Christian Heritage News

 By John Stonestreet and Timothy D. Padgett So many of the cultural debates that rage around us and captivate our attentions result from dueling definitions of truth. All ideas have consequences, especially our ideas about truth. It matters greatly whether truth even exists, whether truth can be known, and how we should think about those who reject truth. Fifty years ago, in his landmark discussion of the flow of Western history , Francis Schaeffer offered what he called “a simple but profound rule” about truth: “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Even a brief look at the half century since he wrote reveals how right he was. Because of the loss of belief in the existence of truth, our cultural conversations become more fractured and disconnected, our willingness to hear one another out seems to diminish by the day, and corporate , political , and other cultural activist s readily work to impose their views on everyone else. And, who’s to s

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits: “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” -Revelation 2:4 Where is the vital godliness and holiness that characterized the church in the Acts of the Apostles? Where is the preciousness of Christ? Where is the convicting power of God the Holy Spirit? Where are the sinners crying unto God for mercy? Where are the life-giving evidences of the claims of God upon the lives of so called born again believers? Where is the thundering forth of the law of God so that people may know what sin is? Where is the old fashioned prayer meeting where people meet to cry unto God for the souls of men?[1] The day in which we now live, of course, is not the first time we have faced the folly of leaving our first love. Unfortunately, this has been a trademark of life in the church since the book of Judges. There is, however, always hope in Jesus. Consider this. By 1630 Scotland was in need of another revival, a time of visitation

 By Samuel Sey - Posted at Slow to Write: Some of your supposedly Christian friends have recently said they are members of the LGBTQ community. That’s becoming increasingly common. However, an even bigger number of your supposedly Christian friends have become LGBTQ allies. You already know that. But do you know why? There are, of course, several reasons why many professing Christians are embracing LGBTQ ideology. Satan has devised many schemes to lead us into apostasy. With that in mind, although all people who support LGBTQ ideology do so for the same reason: sin—people can commit the same sin from different temptations. As I’ve alluded to, one of the reasons why many professing Christians have become allies with LGBTQ people is because many of their friends and family have become members of the LGBTQ community. Studies show that this is statistically the biggest reason why people become LGBTQ affirming. For instance, a 2013 study from Pew Research Center shows that 32% of Americans

  Posted at Morning Star News: ( Morning Star News ) – Severe persecution of Hmong Christians is underway in Nghe An Province in Vietnam. In the central Vietnam province, officials vying with each other to create “Christian-free zones” operate “with no conscience or humanity,” as if they were in a different country than the one whose religious freedom measures they are violating, Christian leaders say. Authorities put immense pressure on animist relatives to drive Christians from their homes, exiling them from family, livelihood and community with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Some Christians have been forcibly separated from spouse and children, home and fields, sometimes even their wedding rings, if they persist in their faith. Then officials wash their hands and say these outrages are purely family matters. The only way out is for the offending Christians to recant and revert to the animistic practices of their ancestral religion. Most steadfastly refuse to give up their n

 From the July 23rd World History Institute Newsletter : Dr. Marshall Foster - Now Home with the Lord Marshall Foster went home to be with the Lord yesterday, July 22 at 4:30 pm. He died peacefully, surrounded by his family and listening to hymns. We are unable to express our deep gratitude for the thousands of prayers that went up to the Father on behalf of Marshall and his family. It brought him comfort and great joy to know that he did not walk this road alone and that he was being uplifted by your faithful prayers. At this moment, we feel immense sadness and profound loss. We also feel immense joy, for we know that the glorious presence of the Lord now surrounds Marshall. He lived a praiseful life! He now beholds the object of his faith, the risen Christ, high and lifted up. May God be glorified in all the seeds sown by Marshall's deep love for Christ and for America. He joins the heavenly saints, along with all his heroes in the faith, as he meets, face to face, the God he se

By Tom Strode - Posted at Baptist Press: WASHINGTON (BP) – The U.S. House of Representatives voted July 19 to codify same-sex marriage into law with the help of one-fifth of its Republican members and to the chagrin of Southern Baptist leaders. With all the Democrats and 47 Republicans voting in favor, the House approved the Respect for Marriage Act in a 267-157 roll call. The proposal would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and require federal and state recognition of same-sex marriages considered legal in the jurisdiction where they took place. If enacted, the measure would essentially place into federal law the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized gay marriage. The legislation still needs to receive approval in the Senate, where it faces the challenge of a 60-vote requirement to gain action on the floor. Read more...

