Bobby Blackburn is accused of soliciting two workers and threatening to fire a third if she didn’t take the blame.
A grand jury has indicted a Prestonburg, Kentucky pastor accused of trying to organize a threesome with minors
Pastor Bobby J. Blackburn was indicted on charges of prohibited use of an electronic communication system to procure a minor to commit a sex offense.
His lawyer, Stephen Owens, says news coverage is making the case seem worse than it is. He says Blackburn is accused of trying to solicit 17-year-olds, but “media coverage is making it out to be like they are 9- or 10-year-olds.”
The pastor of the Elevate Church in Prestonsburg owns a Giovanni’s pizza place, which plays Christian music and puts Bible verses on receipts. He’s accused of soliciting two workers and threatening to fire a third if she didn’t take the blame.
“He would send pictures of us or of the children, asking us to look sad. He was saying that white people are so emotional.”
Benin City (Nigeria) (AFP) – In southern Nigeria, an evangelical pastor runs a sprawling camp billed as a refuge for thousands of children who fled the Boko Haram jihadist insurgency in the north.
Solomon Folorunsho, known as Pastor Solomon, says he is on a self-proclaimed mission to help humanity, creating the International Christian Centre for Missions (ICCM).
His camp in Benin City claims to provide accommodation, medical care and education for 4,000 children, “most of them orphans”, as well as 500 widows and missionaries, using funding from local institutions, NGOs and churches abroad.
Pastor Solomon claims to have “seen Jesus”
But witnesses AFP interviewed across Nigeria — children, their relatives, former missionaries and social workers — paint a far darker picture of the pastor and the treatment of those in his care.
“At first he’s very subtle, quiet — like somebody who wouldn’t hurt a fly,” one former church worker said of the charismatic preacher.
“I loved him, I loved his charisma.”
But during months of interviews, witnesses detailed how those living at his 30-hectare (75-acre) facility frequently go hungry and thirsty and endure atrocious hygiene conditions.
All accused the pastor of physical abuse, while some accused him of sexual harassment
Pastor Solomon, aged in his 50s, admits having problems with food and sanitary conditions in the camp but denies any mistreatment.
“There is no bad treatment here. We don’t do abuse,” he told AFP.
“Feeding them is a challenge… but we don’t have anything to hide. We are helping humanity.”
Concerns about the camp have a long history. Three years ago, the UN children’s agency UNICEF sent an assessment team to the site, who filed a report with damning conclusions.
Pastor-Solomon-with-Governor-Obaseki
“Pastor Solomon runs this camp as if it is his ‘kingdom’. He controls the movement and actions of every person in the camp through a group of ministers and specially selected children,” the team wrote in the confidential report, seen by AFP.
The UNICEF investigators said what they saw, coupled with interviews with children, caregivers and NGO workers, prompted “strong concerns regarding the possibility that Pastor Solomon may be engaged in sexual activities, or at a minimum, displaying grooming behaviours with girls in the camp”.
Witnesses said that around a dozen young girls work for the pastor as his personal servants and receive preferential treatment.
“A girl who refused to work for him was punished and starved. When he beat you, he wouldn’t stop until you bled seriously,” said Rahila, a 16-year-old girl who left the camp several months ago.
“He had names that he called different girls… He would comment on the size of my butt, and he would say our chests looked like pineapples or stuff like that,” she said.
All the witnesses’ names have been changed to protect their identities.
Other children and adults said that those who upset the preacher were treated brutally.
“I was always hungry, there was never enough food or water. When we complained we got beaten with anything he could lay his hands on,” said 12-year-old Hauwa.
“No one leaves Pastor Solomon without a scar — whether it is psychological or physical,” a former follower told AFP after hesitating at first to talk about his ordeal.
Convincing people to talk about their experiences with Pastor Solomon is a painstaking task. Some have refused to speak out for 20 years.
“Most of the girls were coming from poor homes. They would sleep with him and in exchange he would pay for their school fees,”said a former femalevictim.
