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The Prince of Wales has made a donation to Iraqi Christians who he said are suffering from “diabolic evil” under ISIS. In a letter to Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako, Prince Charles wrote that he was making his donation, described as a “very small token”, via the charity Aid to the Church in Need. “You can have no idea how heartbroken I am to hear of the truly unbearable and barbaric persecution suffered not only by Christians in Iraq but also by some of their neighbours of other faiths,” he said. “I wanted you to know above all that my heart...

Baghdad (AsiaNews) - Islamic State fighters spills more Christian blood in Iraq as they continue to persecute unarmed civilians, including children. Sources within the Chaldean Patriarchate told AsiaNews that yesterday Sunni fundamentalists tortured and killed a Christian man in Bartala, a small predominantly Syriac town in the Niniveh Plains that has been occupied by Jihadists for the past few weeks. He was part of a small group who did not flee when the place was overrun. According to reports from a witness, the martyr - as the Patriarchate calls him - was a man of 43, Salem Matti Kourki. He...

Lesson 23: Romans 7:1-12 GodÂ’s law is not appreciated by fallen man. The corrupted moral nature we inherit from Adam makes us long to be free from moral obligations, and free from our feelings of guilt. Some who abhor the idea of answering to some higher authority than their own desires make fun of the moral laws of Scripture. They ridicule the God of the Bible. They believe they are naturally smarter than believers because of what they see as superior assumptions about the way things are and came to be. By convincing themselves that they are more intelligent, they...

Sometime on Saturday night, vandals attacked three Christian houses of worship in Columbus, Indiana, spray-painting the word "infidels" and citations of verses from the Koran on the outer walls. St. Bartholomew Catholic Church, Lakeview Church of Christ, and East Columbus Christian Church all had the word "infidels" spray-painted on them, in places of prominence to be seen by worshipers. Cited in the Indianapolis Star, Columbus police spokesperson Matt Harris said that church employees discovered the vandalism when they arrived to prepare for Sunday services. At St. Bartholomew, the words "Qur'an 3:151" were also left. That verse reads: We will cast...

Weep for slaughtered Christians, not for dialogue with Islam By Phil Lawler | Aug 29, 2014 Faced with the savage violence of the Islamic State (ISIS), Christians can be tempted toward two unhelpful emotional reactions. On one extreme is the thirst for vengeance. If Muslims extremists kill innocent Christians, intemperate voices suggest that we should kill innocent Muslims. Then we, too, would be terrorists. I trust that rational readers recognize the problem here.But at the other extreme is another irrational urge: the desire to overlook the violence, an inclination toward the mawkish hope that we might “just all be friends.”...

A Christian man was executed during the night by a high-profile ruler after making an uncompromising defense of real marriage. The Christian, who was renowned for his holiness, had told the ruler in public that his relationship with his partner was “against the law” of God. The Christian’s words enraged the ruler’s partner who successfully plotted to have him permanently silenced. John the Baptist was first imprisoned before he was beheaded. The Catholic Church honors him today, August 29, as a martyr and saint. While John’s death happened a little less than 2,000 years ago, his heroic stance for real...

By now, we’ve all heard the refrain that U.S. churches need liberalize their teachings on sexuality and homosexuality or rapidly decline. The logic behind the argument is simple: more and more Americans are embracing homosexuality and same-sex marriage, including growing numbers of religious Millennials. So long as churches remain the face of opposition to gay marriage, those churches will shrink into irrelevancy when gay marriage (inevitably, we are told) becomes a settled political issue. These arguments often see church acceptance of homosexuality as a carrot as well as a stick. It isn’t so much that denouncing homosexuality will drive people...

Time for another ELCA "conversation," this time regarding "who is welcome" to Holy Communion. An innocuous-sounding invitation to participate came out a few weeks ago, and and similar notice appears again in the Summer 2014 Seeds for the Parish, now appearing in snail boxes across the ELCA but not yet on its website. Resources for the conversation will be available at www.elca.org/worship "by mid-August," but so far not yet. Over at lutheranforum.org, Paul Hinlicky will have none of this innocuousness in yesterday's post The Truth about "Radical Hospitality". At its conclusion, he invites readers (I would presume ELCA clergy and...

The Perfect Revival? By Julio Severo Brazil has experienced an explosive growth of Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal (neo-charismatic) churches. Large crowds of poor people have been attending these churches looking for answers for their physical, material and spiritual needs. The Brazilian Catholic Church, plagued by the Liberation Theology, has been worried about this growth. And even mainline Brazilian Protestant churches, similarly plagued by Protestant versions of the Liberation Theology, have been worried. International onlookers see such growth as a phenomenon or even evidence of “revival.” Yet, Brazilian Calvinist critics question that if it were genuine, Brazil would not have now...

