Free Republic

The woman who opened fire at Joel Osteen’s Houston-area mega-church on Sunday has been named as Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36, according to the Houston Chronicle, as authorities revealed she had ‘Free Palestine’ written on her weapon. Moreno entered Osteen’s Lakewood Church just before 2 p.m. with a boy, believed to be about 4 or 5 years old, and opened fire into the church. Two off-duty officers working security at the church — a Houston cop and an agent with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission — returned fire and fatally shot the woman, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said Sunday. The...

A Texas megachurch has been slammed for its extravagant Christmas service, which featured nearly 1,000 performers, several camels and flying angels. Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas has gone viral on social media for its yearly The Gift of Christmas show - a Vegas-style spectacle that retells the story of the birth of Jesus. Footage of the event on Sunday shows real sheep walking across the stage before flying angels appear over the crowd, followed by hundreds of performers and three live camels entering the scene. A TikTok video posted by Lawson Martin - titled 'They say everything is bigger in...

In the trenches of today’s cultural battlefield, where truth is often held hostage by the whims of the zeitgeist, the Colliers’ conjugal collapse is not merely tabloid fodder—it’s a stark expose of a church culture skewed askew. Here we have Sam Collier, once celebrated as Hillsong Atlanta’s first Black lead pastor, who ascended the ecclesiastical ladder not through the grueling gauntlet of theological rigor, but through the charisma and cunning identity politics that now brand these modern-day temples. Collier’s tenure in the ecclesiastical sphere is marked not just by his time at Hillsong but also by his previous involvement with...

North Carolina megachurch Elevation—known for its popular music and charismatic pastor—is withdrawing its affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention effective immediately, according to a letter sent to the SBC’s Executive Committee and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. “We would like to thank the Southern Baptists for the privilege of partnering with you, especially through the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina for nearly two decades,” says the letter, which was published by the official SBC publication Baptist Press. It goes on to thank the Conference for “the privilege of having been affiliated with the SBC all these years”...

An Alabama megachurch has voted to leave the United Methodist Church due to concerns over the apparent theological directionof the mainline Protestant denomination. Covenant United Methodist Church of Dothan, which has approximately 2,600 members, voted last week to seek disaffiliation from the UMC, with 406 present members voting in favor of leaving, 64 voting against, and four abstaining. Covenant UMC Pastor Kyle Gatlin told The Christian Post that major factors for wanting to leave included “the direction we saw the denomination was headed,” theologically. This included how some bishops were refusing to enforce the UMC Book of Discipline’s rules prohibiting...

An elder at a California megachurch and her father have been charged with the murder and torture of her adopted 11-year-old daughter, whose adoptive father also killed himself in front of the cops on the day that she died. Leticia McCormack, 49, and her father Stanley Tom pleaded not guilty to the charges Wednesday in Superior Court of California in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon. Stanley's wife Adella Tom - who faces abuse charges - also pleaded not guilty. Brian McCormack, Leticia's husband and a CBP agent, killed himself in front of police before he could be charged....

Challenging popular Evangelical belief, controversial televangelist Creflo Dollar, one of America's most flamboyant proponents of the prosperity gospel, has renounced tithing and all his previous teachings on the subject as "not correct." He also urged his followers to "throw away every book, every tape and every video I ever did on the subject of tithing" but says he will not apologize for his error. In a Sunday sermon billed "The Great Misunderstanding," the founder and senior pastor of the nearly 30,000-member World Changers Church International headquartered in College Park, Georgia, said he is aware that his declaration will cause him...

Megachurch pastor Joel Osteen has been questioned by police after 'bags and bags' of cash and checks were found in about 500 envelopes in a bathroom wall at Lakewood Church in Texas. A plumber who worked at the church and only gave his first name, Justin, called into a Houston radio morning 100.3 The Bull show to tell them about his shocking discovery, which comes seven years after about $600,000 in donations was stolen and hasn't been recovered. Justin was called in to America's largest church, Lakewood Church, on November 10 to fix a broken toilet, he said. 'There was...

Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church of Marietta, Georgia. In April 2021, the church voted to begin a profess of disaffiliation from the UMC A regional body of the United Methodist Church has seized control of the assets of a Georgia megachurch trying to leave the mainline Protestant denomination. The leadership of the UMC North Georgia Conference unanimously voted to approve the seizure of assets belonging to Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church, a Marietta-based congregation with approximately 10,000 members. In April, Mt. Bethel voted to begin a process of discernment for leaving the UMC due to the conference’s decision to...

I originally came to Christ in one of the darkest times of my life. I left Islam once I removed my head cover and was told I would spend an eternity in hellfire, hanging from my hair. After more than twenty years, I could no longer worship a God that was that cruel and unpredictable. I resolved to a life without a relationship with God, but it was not long before my personal and professional life was in utter chaos. I turned to prayer for help. I no longer knew or had a personal relationship with the God I was...

