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The unbelieving world will always do “cool” better than the Church. When the Church adopts coolness and relevance as its corporate values, it slavishly agrees to follow, lagging always one step behind the world. (This is why Christian music always ends up ripping off the sounds and styles of their secular counterparts, while Christian film always has a cheesy “cringe factor”).

<p>A United Methodist pastor was convicted Monday of breaking church law by officiating his son's same-sex wedding and could be defrocked after a high-profile trial that has rekindled debate over the denomination's policy on gay marriage.</p> <p>The Methodist church put the Rev. Frank Schaefer on trial in southeastern Pennsylvania, accusing him of breaking his pastoral vows by presiding over the 2007 ceremony in Massachusetts.</p>

A Pennsylvania pastor charged under United Methodist law with officiating his son's same-sex marriage is scheduled to go on trial. The Rev. Frank Schaefer, 51, could be defrocked.... "Public opinion has changed very rapidly," said the pastor's son.... ...Schaefer could have avoided a trial if he had agreed never again to perform a same-gender wedding, but he declined because three of his four children are gay.

'I'm not here to be preaching hate, pushing people down' God “absolutely” approves of everyone — including homosexuals — declared one of America’s most well-known evangelical pastors The Houston megapastor and best-selling author Joel Osteen, whose followers include the likes of Cher and Oprah Winfrey, is hitting the talk-show circuit to promote his new book, “Break Out! Osteen, the very visible face of Lakewood Church in Houston since 1999,  talked to the Huffington Post about his thoughts on prayer, the pope and the homosexual lifestyle. HuffPo Live host Josh Zepps quoted from Osteen’s new book: “It doesn’t matter who...

The pastor of a North Carolina megachurch has built a $1.7-million-dollar mansion for himself and his family which he told his congregation at Sunday's sermon is a 'gift from God.' Elevation Church Pastor Steven Furtick, 33, is unapologetic about his ostentatious new seven-and-a-half bathroom, 16,000-square-foot home built on 19 acres in Weddington. He spent the first part of his sermon talking about the controversy surrounding its construction and apologizing to his parishioners for any 'uncomfortable conversations,' they may have been forced to have about it.

Minor explained how he won a major grant – some $317,742 -- from the federal government, despite the fact that his church is small. “I applied for it.” His church has approximately 100 members. The church kitchen carries a sign reading, “No Fry Zone.” Minor said, “It’s a symbol, especially with people of color. You’ve got to rally around symbols.” Minor says he has built a network of 75 to 100 navigators and counselors to work the Obamacare system. “We feel like once you get people in churches and families, they will become de facto navigators,” Minor explained.

“He was telling me to get on the ground, but that's when I pulled my weapon and said, 'no, you get on the ground….I told him don’t move, put your face down on the ground, don’t even look at me right now. And I just told him ‘this is out of love,’” Sanders stated.

NORTH HAMPTON, Ohio — A self-described militant atheist with a criminal past faces multiple charges after an attack on a pastor who, after his sermon, had asked the man's girlfriend if she felt safe. James Maxie, 28, of Springfield, Ohio, is charged with second-degree felonious assault and misdemeanor resisting arrest after an incident Sunday at The Bridge Community Church in North Hampton. Police Chief Jarrod Campbell said in his 11 years with the department, he's rarely dealt with "an incident this brutal." The Rev. Norman Hayes, 57, said he feared for his life and begged for the attack to stop....

UPDATED AT 6:40 P.M. CLEVELAND,Ohio -- The Rev. James McGonegal,pastor of a West Side Cleveland Catholic church,was charged today with soliciting sex while being HIV-positive. He had been arrested Friday in Edgewater Park. In the incident report released today,an off-duty Cleveland Metroparks ranger said McGonegal offered the ranger $50 to help him “get off,” then exposed himself and masturbated,all while sitting inside his late-model Jeep SUV. The report said McGonegal had three sex devices in his Jeep when he was arrested around 12:45 p.m. The priest,68,was released on personal bond from Cleveland City Jail this morning other media reports said....

“It’s awfully hard to actually suggest abortion,” said Smith. “But, you know, I’m sure that, uh, in a case like this where the life expectancy is just, you know, is so bleak, and all, that I’m sure that the Lord would not condemn her if she went ahead and had an abortion at this early stage of the development of the fetus.”

