Free Republic

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Pastors and other evangelical Christians should speak biblically and live purely to minister faithfully in a sex-saturated culture, speakers said at a Southern Baptist-sponsored summit on the Gospel and sexuality. In addresses during the three-day conference, speakers challenged participants with messages designed to equip church leaders and other Christians to live with purity while aiding people inside and outside the church who are captive to a sexualized society. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission sponsored its inaugural ERLC Leadership Summit in sessions April 21-23 at the Southern Baptist Convention building in Nashville. As sexualized as American culture...

NASHVILLE (BP) -- In A.D. 33 Jerusalem was a political powder keg ready to explode. More than ever, Jews expected a Messiah who would overthrow their hated Roman oppressors. In turn, the Roman Empire was spring loaded to pounce on any rivals to Caesar at the first sign of trouble. Into that milieu came an itinerant rabbi from Nazareth, riding into town for Passover on a donkey and being proclaimed by the crowds as the promised Messiah. Within days one of two things would surely happen: either He would overthrow the Romans or suffer a brutal death. This is one...

NASHVILLE (BP) -- The 100th anniversary of Jehovah's Witnesses' prediction that history would end in 1914 presents an opportunity for leading members of the group to faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, a Southern Baptist expert on Christian sects and cults said. Christians' "first task" in sharing the Gospel with Jehovah's Witnesses is helping them "put [their official publications] away and then deal with the Bible alone," Robert Stewart, professor of philosophy and theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, told Baptist Press. "What we need is evidence -- evidence that the Watchtower Society [Jehovah's Witnesses' central organization] has...

LAHORE, Pakistan (BP) -- A couple from Pakistan's Christian minority was sentenced to death April 4 for allegedly sending blasphemous text messages, bringing the number of Christians on death row to four. The sentence for Shafqat Emmanuel and Shugufta Emmanuel in Pakistan's Punjab province came eight days after a court in Lahore sentenced Sawan Masih to death for allegedly insulting Islam's prophet Muhammad. The case against Masih, a street sweeper, stemmed from an alleged drunken conversation with a Muslim friend that sparked an outbreak of violence in Lahore's Joseph Colony. The March 2013 flare-up left 180 Christian-owned homes and shops...

WASHINGTON (BP) -- Charities could face dwindling donations if Congress adopts a new tax reform proposal introduced by Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Camp's long-awaited plan to overhaul the tax code, introduced last month, has received some positive reviews, but charitable organizations say it could cost them billions in donations. "I know Chairman Camp wants charitable giving to go up, [but] his discussion draft does not [promote] that," said David Wills, president of the National Christian Foundation (NCF). "It hurts charitable giving significantly." NCF is part of the Faith and Giving Coalition, which...

An alarming report has been released by the government that shows Black students are more likely targets for school discipline, suspensions and arrests than any other students in our nation’s schools. The report should be a wake-up call to African-American parents and community leaders that it is time for them to get serious about being involved and demanding accountability from superintendents, school boards and principals when it comes to our children. The report, provided by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, is a compilation of Civil Rights Data Collection on school discipline that covers every school in...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- Cremation may be the new American response to death, according to a survey by LifeWay Research. The study, which surveyed 1,036 Americans, shows that about 4 in 10 (41 percent) say they plan to be cremated. Six in ten (58 percent) say being cremated won't keep you from being resurrected to live in heaven. And few (14 percent) say cremation is wrong. The LifeWay online survey reflects the growing acceptance of cremation, which has become common in the United States. About 4 in 9 (43.5 percent) Americans who died in 2012 were cremated, according to the...

FEDERAL WAY, Wash. (BP) -- World Vision U.S. is reverting to its longstanding conduct policy of requiring faithfulness within the biblical covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, expressing regret with an earlier decision to hire legally married gay Christians. World Vision U.S. President Richard Stearns and board chairman Jim Bere announced in a letter the reversal today (March 26), just two days after drawing ire from the Christian community by saying World Vision would begin hiring legally married gays. "Today, the World Vision U.S. board publicly reversed its recent decision to change our employment conduct policy," they...

MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. (BP) -- A Baptist children's pastor in Alabama has pleaded guilty to 16 counts of sodomy, three counts of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12 and one count of child pornography. Jeffrey Dale Eddie, the children's pastor and administrator of Highland Park Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals, was arrested Feb. 4. Eddie, who was released from his duties upon arrest, had served on the Highland Park staff for 16 years. Eddie was charged with two counts of child pornography, 31 counts of second-degree sodomy and three counts of sexual abuse of a child...

ORLANDO, Fla. (BP) -- The Walt Disney Company is playing into the hands of Boy Scouts of America by cutting donations to BSA, giving the Scouts greater public leverage to accept gay leaders, Atlanta area pastor Ernest Easley said today (March 7). Disney in February joined a growing list of companies who have cut financial support to BSA because of the Scouts' ban on openly gay leaders. Such pressure will make it easier for BSA to open Scout leadership to gay men, said Easley, pastor of Roswell Street Baptist Church and chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. "Walt...

