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Like all accounts of God’s faithfulness, mine begins with a genealogy. In the late seventeenth century, my mother’s Congregationalist ancestors journeyed to the New World to escape what they saw as England’s deadly compromise with Romanism. Centuries later, ­American Presbyterians converted my father’s great-­grandmother from Coptic ­Orthodoxy to ­Protestantism. Her son became a Presbyterian minister in the Evangelical Coptic Church. By the time my parents were ­living in ­twenty-first-century Illinois, their families’ historic Reformed commitments had been replaced by non-denominational, ­Baptistic ­evangelicalism. This form of Christianity dominated my Midwestern hometown. My parents taught me to love God, revere the Scriptures,...

Maybe he should convert to YouTube. A pastor and self-proclaimed “former homosexual” is suing Vimeo after the video-sharing website shuttered his account for posting clips lauding conversion therapy. Church United pastor James Domen’s Manhattan federal court suit says Vimeo shut down his account for posting five videos relating to “religion and sexual orientation” — but claims the video platform actually did it as part of an effort to silence him. “Church United’s account was deleted in an effort to censor James Domen from speaking about his preferred sexual orientation and his religious beliefs,” says the lawsuit, which says Domen spent...

How does a committed and passionate follower of Islam reconsider his faith and become an outspoken apologist for Christianity? This is a story of being introduced to Jesus through friendships, investigations, dreams, and visions. What follows is a conversation between the late Nabeel Qureshi (@NAQureshi), author of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (Third Edition) (Zondervan, 2018)—the first book to win ECPA Christian Book Awards® in both New Author and Non-Fiction categories—and his friend David Wood, who led Nabeel to consider the veracity of the claims of Jesus Christ. The discussion took place in Atlanta, Georgia, during the Evangelical Theological Society’s annual...

For 20 years, McKrae Game led Hope for Wholeness, a faith-based conversion therapy program in South Carolina. The discredited practice was intended to suppress or eradicate a person’s LGBTQ identity through counseling or ministry, reports The Post and Courier. Game was fired from the group and in June announced he was gay. Game, 51, told The Post and Courier that he is coming to terms with the harm he inflicted while he was working to change people’s sexuality. “Conversion therapy is not just a lie, but it’s very harmful,” Game told The Post and Courier. “Because it’s false advertising.” Game...

Speaking to thousands gathered for the 30th annual Southern California Harvest Sunday, baseball great Darryl Strawberry said he is thankful to have been imprisoned during the early 2000s because he may never have found God otherwise. The eight-time all-star and four-time World Series champion was interviewed by evangelist Greg Laurie on the final night of the 2019 SoCal Harvest Crusade, a three-night evangelistic event at Angel Stadium in Anaheim featuring top Christian music performers and messages from the famed evangelist. While the Los Angeles native was one of the most feared hitters of the 1980s, a drug addiction consumed his...

In the 8th century, the Great Imam, Abu Hanifa (699-767), coined the term "House of Islam" (Dar al-Islam) as those places where Muslims enjoyed peace and security under the rule of an Islamic government. The rest of the world Hanifa designated Dar al-Harb or "the House of War."... have found them to be overwhelmingly hospitable, reasonable, peace-loving people—yet staunchly opposed to the Christian gospel. A major reason for this was found in the roots of Islam. While many religions rejected the doctrine of Jesus as Messiah or the concept of the Trinity, Islam was the only major world religion born...

Israeli Education Minister Rafi Peretz has said he believes so-called "gay conversion therapy" can work, triggering widespread condemnation. "I think it's possible," Mr Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi, told Israel's Channel 12 TV channel. He added that he had "a very deep familiarity with the issue". PM Benjamin Netanyahu said such remarks were "unacceptable". Other politicians and gay groups also voiced criticism. "Gay conversion therapy" has been widely discredited around the world. The practice attempts to change an individual's sexual orientation through psychological, spiritual and sometimes physical means. What did Mr Peretz say?"I think that it is possible to convert [someone's...

On June 7, AD 421, the 20 year-old Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II married a beautiful young Greek girl. Though born into a pagan family and given the name Athenais, the young bride had converted to Christianity shortly before her nuptials and took the name Aelia Eudocia. She would go on to become a devout Christian and a controversial figure in the Eastern Roman court dominated by another powerful woman, the empress Pulcheria. Here is the brief biography of Eudocia provided in the 6th century Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus, written about a century after her death: Theodosius II espoused...

On this date in AD 337 ended one of the most impactful lives in all of human history. The Roman emperor Constantine the Great passed from human existence to eternal life on May 22, AD 337. (Click here if you need a refresher on Constantine's many and long-standing accomplishments.) A primary account of Constantine's final days and death may be found in the Vita Constantini of the historian Eusebius Pamphilus--a Christian bishop who knew Constantine personally. The entire Vita is well worth reading, but here are a few snippets detailing the final sickness and death of the emperor after 31...

