Tony Dungy is urging Floridians to vote “no” this November on Amendment 4, arguing it “would radically change the abortion landscape in Florida.” The vocal Christian and NFL Hall of Fame coach said the vote is “literally a matter of life and death.”

“I urge you to read this amendment very carefully before you vote. I’m convinced if you read it carefully, you will join me in voting no,” Dungy said in a video posted to X on Monday, Oct. 21. 

Dungy said the amendment “was strategically written to be vague and deceptive, giving voters little information about its sweeping impact.”

Early voting opens in Florida this week and I urge all Florida residents to carefully read Amendment 4 before casting your vote. If you read through all the language you’ll see this amendment would radically change the abortion landscape in Florida. We need to protect all lives… pic.twitter.com/6Pq9EJtKf6

— Tony Dungy (@TonyDungy) October 21, 2024

Tony Dungy: Vote ‘No’ on Florida Amendment 4

The amendment, which Dungy said is called the “Right to Abortion Initiative,” is sponsored by the political committee, Floridians Protecting Freedom. The amendment states: 

No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion. 

Dungy’s first objection to the amendment is that it does not define “viability,” leaving interpretation open, he said, to 12 weeks, 24 weeks, or even 36 weeks. Central Florida Public Media (CFPM) reports that Florida has a state statute that defines “viability” as “the stage of fetal development when the life of a fetus is sustainable outside the womb through standard medical measures.”

RELATED: Tony Dungy Takes Heat for March for Life, Says Damar Hamlin Incident Revealed Truth

Second, Dungy took issue with the phrase, “healthcare provider,” because that term “could include employees of abortion clinics who are not doctors.”

CFPM also reports that state law defines what a healthcare provider is but acknowledged that included in that list are “a physician assistant, a registered nurse, a nurse midwife, a licensed practical nurse or advanced practice registered nurse licensed.”

Also included in the state statute’s list of healthcare providers are “a health care professional association and its employees or a corporate medical group and its employees.” Currently, a physician is required to be present during an abortion.

Almost three years after his arrest for false imprisonment, a Georgia man who claims to be a pastor pleaded guilty to just one charge. Curtis Bankston of Griffin, Georgia, pleaded guilty to the only count that state prosecutors ended up pursuing: the felony of running an unlicensed personal care home.

As ChurchLeaders reported, Bankston was arrested in January 2022 after authorities discovered eight people, all of whom had mental or physical disabilities, locked in his basement. Paramedics who were called to the house for a medical emergency had to break a basement window to enter.

Bankston and his wife, Sophia Simm-Bankston, were both arrested and charged with crimes including holding people against their will and stealing from vulnerable individuals.

While pleading guilty to the one felony count, Curtis Bankston told a judge he “did not purposely detain anyone.” He also requested that charges be dismissed against his wife, saying she wasn’t responsible for the care-home operation. Bankston received five years of probation, and charges against his wife were dropped, an attorney said.

Accused ‘Pastor’ Said He Was Trying To Help People

Bankston describes himself as senior pastor of One Step of Faith Ministries Inc., although his online bio lists only a business degree. The “group home” he operated in his basement for 14 months was part of the ministry’s Second Chance program.

Investigators alleged that Bankston controlled residents’ money, government benefits, and medications—sometimes withholding necessary care. During his plea hearing, Bankston told the court he didn’t realize he needed a license to operate the group home. “At no point did I intend to put anyone at harm,” he said.

Dexter Wimbish, Bankston’s attorney, said, “This is a zoning issue that has become criminalized.” He said Bankston ran a Christian ministry that provided room and board to unhoused people and wards of the state. Residents could come and go from the basement freely until 8 p.m., when the door was then locked, Wimbish added.

After arresting Bankston, police said, “It is both frightening and disgusting to see the degree to which these individuals have been taken advantage of by people who were in a position of trust. The home was in disarray and not conducive to clean and sanitary living conditions.”

Curtis Bankston Is Suing the City

Curtis Bankston and his wife have filed a $10 million lawsuit against the city of Griffin, saying it mischaracterized their case, which went viral worldwide. Wimbish said the charges against his client were “just garbage,” adding, “It’s been proven that what [police] claim [the Bankstons] did, they didn’t do.”