She said her going to the authorities about the abuse she experienced and witnessed was out of the question in a country where powerful men are rarely brought to justice.
She was also scared of juju, the traditional black magic widely feared by people in the region.
“I was scared to talk. He uses juju, people told me I would die.”
Evangelical preachers draw fanatical followings across the deeply Christian south of Nigeria. Pastor Solomon’s power stems greatly from his beliefs.
“He says he’s sent by God. To confront him is like confronting God himself,” a former church worker said.
Those who have served under him and lived in the camp say the pastor uses the fear of devil to keep people in line.
Pastor Solomon smiles and plays with Oshiomhole and wife
On the church’s website, in a short biography entitled “I Saw Jesus” — translated into six languages including Russian and Chinese — he claimed that he was saved from Satan by God himself.
– Foreign evangelical support –
Pastor Solomon’s International Christian Centre for Missions has expanded hugely since he founded it in 1990 with just a dozen young female followers.
In 1992, he set up the first “Home for the Needy”, taking in poor children whose parents entrusted them to his care on the promise of an education.
A former missionary said the pastor would sometimes misrepresent the children as orphans to raise sponsorship in Europe or the United States.
Ten years later, the church had grown to more than 200 branches, with missionaries and preachers working across southern Nigeria and funds coming from evangelical churches abroad.
“He was always browsing the internet to look for church organisations all over the world” to target for donations, the missionary said.
“He would send pictures of us or of the children, asking us to look sad. He was saying that white people are so emotional.”
But it was the Boko Haram jihadist insurgency more than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) to the north of Benin City that caused a surge in the numbers at the camp.
As the violence displaced millions of people and grabbed global attention in 2013, Pastor Solomon’s group turned its attention to children in the conflict zone of northeastern Nigeria.
NAS’ charity: From left— Pastor Evelyn Omigie; Pastor Solomon Folorunsho; Officer in Charge of National Association of Seadogs, NAS, medical, Dr. Joseph Oteri; Prince Omoregbe Erediauwa; Idawo Azeg and Egele Sani Osigwe
“The pastor’s people came (to Maiduguri) and convinced parents to send their children to Benin City where they would have a good education, with free food,” said Rakiya, who allowed five of her six children to go.
“At the camp, parents would be given bags of rice, bus fare, jerrycans of palm oil and the like. So when they returned to Maiduguri they would tell other parents ‘Benin is good’,” she said.
No records are publicly available about how many children were brought from northern Nigeria to the camp.
Pastor Solomon told AFP that the Nigerian army and the intelligence service “have a copy of the register”, but this could not be verified.
UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) wanted to set up a program to reunite children from the camp with their families, but were denied access to their identities.
“At this time, camp management has been unable/unwilling to provide this information,” UNICEF said in its report.
UNICEF maintains that it passed on the report to local authorities in 2016 to make themaware of the “concerns”. But nothing appears to have been done.
Adams_Oshiomole
On the contrary, Pastor Solomon had full support from the then regional governor, Adams Oshiomhole, now head of Nigeria’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress.
“With the former governor, we once had a good relationship,” Pastor Solomon told AFP. “When parents wanted to get their children back, he would give them money, he would give them a gift.”
Today, while denying any accusations of maltreatment, the pastor admits that the huge influx of children placed a major strain on the camp and that the church struggles for money.
Camp workers have told local media that to feed the estimated 4,000 children and 500 adults at the camp costs hundreds of dollars a day — and that does not include medicine, water, education and clothing.
“We also have a problem with hepatitis, measles, chickenpox and scabies; we don’t have enough accommodation for them, this is a big challenge,” the pastor acknowledged.
Witnesses said that children sleep on mats on the ground in huge hangars without adult supervision, relieving themselves in the forest, complaining of hunger and thirst and not washing, and that many have died in the disease-ridden conditions.
While conditions keep deteriorating at the camp, some European and US evangelical groups still send donations and materials to Nigeria.
