BIBLE ENRICHED SPIRITUAL TRUTHS: June 2020

Tuesday, 30 June 2020

Israel Orders Christian TV Channel to Stop Broadcasting

GOD TV argues application for new Shelanu channel in Hebrew was forthright, decries decision as political.

Israeli regulators on Sunday announced they ordered a US-based evangelical broadcaster taken off the air, saying the channel hid its missionary agenda when it applied for a license.

In his decision, Asher Biton, chairman of the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Council, said he had informed GOD TV on Thursday last week that it had seven days to stop broadcasting its new Shelanu channel.

“The channel appeals to Jews with Christian content,” he wrote. “Its original request,” he said, stated that it was a “station targeting the Christian population.”

The decision was first reported by the Haaretz daily.

And today, Shelanu announced that its satellite provider, HOT, has dropped the channel altogether—likely due to Israeli pressure.

“In a free and democratic society, we would have received approval for our new license, and if not, we would have won in court,” stated Ron Cantor, Shelanu’s Israeli spokesman, in a press release. “The only thing that could have stopped our channel from being aired was if HOT broke our relationship.”

If there is no public apology and clarification, Shelanu plans to sue Biton.

The channel said its existing license “stated unequivocally” that it would broadcast its content in Hebrew to the Israeli public. Most Christians in the Holy Land speak Arabic.

“Therefore it is not at all clear what was wrong beyond political considerations,” it said.

According to a copy of its original application and approval, obtained by CT, Shelanu identified itself as “a Christian religion channel broadcasting Christian content … for the audience of Israeli viewers ... [in] Hebrew and English.”

Nowhere did the channel ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/31x8ypG

Researcher: Most Evangelicals Support Women in Church Leadership

Despite the ongoing debates over gender roles, surveys show significant agreement in favor of female Sunday school teachers, worship leaders, speakers, and preachers.

In evangelical discourse, there are several issues that you can count on to stir up a heated debate. One is the role of women in the life of the church.

Take last year’s spat over Beth Moore speaking at a church on Mother’s Day, which came up again months later with John MacArthur’s viral “go home” line. Or the more recent discussion around author Aimee Byrd and Reformed complementarians’ pushback on social media.

Yet for all the debates around gender and leadership roles, for years researchers have found less of a divide on the topic among the people in the pews. The results of a recent survey once again indicate that most evangelical Protestants are in favor of seeing women take on more prominent positions in the church.

In a survey I fielded along with political scientists Paul Djupe and Hannah Smothers back in March, 8 in 10 self-identified evangelicals said they agree with women teaching Sunday school, leading worship at church services, and preaching during women’s conferences or retreats.

Slightly fewer endorsed women preaching during church services, but 7 in 10 were in favor, according to the research, conducted by a team of political scientists in March 2020.

This new research follows an analysis of 2011 survey data I published last year, which showed that significant majorities of major Christian traditions—including Southern Baptists—would support women as pastors.

Some commentators pushed back saying both that the 2011 data was dated and that the questions weren’t explicit enough about the types of roles for women in the church. The March 2020 survey was designed to allow respondents to indicate what kinds of leadership roles they are comfortable with women ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/3dQnzFo

Coronavirus ‘Incarnates’ Biblical Teachings in French Evangelical Leader

President of CNEF and COVID-19 survivor explains his renewed confidence to defend the faith and French evangelical churches, as well as why his mother now calls him “Lazarus.”

After spending three weeks in intensive care, Christian Blanc, president of the National Council of French Evangelicals (CNEF), shared his testimony of healing from COVID-19 in a cover story for French magazine La Vie.

CT interviewed Blanc on how the experience has “incarnated” the Bible’s teachings in his life and his advice for how churches can better serve the sick.

Summarize your medical journey, including why your mother renamed you “Lazarus.”

During February and March, my responsibilities as CNEF president meant I had to make several trips to Paris by train and plane and used public transit to move around, and it was during one of these trips that I contracted the COVID-19 virus. When the first symptoms appeared (dry cough and fever), I stayed home thinking that my condition would improve quickly. But it got so bad that I was in respiratory distress and had to be hospitalized. I ended up in the intensive care unit, where everything got so complicated in the following days that the medical staff were rather pessimistic about my future. A doctor even phoned my wife and told her that I was probably going to die during the night.

However, the very next day he called to say that everything was starting to work again, so there was hope. From then on, my recovery began and continued during the weeks that followed. When I came out of the ICU, I phoned my mother—also an evangelical—who was 300 miles away and thinking she would never see me again. When she heard my voice, she thought someone was playing a bad joke on her. I had to insist that I was indeed her son, Christian, whose health was improving. She replied: “I will no longer call you Christian but Lazarus. It’s as if ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/38lr4CD

Supreme Court Dismisses State Ban on Public Funding for Religious Schools

Update: Could a Montana school choice case be the end of Blaine amendments?

Update (June 30): Montana violated the First Amendment when it barred religious schools from a state scholarship program, the US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, in a case school choice advocates hope will open the door for more education voucher programs.

The state’s “no aid provision,” categorically banning any type of aid to religious schools, represents an overly sweeping effort at church-state separation that results in religious discrimination against religious schools and adherents, wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the 5–4 Espinoza vs. Montana Department of Revenue decision.

