Nearly two-thirds of Protestant churchgoers in the United States report having invited at least one person to church in the past six months, and those with Evangelical beliefs were more likely to do so, according to a survey. ... Read full Story
Bestselling Christian author Max Lucado will join Gateway Church as a teaching pastor while James Morris, the son of the church's embattled founder Robert Morris, stepped down Thursday, only weeks after he succeeded his father at the helm of the church in June amid a child sex abuse scandal. ... Read full Story
A megachurch recently held an event where they gave the children of more than 1,400 families in Georgia free sneakers and school supplies. ... Read full Story
After months of deliberation, the board of the embattled International House of Prayer Kansas City has decided that their vaunted 24/7 Prayer Room will not be operated under the umbrella of any church following the shuttering of several arms of the ministry, including the Forerunner Church, in the wake of a sexual misconduct scandal involving founder Mike Bickle. ... Read full Story
The former chairman of the board of trustees for the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has issued an apology for his attempt to remove Brent Leatherwood from the presidency. ... Read full Story
Pastor Steven Furtick’s multi-campus Elevation Church, headquartered in North Carolina, collected more than $108 million in tithes and offerings in 2023, as in-person church attendance soared to more than 17,000 worshipers weekly with three new campuses, according to the megachurch’s 2023 annual report. ... Read full Story
A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Colorado town from prohibiting a church from housing homeless individuals in RVs on their church property. ... Read full Story
Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission President Brent Leatherwood is not resigning from his position, according to the Southern Baptist Convention body, contradicting an earlier announcement. ... Read full Story
Three days after his grandson allegedly murdered his wife and four children in their home on Thursday night, Allan Kendrick, lead pastor of Oasis of Praise Church in Bessemer, Alabama, revealed how his family had been struggling to get help with his mental illness from multiple government agencies, including with Medicaid, to pay for his care. ... Read full Story
First Baptist Dallas gathered in the Dallas Convention Center on Sunday to mourn the recent loss of their historic sanctuary, though several members expressed hope that God will use the tragedy for good. ... Read full Story
Pastor Robert Jeffress said former President Donald Trump sent him a note after he was informed that the historic sanctuary of First Baptist Dallas was engulfed in flames. ... Read full Story
Events that occurred this week in Christian history include Albert Schweitzer being licensed in theology, Dionysius becoming pope, and Word of Faith Fellowship being accused of labor exploitation. ... Read full Story
A four-alarm fire Friday evening caused significant damage and a roof collapse to the historic sanctuary of First Baptist Dallas in Texas, an influential Southern Baptist megachurch with connections to many prominent Christian leaders. ... Read full Story
Stephen LeBlanc, a former Gateway Church pastor in Texas who has known the church’s founder Robert Morris since the 1980s, says he was shocked to learn about recent allegations that Morris sexually abused Cindy Clemishire over multiple years in the 1980s beginning when she was 12. ... Read full Story
Former Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt, who previously admitted to engaging in "kissing and some awkward fondling" with the wife of a younger minister who accused him of sexual assault while on a beach vacation with his family in Panama City, Florida, in 2010, says he was stalked and seduced by the woman. ... Read full Story
A Chicago church performed a wedding ceremony in which six Venezuelan and one Mexican couple sdecided to “do things right” and formalize their relationships in accordance with Scripture through marriage. ... Read full Story
The nondenominational Eternal Church in Fort Mill, South Carolina, has fired longtime Pastor Donald Logan after it was revealed that he is a registered sex offender convicted of sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl 27 years ago. ... Read full Story
The Village Church Denton, a former campus of Pastor Matt Chandler's The Village Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, reportedly hired Chandler's father, Steve Chandler, to work as the church's custodian and kept him on staff for five years after he confessed to child sexual abuse. ... Read full Story
The United Methodist Church’s first bishop to be in a same-sex marriage will be retiring in September, eight years after being elected in defiance of the denomination’s rules at the time. ... Read full Story
Conservative media personality Todd Starnes has come under fire from a number of pastors after he urged Christians to leave their church if their pastor didn't address the assassination attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump from their pulpits on Sunday. ... Read full Story
“The eagerness to vilify ‘the other side’—usually on social media—complicates the less reactionary work that defines our mission.” — Jerry Brewer, The Washington Post, 11 June 2024
Did you know?
It seems reasonable to assume that the words vilify and villain come from the same source; after all, to vilify someone is—in some ways—to make them out to be a villain. Such is not the case, however. Although the origin stories of both vilify and villain involve Latin, their roots are quite different. Vilify came to English (via Middle English and Late Latin) from the Latin adjective vilis, meaning “cheap” or “vile.” Someone who has been vilified, accordingly, has had their reputation tarnished or cheapened in such a way that they’re viewed as morally reprehensible. Villain on the other hand, comes from the Medieval Latin word villanus, meaning “villager,” and ultimately from the Latin noun villa, meaning “house.” The Middle English descendent of villanus developed the meaning of “a person of uncouth mind and manners” due to the vilifying influence of the aristocracy of the time, and the connotations worsened from there until villain came to refer to (among other things), a deliberate scoundrel.