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  • November 30, 1999

Archives For November 30, 1999

Briefing: Tis the season for Christmas controversies, eroding religious liberties

ib2newseditor —  December 6, 2016

The BriefingIllinois B&B owners lose another round
A same-sex couple denied access to a central Illinois bed and breakfast while planning their civil union ceremony has won another legal victory in a five-year discrimination case that’s highlighted the conflict between religious freedoms and gay civil rights.

Atheists urge skipping church on Christmas
American Atheists, one of the nation’s largest secular groups, is launching a billboard campaign that encourages Americans to skip church this Christmas. The group is putting billboards up in cities across the country, including Colorado Springs, Colorado; Lynchburg, Virginia; Augusta, Georgia; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Georgetown, South Carolina.

Starbucks stirs up controversy — again
The culture wars come every December, fueled by peppermint mochas and venti soy lattes. The battleground is Starbucks. It’s always Starbucks, isn’t it? No one is complaining that the blue-and-brown holiday cups at Caribou Coffee take the “Christ” out of Christmas. Religion. Politics. The Bill of Rights. They all converge here, in front of a glass case full of cake pops.

Liberty advocates lament loss
Religious freedom advocates have expressed deep disappointment about congressional leaders’ failure to protect the rights of faith-based organizations in a national defense bill. The Russell Amendment was not included in the final version of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act which designates nearly $620 billion in spending for the armed services. The amendment would have protected the rights of non-profit religious contractors to maintain hiring practices in keeping with their beliefs.

Docs: Don’t force us to aid suicide
A group of Vermont medical professionals is suing state officials for demanding doctors counsel patients on physician-assisted suicide. The Vermont Board of Medical Practice and Office of Professional Regulation declared the state’s assisted suicide law, enacted in 2013, requires healthcare professionals, regardless of conscience or oath, to inform terminally ill patients that one of their medical options is doctor-prescribed suicide.

Sources: Belleville News-Democrat, Fox News, Washington Post, Baptist Press, World Magazine

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Briefing: 3 dead after church’s Thanksgiving dinner, religious liberty still unlikely in Cuba

ib2newseditor —  November 29, 2016

The BriefingCastro death unlikely to halt revival or spur liberty
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who died at age 90, is being remembered as both an unwitting catalyst of revival and an opponent of religious liberty. His death, said Southern Baptists with ties to Cuba, is unlikely to yield significant increases in religious liberty for the island nation until the fall of the communist government he inaugurated 57 years ago.

3 dead, 5 sickened after church’s Thanksgiving dinner
Three people have died and five more were sickened after eating Thanksgiving dinner at an event organized by a church in the San Francisco Bay Area, health officials said. Sutter Delta Medical Center said it received eight patients with probable symptoms of foodborne illness Friday and Saturday. Three of the patients died, four patients were treated and released and one remains hospitalized. It remains unclear exactly what caused the illness.

Violent Thanksgiving weekend in Chicago
Chicago saw one its most violent Thanksgiving holidays in years, with eight people killed and 62 others wounded. The toll towers over the number of shootings in the previous two Thanksgiving holiday weekends, according to data kept by the Tribune.

Why Jerry Falwell Jr. turned down Trump’s Cabinet position
Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. believes that Donald Trump “will become America’s greatest president since Abraham Lincoln.” But that wasn’t enough to persuade him to accept Trump’s offer to become secretary of education. Falwell told RNS the decision was due to concerns for the health of his family and the university he leads.

Pope challenged by conservative cardinals
Four senior Catholic cardinals went public with a private letter they sent to Pope Francis, asking him to state plainly whether he is liberalizing Church practice on divorced, remarried Catholics. The letter also questions whether the Pope is relaxing traditional and biblical standards on morality in general. Francis refused to respond so, the cardinals published their letter on various Catholic news sites.

Sources: Baptist Press, Fox News, Chicago Tribune, Religion News, CNN

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Briefing: Why evangelicals are voting for Trump or Clinton, danger follows Christian refugees

ib2newseditor —  November 8, 2016

The BriefingExplaining the evangelical vote for Trump or Clinton
Last week, Donald Trump said that if evangelicals vote, he would win the 2016 presidential election. But while he commands a clear lead over Hillary Clinton for their support, surveys also show American evangelicals are much more divided this year compared to previous elections. Recent survey findings show how evangelicals are voting in 2016 and why.

High court accepts transgender case
The Supreme Court announced Oct. 28 it will review a lower court opinion regarding the right of a student to use the public school restroom that matches her gender identity rather than her biological sex. Oral arguments in the case likely will take place in early 2017, and an opinion is expected before the court adjourns next summer.