A 64-year-old former church secretary faces up to 280 years in prison for embezzling at least $670,000 over at least seven years. The Louisa County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia announced in a statement on Monday (Oct. 21) that Brenda W. Ragland has been convicted of 14 counts of embezzlement. 

Authorities have not disclosed the name of the church. 

Louisa Commonwealth’s Attorney Rusty McGuire said that church leaders were first alerted to Ragland’s crimes when they attempted to make a donation to another church’s building fund but were told by the bank that the account they were seeking to use had insufficient funds. 

Normally, Ragland would have overseen any transfer of money, but she was out of town and church leaders were not able to reach her. It was only after directly communicating with the bank that they realized something was wrong. 

RELATED: SBC Pastor Matt Queen Pleads Guilty To Making False Statements During Abuse Investigation at Southwestern Seminary

After church leaders requested records from the bank, they turned those records over to Louisa County Sheriff’s Office for an investigation.

Investigators found that Louisa had for years siphoned off funds from the church’s accounts, depositing money to her personal account via CashApp.

Although Ragland had worked for the church for more than 20 years, the church’s financial records only go back seven years, making it impossible to know for sure how much Ragland stole from the church. 

RELATED: Protestia Founder JD Hall Guilty of Felony Embezzlement, Must Repay Former Church $15k

“It is a sad day for the church,” said McGuire. “They put their faith in Mrs. Ragland to manage the church resources and she violated that faith by turning church resources into her personal piggy bank.”

CONETOE, N.C. (RNS) — Congregants at Conetoe Chapel Missionary Baptist Church thought their pastor was crazy when he suggested his rural community take up farming as a way to improve their health and become more self-sufficient.

The small, predominantly Black community, about 80 miles east of Raleigh, is surrounded by vast, fertile farmland but has no grocery store for miles around. According to figures from the Census Bureau, 67% of the residents of Conetoe (pronounced Kuh-NEE-tuh) live below the poverty line.

It turned out, the Rev. Richard Joyner was prophetic. The venture, which in 2007 was spun off into its own nonprofit, the Conetoe Family Life Center, now produces 1,500 boxes of vegetables a week on land it either bought or leases. It partners with multiple outfits including public schools, hospitals, the North Carolina Food Bank and local churches to plant, grow, harvest and package the produce, some of which is sold, but most of which is donated.

Funerals, which Joyner used to conduct too many of, are less common, and the health and wellbeing of his congregants who partake of the vegetables, grown without any synthetic chemicals, has improved, he said.

But now Joyner has another problem. Last month, Hurricane Helene flooded some of his fields, wiping out the late August plantings of salad greens, radishes and beets. The soil was already wet from weeks of rain when the hurricane blew in, dumping 17 inches of rain over a two week period. Back in 2016, Hurricane Matthew also flooded the nonprofit’s fields.

Members of Joyner’s congregation, about 100 people, have suggested maybe God is trying to tell him something.

“We’re in the Bible Belt,” Joyner said. “When my farm floods, people go, ‘Well, God don’t want you to do that. That’s why he keeps flooding it and you need to stop being hard-headed.’”

Joyner’s new rejoinder: “God is not flooding the land. Our behavior is destroying the environment. That’s what flooded the land.”

Over the last few years, the 71-year-old pastor has become not only a farmer but a climate change activist. Last month, he lent his name to a new group, Extreme Weather Survivors, which provides trauma-informed support for people harmed by natural disasters. Some of the group’s members, including Joyner, participated in a Climate Week forum in New York City earlier this month intended to convey the message that extreme weather should not be labeled an “act of God” but an “act of Man.”

Speakers such as Delta Merner, a scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, testified that in North Carolina studies have shown that climate change has significantly increased heavy rainfall. In other spots, such as Arizona, she said, science can now show a connection between climate change and record-breaking heat waves, which have become more frequent and intense.

Merner, who studies “attribution science,” a field that aims to determine how much human-caused climate change has directly influenced extreme weather events, said researchers are now able to trace climate change back to major fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers.

Explaining this to church members has not always been easy, but Joyner now sees it as his calling.

