THE BRIEFING | Meredith Flynn
After two police officers were shot March 12 in Ferguson, Mo., chaplains from the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team were back in the community where they served six weeks last year.
“It is not possible to solve a community’s deep-rooted problems with a team of chaplains deployed for six weeks, and we knew that before we started,” Billy Graham Association President Franklin Graham said then, according to a story on billygraham.org. “But God used the chaplains to touch many hearts and to plant fruitful seeds in the community.”
Lawmakers in Tennessee proposed legislation in February that would make the Bible the official state book. Not surprisingly, some opponents say such an action is unconstitutional. But Rep. Jerry Sexton (R-Bean Station), who introduced the bill in the House, said the action recognizes the Bible’s “historical importance.”
“The Bible has certainly had a pivotal role in the history of our state as well as our nation,” Sexton told the Baptist & Reflector newspaper. “The Bible also plays a significantly important role in our state today with several companies in Nashville being responsible for publishing more Bibles than possibly any other city in the world.”
68% of evangelicals say Congress should act on immigration reform this year, according to a new survey by LifeWay Research. Other findings: 86% say reform should secure U.S. borders, and 61% say it should include a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
The Christian Post reports San Francisco’s largest evangelical megachurch will no longer require celibacy from gay people desiring to be members of the church. “We will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation and demand lifelong celibacy as a precondition for joining,” Senior Pastor Fred Harrell wrote in a letter on behalf of the church’s elder board. “For all members, regardless of sexual orientation, we will continue to expect chastity in singleness until marriage.”
In honor of today, check out this 2009 post from Russell Moore on “what evangelicals can learn from St. Patrick.”
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