 By Jesse Johnson - Posted at The Cripplegate : Imagine you are a youth soccer coach, and a girl you have coached for five seasons takes you aside at practice and asks you, “Coach: I’m going through some changes in my life, and one of them is that I’ve decided I want to be known as a guy. Can you please address me by he/him, instead of her/she?” What would you say? This scenario is becoming more and more common. Last year I wrote about a teacher in the area who was fired by his school for asking the school board to not compel him to use “preferred pronouns” for students . He said, “I love my students too much to lie to them.” That cost him his job. What would you do? Here are some principles I’d want to communicate to the person... Continue here...

 By SLIMJIM - Posted at The Domain for Truth: Southern Poverty Law Center is no friends of conservatives. Yet I found their recent findings disturbing: Young male Democrat approves of political assassination above any other demographics such as Republican men and women. There’s a lot of discussion on the news associating violence with conservatives. But I’m disturbed that some of these news sources can selectively cite sources to fit a narrative while omitting key details like what I just stated of the finding from SPLC. And there’s news sources that omit the fact that in general people are willing to approve of political violence than before among the younger generation, and statistically its not exclusively a conservative phenomenon. From a April 2022 finding that was published on June 2022 we learn that “44 percent of Young male Democrat approves of political assassination.” By younger the study looks at those 50 years and younger. Read more...

 By John Horvat - Posted at The Imaginative Conservative : The innocent child instinctively and implicitly knows what is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. Like the innocent child denouncing the emperor’s “new clothes,” he recognizes the drag queen as ugly and sinister as a wicked witch in a fairy tale. The child does not bend to the politically- correct opinions and says what he thinks. Suddenly, a new figure has appeared on the scene, invading public places, libraries and schools. His appearance is shocking and lewd. He is the drag queen who demands the right to read stories and have access to toddlers and children. There is no explanation why he must read his stories about sexual fluidity to little children. Nothing like this has ever been done. He does it because he can do it—a decadent society lets him do it. The media actively promotes these indoctrination sessions as manifestations of “tolerance” and diversity. Read more... HT: The Aquila Report

 By Bob McEvoy- Posted at The Salty Scrivener: It’s 8am on Monday morning the 18th July 2022 and this the weekly look at what’s happening, and a little bit of ethical commentary from a Christian standpoint. Listen to the PODCAST HERE And first some good news. The ‘Online Safety Bill’ has been dropped from the House of Commons agenda. Apparently it was because the Labour Party had demanded a vote of no confidence in the government, which denied the bill the time for its first reading. Perhaps so. There was a lot of opposition to the bill, both inside and outside the house, with several MPs and non-governmental organisations flagging up the bill’s restrictions on free speech. Christians especially would have been targeted under the bill, (for example, even the public preaching of Romans chapter one or 1st Corinthians 6 could have been considered ‘harmful’ under the terms of the bill). It is quite possible that the withdrawal of the Online Safety Bill was a response to widespread oppositi

 By Bill Muehlenberg - Posted at Culture Watch: Why we must support the brave Dutch farmers against the globalists: The Dutch are a tolerant people, and they have a long-standing reputation for that. I lived in the Netherlands for five years and saw it on display, and Dutch history is filled with examples of the Dutch offering help and aid to others. But right now a lot of Dutch citizens are NOT being very tolerant about what is happening to them. And rightly so. I refer to the tens of thousands of farmers who have come out in protest against the globalist elites and their fear-mongering over climate change and their plans to radically change Dutch farming. The government is effectively stealing land from Dutch farmers due to a supposed nitrogen crisis. But it is a food crisis that will be the result of these government attempts to fully involve themselves in farmers and food production. Consider the recent Sri Lankan crisis where people power has just toppled the government after it i