Former Super Bowl champion Ben Watson rebuked Democrat Senate candidate Raphael Warnock over his support for abortion on demand as essential to achieve “reproductive justice,” i.e. equality for black women. Watson, a pro-life Christian and former NFL tight end who won the Super Bowl with the New England Patriots. addressed Warnock on Twitter: Pastor, equal access to kill a son or daughter is NOT justice. JUSTICE is the equitable distribution of punishment AND protection. JUSTICE is rooted in the dignity of every human endowed by their Creator. One cannot truly fight for JUSTICE while simultaneously denying it. Watson, who has...

Back at the first of the month, the media and NeverTrump were all gaga over an article by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic claiming that a) President Trump had deliberately avoided attending a commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I to be held at the US military cemetery at Belleau Wood, France, and b) that President Trump referred to the Americans buried there, mostly Marines of the 4th Marine Brigade of the US Army’s 2d Infantry Division, as “losers” and “suckers.”The problems with the story were manifest. First off, memos had been obtained under...

A megachurch in Cincinnati announced Sunday that it is paying off $46.5 million in medical debt for more than 45,000 families. Crossroads Church partnered with RIP Medical Debt, a medical debt relief nonprofit, to wipe out debts for people in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana. They will receive bright yellow envelopes this week letting them know the good news.

A South Carolina megachurch led by celebrity pastor John Gray is facing eviction after another well-known preacher said Relentless Church wasn’t paying its bills, court filings show. Gray, a protégé of televised preacher Joel Osteen, took over the space of Redemption Church in Greenville in 2018. He has been in a dispute with Redemption owner and pastor Ron Carpenter over the property for months, according to multiple reports. The 30-day eviction notice was filed Jan. 2 in Greenville County, court records show. Redemption told Gray and his congregation to be out of the building by the end of 2019, the...

A United Methodist Church congregation in Texas with approximately 2,800 members has voted to leave the mainline denomination because of its debate over homosexuality. Grace Fellowship UMC of Katy voted Dec. 15 to leave the UMC due to the divisive debate on whether to amend the Book of Discipline to remove language calling homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.” Jim Leggett, the founding pastor of Grace Fellowship, told The Christian Post in an interview Monday that his congregation wanted “to remove ourselves from the dysfunctional fighting going on in the United Methodist Church so that we can fully devote our energies...

The Rev. Wes Feltner, lead pastor of preaching and vision at the multi-campus Berean Baptist Church in Burnsville, Minnesota, has resigned from his post amid an investigation into allegations from two 35-year-old women who say he manipulated them into sexual relationships while they were teenagers 17 years ago. “After much prayer and deep consideration for his family and the mission of Berean Baptist Church, pastor Wes Feltner has submitted his resignation,” elders of the church read from a statement to the congregation last weekend, according to the Star Tribune. “Pastor Wes and his family are entering a period to seek...

Harvest Bible Chapel elders have formally disqualified their founding pastor, James MacDonald, from ministry, reasoning that his actions have not met Scriptural requirements to be an elder.In a letter read to the congregation on Sunday, Elder Karl Jackson explains that even though the church elders were grateful to MacDonald for his three decades of ministry to the church, they nevertheless had to take action following revelations about his conduct.The elders stated: "On February 12, 2019 James MacDonald's employment was terminated by our elder board as our Senior Pastor for not being 'above reproach' and for having a 'sinful pattern of inappropriate...

Of all the projects real estate mogul Donald Trump wanted to build, here’s one that nobody saw. According to his long-time personal pastor, Paula White-Cain, Trump, in 2006 was taking steps to build a glass cathedral. “He wanted to build a house of God,” she told us. “He said, ‘Let’s do this, let’s build this before we’re too old,’” said White-Cain told Secrets. Trump had an architect in place and was eager to have her take charge of the church, but White-Cain said the timing wasn’t right for her. At the time, her ministry was on nine TV networks, and...

Want to fatten a church for slaughter? The steps are below. This is a true story. 1. Launch a “church for people who don’t like the church” with a dynamic leader with big ideas and self-help teaching. 2. Care less about biblical depth, discipleship, and leadership character than inspirational messages, excitement, and creativity. Make sure the success is built around the leader’s “brand” so that he and the church are largely synonymous. 3. See the place attract large crowds. 4. See the success go to the leader’s head. Make excuses and accommodations as his short temper, control issues, and lack...

Police in Illinois are currently investigating allegations that Harvest Bible Chapel founder James MacDonald sought to find a hitman to commit murder. “A subject came in and filed a report and we are doing an investigation based on that report,” Wilmette Deputy Police Chief Pat Collins confirmed with The Christian Post Monday. The allegations regarding MacDonald’s efforts to commit murder were first reported by independent journalist Julie Roys, who cited Chicago radio personality Mancow Muller and Emmanuel “Manny” Bucur, a deacon at HBC and former confidant and volunteer bodyguard of MacDonald’s, as the individuals making the claims. Muller alleges that...