Al Mohler Implies Christians Who Don’t Vote Republican Are ‘Unfaithful’; Met With Mixture of Praise, Criticism

By

-

September 16, 2022

al mohler — Screengrab via Twitter @RightWingWatch

Albert Mohler was at the center of a social media dustup after comments he made during an address at the “Pray, Vote, Stand” summit began circulating on Twitter. In his remarks, Mohler seemed to imply that Christians who refrain from voting or who vote for Democratic candidates are “unfaithful.”

As Mohler serves as president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, editor for WORLD magazines Opinions column, and has a sizable personal platform with multiple podcasts, he is an influential figure not only in the Southern Baptist Convention but also in broader American evangelical circles.

“Every single election matters,” Mohler said at the summit, which was organized by Family Research Council and took place from September 14 to 16 in Atlanta, Georgia. “But every single election is followed by the next one. And faithfulness now is absolutely necessary, and, frankly, just given the temporality of life, we’ve got to give primary attention to faithfulness right now.”

Mohler continued, “2022 in the United States means votes matter. And we have a responsibility to make sure that Christians understand the stewardship of the vote, which means the discipleship of the vote, which means the urgency of the vote, the treasure of the vote.”

“And [Christians] need to understand that insofar as they do not vote or they vote wrongly, they are unfaithful,” Mohler said. “Because the vote is a powerful stewardship.”

The event where Mohler made his remarks featured a lineup of speakers that included a number of Republican politicians and personalities, including Ron DeSantis, Ben Carson, Josh Hawley, Mike Huckabee, Mitch McConnell, and Allie Beth Stuckey.

Mohler’s remarks drew both praise and criticism, as many took him to be implying that voting for Republican candidates is the only way for Christians to be faithful with their vote.

“You can’t vote for legal abortion or for legal genital mutilation for kids without compromising core tenets of the Christian faith,” said Allie Beth Stuckey. “This is obvious and not controversial.”

“Voting wrongly = honoring political appetites over biblical principles,” said missionary Javier Chavez. “Dr. Mohler got this one right! Won’t vote for ANY party that defends, funds, and rewards abortion.”

“I completely agree with @albertmohler! Don’t be fooled by the SBC woke who are mad & claim Mohler’s saying you must vote Republican,” said Texas pastor Tom Buck. “That’s not what he said! What they’re upset about is Mohler’s words don’t give cover to vote for a Democrat.”

Conversely, others voiced their concern.

Court Denies Jewish School’s Request About LGBTQ Group

By

Tom Strode

-

September 16, 2022

WASHINGTON (BP) – The U.S. Supreme Court has denied – at least for now – a request by the country’s oldest Jewish university that the justices block enforcement of a judicial requirement it must grant recognition to a gay and transgender student group.

In a 5-4 order Wednesday (Sept. 14), the high court rejected Yeshiva University’s emergency application for a stay while it appeals a New York court’s decision that the school must officially recognize YU Pride Alliance. The justices said the denial was based on the university’s failure to seek relief from the mandate that may be available in state courts. If Yeshiva receives “neither expedited review nor interim relief” from courts in New York, it may return to the Supreme Court, according to the order.

In their order, the justices vacated Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Sept. 9 stay of the lower-court order against Yeshiva.

Becket, a religious liberty organization that is representing Yeshiva in the case, said it would comply with the order. “We will follow the Court’s instruction,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, in a written statement.

The five-member majority in the high court’s order consisted of Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Associate Justice Samuel Alito filed a dissent in which associate justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett joined.

Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told Baptist Press, “While I understand the procedural nature of the court’s rationale, it is unacceptable that this institution may be forced to violate its deeply held beliefs about gender and sexuality.

“New York state courts should move quickly to ensure that the religious freedom of Yeshiva is protected because, as Justice Alito wrote in the dissent, considered on the merits, this is not a close call and Yeshiva should prevail,” he said in written comments.

The ERLC joined nine other religious organizations in a Sept. 2 friend-of-the-court brief that asked the Supreme Court to block the state court order and protect Yeshiva’s right to act according to its beliefs.

In its order, the Supreme Court said Yeshiva has at least two other routes it can take in New York courts to gain a stay of the judicial order requiring recognition of YU Pride Alliance. The school may ask state courts “to expedite consideration of the merits of their appeals,” the justices said. It also may file a motion with the Appellate Division for permission to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals the denial of stay in the lower court and seek expedited consideration of the motion, according to the order.

The Supreme Court of New York County issued a permanent injunction June 14 against Yeshiva and ordered the school to grant the complete privileges to YU Pride Alliance that it offers to other student organizations. The court ruled Yeshiva is not a religious corporation under state law. On Aug. 23, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, denied Yeshiva’s request that it block enforcement of the lower court’s order.

Christians Likely Minority in US By 2050, Pew Says

By

Diana Chandler

-

September 16, 2022

WASHINGTON (BP) – Christians are projected to comprise less than half of the U.S. population by 2050 in a Pew Research study of how current trends might play out among believers and non-believers in the coming decades.

In the best-case scenario of how trends might continue to unfold, which Pew presents as the most unlikely and most optimistic possibility, Pew projects the Christian share of the U.S. population to shrink from a current 64 percent to between 54 percent and 35 percent by 2070.

In the scenario Pew described as most likely, Christians would comprise 39 percent of Americans by 2070, losing their majority status as early as 2050 at 47 percent of the national population.

“Nones,” or the religiously unaffiliated, would constitute the largest share of Americans at 48 percent in 2070, under the scenario Pew said is the most likely of four considered.

Among factual trends Pew considered in its hypothetical scenarios of the future of religion in America are the pace at which adults switch to a religion other than that of their childhood, and various demographic trends including migration, births and deaths.

“None of the scenarios in this report demonstrate what would happen if switching into Christianity increased. This is not because a religious revival in the U.S. is impossible,” Pew postured in the study released Sept. 13. “New patterns of religious change could emerge at any time. Armed conflicts, social movements, rising authoritarianism, natural disasters or worsening economic conditions are just a few of the circumstances that sometimes trigger sudden social – and religious – upheavals.

“However, our projections are not designed to model the consequences of dramatic events, which might affect various facets of life as we know it, including religious identity and practice. Instead, these projections describe the potential consequences of dynamics currently shaping the religious landscape.”

The trend-based scenarios Pew hypothesized are:

1) What if the rate of switching remains steady among 15- to- 29-year-olds, the ages most susceptible? Based on trends, in each new generation 31 percent of people raised Christian would become religiously unaffiliated while 21 percent of those who grew up with no religion would become Christian. The result? Christians would retain their plurality but lose their majority, first dipping below 50 percent in 2060 and sitting at 46 percent by 2070. “Nones” would register at 41 percent or below by 2070.