“The prohibition before us today burdens not only religious schools but also the families whose children attend or hope to attend them,” the opinion read. “They are ‘member[s] of the community too,’ and their exclusion from the scholarship program here is ‘odious to our Constitution’ and ‘cannot stand.’”

Roberts said that states do not need to subsidize private education, but if they do, they cannot disqualify some private schools just for being religious.

“For many families, Espinoza not only provides the potential for expanded opportunities for them to educate their children, including the choice of religious education, but also the right to decide what they believe is the most effective way to do so,” said Jeanne Allen, the founder of the Center for Education Reform.

-----

When a Montana tax credit program for private school scholarships was accused of being discriminatory because religious schools were not eligible, the state eliminated the program outright rather than fight the case.

But now, the state has ended up at the US Supreme Court anyway, with ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/2TNveOA

A Post-Pandemic Missiology for North America

The missiological strategies developed a generation ago should now be acted on if they still apply, updated if they do not, or put away if they are hindering mission in our time.

Back in March, when the COVID-19 pandemic was just underway in North America, some warned us to expect it to be around longer than we initially thought and that we were entering into a season that was more like a winter, and less like a blizzard. Four months later, it appears that we have entered a little ice age as the pandemic does not seem to be going away quickly.

The most important structures of our lives are being challenged, and in some cases even questioned, including our way of doing church and mission.

And while the why of mission remains the same, the what and how of mission seems much more fluid these days, especially as it pertains to leading and launching new churches. The pauses and the causes we are seeing arise in the midst of 2020 have forced a disruption that may either slow down our missional engagement, especially if we only white-knuckle our way through it, or accelerate it if we pay attention to what is really happening.

The pandemic has brought great tragedy, including a climbing death toll and an economy struggling to stabilize. Amid everything, we are seeing racial tensions in America escalate, with both the political and theological polarities widening.

The combination of these challenges create a unique circumstance we have never seen before in our lifetime. And while this is not a time to exploit the vulnerability and fragility of our culture, it is indeed the right time to think about how the gospel is still the power of God that brings salvation to everyone, and how Christians can better partner with the ways in which his Spirit is at work at this exact moment in history.

The missiological strategies developed a generation ago should now be acted on if they still apply, updated if they do not, or ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/3gfHrDI

Will International Religious Freedom Survive the Trump Administration?

The president’s executive order elevates its priority in US foreign policy. Nine experts assess the strategy’s longevity.

On June 2, as protests over the death of George Floyd raged across the United States, President Donald Trump elevated the stature of religious freedom within the State Department.

“Religious freedom for all people worldwide is a foreign policy priority,” read the executive order (EO) he signed, “and the United States will respect and vigorously promote this freedom.”

It received almost no media attention.

The provisions—long called for by many advocates of international religious freedom (IRF)—could overhaul a US foreign policy that has historically sidelined support for America’s “first freedom.”

That is, if the order survives a potential Joe Biden administration.

It is common for a new president to reverse EOs issued by their predecessor. In his eight years in office, President Obama issued 30 to amend or rescind Bush-era policies. In his first year in office, Trump issued 17 directed at Obama-era policies.

While IRF has typically enjoyed bipartisan support, current political polarization leaves few sacred cows.

Trump signed the EO after a visit to the Pope John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, DC. It was previously scheduled to coincide with the anniversary of the Polish-born pope’s 1979 return to his home nation, which set off a political and spiritual revolution that defied the Soviet Union and eventually ended the Cold War.

However, Washington’s Catholic archbishop called it “baffling and reprehensible” the facility would allow itself to be manipulated one day after Trump lifted a Bible in front of St. John’s Anglican Church across from the White House in the wake of the aggressive dispersal of protesters opposing police brutality and ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/31wz4PQ

Monday, 29 June 2020

Supreme Court Rejects Louisiana Abortion Regulations

John Roberts joins liberal justices, citing precedent.

The Supreme Court has ruled that a Louisiana law regulating abortion doctors places an unacceptable obstacle in the path of women who want an abortion. Pro-life advocates had hoped that the two new conservative justices would swing the court in a different direction than its 2016 ruling on a similar case.

“This decision is disappointing and wrong-headed,” said Russell Moore, president of the the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “The Louisiana law was directed toward the simple goal of protecting women from danger by placing the most minimal restrictions possible on an abortion industry that insists on laissez-faire for itself and its profits.”

The Louisiana law required abortion doctors to obtain admitting privileges at a local hospital. Legislators said the requirement would improve the level of care that clinics provide for women.

The court struck down a similar regulation in Texas in 2016, ruling that the regulation would have no positive affect on the level of treatment women received, but would likely cause some clinics to close. The regulation was unconstitutional, because it placed an “undue burden” on women’s access to abortion.

On Monday, four liberal justices—Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonya Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan—decided that the Louisiana law was unconstitutional for the same reasons.

“Enforcing the admitting-privileges requirement would drastically reduce the number and geographic distribution of abortion providers, making it impossible for many women to obtain a safe, legal abortion in the State and imposing substantial obstacles on those who could,” wrote Stephen Breyer, for the majority.

Chief ...

from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/2Zjb5B4