This triumphalist statement is a staple of Islamic propaganda. If Islam is the “world’s fastest-growing religion,” then this must surely reflect, its adherents believe, its innate superiority to other faiths. And it suggests that this rise is inexorable and irreversible. But the picture is not quite so clear. Look at the figures being given for the world’s Muslim population. There still seems to be no agreement. The numbers range enormously, from a low of 1.4 billion to a high of 1.8 billion.In Muslim countries, the way Muslims are counted is to take the total population, subtract those who have definitely...

Video LinkThis is a great video (long but great). Dr Paul Lim is a South Korean immigrant to the U.S. who began to get religion while he was a student at Yale of all places. He is now a professor of divinity at Vanderbilt. His story is incredibly entertaining and interesting. And his wonderful sense of humor makes this long video pass too quickly.Given that it is a long (48 minutes plus), you might want to watch a little bit here and there instead of plunging head long.Dr. Lim's voyage to Faith is unusual and at the same time somewhat...

A pastor who has started hundreds of churches in Pakistan, where he suffered persecution for his faith, has chronicled his extraordinary journey in a new book where he says that divine healings and prophetic dreams are leading many Muslims to Jesus Christ.Pastor M El Masih, who started Cry of the Persecuted Church and now lives with his family in the United States, shared in an interview with The Christian Post some of his most difficult challenges growing up in Pakistan, where he studied and followed Islam and the Quran for years.In his book, From Persecution to the Promised Land, Masih,...

At the start of the fall semester of my senior year of college, I was receiving the Eucharist every day. The problem was, I was not Catholic. I had begun attending daily Mass four months before, drawn less by the Catholic faith than by the soothing regularity of the liturgy. Whenever the host was administered, I went up with the rest of the parish and received it without a second thought. But by September, I could no longer plead ignorance. I had begun to participate in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and was learning about church doctrine and...

New longitudinal research provides evidence that converting to Christianity is associated with some psychological changes. “Religious conversion is a major life event that some people claim would bring big psychological changes,” said C. Harry Hui of The University of Hong Kong. “However, no research has systematically looked at it with a rigorous, longitudinal research design.” The study, which was published in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, tracked 711 Chinese individuals from 2009 to 2012. At the beginning of the study, there were 455 participants who were not Christians. But by the end, 46 of these non-Christians had converted to Christianity....

New Hampshire’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu signed into law on Friday a ban on gay conversion therapy for minors. Medical and mental health professionals — including the American Medical Association — say the practice to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity is proven to be ineffective and can cause psychological harm to LGBTQ youth. “Discrimination — in any form — is unacceptable and runs contrary to New Hampshire’s Live Free or Die Spirit,” Sununu said in a statement, as reported by WMUR. “If we really want to be the ‘Live Free or Die’ state, we must ensure that...

WASHINGTON DC, May 7, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A band of young courageous ex-gays and ex-transgenders from around the United States converged on the Nation’s Capital on the weekend to proclaim in public the freedom they have found by having a relationship with Jesus Christ. Their message stands in stark opposition to popular LGBT dogma, which until now has dominated national discourse. The racially diverse group of mostly millennials — formerly sexually active gays and lesbians, as well as others who had lived as ‘transgenders’ (assuming the identity of a member of the opposite sex) — spoke about their personal conversion...

The North Indian state of Uttarakhand is now the eighth state in the country to pass legislation that is officially named the "Freedom of Religion Act" but has the allegedly hidden intent to punish those who facilitate religious conversions, especially conversions from Hinduism to Christianity. The latest law carries a jail term of up to two years. The Governor of Uttarakhand, Krishna Kant Paul, signed the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Bill of 2018 into law this month, according to local media reports. The law will be in force as soon as the state government, governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya...

The links of the terrorist group Hezbollah with criminal gangs in Colombia to obtain financing With the help of drug traffickers from the Oficina de Envigado, terrorists wash assets and receive money from drug trafficking in the Middle East and Africa 29 mar. 2018 GoogleTranslate: Thus, they are indoctrinated in Islam to convert them into so-called "lone wolves", individuals who carry out terrorist actions alone, without the support of a team. This generates alarm among the authorities, taking into account that in Colombia there are more than 40 thousand Muslims, and five mosques and 10 centers ... ( - Así,...

The Maryland Transportation Authority is exploring phasing out all cash toll booths across the state. Today, tolls are collected three ways: by cash, or electronically, by either an E-ZPass transponder or by video tolling — when the state uses a license-plate photo and mails drivers their bill. Transportation officials say that the transition to all-electronic, high-speed toll collection will: save drivers time on their commute, save the state money, reduce accidents at toll plazas, and reduce CO2 emissions as less fuel is being burned, according to a national study by the University of Central Florida. Drivers in Maryland could start...

White Greater Double WE HAVE ALREADY SEEN how the Gentiles, in the person of the Three Magi, offered their mystic gifts to the Divine Child of Bethlehem, and received from him, in return, the precious gifts of faith, hope, and charity. The harvest is ripe; it is time for the reaper to come. But who is to be God’s laborer? The Apostles of Christ are still living under the very shadow of mount Sion. All of them have received the mission to preach the gospel of salvation to the uttermost parts of the world; but not one among them...