2) What if switching became more common, seeing progressively larger shares of Christians leave the faith by age 30, but leveled off to prevent the share of Christianity from falling below the neighborhood of 50 percent? This scenario, which Pew deemed most plausible, would result in Christians falling to 47 percent of the population by 2050, compared to 42 percent of the population that would describe themselves as unaffiliated. By 2070, “nones” would constitute a plurality of the population at 48 percent. The plausibility is based on how switching has played out in 79 other countries where, amid switching, the percentage of Christians “has not been known to fall below about 50 percent,” Pew said.

3) What if switching continues to increase unabated in popularity, pushing Christianity below the neighborhood of 50 percent? If so, Pew said, Christians would fall from the majority by 2045. By 2055, Christians would comprise 43 percent of the population, ranking behind “nones” at 46 percent. By 2070, 52 percent of Americans would be considered “nones,” while 35 percent would be Christian.

How Doug Mastriano Uses Faith To Fend Off Criticism—Even From Other Christians

By

Jack Jenkins

-

September 16, 2022

GETTYSBURG, Pa. (RNS) — It’s well known that Doug Mastriano, the Pennsylvania state senator now running for governor on the Republican ticket, has a habit of energetically fusing religion and politics, giving voice to Christian nationalism and deriding the notion of separation of church and state as a liberal fabrication.

Among other things, the retired Army colonel has made headlines for appealing to the Almighty to overturn the 2020 election results and incorporating a reference to the Gospel of John (“Walk as free people”) into his campaign slogan.

But while some politicians have pivoted toward Christian nationalism this election season, Mastriano was not only leaning into the ideology years ago, but utilizing it as part of a larger pattern of distancing himself from criticism. Although he rejects the term Christian nationalist, Mastriano has invoked faith both as a fuel for his activism and a shield against detractors — including his fellow Christians, who remain concerned about his heavy-handed treatment of their beliefs.

In July 2020, more than a year before he declared his candidacy, Mastriano’s rhetoric sparked a theological battle with a group of prominent Lutheran clergy in his own state Senate district of Gettysburg, a rare example of the politician engaging directly with ideological foes. When the faith leaders invoked Christianity to criticize him, he responded by suggesting the Bible prohibits Christians from publicly criticizing elected officials, all while doling out his own condemnation of local religious leaders.

“He was telling us what to do in our churches,” the Rev. Maria Erling, a professor at the Gettysburg campus of United Lutheran Seminary who was among those who criticized Mastriano, told Religion News Service.

Mastriano has drawn fire for showcasing intolerance toward faiths not his own. A Rolling Stone report turned up a 2019 radio interview in which he said Islam is “not compatible” with the “Christian-Judeo ideas” of the U.S. Constitution, and “not all religions are created equal.” Jewish groups have decried his association with Andrew Torba, head of the social media site Gab, where antisemitic messages and memes are often shared. (Mastriano later deleted his Gab account and condemned antisemitism, although he did not condemn Torba.)

But Mastriano’s dispute with his Lutheran constituents shows he’s equally willing to reject the voices of other Christians, particularly views often expressed by moderate and liberal Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists and others known collectively as “mainline” denominations (named, some scholars argue, for the affluent suburban Philadelphia Main Line communities, where these congregations flourished). Although not as dominant as they once were, white mainline Protestants nonetheless represent 18% of Pennsylvanians — equal to the number of white evangelicals in the state, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.

Let’s Talk, a New Racial Unity Initiative, Takes Evangelical Leaders on Tour of Black History

By

Adelle M Banks

-

September 16, 2022

let's talk — Bishop Derek Grier, right, founder of Let’s Talk, talks with missionary Doug Gentile outside the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Sept. 13, 2022, in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks

WASHINGTON (RNS) — For missionary Doug Gentile, it was seeing the “shackles for tiny children” used during American slavery.

For seminary professor Darrell Bock, it was confronting the specificity of the list of “Black codes” that restricted the lives of Black people after slavery ended — mandates in many states, for instance, that they sign annual labor contracts on pain of arrest.

These revelations, and many more, came out of an early morning tour Tuesday (Sept. 13) of an otherwise empty National Museum of African American History and Culture for 42 Black, white and Asian American evangelical Christian leaders, sponsored by an initiative called Let’s Talk, which aims to foster racial unity among evangelicals.

“A lot of folks had some real eye-opening moments at the museum,” said Bishop Derek Grier, founder of Let’s Talk, the day after the tour.

The visitors, who included Council for Christian Colleges & Universities President Shirley V. Hoogstra, public relations executive and longtime Billy Graham spokesman A. Larry Ross and National Association of Evangelicals President Walter Kim, followed a museum guide, most listening silently, past Harriet Tubman’s hymnal, a dress made by Rosa Parks at the time of her bus protest and an exhibit about the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, which occurred 59 years nearly to the day before the tour.

Their guide explained that enslaved Blacks regularly attended “what could be called church” secretly in brush arbors, because it was illegal for them to preach or gather during the time of slavery.

But there were other lessons about how the slave experience formed the basis of what some view as racial injustices today. “Most people did not realize the economic impact slavery had on the founding of the United States of America and one of the plaques said something along the lines of 60% of the U.S. economy was based on slavery,” said Grier, who is Black.

The initiative comes in answer to the rejection by some evangelicals of the idea of systemic racism. A 2019 survey found that, when asked if the country has historically been oppressive for racial minorities, 82% of white evangelicals did not agree.

Gentile, founder of Alexandria, Virginia, nonprofit James 2 Association, said the tour bolstered his organization’s goal “to use the Bible to fight back against these white-rage, rear-guard attempts to cancel discussions of racial history and racial justice in the public schools.”

Pastor Lee Jenkins, the leader of the nondenominational Eagles Nest Church in Roswell, Georgia, and co-chair of the regional organization One Race, said he appreciated how some white visitors to the museum were affected by what they saw.

“It shook some of them to their core,” he said. “And that was encouraging because it showed that they had compassion and they were willing to acknowledge that America has had a problem in this area and this problem of racism and injustice needs to be addressed.”

Visitors with a Let’s Talk initiative pose together at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022, in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks

Visitors with a Let’s Talk initiative pose together at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Sept. 13, 2022, in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks

The Let’s Talk initiative was launched at a banquet at the Museum of the Bible in November, and since then more than 500 people have signed its “Statement of Change,” which says in part: “We believe both the spirit and clear moral imperatives of scripture require the Christian community to lead the way in defeating racial bigotry.”

How St. Louis Churches Are Revealing the Disparities in the Air We Breathe

By

Britny Cordera

-

September 16, 2022

air pollution — DeAndress Green, left, debriefs with leaders of Metro Congregations United after a meeting of the Missouri Air Conservation Commission in St. Louis. Photo by Britny Cordera

(RNS) — A few weeks before speaking at a rally pushing for solutions to improve air quality in St. Louis, DeAndress Green was in the hospital, feeling like she was unable to breathe.

