A man who calls himself a “militant atheist” will spend the next eight years in prison for his attack on a pastor last October.
James Maxie, 28, approached Pastor Norman Hayes of Bridge Community Church in North Hampton, Ohio after services after the pastor asked Maxie’s girlfriend if she was being abused. Maxie then beat the pastor, leaving large cuts on his face.
Maxie jumped on top of the pastor and kept beating him after the pastor had fallen to the floor. Witnesses say that they feared Maxie was going to kill him.
The police chief who responded to the incident said he had never seen “an incident this brutal.”
Maxie was sentenced under a plea deal that had him pleading guilty to second-degree felony assault.
Pastor Hayes says that he holds no ill will toward Maxie.
“I would want him to know going into prison hearing from me that I’ve extended forgiveness for him,” Hayes said. “[Forgiveness] is a gift. It’s something that you can’t earn.”
Pope Francis divested from his prepared text during his Christmas address to the world, calling on atheists to walk away from their hostility toward people of faith and join with them in seeking peace for the world.
The Pope said that atheists can join with believers of all religions for a “homemade peace” that can spread around the world.
“I invite even non-believers to desire peace. (Join us) with your desire, a desire that widens the heart. Let us all unite, either with prayer or with desire, but everyone, for peace,” the Pope said.
Much of the Pope’s address focused on bringing peace to the world. He specifically spoke of places that have suffered significant turmoil or civil war during 2013 such as Syria and South Sudan.
“Wars shatter and hurt so many lives!” the Pope declared. He went on to speak of how wars impact the most vulnerable in a society such as children, the elderly, the sick and battered women.
The Pope reminded all that Jesus was the light of the world and that God can bring peace to our land.
“God is peace: let us ask him to help us to be peacemakers each day, in our life, in our families, in our cities and nations, in the whole world,” Pope Francis said.
A Christian apologist and university professor says that the church is in desperate need of churches who will prepare their members to address the tough questions about faith and God.
Dr. William Craig of the Talbot School of Theology says that Christians should be concerned about recent studies like the Pew survey that showed nearly 20 percent of Americans consider themselves “religious” but not affiliated with any religious group.
Dr. Craig alluded to social changes in the world that have removed the stigma of being an atheist and making them bolder in working to remove Christians from society and shouting down any Christian with hate speech when they defend the faith.
“I think that many Christians are intimidated because atheists are often very aggressive,” Dr. Craig told the Christian Post. “They will attack you personally, and they will do so in the name of reason and intellectual arguments. And many Christians feel utterly unprepared to give a defense of what they believe, and feel unprepared to answer the tough questions that their unbelieving friends will put to them.”
Dr. Craig has defended the faith in many venues with atheists and noted atheist author Richard Dawkins continues to be afraid to debate Dr. Craig in a one-on-one setting. Atheist author Sam Harris said in a recent article Dr. Craig has “put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists.”
The anti-Christian Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed a complaint with the Air Force over a posting from an Air Force chaplain examining the origin of the commonly known phrase “there is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole” claiming the post was an “anti-secular diatribe.” Continue reading →