Category: Onward to Glory

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Church Evangelical Stuff Onward to Glory Social Issues

I Stand With Covenant

(Marshall Albritton at Founders Ministries) By now, everyone has heard about the mass killing at the Covenant Presbyterian Church and School in Nashville, Tennessee.  On Monday, March 27, 2023, an armed woman, who was “transgender” and identified as a man, entered the school and in cold blood murdered 3 children, all age 9, and 3 adults, including the Head of School.  The Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee Police Department dispatched several officers to the scene.  The officers confronted the killer in the school and ended her life in a gun battle before she could murder more people.

I am very familiar with Covenant.  I have lived in Nashville almost all my life.  Covenant is about 3 miles from my home.  I pass it every day on the way to work.  I know its founders and many of its current elders, deacons, and members.

Covenant is part of the Presbyterian Church in America, the PCA, a denomination founded in the early 1970s with an emphasis on biblical fidelity and Christian essentials.  It is a great church with a great ministry in Nashville.  Many of the people in my church are friends with the staff and members of Covenant.  Some of our members have children who attend, or have attended, the school.  My pastor and a man who has been an elder in my church spent most of Monday consoling the widower of the Head of the School.

These killings will have a lasting impact on Nashville, in particular the Christian community here.  I urge that believers everywhere continue to uphold the families of the victims and Covenant in prayer.  

This is the first time in my life that I have seen martyrdom up close.  The assailant killed these children and adults because of their Christian witness and the witness of Covenant.  As Tertullian said long ago, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”  These children and adults were not mere victims.  They were martyrs.  They were brave beyond belief and at death were immediately ushered into the presence of God.

This horrible event deserves a campaign like the ones we often see.  A name, a place, a flag, accompanied with the slogan “I stand with …”  

What’s more important at this time, however, is not creating a social media movement, but encouraging the Church around the world to honor these saints in their deaths as martyrs of the Church of Jesus Christ, and to pray for their families, Covenant, and the Church.

Their names, from left to right and top to bottom:

William Kinney, Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, Katherine Koonce, Mike Hill, Cynthia Peak

Marshall Albritton is an elder at Grace Community Church in Nashville, Tennessee. This article was republished with permission and appears originally at Founders Ministries.

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Featured In-person Church Onward to Glory Righteous Defiance

Defiance! Nearly 1000 Canadian Christians show up for Illegal Public Church Service

With thousands of churches shuttered and doing online service in a province that limits Church services to a mere 10-person capacity, irrespective of whether it is indoor or outdoor, a group of defiant church ministers put on a massive public service in the heart of their city, proclaiming that Christ is king over his church.

Pastors Nate Wright, Aaron Rock, Jacob Reaume, and Michael Thissen put on the service at 4:30 p.m., despite facing the threat of a $10,000 fine for organizers and $750 fine for any attendees. Trinity Bible Chapel pastor Jacob Reaume, whose own church has been shut down and locked up by the government, and who has amassed over $50,000,000 [yes, 50 Million] in fines, told True North News:

We decided on this because we have been prohibited from leading services in our church buildings and we desire to maintain a public witness to the glory of Christ.  We also believe that people will be blessed by singing together, by praying together, and by exchanging warm greetings with one another in that context.

Waterloo Regional Police and bylaw officers were on site, but did not arrest anyone.

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Church Onward to Glory

China Blocks Keywords like ‘Christ,’ ‘Bible,’ and ‘Gospel’ from Social Media Giant

China has gifted its citizens with a new round of crushing censorship, placing further restrictions on Christian content on the social media megacorp WeChat. As directed by the Communist Party of China, WeChat has blocked Christian search terms and has purged thousands of overtly Christian accounts, according to an organization that provides hope and aid for the persecuted Church.

WeChat is the world’s largest social media site – a one-stop-shop that handles sharing video, text messages, photo sharing, and video games, along with being linked to one’s bank account and used to pay for food, groceries, bills, and even rent and mortgage.

It differs from a similar site like Facebook, not just on account of the monetary integration, but because users are openly and actively tracked, surveilled, and their posts analyzed by the government as part of mass surveillance network in China.

The Barnabas Fund reports that “key words such as ‘Christ,’ ‘Bible,’ and ‘Gospel’ appear to have been blocked, with searches for these terms bringing up no results on WeChat,” and that “attempts to access these pages prompt a notification that the accounts have been ‘removed from use’ due to ‘complaints’ that they violate China’s Internet User Public Account Information Services Management Provisions.”