Green had suddenly begun feeling short of breath after spending some time in an industrialized north St. Louis neighborhood, where she was delivering food through DoorDash to families who lack transportation to grocery stores. When Green went to the hospital, doctors found blood clots in her lungs.

“I was in the hospital for a few days before the doctors figured out what was wrong,” she said at the July 23 rally, organized by Metropolitan Congregations United, a coalition of about 60 religious communities around St. Louis. Green works with MCU in its ongoing activism around local environmental crises. “That whole week, I lived in fear, planning for the worst.”

But for Green, a Black urban farmer and small business owner who had grown up in north St. Louis, this was but the latest in a lifetime of chronic respiratory problems — for her and for her family. All her family members suffer from asthma. She says she’s always known the cause: her neighborhood’s poor air quality.

Green grew up in the College Hill neighborhood, in government housing that was less than a mile from Procter & Gamble’s factory along the north St. Louis riverfront and other industrial facilities that burn metals or chemicals producing pollutants in the air. Trees were few and far between. The apartments in which she lived were plagued with black mold; the schools she attended had lead paint peeling from the walls. That’s also the case for many other members of the church she grew up in, Epiphany United Church of Christ, and other local congregations.

An example of one of the low-cost air pollution sensors at First Unitarian Church of St. Louis. Photo by Britny Cordera

Earlier this year, the multifaith coalition launched a new online air quality monitoring tool, tracking pollutants in the city in partnership with scientists at The Nature Conservancy; the Jay Turner Group, part of Washington University’s Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering; and the university’s environmental studies program.

The community-based air quality monitoring initiative, AirWatch St. Louis, has been keeping track of what’s in the city’s air since December 2021. Low-cost sensors are placed on the roofs of MCU churches spread throughout the city to measure particulate matter, a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets found in the air. Through the new digital map, the data collected by these sensors is publicly viewable.

MCU organizers say they see their efforts to collect and publish data on air quality as part of their spiritual commitment to racial and environmental justice. Since many religions believe that the Earth is sacred, created by a divine being, the effort to protect the environment brings congregations of varying backgrounds together to fight against climate change, according to Kentaro Kumanomido, an environmental justice organizer with United Congregations of the Metro East, another faith-based organization that worked closely with MCU on the air quality rally.

Beth Gutzler. Photo by Britny Cordera

Beth Gutzler, who has lived in houses with lead paint and currently lives near West Lake Landfill, where locals are concerned that trash smoldering underground is dangerously close to buried nuclear waste, leads MCU’s environmental justice team. She believes this project is critical to empower people in faith-based communities who are affected by industrial pollution, giving them the tools to take control of the fate of their neighborhoods through legislative action.

“Our goal is to bring people of multiple faiths together to work towards a common goal of changing policy for social and environmental justice,” she says.

According to Tyler Cargill, a doctoral student with the Turner Group, the spatial variety and community connection MCU churches offer have been central to this project. Some of the churches are in downtown St. Louis, while others are in Webster Groves, a suburb. Some churches are in areas with a high density of roads. Some are near parks. And others are near industries that release particulate matter into the air.

“By having a variety of placements of these sensors, we do get to see if the urban planning of St. Louis makes any difference for what we’re seeing with our air pollution,” Cargill said.

12 Reasons I Love My Pastor

By

Thom Rainer

-

September 16, 2022

thank you notes for children’s ministry volunteers

I love pastors and others who serve churches vocationally. But I must admit, I don’t verbalize or write about that love very often. Shame on me. Allow me to take a few moments to articulate some of the reasons I love my pastor.

12 Reasons I Love My Pastor

1. I love my pastor because he studies and preaches the Word faithfully. He is consistent every week.

2. I love my pastor because he is a man of prayer. He knows he cannot lead and shepherd our church in his own power. He is totally dependent on God.

3. I love my pastor because he is always on call. His workweeks are long. He knows his vacations and days off will often be interrupted by crises and deaths, but he doesn’t complain. He views it as a part of his call.

4. I love my pastor because he is there to celebrate my victories and to comfort me in my difficulties. His life is a roller coaster of emotional events, but he remains constant and strong for our church.

5. I love my pastor because he leads our church with a vision. And he constantly seeks to make certain it is God’s vision and not his own.

6. I love my pastor because he endures criticism from church members. And though the critics hurt him, he perseveres and loves them anyway.

7. I love my pastor because he is authentic. He does not act spiritually superior or condescending. The pastor I see in the pulpit is consistent with the pastor I see in other settings.

8. I love my pastor because he bears the burdens of leading many people without complaints or self-pity. He hears of so many challenges and problems in others’ lives, but that does not deter him from listening and praying for us.

9. I love my pastor because he is sacrificial. He seeks to put us church members before himself. He is a selfless man and a grateful man.

10. I love my pastor because he loves to share the gospel and the power of the resurrection. He is truly passionate about seeing those without Christ become followers of the Savior.

5 Things I Wish Christians Would Admit About The Bible

By

John Pavlovitz

-

September 16, 2022

The Bible. Christians talk about it all the time, though I never quite know what they mean when they do. That is to say, other than the easily tossed-off catch phrase, “God’s Word,” I’m not sure what the Bible is to many who claim it as the sacred text that guides their life. I’m positive we’re not all on the same page, so to speak.

Often, I think Christians want to make the Bible something that it isn’t, or don’t want to admit what it actually could be, and it makes for some really disastrous conversations and some extremely dangerous assumptions, especially in interactions with other Christians.

5 Things I Wish Christians Would Admit About The Bible

1) The Bible isn’t a magic book, it’s a human library.

It isn’t The Good Book.

As my good friend Pastor Talbot Davis and my beloved Good Shepherd Church family has always said; the Bible isn’t a book at all, it’s a library.

Its 66 individual books run the diverse gamut of writing styles (poetry, history, biography, church teachings, letters), and those books have dozens of authors; from shepherds, to prophets, to doctors, to fishermen, to kings. These diverse writers each had very different target audiences, disparate life circumstances and specific agendas for their work; so we don’t approach each book the same way, for the same reason you wouldn’t read a poem about leaves the same way you read a Botany textbook. Some are for inspiration and some for information; we receive and see them differently.

And this library didn’t fall from the sky leather-bound, shrink wrapped and personally autographed by God. It was collected and collated over hundreds and hundreds of years, often in verbal form for decades before being written down; after which time it was assembled and voted on, translated and translated, and translated again; hopping from language to language in the process.

What most Christians don’t give much thought to is the fact that the Bible was a living, breathing collection of sayings (and later writings) composed over time—lots of time. We’re talking hundreds and hundreds of years. It was absolutely “inspired by God,” but composed by a group of very human people who existed in a particular place and time in history, sharing their experience of God and the convictions of their faith.