Vice President Kamala Harris made headlines over the weekend for how she appeared to respond after two college students called out, “Jesus is Lord,” during one of her rallies. The students are claiming they were kicked out of Harris’ rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and that Harris mocked them after they heckled her.

“We did God’s work, and we were there for the right reasons, and God was watching us,” said Grant Beth, one of two pro-life students who called out, “Jesus is Lord,” while Harris was discussing her views on abortion. “I’m all about being a cordial person regardless of your beliefs,” he said in an interview with Fox News, “but I do believe that we were sent there by God.”

Kamala Harris Rally Controversy

As Election Day draws near, candidates from the Trump-Vance campaign and the Harris-Walz campaign are continuing to attempt to secure votes from people of faith. Harris, however, is drawing negative attention from some Christians for the interaction that took place in La Crosse Friday, although the exact dynamics of that interaction are not entirely clear.

RELATED: With Election Day Looming, Harris Ramps Up Engagement With Black Church

At a rally at the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse Friday, Oct. 17, Harris appeared to react to Grant Beth and his friend, Luke Polaske, who called out the name of Jesus, by telling them they were at the “wrong rally.” During her speech, the vice president mentioned abortion and criticized former President Donald Trump for choosing U.S. Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, adding “and they did as he intended.”

Video footage from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel shows that Harris paused after that comment and then said, “Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” after which the crowd cheered. It is difficult to hear anything in that video during Harris’ pause besides people’s voices in the background. 

Harris then waved and smiled, adding, “No, I think you meant to go to the smaller [rally] down the street.” The crowd cheered as the vice president gestured and said, “Come on.” 

At least two videos that captured the moment from within the audience recorded the voice of someone in the crowd yelling, “Jesus is Lord!” Right after that comment, Harris can be heard saying, “Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally.” It is not certain from the footage whether Harris was responding to the words about Jesus or to something else. 

University of Wisconsin students Luke Polaske and Grant Beth told Fox that they were the people in the audience protesting during Harris’ speech and that the vice president was speaking to them after they called out, “Christ is King!” and “Jesus is Lord!”

Polaske and Beth are pro-life students who said event volunteers escorted them out of the event and told the students they were not welcome. Beth said an elderly woman pushed him, and “we were heckled at, we were cursed at, we were mocked.” 

Ahead of next month’s release of the movie “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin,” 86 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s descendants are urging people not to “distort and misuse” the theologian’s life or work. In an Oct. 18 statement, dozens of Bonhoeffer’s relatives wrote, “We are horrified to see how the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is increasingly being distorted and misused by right-wing extremists, xenophobes, and religious agitators.”

They described the German theologian as “a peace-loving, freedom-loving humanitarian” who “never would…have seen himself associated with far-right, violent movements such as Christian Nationalists and others who are trying to appropriate him today.”

Bonhoeffer, who opposed the Nazis during World War II, was hanged in April 1945 at age 39. His influential books include “The Cost of Discipleship” and “Life Together.”

Relatives of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Call Out Eric Metaxas, Angel Studios

In their statement, Bonhoeffer descendants pinpoint conservative author Eric Metaxas as “a key figure in this abuse.” Metaxas, who wrote an award-winning biography of Bonhoeffer, is a vocal supporter of conservative politics and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

According to the relatives, Metaxas “ignored the historical context and misrepresented Bonhoeffer as a fundamentalist Evangelical” in the biography. They also decry his previous comparison of President Joe Biden to Adolf Hitler, plus social media posts that reference Bonhoeffer while showing a gun on a Bible.

RELATED: Dog the Bounty Hunter Calls Biden ‘Little Hitler’ at Christian Event, Jokes About President’s Possible Suicide

Next, the extended family took aim at the upcoming “history-distorting biopic” of Bonhoeffer. They say the theologian wasn’t a “lone fighter” but worked with other relatives for truth and freedom and against “religious zealotry, nationalism, militarism, and blind obedience.” The family continued, “Those who invoke Dietrich Bonhoeffer to justify anti-democratic, xenophobic aspirations are either misinformed or malicious.”

Bonhoeffer’s relatives also claim his quotes are taken out of context, “used by many whose intentions are diametrically opposed to Bonhoeffer’s thoughts and actions.” They cite the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 for a second Trump presidency as an example, urging voters, “Do not be deceived. Look carefully at history.”