This follows the country instituting the Measures for the Administration of Religious Personnel, which came into effect May 1, 2021, and contains a database of all Christian leaders authorized to preach in the country. Anyone not registered will be denied the ability to engage in ministry. The Barnabas Fund reports that:

In order to be registered church leaders must, according to Article 3, be those who ‘love the motherland, support the leadership of the Communist Party of China, support the socialist system, abide by the constitution, laws, regulations and rules, [and] practice the core values ​​of socialism.’

Pray for the persecuted church in China.

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Critical Race Theory Evangelical Stuff Onward to Glory podcast Polemics Report

Podcast: ALONE

On this episode of Polemics Report for May 20th, 2021 (after a little fun with Kyle J. Howard), JD and David talk about trying to take God seriously without taking theology seriously, then JD reveals his hurt over those who were behind Pulpit & Pen in exposing CRT in evangelicalism (and snakes like Russell Moore) who are now crediting themselves with leading the charge and still refusing to say the name JD Hall. Following this, JD answers patron questions, discussing the Arminian gospel, politics in the pulpit, and historic premillennialism.

In an exception to policy, below is the FULL patron version of the podcast.

To listen to the full program every time, support us on Patreon for only $5.95 a month for this and every other full-length, subscriber-only podcast from the #1 Polemics Organization in the world. Not a bad deal, right? Click here to join.

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Drive-In Church Evangelical Stuff Featured Onward to Glory Righteous Defiance

Video: Pastor who Shouted ‘Get Out Nazi Gestapo’ to Police is Arrested For Having Church Service

A Canadian Pastor has been arrested in the streets and thrown in jail for the crime of having a church service that exceeds the 15-person limit.

Artur Pawlowski and brother David were arrested immediately after Sunday’s service, with half a dozen police cars and over a dozen officers surrounding them and taking them down in the middle of a busy highway. Artur is the pastor of Cave of Adullam Church in Calgary, Alberta, and went viral weeks ago after yelling at police officers and Alberta Health Service personnel who entered his church without permission in order to shut down the service.

He practiced passive resistance, going limp on purpose, all the while calling them “Nazi Gestapo psychopaths,” forcing them to carry him and his brother away.



Both were taken into police custody and charged with “organizing an illegal in-person gathering, in addition to “requesting, inciting, or inviting others.” 

That is, having church and inviting others to come to his church.

In a public statement, Calgary Police say the arrest was completely justified as he was violating lockdown orders that prohibit church gatherings.

It is important to understand that law enforcement recognizes people’s desire to participate in faith-based gatherings as well as the right to protest. However, as we find ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic, we all must comply with public health orders in order to ensure everyone’s safety and wellbeing.

This is the second Canadian pastor arrested and put in jail on account on insisting on having church service at full capacity, following the arrest of GraceLife Pastor James Coates, who spent 35 days in jail and is now having an underground service to avoid further arrests and fines.

In Canada, which is quickly becoming a police state, this new roundup of pastors is likely just the beginning.

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Featured In-person Church Onward to Glory Righteous Defiance Shutdown

After $40,000,000 in fines, Police To Lock Doors and Take Over Canadian Church

“…you joyfully accepted the plundering or your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” (Hebrews 10:34)

A judge has ordered a Canadian church to cease worshipping together in their church building, granting the province of Ontario the authority to bar the doors and prevent any congregants from entering. This is the end result after months of fines and threats of fines have proved unsuccessful in coercing the church to cease gathering together as one, an act that is in contravention to provincial lockdown orders that limit church gatherings to 10 people for both indoor and outdoor services regardless of size or capacity limits.

In many ways, Trinity Bible Chapel (TBC) in Waterloo, Ontario has faced the most opposition and steepest price out of any church in North America for being open. GraceLife Church in Alberta had their pastor arrested and spend over a month in jail, and their church is likewise now taken away, but TBC has endured absolutely brutal, punishing, unending fines for being open.

They’re facing 40 million dollars in potential fines right now. 40 million. And while the large multi-million dollar fines might possibly be appealed if granted – some of their large fines like the $83,000 given for a single service cannot be waived, removed, or appealed. These crushing tickets are not just to the Church entity, but parishioner after parishioner is being handed crushing fines for daring to attend. These are crippling numbers, but they have not bent the will of the church.

So now they are having the church building taken away from them.

The judge in the case, Justice John Krawchenko, noted in his decision that the church must be locked up because if it remained open, “the risk of irreparable harm would be too great to ignore.”

