The New Garden Church is not a traditional Church of Christ. Then again, it’s not trying to be. The church plant — which grew out of the Hermitage Church of Christ, a half-century-old congregation that closed in 2018 — seeks to reach a new generation with the Gospel.
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Gordon College, a Christian school in Wenham, Massachusetts, could be required to pay back more than $7 million of COVID-19 relief funds. The school contested, arguing that its request for loan forgiveness was denied because of religious discrimination.
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Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, spoke recently inside the Board of Education conference room at the state Capitol complex in Oklahoma City. The interview came amid a national debate that every teacher in Oklahoma must be provided with physical copies of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Ten Commandments.
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Christian universities are dying. Several years of soaring costs, declining demographics and insufficient cash reserves have steadily driven the market into crisis. Yet, a 79-year-old private institution in North Carolina appears to be an anomaly. Carolina University’s enrollment has surged 29% this year, rising from 826 to 1,068 students.
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Liberty University and its former president Jerry Falwell Jr. have reached an agreement to settle all outstanding disputes and lawsuits between the two parties. A statement said the two reached a mutual understanding about the retirement and severance Liberty will pay to Falwell.
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As the number of U.S. frozen embryos has grown to estimates beyond a million, their moral status has become the crux of discussion among bioethicists. Vic McCracken, professor of ethics and theology at Abilene Christian University, co-teaches the medical bioethics course with Cynthia Powell, who directs ACU’s Center for Pre-Health Professions. Every year the class includes students who were born through IVF.
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(ANALYSIS) Here’s a lesson that I’ve learned over the last couple of years: If the first book you write gets any traction at all, you will be remembered for that work for years to come. Not that it’s a bad thing. I am still giving presentations to different groups that use graphs that I first put together over five years ago. People want to read “The Nones” and talk about it. That’s truly a blessing. I think I speak for most academics when I say that I’m just glad that anyone wants to read what we spend years writing.
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Erskine College, a small Christian college in South Carolina that has faced its own financial challenges in recent years, has filed a lawsuit in a South Carolina state court against Icelaven Development Group for failing to repay a $1 million loan.
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The theme of the conference, which took place at the school’s campus in South Bend, Indiana, was “Depolarizing Religious Liberty,” which still depends too much on one's race, faith or nationality. The highlight of the summit was an awards program and gala where the Religious Liberty Clinic was named after Lindsay and Matt Morun, who have supported such efforts financially since its inception.
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(ANALYSIS) The lavish over-use of capital letters in the 2024 Republican Party platform, set for approval at this week’s Milwaukee convention, demonstrates that this is wholly a Donald Trump production. So does the Trumpublicans’ softened stance on abortion, which has dominated the news coverage.
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Indonesia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi officially opened on Wednesday the two-day International Conference on Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy aimed at encouraging dialogue between different faith traditions. The conference hopes to strengthen the country’s respect for religious pluralism, while also addressing a variety of topics for reaching out to other faiths through education programs and human rights legislation.
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Ministries continue to distance themselves from Robert Morris, founder of Gateway Church in Texas, in the wake of accusations that he sexually abused a girl for several years, starting when she was 12.
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(ANALYSIS) A Louisiana bill signed into law on June 19 requires displays of the Bible’s revered Ten Commandments in all public classrooms, even at the university level. Religious and nonreligious citizens immediately joined national lobbies in a federal court complaint that the law must be overturned for violating the U.S. Constitution’s ban on “establishment of religion” by the government.
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(ANALYSIS) Christian colleges and universities are in a tough spot. Spiraling costs and shrinking demographics, plus technological and other cultural concerns, are putting unprecedented pressure on them. That’s why the news from Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Mich., caught my attention. John Fea, writing for Current, broke the news that “Cornerstone University fires tenured professors and terminates all humanities and arts programs.”
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The Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked on June 25 a publicly funded religious charter school that would have been the first in the U.S. The state’s contract creating a religious charter school violates state and federal law and is unconstitutional, the court wrote, siding with Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond in his challenge to the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School.
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(ANALYSIS) In our post-pandemic, technologically-infused culture, burnout is on the rise across all sectors of the economy. People are struggling with the frenetic pace of the modern workplace. The church is no exception. In fact, pastors and clergy find it difficult to keep up with the evolving demands of church life in a digital age.
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One of the country’s biggest church communities will celebrate its 40th anniversary this month with a series of events, including a book launch by its founders, a new music album and an agribusiness institute. In fact, the celebrations by Watoto Church Ministries highlight their extensive contributions to community development and spiritual growth.
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A specified Protestant version of the Ten Commandments must be displayed in all public schools in Louisiana by January 2025, the mandate of a bill Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law on June 19.
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(ANALYSIS) Oklahoma is the most recent state to allow school boards to implement “release time”: off-site classes with religious or moral instruction that K-12 students can attend for part of school days with parental consent. Gov. Kevin Stitt signed House Bill 1425 into law, which authorized the program, on June 5, 2024.
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Grand Canyon Education (GCE), a for-profit marketing agency for Grand Canyon University (GCU), has been sued in federal court for allegedly engaging in a racketeering scheme by students who enrolled in the university’s doctoral programs.
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