Author: US. Correspondent.

Nathanael Blake The inherent radicalism of same-sex marriage can’t help but lead to other rebellions against the created order Keep it gay. That’s the plea of Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships. Vines recently warned New York Times readers that “the broad support that made marriage equality possible has grown more vulnerable,” which he blames on those who want “same-sex orientation” to be “part of a wider rebellion against social norms.” And this “queerness” is provoking backlash. Andrew Sullivan made a similar argument in the same paper a year ago, lamenting that the gay-rights movement…

Carl Trueman. (See editors note below) For any wishing to see where the West’s culture of assisted death is heading, Canada and the Netherlands have long been the harbingers of things to come. It is well-known that 1 in 20 Canadian deaths now comes at the hands of Canada’s own government. And in the Netherlands, a new boundary has now been crossed: The government has recently reported the first euthanizing of a child between the ages of 1 and 12 who was suffering from a terminal illness. While the issue of terminal illness is fraught with emotion and references to “unnecessary suffering”…

Graham Faulkner. Are aliens among us, or are people seeing a lot of demons lately? Many prominent Catholics seem to believe the latter. In March, Vice President JD Vance said on The Benny Show that he believes UFOs are demons. Father Chad Ripperger, one of the most famous Catholic exorcists in the world, made the same argument on the Shawn Ryan podcast. More recently, Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, another Catholic exorcist with a large social media following and head of the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal, said, “There’s no question in my mind—again, this is not de fide—it’s my personal belief that probably many, if not most,…

Samantha Kamman,  One of the last remaining historic Protestant churches in Iran is reportedly facing the threat of confiscation by the Iranian government, drawing renewed international attention to the country’s treatment of religious minorities. Iran has threatened to seize Tehran’s historic St. Peter Evangelical Church and evict the 20 families who reside there, according to multiplereports. Authorities have already seized a 10,000-square-meter garden belonging to the church, which is being occupied by four officials with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, The Jerusalem Post reports. “I will tell you the literal words they used,” Sasan Tavassoli, a U.S.-based minister with ties to…

Lianna Peters. A memorial commemorating the lives lost in Nigeria last year due to a jihadist terrorist group, which remains one of the deadliest incidents of anti-Christian violence in the region and displacing 3,000 people. The new monument had the 270 victims’ names engraved, located in Nigeria’s Benue State, unveiled in Yalwata, where men, women and children were killed on Father’s Day last year. The memorial was unveiled by missionaries from Equipping the Persecuted, an organization that supports persecuted Christian communities around the world. “Their names are now engraved in stone so they will never be forgotten,” said Judd Saul, founder…

Susannah Black I love being a Christian. I mean, I love Jesus, but I love all the rest of it too: brunch after church with friends and hylomorphism and late-night Eucharist on Christmas Eve and C.S. Lewis and John Donne and Charles De Koninck. I love Durham Cathedral and the Aksum Empire and Neoplatonism and canon law and candles and martyrs who chose death over denial and countless little communes of monks and Anabaptists and Puritans and Methodists and charismatics who read Acts 2 and 4 and decided to just go ahead and do it. I love knowing that nothing good will be…

Rachel Gilson Jesus himself says not to judge.” Thus many a conversation about Christian ethics has come to a swift end. I often hear this verse quoted to me in conversations about the Bible’s sexual ethic, especially when these conversations occur in progressive, secular spaces. But it doesn’t take much imagination to guess how it might be deployed elsewhere. When used to shut down conversations, the implicit meaning is something like this: Jesus says it’s wrong to tell me I’m wrong. Why does it work? For starters, Jesus really did make such a statement: “Judge not, that you not be…

Ryan Foley,  As Samaritan’s Purse battles a growing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), CEO Franklin Graham is urging Christians around the world to pray for the ministry’s frontline workers as they care for patients under what he described as increasingly difficult conditions that are “much worse than we initially thought.” In an X post Tuesday, Graham said Samaritan’s Purse has opened two 40-bed Ebola treatment centers in northeastern DRC, the region he called “the epicenter of the outbreak.” The facilities opened as concerns grow that the outbreak might be more widespread than initially believed. “We believe the…

