Danny Holmes, Jr. committee a murder in 2016. A few days later, he was arrested for his crime. Last week, Holmes went on trial and plead guilty to his crime.
In a 20 minute speech before a Tennessee court, Holmes talked of finding faith while behind bars and the conviction that he needed to confess to his crime.
He’ll now serve the rest of his life in prison, a consequence that Holmes says he deserves for his crime. (more…)
Gateway Church, a popular megachurch in Texas launched a new campus in a maximum security prison earlier this year. Last week, five inmates in solitary confinement were baptized. Part of what makes the story noteworthy is that the men come from rival gangs.
Many articles have discussed the risk to their own lives that these men were taking in being baptized with their enemies.
Fox News describes the scene:
Five of the men – confirmed gang or cartel members – were brought into the gymnasium, shackled hand and foot and around the waist, and they had to clear the prison because of safety concerns. (more…)
Sarah Lockner was working at a California McDonald’s on September 4, 2017. Fellow coworkers notice a trail of blood leading to Lockner. She tried to attribute the blood to a heavy period, but a coworker went to the bathroom and found a newborn baby in the toilet. Lockner had given birth during the shift and tried to flush her own child down the toilet. (more…)
I was listening to the BreakPoint podcast today and they told the story of an Oregon couple who was just sentenced to six years in prison for the death of their daughter, Ginnifer.
The baby was prematurely born at 32 weeks and died several hours later of complications which were treatable. The parents are members of a Pentecostal church that relies on praying and faith healing and did not seek medical attention.
This is truly tragic. This little girl should be alive today. The parents were rightly prosecuted and that they acted immorally and inappropriately.
In the BreakPoint commentary, John Stonestreet sums up the frustration well:
Now let me be clear, the Mitchells were rightly prosecuted for allowing their baby girl to die, even though they prayed for her to live. But had they wanted to kill Ginnifer, they could have driven to the nearest abortion clinic an hour before her birth—and get this—the state of Oregon would have paid for it.
This is the issue. Ginnifer was born March 5, 2017. Her parents could have had her aborted earlier in that day. As Stonestreet points out, it would have been paid for by the state and would have been perfectly legal.
Why do babies so often have no rights until they’re born?
The hypocrisy and irrationality of these standards carries over into states that have feticide laws (laws in regards to legal recourse when a person’s actions result in the death of a fetus). 38 states recognize situations where a fetus is killed as homicide (unless it’s aborted and then it’s legally allowed).
Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.
