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I was exposed to an expression I had never heard before,in a troubling article in the Christian Post.The expression is “Sexual Atheism” and it refers to the cavalier attitude toward sexual activity among professing Christian youth. In a recent study conducted by ChristianMingle.com, Christian singles between the ages of 18 to 59 were asked, “Would you have sex before marriage?” The response? Sixty-three percent of the single Christian respondents indicated yes. In my 30 years of youth and adult ministry experience, this is as unfiltered, direct and honest as a question and answer can be.It is equally honest to say...

Florida megachurch pastor Bob Coy has resigned from his 20,000-member Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale congregation over a “moral failing.” A statement on the church’s website reported the news: ”On April 3, 2014, Bob Coy resigned as Senior Pastor of Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale, effective immediately, after confessing to a moral failing in his life which disqualifies him from continuing his leadership role at the church he has led since its founding in 1985,”...

In today’s Gospel We hear the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. The story is a significant turning point in the ministry of Jesus for, as we shall see, it because of this incident that the Temple Leadership in Jerusalem resolves to have Jesus killed.As is proper with all the gospel accounts we must not see this as merely an historical happening to people 2000 years ago. Rather we must recall that I am Lazarus, I am Martha and Mary. This is also the story of how Jesus is acting in my life.Let’s look at this Gospel...

A New York appeals court has affirmed a lower court’s 2012 ruling that a lesbian chef is owed $1.6 million for being forced to attend weekly prayer meetings where her boss would regularly warn that "gay people" were "going to go to hell." Mirella Salemi sued Gloria's Tribeca Inc., Gloria's Tribecamex and principal owner Edward Globokar for violations of the New York City Human Rights Law after a string of incidents that occurred between 2004 and 2007. Gloria's Tribeca is a Mexican restaurant. Salemi was awarded $400,000 in compensatory damages and $1.2 million in punitive damages in what her lawyer,...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Leading a penitential liturgy in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Francis surprised his liturgical adviser by going to confession during the service. After an examination of conscience March 28, the pope and 61 priests moved into confessionals or to chairs set up against the walls to offer the sacrament to individual penitents. However, as Msgr. Guido Marini, master of papal liturgical ceremonies, was showing which confessional the pope would be using to hear confessions, the pope pointed to another confessional nearby, indicating that he himself was going to first confess. A priest steps out of his confessional...

Christian leaders such as evangelist Franklin Graham and Russell D. Moore, who is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, expressed outrage that Christian relief organization World Vision announced it would hire employees in same-sex marriages on Monday. "I was shocked today to hear of World Vision's decision to hire employees in same-sex marriages," Graham, the son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, said in his statement. "The Bible is clear that marriage is between a man and a woman. "My dear friend, Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision and Samaritan's Purse, would be...

Shortly after I broke the news on my radio broadcast and on social media, Christianity Today confirmed the report: World Vision has decided to embrace homosexual "marriage" among its employees and to recognize practicing homosexual employees who profess faith in Jesus as true Christians. This is a betrayal of the gospel, a betrayal of the Lord, a betrayal of the family, and a betrayal of the countless thousands of Christians who have put their trust in World Vision as a legitimate Christian organization. In no way does it contribute to "building a better world for children" – one of the...

World Vision's American branch will no longer require its more than 1,100 employees to restrict their sexual activity to marriage between one man and one woman. Abstinence outside of marriage remains a rule. But a policy change announced Monday [March 24] will now permit gay Christians in legal same-sex marriages to be employed at one of America's largest Christian charities.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the sweeping acceptance of gay marriage in recent years is owed in large part to Christianity. Rejecting the rigidly hierarchical and stratified societies of the ancient world, Jesus Christ taught the equal dignity of all persons, proclaimed that the meek shall inherit the earth, and declared that the last shall be first and the first shall be last. The Western world has been working out the logic of these subversive teachings ever since, with the institutional transformation of marriage being the latest, though surely not the last, example of its social, moral,...

In recent times, there has been a development quite odd and unprecedented in the annals of the sexual “revolution.” When America’s traditional sexual mores started to break down, it always took the form of slouching toward “tolerance.” For example, consider fornication. Two unmarried opposite-sex individuals cohabitating was once known as “living in sin” and was not something any couple could do in their community. But as pedophile Alfred Kinsey’s fraudulent science and the phenomenon whereby, as Confucius said, no one likes “virtue as much as sex” eroded moral barriers, this started to change. And then one thing led to another,...

