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Liberty University Hires Forensics Firm to Investigate ‘All Facets’ of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Tenure

(Christian News) Liberty University announced on Monday that it has hired “one of the leading forensic firms in the world” to investigate “all facets” of the school’s operations throughout Jerry Falwell Jr.’s tenure as president, including financial, real estate and legal dealings.

“This past week challenged all of us to the core,” the Executive Committee said in a statement on behalf of the Board of Trustees. “While we had been willing to extend grace and understanding to Jerry Falwell, Jr. before, once the revelations about his past personal life came more fully to light, we acted swiftly and decisively to ask for his immediate resignation, which we received.”

“Some may say that all the signs were there for a long time,” it continued, “… but all the signs were not there until the start of last week.”

While there are still some unknowns about exactly what transpired, “we have learned enough about the past to know that we had no choice but to take the leadership of Liberty University in a new direction,” the committee said.

The university remarked that it seeking to understand the consequences of the lack of “spiritual stewardship” on the part of Falwell and has consequently hired an independent organization to conduct a thorough investigation into all aspects of Falwell’s tenure.

“One of the leading forensic firms in the world has been retained by Liberty University’s Board of Trustees to conduct a thorough investigation into all facets of Liberty University operations during Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s tenure as president, including but not limited to financial, real estate, and legal matters,” the school stated.

It advised that, going forward, Liberty University wants to ensure that its leaders reflect the spiritual mission of the institution by their “words, actions and example.”

“That is why, in addition to starting a search for a new president, we are also reviewing options to establish a new role in the top leadership of the university for someone who will serve as a spiritual coach, mentor, and guide to help ensure that every member of the university leadership fulfills his or her spiritual responsibility to live out the Christian walk expected of each and every one of us at Liberty,” the committee outlined.

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Editor’s note. This article was written by Heather Clark and published at Religion News.

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Featured LGBTQQIP2SAA

Govt Funds Kids Game Normalizing LGBT Sexual Practices

(LifeSiteNews) – The British government has been funding a game teaching 13-year-old students about sexual acts, including homosexuality.

“The government has funded a toolkit written by the Proud Trust, an LGBT charity, which includes dice featuring words such as ‘anus,’ ‘vulva,’ ‘penis’ and ‘hands and fingers,’” reported The Times on Monday. “Children are encouraged to throw the dice twice and talk about the sexual acts that can happen using the two body parts.”

Proud Trust reveals on its website that the game has been produced to normalize homosexuality and gender ideology.

“For many years, the young people that we work with have been telling us that their needs are not being met through the sexual health education that they have received through mainstream education,” the Proud Trust wrote.

“Lesbian, gay and bisexual young people tell us they feel excluded for sexual health education, due to a heavy focus on pregnancy and contraception,” the organization continued. “Trans young people tell us they feel disempowered to engage in sexual health education programmes, due to incorrect assumptions being made about them and their body parts, by the subject facilitator.”

Accordingly, the Proud Trust concluded that “a sexual health toolkit specifically for LGBT+ young people is not what is needed. Rather, a toolkit that enables a broader set of conversations with all young people is what is required.”

The game was developed using a government grant of almost £100,000. The grant was financed through the “Tampon Tax Fund, which allocates money from VAT receipts on women’s sanitary products to projects that benefit disadvantaged women and girls,” wrote The Times. It is unclear how promoting homosexuality and gender ideology among 13-year-old students helps disadvantaged girls.

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Editor’s Note. This article was written by Martin Bürger and was published at Lifesite News. Title changed by Pulpit & Pen and screenshot added.

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Evangelical Stuff Featured News

Megachurch Pastor may set Record for Quickest Restoration After Admitting to even More Adultery

(Christian Post) Megachurch pastor John Gray announced that he has “submitted to a process of restoration” that will sometimes take him away from his church in the wake of new allegations of infidelity, some of which he admits are true. The embattled leader of Relentless Church in Greenville, South Carolina, said in an address to his church and family Sunday:

I’m sorry for the areas of my life that I left unattended, that I was apathetic about, the areas where I have treated the calling of God, the grace of God and the hand of God casually in my life. For every area of behavior that has dishonored the holiness of God, I want to tell you that I’m sorry. There have been a number of things, blogs, some of them accurate, some of it not. But all of it, my responsibility,

I apologize for putting the name of God in harm’s way and I and I alone take the responsibility for the actions that harmed and injured God’s sheep. No matter how many pseudo-excuses one can hurl in a moment like this, for the purposes of self-preservation, all of them ring hollow when all that is truly needed is the truth.

