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(RNS) — Whitworth University, a Christian school affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has revised its policies to allow for the hiring of faculty who identify as LGBTQ and to add sexual orientation to its non-discrimination statement. In so doing, it joins a sliver of Christian colleges and universities that are hiring faculty in same-sex marriages. Last year, Eastern University, a Christian school affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA, made a similar change to its hiring policy. Whitworth, which is located in Spokane, Washington, and last academic year had an enrollment of 2,500 students, announced the change on Thursday...

A Democrat lawmaker from Arizona was caught on video swiping Bibles from a state House lounge, after which she apparently hid them. Say what? KTVK-TV reported that the security team at the Arizona Capitol placed a camera in the House’s members-only lounge to get to the bottom of how Bibles were vanishing. Sure enough, they weren't just disappearing into the ether. Resulting video shows Democrat state Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton pilfering two Bibles in just minutes, KTVK said. The act didn't sit well with Republican Speaker Pro Tempore Travis Grantham, the station said. “When I’m watching that, I’m thinking, ‘Well,...

(Photo: Q via The Christian Post)Eugene Peterson concludes his discussions with Q Ideas Gabe Lyons today with a conversation on Being Immersed In Scripture.Eugene Peterson, the Presbyterian pastor who wrote the The Message, has come out in support of gay marriage, saying that he would officiate a same-sex wedding if asked.In an interview with Jonathan Merritt at Religion News Service Wednesday, the author of more than 30 books said that he knows many gays and lesbians who "seem to have as good a spiritual life as I do," noting that he would not have said that 20 years ago. He...

Marilyn Caye grew up in Pittsburgh’s Perry Hilltop neighborhood and graduated from University of Pittsburgh. A few years later she decided to explore the other end of the country and wound up in the San Francisco Bay area. She soon learned that while she could leave Pittsburgh, there was a part of the Steel City that wouldn’t leave her. “I was about to audition for a commercial in San Francisco. When I was at Perry High School, I had done voice work for Rege Cordic’s ‘Cordic and Company’ on KDKA radio. I called a fellow in Sausalito to get some...

Abortionist Leroy Carhart addresses Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options in 2010. AbortionWiki.org Phoyo caption left because of fascinating context Late-term abortionist says protecting babies born alive after failed abortions is ‘ignorant’ Abortion, Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, Late-Term Abortion, Leroy Carhart NEBRASKA, March 5, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart broke a decade of silence to condemn the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, saying that the bill’s sponsor – fellow Nebraskan Sen. Ben Sasse – is “ignorant and doesn't understand what he is talking about, or even worse, he's lying.” This was Carhart’s first television interview in nearly ten years....

WEED, California, January 10, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – After an American pastor refused to bow to pro-LGBT protesters’ demands that he change his church message board, he found the sign in ruins. Pastor Justin Hoke of Trinity Bible Presbyterian Church in Weed, Siskiyou County, California angered some folks when he put up a message on the marquee outside his church last week reading “Bruce Jenner is still a man. Homosexuality is still a sin. The culture may change. The Bible does not.”Although he normally changes his sign from week to week, Hoke said he would not take down his message until...

A California pastor is looking for a job after facing backlash over a church sign that affirms the biblical definition of gender and marriage. Pastor Justin Hoke of Trinity Bible Presbyterian Church in Weed, California, posted a new church sign in early January. The sign read: "Bruce Jenner is still a man. Homosexuality is still sin. The culture may change. The Bible does not."

Media reports over the last several months have trumpeted that witches in the U.S. now outnumber Presbyterians.It’s great religious click-bait but the assertion, to the extent it’s based on anything, rests on a false comparison.In 2014 Pew Research Center estimated that 0.4 percent of Americans, about 1 to 1.5 million people, identify as Wiccan or Pagan. This statistic, cited in all the media reports, is evidently the most recently available data, although it is four years old. But faddish stories can sometimes be ginned up based on old numbers.Media reports have compared this number of supposed Wiccans/Pagans with 1.4 million...

The number of self identified witches in America has soared in recent years to 1.5 million. A survey by Pew Research found 0.4% of Americans, between 1 and 1.5 million - identify as Wicca or Pagan, according to Quartz. That means there are now more witches in the US than there are Presbyterians who have around 1.4 million adherents. Experts believe that the explosion in the witch population is due to millennial women’s embracing of new-age spirituality, mindfulness, meditation, and yoga. Wicca, also called Witchcraft or The Craft, is a Pagan religion which emerged in Britain in the early 20th...

The population of self-identified witches has risen dramatically in the United States in recent decades, as interest in astrology and witchcraft practices have become increasingly mainstreamed. While data is sparse, Quartz noted, the practice of witchcraft has grown significantly in recent decades; those who identify as witches has risen concurrently with the rise of the "witch aesthetic." "While the U.S. government doesn't regularly collect detailed religious data, because of concerns that it may violate the separation of church and state, several organizations have tried to fill the data gap," Quartz reported. "From 1990 to 2008, Trinity College in Connecticut ran...