 By John Stonestreet and Glenn Sunshine - Posted at Breakpoint : In response to the recent Dobbs decision and the Supreme Court’s clear, consistent support for religious liberty throughout this term, many progressives are warning of an imminent “Christian theocracy.” Among the loudest voices predicting our collective doom are mainstream media outlets. For example, a recent story in Reuters claimed, “ U.S. Supreme Court Takes Aim at Separation of Church and State .” What’s missing in virtually all of these pieces is a proper understanding of the “establishment clause.” The establishment clause is derived from the opening lines of the First Amendment which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” There are two ways this statement is commonly misunderstood. First, it is often described as establishing a “wall of separation between church and state.” In fact, those words are found nowhere in the Constitutio

 By Elizabeth Prata - Posted at The End Time: A friend was permanently suspended from Twitter recently. He is a pastor, boldly unashamed of the Gospel. So, you know what happens next…Twitter, intolerant of religious views of Christians, suspended him. I’m not sure which tweet sent Twitter over the edge, probably something about judgment and eternal death. The world isn’t fair to Christians and we don’t expect it to be. Update: He wrote about his banning, here . Whenever I remind folks about using social media before we lose it to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus before, inevitably I receive dismissive replies along the lines of ‘we don’t need social media’ or ‘there are other ways to proclaim the Gospel’. etc. The all-too-often stance from the public square who think either-or, not both-and, is weird. Other times I see comments decrying social media, saying it’s a pit. Well it’s not ONLY a pit. It’s not that if we don’t have social media we can’t proclaim the Gospel. It’s not that si

 By Samual D. James - Posted at Digital Liturgies : How Netflix, the iPod, and Facebook All Depict an Internet-Fueled Cultural Regression At the risk of generational hubris and a very obnoxious kind of nostalgia, I would like to submit to you that circa 2008, Americans were, if not happier, at least having more fun. I would further like to submit to you that the dampening of this joviality is directly related to what I am calling connectivity : both the way that more and more of our life is mediated by the Internet, and also the transformation of nearly all of our tools and pastimes into vehicles that mediate an ambient world wide Web. Connectivity describes both a technological progression and a cultural state. Connectivity happens to people as well as devices. It has happened to nearly every American adult via the smartphone, and it has permanently transformed mediums such as film and music. If an American in their late 20s or early 30s were to have fallen into a coma in 2008 and wok

 By Bob McEvoy - Posted at The Salty Scrivener: News and Prayer Update. It’s 8am on Monday morning the 11th July 2022 and this is the weekly look at what’s happening, and a little bit of perspective from a Christian standpoint. We have to start with the resignation of Alexander (Boris) Johnson, the now former PM of the UK. Johnson apparently had ambitions as a child to the ‘King of the World.” He has always been an ambitious man, and such unrestrained ambition, always leads to corruption, as the ambitious man tramples over others to appease his own egotistical aspirations. In Johnson, that flaw is evident to all. He has had a checkered career in politics, marked with immorality, infidelity, poor decision making – but mostly his legacy will be as a serial liar. It had come to the point where no-one believed a single word he said. In his final days he was sending government ministers out on media rounds, to defend his integrity, and even as they were speaking, he was changing the narrat

 By Bill Muehlenberg - Posted at Culture Watch: The Puritans have much to teach us about suffering and affliction: As is known, suffering will make us better or bitter. How we respond to hardships, trials and afflictions makes all the difference in the world. And the Christian has a way of looking at these things that differs from others. And as I have written before, some of the best writings on sufferings and how to deal with them are by the Puritans. See here for example: billmuehlenberg.com/2022/06/14/why-wont-christians-talk-about-this/ They wrote often about afflictions and trials, and their biblical, theological and devotional writings on the subject are a deep fountain and a terrific treasure trove. We have much to learn from the Puritans, and their ability to trust and worship God in the midst of great sufferings can teach and encourage us all. Several major emphases of the Puritans can be mentioned here when it comes to suffering and affliction. One of course is their belief