Gray’s address comes after his lawyers said a week ago that he was being blackmailed and extorted after he was accused of engaging in another inappropriate relationship. 

The latest allegation against Gray came from a 48-year-old Houston woman who identified herself as “Mary” during an interview with online personality Tasha K, which was broadcast on YouTube. The Houston woman said during her interactions with Gray, she sent him partially nude photos at his request and he video-chatted with her while revealing his underwear. She claimed that he also met with her in Houston and invited her to visit his home and she declined because she felt he may have wanted to sleep with her.

Gray did not specifically address any of the allegations against him but explained that he had been in therapy for himself as well as in marriage therapy with his wife for a while but those efforts were insufficient in helping him to become the pastor, father and husband he aspires to be.

He said after being confronted by godly friends and leaders, he will now submit to a process that he has never endured before for an indefinite period.

“[I] submitted to a process of restoration that will require me to continue to do the deep work, not only of therapy but of emotional health professionals; physical restoration because my body and my soul have been deeply wounded and impacted by a life that was rooted in shame. I don’t know how long that process is going to be.”

He said he has the help of pastors who will help him get “whole” and urged members of his church to continue giving to his ministry as he seeks the help he “deserves” in the broken areas of his life.

He argued that one of the reasons he didn’t seek radical help before now was because he incorrectly assumed that his church could not survive financially without him always at the helm.

I never submitted to anybody in those other areas, whether through shame fear or an inflated sense of worth. Well, the church needs me to keep preaching so that everybody can be able to take care of their families. If God needed someone who was stuck in sin to help Him then I ain’t read the Bible.

God’s Church is His business and it is my prayer that a mature Relentless Church will continue to sow into this great work while I continue to seek the help, the health, the healing and wholeness that I deserve. My kids deserve a whole father, not a fragmented puzzle piece of a man. sSome weeks you’ll see me. Others you won’t.

In the latest allegations against Gray, online personality Tasha K also recently shared a video on Instagram highlighting the Greenville preacher complaining to Mary that his wife, Aventer Gray, did not cook for his family and offered to fly her to Cabo, Mexico, for a rendezvous during the pandemic.

In early 2019, Gray publicly revealed he had wanted to end his life and received prayer from Bishop T.D. Jakes as allegations of infidelity clouded his marriage. Weeks before that, Gray had drawn flak for gifting his wife a more than $200,000 Lamborghini Urus to celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary.

The South Carolina pastor had previously told his congregation that his wife, Aventer, discovered that he had started “listening to the wrong voices…

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Editor’s note. This article was written by Leonardo Blaire and posted at the Christian Post. Title changed by Pulpit & Pen. A bit of formatting also changed for clarity, with a word or two being removed here or there.

Categories
Church Coronavirus Featured

Barna President: 1 in 5 Churches Likely to Close Within 18 Months

(Christian Post) As many as one in five churches could permanently close as a result of shutdowns stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, according to David Kinnaman, president of the prominent Christian research organization Barna Group.

In an interview with NPR Monday regarding the status of American churches after months of shutdowns, Kinnaman said although churches were handling things “pretty swimmingly” at first, circumstances have changed for some.  

He noted that although many churches have opened as states’ shutdown orders are loosened, their services have had “a lot less people coming.”

“They’re recognizing that the relationships that they thought were much deeper with people were actually not as deep as they expected,” Kinnaman told NPR.

Kinnaman then explained that, in keeping with research from earlier this year, he still expected to see about one in five churches permanently close within the next 18 months.

“If anything, I think that prediction was based on data about two, two-and-a-half months ago, and I think we’re even more likely to see that to be the case today,” he noted.

“The disruptions related to giving, and maybe even as important to all that, is that even for those churches that have reopened, they’re seeing much smaller numbers of people show up. So simply reopening a church doesn’t fix the underlying economic challenges that you might have.”

One parameter, he explained, was how there had been a drop in belief among pastors that their churches will survive the pandemic, going from 70% responding that they were “very confident” early on to 58% responding the same more recently.

Kinnaman said that as time passes, “we’ll look back at this pandemic as a fundamental change to the way Americans” handled church attendance and church donations.

“Obviously, there will be a lot more online attendance than ever before, even after all churches reopen. I think this digital church is here to…

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Editor’s Note This article was written by Michael Gryboski and posted at the Christian Post. Title changed by Pulpit & Pen

Categories
Featured Social Justice Wars

BLM Co-Founder Discuss Group’s Occultic Practices of ‘Invoking Spirits,’ African ‘Ancestral Worship’

(Religion News) In an interview posted to social media, Black Lives Matter (BLM) Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors, along with BLM Los Angeles Co-Founder Melina Abdullah, discussed the “spiritual” component of the movement, explaining the practices and “rituals” performed to remember and “invoke” the spirits of deceased African Americans.