If we can see the Scriptures this way; as many diverse works in one collection, we can free ourselves from always taking the entire text literally—from trying to equate history with allegory with poetry, and reading them in the same way. We can also can see the Bible as a record not just of God, but of God’s people, and we can find ourselves within it.

2) The Bible doesn’t clearly say as much as we’d like it to.

Often, (especially when arguing with someone else), Christians like to begin with the phrase, “The Bible clearly says …” followed by their Scripture sound bite of choice.

Those people usually haven’t actually read the entire Bible.

The Bible is a massive library (somewhere around three-quarters of a million words), and if we’re honest, contains a great deal of tension and a whole lot of gray on all types of subjects. For example, we can read the clear Old Testament commandment from God not to murder, and later see Jesus telling his disciples that violence isn’t the path his people are to take, but we also see God telling the Israelites to destroy every living thing in enemy villages (women and children included), and we read of Moses murdering an Egyptian soldier without recourse from God and later being chosen by God to lead His people.

That’s why some Christians believe all violence is sinful, while others think shooting someone in self-defense is OK. Some find war justifiable in some cases, while some believe all war is inherently immoral. Some think the death penalty is something God is cool with, while others find it detestable. Some Bible readers see Jesus as an absolute pacifist, while other cite him telling his disciples to grab a sword as evidence that he sanctions physical violence on occasion.

Same Bible. One subject. Countless perspectives.

So what does the Bible clearly say about violence? Does it make an absolute statement, or is there some ambiguity? Seems clearly muddy.

Many times, when Christians say the phrase “The Bible clearly says …” what they really mean is, “The way I interpret this one tiny, isolated verse (which seems to reference this particular topic) allows me to feel justified in having this particular perspective on said topic.”

12 Phrases That Might Burn Down Your Church

By

Chuck Lawless

-

September 16, 2022

No church fire I’ve seen begins in full flame. Instead, it usually begins with a spark, a tiny glow that extends itself one flicker at a time until the flame is raging–a fire that might burn down your church. Here are 12 “spark” phrases—words that suggest a coming fire if the flame is not extinguished:

12 Phrases That Might Burn Down Your Church

1. “Let’s meet without him (or her).”

Such a statement suggests secrecy that is seldom appropriate— and that often leads to division, and might burn down your church.

2. “We were here before you came.”

The rest of the statement is understood: “and we’ll be here when you’re gone.” The implication is that some group will outlast the leader.

3. “Now, don’t tell anyone …”

When you hear these words, it’s usually best to halt the conversation there. What follows is gossip, sometimes deceitfully cloaked as a prayer request. It’s sure to burn down your church.

4. “I don’t know everybody anymore.”

It’s an honest response to a church’s growth, but it’s also an ominous hint that somebody thinks no more growth is needed.

5. “We’ll just designate our funds.”

Sure, they’re still giving to the church, but they’re designating funds around something they don’t like. They’re trying to make a point that often has nothing to do with dollars.

6. “But if we confront him (or her) …”

The apparent need to confront indicates some issue in the church, and the fear to confront suggests the church might tolerate sin. Both sparks signal a problem.

‘This Is the HERO!’—Chick-fil-A Employee Tackles Man Who Allegedly Threatened Woman and Infant

By

Jessica Lea

-

September 15, 2022

fort walton beach Mykel Gordon — L: Screenshot from Twitter / @OliviaIversonTV. R: Screenshot from Twitter / @OCSOALERTS

A Chick-fil-A employee in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, tackled a man who was allegedly attempting to carjack a vehicle from a woman holding her baby on the afternoon of Wednesday, Sept. 14. Mykel Gordon successfully wrestled the perpetrator to the ground despite getting punched in the face during the altercation.

“This is the HERO!” said the Chick-fil-A of FORT WALTON BEACH in a Facebook post. “This is Mykel Gordon! At Chick-fil-A our mission is to ‘Serve’ and today Mykel took it further……to ‘Save.’”

In reference to the FWB Chick-fil-A employee who ran to help a woman with a baby who was being carjacked, we want to say a sincere thank you to Ms. Kelner for providing video of a portion of the encounter. (see prior post). A major shout-out to this young man for his courage! pic.twitter.com/2Lcwe46azv

— OkaloosaSheriff (@OCSOALERTS) September 14, 2022

Fort Walton Beach Chick-fil-A Employee Stops Threat

According to a press release from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO), a woman was getting her infant out of her car on Wednesday afternoon when a man, identified as William Branch (43) threatened her with a stick and grabbed her keys from her waistband. Branch then got in the woman’s vehicle.

Gordon heard the woman screaming and ran to help, pulling Branch from the car. A video taken by a bystander and posted by the sheriff’s office shows Gordon and Branch wrestling on the ground while someone calls for aid. The young man subdues Branch as other people rush to assist. Near the end of the video, an onlooker with a baby of her own starts chastising Branch, yelling, “She had a baby in her hands! How dare you!”

The sheriff’s office has charged Branch with carjacking with a weapon and battery. Police say that Gordon was not seriously injured.

“A major shout-out to this young man for his courage!” said the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office on Twitter. On Thursday, Sheriff Eric Aden and other OCSO officers met Gordon at Chick-fil-A to formally thank him and present him with an award. Aden praised Gordon for his desire to “serve and protect” and said that while he is glad that Gordon works for Chick-fil-A, “If you ever are interested, we certainly have an opening for you, and we’d be honored to sponsor you as a cadet.”

“I appreciate that very, very much,” Gordon replied. Aden then presented Gordon with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Community Service Award, while another OCSO officer read the “story” of the events behind the award.

The officer revealed that prior to accosting the woman and her baby, Branch had attempted to carjack a vehicle from a different woman at Chick-fil-A, but that Gordon and a male customer had confronted Branch and chased him away. The officer said that Branch used a “sharpened plank” to threaten both victims. Furthermore, before the incidents at Chick-fil-A, Branch had broken into someone’s home in Fort Walton Beach and tried to steal a purse before the homeowner confronted him.

‘Christians Against the Little Mermaid’ Facebook Group Protests Casting of Black Actress; Group Overwhelmed by Supporters of Halle Bailey

By

Dale Chamberlain

-

September 15, 2022

Earlier this week, Disney released a trailer for the upcoming live action remake of their 1989 animated film “The Little Mermaid.” Disney’s decision to cast Halle Bailey as Ariel has been a topic of ongoing conversation, with many praising Disney for casting a Black actress in the leading role.

However, some have voiced their concern with the casting, arguing that Disney is pandering to demands for diversity in film and thereby violating the historical accuracy of mermaids, a fictitious species that has appeared in the folklore of a variety of cultures in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

For instance, conservative commentator Matt Walsh expressed sympathy for someone who wrote into his program referring to Bailey’s casting as “White erasure.”

