Christian Heritage News

By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None Of His Benefits: “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me,’” -Matthew 16:24 Several years ago Wini and I traveled to the University of Alabama where I led a time of revival prayer for about thirty college students. The plan originally was for me to speak for about an hour and then lead the students in revival prayer for another hour. I spoke for about ninety minutes and then we prayed. It was one of those meetings where the Holy Spirit showed up in great power. We prayed continually for almost three hours and by ten o’clock that night the students were on their faces, confessing sin, and crying out to God for an outpouring of the Spirit on the Alabama campus. The very next week a tornado came through the campus and one of the students who had been saved a year or two earlier and was a swimmer on the Alabama swim team was killed when a wall collapsed on him and his

Image Source:  Koch-backed AFP Backs Nikki Haley for President In Massive Setback for DeSantis (breitbart.com)  By Steve Lefemine Fake conservative Nikki Haley gratefully accepted backing for her presidential campaign from Americans for Prosperity ( and Sodomite "Marriage"** [sic] ), saying she was "honored" to have their support. ** AFP Advisory Council member, sodomite Guy Benson is "married" [sic] to his sodomite "husband" [sic]. [ https://americansforprosperity.org/advisorycouncil/ ] _____ _____ 'Koch-backed [ Pro-Sodomite "Marriage" ] AFP Backs Nikki Haley for President In Massive Setback [sic - Vindication] for DeSantis' Breitbart [FAKE] News Nov 28, 2023 https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2023/11/28/koch-backed-afp-backs-nikki-haley-president-massive-setback-ron-desantis/ _____ _____ 'AFP Advisory Council' Americans for Prosperity https://americansforprosperity.org/advisorycouncil/ Excerpts: "Guy Benson

Screenshot of video showing booking photo for Jason Lee Willie, of Nashville, Illinois. Screenshot/YouTube/SocialLifestyle By Ian M. Giatti - Posted at The Christian Post: Court docs: Suspect identified as 'open pedophile,' vowed 'many more and larger attacks on Christians' Published November 27, 2023 A trans-identified Illinois man and alleged self-described “pedophile” is facing charges for making social media threats to sexually assault Christian girls and commit copycat attacks similar to the attack at a Christian school in Tennessee earlier this year. Jason Lee Willie of Nashville, Illinois, was charged Nov. 7 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois with 14 felony counts of interstate communication of a threat to injure, according to a federal indictment . The threats, which are dated between March and August, include repeated references to Christians, black Americans, the Republican Party, and others. Among the alleged threats cited in the in

By Wes Bredenhof Published November 8, 2023 In November 1978, over 900 people committed mass suicide in the South American country of Guyana. They were Americans. They were part of a cult headed by Jim Jones. They had fled to South America to escape growing opposition to the cult in the United States. However, American officials started investigating reports of abuse in Guyana as well. An American congressman came to visit and was murdered along with four others. This led Jones to proclaim that the end was near – it was only a matter of time before American forces would storm his compound. He instructed all his followers to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Obediently, almost all of them did, including 304 children and young people. This is where the expression “drinking the Kool-Aid” comes from. It refers to people ingesting poison under the influence of a powerful leader. Of course, today nobody is referring to literal poison – it’s used to refer to poisonous ideas. Today there

 By Jeffrey Stivason - Posted at Place for Truth: Thanksgiving is an interesting exercise. It implies that the thanks given can be received. When growing up my mom would make my favorite dish on my birthday. I would thank her, and she would receive the thanks with a hug. It is this very thing that shows the inadequacy of idolatry. The idol is unable to receive the thanks of the worshiper. Just think about the description in Isaiah 44:12-17 . The prophet tells us that a man plants a tree, he prunes it, cares for it and when it is tall enough, he cuts it down and cuts it in half. With one half he builds a fire. He cooks his food and warms himself with it. And he says, “Ah, I am warm; all is well!” But with the other half of the log, he takes a tool and shapes it. He measures it and uses a chalk line to make sure the lines are straight. He labors long like this even going without food and water using his strength to craft the wood and in the end the piece of wood looks like an image. Th

