A former youth pastor who has been charged with 11 counts relating to child sex abuse could face additional charges, as more witnesses have come forward. Zachary Joseph Radcliff, 29, already faces up to life in prison if convicted. 

Editor’s note: This article refers to reports of child sex abuse that some readers might find triggering and/or disturbing.

Radcliff was arrested last month and charged with one count of first degree criminal sexual conduct, two counts of aggravated child sexually abusive activity, two counts of child sexually abusive activity and six counts of using the internet to communicate with another to commit a crime. 

Prior to his arrest, Radcliff served as the worship director and interim youth pastor at Oakwood Church in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where his father, Frank Radcliff, is the senior pastor. 

RELATED: Former Youth Pastor Charged With Nearly 150 Sex Crimes Related to Voyeurism

He has also been featured as a musician at Liberty University, where he earned a degree in 2017. Radcliff even garnered the praise of Jerry Falwell Jr., then president of the university, after performing an original song at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which was held on campus in 2019. 

In a statement posted to its website on Oct. 21, Oakwood Church said that Radcliff was suspended with pay on Oct. 3 after the church received startling allegations about him. Following an internal investigation, Radcliff was terminated on Oct. 12. 

Michigan State Police officials said that Oakwood Church has been “cooperative and transparent throughout the investigation.” 

RELATED: Trial of Alabama Pastor Accused of Child Sex Abuse Underway Following 2-Year Delay

Radcliff is accused of soliciting child sex abuse material from multiple victims, with some of the alleged offenses having occurred as early as 2011, when Radcliff was 16 years old. Radcliff is alleged to have used Snapchat to arrange meetups with children to pay them for videos and photographs.

(RNS) — Just eight days shy of Election Day, 31-year-old political activist Charlie Kirk addressed a sea of college students in glaring-red MAGA hats at Grand Canyon University, near downtown Phoenix.

Sporting a black T-shirt emblazoned with “xy = man” — a confirmation of where he stands on the GOP’s 2024 litmus test issue — Kirk, who founded Turning Point USA as a college student in 2012, was interrupted as his audience erupted into a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Afterward, students grabbed up TPUSA swag that said “Republicans are hotter” and “dump your socialist boyfriend.”

“Gen Z is waking up … and voting,” Kirk posted on X later that day. “WATCH.”

Kirk’s fall 2024 “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour is an effort advertised as a way to help students “challenge left-wing indoctrination on college campuses.” TPUSA has already signed up nearly 800 college chapters, but the event at GCU, established by Baptists but now calling itself interdenominational, is part of Kirk’s recent push to populate evangelical Christian campuses with TPUSA chapters.

Since 2020, TPUSA chapters have appeared at more than 45 Christian colleges or universities, at least 35 of them affiliated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the largest association of Christian schools. Only 21 chapters at Christian universities appear currently active, however, with even fewer officially recognized by the universities themselves.

Expanding to Christian colleges, some scholars warn, may divide their campuses. The group, whose website says it plays “offense with a sense of urgency to win America’s culture war,” gained notoriety in 2016 for its professor watchlist, which prompted harassment of faculty at secular as well as Christian colleges, who, TPUSA said, “advance leftist propaganda.”

Kirk has disputed the results of the 2020 election, questioned the qualifications of Black pilots, called George Floyd a “scumbag” and said a Bible verse about stoning gay people to death is “God’s perfect law.”

“The Democrat Party supports everything that God hates,” Kirk said at a recent campaign event he organized for Donald Trump. TPUSA did not respond to requests for comment.

Students at Christian colleges who have launched or joined TPUSA chapters said in interviews this fall that the group helps build community and gives them a place to discuss conservative values.

“They say that we are racist and homophobic,” said Payton Stutzman, president of the TPUSA chapter at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, without specifying who “they” referred to. “We’re really not. We really just want to get together and have a good time. The main things we support is a secure border, a good economy, and the freedom to raise our family the way we think is right. We are not here to push anybody’s beliefs down their throats.”

Sarah Stock, a junior political science major at Vanguard University, a Christian university in Orange County, California, started a TPUSA chapter last fall as an outlet, she said, for political dialogue in what she described as an otherwise apolitical campus.

Last year at a screening of Matt Walsh’s “What Is a Woman,” a film in which Walsh, a controversial podcast host, talks about transgender issues, approximately 100 students attended. Among them was a group of friends who came up to debate the TPUSA members during a Q&A session.