“If we all agreed that race in films and TV shows, especially fictional stories, don’t matter, and we’re going to take a kind of ‘colorblind’ casting approach, and, you know, it doesn’t matter as long as the actor is good—if we could all agree on that, then I’d be onboard,” Walsh said. “That’s basically what it was for many years, what it was back in the ‘90s.”

RELATED: Matt Walsh Debates Gender Identity on ‘Dr. Phil’; Other Guests Report Feeling Attacked

“But what I cannot abide by is the double standard thing where we say…‘Race in casting only matters for certain races and not for others,’” Walsh went on to say.

Arguing for what he believed to be scientific accuracy, Walsh said, “Also, by the way, with ‘The Little Mermaid,’ can we also just mention that from a scientific perspective, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have someone with darker skin who lives deep in the ocean. I mean, if anything, not only should the little mermaid be pale, she should actually be translucent.”

“If you look at deep sea creatures, they’re like translucent. They have no kind of pigmentation whatsoever, and they’re just like these horrifying—they look like skeletons floating around in the ocean,” Walsh continued. “That’s what the little mermaid should look like. She should be totally pale and skeletal, where you can see her skull through her face. And that would actually be a version of ‘The Little Mermaid’ that I would watch.”

In addition to comments made by conservative pundits and media figures, entire communities appear to be forming around opposition to Bailey’s casting as Ariel. On Facebook, a group called “Christians Against The Little Mermaid (Boycott Halle Bailey)” has formed around advocacy against the actress.

At the time of this article, the group has approximately 9.5 thousand members.

A group admin who goes by the username Wade Wilson has pinned a number of posts to the top of the group’s page, which include posts arguing for why Ariel should be white, an image of a digitally altered still from the movie’s trailer that “fixed” Ariel by making her white, and a photoshopped image of Ryan Gosling portraying Black Panther.

In the community guidelines for the group, users are told that if “you feel the need to act racist, keep it to a happy medium.”

SBC President Defends Hiring of New ERLC President, Calls SBC Pastor’s Comments a ‘Faustian Bargain With the Devil of Politics’

By

Jesse T. Jackson

-

September 15, 2022

bart_barber_twitter — Photo by Jesse T. Jackson

In the early morning hours of Thursday (Sept. 15), Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) President Bart Barber took to Twitter to defend the hiring of the SBC’s new Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) President, Brent Leatherwood, after SBC pastor Dusty Deevers attacked the hire and pro-life work of the SBC.

Deevers, who pastors Grace Community Church of Elgin, OK, commented, “In Louisiana this spring and at SBC annual meeting this summer, Brent Leatherwood sided against the innocent preborn, now he leads the ethics and policy arm of the SBC. We glory in our shame,” after the ERLC announced Leatherwood as their new president.

Deevers followed up his comment with a barrage of posts linking to other posts in which he accused Leatherwood and the ERLC of siding with the pro-abortion movement in certain circumstances.

One of the videos Deevers linked to was a clip of Leatherwood addressing SBC messengers during this year’s annual meeting in Anaheim, California. In that meeting, messengers voted down to abolish the ERLC, a motion made by Joshua Scruggs from Bethlehem Baptist Church in Jacksonville, N.C. Scruggs had argued that the ERLC causes needless division amongst Southern Baptists.

“You’re not going to get me to say that I want to throw mothers behind bars,” Leatherwood said, addressing the open letter he signed calling state lawmakers not to make laws criminalizing mothers who have chosen to abort their unborn children.

“That’s not the view of this entity. That is not the view of this convention. It is not the view of the pro-life movement that was proven yet again today. I believe the same principles that Jesus used in John four and John eight apply right here. Maybe instead of rushing in like a mob, we instead rush in with the truth given to us by the author of life, showing we are able to bear the burdens of others and offer the healing that comes with grace, just as has been poured out for us,” Leatherwood said.

Leatherwood’s words were met with affirming applause by the majority of messengers in the large convention hall.

Deevers also condemned Leatherwood’s “history-making moment” comment following the announcement of Supreme Court appointee, Judge Ketanji Jackson. Deevers linked to an article calling her appointment “wicked and abhorrently evil.”

Bart Barber Defends SBC and Leatherwood

The first-year SBC President didn’t mince words when rebutting Deevers’ claim that the ERLC, SBC, and Leatherwood have sided with those in favor of pro-choice, pro-abortion agendas, calling Deevers words dishonest and un-Christ-like.

“This tweet represents the lowest point of dishonesty to which we can descend when we sell out to the crass tone of secular politics instead of following the way of Christ,” Barber said.

Barber explained that the SBC has had a consistent pro-life position, with more than 20 resolutions adopted over the span of 40 years. Barber provided specific details to back up his statement, such as, “since 1980 we have consistently said that abortion should be illegal unless the life of the mother would be in peril if the pregnancy were to continue (such as in the case of an ectopic pregnancy).”

Lights in the Darkness, Chaplains Work During Law Enforcement Personnel Crisis

By

Scott Barkley

-

September 15, 2022

Dan Middlebrooks addresses first responders in Hillsborough County, Florida. A career in the military and law enforcement led to his current full-time role as founder of Chaplaincy Care, based in Plant City, Fla.

PLANT CITY, Fla. (BP) – For families who don’t know, it’s tough to comprehend the stress of being a police officer.

Approaching a crime scene requires a double-awareness to identify it as real or an ambush. Often you may find yourself berated by the very people you’re trying to protect and serve. There is no “normal” day, as something like serving a warrant can turn deadly.

Dan Middlebrooks understands the stress that comes with the job.

After a 26-year military career, Middlebrooks served as a Southern Baptist-certified chaplain in multiple agencies around Plant City, Fla. From 2019-2022 he also was pastor of First Call Church in Dover, Fla., a congregation that places a significant focus on ministry to first responders. He is also the founder of Chaplaincy Care, which focuses on first responder agencies in Hillsborough County, Fla.

Attrition has always been an issue in law enforcement, but the struggle to keep officers has grown dramatically in recent years across the country. Although nonviolent crime decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder rate increased nearly 30 percent in 2020 with assaults going up 10 percent. A rise in crime has coincided with record numbers of officers leaving the job, even before collecting retirement.

Middlebrooks has seen it. He’s known officers who, after 20 years on the force, can either retire or work up to another five. During that period the amount for their retirement would be placed in a separate account even as they continued to draw their regular salary.

Many have said no thanks.

“They’d rather end with 20 strong [years] than lose their life in an environment where a community has largely turned against them,” he said.

“Right now, we’re seeing a lot of hurting souls in law enforcement and first responders. I’m working with men and women every day who are asking if it’s worth it. They feel that even when they do what is right, it’s seen as wrong.”

Sergeant Andrew Ivey, chaplain coordinator with the Metro Nashville Police Department, agrees that low morale is a crucial factor and used a variation of a familiar saying to make his point.