By Pastor Dewey Roberts - Posted at Vanguard Presbyterian Church: Thanksgiving in the US is one of the best and purest of holidays. It has long been my opinion that it is a truly Christian holiday even if it is not specifically sanctioned by Scripture. It is a Christian holiday because the emphasis is on giving thanks to God for all His bountiful care. Yet, even Thanksgiving is not without controversy. There are different accounts of the first Thanksgiving among the colonists and the Wampanoag Native Americans. It was a new start for those people who had fled to America for religious freedom, but it was effectively the beginning of the end for those who already lived in this country. Every year since 1970, Native Americans have been gathering at Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts for a National Day of Mourning. It was the beginning of our world and the end of theirs. We have all heard the story of the first Thanksgiving in 1621 when the Wampanoag tribe under the leadership of Massa

By Angela Wittman "Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people."   ( 1 Chronicles 16:8, KJV ) While preparing for the gathering of family and friends this Thanksgiving season, let’s not forget to also prepare our hearts in humble gratefulness to God for the blessings and grace which He has bestowed upon us as individuals and as a nation. Here is a bit of history about Thanksgiving which you may not have been taught in school as taken from the website “A Puritan’s Mind” by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon : The celebration we now popularly regard as the ‘First Thanksgiving’ was the Pilgrims' three-day feast celebrated in early November of 1621 (although a day of thanks in America was observed in Virginia at Cape Henry in 1607)... The Pilgrims left Plymouth, England, on September 6, 1620, sailing for a new world that offered the promise of both civil and religious liberty. The Pilgrims had earlier left England in 1608, as the Church of England

Coptic Church in Gaza Suburbs Photo: Stuart Geiger Posted at Voice of the Persecuted: Published November 20, 2023 ( Voice of the Persecuted ) You are invited to join us on Monday, November 20, 2023, in a prayer conference call hosted by Persecution Watch for the persecuted Church, Gaza and Israel. Joel Rosenberg issued an urgent plea to the Israeli government Friday, imploring leaders to quickly and systematically evacuate Christian Palestinians trapped in Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas. Rosenberg penned an open letter to “Israeli leaders at the highest levels of our government and the military,” detailing why he believes this evacuation must unfold. He spoke with CBN Digital on Friday to further frame the pressing matter. “It’s a terrible situation, as you can imagine,” he said. “Everybody in Gaza wants to be out of Gaza right now.” But Rosenberg stressed an important difference between the millions of Muslims living there and the 1,000 or so remaining Christian minority

 Posted at Reformation Scotland: Assuming that there is such a thing as truth versus error, how can we ever distinguish them? Some are afraid of discussing theology because it’s so easy to be taken in by subtle arguments, or because they believe it’s too difficult to explain sacred things to ordinary people. Others at the opposite extreme will argue about everything, even things as pointless as how many angels can dance on a pinhead. The Westminster divine John Ley of Solihull, Warwickshire went into print on multiple controversial issues as well as contributing to the discussions at the Westminster Assembly. He also wrote a discourse ‘On Disputations’ where he conceded that there is wisdom in avoiding religious disputes and highlighted the risk of being addicted to arguing for its own sake. Yet, as shown in the following updated and abridged excerpt from this discourse, he insisted that out of concern for people’s spiritual welfare, it is unloving to leave them to be choked with the c

Image Source:  Christian leader shot in the head while preaching at Glendale street corner (msn.com) By Ben Bradley - Posted at Arizona's Family:  Published November 16, 2023 GLENDALE, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) — A congregation is in shock after a beloved religious leader was shot in the head while preaching on a Glendale street corner on Wednesday night. In an update on Friday morning, Glendale police say 26-year-old Hans Schmidt, a husband and father of two, remains in critical condition. It happened on the northwest corner of 51st and Peoria avenues around 6 p.m. Friends say Hans Schmidt was standing with a megaphone on the street corner, preaching the gospel to people passing by, something he’d apparently done countless times before. Only this time, someone pulled out a gun and shot him. Friends and family can’t understand why. “Who knows why someone would want to take it out on a preacher like that because he’s speaking the gospel and good news to everybody. He’s out to help the commun

By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None Of His Benefits: '. . . be filled with the Holy Spirit.' -Ephesians 5:18 With our American holiday of Thanksgiving only one week away, perhaps you could use some advice on how to engage your family members who seem to have a strong aversion to Christianity. Maybe they grew up in the church and for whatever reason left it long ago. Maybe you have tried to get into the gospel with them before and they shut you down pretty quickly. Perhaps you have a homosexual family member who will bring his “partner” to dinner. Maybe you have a cousin or nephew who is dabbling in transgenderism. What can you do without causing a scene at the dinner table? May I briefly suggest four things? Perhaps I can enlarge on them later. First, remember who you were before you received God’s mercy in Christ (Eph.2:1-13). You were dead in your sins. You were under the control of the devil. You were controlled by your lusts in mind and body. You were without hope and witho