(CHRISTIANITY TODAY) Chuck Smith, the evangelical pastor whose outreach to hippies in the 1960s helped transform worship styles in American Christianity and fueled the rise of the Calvary Chapel movement, died Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 86. Diagnosed in 2011, Smith continued to preach and oversee administration at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa (California), where he’d been pastor since 1965. In 2012, he established a 21-member leadership council to oversee the Calvary Church Association, a fellowship of some 1,600 like-minded congregations in the United States and abroad. Smith was known for expository preaching as...

Chuck Smith, the evangelical pastor whose outreach to hippies in the 1960s helped transform worship styles in American Christianity and fueled the rise of the Calvary Chapel movement, died Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 86. Diagnosed in 2011, Smith continued to preach and oversee administration at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa (California), where he'd been pastor since 1965. In 2012, he established a 21-member leadership council to oversee the Calvary Church Association, a fellowship of some 1,600 like-minded congregations in the United States and abroad.

A Louisiana pastor was shot to death while preaching in church, and the suspected gunman was arrested after surrendering to police, authorities said on Saturday. Woodrow Karey, 53, faces a charge of second degree murder in the slaying late on Friday of Pastor Ronald J. Harris Sr. at the Tabernacle of Praise Worship Center in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Kim Myers said. Lake Charles is 190 miles west of New Orleans. Karey walked into the church, shot Harris twice with a shotgun and then fled, Myers said. About 50 to 60 people were in the church...

31 year old Brent Girouex was arrested on 60 counts of suspicion of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist. The former youth counselor told police he did it to “help with homosexual urges by praying while he had sexual contact with [them]." He claimed the acts would give his victims "sexual purity." Making matters even worse, Girouex has four children of his own and now his estranged wife Erin is speaking out against him now. Girouex admitted having sexual relations with at least four young men but as many as eight have now stepped forward claiming abuse. The man...

Standing in a security line at O'Hare International Airport seven years ago, the Rev. Bobby Gruenewald wished he had a Bible in his pocket to pass the time. Then the tech-savvy pastor raised in central Illinois had a thought: Wouldn't it be grand if anyone could have their favorite version of the Bible within reach anywhere at any time? "Could we be at one of these moments in history where technology, if we leverage it correctly, could transform how we engage in the Bible?" Gruenewald, 37, recalls thinking that day. "Drawing from the story of the printing press, for centuries,...

A federal judge has backed a homosexual-rights group in its claim that members were injured by an American pastor’s biblical preaching in Uganda against homosexual behavior. But the ruling from Judge Michael Posner in a case brought by Sexual Minorities Uganda against Pastor Scott Lively of Abiding Truth Ministries could mean much more. It could establish that an international consensus disavowing long-held biblical standards could trump the U.S. Constitution.

A misdemeanor trespassing trial for a gay Baptist minister and his partner who refused to leave a city clerk’s office after being denied a marriage license was postponed Monday when attorneys were unable to come up with an impartial jury. Attorneys for Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard and Dominique James and prosecutors questioned prospective jurors Aug. 6 in Jefferson County District Court in Louisville, Ky. After people were eliminated for various reasons, not enough remained in the jury pool for the trial to proceed. The trial was rescheduled for Nov. 25. Blanchard and James tried to apply for a marriage license in...

Young Tatiana Kirby cried until she couldn't cry anymore last Monday night after an angry man attending a party next door pumped several bullets into the body of her father, Pastor Tim Kirby, 46, after he asked them to turn down the music. "It was devastating. I cried for a minute, and then it was like I couldn't cry no more," the young girl told WDIV 4 of her father's untimely death in Detroit, Mich. "He was a good father. He was always a caring person. Every Sunday we were always in church. He always made sure we had clothes,...

A notable Christian leader with same-sex attraction says that he holds "mixed feelings" about the recent shutting down of Exodus International and the apology issued to the LGBTQ community by its president. Christopher Yuan, pastor and author of Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son's Journey to God, A Broken Mother's Search for Hope, provided The Christian Post with a statement on Friday regarding the news. "I have never experienced reparative therapy, re-orientation counseling or Exodus support groups. I cannot speak personally about the effectiveness or harm of such methodologies," said Yuan. "However, I do know of Christ's atoning...

Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Wash., recently spoke on the gift of tongues as described in the New Testament as part of his "Acts: Empowered for Jesus' Mission" sermon series. The conservative Reformed, or New Calvinist, Christian minister laid out his arguments as to why he believes the gift of speaking in tongues did not end with Jesus' apostles in the first century. Cessationists, such as influential pastor and traditional Calvinist John MacArthur, believe that 1 Corinthians 13:8 and other Biblical passages indicate that the divine ability to speak in other languages or an unknown tongue...