“It can be said ‘Don’t bite the hand that protects you.’ Unfortunately, that’s what many people are doing right now,” said Ivey, an officer for 15 years who has served in Christian ministry for more than two decades.

“Police officers are the ones who run into the gunfire when everyone else is running away. They are the ones who jump into the river to save a drunk, suicidal person.”

Ivey saw that for himself.

“I lost a fellow officer that way,” he said. “He literally jumped into a river, knowing he couldn’t swim, to save a drunk suicidal woman. He was able to save her before the river took his life.

“That is a hero.”

Even heroes need a moment, though, when emotions get high and the stress gets heavy. In those times chaplains help by serving as a resource but also as a model.

“Your role is to provide support,” said Ivey, who also served in the Marine Corps. Chaplains can’t directly proselytize, he explained, but their presence and words of encouragement naturally lead first responders to want to know the source.

Interim Leadership Led to Leatherwood’s ERLC Election

By

Tom Strode

-

September 15, 2022

NASHVILLE (BP) – A year of supposedly temporary leadership convinced a presidential search committee it need look no further for the next president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the leader of that effort said Tuesday (Sept. 13).

Though Brent Leatherwood was not originally a candidate, the search committee presented him with “great confidence, joy and honor” as the nominee for president of the entity, Todd Howard told his fellow ERLC trustees in their annual meeting. The full board responded to Leatherwood’s nomination with a unanimous vote to approve him as the ninth president in the commission’s history.

Leatherwood, 41, had served as acting president of the entity charged by Southern Baptists with addressing moral and religious freedom issues since the trustees placed him in that role at their September 2021 meeting. He succeeds Russell Moore, who served as the ERLC’s president for eight years before resigning June 1 of last year to become public theologian for Christianity Today, which he now serves as editor-in-chief.

Howard, chair of the presidential search committee, acknowledged its members did not initially consider Leatherwood as a candidate because he, as Howard put it, “did not check two boxes in particular” – pastoral experience and education. The eight criteria established by the search committee included calls for the candidate to be “pastoral in heart” and “appropriately educated.” While the profile did not require an earned doctorate, it expressed the committee’s preference the candidate have a doctorate or a law degree.

Though he has not served as a pastor, Leatherwood “is appropriately pastoral,” said Howard, pastor of Watson Chapel Baptist Church in Pine Bluff, Ark. He described Leatherwood as a “warm” and “friendly” person who “thrives meeting new people.”

Regarding education, Howard told trustees Leatherwood “is well-read, self-taught and has a solid grasp on the important issues that he would have to be dealing with” and can hire others to address specific needs.

“[F]rankly, 13 months of solid leadership through the turbulent waters of the current Southern Baptist Convention was in the end more compelling than advanced degrees.”

In an ERLC news release, Howard said Leatherwood “became the top candidate by virtue of his leading well through the various challenges facing the commission during the interim season. He has intangible leadership qualities that we could not ignore.”

Following its final interviews with Leatherwood, the committee voted unanimously, “for the first time in this process,” to recommend him as the next president, Howard said.

The committee had “many outstanding and qualified candidates” to consider, Howard told trustees at the end of the 14-month search process. He read 1 Samuel 16 – the account of Samuel’s anointing of David as Israel’s king after God rejected seven other sons of Jesse – in explaining the committee’s experience. After doors closed for some, and others withdrew from consideration, Howard said, the committee found itself asking in a fashion similar to Samuel’s question of Jesse, “You have any more sons?”

After the election, Lori Bova, chair of the trustees, said Leatherwood “has made this seem like much less of a transition, because the team under his leadership has not missed a beat. He created a culture where our staff could feel confident to move forward in the work that was set before them.”

5 Things That Hurt a Pastor’s Credibility

By

Dale Chamberlain

-

September 15, 2022

A 2020 study conducted by Barna found that the perceived credibility of pastors and ministers has been slipping in recent years, among Christians and non-Christians alike.

Contributing factors have included varied responses to the pandemic (all of which were divisive in one way or another), as well as widely publicized scandals involving sexual impropriety, abuse, and the misuse of funds.

Among non-believers, pastors are not necessarily seen in an entirely negative light. Nevertheless, they are perceived as “quaint” if not unnecessary, as the prevailing culture continues to move away from adherence to Judeo-Christian norms and mores.

For many local church pastors, loss in credibility appears to be something that is happening to them more than something that they are causing themselves. They can’t control the larger trends contributing to a shift in their public image or the abuses and improprieties of other Christian leaders with whom they have no relationship or influence.

Be that as it may, there are things that do not rise to the level of abuse or embezzlement that do harm pastors’ credibility with their congregation, and by extension their community.

Here are five things that hurt a pastor’s credibility.

1. Exaggerating Numbers or Impact

For as much as pastors say and believe that growing their church is far more about helping people authentically encounter Jesus and have their lives transformed than it is about filling the auditorium, most pastors still get excited about metrics.

When pastors do not have a healthy sense of their identity apart from those metrics, they begin to define their worth by “butts, budgets, and buildings.” As a result, they may be tempted to exaggerate those metrics or otherwise overestimate the impact their church is having on the community.

Not only is this unhealthy, but over time, it becomes incredibly damaging to a pastor’s credibility.

I was once on a church staff with a ministry leader who constantly exaggerated how many people were in the room for a given service or event. After a while, it became something of a running joke that their estimates were perpetually overblown by a factor of at least a few dozen. Apart from the jesting, it also caused us to stop trusting their appraisal of how things were going with the ministry.

People have a hard time lending credibility to someone who is either unwilling or unable to accurately evaluate the growth and impact of the ministry they help lead.

2. Failing To Recognize Areas for Improvement

One thing I have noticed when it comes to the various scandals among well known church leaders is that the offense is often two-tiered. The first tier is the scandal itself: the abuse, the impropriety, the failure to protect people. But there is often also a secondary offense, in which the church or Christian organization seeks to protect itself by minimizing, denying, or failing to completely own what has happened under their watch.

Because of that trend, many people—Christians and non-Christians alike—have become far more sensitive to a leader’s or church’s ability or inability to admit shortcomings, faults, mistakes, or wrongdoing.

Kentucky Disaster Relief Trains More Than 200 Volunteers in Weekend Event

By

Timothy Cockes

-

September 15, 2022

kentucky disaster relief — More than 200 Kentucky Baptists receive disaster relief training at Graefenburg Baptist Church on Saturday, Sept. 10.

WADDY, Ky. (BP) – In the midst of ongoing recovery from recent natural disasters, Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief workers trained more than 200 volunteers during an event at Graefenburg Baptist Church Saturday (Sept. 10).

Of those trained, nearly 100 of them had never received any type of disaster relief training before. After completing the training on Saturday, those first-timers received certification to serve with Kentucky Disaster Relief on future projects.

