A Minnesota law that banned certain Christian colleges from a program that enrolls high-schoolers in tuition-free college credit courses is unconstitutional, a federal judge has ruled.
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(ANALYSIS) With two dramatic actions, the “Religious Right” is suddenly prodding the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its historic 2015 Obergefell decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Such a radical and unpopular switch after only 10 years might seem implausible — but a close parallel already happened in the 2022 Dobbs decision.
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The rector of the 160-plus member Good Shepherd Anglican Church near Charlotte, N.C., recently sent an urgent warning to parishioners about an email claiming to be from him. The email requested donations in the form of gift cards — a known tactic used for phishing scams in which criminals deceive victims into revealing sensitive information.
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When it comes to morality, Americans don’t see much wrong with using birth control or getting a divorce, but few support extramarital affairs or human cloning. The latest poll results from Gallup spell out what activities U.S. adults view as morally acceptable and which ones are seen as immoral.
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The brouhaha over a certain country-themed restaurant/store’s brand redesign touches on a topic that churches encounter at some point. “Someone in your congregation should want to get a cap or t-shirt with your logo on it, and wear it,” said author Mark MacDonald. “It actually represents them, since they are the church.” It goes much deeper than a shirt and expands beyond the church’s walls.
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(ANALYSIS) Every once in a while, someone would ask me how I became a pastor. I completely understand the impetus for the question, by the way. If you didn’t grow up around religion, the pathway to ministry can seem somewhat opaque. Let me just quickly lay out my story.
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A church in Shelbyville, Kentucky, has encouraged its congregants to check objectionable books out of the public library and not return them — ever!
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(ANALYSIS) Students at elite universities tend to talk a good game when it comes to religious pluralism. Many of them show up on day one already saying all the right things about respecting different faiths. Here’s the paradox: They don’t grow from there, according to research published in The Journal of Higher Education. Students at less selective colleges, meanwhile, do develop more pluralistic attitudes.
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has dismissed its lawsuit against Grand Canyon Education over Grand Canyon University’s doctoral programs. The dismissal comes after the case, brought during the Biden Administration, suffered “two losses” in motions to dismiss and after the U.S. Department of Education rescinded its $37.7-million fine assessed against Grand Canyon University in 2023.
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At a time when more than three billion people worldwide live without access to a local church, International Cooperating Ministries is inviting Christians to help bridge that gap. The Virginia-based missions organization, which has helped construct more than 13,600 permanent church buildings in 110 countries, recently launched its new Community Impact Partners program.
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(ANALYSIS) For decades, one name was ubiquitous in American evangelical homes: Focus on the Family. A media empire with millions of listeners and readers, its messages about parenting, marriage and politics seemed to reach every conservative Christian church and school. And one man’s name was nearly synonymous with Focus on the Family: James Dobson.
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It helps to remember that this Lutheran denomination has lost roughly half of its members during the last 50 years and insiders have suggested that it may die by 2050.
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Pastors have a lot of thoughts about discipleship, but they aren’t sure it’s happening in their churches. In the first part of the State of Discipleship study from Lifeway Research, U.S. Protestant pastors shared their understanding of what discipleship means and how it best occurs. The full State of Discipleship will be released over the next year, providing the perspectives of both pastors and churchgoers.
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James Dobson, a politically influential conservative and anti-abortion activist who founded the Christian ministry Focus on the Family, died on Thursday at the age of 89. Dobson started Focus on the Family in 1977, which had more than 1,000 employees at its peak in the mid-90s, giving him the chance to influence legislation and White House policy for decades.
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The lead pastor of Central Bible Church in Fort Worth, Texas, has resigned after confessing to a “pattern of moral failure,” according to an announcement posted earlier this month on the church’s website. While the announcement is now deleted, the text of it is still visible on Google’s search page.
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A Church of Christ congregation is experiencing renewed growth through its bilingual ministry. Led by Costa Rican-born minister Diego Rojas, the church holds English and Spanish services, occasionally worshiping together to foster inclusion. Supported by the Herald of Truth’s MESA initiative, the church has welcomed over 200 Spanish speakers from 15 countries.
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Daniel Floyd took the reins last Sunday at scandal-scarred Gateway Church, the multicampus congregation whose founder, Robert Morris, faces a criminal child sexual abuse trial next month. Floyd pledged a “new chapter” for Gateway, which reportedly lost members and tithe dollars after details of Morris’s alleged crimes became public.
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One of the traits that makes Maine and New England a fertile area for the Gospel is the same one that leaves many an out-of-state missionary asking, “What did I do?” “People can misinterpret ‘honest’ as ‘mean,’” said Mike Nerney, executive director for the Maine Baptist Association. “People here are extremely open, and they’ll tell you exactly how things are and what they’re thinking.”
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(ANALYSIS) To create our new typology of the nones, we used a bit of machine learning. In this case, it was k-means clustering. It’s a pretty simple process, really. You pick some variables that you think that might be meaningful in creating categories and then let the algorithm find commonalities in the dataset.
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In a country known for its spices, yoga, the Taj Mahal and Hinduism, a movement is taking place to show the world that Christianity came to India as early as the first century CE. Indian Christians believe their history and heritage can be traced back to Saint Thomas the Apostle.
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