Madison, Wis. (RNS) — As two dozen pastors, poll chaplains and other leaders gathered for a pre-election press conference outside of First United Methodist Church in Wisconsin’s capital Wednesday (Oct. 30), they got a taste of what life is like in a battleground state.

As Paul Raushenbush, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a national nonprofit whose leaders were on a pro-voting tour, stepped to the microphone, some young hecklers drove by in a green SUV, flipping the faith leaders the bird and shouting, “Vote Trump.”

Raushenbush waved to the hecklers and then got back to business — spreading the message that every vote counts.

“Every person, every vote matters,” said Raushenbush, a Madison, Wisconsin, native, with the state capitol and a bus emblazoned with the words “The Vote is Sacred” in the background. “Every vote is sacred and every voice is sacred.”

Wednesday’s press conference was part of an interfaith pro-voting bus tour across swing states that began in Nebraska and will end on election day in Pennsylvania. Raushenbush and other leaders hope to encourage people to get out and vote, no matter their faith — and to remind the public that no one faith group has a monopoly on how religion should affect the upcoming election.

The Rev. Joy Gallmon, pastor of St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church in Milwaukee, urged listeners to love their neighbors with the vote and to support policies that promote the public good. She also wanted to “push back against the noise” and anxiety that has been present during a tight presidential race.

Gallmon said that along with voting, members of her church will be working at the polls next week and doing their part for democracy. Rather than being anxious about the outcome, Gallmon said in an interview that people of faith should cast their vote and trust the process.

“People of faith are always hopeful,” she said. “We trust God. We trust the divine. And whatever the process is, the divine is always at work.”

Like other speakers, Rhonda Lindner of the Wisconsin Interfaith Voter Engagement Campaign stressed the importance of getting out to the polls. She tied democracy to the idea that human beings are made in God’s image. And since people bear the divine image, their voice, and their votes, count.

“We have a saying at our campaign: ‘pray with your feet, pray with your vote,’” she said.

Around the corner from the press conference, a sign that read “Your Voice Matters” hung on the side of the First Methodist building. Pastor Cathy Weigand said the sign was meant to remind those who drive by that they have a say in shaping the world around them.

“Even when they’re different from the person sitting next to us, our voices are so important,” she said. “We need to find ways to use them to make a difference in this broken world.”

R&B singer and songwriter John Legend responded to a video that Christian YouTuber Ruslan made addressing the singer’s views on abortion. Ruslan was reacting to comments Legend made in a conversation with former pro football player and commentator Shannon Sharpe in which Legend shared about a miscarriage his wife, Chrissy Teigen, had.

“I was always pro-choice,” Legend told Sharpe in the interview on Sharpe’s podcast, “Club Shay Shay,” on Oct. 23. “Actually, not always. I grew up in the church, and we were taught that, you know, we were supposed to be pro-life.”

“As soon as I became an adult, I just realized that we need that choice,” he continued. “We don’t need the government telling us what to do, and women don’t need the government telling them what to do with their bodies. And life is complicated, and there are all kinds of reasons why people might want or need an abortion, and the government has no place in that decision.” 

John Legend Engages With Ruslan on Instagram

John Legend, whose real name is John Roger Stephens, has won 12 Grammy Awards and received 36 Grammy Award nominations. Legend has served as a coach on “The Voice” and became the first Black man to achieve the prestigious EGOT, meaning he has won at least one Emmy (he has two), Grammy, Oscar and Tony. 

RELATED: ‘The Voice’ Finalist Moves Gwen Stefani to Tears With Worship Song; Brandon Lake Expresses ‘Gratitude’

Sharpe is a former NFL tight end and football analyst. He is a three-time Super Bowl champion and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame whom many view as one of the best tight ends of all time. During his conversation with Legend, Sharpe brought up that at one time Teigen had a “life-saving abortion” and asked if that event, in addition to the reversal of Roe v. Wade, impacted Legend’s views on abortion.

Legend shared that he and his wife had four of their children through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and that they lost their son, Jack, the only child they conceived naturally. Teigen initially spoke of the loss of their son as a miscarriage but later said it was “an abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance.”

“When we went through all these fertility struggles and had a miscarriage, it made it even more clear to me how personal everything [is] that happens in that room with your OBGYN,” said Legend. “Everything that happens in that room is private, and it’s so intensely personal and intensely physical, a woman feels every aspect of this thing.”

He said that “forcing [women] to carry something for nine months” if they don’t want to is “crazy to me.” Regarding restricting abortions to no later than 15 weeks, Legend said, “People that have an abortion after 15 weeks, almost always, they wanted to keep the baby, but there’s some kind of complication that came up that they have to have an abortion.”