Fewer than nine players on the 28-man roster were willing to play in the ‘Pride’ uniforms. Doug Mainwaring/US Correspondent.  A professional baseball team in Pennsylvania was forced to forfeit its “Pride Night” game on Thursday after the majority of its players refused to wear rainbow “Pride” jerseys. The York Revolution team threw its players who declined to wear the LGBTQ-themed jerseys under the bus in a searing public statement condemning the brave, principled team members’ actions.  “It is with great disappointment that the York Revolution have issued important changes to our 11th Annual Pride Night on Thursday, June 18th,” began the team’s statement. “Unfortunately,…

Doug Mainwaring/US Correspondent. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has notified the U.S. District Court that it intends to intervene in a lawsuit filed by the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne against the State of New York, challenging a State law that requires housing biological men with women in the Sisters’ residential hospice care program.  The DOJ announced in a press statement that it supports the Sisters of Hawthorne’s argument that the New York law violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection of religious groups. The Dominican Sisters, who for over 125 years have provided nursing care to poor patients dying from cancer, had…

Julie Roys/US Correspondent. John Cooper, the lead singer for the band Skillet, posted a stunning response on Facebook recently to the recent public renunciations of Christianity by Joshua Harris and then Hillsong songwriter, Marty Sampson. (Sampson has since slightly walked back his initial statement after Dr. Michael Brown posted an open letter challenging Sampson’s assertions.) Below is Cooper’s entire statement, which was also published at Cogent Christianity. I’m reposting it here because it’s so good and so important, and I want to make sure everyone who follows this blog sees it. Thank you, John Cooper, for saying what few have the insight or courage to say. God bless you, brother!…

OPINION: SA McCarthy/The Washington Stand I generally don’t watch sports and can honestly say that I have never watched a World Cup. I have, however, been following this year’s World Cup happenings with great interest — and no, I’m not talking about the soccer. I have lived in Europe for many years, along with my Polish-born wife and our daughter. Europe is a beautiful place, full of cultural riches, awe-inspiring architecture, scenic landscapes, and a wealth of history. Oxford, England, and Kraków, Poland, are easily two of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited but represent only a small sampling…

Adithi Ramakrishnan/ AP News Scientists have unearthed communities of marine life — including jellyfish, tubeworms and brittle stars — thriving on a millions-year-old whale graveyard. These graveyards form when whale carcasses fall to the sea floor, becoming a sustaining snack for nearby critters. This one, located up to 23,000 feet (7 kilometers) below the surface of the southeastern Indian Ocean, spans the largest area and is so far the deepest and oldest found. A whale’s sheer size and the unique chemistry of its bones are the keys to forming these unique underwater neighborhoods, said Xikun Song, a biologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of…

OPINION: Alex Ward. Recently YouTube and social media influencer Jesse Ridgway revealed that he and his wife had decided to terminate their pregnancy after the genetic testing came back with a Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) diagnosis. The decision of Ridgway and his wife, as tragic as it is, is all too common. In the United States, between 67%-85% of pregnancies with this diagnosis are terminated. In some European countries, children born with Down syndrome have become exceedingly rare. In Denmark (98%) and Iceland (100%) between 98-100% of pregnancies with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome are terminated. In that context, Ridgway’s decision is…

Debbie Weiss More than two and a half years after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, not one of the terrorists detained for taking part in the attack has been brought to trial, according to a new report by Israel’s State Comptroller, who warned that the delay is harming deterrence and denying justice to the victims and their families. “Bringing justice to the Hamas terrorists who committed crimes during the October 7 terror attack is of utmost importance, from a legal, moral and public perspective,” outgoing State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman said. The report faulted the state for…

Deepa Bharath/AP News The Pentagon’s revision to its list of Christian religions this week has reignited a nearly 200-year-old debate: Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a Christian denomination? Most Latter-day Saints do see themselves as Christians. But there are many prominent Christian clergy and scholars who disagree, citing core differences in how they view God and the Trinity and revere a scripture that is not part of the two-testament Christian Bible. Utah U.S. Senators Mike Lee and John Curtis, both Republicans and Latter-day Saints, challenged the Pentagon’s exclusion of their faith from its list of Christian…

