, I’m sure it will be good.”

Lecrae responded, asking which parts of the song specifically are ”off” and quoted some of his lyrics that describe sending prayers to God, surrendering his burdens, and walking in freedom. “I’m never above a challenge,” he said.

In a recent interview with The Christian Post (CP), Pastor John-Paul Miller said that his wife, Mica Miller, who was found dead on Saturday, April 27, had been diagnosed with “bipolar II, schizophrenic and dependent personality disorder.”

At the end of Solid Rock at Market Common church’s Sunday’s worship service on April 28, Miller made a shocking announcement that his wife had taken her own life. She was 30 years old.

Following Miller’s announcement, friends and family of Mica started voicing their concerns over her alleged cause of death, saying that Mica had filed for divorce and a no contact order and moved out of her and Miller’s home. Friends and family suggested that the pastor was abusive and created “toxic environments,” urged investigators to dig deeper, and started the hashtag #justiceformica.

RELATED: SC Pastor Uses Service To Tell Church His Wife Died by Suicide; Family Says She Filed for a No Contact Order and Divorce

Miller told CP that he and Mica got married in 2017 after an adulterous affair. Both of them were previously married, but after cheating on their spouses with each other, they divorced and married each other. They first met when Mica was a teenager in the church’s youth group; Miller is 14 years older than Mica.

It was shortly after they married that Mica was given her mental health diagnosis, which was being treated with lithium, Miller said.

The pastor stated that his wife was “good” when she’d take her medication but informed The Christian Post that she wasn’t consistent with doing so because it caused her to gain weight and slur her words.

Miller claims that earlier this year after a pastor-friend prayed that God would heal Mica of her mental illness, she stopped taking her medication.

This isn’t the first time Mica has attempted to take her own life, Miller explained. “I took care of her through every time she went to the mental institute,” he said. “I took care of her every time she stopped taking her lithium.”

“I would never expose this stuff of her if I didn’t have to now, but every time she tried to kill herself, I would be there,” he added. “I would literally sometimes pick her up physically, put her in the truck, take her to the [hospital].”

RELATED: Pastor’s Suicide Was ‘Wrong,’ but He’s in Heaven Now, Says Church Founder

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (RNS) — United Methodists concluded their General Conference on Friday (May 3) by removing the last barriers to full equality of LGBTQ+ members in the life of the church.

After repealing a 52-year-old declaration on Thursday that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian teaching,” delegates on Friday went further, eliminating a passage in their Book of Discipline, or church law, that states: “Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.”

They also eliminated provisions that would have charged clergy with immorality if they were not “faithful in a heterosexual marriage” or “celibate in singleness.” Instead, delegates supported adding a requirement of integrity in all personal relationships.

RELATED: United Methodists Redefine Marriage, End Official Condemnation of Homosexuality

Earlier in the week they dropped a ban on the ordination of gay clergy. Most of the measures passed by a 3-1 margin.

The effect of all those measures was to expunge from the rulebook all punitive measures against LGBTQ+ people, a striking change for a denomination. The reversals came in the wake of — and were in part made possible by — a schism that saw the departure of more than 7,600 congregations, or about a quarter of its U.S. churches, over the past five years.

In striking its punitive language on homosexuality, the 11 million-member United Methodist Church joins the majority of the nation’s liberal Protestant denominations, which have extended full equality to LGBTQ+ members in recent decades.

Unlike other liberal U.S. Protestant groups, however, the United Methodist Church is a global denomination, with a presence on four continents, and it remains far from clear how churches in Africa and across the Philippines will respond to the bold new policy measures passed in Charlotte this week.

“We are not happy,” said Virginie Umba, a pastor from the Republic of the Congo. “In American society, (homosexuality) is OK. In my country it is not. Our church will have a problem if they put this in the Book of Discipline.”

Homosexuality is illegal in more than two dozen African countries, and many overseas clergy worried whether the relaxing of prohibitive policies on LGBTQ+ people would put their churches in direct conflict with government laws.

RELATED: United Methodists Strike down Ban on Ordination of Gay Clergy

The differing church views on homosexuality were evident in the conference’s deliberations over the definition of marriage. On Wednesday, a Zimbabwean delegate proposed an amendment to the definition that acknowledged that marriage is a union between a man and woman, adding that it can also be a union between “two adult persons of consenting age.”

That amendment was overwhelmingly agreed to by delegates as a way to accommodate Methodists in Africa. But it is not clear if it will be enough to sway United Methodists in more socially conservative regions.

The denomination did pass a series of measures to restructure the worldwide denomination to give each region greater equity in tailoring church life to its own customs and traditions, a plan called “regionalization.” If ratified by two-thirds of delegates to its numerous annual conferences around the world over the next year, the restructuring would allow church regions to write their own rules on sexuality. But the church has tried to regionalize its work before and it has failed. It’s unclear if it it will succeed this time.

Churches outside the U.S. were not eligible to exit the denomination under the disaffiliation plan that saw American churches depart with minimal cost. Two dissenting groups — Good News Magazine and the Wesleyan Covenant Association — attended the conference as observers to try to help African delegates to push for a disaffiliation plan for congregations abroad.

“This seems like a matter of simple justice to extend that disaffiliation option to them as well,” said Scott Field, president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association. They were not successful.

The WCA brought a group of 27 observers to Charlotte, including nine Africans. Delegates instead voted to eliminate from its rulebook the pathway for disaffiliation that was created in 2019 for U.S. churches.

As they left the Charlotte Convention Center Friday, the United Methodist Queer Delegate Caucus could credibly claim an overwhelming victory.

(RNS) — Six churches are among 39 projects being awarded grants from the National Park Service to preserve historical examples of the Civil Rights activism of African Americans.

The recipients of the $23.4 million in awards include the Historic Tabernacle Baptist Church Selma AL Legacy Foundation. The foundation will receive $744,545 to help protect the interior of the building and enhance its air quality. The church was the site of the first mass meeting for proponents of the voting rights movement and the spiritual home of several presidents of the National Baptist Convention USA Inc.

“The Interior Department and the National Park Service are entrusted with using the power of place to tell the story of our country,” Jordan Fifer, a spokesperson for NPS, told Religion News Service in a Friday (May 3) statement.

RELATED: Why Isn’t the Civil Rights Movement Considered a Revival Movement?

“Across America’s National Park System and in local communities throughout our nation, NPS is working to preserve and protect historic sites across the nation that hold the physical memory of our nation’s history.”

Since 2016, the park service has awarded more than $126 million for various preservation projects through the same African American Civil Rights grants program that will aid the new awardees.

Fifer said that “a large number of our African American Civil Rights grants fund churches and faith-based projects, as they were such an integral part of the Civil Rights movement, hosting meetings, speeches, experiencing violence — and even where several marches started, like in Selma.”

Other church-related recipients include:

Campbell Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Americus, Georgia. (Photo by Michael Rivera/Wikipedia/Creative Commons)

Historic Campbell Chapel Restoration Project Inc., which will receive $750,000 for structural damage repairs of the Historic Campbell Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Americus, Georgia. This building was designed by Louis H. Persley, the state’s first African American registered architect, and was influential in the Civil Rights protest in that Georgian city.

Friends of Antioch Inc., which will receive $750,000 for exterior and interior repairs of the Antioch Baptist Church and Cemetery in Crawfordville, Georgia. The church was the site of voter registration drives and planning meetings for Civil Rights activists.

Famicos Foundation, which will receive $750,000 for rehabilitation of St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church in Cleveland for use as commercial space and a community center. The church was a central meeting place for African American activists.