Forget October surprises; this election season has already had a dizzying number of twists and turns: criminal trials, consequential debates, attempted assassinations, a candidate dropping out and being replaced, and new vice-presidential picks coming on the national scene. And every major development has been accompanied by plenty of 24–48 hour sideshows—controversies, partisan squabbles, scandals, and…
Like other Americans, pastors are deciding who they’ll vote for in the November election. Compared to previous elections, however, they’re much more hesitant to share their preference. Almost all US Protestant pastors (97%) plan to vote in the 2024 presidential election, according to a Lifeway Research study conducted August 8–September 3, 2024. But almost a quarter (23%)…
Almost six months have passed since Issa Saliba boarded a bus in Gaza with 15 other Christians to seek safety in Egypt. But he still relishes how they sang, clapped, and danced as they escaped devastation. The air conditioning cooled his nerves, frayed from the harrowing journey to the border. Later that day, the wayside…
During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Kamala Harris accused Donald Trump of a fondness for dictators, alleging that he supported a negotiated settlement with Vladimir Putin following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump, declining to affirm that a Ukrainian victory would serve US interests, replied that if he were still in the Oval Office, the war would…
On Thursday, Viles Dorsainvil, a former pastor in Haiti and the leader of Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield, Ohio, was getting phone call after phone call from local immigrants feeling “panic” over their safety. The 60,000-person city has felt the strain and culture clash of welcoming 15,000 Haitians over the past four…
After decades of resettling refugee families and placing unaccompanied refugee children in foster homes, Bethany Christian Services announced Tuesday that it is suing the state of Michigan for denying its contracts due to long-standing faith-based hiring practices. Bethany—the country’s largest Christian adoption and foster agency and one of ten refugee resettlement agencies in the US—says…
The Chinese government has officially ended its international adoption program, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning announced Thursday, ending hopes for hundreds of US families who were matched with children before the COVID-19 pandemic but had adoptions put on hold in 2020. Karla Thrasher, senior director of international adoptions at Lifeline Children’s Services based in Birmingham,…
A group of evangelical broadcasters who hosted Donald Trump at their national conference earlier this year are suing the Internal Revenue Service over the so-called Johnson Amendment, a tax law that bars nonprofits from supporting political candidates. Lawyers for the National Religious Broadcasters, along with two Baptist churches and a conservative group called Intercessors for America,…
Nearly five years after a German pastor sparked controversy with comments about homosexuality, the legal dispute appears to be over with a settlement of 5,000 euros (about $5,550 USD). Olaf Latzel, pastor of a conservative congregation in the state-privileged Protestant Church, called homosexuality “degenerative” and “demonic.” He condemned what he called the “hobbylobby” and slammed…
If you feel like it’s hard to keep up with the cascade of new worship music, you’re not alone. The industry is producing new releases at a quicker clip, and the typical lifespan of a worship song—the time a song remains in regular rotation for church worship teams—has shortened. Faced with a seemingly endless supply…