Opinion: Nathanael Blake Sexual sin destroys justice. This is a problem for those on the religious left who insist that social justice (by which they mean the Democratic Party platform) matters more than sins of the flesh—if they even consider those to be sins. Consider a recent New York Times piece carrying the headline “Pope Leo Chooses Social Justice Over Pelvic Theology.” The author, David Gibson of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, argued that the pope “is trying to shift Catholicism away from the near fixation on ‘pelvic theology,’ or sexual morality, that has come to define Catholicism, especially…

By Ian M. Giatti/Christian Post.  Researchers say they have uncovered consistent biases and notable gaps in how leading artificial intelligence models handle faith, religion and ethics-related questions, even favoring certain religious traditions and non-faith traditions over others. The Consortium for Evaluation of Faith and Ethics in AI (CEFE-AI), a collaboration among researchers at Brigham Young University (Latter-day Saint), Baylor University (Baptist), University of Notre Dame (Catholic) and Yeshiva University (Jewish), published its findings after testing 14 large language models (LLMs) — including flagship versions from Anthropic (Claude 4.7), Google (Gemini 3.1), xAI (Grok 4.2) and OpenAI (ChatGPT 5.5). Using its newly released AllFaith…

By Katelyn Webb/ US Correspondent. Months after placing pastor Ben Armstrong on administrative leave amid sexual abuse allegations, Bethel Church has announced a sweeping review of its leadership culture and distanced itself from several controversial figures in the charismatic movement, including Todd Bentley, Mike Bickle and Shawn Bolz. In a lengthy update released by church leadership on May 28, the influential California megachurch said feedback from congregants, staff, alumni, elders and leaders throughout the broader Christian community revealed areas of its culture and leadership that require “attention and reform.” “This feedback was moving and important,” the church said. “It has shown us areas in our leadership and culture…

By Shobha Shukla /CNS (Citizen News Service) This year’s Menstrual Hygiene Day (observed May 28) as well International Day of Action for Women’s Health is a grim reminder that women’s health is far from being a fundamental human right in reality. The writing on the wall is clear: if we are to deliver on the goal of gender equality for all by 2030, we must dismantle deep rooted stigma, secure bodily autonomy and eliminate period poverty. Menstruation – or period – is a natural and healthy biological process. Every month, more than two billion people around the world menstruate. But…

By Mark Henry/Harbinger’s Daily As the month of June arrives each year, I find myself bracing mentally for the flood of rainbow flags on display, announcements of parades that celebrate perversion and ungodly lifestyles. However, this year feels somewhat different compared to the last few years. It almost seems as if there is a subtle reversal happening towards traditional views, family values, and even Biblical truth. Rather than accepting Pride activism as the norm, some cities, states, and individuals are beginning to push back against its symbols and events. Signs of Cultural Pushback Take, for example, Arlington, Texas, which announced…

By Ryan Foley/US Correspondent. Alan Chambers, the former president of Exodus International, a once-prominent Christian ministry that sought to help people with unwanted same-sex attraction, has been arrested in Florida after authorities say he attempted to arrange sexual activity with someone he believed was a 14-year-old boy. In a statement Tuesday, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office in Orange County, Florida, said announced the arrest of Alan Chambers, 54, for attempting to “meet someone he thought was a 14-year-old boy – but it was actually an undercover detective.” According to the sheriff’s office, Chambers faces charges of solicitation of a minor, transmission of…

By Taneise Perry One of the most sobering realizations I’ve had in recent years is this: It’s possible for someone to cause deep, ongoing harm and still be seen as a strong, faithful Christian. That realization didn’t come from theory. It came from experience. After more than 20 years in a close friendship, I began to recognize patterns I had never been taught to see: manipulation, confusion and a slow erosion of my sense of reality. What unsettled me most wasn’t just the behavior itself. It was how easily that same person could use church spaces, relationships and language to…

By Mandy Owen/Partner News Agency Across generations, believers have asked an important question: Does God still speak through dreams and visions? For many Christians, the answer is yes, and many believe we are presently witnessing an increased outpouring of dreams and visions in this generation. Scripture reminds us that God is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8) and that He does not change (Malachi 3:6).Throughout the Bible, God spoke to people such as Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Solomon, Peter, Paul, Ananias, Joseph (the husband of Mary), and many more through dreams and visions. Since Scripture teaches that God does…