FULL TITLE: Church leaders say Roy Moore is 'infected by a false Christian religious virus' as they hold a rally in Alabama arguing he is unfit for US Senate A group of church leaders in Alabama have spoken out against Republican US Senate candidate Roy Moore saying he is infected with a 'false Christian religious virus'. The Rev. William J. Barber, a leading figure among religious liberals, led a rally against Moore at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Birmingham on Saturday after he was dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct involving teenage girls decades ago. Barber told the crowd of 100...

Unknown to the general public and ignored by the academic and foreign affairs establishments, Americans once were leaders of religion, education, and intellectual life in Pyongyang, as missionaries who created the foremost Christian community in Northeast Asia. Before the Soviet Union installed an atheist Communist regime in Pyongyang headed by Kim Il Sung, the city was the center of the Presbyterian Church in Asia, and hundreds of thousands of Korean Christians lived there and elsewhere in what is now North Korea. It was a union of Koreans and Americans that set the course that made South Korea the majority Christian...

A large church in Alabama is one step closer to creating its own police force, a move that seems to be without precedent in the U.S. The state's Senate has approved legislation that would give church police officers the same powers other law enforcement officers have in Alabama. After being approved by Alabama's Senate on a 24-4 vote, the bill now heads to the state House of Representatives, where an identical bill was sent to the Public Safety and Homeland Security committee in February. Both chambers' legislation specifically names Briarwood Presbyterian Church, a Birmingham megachurch that "says it needs its...

The Muslims told the Detroit Free-Press that they were concerned about the religious implications of Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church's "Eggstravaganza!" They were also "troubled" by images of a bunny rabbit. "It really bothered my two kids," parent Majed Moughni, told the newspaper. "My son was like, 'Dad, I really don't feel comfortable getting these flyers, telling me to go to church. I thought churches are not supposed to mix with schools.' "

Donald Trump may be a fierce debater and a brash critic who is always happy to speak his mind and then some, but there seems to be one place the presidential hopeful is more than happy to lay low - church. Trump and his family attended the 10:30pm midnight mass service at Bethesda-By-The-Sea in West Palm Beach, Florida on Christmas Eve, and the billionaire businessman somehow managed to avoid the massive number of photographers and members of the press waiting outside to document his arrival. Instead he slipped inside unnoticed for the service, with the only photographs from the evening...

Ben Franklin is the prototype for the celebrity-as-politician. His autobiography is still in print; if he were alive, he’d be on Drudge’s columnists’ list, and command speaking fees that would turn Hillary Clinton green with envy. A popular T-shirt has a quote erroneously attributed to Franklin: ‘Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.’ But John Witherspoon? He wasn’t a fan of self-promotion, which was no less prevalent then. Today, in D.C., his statue stands at a tiny triangle where Connecticut Avenue intersects with N Street and 18th Street N.W. It is routinely ignored. At...

JERUSALEM, Israel -- What does the Presbyterian Church USA and Pink Floyd's Roger Waters have in common? They both support boycotting Israel, a sweeping movement that's trying to delegitimize the Jewish state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a great struggle and international campaign is being waged against his country to "blacken its name." "It is not connected to our actions; it is connected to our very existence," Netanyahu said. "It does not matter what we do; it matters what we symbolize and what we are." Just this week, the CEO of French mobile phone giant Orange said he'd cut...

WASHINGTON — Was the resurrection of Jesus Christ an anti-scientific event? This question was discussed at a March 13 conference on science and religion hosted by The American Association for the Advancement of Science's Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion.At the end of a panel on "Science Engagement in Congregations," an audience member who identified himself as a rabbi said "the elephant in the room has not been discussed," which he identified as, "that the fundamental basis of Christianity is a violation of nature."He began his remarks by recalling another event he attended at a Presbyterian church. An audience member...

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has voted to allow congregations to ordain gay ministers who are in same sex civil partnerships. Delegates voted 309 in favour and 183 against. The vote followed a church-wide debate and consultations with all 45 presbyteries, which voted 31 to 14 in favour of change. A further vote will be held this week on whether or not to extend ordination to ministers in same sex marriages. Supporters said it was time for the church to be inclusive and recognise the "mixed economy" of modern Scotland. Opponents warned that the move was contrary...

Church of Scotland Votes To Let Deacons And Ministers Have Same Sex Civil Partnerships Vote maintains Church's traditional view of marriage between a man and woman, but allows individual congregations to "opt out" By Nicola Harley 16 May 2015 The Church of Scotland has voted in favour of allowing people in same sex civil partnerships to be called as ministers and deacons. The decision was made by the General Assembly on the Mound in Edinburgh on Saturday, where the motion was passed by 309 votes in favour and 182 against. The outcome is the culmination of years of deliberation within...