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Full Title: Megachurch Pastor David Platt: Watered Down Gospel to Blame for Why Giving God 'Blank Check' Is So Foreign David Platt, The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., speaks on the opening night of 2014 SBC Pastors’ Conference in Baltimore, Md., on Sunday, June 8, 2014. Southern Baptist International Mission Board President and megachurch Pastor David Platt said the reason why many Christians balk at the idea of allowing God to send them anywhere in the world for His purpose is because churches have watered down what it means to accept Jesus Christ as their savior. The megachurch...

Home » News » National Little Sisters in court: Don't stop our ministry of serving the dying poor By Mary Rezac December 9, 2014 - Catholic News Agency Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on pinterest_share Share on email Share on print More Sharing Services5 Mother Loraine Maguire and the Little Sisters of the Poor outside the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Credit: Mary Rezac/CNA. The Little Sisters of the Poor asked an appeals court Monday to shield them from the federal contraception mandate, saying that it threatens their 175 years of service to the poor and dying. “As...

A year-end review of 2014's Bible and religious movie lineup. In the beginning…of 2014…was the promise of Bible movies. And was it good? As 2014 dawned, it looked like the year the Hollywood seas would part for Bible and religious movie offerings. Three Bible epics were in development for nationwide release by major studios: Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah,” Mark Burnett and Roma Downey’s “Son of God,” and Ridley Scott’s “Exodus: Gods and Kings.” Moreover, none other than superstar Angelina Jolie was directing a biopic of an evangelical lion and war hero Louis Zamperini. A slew of smaller films aimed at the...

CAIRO: Al-Azhar, Islam’s most prestigious center of learning, on Thursday urged Christians in the Arab world to stand firm in the face of jihadi violence and not flee into exile. The call, made at a Cairo conference organized by Al-Azhar, came just days after Pope Francis pressed the world’s Muslim leaders to condemn terrorism carried out in the name of Islam by groups such as the Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaeda, and called for an end to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. “We condemn the forced exile of Christians and other religious or ethnic groups,” the conference...

A GROUP OF pro-choice campaigners placed a banner advertising abortion pills on Galway Cathedral yesterday morning. The recently-formed Díobháil group placed the banner, which advises women on where they can procure pills which induce miscarriages, on the cathedral yesterday at 7am. It remained there until after 11am. PICTURES ON LINK A spokesperson for the group today told TheJournal.ie that they are aiming to spread the word on the pills. “The main aim was to spread the message of Women on Web. They are a really good women’s organisation that help women in countries with oppressive abortion laws. “Otherwise, women are...

Several months ago, one of my co-workers was speaking with a Christian university campus minister about the issue of abortion, and he dismissed the topic with a wave. “Abortion isn’t prevalent at our school," he said. "Contraception is widely available, but our students also take sexual purity to heart.” I was a bit suspicious of his answer, so I spoke with a recent graduate of the same university about her thoughts. “I suspect one in three women on campus have had an abortion,” she said matter-of-factly. “It may be higher. Christian kids don’t want to deal with the shame a...

Has science now proven that God exists? Douglas Ell, author of the new book Counting To God, will speak about this and other “big questions” related to science and faith in two lectures at Trinity Episcopal Church in Vero Beach. Times: Tuesday, October 21, 2014, 6:00 pm Tuesday, November 18, 2014, 6:00 pm Location: Trinity Episcopal Church 2365 Pine Avenue Vero Beach, FL 32960 Both talks are open to the general public and there is no charge. In Counting To God, Ell applies the lens of mathematical analysis to a series of scientific discoveries, drawing startling conclusions about the relation...

In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview, his first to the Israeli media, Pope Francis expresses his sadness at the Jerusalem synagogue attack and the lack of peace between Israelis and Palestinians, voices his hatred for anti-Semitism and talks of his fears for the Christian communities persecuted by the Islamic State. The spiritual father of 1.2 billion people lives in a two-room apartment in Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican City's guesthouse. With its outdated furniture, a 1970s-style sofa, papers scattered on the floor in a work corner, and piles of books that no one dares to tidy, the small and modest abode...

I’ve heard a lot of pro-abortion arguments in my day, but every now and then I run across one that just seems so completely nonsensical, it takes me aback. One such convoluted argument comes from Beverly Wildung Harrison, formerly a professor of Christian ethics at the Union Theological Seminary. Harrison, who died a few years ago, wrote the book Our Right to Choose in which she used Christian theology to justify abortion. The book Abortion: My Choice, God’s Grace by another pro-choice Christian, Anne Eggebroten, puts forth the following quote by Harrison: Presidents, members of Congress, and other leaders have...