 By Pastor Dewey Roberts - Posted at Vanguard Presbyterian Church: The Revolutionary War (1776-1783) There were two other events that happened after the death of Samuel Davies (February 4, 1761) in which he played an indirect, but very close part. The first of those events was the Revolutionary War. That war has been called the ‘Presbyterian Rebellion’ because most of the leading voices in it were Presbyterians. That was certainly true of Patrick Henry (1736-1799) whose immortal words, “Give me liberty or give me death!” are well-known throughout the world even today. As I was preparing my speech for the three hundredth anniversary celebration of Samuel Davies’ birth on November 3, 2023, my wife and I went to lunch at a local restaurant. There was a young man there on that occasion who was wearing a shirt with Henry’s words on the front of it. Henry was a Presbyterian and had been a member of Davies’ church, Polegreen Presbyterian Church, from the very beginning, Henry’s mother was a d

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms: Taking Seriously Our Need to Evangelize Good Morning, Paganism as a word comes from a Latin term which roughly translates to redneck. It was a way for the city folk to sound superior to the great unwashed out in the country. The history of how it became known as a way to describe those men and women who believe not in the God of the Bible is a little convoluted. However, it will be worth our time to learn a bit of it as it teaches us much about the worth of continuing to use it for our purposes today. Early Christianity was a faith which began to spread first in the cities of the Mediterranean, as told to us in the Book of Acts. The main reason was because that is where the synagogues were. As Paul notes the gospel was for the Jews first, and then the Greeks. As the community of faith grew it was largely confined in the population centers as the folks out in the hollers surrounding Ephesus held on to the old ways. Partl

John Chau | Courtesy of All Nations/The Christian Post By Leah MarieAnn Klett - Posted at The Christian Post: Published November 12, 2023 When John Chau, a 26-year-old missionary, was killed by the Sentinelese tribe after he traveled to North Sentinel Island—an isolated region of India—to share the Gospel with the uncontacted group, responses were polarizing. Some, both in the Evangelical and secular arenas, condemned Chau’s journey as a reckless one that reflected deep levels of ignorance, pride and cultural superiority. Others applauded his commitment to the Great Commission, the biblical mandate to reach all nations with the Gospel, despite great personal risk. The new National Geographic documentary “The Mission” delves into Chau’s background and history to understand the young missionary and the beliefs that drove his passion for reaching the lost, ultimately losing his life in pursuit of that goal. The documentary, from husband-and-wife filmmaking duo Amanda McBaine and Jesse Mo

Amazon Link  By Pastor Shane Lems - Posted at The Reformed Reader Blog: I was talking with a friend recently about abuse – specifically abuse in the church. It is no myth, nor is it a joke. It does happen that men in positions of church authority simultaneously abuse their authority and people under their authority. Speaking of abuse, including sexual, emotional, physical, or verbal abuse, here’s a good resource I’ve mentioned before: Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft . Please note that this is not a Christian book, and I don’t agree with every aspect. But it is a situation where Christians can “go to the ant” or “plunder the Egyptians” to get practical life wisdom (Prov. 6:6, 30:25, Ex. 12:35-36). Speaking of abuse, after counseling hundreds of abuse victims, in the fourth chapter Bancroft notes a few different types of abusive men she has come across: The Demand Man, Mr. Right, The Water Torturer (figuratively), The Drill Sergeant, Mr. Sensitive, The Player, Rambo, The Victim, T

 By Mark Penninga - Posted at Reformed Perspective: Published November 2, 2023 Satan’s efforts to corrupt God’s design for marriage and sex has evolved yet again, spurred on by the advance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI technology now allows people to create their own virtual girlfriend. For a fee, you can design not just their looks, but also their personality, and then have a “relationship” with them. “Create a girlfriend who is judgement-free! Who lets you hang out with your buddies without drama! Who laughs at all your jokes!” reported British freelance writer Freya India in her article “We Can’t Compete with AI Girlfriends.” According to a recent Breakpoint article , “since 2008, the share of [American] men under 30 reporting no sex at all has nearly tripled.” With more young men being single and lonely, the appeal of these apps is no surprise. Read more here.