 By Tom Hicks - Posted at Founders Ministries: I’ve heard people say, “The church needs to get angry about all these social injustices!” Many seem to believe that racism, misogyny, domestic abuse, child abuse, etc., are all worthy of our most intense anger so that we’re stirred to action in support of victims and so that we can bring oppressors to justice. But is that true? Certainly, the Scriptures are clear that we must seek justice. Proverbs 21:15 says, “When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.” On the other hand, James 1:20 says, “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires.” There is something about human anger, untempered, and fully expressed that does not please God. I suggest we need to make some careful distinctions when it comes to angrily pursuing justice. 1. The Nature of Anger The Bible does not teach that anger itself is sinful. After all, God is angry. Scripture frequently talks about “the anger of the LORD”

By Jeffrey A. Stivason - Posted at Gentle Reformation: Several years ago I read Russell Kirk’s The Roots of American Order. Kirk argued, “The the law is revealed to save man from self destruction.” [1] However, by “save” he meant “restrain.” For example, a paragraph later he wrote, “A conviction of man’s sinfulness, and of the need for laws to restrain every man’s will and appetite,influenced the legislators of the colonies and the Republic.” [2] Even Thomas Jefferson, the progressive at that time, was not willing to trust in man’s so-called innate goodness, but “bind him down with the chains of the Constitution.” [3] When I read statements like these they remind me that our country was founded to be a republic and not a democracy. Just think of the Pledge of Allegiance, which states that allegiance is pledged to the United States of America and “to the Republic for which it stands.” Though it is true that America is a republic it is also true to say that it is a democratic republic.

 By Samuel T. Lair - Posted at Journal of the American Revolution: Every ten years the United States engages in the process of re-apportionment, wherein each state with more than one House seat redraws their Congressional districts. Simultaneously, every re-districting cycle partisans, activists, and pundits alike all bewail the harmful effects of gerrymandering on the process. Far from a modern phenomenon, partisan politics has always had a significant influence on the re-districting process. Indeed, the Framers of our Constitution designed our system of republican government with the understanding that “party spirit” would be a constant feature in its operation—particularly in redistricting. Nor would it take long for these effects to become a mainstay in the redistricting process. Even before the First Congress assembled in Philadelphia, the partisan quarrels between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists colored the debates over the first election laws and which form of Congressional

 Posted at Blogging the Revolution: Published July 4, 2007 In May of 1776, George Mason authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the first authoritative formulation of the doctrine of inalienable rights, which was to become the basis for the American Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States.  The Second Continental Congress met on May 10, 1776, in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. The Declaration of Independence was written and members of the Second Continental Congress decided to officially put the colonies in a state of defense.  On June 7, 1776, Virginian Richard Henry Lee made his famous proposal to congress: “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”   On July 4th, the Declaration of Independence was signed in Congress.  On July 8th, the Liberty Bell rang out to call the people of Philadelphia to hear the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. The nex

By Grant Van Leuven - Posted at Place for Truth : According to John Gill, ancient heathen soldiers who deserted their armies were forced to walk around in the marketplace dressed like women to be a humiliating punishment. [1] Nowadays, every June, men proudly prance down their American Main Street catwalks flouncing female garb. A year ago this month, tolerated among a California Republican Party gathering was gubernatorial candidate Mr. Bruce Jenner masquerading as a woman in name and clothing only. A conservative talk show radio host featured a website selfie posing with him to represent the station’s podcast event coverage (thankfully, later replaced upon request). More recently, Jenner was hired as a contributing analyst across all platforms for the supposed conservative voice, Fox News Media, [2] debuting with the popular self-avowed Christian host Sean Hannity. Yet God forbids transvestism as a horrid evil against Him to be shamefully shunned. [3] Deuteronomy 22:5 reads,