Danger follows Christian refugees to Germany
The situation of Christian refugees in German shelters is “unbearable” according to an updated report released this month and co-authored by Open Doors Germany. The report documents 743 cases of discrimination, death threats, and physical assaults against Christians by Muslim refugees between February and May of this year and claims the findings are only “the tip of the iceberg.”

Hatmaker books pulled over LGBT views
LifeWay Christian Resources has discontinued resources featuring bestselling Bible study author Jen Hatmaker just days after she voiced approval of gay marriage and the gay lifestyle. The Southern Baptist Convention entity has published several resources by the popular speaker and reality television star, including the bestselling B&H Publishing book, “7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess.”

The remarkable Billy Graham
Evangelist Billy Graham turned 98 November 7. Graham’s most obvious legacy is the three million men and women who registered commitments for Christ at his crusades. Graham’s legacy has also taken forms that are hard to measure but important to remember. We see them especially in the realms of evangelical beliefs, everyday life, American politics, and Christian hope.

Sources: Christianity Today, Baptist Press, World Magazine, Baptist Press, Christianity Today

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Briefing: Video gaming’s big in Illinois, Liberty students rebel

ib2newseditor —  October 25, 2016

The BriefingVideo gambling’s big in Illinois
Add up all the video gambling machines scattered in small venues across Illinois — there are more than 24,000 machines, the equivalent of 20 casinos — and you’re talking real money. The amount of money left over after paying video gambling winners for the first time exceeded $1 billion in fiscal 2016. That’s a 27% increase, making video gambling the hot hand in Illinois’ gaming industry.

Liberty students rebel
Now, Liberty students are opposing their leader’s presidential endorsement, writing in a Washington Post opinion piece, “In January, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed Donald Trump for president of the United States. As Liberty students, we watched as the leader of our school loudly and proudly advocated for a man many of us felt compelled to oppose. Trump’s flagrant dishonesty, consistent misogyny and boastful unrepentance made many of us feel the need to publicly express disagreement with President Falwell’s endorsement.

Refugees resettled at record rate
Last month, World Relief nearly doubled the number of refugees it resettles in the United States in a typical month. In the past 12 months, the evangelical agency handled a caseload of 9,759 refugees—its largest total since 1999. The milestone comes at the same time as major setbacks to the effort to ban Syrian refugee resettlement in Indiana and Texas.

State must fund Planned Parenthood
A federal judge Thursday blocked a Mississippi law that prohibited Medicaid payments to any healthcare provider that offers abortions. Two Planned Parenthood affiliates filed suit against the law, which blocked all Medicaid funding, including payments for non-abortion services such as birth control, to any facility affiliated with an abortion provider.

U.N. to appoint LGBT advocate
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender agenda is gaining traction at the United Nations, as it organization prepares to vote on appointing an “independent expert” to “assess the implementation of existing international human rights instruments with regard to ways to overcome violence and discrimination against persons on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and to identify and address the root causes of violence and discrimination.”

Sources: Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Christianity Today, World Magazine, Baptist Press

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Briefing: WikiLeaks email shows anti-Christian bias; CoverGirl’s Cover Boy

ib2newseditor —  October 18, 2016

Religious leaders slam Clinton campaign over e-mails
Catholic and evangelical groups slammed Hillary Clinton’s campaign in a statement over comments revealed in the WikiLeaks emails hack between two high-level campaign officials. Dozens of religious leaders who signed the statement expressed their “outrage at the demeaning and troubling rhetoric used by those within Secretary Clinton’s campaign.”

Pro-lifers grieve Planned Parenthood’s 100th anniversary
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) observed its centennial with an event at the City Hall of New York and the launch of #100Years Strong, a year-long celebration marked by more than 150 community events around the world. PPFA’s affiliates perform more than 320,000 abortions a year at the same time the organization and its affiliates receive about $550 million annually in government grants and reimbursements

Court rules against pregnancy centers
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled California law AB 775, which compels Christian, pro-life pregnancy centers to advocate for abortion, doesn’t impede their First Amendment right to exercise their religious beliefs.

Churches sue over state’s ‘anti-bias’ law
Four Massachusetts churches and their pastors filed a pre-emptive lawsuit in October in an attempt to halt application of a newly amended state law requiring pastors to temper their speech and churches to allow transgender persons to use the bathroom of their choice.

CoverGirl introduces its first Cover Boy
CoverGirl announced James Charles Dickinson as its latest ambassador —the first young man to receive such an honor. It’s the first major drugstore makeup brand to choose a male for its brand ambassador.

Sources: CNN, Baptist Press, The Federalist, Baptist Press, Yahoo

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No more single issue elections

ib2newseditor —  September 22, 2016

Election 2016Since the big June meeting between Donald Trump and about 1,000 evangelical leaders, including a handful of Southern Baptist pastors, the political conversation involving conservative Christians has dropped off noticeably. Christians have grown quiet on politics. Even the Twitterverse is quiet right now.