Explore in 360 degrees the Sistine Chapel, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and many more - all online.Christians have been making pilgrimages to holy sites and churches around the world for centuries. Can’t make a pilgrimage? Here’s the next best thing! Some tours are embedded on this page, while others can be found with the link provided. Enjoy! 1) Sistine Chapel – Vatican CityBuilt in the 15th century and painted in the 16th century, the Sistine Chapel is one of the great artistic masterpieces in the world. Michelangelo painted the ceiling and the Last Judgement fresco, while the frescoes...

Not everyone will welcome the Pope to South Korea. A group of Protestants held a demonstration on Tuesday, slamming the Roman Catholic Church as heretical. Organizers say about 10,000 people attended the event at a convention center west of Seoul, where a number of Protestant pastors stressed the difference between the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches, according to local Protestant media. Rev. Song Chun-gil, the secretary general of the group, called Catholicism a perversion of faith, according to the reports. He has opposed recent moves among mainstream Protestant church leaders to form a relationship with the Roman Catholics, according...

The English surgeons who fought to save the life of a badly mangled motorcyclist on the morning of July 20 might have guessed he was someone unusual, since the hospital was receiving calls from Rome, from the pope himself, asking for updates. The silver Audi that slammed into a Protestant cleric named Bishop Tony Palmer in a quiet country lane that morning, however, left little chance of his surviving, and he died after a 10-hour emergency surgery. The news stunned not just his grieving wife and young adult children, but many across the Christian world who were aware that, behind...

Morning and Evening Charles H. Spurgeon August 8, 2014 Morning Reading They weave the spider's web. —Isaiah 59:5 See the spider's web, and behold in it a most suggestive picture of the hypocrite's religion. It is meant to catch his prey: the spider fattens himself on flies, and the Pharisee has his reward. Foolish persons are easily entrapped by the loud professions of pretenders, and even the more judicious cannot always escape. Philip baptized Simon Magus, whose guileful declaration of faith was so soon exploded by the stern rebuke of Peter. Custom, reputation, praise, advancement, and other flies, are the...

While standing on a shoreline with The Lord both of us looking out not far off in the calm sea I saw a great sailing ship with twelve sails and hundreds of lines many for each sail some to lift them and many to control them and change their direction depending on the conditions and direction of the wind . On deck I saw just one child of God and a few people they had chosen as the crew not God frantically running all over futily attempting to control and adjust all the sails simultaneously and I sensed each sail...

What are we doing? How can we sit back and watch this slaughter? It is time we resurrect the Christian Militia Orders (no I am not Roman Catholic), and defend our brothers and sisters in Christ. Food, water, money, weapons, ammo, armor, etc. I'm all in. I know many of you feel the same way. Let us find a way.

While I was at the recent Napa Institute gathering, I got to know Kristina Arriaga, Executive Director of The Becket Fund, which defends religious freedom. They guided the Hobby Lobby decision to a good conclusion and for that we owe them a lot. I had this note from them today. It included this: [quote] Dear Friends, I grew up in a household where we were expected to pepper all tales with a bit of Cuban exaggeration. This was, after all, essential for good storytelling. So, in a way, I wish I were making this up. Within the IRS, there is,...

A great English Christian figure is in danger of dying outThe Church organist is in a strange position, half in and half out of the service – partly why I like it. In some churches, if I am lucky, I am hidden away from the vicar and the congregation, so if the service is boring I can do silent practice on the keyboard or read the psalms, helpfully reprinted at the back of the best hymn book: the English Hymnal. The other advantage, from an oldie’s point of view, is that you don’t have to keep standing up all the...

So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables.” (Acts 6:2, NIV) It is interesting how fast our emerging, organic, non-institutional forms of life sprout institutions. The apostles went from a group of 12 leaders of a communistic society in which everyone shared everything and few distinctions were made, to the executive committee of an institution. Here we have differeniated ministry, modes of conferring authority, and even standards of selection. By Acts 15, we will have full...

Greetings in the Name our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! May God grant you the abundance of His Grace as you follow Him day by day! If you have been paying attention to what is happening in the Middle East in recent months, you will note that those who are Christians are being brutally murdered, women and girls raped and forced into marriage, experiencing all kinds of torture, and hundreds of thousands have been forced out of their homes and countries. We are seeing communities who date to the 1st Century with their Christian presence being totally annihilated and killed....

The Trouble With Calvin – Pt. 3 In my last two blog posts, we examined the first two of the “five points” of Calvinism popularly known by the acronym, TULIP, which represents 1. Total Depravity 2. Unconditional Election 3. Limited Atonement 4. Irresistible Grace 5. Perseverance of the Saints (“once saved, always saved”). In this post, we will tackle the third point:Limited AtonementNo Christian that I know of would deny that some doctrines are more or less clear than others in Scripture. When it comes to the atonement of Christ, the Scriptures are most clear: Jesus Christ died on the...