A Florida pastor is facing backlash from some parents after he canceled Autism Awareness Week events at a Christian school. Matt Baker emailed families at Trinity Christian Academy in Lake Worth Beach on March 30, just days before the observation was scheduled to begin.

The advertised dress-up days wouldn’t be happening, the pastor said, “because anything that exalts itself above the name of Christ should be brought down.”

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According to the Palm Beach Post, the school-wide email labeled the autism observance activities as “idolatry and demonic.” In his email, Baker asked, “If Jesus Christ led Trinity, would HE have an Autism Awareness Week? Of course not!” He added:

The world, in its rejection and hatred of Christ, often devises programs such as “Autism Awareness” (and cultural figures like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, etc.) to get the benefits of His teachings (compassion, kindness, feeling love, and self-worth) without acknowledging Jesus as the ultimate authority and the source of all life.

Pastor Matt Baker: Autism Week Is ‘Diametrically Opposed’ to Christ’s Teachings

In a written statement to the Palm Beach Post, Pastor Matt Baker said he was “surprised and concerned” to learn about the scheduled observance, which occurred at Trinity last year. “The teachings of Christ are more than sufficient for ministering to all our precious children,” said the pastor, who added that “moral aspects of this initiative…were diametrically opposed to the teachings of Christ.”

Baker, who became Trinity’s interim leader last year, said the private school has been reviewing its calendar and “canceling and reframing activities and events to align with our Christian Worldview.” For example, this year’s school Easter egg hunt was canceled too, resulting in “mixed emotions in the community,” Baker said.

School parent Vanessa Francisco told the Palm Beach Post that some disgruntled parents are now considering removing their students from Trinity. Baker’s email was “disgraceful, disrespectful, and ignorant” and should be condemned, Francisco told the school’s board of directors.

“That email felt like an unprovoked attack on my family,” wrote Francisco, who has an adult son with autism. “A slap to the face I never saw coming and from our pastor, of all people.”

“How can we continue to allow someone so grossly ignorant to preach to our children, to educate our children in any capacity?” she asked school leaders. “His hatred for the autistic and disabled community is so enormously obvious, that I cannot stand by and just accept what [he] tells me.”

In an email to ChurchLeaders, Pastor Baker wrote, “I shared that the teachings of Christ are sufficient to minister (share the love of Christ with kindness and compassion) without the need of worldly influences that have rejected Christ as the supreme authority of our lives.”

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“I shared that ANY initiative or program or event that teaches our children that their identity is found in anything other than Christ is idolatry and demonic,” he said, adding, “I’m sad that this is now controversial” and “this has all been a huge misunderstanding.”

At Parent Meeting, School Didn’t Address the Issue

On Friday (April 5), Trinity’s head of school led a morning meeting for parents about upcoming events. After he adjourned it without addressing the autism week, some parents loudly asked, “That’s it?” A reporter described a post-meeting gathering of disgruntled parents and school staff who said the issue is being “swept under the rug.”

Skillet frontman John Cooper recently shared on Abby Johnson’s “Politely Rude” podcast that he and his family have received death threats after he announced the title of his latest book, “Wimpy, Weak, and Woke: How Truth Can Save America From Utopian Destruction.”

During the podcast, Cooper and Johnson discussed “the battle against woke Christianity.” Referencing his book, Cooper said, “I had no idea how mad the title of this book was going to make people.”

Cooper’s book, which released in November 2023, aims to uncover the “philosophies behind utopian dreams that become dystopian nightmares, and presents a positive vision for how we can thrive and flourish.”

RELATED: John Cooper Talks to ChurchLeaders About New Book, ‘Wimpy, Weak, and Woke,’ CCM, and the Silence of the Church

“The false promises of man lead to destruction; God’s ways lead to life, and that’s the message I want to share in this book,” Cooper said.

While talking with ChurchLeaders, Cooper said he didn’t want to “exaggerate” the threats he has received, but this wasn’t the first time people have expressed hatred toward him.

Cooper said that what began as “absolute hate and cussing” quickly turned to “people sending really vulgar pictures.” Cooper said it isn’t uncommon for someone to tell him to “go to hell” because of the title of his book.

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Cooper said things got even worse when people began sending him “super vulgar, demonic pornographic stuff,” including images that would depict “Jesus being crucified that included sexual things.”

Cooper shared that these types of vulgar replies appeared not only on his social media pages but also on other pages that promoted his book.