“We speak their names … [and] you kind of invoke that spirit, and then their spirits actually become present with you,” Abdullah, a professor at California State University, stated during the discussion hosted by Fowler Museum at UCLA.

Cullors outlined that she was raised Jehovah’s Witness, and “ancestral worship became really important” as she got older. She said that she felt a responsibility to honor the deceased politically and spiritually.

“In my tradition, you offer things that your loved one who passed away would want, whether it’s honey or tobacco or things like that,” she said, referring to the creation of an “ancestor altar,” which is sometimes practiced in African cultures. “It’s so important, not just for us to be in direct relationship to our people who’ve passed but also for them to know we’ve remembered them. I believe some of them work through us.”

The site Crescent City Culture advises,“At its core, hoodoo is a practice of ancestral veneration. The honoring and even worshiping of ancestors is practiced around the world. Many African religions have a foundation in the belief that one’s ancestors play an active role in the life of the living even after death. The spirits of the dead are invited in the household so that they may influence the family and provide blessings and protection.”

“Why would we not honor the people who have been stolen from us and are asking for us to fight for them?” Cullors asked. “They want us to remember them because … they know what it takes for them to be remembered.”

She explained that even in using hashtags people are “literally almost resurrecting the spirit so they can work through us to get the work … done.”

Abdullah explained that whenever there is word of a African American person losing their life, likely in relation to law enforcement incidents, they go out and “pray [and] pour libation.” Libation is an act that is defined as “a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a god or spirit, or in memory of those who have ‘passed on.’”

As previously reported, in 2018, Abdullah poured libation and summoned the spirits of a number of deceased African American leaders during an event at Hollywood United Methodist Church. She instructed those gathered to declare “ashe” as she made declarations and poured bottled water into…

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Editor’s note. This article was written by Heather Clark and originally published at Religion News, Title changed by Pulpit & Pen

Categories
Church Featured Righteous Defiance

More California Churches Under Fire for Worshipping, Fined Thousands of Dollars

(LifeSiteNews) – Two California churches are facing thousands of dollars in fines for singing and worshipping in person amid ongoing controversy over Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom’s COVID-19 lockdown policies.

Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Thousand Oaks received $3,000 in fines for holding a total of six services across two Sundays, and North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara was fined $5,000 for singing during two services, the Desert Review reported.

Newsom has banned indoor religious services (along with various types of secular gatherings) in 29 counties representing 80 percent of the state’s population in the name of containing the spread of COVID-19. Numerous churches have defied the order, including Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, Cornerstone Church of Fresno, Destiny Christian Church of Rocklin, and Harvest Rock Church of Pasadena.

“North Valley Baptist is failing to prevent those attending, performing and speaking at North Valley Baptist’s services from singing. This activity is unlawful,” read a cease-and-desist letter Santa Clara County sent to the church. “The county understands that singing is an intimate and meaningful component of religious worship. However, public health experts have also determined that singing together in close proximity and without face coverings transmits virus particles further in the air than breathing or speaking quietly.” 

“The county demands that North Valley Baptist immediately cease the activities listed above and fully comply with the Risk Reduction Order, the Gatherings Directive, the State July 13 Order and the State guidance,” threatened the letter, which also revealed the county had sent agents into services to spy on the proceedings. “Failure to do so will result in enforcement action by the county.”

In a video address published Monday, Pastor Jack Trieber of North Valley Baptist explained that his church bent over backward to comply with government mandates in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak. 

“We wanted to err on the side of safety, so we shut down everything” from bus ministries to Sunday school to prison ministries to rest home outreach, he said. But the area turned out not to be a hotspot, so the church eventually reopened. Even so, he stressed, North Valley Baptist still requires its congregants to wear masks and maintain social distancing while indoors.

“You can’t have any law against assembling in God’s house. None. I know we have a Constitutional right to worship, but we have a Higher Power that we answer to. I have a biblical mandate. We have obeyed authority in this church. We’ve always obeyed authority. But when local authority begins to disregard this authority, we go with this book (the Bible) right here.”

