As a kid, I vividly remember watching a ceremony on TV where Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to China. I couldn’t begin to understand the significance of that event at the time. That was 22 years ago. When Hong Kong was handed over to China, there was an agreement in place where Hong Kong would retain its economic and political systems for 50 years. (more…)
This week, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) voted to endorse the Nashville Statement. The Nashville Statement is a series of affirmations regarding traditional Biblical views of sexuality and gender and was created by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
To give a sense of what the Nashville Statement discusses:
WE AFFIRM that God has designed marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman, as husband and wife, and is meant to signify the covenant love between Christ and his bride the church.
WE DENY that God has designed marriage to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous relationship. We also deny that marriage is a mere human contract rather than a covenant made before God. (more…)
A group of United Church of Christ (UCC) clergy traveled to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Milwaukee to have a special service of blessing and solidarity.
The United Church of Christ is among the most progressive mainline denominations. They’re celebrating Planned Parenthood and what they stand for. From a news release on the UCC website, they say quote a minister who attended the event and said “This is not about reproductive rights. This is about controlling women. This is not about saving lives. It’s about controlling women. It is not about children. It is about controlling women. If it were about children, we would have the same amount of energy at the border right now. If it was about children, we wouldn’t have children being hungry at night.”
This is a caricature.
Not about saving lives? Not about children? Hundreds of thousands of babies are aborted every year in this country. And you have a church standing arm and arm with Planned Parenthood. This is the fallacy that the pro abortion movement likes to commit which is that if you don’t have a plan to actively fix every evil and injustice in society, that you therefore can’t be pro-choice. This is nonsense. Millions of Christians all over the country care about those who are going hungry. Christians support missions and local food banks. Christians disproportionately adopt and foster.
It’s shameful that people representing a church denomination would conduct themselves in this way and support the termination of the lives of the unborn. It’s disappointing, but given how far the UCC has gone, it’s not surprising.
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Josh Benner has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has served churches in Minnesota and Illinois. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in St. Louis.
Last week, Southern Baptists from around the country met in Birmingham, Alabama for their annual meeting. A major focus for Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) president J.D. Greear is sexual abuse within the SBC, America’s largest Protestant denomination.
In February, the Houston Chronicle ran a piece outlining hundreds of examples of sexual abuse allegations within the Southern Baptist Convention since 1998. (more…)
On Monday, the Supreme Court vacated a decision regarding a 2013 case of a Christian couple in Oregon who owned a bakery and refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding.
The matter was taken to a state agency who fined the bakery owners $135,000. It was said that the owners illegally discriminated based on sexual orientation. An Oregon appeals court upheld the ruling. (more…)
