Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States, may dip below 1 million members by the end of the current year, according to a recent report. ... Read full Story
Franklin Graham kicked off the European Congress on Evangelism on Tuesday, a four-day event that brings together 1,000 Evangelical and ministry leaders from 56 countries at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Berlin, Germany. ... Read full Story
Megachurch Pastor Jamal Bryant led a prayerful protest outside a Target store in Conyers, Georgia, on Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's killing by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, while pushing a national boycott of the retail chain over its decision to scale back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. ... Read full Story
Heritage Grace Community Church in Frisco, Texas, has announced that Christian YouTuber and church member Kris Williams, aka Kris Kdub of "All Things Theology," no longer has their endorsement due to an alleged ongoing engagement in an adulterous online relationship, which has caused him to seek a divorce from his wife. ... Read full Story
Gateway Church announced Sunday that Pastor Daniel Floyd, founder of the multi-campus Lifepoint Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia, has been selected as the new senior pastor of the embattled megachurch based in Southlake, Texas. ... Read full Story
A ministry of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina is helping settle Afrikaner refugees who have traveled from South Africa to the United States, seeing it as a biblical mandate to help even if they disagree with the Trump administration's handling of refugee admissions. ... Read full Story
As the Southern Baptist Convention prepares for its annual meeting in Dallas next month, a divide has emerged among former SBC presidents over the future of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the denomination’s public policy arm. ... Read full Story
Events that occurred this week in Christian history include the death of Billy Bray, the pope issuing an anti-slavery decree, and Billy Graham preaching before 3,000 in Chicago. ... Read full Story
For embattled megachurch pastor John Gray and his wife, Aventer, it was God and therapy that helped save their marriage after a series of inappropriate relationships. But unlike Gray, Barna Group data shows that most never seek professional help. ... Read full Story
The American arm of the Association of Vineyard Churches, Vineyard USA, has threatened leaders of the Vineyard Church in Duluth, Minnesota, with dissociation if they fail to resolve a dispute over the handling of sexual abuse in the organization by August. ... Read full Story
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright responded to a complex question about transgender identity and Christian faith during a recent episode of his “Ask N.T. Wright Anything” podcast. ... Read full Story
A female bishop may become the first woman to hold the position of archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England, according to odds posted by multiple British betting firms. ... Read full Story
In what he calls an expression of “righteous indignation,” Pastor Jamal Bryant announced on Sunday that he and his parishioners will protest for nearly 10 minutes outside a Target store in Conyers, Georgia, to remember George Floyd, who died in police custody in May 2020. ... Read full Story
After years of steady decline, Bible engagement in the United States has ticked upward for the first time in four years, driven largely by a surprising demographic: younger men. ... Read full Story
The Presbyterian Church (USA) will require ordination candidates to be asked about their views on LGBT issues, a move critics claim will discriminate against biblically-grounded theological conservatives. ... Read full Story
Former G3 Ministries president Josh Buice, who was forced to resign after confessing to using multiple social media and email accounts to “publicly and anonymously slander numerous Christian leaders,” says he made an “unsubstantiated” claim that Baptist preacher Voddie Baucham was “deceitful” in a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $1.4 million for his heart surgery. ... Read full Story
Events that occurred this week in Christian history include St. Ignatius of Loyola being wounded in battle, John Wesley’s “Aldersgate Experience,” and a Baptist group being launched. ... Read full Story
The Reformed Episcopal Church stripped British-born cleric and former media personality Calvin Robinson of his temporary clerical license after just nine days, following a public complaint from an Anglican archbishop this week. ... Read full Story
“The duck touched down on the surface of Raymond James Stadium just minutes before the Bucs scored their own touchdown. ... Many of the staff not assigned to work on the field were bemused by the sight of Anchor carrying a duck out of the stadium. They held cellphones and took pictures.” — Rick Stroud, The Tampa Bay (Florida) Times, 1 Jan. 2025
Did you know?
In 1735, British poet Alexander Pope lamented, in rhyme, being besieged by “a parson much bemus’d in beer.” The cleric in question was apparently one of a horde of would-be poets who pestered Pope with requests that he read their verses. Pope meant that the parson had found his muse—his inspiration—in beer. That use of bemused harks back to a 1705 letter in which Pope wrote of “Poets … irrecoverably Be-mus’d.” In both letter and poem, Pope used bemused to allude to being inspired by or devoted to one of the Muses, the Greek sister goddesses of art, music, and literature. The lexicographers who followed him, however, interpreted “bemus’d in beer” as meaning “left confused by beer,” and their confusion gave rise to the “bewilder” sense of bemuse. The newer (and very common) use of bemuse to mean “to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement” is a topic of some dispute, as discussed here.