Doug Reuhl, president and CEO of American since 1988, blamed an unforgiving economy, especially over the past five years, for the closure and said the company would begin a going-out-of-business sale Thursday to liquidate its entire inventory of furniture, electronics and appliances. "While this is a sad moment, it is also a proud moment," Reuhl said in a news release. "It's a moment to be proud of our efforts and to be proud of what we have delivered to the community." A switchboard operator at American TV refused to answer additional questions Monday or transfer a reporter to anyone else,...

Year after year, Kansas City has one of the highest murder rates in America. But why? As The Star’s Editorial Board embarks on a closer examination of the homicide issue in 2014, it’s crucial to first review figures regarding some of the usual suspects — such as racial demographics and poverty rates — often labeled as contributing factors behind violent crimes. The frustrating conclusion: There’s no clear demographic or economic explanation for why Kansas Citians too often kill each other. Here’s a deeper look at reported murder rates for the 50 largest U.S. cities in 2012, the last full year...

Many people believe that the word "burden," when used in a prophetic context, does not refer only to prophecy in general, but also to the pronouncement of judgment. Calvin says, "Whenever this word is expressed, there is ever to be understood some judgment of God." Verhoef elaborates, "We may concede to the opinion that in prophecy the word…generally acquires an ominous sense linked up with the catastrophic nature of many prophecies. In this sense the word usually denotes a pronouncement of utmost importance, a prophecy of judgment." In Jeremiah 23, we read that the word had become a way for...

28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. To me, among the most beautiful verses ever written, full of promise, promise that we can believe, promise that I try to live, it freed me a long time ago of the burden of sin, a heavy load indeed and it is all truly free,...

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Mike Huckabee says he won't be seeking the title of "America's pastor" if he decides to run for president in 2016. Instead, he would seek to be a servant leader who is both "salt and light" in today's culture. Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who ran for president in 2008, said he won't make any political announcements until after the midterm elections. A busy speaker and the host of "Huckabee," the Fox News channel talk show, he said his concern for the nation's direction could be the deciding factor. "I just feel like our country is...

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP) -– The conviction of a 60-year-old man for having sex with a pre-teen girl was overturned by Italy's highest court last fall according to a report by Agence France-Presse. Social worker Pietro Lamberti was sent to prison for five years for his relationship with an 11-year-old girl. The original conviction in 2011 was upheld by an appellate court but now has been overturned by the Italian Supreme Court, which ruled the original court had failed to consider the consensual nature of the relationship, according to AFP. The court ordered a retrial. The high court said consideration should...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (BP) -- Four Missouri taxpayers filed a lawsuit on Jan. 8 challenging Gov. Jay Nixon's executive order to permit some same-sex couples to file a Missouri combined income tax return as "husband" and "wife" for 2013 in spite of a 2004 state constitutional amendment which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. The lawsuit challenges Executive Order 13-14 as being unconstitutional and alleges that the governor is trying to thwart the will of the people of Missouri, with 71 percent of the voters having adopted "Amendment 2" in 2004. The amendment, now codified as Article...

DALLAS (BP)-- Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress defended statements he made in his forthcoming book charging President Barack Obama's policies have "paved the way" for the coming usurpation of religious liberties and moral law by the Antichrist. Critics balked at naming Obama and the Antichrist in the same sentence. But noted theologians said Jeffress' example, when read in context, properly frames end-time prophecies in light of current events. "I don't sit around in my office thinking up controversies. But I do use controversy to shine the light on Jesus Christ," Jeffress, the pastor of the 11,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas,...

NASHVILLE (BP) -- It wouldn't be Christmas without the wise men. They show up in nativity scenes, Christmas plays, carols, tree ornaments and paintings. Everyone knows about them: There were three wise men, they rode camels and they brought their gifts to the baby Jesus as He lay in a manger. The Bible, however, doesn't tell us any of these presumed facts about the wise men, other than they brought gifts to Jesus. The rest is holiday lore that accumulated over the centuries, which too many have assumed is in the Bible. The only biblical mention of the wise men...

OKLAHOMA CITY (BP) -- A satanic group from New York wants to place a shrine to Satan next to a Ten Commandments monument on the state capitol grounds in Oklahoma City. The offer from the Satanic Temple in New York comes four years after Oklahoma's legislature approved a privately funded, biblically based monument, which was placed on the capitol lawn last summer. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union's Oklahoma chapter has filed a lawsuit to remove the Ten Commandments from the capitol grounds, claiming the monument is unconstitutional. And, on Dec. 12, the Universal Society of Hinduism, based in Reno,...