In a public statement that everyone should read in full titled We lost the building but kept the church, Pastor Jacob Reaume recounts how they prayed for their own building for years and finally moved into it in the middle of the pandemic, sharing how “It was a time of great joy, and we looked forward to serving our community and worshipping our Saviour in this facility.” But now:

We have around 600,000 people who live in this region.  There are 588 active cases of COVID in the region, with 32 people in the ICU with COVID.  That’s enough to deem the public worship of Jesus Christ dangerous and enough for the Province of Ontario to kick us off our land and bar our doors shut…Our experience (with COVID) doesn’t line up with the hysteria whipped up by government and media, nor do the numbers warrant turning control of the Bride of Christ over to the Premier of Ontario.

Pastor Reaume explains that while the motivations of the government are clear, they underestimate the body’s commitment to the public gathering and worship of Jesus, even as the judge in the case told them that they can do “virtual services” as an alternative.

The purpose of this seizure is to prevent us from meeting as a church.  They believe that we will continue meeting in our facility, no matter the fines or the public shame heaped on us.  We are willing to pay any price necessary to worship our Saviour because He is worth it.  He died for us, and we want Him to receive a reward for His suffering.  Churches used to sing songs like Charles Wesley’s “O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing” and mean it.  We still do. 

He continues, offering a master class in how believers ought to think about these things:

But it’s now cost us our facility.  That’s after policemen sat outside our lot in cruisers on Sunday to chase our people down and ticket them after the service for gathering to worship.  That’s after each elder received a ticket this past week for opening the church.  That’s after the church itself received a ticket this week.  That’s after we were convicted of our second count of contempt of court today. That’s after we’ve now received so many dozens of charges I’ve actually lost track.  Combined we are facing over $40 million in fines with jail time.  That’s not enough, so they’ve taken our building.

They took our building because they think that will stop us from worshipping.  For twenty years our church has worshipped together each Lord’s Day, and we’ve only met in our own building for eleven months.  So the best part of our history we have not owned a building.  We managed just fine to gather together without our own building, and now we don’t have our own building again.  The early church met in the catacombs under Rome.  The Covenanters met in fields.  John Bunyan led his services in forests.  Churches find ways to worship together, as surely as water flows downhill.

He concludes:

During that season we could have complied with all the nonsense protocols.  But if we had done that, we would have already conceded the facility to the Province.  The Province would have essentially owned not only our building, but also our fellowship and also our worship.  We did not let them own our building.  We did not let them own our worship.  We did not let them own our fellowship.  So they stole our building, at least temporarily.  We’ll keep our worship.  And we’ll keep our fellowship. 

Many churches around these parts think they still own their buildings, but they already voluntarily handed their buildings and their people and their worship over to Caesar months ago.  We just forced Caesar to come and take the building, but we’ve kept the church. 

Caesar can have the brick and mortar.  We’ve kept the church for Jesus.  He who seeks to preserve his church will lose it, but he who loses the church for Christ’s sake will keep it.

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Featured News Onward to Glory

Rush Limbaugh’s Wife Reveals Final Days ‘He Knew He was Going to Heaven’

Rush Limbaugh spoke about the afterlife a lot in his finals days, saying that ‘he knew he was going to heaven’ according to his wife Kathryn in a conversation with Todd Herman, who spoke of how she and her late husband prepared for his death.

In a recently released audio recording, Kathryn Limbaugh shared how they planned his funeral together, and told Herman that Rush didn’t know his February 2, 2021 show should be his last.

KATHRYN: So I am walking with Rush and explaining to him his event, and I told him all he has to do is show up, which I’ve also arranged. (laughing)

RUSH: (chuckles) Yeah, and it is an event, and it’s awesome! I mean, I hope you get invited to it.

KATHRYN: (chuckles) Yeah.

RUSH: I mean, what she just described to me is incredible. Sorry I’m gonna miss it. But —

KATHRYN: (laughing) You’re gonna have a front-row seat.

RUSH: But I’ve just said to her, “I can’t believe it. It’s so cool!”

Kathryn recounts that his funeral was beautiful, if small, due to the COVID restrictions.

It was very peaceful, very beautiful. And we followed behind the horse-drawn carriage until we reached the chapel. And when we reached the chapel, we had a small service in the chapel which is located in the cemetery. Rush was escorted into the chapel to his favorite version of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

And it was just stunning, if you can imagine, looking forward through a winding road to see this beautiful carriage with Rush in it and then flags around his grave site. So as we approached the gravesite you could see these powerful American flags waving in the wind and the sun was shining directly on that spot.