Five people were stabbed to death Friday morning at a market in the capital of Hunan Province in central China. Local media report that several Uighur “naan peddlers” suddenly went on a knifing rampage after a disagreement among food stall owners escalated into violence.

In the past decade, many Evangelical churches across the country have increasingly had to wrestle with how to engage members of their congregation who identify as LGBT. But this dilemma has not remained only at the lay level. In 2012, the leadership staff at the southern California megachurch, Calvary Community Church (CCC), had to grapple with their church's convictions on homosexuality, when Kevin McCloskey, one of the members of the executive team revealed that he was gay and that he would be also be divorcing his wife of 17 years. Executive Pastor Curtis Johnson declined to speak specifically with The...

In the past decade, many Evangelical churches across the country have increasingly had to wrestle with how to engage members of their congregation who identify as LGBT. But this dilemma has not remained only at the lay level. In 2012, the leadership staff at the southern California megachurch, Calvary Community Church (CCC), had to grapple with their church's convictions on homosexuality, when Kevin McCloskey, one of the members of the executive team revealed that he was gay and that he would be also be divorcing his wife of 17 years. Executive Pastor Curtis Johnson declined to speak specifically with The...

The responses to the Vatican questionnaire on the family are a clear signal that certain changes concerning the church’s teaching on sexual morality are imperative, according to Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier, Germany. Interviewed by the Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz, Ackermann, 50, said the responses showed “quite clearly” that for the majority of the faithful the church’s teaching on moral sexuality was “repressive” and “remote from life.” Declaring a second marriage after a divorce a perpetual mortal sin, and under no circumstances allowing remarried divorced people ever to receive the Sacraments, was not helpful, he said and added, “We bishops will...

In my college years I worked with a company that built and serviced pipe organs around the Washington DC area. During those years I probably entered some 300 different churches both Catholic and Protestant.Of course, as a Catholic, I particularly loved going to the Catholic churches. I especially loved visiting the older city parishes that were built back before the revolution. I had grown up in the suburbs where almost every church was built after 1955, when church building took a decided turn for the worse: Ugly bland, beige buildings with carpeted floors and potted plants. A plain wooden table...

Jesus Christ would absolutely bake a cake for a gay person. He’d bake a cake for a straight person. He’d bake a cake for a girl, a boy, a person who isn’t sure what they are, a black person, a white person — Jesus would bake that cake if it, in some way large or small, drew that person closer to Him. And Christians should too. Christians should show love and compassion to gays, straights, and everyone else. Christians should show God’s love in hopes of drawing people to a relationship with Christ. 95% of that may just be relationship...

A few new developments on the Catholic divorce front. First, we learn that Pope Francis hand-picked Kasper to persuade his see on substance. But "it’s a question of how to apply [church teaching to] the concrete, difficult, complex situation."Francis tapped Kasper to open the meetings with an address that would set the stage for the talks. Kasper — a onetime sparring partner of another German cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Benedict XVI — delivered a two-hour talk that centered on marriage and took up most of the morning’s session. Since the Church instructs us to be obedient or lose...

Violating God's laws by legislating in favor of same-sex ‘marriage’ is a threat to human civilization, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has said. Speaking after a liturgy on Sunday at the Kremlin's Cathedral of the Assumption in commemoration of the Russian Orthodox Church's New Martyrs and confessors, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said it’s possible to argue that such laws are needed “to avoid discrimination against anyone in anything.” “But the next moment one realizes that it is not civil, political, economic, or cultural discrimination that is meant here, but something that has never been...

The dispute among United Methodists over recognition of same-sex couples has lapsed into a doctrinal donnybrook, pitting clergy who are presiding at gay weddings in defiance of church law against proponents of traditional marriage who are trying to stop them. Since 2011, Methodist advocates for gay marriage have been recruiting clergy to openly officiate at same-sex ceremonies in protest of church policy. In response, theological conservatives have sought formal complaints against the defiant clergy, which could lead to church trials. One scholar has warned that Methodists are "retreating into our various camps" instead of seeking a resolution over an issue...

The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Diarmuid Martin, has said that some people in the Catholic Church may be homophobic. The teaching of the church could be used “in a homophobic way”, he told RTE. He said that the Church had to be very careful that this was not done in the forthcoming debate on the same-sex referendum. […] “Anyone who grew up in Ireland would have told jokes that were pointed at the gay community; at Travelers; it is part of the culture we grew up in, but we have to grow out of it,” he said. He said church...