In his wife’s case, Legend said “she was well past 15 weeks when she had to have an abortion. She was miscarrying and bleeding out. All these things were happening. Her life was in danger.”

He expressed shock at the idea that the government would “need to evaluate this to make sure you’re sufficiently dying before you can have an abortion.”

The film “God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust,” featuring David A.R. White, is now available on Great American Pure Flix, just in time for election day.

The fifth installment of the “God’s Not Dead” series, which was released in September, also stars Dean Cain (“Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”), Scott Baio (“Happy Days,” “Charles in Charge”), Isaiah Washington (“Grey’s Anatomy”), former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and the Newsboys.

The film focuses on White’s character, Rev. David Hill, who is encouraged to run for political office to preserve religious freedom and help put an end to political divides. During his political race, Hill’s faith and principles are put to the test.

RELATED: Homeschoolers Face Off With the Government in ‘God’s Not Dead: We the People’

White told ChurchLeaders that the “God’s Not Dead” films “somehow land right in the midst of where our culture is.” White said that he “truly believes that’s from the Lord, you know, it’s not us.”

Discussing how some Christians don’t feel the need to vote in elections, especially ones that involve electing a president, White said, “We have this weird thing that, as Christians, [we say that] politics is a dirty business, so we don’t want to be involved.”

White added Christians have developed a “I’ll let somebody else do it” mentality.

“But the problem is,” White said, “if we don’t get involved, then somebody else chooses for us of how our country should go. And I think we’re in the midst of that right now, and that’s why this election seems to be quite important.”

RELATED: Christian Actor Dean Cain: Fatherhood ‘Changed Everything,’ Including the Roles He Accepts

White shared that the “core of this movie is that God is not done with you or me…If we still have breath and we’re still alive, he wants to do something with us every day.”

At a worship and evangelism event on Tuesday (Oct. 29), more than 10,000 students at Texas A&M University gathered for a night of praise and Christian revival. Unite US, organizer of the event, said hundreds of attendees made faith decisions for Jesus.

According to the ministry’s website, Unite US is “a movement of college students united to lift the name of Jesus.” Every campus gathering has three objectives: salvation, freedom, and community.

The first event, held at Auburn in September 2023, drew 5,000 students and led to 200 baptisms at a local lake. Since then, the movement has spread to other large schools throughout the southeastern United States.

RELATED: Former Liberty Football Coach, Now Auburn Head Coach Helps Baptize Over 200 Auburn Students on Campus

Unite US: This Is Only the Beginning

In an Oct. 29 Facebook post, Unite US wrote about the Texas A&M event:

We are absolutely blown away by how God moved tonight in Reed Arena as over 10,000 college students gathered to lift the name of Jesus. We will never take for granted the way God has shown up– night after night, university after university. People say there’s no hope for Gen Z. But after tonight, we have more hope than ever that this generation will lead us in the greatest revival our nation has ever seen. This may be our last Unite of the semester, but we believe it’s only the beginning of all God has in store.

Evangelist Tonya Prewett, founder of Unite US, told CBN News, “We’ve seen over 70,000 students gather on 11 campuses representing 400 universities. We’ve seen around 5,000 saved and close to 2,000 baptized. It’s truly indescribable.”

Prewett “could have never imagined what was coming” after God “gave me the vision for Unite Auburn,” she said. “I remember standing at [the] baptisms after the Auburn event in the middle of thousands of students just praising God and thinking, how can this stop? And it hasn’t. He keeps doing it. Again and again.”

Texas Pastor Jonathan Pokluda, a speaker at Unite US events, said the ministry efforts continue beyond each rally. “All of these students get connected to local churches and pastors for discipleship,” he said. “It is beautiful!”

On Oct. 31, Pokluda posted video from the Texas A&M event, writing, “Please pray for what God is doing on college campuses. Please ask others to pray and share the news. Thank You Jesus!!!”

Former Drug Dealer: ‘I’m Going All In’ for Jesus

Unite US rallies are having real life impact, according to Bible teacher and speaker Jennie Allen. She shared video of Kaden, a student who became a Christian after hearing her share the gospel message at an event last year. Kaden told Allen he had been in a fraternity, was selling and doing drugs, and was fully “living in the world, doing what the world tells you to do.”

“Attention to all Blacks who plan to vote for Trump: You are an ignorant, stupid negro,” reads the marquee sign outside New Era Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The church’s pastor, whose name is Michael Jordan, stands by the message. 