Sourced from Partner Christian Media. On May 1, 2026, the Christian music world was introduced to “The Author,” a sweeping ballad featuring worship leader Brandon Lake and pop sensation Nick Jonas. To the casual listener, it is a touching story of a “preacher’s kid” returning to his roots—a narrative fueled by Jonas’s history as an Assemblies of God preacher’s son. The song opens with Jonas singing, “Picked up the Book for the first time in ages / Still washed me clean with the dust on the pages.” For the Christian audience, “The Book” is unmistakably the Bible, and the imagery…

By David Maas  We are acquitted before God through the faith of Jesus Christ, and not from the works of the Law – Romans 3:21-26. Having demonstrated that all men violate God’s revealed will, the Apostle Paul concludes that no man or woman is acquitted from the penalty of sin from the works and rituals required by the Law of Moses. Instead, we are declared innocent through the faith or faithfulness of Jesus Christ. We are reconciled with our Creator because of the death of the Messiah for us and his resurrection from the dead. Thus, Jesus has overcome the tyranny…

By Vince Stegall/ US Correspondent. In early 2020, most of us had no idea how quickly their world was about to change. Within weeks, normal life was replaced by lockdowns, mandates, travel restrictions, and a level of centralized control few would have accepted just days earlier. What once sounded extreme became normalized almost overnight. That moment revealed something we cannot afford to forget: modern society can shift from “normal” to “new normal” with astonishing speed. But COVID did more than disrupt daily life. It exposed how quickly global systems can be built, activated, and accepted, especially in moments of fear.…

By Keith Clark-Hoyos In many congregations, the expectations placed on pastors have shifted quietly over the past decade. Words like strategy, alignment, governance, sustainability, and organizational clarity are used with increasing frequency in board meetings and denominational conversations. Churches feel the weight of complexity. Cultural volatility, financial pressure, and declining volunteer bases have made leadership feel more urgent. Yet when pastors describe their own sense of calling, they often use different language. A recent Barna study found that fewer than one in four pastors primarily identify themselves as leaders. Most describe their role as teacher or preacher.¹ That distinction is…

By  Ian M. Giatti. An Evangelical pastor and author who served at a Nashville church has resigned over allegations he engaged in a relationship with another man. Sam Allberry, who served as associate pastor at Immanuel Nashville since 2023, stepped down after church elders released a statement Monday calling Allberry “disqualified from gospel ministry” for what they described as a “serious breach of trust.” According to the statement, the Immanuel elders were first “made aware that Pastor Sam Allberry engaged in an inappropriate relationship with an adult man in 2022” in the spring of 2024. The board added that while the…

By Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute US President Donald J. Trump recently said that he has never heard of a Lebanese law banning contact with Israel. “I never heard of that, but… I’m pretty sure that’ll be ended very quickly,” Trump told reporters. “I know Lebanon doesn’t want that… That’s crazy.” Trump is right. These laws are “crazy.” They are also poisonous. So long as Arabs and Muslims are taught by law, religion and social pressure that contact with Israelis is forbidden, the prospects for peace and coexistence will remain out of reach. There can be no real stability in the…

OPINION: Peter Demos Spend a few minutes online and you will see the clips: a green-haired, nonbinary pastor, a rainbow-draped congregation, Scripture bent to mirror the culture. Then comes the predictable response—a conservative Christian explaining what’s wrong.  It is not the distortion of Christianity. It is the dilution of it. Those moments are easy. The problem is obvious. Most Christians, even young ones, can tell something is off. But there is a deeper issue that never goes viral, because it is quieter, harder to spot, and far easier to accept. It is not the distortion of Christianity. It is the…

By SA McCarthy/The Washington Stand  The presidency of Joe Biden was a dark, though relatively brief, chapter in American history, replete with widespread prosecution and persecution of American Christians. President Donald Trump repeatedly pledged on the campaign trail to establish a federal task force to investigate and eradicate the anti-Christian bias evinced and enacted by the Biden administration, and has delivered on that promise. On Thursday morning, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) published a 209-page report entitled, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias within the Federal Government,” detailing not only the numerous abuses of the Biden administration but also the remedies put…

