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Grammy award-winning Christian music artist and ‘American Idol’ alum Mandisa Lynn Hundley’s cause of death has been revealed, with coroners confirming that she passed away from complications of obesity at the age of 47.

Mandisa was found alone in her Nashville home deceased on April 18, but at the time, no further details were provided. A 911 call regarding the incident had the dispatcher relaying “cardiac respiratory arrest” and that the patient was “dealing with obesity and depression.”

Specifically, the autopsy says the singer passed away from “natural causes” stemming from Class III obesity, which used to be called “morbid” obesity and is defined as a person that has a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or higher.

1. Underweight: Less than 18.5.
2. Optimum range: 18.5 to 24.9.
3. Overweight: 25 to 29.9.
4. Class I obesity: 30 to 34.9.
5. Class II obesity: 35 to 39.9.
6. Class III obesity: More than 40.

The singer won a Grammy in 2014 for her album “Overcomer” but stayed out of the spotlight, not even appearing at the show to collect the trophy. 

After a friend passed away she battled weight gain, depression, and suicidal thoughts for years, reemerging in 2017 to record her final album.  She also wrote the book Out of the Dark: My Journey Through the Shadows to Find God’s Joy in 2022, which details that time post-2014

Saddleback Church has joined other large megachurches in the VR space, recently hosting its first Virtual Reality church service through the Metaverse.

The Metaverse is a digital realm that combines elements of augmented reality, persistent virtual worlds, videos, Virtual Reality headsets, 3D holographic avatars, and other communication tools. While still in its early stages, the Metaverse is poised to offer a hyper-realistic alternative for people to interact and coexist in, even when they’re not actively participating.

The services are led and hosted by Jay Kranda. Kranda is the Online Pastor at Saddleback Church and the one overseeing the venture, explaining in a video that their first church service was “very immersive.”

After creating a digital replica of their church building, Saddleback and Kranda invited all the avatars to attend, greeting them virtually prior to the service as they came in and “took a seat.”

Saddleback played the whole church service from start to finish, streamed through YouTube, and afterward Kranda “prayed for everybody personally, like in my avatar, in that space.”

He notes that “it felt like church, actually, after you know, about 10 minutes” and that it was “really cool to hear everybody singing- you can hear the mics and people were singing- and it was really communal.” He concludes by offering that “you can see where potentially this could be a great resource for the church in the coming years, maybe decades.”

He also defended the project from those who insist it’s not a real church.

The thirty-first album in this year’s series showing our brothers and sisters in Christ gathering for church service as faithful believers.

While going to church does not make one a believer, refusing to faithfully attend a local church should seriously call that faith into question. This is a glimpse of what the global church is up to, and will feature images in chronological order, week to week, of the men and women being obedient to the scriptures. As always, click pictures to enlarge them.

(Catholic Vote) After sentencing 75-year-old Paulette Harlow to two years in jail, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly quipped about the elderly pro-lifer’s husband’s concern that she might die in prison. Kollar-Kotelly commented that she hopes Harlow will “make an effort to remain alive” because that is a “tenet of [Harlow’s] religion,” according to LiveAction. 

On May 31, in a federal Washington, D.C. court, Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Harlow to two years in jail and 36 months of supervised release for protesting at a notorious late-term abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. with eight others.  

John Harlow, Paulette’s husband, spoke in court before the sentencing about his concerns for his wife’s declining health and his fear that she might die in prison. 

“In my heart, I think she’s having a hard time staying alive,” John said, according to LiveAction. “We’ve tried to be good people,” he later added. “I love my wife dearly… We’re throwing ourselves on the mercy of the court.”… to continue reading click here.

This article was written by McKenna Snow and published at Catholic Vote

All Saints Lutheran Church in Bowie, MD, is a small congregation with a median age of 60 that hopefully will not exist in a decade. Led on an interim basis by pastrix Amanda Nesvold, they have no permanent clergy guiding them and are counting on pulpit supply for support.

Notably, they recently had Lura Groen preach a sermon- a woman we’ve dubbed one of the grossest pastors in America, who we’ve covered after she claimed that Jesus was trying to SEDUCE the woman at the well, that there are lesbian angels’ who ‘consensually’ flirt with queer Christian women, compared the mystery of the Trinity to the luridness of sadomasochism and BDSM, and praised polyamory and premarital hookups.

In a recent post, Goren praised the church’s  “Online Code of Conduct and Social Media Policy.”, which members must adhere to when interacting in person or online. Some of the do’s and don’t’s include:

When interacting in person or online, the members of All Saints Lutheran Church will:
-Manifest the unity of the people of God, joining with other Christians on prayer and
action.
-Advocate dignity and justice for all people, regardless of their station, opinions,
affiliations, race, ethnicity, creed, national origin, sex, gender, or sexual orientation
-Stand with the poor and the powerless and commit themselves to their needs.
–When presenting information which may trigger serious responses in those who have
experienced trauma, make efforts to warn anyone in the discussion that your words
may trigger such a response with a “content warning” or “trigger warning”

And conversely:

When interacting in person or online, the members of All Saints Lutheran Church will not:
-Dismiss or abuse any member of another denomination, sect, or branch of the diverse
and beautiful family tree of the people of God
-Dehumanize or objectify any person, or suggest in any way that any child of God does
not reflect the face of their Creator
-Minimize or marginalize the needs of any person

And what happens if they violate this policy?

As stated in our Constitution (C15.01) “conduct grossly unbecoming a member of the
Church of Christ, or persistent trouble-making in this congregation are sufficient cause for
discipline of a member”