One exception: an op/ed piece in USA Today by Hobby Lobby CEO David Green pointing to the pivotal nature of the U.S. Supreme Court. “Make no mistake, the vacancy left by Justice Scalia and the subsequent appointment to fill his seat makes this presidential election one of the most significant in modern times.”

Green’s company was at the center of a 2014 judgment that allowed his corporation to refuse to pay for abortion-inducing drugs as part of its health insurance plan because of religious objections, despite requirements under the Obama Affordable Health Care Act. The high court’s ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby was 5-4. “It’s frightening to me to think that we—and all Americans—were just one vote away from losing our religious freedom,” Green wrote.

That’s the reason he gives for supporting Donald Trump. “(Hillary) Clinton has made no secret she believes government interests supersede the protection of religious liberty.”

Green’s concern for religious liberty is understandable and even commendable, but his essay serves to show that evangelicals are no longer a one-issue people.

Beginning with the emergence of the Moral Majority, evangelicals became a force and a voting bloc. Their anti-abortion theology drove evangelicals to candidates who were expressly pro-life. Fortunately, those candidates were often in agreement with conservative Christians on many other issues as well, so supporting them advanced a whole bundle of issues. It worked for 30 years.

Not so today.

Green’s commentary underscores that evangelicals are not all in agreement on the importance of any one issue any more than they support any one candidate. The world is too complex for a single-issue approach.

In this head-scratcher of election cycles, some evangelicals are valuing other issues as highly as pro-life and religious freedom: What about a candidate’s trustworthiness, honesty, temperament, and character? What is his or her history of relations with dangerous nations, prudence in peacetime or courage in war? What about the prospect of handling the nuclear codes?

Maybe many in the Christian community are relatively quiet on this presidential election because they’re still thinking about it.

And scratching their heads.

– DER

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Briefing: Civil Rights report attacks religious freedom, VP candidate shares faith at SBC church

ib2newseditor —  September 20, 2016

The BriefingCivil Rights report attacks religious freedom
According to Chairman Martin Castro of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, phrases such as ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ should now be considered “code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any other form of intolerance.” Those remarks are found in a new report that presents claims for religious exemptions from nondiscrimination laws as a significant threat to civil liberties.

Pence shares faith at FBC Jacksonville
Staunch Christian and Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, who proudly declared in June that his identity as a Christian comes before his politics, confessed Sunday that he once walked away from the faith to which he clings so dearly now.

NCAA, ACC cancel N. Carolina events
After the NCAA announced it was withdrawing seven championship events from North Carolina over the state’s anti-discrimination law, the Atlantic Coast Conference followed suit. The ACC stated it would move all neutral-site championships for the coming academic year out of North Carolina, including the football conference championship game in December.

Hungary to favor Christian refugees
This week, Hungary, which has during the past year come under pressure for its handling of Europe’s mass migration crisis, has become the first government to open an office specifically to address the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Europe. The move sets a precedent on the international stage.

Controversial appointee earns praise
David Saperstein, the ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, is earning praise from across the political spectrum. At a time when violence against religious minorities has proliferated around the globe, Saperstein has shown himself diligent in confronting religious persecution. Because he held liberal views on LGBT issues and abortion, some conservatives objected to the nomination.

Sources: ERLC, Christian Post, Baptist Press, Christianity Today, World Magazine

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Briefing: Report debunks ‘born that way’ narrative, ‘Insanity of God’ showing across U.S.

ib2newseditor —  August 30, 2016

The BriefingReport debunks ‘born that way’ narrative
A stunning new report on sexuality and gender exposes the shaky science behind the LGBT “born that way” narrative and the push to label young kids as “transgender.” The report comes as the health-care industry, pressured by the Obama administration, imposes new protocols pertaining to “sexual orientation and gender identity” grounded in faulty science and often dismissive of parents’ rights and children’s well-being.

‘Insanity of God’ showing Aug. 30 across U.S.
“The Insanity of God,” the true story of missionaries Nik and Ruth Ripken and their work with the persecuted church, will be shown in 500 U.S. theaters Aug. 30 for a special one-night, feature event. The presentation will include International Mission Board President, author and speaker David Platt interviewing Nik Ripken, as well as a performance by music artist Todd Smith.

Progressives embrace religious liberty
Religious liberty has often been a thorn in the side of progressives, especially when it’s used by conservatives to defend everything from Christians-only clubs on campus to merchants who won’t serve gays. But progressives are now leveraging the First Amendment principle as a vehicle to advance causes of their own.

