A legendary West Virginia high school football coach has been banned from speaking at graduation because a few people objected to his references to God in last year’s speech.
Despite an overwhelming majority of students, parents and faculty wanting Leon McCoy to speak at the 2014 graduation of Winfield High School, he was told he would not be welcomed back because a few people didn’t want to be exposed to someone mentioning God.
“There were complaints on me allowing prayer and so forth. Unfortunately, the law says we can’t do that,” school principal Bruce McGrew told the Charleston Daily Mail. “I don’t like it and by no means agree with it. … It’s a difficult situation when I am forced to do something as part of my job.”
McCoy said he understands the decision. He said that in the past Christians were allowed to speak in public with their views but now laws keep them from being able to share their beliefs.
Several students and parents plan to protest graduation, saying that a handful of anti-Christianists should not be able to dictate a ceremony for everyone else.
A woman who brought the lives of thousands of babies to an end during her over ten years running a Florida abortion clinic has walked away and dedicated her life to Christ.
The woman, who has only been identified as Terri, accepted Christ after stopping and talking with the protesters that had been standing outside her clinic for years.
“I thought she was going to be angry or something,” John Barros told Christian News Network.
After speaking with the pro-life counselors that Barros’ ministry brought to speak to the women in an attempt to have them keep their babies, she began to see the great error of her beliefs in abortion and her decade of promoting it.
“She’s really showing repentance and she’s really broken up over what she’s done,” Barros explained. “At one point she said, ‘I can’t do enough to erase this. And I said, ‘None of us can. 1st John tells us that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, and that includes what you’ve done.’”
Terri quit her job, severed all ties with the clinic and has told friends and family that she renounces all of her work in ending the lives of babies.
“I dedicate my life to Christ and I thank Him—believe it or not—every day that I am no longer affiliated with a clinic,” she stated. “It’s a wonderful thing that I got out of there. I thank God every day I’m gone.”
Do you believe in destiny? I do. I have often marveled at the fact that God chose you and me to live in this specific time in the history of the world. We could have been born in any century or any millennium, but He chose this amazing time; what we now know is the last of the last days before He returns, for you and me to be alive. It is not happenstance. It is not coincidence. We are here right now because we are destined to be.
How do I know that? Because the God I serve is the Alpha and the Omega – the God who knows the beginning and the end. He knew Adam and Abraham and Moses and David. He knew Eve and Deborah and Ruth and Esther. Each had a time and a purpose for their lives, and so do you and I. He knew you would read this very blog, and He came via Lori today to tell you that you are born with a purpose and a destiny unto Him! Continue reading →
Pastor Emery White says in his new book “The Rise of the Nones” that secular thinking is driving more Christians to saying they are not affiliated with any Christian church or denomination.
Pastor White said in an interview with Ed Stetzer that America has definitively moved into a “post-Christian” era.
“We are living in a decisively post-Christian culture and I think it’s taking its toll on existing evangelicals and the church in a way that is creating more and more nominal Christians on the way to ‘nones’ who self-described themselves as evangelicals earlier,” White said.
Research conducted by Stetzer showed that over 30 percent of college age Americans who claim to be Christians say they have no affiliation with church or denomination.
White attributed the problem to not only youth but church culture at large where secular thought has become commonplace. White says that because Christians are thinking the way the world thinks, the values of Christ are washed away and that leads to the rise of behaviors and actions that were considered unthinkable just 20 years ago.
“We only care about our own needs being met because a spiritual narcissism has invaded the church,” White said. “There is a consumer mindset that has crept into the church and it’s not megachurches selling out the culture. The consumer mindset, the narcissism is within the believer, so you hear things like, ‘I need to go where I am being fed’ as opposed to feeding ourselves or maybe feeding someone else. We talk about ‘I need to go where I am ministered to’ as if that’s the goal of the church instead of you being the minister. We talk about, ‘Well, I just walked out of a worship service and I didn’t get anything out of it,’ which is heresy because the worship service has nothing to do with what you get out of it, the question is did God get anything out of it?”
White said anyone who refuses to die to themselves on these consumer ways would never be able to change the church, society or truly reach someone with the gospel of Christ.
“Until we get closer to the heart of the issue, which is the heart of the believer,” White said, “I think we are just going to be just putting band aids on a terminal disease.”
A pair of alumni from Purdue University will now be able to have the inscription on a plaque include the name of their Lord.
Purdue University has backtracked on the prohibition of God’s name being placed on a plaque in memorial to the parents of an alumni who made a $12,500 donation to the School of Mechanical Engineering in 2012.
The inscription requested by Michael and Cindy McCracken was to read “to those who seek to better the world through the understanding of God’s physical laws and innovation of practical solutions. In honor of Dr. William “Ed” and Glenda McCracken.” The school initially refused to post the quote and without telling the donors posted a plaque with only the name of the parents.
On Wednesday the school backed off their claim that putting God in the plaque was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion by a public university.
Amy Noah, Purdue Vice President for Development, said in a statement they never intended to get into a disagreement with a valued donor or inadvertently expose Purdue to a potential legal crossfire.
Purdue University has banned God.
The University, which in the past has defended the rights of a speaker to blaspheme Jesus on their campus, told a donor they cannot put God’s name on a plaque because it could be offensive.
Dr. Michael McCracken made a pledge to the university’s school of mechanical engineering and Purdue offered the McCrackens a can to name a small conference room in the building according to Fox News.
Dr. McCracken wanted to name it after his father, a Purdue graduate. The plaque would have read:
“To those who seek to better the world through the understanding of God’s physical laws and innovation of practical solutions. In honor of Dr. William ‘Ed’ and Glenda McCracken.”
The University instead installed a God-free plaque without telling the family that only mentioned McCracken’s parents.
Fox News’ Todd Starnes has tried to get University officials to explain why they defended blasphemy of Christ on their campus but deny Christians the right to mention God but officials will not return calls.
A Hollywood actress says that God has always honored her following the Holy Spirit when He led her to turn down certain movie roles.
Meagan Good said that her Christian beliefs have led her to turn down some major movie roles but that God has always delivered.
“I have my parameters of what I feel in my spirit is appropriate,” Good told the LA Times. “There have been times where it’s been tough because it’s something I really wanted, but the nudity would be exploitative and I’d lose the opportunity, but what I’ve found is that the more I stick to my convictions, the more God sticks to his promises. When I would lose something, something better would come up than what I turned down. And I’ve been able to pay my bills doing nothing else since I was 13.”
Good is married to Preacher DeVon Franklin and strongly believes that you can maintain your Christian faith and be successful in Hollywood.
“We believe that both can come together and one can be used to promote the other, using what we do in the business to promote the kingdom,” Good said.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin said in an interview with “The Brody File” that kicking God out of any society would eventually lead to its ruin.
Palin said the war on Christmas was just the tip of the battle because people who are offended by the term Christmas aren’t upset with that word but that Christ is part of the word. They’re really offended by the truth of Jesus Christ.
Palin was speaking about her new book “Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas.”
“People who would be offended that we celebrate the Prince of Peace because it is called Christmas, it’s because the name Christ is in the title that they would be offended,” Palin told David Brody. “Any country, any government society that has kicked God out of the public square completely, it leads to ruin. Why would we go down that path when we know what would happen?”