“The same governor who encourages mass protests, bans all worship and is now fining churches for their right to assemble and…

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Editor’s Note. This article was written by Calvin Freiburger and published at Lifesite News. Title changed by Pulpit & Pen

Categories
Church Evangelical Stuff Featured

6 State Convention Leaders Reveal Truth About SBC in Rebellious Broadside

(Capstone Report) State Baptist Convention leaders rebuke SBC Elite over lack of partnership. Make clear Elites must stop their autocratic ways or face the consequences

Six State Baptist Convention leaders fired a broadside directed at Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) last week. The state executive directors allege in a letter that Ezell and NAMB are attempting to centralize power and ignore the state conventions. The letter makes clear what everyone in the SBC already knows, Ezell is an autocrat intent on centralizing power and using money to do it.

The letter outlines how NAMB is taking more money from the states and then refusing to fund joint projects as in the past. And the states included an implicit warning—unless things change, the states will take drastic action.

“We must be ready to do what is necessary to support the ongoing work of the churches in our home states who look to us for contextualized assistance in church planting, evangelism, and missions,” the leaders said.

The six state leaders are Randy Adams (Northwest Baptist Convention), Bill Agee (California Southern Baptist Convention), Joe Bunce (Baptist Convention of New Mexico), Randy Covington (Alaska Baptist Resource Network), Jack Kwok (State Convention of Baptists in Ohio) and Chris Martin (Hawaii-Pacific Baptist Convention), according to the Louisiana Baptist Message. 

The six state leaders sent to Ezell, NAMB trustees and Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee members and SBC Executive Committee president Ronnie Floyd the letter outlining the need for harmony in church planting and mission efforts; however, the letter asserts Ezell and NAMB do not seek unity.

 “We work most effectively when working in collaboration and harmony, especially in our non-South states where the local context and cultures of our mission fields can vary so significantly,” the leaders say. However, NAMB ignores local expertise.

The spark was a new Strategic Cooperation Agreement presented to the non-South states by NAMB. The new agreement “leaves state conventions with little or no role in the assessment, supervision, or evaluation of church planters or statewide personnel.”

And the results of NAMB’s authoritarian push are horrible.

“We are convinced the results reveal diminished fruitfulness, and guidelines,” the state leaders say. “In spite of this, we have greatly reduced staff and state-directed ministry to provide Cooperative Program funds to the national SBC.”

This is the issue with the Cooperative Program—it is now taking more money…

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Editor’s note. This article was written by Jon Harris and published at the Capstone Report, Title changed by Pulpit & Pen.

Categories
abortion Featured News

Man Arrested and Charged for Pulling Gun on Pro-lifers at Planned Parenthood

(LifeSiteNews) Pro-life activists called police while witnessing to life at a Planned Parenthood facility after being threatened by an armed man.

The First State Update reported that on the morning of August 21, the Dover Police Department arrested a 31-year-old man from Wilmington after a confrontation with pro-life demonstrators in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood.  

Jerome Aniska, 31, confronted pro-lifers with a gun at a Planned Parenthood in Dover, Delaware.

According to Sergeant Mark Hoffman, the department’s public information officer, police were dispatched to the area after receiving a call from pro-life advocates concerning a man threatening them with a handgun.  

Hoffman said witnesses told police that the suspect had argued with the pro-lifers while they were on a public sidewalk. He then pulled out a black handgun and threatened the activists. Before officers arrived, the suspect was seen going to the trunk of his vehicle.

Upon searching his car, officers discovered an empty holster in the center console and a black 9 mm handgun in the trunk.

The suspect, identified as Jerome Aniska, was released on $26,000 unsecured bond. He was charged with aggravated menacing, terroristic threatening, and possession of a firearm during commission of a felony.

This was reported by many news agencies, including the Associated Press. However, the Associated Press’ headline did not make it clear that someone had threatened the pro-life activists…

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Editor’s Note. This article was written by Clare Marie Merkowsky and posted at Lifesite News. Title changed by Pulpit & Pen.

Categories
Breaking Evangelical Stuff Featured

Bombshell! “Pool Boy” Says He had Years Long Affair with BOTH Becki Falwell AND Jerry Falwell Jr.

(Daily Mail) The pool boy who Jerry Falwell Jr. claims had an affair with his wife and tried to extort their family has lashed out, claiming Jerry not only knew about his affair but liked to watch the pair having sex. 