Ron Crow, disaster relief director for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, said a typical training event will draw around 50-75 people, but the state’s natural disasters of the past few months have increased interest “dramatically.”

KBC DR representative Glenn Hickey illustrates how to use random objects as a means to share the Gospel.

“It was so exciting to have this many people at our training event,” Crow said. “These people have been moved with compassion and that creates the interest in them to sign up. The people at Graefenburg Baptist were wonderful hosts, and it just gave us a great opportunity to illustrate our partnership with churches and the family structure of Kentucky Baptists.”

A tornado ripped through western Kentucky in December 2021, killing dozens of people and destroying entire towns. Then a few months later in late July, flash floods in the eastern part of the state took the lives of more than 30 people and left millions of dollars in damage.

National Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Director Coy Webb said the flooding will have a longer-lasting impact than even the tornado.

In the face of this devastation, Crow said Saturday’s training session is an encouraging sign.

He explained recovery from the disasters has moved toward to the “rebuilding phase.” There were once 11 different Kentucky Disaster Relief sites set up to provide relief throughout the state.

Crow said only two sites still remain, and as relief efforts are “winding down,” the focus now turns to helping rebuild devastated communities. This phase often involves Kentucky DR representatives helping with projects run through local churches and Baptist associations in heavily affected areas.

Training events like the one on Saturday help prepare volunteers for future trips and projects.

In addition to first-timers being trained and credentialed, the event served to re-certify volunteers and offer “cross-training” in areas like feeding and food safety, chainsaw safety, flood recovery, first aid and temporary emergency childcare training.

UMC Bishops in Africa Break With Africa Initiative, Wesleyan Covenant Association

By

Emily McFarlan Miller

-

September 15, 2022

(RNS) — A group of United Methodist bishops in Africa announced Thursday (Sept. 8) that it will no longer work with the Africa Initiative or the Wesleyan Covenant Association, accusing the groups of spreading misinformation.

In a statement issued at the conclusion of last week’s meeting of the Africa Colleges of Bishops at Africa University in Zimbabwe, the bishops said, “We will not tolerate anyone giving false information about The United Methodist Church in our areas.”

The bishops claim the Africa Initiative, which was formed in 2008 to give African clergy and laity a stronger voice in the global denomination, has “lost its original goal of helping The United Methodist Church in Africa.” Instead, the statement alleged, the initiative is “working with Wesleyan Covenant Association to destroy our United Methodist Church.”

They also claim the Africa Initiative is supporting the Global Methodist Church.

For the past several years, the United Methodist Church has discussed plans to split the denomination, largely over differing views on the ordination and marriage of LGBTQ members. In 2020, several bishops and advocacy group leaders arrived at a proposal that would allow individual churches and regional annual conferences to leave to form new expressions of Methodism, committing $25 million to the creation of a theologically conservative Methodist denomination.

With a vote on the proposal at the 2020 meeting of the General Conference, the denomination’s global decision-making body, delayed several times due to the pandemic, some Methodists founded the Global Methodist Church earlier this year as a home for theologically conservative Methodists.

But the Global Methodist Church, the African bishops pointed out in their statement, has not yet been recognized by the General Conference.

In the meantime, the statement said, African bishops “remain committed to the teachings of the Bible and to the doctrines of our Christian faith and heritage.” Still, their decision to distance themselves from the groups disrupts an often-heard narrative that the conservative views of growing United Methodist conferences in Africa and Asia are a driving force behind the schism.

The statement was signed by all but one of the 13 active bishops in Africa listed on the United Methodist Church website, as well as Bishop Nkulu Ntanda Ntambo, who is retired.

The lone holdout was Bishop John Wesley Yohanna of the Nigeria Episcopal Area, who told United Methodist News, “The Africa Initiative and Wesleyan Covenant (Association) are pushing for obedience to the Bible and the Book of Discipline. Why should we not associate with them?”

Alabama Sidesteps Compensation for Survivor of ’63 KKK Church Bombing

By

Jay Reeves

-

September 15, 2022

KKK church bombing — FILE - Debris is strewn from a bomb that exploded near a basement room of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. on September 15, 1963, killing four black girls. Sarah Collins Rudolph lost an eye and has pieces of glass inside her body from a Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed her sister and three other Black girls inside an Alabama church 59 years ago. (AP Photo, FILE)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Sarah Collins Rudolph lost an eye and still has pieces of glass inside her body from a Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed her sister and three other Black girls at an Alabama church 59 years ago, and she’s still waiting on the state to compensate her for those injuries.

Gov. Kay Ivey sidestepped the question of financial compensation two years ago in apologizing to Rudolph for her “untold pain and suffering,” saying legislative involvement was needed. But nothing has been done despite the efforts of attorneys representing Rudolph, leaving unresolved the question of payment even though victims of other attacks, including 9/11, were compensated.

Rudolph will meet with President Joe Biden at the White House for a summit about combatting hate-fueled violence on Thursday, the anniversary of the bombing.

Rudolph, known as the “Fifth Little Girl” for surviving the infamous attack, which was depicted in Spike Lee’s 1997 documentary “4 Little Girls,” has been rankled by the state’s inaction.

Speaking in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Rudolph said then-Gov. George C. Wallace helped lay the groundwork for the Ku Klux Klan attack on 16th Street Baptist Church with his segregationist rhetoric, and the state bears some responsibility for the bombing, which wasn’t prosecuted for years.

“If they hadn’t stirred up all that racist hate that was going on at the time I don’t believe that church would have been bombed,” said Rudolph.

Rudolph said she still incurs medical expenses from the explosion, including a $90 bill she gets every few months for work on the prosthetic she wears in place of the right eye that was destroyed by shrapnel on Sept. 15, 1963. Anything would help, but Rudolph believes she’s due millions.

Ishan Bhabha, an attorney representing Rudolph, said the state’s apology — made at Rudolph’s request along with a plea for restitution — was only meant as a first step.

“She deserves justice in the form of compensation for the grievous injuries, and costs, she has had to bear for almost 60 years,” he said. “We will continue to pursue any available avenues to get Sarah the assistance she needs and deserves.”

Five girls were gathered in a downstairs bathroom at 16th Street Baptist Church when a bomb planted by KKK members went off outside, blowing a huge hole in the thick, brick wall. The blast killed Denise McNair, 11, and three 14-year-olds: Carole Robertson, Cynthia Morris, also referred to as Cynthia Wesley, and Addie Mae Collins, who was Rudolph’s sister.

Three Klan members convicted of murder in the bombing years later died in prison, and a fourth suspect died without ever being charged. The bombing occurred eight months after Wallace proclaimed “segregation forever” in his inaugural speech and during the time when Birmingham schools were being racially integrated for the first time.

The church itself has gotten government money for renovations, as has the surrounding Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, formed by President Barack Obama in 2017 in one of his last acts in office. “But not me,” Rudolph said.