“I want to get a message to African Americans and poor whites that we have a very serious election coming up,” Jordan told WVTM.

The opposite side of the sign reads, “Warning African Americans: A vote for Trump will put [Black] folks back to picking cotton.”

 “If Donald Trump can control what we study and read, or control our wages, we’ll be substandard to him,” Jordan said of the sign’s warning.

RELATED: ‘Free Healthcare for Illegals Is on the Ballot’—Church Faces Backlash for Message on Digital Billboard

The church marquee has stirred controversy in the community, even getting the attention of Republican Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth.

“Churches are supposed to spread the Gospel, offer messages of God’s love, and share the life of Christ, not threaten, intimidate, and insult those who exercise their right to vote and support the candidate that is best for them,” Ainsworth wrote in a social media post. “Those responsible for this sign should be ashamed.”

In response to the criticism, Jordan pointed out that “Donald Trump makes sad, pitiful, negative statements about people every day.” 

“This is my ministry,” Jordan told AL.com. “This is my calling.”

Posting controversial statements on the church sign is nothing new for Jordan. In 2019, he emblazoned the sign with the statement, “A white vote for Trump is pure racism.” 

RELATED: Greg Locke: ‘The Public Hatred for Our Church Continues To Rise’; Church Signs Stolen and Burned

Other images that have been uploaded to the church’s Google listing feature messages such as “white preachers are scared, racist cowards,” “blame racist Republicans and Donald Trump for the mass murder of Blacks in Buffalo,” and “Kyle Rittenhouse[‘s] white skin sent him home.”

(RNS) — Bishop Michael Curry may best be remembered for his electrifying sermon on the power of love at the 2018 royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. To Episcopalians who knew Curry as their presiding bishop, his turn on the world stage was merely recognition of Curry’s rock star preaching skills. Fluent in a Black preaching tradition, he is able to captivate both the well-heeled and the working class.

But when COVID-19 hit and churches closed, Episcopalians also saw his down-to-earth skills of improvisation. Staffers at the denomination’s New York headquarters had appealed to the boss to deliver his online Easter message from a local church, using a stained-glass window as a backdrop.

Curry, never big on pomp and circumstance, said a church would be unnecessary: He was fine delivering the message from his home study in Raleigh, North Carolina. He gave his Easter 2021 sermon from his desk, with a tableau of family photos and a red Buffalo Bills helmet perched atop a stack of books behind him. He spoke directly, fireside-chat-like, about wanting to meet Mary Magdalene in heaven.

On Thursday (Oct. 31), Curry, 71, completed his nine-year term as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, and it’s his casual style and his capacity to adapt and improvise that may be his signature, even more than his historic election as the first African American to lead a mostly white denomination. The most beloved presiding bishop of recent decades, he has an easy manner that helped the church weather a period of rapid change.

“There’s a hymn that has a verse in it that says ‘New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth,’” he said, citing from memory a 19th-century poem by James Russell Lowell, an ardent abolitionist.

“You have to learn new realities, you have to take the ancient principles and you’ve got to apply them in new ways,” Curry said.

Curry doesn’t rue the decades-long denominational decline that has affected mainline Protestant denominations, including his own. Under his watch the Episcopal Church lost some 300,000 members, going from 1.9 million members in 2015 to just below 1.6 million in 2022, the latest year for which figures are available.

He pointed out that social forces beyond the Episcopal Church are at work and said he believed the church should not expect the future to look like the past.

Speaking to RNS via Zoom from his home, his preferred way of communicating, Curry, who has suffered a series of health challenges in the past few years, recalled that his mission was to remind Episcopalians that they are a part of a Jesus movement more than they are part of an institution. The institution should be designed to serve the movement, not the other way around.

His successor appears to have gotten the message. On Saturday, Sean Rowe will be installed as the 28th presiding bishop in a smaller, simpler service with less than 130 people present and everyone else watching on a livestream.

Curry is proud of some of his administrative accomplishments, most notably the creation of the Episcopal Coalition for Racial Equity and Justice, a voluntary organization charged with dismantling white supremacy across the denomination. He acknowledged that he has not escaped criticism for administrative missteps: Curry is the subject of an internal clergy misconduct complaint for his response to abuse allegations against a former Michigan bishop alleged to have physically and emotionally abused his now ex-wife and sons.

But as presiding bishop Curry set for himself a larger goal — serving as evangelist in chief, drawing the church back to its core gospel message: Jesus’ lesson on love.