Christians wait for Egypt to authorize new churches
Egypt is scheduled to vote as early as September on a law that would ease the country’s historic restrictions on church construction. Current laws, which have been in place since 1856, require Christians to get the consent of the local Muslim community—and the country’s president—before building a church.

States, religious groups sue HHS over transgender treatment requirements
Five states, joined by Christian health care providers, have filed a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration over new federal rules they say could force doctors to perform gender-transition procedures that violate their religious beliefs or medical judgment. The lawsuit claims doctors could be forced to perform procedures such as gender-reassignment surgery and hysterectomies.

Sources: The Federalist, Religion News Service, Baptist Press, Christianity Today, Fox News

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Briefing: Illinois pastors sue over therapy ban, one judge blocks while another prays

ib2newseditor —  August 23, 2016

The BriefingPastors sue Illinois over gay conversion therapy ban
A group of pastors is suing Illinois over a law that bars therapists and counselors from trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation, saying the prohibition violates free speech and religious rights. The federal lawsuit seeks to exclude clergy from the ban that took effect Jan. 1, arguing that homosexuality is “contrary to God’s purpose” and a disorder that “can be resisted or overcome by those who seek to be faithful to God and His Word.”

Olympics wrap-up: God praised by athletes in triumph, defeat
The images and memories of the 2016 Olympics will endure for much longer than the torch’s flame. Several athletes who are professing Christians joined in the medal haul. Helen Maroulis won the first gold medal ever for the United States in women’s wrestling, and said that throughout her competition she repeated to herself the mantra, “Christ in me, I am enough.”

Judge blocks transgender restroom order
A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked the Obama administration’s directive forcing schools to allow transgender students to use restroom and locker room facilities based on gender identity, rather than their biological sex. District Judge Reed O’Connor said the departments of Education and Justice failed to follow the Administrative Procedures Act, which requires advanced notice and a public comment period before issuing such guidelines.

Judge under fire for praying in courtroom
A Texas judge could be sued for starting every court session with a short prayer. The Freedom From Religion Foundation alleges that Judge Wayne Mack’s invocation is “unconstitutional,” and the organization is currently considering a lawsuit. Mack pointed out that both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court start their opening sessions with an invocation, and he’s just “following in their footsteps.”

Lutherans recognize agreement with Catholic Church
Nearly 500 years after Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Castle Church door, the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S. has approved a declaration recognizing “there are no longer church-dividing issues” on many points with the Roman Catholic Church. The “Declaration on the Way” was approved 931-9 by the 2016 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Churchwide Assembly in New Orleans.

Sources: Big Story AP, Baptist Press, World Magazine, Fox News, Religion News Service

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Briefing: Christian Olympians win gold, Baptists in flood weary Louisiana

ib2newseditor —  August 16, 2016

The BriefingWhen it rains, it pours for weary south Louisiana
For the second time in five months, historic flooding has left widespread devastation and suffering through south Louisiana. As of Sunday afternoon, four people have been killed in the flooding, thousands have been displaced and thousands of homes, businesses and churches have been affected by the flooding. Louisiana Southern Baptist churches are responding amid the devastation.

Five Christian gold medalist Olympians at Rio 2016
Athletes from across the globe have gathered in search of gold at the 2016 Olympic Games, and five Christian sportspeople have managed to overcome obstacles to earn the top honor. Simone Manuel, Caeleb Dressel, Laurie Hernandez, Osea Kolinisau, and Anna Van Der Breggen are five Olympians whose Christian faith has helped them prevail when stumbling blocks could have prevented them from winning gold medals in Rio De Janeiro.

Egyptian sent home from Rio for refusing to shake Israeli’s hand
An Egyptian athlete who refused to shake his Israeli opponent’s hand after their judo bout has been reprimanded and sent home from the Rio Olympics. When Sasson extended his hand, El Shehaby backed away, shaking his head. The referee called the 34-year-old El Shehaby back to the mat and obliged to him to bow; he gave a quick nod and was loudly booed as he exited.

Russia’s ban on evangelism is now in effect
Last month, Russia’s new anti-terrorism laws restricting Christians from evangelizing outside of their churches, went into effect. The “Yarovaya package” requires missionaries to have permits, makes house churches illegal, and limits religious activity to registered church buildings, among other restrictions. Individuals who disobey could be fined up to $780, while organizations could be fined more than $15,000. Many are wondering how strictly will it be enforced.

Countries make Christian charity harder to give and receive
Nearly 20% of the world’s population could lose access to the ministry efforts of Western Christians next year. In April, China banned foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from engaging in or funding religious activities. The measure could expel Christian groups that are doing medical, developmental, or educational work in the world’s largest country by population, with 1.4 billion people.

Sources: Louisiana Baptist Message, Christian Post, Christianity Today, Christianity Today

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