Scholars Warn Against ‘Weaponization’ of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer’s descendants also thank theologians and historians who are speaking out “against this appropriation.” On Oct. 10, scholars began a Change.org petition asking people to “Stop Misusing Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Support Political Violence and Christian Nationalism.”

As of Oct. 21, the petition has more than 1,400 signatures. It begins:

From Project 2025 to violent political rhetoric, the legacy of German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer is being invoked this election season on behalf of Christian Nationalism. It is a dangerous and grievous misuse of his theology and life. As an international group of Bonhoeffer scholars, we warn against it.

Earlier this year, Russell Brand publicly shared that he began a relationship with Jesus. Since then, Brand has interviewed fellow actor and Christian Jonathan Roumie and has continued reading Christian classics for greater insight.

“Christianity is the spiritual path for me,” said Brand.

Russell Brand Publicly Affirms Christianity as the ‘Spiritual Path’ for Him

The actor continues to post videos of his journey as a Christian, including getting baptized and learning from fellow Christians.

“I felt changed, transitioned,” Brand said about being baptized. The ceremony had very “intimate and personal aspects,” he noted, and several “bizarre incidents” occurred that felt “serendipitous and laden.”

Brand continues to keep his followers updated on his Christian walk. On Sunday (Oct. 20), Brand posted a video with a brief affirmation that Christianity is the right choice for him.

“I felt like there was something wrong with me,” shared Brand. “And, I think a lot of addicts would identify with that.”

He spoke endearingly about his faith. “As I have become a Christian, I recognize that this is the spiritual path for me,” he said.

Brand read words from 1 Timothy 1:15-16, as the verses have become meaningful and transformative for him. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst,” Brand read. “But, for that very reason, I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.”

Brand went on to explain that people in the world are “pretending to be  better than they are.” In particular, those he knows in Hollywood are “terrified of being exposed.”

In contrast, Brand explained how “those of us who publicly are known to have sinned” have a different perspective. He, along with others he knows, “lived a life looking for the stimulants that the world offers you, lures you with, the temptations of this world.”

“Those of us who live in open transparency can authentically accept that we are flawed and fallen and that is the way we will know Christ—through our brokenness,” said Brand.

This is why Christianity is the spiritual path for me. pic.twitter.com/puHzUsXUl6

— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) October 20, 2024

An Alabama pastor is emphasizing joy and community after his house went up in flames roughly a week ago. Eric Foxx of Home Church in Mobile says that he has felt the peace of God despite the fact that his home has been deemed a total loss. 

On Saturday, Oct. 12, Foxx received a call that his house was on fire. 

“I turned the corner and it was just like, there it is. All the hard work, all the time, all the blood and sweat and tears you’ve put into it, it is absolutely the saying: down in flames and up in smoke,” Foxx told WALA. “If the fire don’t get it, the smoke gets it. If the smoke don’t get it, the water does. So just absolutely everything is just toast.”

Following the fire, Foxx’s church has rallied to support him—something church members know that he would do for them. 

RELATED: Pastor Dies Following Fire Pit Explosion

In fact, according to Brandon Badon, who attends Home Church, Foxx has “been incredibly supportive and even supportive even through this tragedy.”

“He’s been to every event, every funeral, everything that’s been going on with other people. He’s still made it in spite of something as tragic as this,” said Badon.

In an email to ChurchLeaders, Foxx said that he planted the church to be a place in the community that people “to call home.”

“Home represents family, and we are called to be family to one another as a part of the body of Christ,” he said. “We are brothers and sisters meant to love, serve, encourage, and be there for one another in both good, and bad times.”

“I’ve had a peace in all of this,” Foxx told WALA. “And God was like, ‘People need to see what happens when the faith family—when things happen, when things are not perfect, when things go wrong in our lives—how people of faith respond.”

RELATED: ‘We Didn’t Hate Him’—SC Pastor Leads Man Suspected of Setting Church Vans on Fire to Christ

“I have joy, because happiness is something that is happenstance. It’s something that happened and now it makes me happy,” Foxx added. “But joy is constant.”