By Timothy Goropevsek/Daily Christian. When Walt Heyer speaks about gender identity, he does so as someone who spent years trying to escape himself. The 85-year-old author and speaker remembers the confusion that marked his childhood long before he underwent what he later came to describe as a failed attempt to become someone else. In an interview with Christian Daily International, Heyer repeatedly returned to one central conviction that he believes is key for pastors and Christian leaders to understand: people struggling with gender identity are often trying to flee pain, trauma or deep emotional distress rather than truly changing who…

by David Michael Swindle. The US House Appropriations Committee has advanced a State Department funding bill which will restrict aid to Nigeria if the current government cannot stop what one lawmaker labeled a genocide against Christians. “The Tinubu administration is spending millions lobbying Congress while failing to adequately address the genocide Nigerian Christians face daily,” Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) posted on X on Wednesday. He said the appropriations panel, on which he serves, “just passed our annual State Department funding bill which takes serious steps to address this crisis.” Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who assumed office in May 2023, is a…

Supplied by Partner News Agency. There are moments in history when numbers stop being abstract–and start telling a story. The latest report from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute does exactly that. At first glance, a 2.9% rise in global military spending might not sound like much. But step back, and the picture sharpens: nearly $2.9 trillion poured into defense in a single year, representing 2.5% of the entire global economy–the highest share since 2009. That’s not just a budget trend. It’s a signal. And the signal is hard to ignore: the world is preparing, quietly but unmistakably, for conflict. The…

By Cody Benjamin. It was the night before Easter, and the shouting began to spread. Street preachers had claimed a corner near Auburn University. As video of their efforts circulated on social media, one preacher in particular appeared to drive interest. Tall, with twisted locks and sporting a “Child of God” jersey, the man paced and declared the words of Matthew 5:8 (“Blessed are the pure in heart”). Onlookers quickly recognized him as Jaden Ivey, who five days earlier had effectively been ousted from the NBA. Ivey, 24, was dismissed by the Chicago Bulls on March 30 for “conduct detrimental to the…

By Dr. Bahareh Sahebi The crackdown on protesters in Iran in early 2026 produced not only political consequences but a nationwide psychological rupture. Decades of repression have inflicted deep collective trauma, eroding trust and safety within Iranian society and its global diaspora. This trauma shapes political behavior, social cohesion and the collective imagination of a future marked by fear, resilience and urgent calls for solidarity. In early January, peaceful protests erupted across Iran, driven by economic collapse, political repression and decades of contempt for a ruling system many citizens believe no longer represents them. Demonstrators called for accountability and an end to the Islamic Republic.…

By Mike Bain/cvnznews.com President Donald Trump was rushed off stage by Secret Service agents after gunfire erupted at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC, prompting a rapid evacuation of the president, Vice President JD Vance, and multiple Cabinet members. Officials later confirmed all senior leaders are safe. The incident unfolded at the Washington Hilton — the same venue where President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981 — just moments after the dinner programme began. According to pool reporters, several Secret Service agents shouted “shots fired” as they moved to shield the president and first lady. Authorities say the…

By Britt Gillette What’s happening right now is one of the most significant global events in recent memory – magnitudes greater than the 2020 pandemic shutdowns. Yet, a good portion of the world remains ignorant. Here in the United States of America, the average citizen has no idea how significant the U.S.-Israel-Iran war is. Or, to more accurately describe it – they have no idea what a big deal the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz is. This goes far beyond higher prices at the gas station. Its impact trickles down into every aspect of the global economy. A…

U.S. Vice President JD Vance was expected to fly to Pakistan after Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei approved a second round of talks, Axios reported. U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused the Islamic Republic of Iran of violating the temporary ceasefire “numerous times.” The president’s Truth Social post came as a Pakistani diplomatic source told Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera and Saudi outlet Al Hadath that initial members of the Iranian and U.S. delegations had arrived in Islamabad for renewed talks. However, Iranian state media denied the report, saying no delegation had departed Tehran as of Tuesday morning. U.S. Vice President JD Vance was expected to…