Much more than a single article could be written detailing all the ways in which American evangelical Protestantism looks very different from the early church. Certainly not all of the developments in our external circumstances or internal practices have been for the worse. But one key way in which American evangelicals have not been closely hewing to the faithful biblical example of our spiritual forefathers and foremothers is in the basic attitude and response we often have towards what to do about blatant unfaithfulness within the church itself. People often romantically long for the purity of "the New Testament church."...

A Catholic religious order, the Little Sisters of the Poor, will appear before a federal appeals court today to tell it to protect their religious liberties and prevent the Obama administration from making them comply with Obamacare’s abortion mandate. The mandate compels religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions. Without relief, the Little Sisters face millions of dollars in IRS fines because they cannot comply with the government’s mandate that they give their employees free access to contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. Previously, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily protected the Little Sisters from the...

Pope Francis has given an exclusive interview to the Argentine daily La NacionHoly Communion is not the solution to the pastoral challenges facing divorced and re-married Catholics, Pope Francis has said. In an interview with the Argentine daily newspaper, La Nacion, in which he discussed the family synod, the challenges of his papacy and reforming the Roman Curia, Pope Francis said: “In the case of divorcees who have remarried, we posed the question, what do we do with them? What door can we allow them to open? This was a pastoral concern: will we allow them to go to Communion?...

Pope Francis has denied that removing American Cardinal Raymond Burke as head of the Vatican’s highest court was a “punishment” for his outspokenly conservative views at a recent summit of bishops, saying instead he wanted a “smart American” to serve as patron of the Order of Malta. “It is not true that I removed him because of how he had behaved in the synod,” Francis said. The pontiff said that the move was part of a broader restructuring of the Vatican bureaucracy that had been decided well before the October 5-19 synod of bishops on the family. The reason he...

So much for the seventh commandment. Unholy crooks better pray the big man upstairs wasn’t watching when they swiped a 5-by-3 foot crucifix from a Bronx church during services on Wednesday. The $5,000 German-made wooden cross was lifted from the lobby of Padau Roman Catholic Church — near a sign proclaiming, “Jesus wants all of us to come to him” — between 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., police sources said. “I’m distressed. That crucifix means so much to the people here … I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Josu Iriondo, 75, pastor of the church on East 166th Street...

From The Wall Street Journal: Americans aren’t building churches like they used to anymore.Construction of religious buildings in the U.S. has fallen to the lowest level at any time since private records began in 1967. Religious groups will build an estimated 10.3 million square feet this year, down 6% from 2013 and 80% since construction peaked in 2002, according to Dodge Data & Analytics. In terms of dollars, spending on houses of worship totaled $3.15 billion last year, down by half from a decade earlier, according to Commerce Department figures.As the economy heals, churches, synagogues, mosques and temples may move...

Today (December 7th) marks the 73rd year anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor naval base. How sad that this date - which would live in infamy - has been nearly forgotten by toady's American population and especially our youth. Tragically it has been the successful revision of our American history by the Left and the evils of it that has made us weak and vulnerable to a present day "Pearl Harbor" of EXPONENTIAL proportions (Rev. 6). To set the stage for 1941, tensions were high between Tokyo and Washington. Japan had been flexing its military muscle through out China...

Picture the Pope praying in a mosque alongside top Muslim leaders. That’s what happened in Turkey last weekend. Pope Francis was at the Blue Mosque in Instabul on Saturday as part of his three-day visit to the predominantly Muslim country. He also celebrated Mass at the Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in the city. The visit to the mosque is significant as the Pope tries to promote peace and unity between Muslims and Christians. He’s the second Pope to worship at the Blue Mosque. The first was his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who was there in 2006 for a...

At first, it was easy to overlook. With all of his statements about caring for the poor, the disabled and immigrants, and all the fanfare surrounding his famous "Who am I to judge?" proclamation, Pope Francis seemed like a breath of fresh air for a church stuck resolutely in the past. The fact that he never commented on the long-standing marginalization of women in the Catholic Church, and asserted quite plainly that there would be no ordination of women, did nothing to dampen progressive enthusiasm for the new pope. There has been a hopeful sense that he would get around...

VATICAN CITY — The 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis is news again now that four cardinals have denied a new book’s claim that they campaigned for Pope Francis to be elected — though the book’s author has clarified the Pope himself was not a part of their supposed campaign. The London-based Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh, in his new book The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope, contends that a group of cardinals on what he bills as “Team Bergoglio” worked during the last conclave to promote the election of Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio of...

As readers of The Remnant may recall, while in Rome last summer I wrote an article which focused on the traditions and history of the Swiss Guard, and centered around the "giuramento," or swearing in, ceremony of the new Guardsmen. Few, if any, who have come in contact with the Guardsmen are not impressed with their courtesy, their military discipline, and their devotion to the Church. Along with these very distinctive young men, I had the good fortune of attending a press conference in which the Commander of the Swiss Guard, Colonel Daniel Anrig, impressed the gaggle of reporters by...