One Christian network, which Cooper didn’t name, reached out to him and encouraged him to block the people who were posting the vulgar images. Cooper said that the network told him that “we would never do this because we want to hear feedback, but we had to block some of this stuff and we are suggesting you guys block it as well.”

“I’m looking at the comments on Facebook and it’s literally making me sick,” a network representative told Cooper.

Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 25, had a conversation with a pastor and spent the night at her church before turning himself in to police for allegedly murdering 25-year-old Ruby Garcia in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Friday, March 22. Marcia Tucker, pastor of Ganges United Methodist Church in Allegan County, said she believes God was working in Ortiz-Vite’s heart.

​​“I think God was working with him from whenever it happened on Friday night, all through Friday night, all through Saturday,” Tucker told WOOD TV, “sitting here talking to me, staying here, being in the church service. I think God was talking to him because I knew he had a faith, I could tell. He understood, and he understood forgiveness.”

Ruby Garcia’s Alleged Murderer Talks to Pastor

Brandon Ortiz-Vite, a citizen of Mexico and an undocumented immigrant to the U.S., had been deported in 2020 but returned to the U.S. at an unknown date. On March 22, he allegedly shot Ruby Garcia multiple times and left her body on US-131 near Grand Rapids. Investigators report it seems that Garcia’s body “had been run over in addition to being shot.”

The murder suspect used an illegally purchased 9mm Taurus pistol to kill Garcia, whom he then pulled from her car. He then allegedly left her beside the road, drove the car away, and later abandoned it. Police said that the two had been dating and called the incident a “domestic violence homicide.”

On the afternoon of Saturday, March 23, Pastor Marcia Tucker received a call from a church member who discovered Ortiz-Vite inside Ganges United Methodist Church. The alleged murderer had been able to get in because the door had accidentally been left unlocked.

Tucker went to the church immediately and had a 20-minute conversation with Ortiz-Vite, who told her his name was Brian. Tucker said she did not see any traces of blood on him and described Ortiz-Vite as “very upset.” 

“He was just having a really bad time,” she said. “He had lost his job, he’d been in a fight, been kicked out of where he lived, so he was basically kind of homeless.”

The pastor continued, “He never told me exactly what was bothering him, but I knew he was very upset. He got very emotional while we were talking, crying to the point where I gave him Kleenex.”

Tucker said she prayed with Ortiz-Vite and allowed him to use the church phone to call for a ride. When no one came, she allowed Ortiz-Vite to sleep in the church annex. The pastor said she considered calling the police but that God told her not to: “As I’ve told my people, God didn’t tell me to call the police, he told me to ‘Just let it be, Marcia.’”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), an organization that exists “to promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church,” has taken aim at University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley for referencing her faith in a postgame interview. 

Staley’s comments came after University of South Carolina’s victory over Oregon State University on Sunday (March 31). South Carolina will advance to the Final Four for this year’s NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, which begins on Friday evening. 

While speaking to reporters on the court, Staley referenced the “devastating loss” the team experienced last year and marveled at South Carolina’s success this year. 

“If you don’t believe in God, there’s something wrong with you, seriously,” Staley said. “I’m a believer. I’m a believer, because he makes things, he makes things come true. When you’re at your worst, he’s at his best.”

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Turning and gesturing toward the celebration taking place in the arena, Staley added, “Look at him. Look at him.” 

On Monday, lawyers for FFRF sent a letter to University of South Carolina President Michael Amiridis, urging the university “to take action to protect its student athletes and to ensure that Staley understands that she has been hired as a basketball coach and not a pastor.”

The letter alleged that Staley’s remarks raised “serious constitutional concerns with Dawn Staley’s ongoing promotion of her personal religious beliefs and her denigration of non-Christians through the women’s basketball program.”

“Coach Staley continues to violate the Constitution and the rights of players by promoting her personal religious beliefs through the women’s basketball program,” the letter went on to say, referencing previous letters it issued to University of South Carolina in 2021 and 2022.

“Since we first brought this issue to the University’s attention, Coach Staley has only ramped up her use of religious rhetoric in official communications through her role as a university employee, including insulting those who don’t believe in the Christian god,” FFRF lawyers said. “She has also continued her practice of preparing ‘gameday devotional’ for players and sharing these chosen bible verses on her social media pages as ‘Head Coach of South Carolina Women’s Basketball.’” 

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The letter characterized Staley’s actions as “inappropriate and unconstitutional” and said that they are common throughout college sports. 