Pope Urged To Avoid ‘Supermarket of Religions’ in Kazakhstan

By

Nicole Winfield

-

September 15, 2022

NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (AP) — Pope Francis reaffirmed the critical value Thursday of interfaith dialogue to contrast the “folly of war,” even as one of his own bishops warned that Francis’ participation in a big interfaith peace conference in Kazakhstan could imply papal endorsement of a “supermarket of religions.”

Francis delivered the closing speech to the Kazakh government’s triennial conference of traditional religions, which gathered some 80 Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Taoist faith leaders who called for greater interfaith efforts to combat war, poverty, climate change and other ills facing the world.

Francis praised the summit and underlined its conclusion that religion can never be used to justify war—a call that came against the backdrop of the Russian Orthodox Church’s support of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The final document says “extremism, radicalism, terrorism and all other forms of violence and wars, whatever their goals, have nothing to do with true religion and must be rejected in the strongest possible terms.”

Without mentioning Russia or any other warring country by name, the final document calls on world leaders to “abandon all aggressive and destructive rhetoric which leads to destabilization of the world, and to cease from conflict and bloodshed in all corners of our world.”

Francis told the gathering that interfaith encounters such as the Kazakh summit are “more valuable than ever in challenging times like our own, when the problems of the pandemic have been compounded by the utter folly of war.”

With a delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church at the table, Francis said peace was “urgently needed.”

“We plead with you, in the name of God and for the good of humanity: Work for peace, not weapons! Only by serving the cause of peace, will you make a name for yourselves in the annals of history,” he said.

A note of caution, however, came from Bishop Athenasius Schneider, the auxiliary bishop of Astana and one of Francis’ most vocal critics. Schneider has joined other traditionalist and conservative cardinals and bishops in criticizing several of Francis’ signature gestures and what they say are his doctrinal ambiguities on issues such as divorce and remarriage, homosexuality and interfaith outreach.

As an auxiliary bishop of Kazakhstan’s capital, Schneider had to help play host to Francis during his three-day visit and had a prominent role in the pontiff’s Thursday morning visit to the capital’s cathedral. He accompanied Francis’ wheelchair down the aisle at the start of the meeting and introduced a line of dignitaries who met the pontiff afterward, serving as translator.

But Schneider has also joined American Cardinal Raymond Burke in criticizing a landmark 2019 document Francis signed with the grand imam of al-Azhar university in Cairo which, among other things, said that all religions are “willed by God.” Some Catholic critics have said the idea that God actively wanted a plurality of religions could lead to relativism that would accept that all religions are equally valid paths to God, when the Vatican holds that Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.

Will We Use Our Creativity in Heaven?

By

Randy Alcorn

-

September 15, 2022

Several years ago I spoke at the Canvas Conference, which was a great two-day conference on human creativity and beauty with biblical, gospel-centered theology. In this video clip, I answer a question about whether we will have creativity and use it in eternity:

Here are some related thoughts:

God gave people creativity in their unfallen state, which remained but was twisted when we fell. He will surely not give us less creativity in Heaven but more, unmarred by sin, unlimited by mortality. We will compose, write, paint, carve, build, plant, and grow.

The first person Scripture describes as “filled with the Spirit” wasn’t a prophet or priest; he was a craftsman, “with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts—to make artistic designs . . . and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship” (Exodus 31:1-3).

God gifted and called Bezalel to be a skilled laborer, a master craftsman, a God-glorifying artist. Bezalel and Oholiab were not only to create works of art but also to train apprentices to do so. The gifting and calling were from God: “He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as craftsmen, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them master craftsmen and designers” (Exodus 35:35).

If you don’t believe craftsmanship will be an important part of the New Earth, read Exodus 25–40. God tells His people in exquisite detail how to sew clothing, what colors to use, how to construct the furniture for the Ark of the Covenant and Tabernacle, what stones to put on the high priest’s breastplate, and so on.

The Master Designer goes into great detail in His instructions for building the Tabernacle: the veil and curtain, the Ark of the Covenant, the table, the lampstand, the altar of burnt offerings, the courtyard, the incense altar, the washbasin, the priests’ clothing. The design, precision, and beauty of these things tell us about God, ourselves, and the culture of the New Earth. Those who imagine that spirituality is something ethereal and invisible—unrelated to our physical skills, creativity, and cultural development—fail to understand Scripture. God’s instructions and his delight in the gifts He imparts to people to accomplish these tasks make clear what we should expect in Heaven: greater works of craftsmanship and construction, unhindered by sin and death.

It wasn’t an accident that Jesus was born into a carpenter’s family. Carpenters are makers. God is a maker. He’ll never cease being a maker. God made us, His image-bearers, to be makers. We’ll never cease to be makers. When we die, we won’t leave behind our creativity, but only what hinders our ability to honor God through what we create.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.

12 Reasons I Love My Pastor

1. I love my pastor because he studies and preaches the Word faithfully. He is consistent every week.

2. I love my pastor because he is a man of prayer. He knows he cannot lead and shepherd our church in his own power. He is totally dependent on God.

3. I love my pastor because he is always on call. His workweeks are long. He knows his vacations and days off will often be interrupted by crises and deaths, but he doesn’t complain. He views it as a part of his call.

4. I love my pastor because he is there to celebrate my victories and to comfort me in my difficulties. His life is a roller coaster of emotional events, but he remains constant and strong for our church.

5. I love my pastor because he leads our church with a vision. And he constantly seeks to make certain it is God’s vision and not his own.

6. I love my pastor because he endures criticism from church members. And though the critics hurt him, he perseveres and loves them anyway.

7. I love my pastor because he is authentic. He does not act spiritually superior or condescending. The pastor I see in the pulpit is consistent with the pastor I see in other settings.

8. I love my pastor because he bears the burdens of leading many people without complaints or self-pity. He hears of so many challenges and problems in others’ lives, but that does not deter him from listening and praying for us.

9. I love my pastor because he is sacrificial. He seeks to put us church members before himself. He is a selfless man and a grateful man.

10. I love my pastor because he loves to share the gospel and the power of the resurrection. He is truly passionate about seeing those without Christ become followers of the Savior.

5 Things I Wish Christians Would Admit About The Bible

1) The Bible isn’t a magic book, it’s a human library.

2) The Bible doesn’t clearly say as much as we’d like it to.

12 Phrases That Might Burn Down Your Church

1. “Let’s meet without him (or her).”

2. “We were here before you came.”

3. “Now, don’t tell anyone …”

4. “I don’t know everybody anymore.”

5. “We’ll just designate our funds.”

6. “But if we confront him (or her) …”

Fort Walton Beach Chick-fil-A Employee Stops Threat

Bart Barber Defends SBC and Leatherwood

1. Exaggerating Numbers or Impact

2. Failing To Recognize Areas for Improvement

New Articles

New Podcasts