 By Dewey Roberts - Posted at Vanguard Presbyterian Church: With this week’s article, I am sending out the gist of a message I gave In Richmond, Virginia last Friday evening on the 300th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Davies. Half of the message is in this week’s email and the other half will be next week. There were about 120 people who gathered last Friday evening at the Virginia Crossing’s Hotel conference room and I was the keynote speaker. I chose to address them on his Samuel Davies was in one sense the most important of the founding fathers of this country. Before my speech, a very astute man commented to me that the American republic began at the Polegreen Presbyterian Church in Hanover county where Samuel Davies preached and where young Patrick Henry listened to the sermons of one he esteemed to be the greatest orator he ever heard. I could not agree more with that sentiment. Yet, Davies is strangely forgotten by modern America. There are many reasons why Davies should be

 By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms: Folks take a little bit of Native American spirituality, Celtic ways, and old Germanic folk-tales mixed with incense and booze and call it a lifestyle when all it represents is a grasping in darkness and believing in whatever you pull out. Historical Background in How to Deal With the Rising Tide of Paganism Howdy! The winter season has come a little early here to South Carolina. We had our first frost last week and there was snow spotted in the mountains on the last day of October. It’s currently 38 degrees as I type. As a young man I loved cold weather and relished the blessings which came with it, mainly skiing and ice skating. However, as I have grown older summer has become moreso my favorite time of year when it comes to temps and times. Being warm has its privileges. Yet it is the closing of the calendar when the fun holidays start ringing their bells. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year each have th

Child Protection League   Posted at the Child Protection League: Much of the language being used today in schools, the workplace, and culture is intentionally deceptive. A whole vocabulary is in use that masks a politicized Culture War agenda. Familiar words have been redefined, and new words are intentionally misleading. To understand and expose the terms of Cultural Marxism and to be effective, we must “decode” the meanings of common terminology. This dictionary of Cultural Marxist terms and their meanings, Defining the Terms of Cultural Marxism , is available on our website as a printable, shareable, and downloadable PDF. Bring it with you the next time you’re in a discussion about Social Emotional Learning, Critical Race Theory, equity, diversity, inclusion, social justice, cultural competency, etc. The following are a few of those terms. The entire list is on our website titled Defining the Terms of Cultural Marxism . Marxism The worldview promoted by Karl Marx which asserts that

 By Wes Bredenhof Knowledge is power and, when it comes to relationships, one of the most important bits of knowledge is how to detect an abuser before you marry one. In far too many cases, abusers hoodwink their prospective spouses during courtship. But this usually happens because the prospects/future victims don’t know what to look for. I hope this post will help. A few important points beforehand: I have adapted this list of clues from a pamphlet produced by WestCASA (Western Region Against Sexual Assault) here in Australia. I have adapted it for a church-going audience. The list is not exhaustive and it’s important to realize that some abusers can’t be detected beforehand. Because domestic abuse is usually perpetrated by men, I’m going to use masculine pronouns. This isn’t to say that women can’t be or aren’t abusive. These are important things to reflect on as early as possible in the relationship. As the original pamphlet states: “Collect this information over at least 2-4 month

 By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits: 'God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.' – Genesis 1:27 I don’t know much about Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I have a nephew who has competed for many years and has won many awards, but that’s the extent of my knowledge of the sport. Maybe you don’t much about it either. If so, then here’s a definition. “Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) is a martial art and combat sport based on grappling, ground fighting, and submission holds. BBJ approaches self-defense by emphasizing taking an opponent to the ground, gaining a dominant position, and using a number of techniques to force them into submission through joint locks or chokeholds.” [1] Pretty intense stuff, don’t you think? On October 21 transgender competitor Corissa Griffith, a man who calls himself a woman, took home four gold medals at a tournament in Georgia in which “she” competed against women who were born women. Earlier

 By Bill Muehlenberg Published November 1, 2023 On the new Speaker of the House: If you follow American politics, you will know that a new Speaker of the House has recently been voted in. Republican Representative from Louisiana Mike Johnson became the 56th Speaker. This follows several weeks of stalemate after Kevin McCarthy from California was ousted from the position. Johnson was unanimously elected by the 220 Republicans in the House. In case you are not up on what the role of the Speaker is, one site puts it this way: The Speaker of the House acts as the leader of the U.S. House of Representatives. Every two years, the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives vote on the first day of each new Congress. Both of the major political parties nominate one candidate for the position of Speaker. The candidate from the majority party usually wins. The Speaker of the House is responsible for administering the oath of office to the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, giving Me