Darren Mulligan, frontman for the Dove Award-nominated band We Are Messengers, recently spoke to ChurchLeaders about the band’s fourth studio album, titled “Where the Joy Is.”

“Where the Joy Is” released Friday (April 5) and features 10 new songs, including collaborations with Blanca and Ben Fuller.

 

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“I wanted to write an album that acted as the anthem to people’s lives as we move quietly and allowing obedience towards the direction of Jesus, as Eugene Peterson would say,” Mulligan said.

The theme of this record is joy, Mulligan told ChurchLeaders. He shared that although he has walked with Jesus for 16 years, he has only “really been walking in that joy” for the past few years.

RELATED: We Are Messengers Frontman Survives Car Accident–‘It’s a Miracle That I’m Alive’

“I’m not talking about a goofy happiness type of joy where you have to force yourself to pretend or that comes from circumstances or consumerism or a joy that comes from chasing after things,” Mulligan said.

“I’m talking about a joy that is rooted firmly in the Word of God,” he added, “and in a life that is attempting—although very poorly at times—to walk close enough to Jesus so that I can care about the things he cares about, love the things he loves.”

“When you walk with Jesus in that way, you go where he goes, and you realize that suffering is not something to be mitigated or avoided,” Mulligan said. “But that a lot of the time, suffering is actually the opportunity to develop joy and trust and hope in Jesus as he suffers with you.”

The band’s hope for the new album is that listeners grasp that God’s desire is to turn all their “mourning to laughter,” their “sorrow to joy,” and their “feet towards dancing.”

RELATED: Christian Artist Ben Fuller Encourages the Church To Be Authentic—‘I’ve Been Treated More Like Jesus’ by those Who Don’t Know Him

We Are Messengers has never been a band that avoids discussing the hard things in life, including suicidal ideation, depression, divorce, infidelity, or whatever else they’ve encountered in their fans’ lives.

“We wanted to put words to maybe the things that people feel that they can’t articulate,” Mulligan said. “This time, I wanted to do it in a way that I know that I can get on stage and the audience can let loose.”

(RNS) — The special glasses have been delivered. The portable toilets have been ordered.

Now, for expectant sky watchers and for property owners — including a number of churches — in the path of the total solar eclipse Monday (April 8), it’s just a matter of waiting and hoping for good weather until the eclipse begins.

Across the swath of the United States stretching from Texas to Maine where “totality” is expected, clergy have come up with ways to make the most of the astronomical show — handing out those glasses, giving out-of-towners a place to park and observe the event, and even offering locals the opportunity to be baptized near the time of near-total darkness.

Billy Glover, pastor of Steel City Church in Sheffield Lake, Ohio, said he has five “school aged students” who intend to be baptized that day as the moon briefly blots out the sun.

“The purpose of holding baptisms during the eclipse is to offer a once in a lifetime opportunity for new believers, to be raised from darkness into a new life through Jesus Christ,” the Southern Baptist pastor told Religion News Service in an email.

Glover’s church will provide paid spaces in its parking lot, “which will include two pairs of certified eclipse viewing glasses.” In addition, there will be access to bathrooms and concessions.

Deborah Haarsma, president of BioLogos, an organization that seeks to foster the integration of science with Christian faith, said she views the eclipse as a new way for churches to connect with a wider community.

“This is a moment where we can be worshipping the Creator,” she said, “and doing that together, doing that at church, I think, is a wonderful thing for the church community itself and also great outreach to the larger community where they see that a church is engaging things in the natural world, things that everybody’s curious about.”

Though they are aware of the time and the date of the eclipse, clergy realize there are a lot of unknowns for an event that NASA says will occur over more densely populated regions than the path observed in 2017.

The effect of unusual levels of traffic is one worry. “The impact on our roadways from the projected number of visiting spectators is a significant safety concern before, during and after the eclipse,” Glover said. “Then, if that is not enough, we have been notified from emergency services that part of our property will be used to station the medical helicopter for medevac purposes.”

Lifeway Baptist Church in Ellettsville, Indiana, plans to make three portable toilets and its two parking lots available for free — first come, first serve — on Monday, but Doug Stewart, pastor for member growth at the independent Baptist church northwest of Bloomington, said there’s no telling whether some people might show up even before its Sunday service begins.

“If that happens Sunday morning, then we’re just going to have to make the best of it and try and find a way in and we’ll just do whatever we can,” said Stewart. “We’re just trying to manage this incredible opportunity with an unknown potential for there being tons of people or maybe it’s just going be just a little more congested.”