  • Giancarlo Granda claims he did not just have an affair with Becki Falwell – but that Jerry watched them have sex
  • They met up several times a year for six years, he claims, starting when he was 20 and ending in 2018
  • It contradicts Jerry’s statement on Sunday night that Becki and Giancarlo had an affair that he later found out about 
  • Jerry released a lengthy statement claiming Giancarlo was extorting them 
  • He talked about “forgiving” his wife’s “indiscretion” and said he was so upset when he discovered the affair that he lost 80 lbs 
  • Ganda said he was not trying to extort them, but was trying to negotiate a buyout from the gay-friendly hostel business they are in together  
  • He told the Falwells he’d go “the kamikaze route” by making their sordid relationship public if they didn’t give him what he wanted  
  • Falwell Jr. took a leave of absence from Liberty, a religious university, earlier this year 
  • He is one of the most influential conservative Christians in America and endorsed Trump enthusiastically

Giancarlo Ganda, 29, spoke out on Monday in an interview with Reuters where he contradicted Falwell Jr’s claims that he was trying to extort the pair, and gave more details about his alleged sexual relationship with them.

He said he was 20 when he met the pair in Miami and that starting in March 2012, he had sex with Falwell’s wife Becki several times a year in hotel rooms, sometimes while Falwell Jr. watched, until 2018. “Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Giancarlo said.  

During that time, the trio went into business together with an LGBTQ-friendly hostel in Miami that Giancarlo runs. 

He said that he was used as a “target” for the couple’s “sexual escapades” and that he was not trying to extort the pair, even though he threatened to go “the kamikaze route” if they didn’t give him what he wanted. 

He sat down with Reuters earlier this month. They went to Falwell Jr. with Giancarlo’s claims, which is what prompted his statement on Sunday night. 

Now 29, Ganda described the liaisons as frequent – “multiple times per year” – and said the encounters took place at hotels in Miami and New York, and at the Falwells’ home in Virginia. 

On Sunday night, Falwell Jr. – a prominent Trump endorser and one of the most influential right-wing Christians in America – told The Washington Examiner that he and his family were being extorted. 

He said Becki had an affair with Giancarlo that he had “no involvement in,” and that he’d chosen to forgive his wife. 

Giancarlo claims the opposite. 

He showed Reuters texts from Becki where she said she was “missing him like crazy” and also gave an audio recording of her complaining about hearing about the other women Giancarlo had been intimate with. Falwell Jr. was also on the call and told him that he was going to make his wife “jealous…”

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Editor’s Note. This article was written by Jennifer Smith for the Daily Mail. Title changed by Pulpit & Pen. Falwell Streunously denies the allegations but has not responded to the evidence that has been provided.

Categories
Church Coronavirus Featured

Biased ‘Snopes’ Fails Miserably in Checking Facts of California Worship Ban

(Liberty Counsel) While Snopes has repeatedly been an unreliable source, it published a “fact check” on July 6, 2020 regarding the statement that “California’s governor ‘forbids’ Christians from singing in church during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic.” 

The “fact-checker” agreed that “In July 2020, California public health authorities published guidelines for places of worship and religious services to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. Among several recommendations to maintain safer social distancing, the guidelines said congregations must discontinue singing and chanting activities.” By the way, these “guidelines” are mandatory. 

However, what Snopes stated as false is:

“These guidelines affected all places of worship and providers of religious services, not just churches or Christian organizations. Additionally, there is no penalty from the state for violating the guidelines.” 

Snopes admits that the “no signing” ban applies to all churches but tried to say it is partially inaccurate because it “applies to all places of worship.” The statement is true that the “no singing ban” applies to all churches. The article Snopes reviews never said the order applies “only to churches,” and thus Snopes is not only misleading but factually inaccurate. Moreover, as noted above, the “guidelines” are mandatory and do carry penalties. 

The no singing and chanting ban was issued by Gov. Newsom on July 6. Then on July 13, Gov. Newsom went farther by banning ALL in-person worship, even for Bible studies and fellowship in private homes with anyone who does not live in the home. The no worship ban applies to any county on the County Monitoring List, which covers about 80 percent of the population. In the remaining 20 percent, limited worship is permitted but no singing and chanting continues to apply…

Snopes statement that “there is no penalty from the state for violating the guidelines” is also false. On March 19, the Governor issued Executive Order N. 33-20 incorporating and putting the full power of the Governor’s Office behind the Stay-at-Home Order, directing the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services “to take necessary steps to ensure compliance” with the order, and giving notice to the public that the order is enforceable pursuant to California Government Code § 8665, which provides that violating the Governor’s orders is a misdemeanor criminal offense punishable by up to a $1,000 fine, six months in jail, or both. …

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Editor’s note. This article was published on Liberty Counsel by a Staff Writer. Title changed by Pulpit & Pen