After his Los Angeles Dodgers came back from a 5-0 deficit Wednesday (Oct. 30) to clinch their eighth World Series championship, closing pitcher Blake Treinen glorified God during an on-field interview. When FOX Sports reporter Robert Flores asked Treinen how he felt after the 7-6 game-five win, the pitcher said, “Joy…overwhelming joy. God is absolutely good.”

Treinen continued, “I gotta give a shout out to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for this moment, man. It’s a lot of hard work, what I’ve gone through…This moment is such a blessing.” Asked who came to mind first after the final out, Treinen replied, “God, honestly. Everything I’ve been through, it’s just so good to be here and have this platform.”

The 36-year-old has been candid about the ups and downs of baseball, from cuts and trades to injuries. He’s also been vocal about his faith, standing up for Christian values when the Dodgers invited “queer and trans nuns” to the team’s LGBTQ+ Pride Night last year.

Dodgers Pitcher Blake Treinen Trusts God

Treinen, the Dodgers’ best closer, began struggling during the eighth inning Wednesday night. But instead of pulling Treinen to save his arm for a potential game six, manager Dave Roberts decided to keep him in. Afterward, Roberts described walking to the mound, looking in the pitcher’s eyes, and asking how much he had left. “He said, ‘I want it.’ And I trusted him,” Roberts said of Treinen.

Trust has played a key role throughout Treinen’s career. He dealt with medical challenges as a teen, struggled to land on a college team, and then had his contract voided with the Florida Marlins in 2010. While dealing with that disappointment, Treinen called a chaplain he’d known briefly from a summer team and received a life-changing Bible verse, Proverbs 3:5-6.

Hours later, as Treinen told his parents about that passage at 2 a.m. in rural Kansas, a car drove by with the personalized license plate PROV356. “I decided to lean on God and not my own understanding,” Treinen wrote at FaithDrivenAthlete.org.

Although the pitcher was raised in a Christian home, his faith had never been tested. “I developed my own relationship with Jesus,” he wrote, “and I knew that he alone was going to be my path toward salvation.” Treinen began writing Proverbs 3:5-6 by his name, and he said he hopes kids who have his autograph put their identity in Christ too.

RELATED: Back and Forth Continues Over ‘Queer and Trans Nuns’ Inclusion in Dodgers Pride Night

From baseball, the pitcher has learned to “stop putting limitations on God’s power” and to “dream big.” From the Bible, Treinen has discovered that “God picks some of the unlikeliest characters to fulfill his purposes and write incredible stories.”

Other Dodgers Players Also Prioritize Their Faith

Treinen, who said one of his goals is to be “an ambassador for Christ,” has support from fellow Christians on the team. Dodgers pitchers Clayton Kershaw and Michael Kopech are outspoken Christians, as is first baseman Freddie Freeman.

The number of sex crime charges against a former South Carolina youth pastor continues to rise as investigators uncover more victims. Daniel Kellan Mayfield, who served as a youth pastor at Gowensville Baptist Church until his initial arrest in 2023, faces nearly 150 charges related to voyeurism.

Editor’s note: This article refers to reports of sex crimes that some readers might find triggering and/or disturbing.

Mayfield was first arrested in May 2023 for alleged voyeurism after a woman claimed that he had filmed her taking a shower. After Mayfield was personally confronted by the alleged victim and her sister, Mayfield reportedly confessed to Greenville County Sheriff’s deputies before being taken into custody. 

Roughly a week after Mayfield’s original arrest, more charges were filed against him, including five counts of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of voyeurism. An investigation revealed that he allegedly filmed at least six girls, as young as 14, in the bathroom of Gowensville Baptist Church.

RELATED: NC Pastor Charged With Sexual Exploitation of a Minor Following 2-Month Investigation

Investigators believe that Mayfield acted alone and that leaders of the church were unaware of his alleged crimes.

Upon learning about Mayfield’s arrest, the church immediately terminated his employment. 

“On May 27th, 2023, First Baptist Gowensville leadership was made aware of an incident of moral misconduct perpetrated by one of our staff members,” the church said at the time. “Proper authorities were notified immediately, and the employee was terminated from his role.”

Since then, authorities have uncovered numerous other alleged crimes across several counties. After investigators seized Mayfield’s electronic devices, they discovered voyeuristic images and videos that they believe Mayfield took while working as a wedding photographer and videographer. 

RELATED: Florida Pastor, Previously Convicted in Sex Abuse Case, Under Investigation as Authorities Seek To Identify Other Victims

Some of the incidents date as far back as 2018.