Speaking about his final show and peace he found, she said that they talked about heaven all the time, and that Rush knew he was going there:

He just got a little bit sicker and sicker by the day, and we had to take a bit of an emergency action for him. But the blessing in this is that he knew he was going to heaven. But he didn’t know that that was his final show, and didn’t know that he would not be speaking with all of you directly again. So that does provide some comfort that it was peaceful and unknown.

Todd comments that she must take great comfort in Rush knowing he was going to heaven, and she agrees that it did.

Absolutely, yes. We talked about it all the time, and you may recall he always said practically every show that he thanked God for being able to wake up that day. And that’s really how he took it, one day at a time, and knew that it was God’s plan and we would go forward as we needed to. But he knew ultimately that he would return to heaven and be greeted by everyone who’d gone before him.

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Evangelical Stuff Featured Onward to Glory

Voddie Baucham Update + He’s Headed to Florida

Voddie Bauchum updated his social media accounts, informing friends and supporters that he and his wife were stuck in Dallas in the snowstorm after enduring the 16-hour flight from Doha. With the final flight from Texas to Florida being canceled on account of the inclement weather, he explains that they have experienced loss of power in the residence they are staying in, but were hopeful there was a flight they could catch that would see them settled in the hospital late last night or early this morning.

The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida is one of the health network’s three campuses in the United States. They are a world-class hospital that treats over a million people each year from over 140 countries, handling revenues of 12 billion dollars. They are considered one of the very best, particularly in the specialization of cardiology and heart surgery, and are known for their high level of care and success rate for treatment.

Not only will doctors have to run a battery of tests to assess the state of Voddie’s heart, but ministry partner Tom Ascol informs that he is also suffering from kidney disease which is compounding the issue, and which will result in astronomical costs for both the surgery itself, as well as the aftercare.

With his GoFundMe having raised $1,155,320 of his $1,250,000 target at the time of this writing, words of gratitude and encouragement continue to pour in from grateful “blessers,” with a common theme being the way Voddie has stayed faithful in preaching the Gospel over a period of years and decades.

Continue to pray for him and his family.

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Evangelical Stuff News Onward to Glory

Voddie Baucham Fundraiser Crosses $1,000,000 + New Updates

Voddie Baucham has updated his supporters about his condition, writing across multiple social media platforms that he landed in Dallas late last night, after a 16-hour flight from Doha. Baucham explains that he is extremely grateful for the prayers and funds and that they continue to trust in the Lord. He writes:

As I write this, we are about two hours from landing at DFW (our penultimate stop). The journey has been long, but God has been gracious. Because we have WiFi on the flight we have been in constant contact with our doctor in Lusaka and others in the U.S., all of whom are monitoring my vitals and how I’m tolerating the journey.

We have also been able to watch as our needs have been met in abundance! We praise God for his faithfulness in providing. We are indebted to Tom Ascol and @foundersministries for not only setting up the GoFundMe (link in bio), but for doing the legwork (with the help of medical advisors familiar with my case) to even get an idea of what the financial needs may be.

We are also grateful to our partners at @meigiving who have been a constant help and guide over the past several years of our work in Lusaka, and who have stepped up big time as gifts came in through them as well.

Finally, we want to thank the people of God whose prayers, words of encouragement, financial support, and offers of other forms of help have been nothing less than overwhelming.

This is not over by a long shot. In fact, in many ways we have only just begun. I will say more later about the ‘team’ the Lord has gathered around us to guide us through this process. But for now, know that we are in good hands.

At the end of the Joburg to Doha leg of the journey, I wasn’t doing well. We almost had to change plans. However, that wasn’t the point. The point was, as we were worrying about how we would pay for this, how/when we bring the kids, etc., the Lord reminded us, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:34 ESV)

So for now, we just rejoice in getting through today’s trouble.

Voddie’s GoFundMe also topped $1,000,000 overnight, given by nearly 10,000 donors, with likely several hundred thousand dollars more given privately or through @meigiving, the other platform.


Though some have speculated why he did not have insurance or accusing him of being irresponsible for not having it, no information has been given on why that is, though a plethroa of acceptable reasons might be given, with one being the diffiuclty in getting access to medical insurance in Zambia for a family of 9 at a rate that they could afford and that would competently cover such catastropic health failures.