The congregation of German pastor Gunther Geipel — who describes Pastor Solomon as a “friend and brother” — is one of them.
Geipel dismisses the allegations against the pastor as “tales” from “jealous people”.
“I cannot imagine that this is true,” he told AFP.
AFP put the allegations against Pastor Solomon and his camp to Edo State minister for social affairs Maria Edeko, who took up her duties several months ago.
UNICEF NIGERIA
She said she had never heard of the UN report or accusations of abuse and poor conditions at the camp but insisted they would be investigated.
She confirmed the authorities did not have access to the camp registry.
“From now on, I can assure you that my ministry will be on top of the situation. We need monitoring,” she said. “It’s our responsibility.”
There are media reports of inmates being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, which are forbidden to Muslims, as well as reports of torture and death.
One million Muslims are being held against their will right now in Chinese internment camps, according to estimates cited by the UN and U.S. officials. Former inmates—most of whom are Uyghurs, a largely Muslim ethnic minority—have told reporters that over the course of an indoctrination process lasting several months, they were forced to renounce Islam, criticize their own Islamic beliefs and those of fellow inmates, and recite Communist Party propaganda songs for hours each day. There are media reports of inmates being forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, which are forbidden to Muslims, as well as reports oftorture and death.
Police patrolling the old town in Kashgar, Xinjiang. The city has been the focus of a major crackdown on the Muslim Uighur people. Photograph: Tom Phillips/The Guardian
The sheer scale of the internment camp system, which according to The Wall Street Journal has doubled in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region just within the last year, is mind boggling. The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China describes it as “the largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today.” Beijing began by targeting Uyghur extremists, but now even benign manifestations of Muslim identity—like growing a long beard—can get a Uighur sent to a camp, the Journal noted. Earlier this month, when a UN panel confronted a senior Chinese official about the camps, he said there are “no such things as reeducation centers,” even though government documents refer to the facilities that way. Instead, he claimed they’re just vocational schools for criminals.
Xi-Jinping
China has been selling a very different narrative to its own population. Although the authorities frequently describe the internment camps as schools, they also liken them to another type of institution: hospitals. Here’s an excerpt from an official Communist Party audio recording, which was transmitted last year to Uighurs via WeChat, a social-media platform, and which was transcribed and translated by Radio Free Asia:
Members of the public who have been chosen for reeducation have been infected by an ideological illness. They have been infected with religious extremism and violent terrorist ideology, and therefore they must seek treatment from a hospital as an inpatient. … The religious extremist ideology is a type of poisonous medicine, which confuses the mind of the people. … If we do not eradicate religious extremism at its roots, the violent terrorist incidents will grow and spread all over like an incurable malignant tumor.
“Religious belief is seen as a pathology” in China, explained James Millward, a professor of Chinese history at Georgetown University, adding that Beijing often claims religion fuels extremism and separatism. “So now they’re calling reeducation camps ‘hospitals’ meant to cure thinking. It’s like an inoculation, a search-and-destroy medical procedure that they want to apply to the whole Uighur population, to kill the germs of extremism. But it’s not just giving someone a shot—it’s locking them up for months in bad conditions.”
Muslim Uyghur woman in Keriya mosque Xinjiang China
China has long feared that Uyghurs will attempt to establish their own national homeland in Xinjiang, which they refer to as East Turkestan. In 2009, ethnic riots there resulted in hundreds of deaths, and some radical Uyghurs have carried out terrorist attacks in recent years. Chinese officials have claimed that in order to suppress the threat of Uighur separatism and extremism, the government needs to crack down not only on those Uyghurs who show signs of having been radicalized, but on a significant swath of the population.
The medical analogy is one way the government tries to justify its policy of large-scale internment: After all, attempting to inoculate a whole population against, say, the flu, requires giving flu shots not just to the already-afflicted few, but to a critical mass of people. In fact, using this rhetoric, China has tried to defend a system of arrest quotas for Uyghurs. Police officers confirmed to Radio Free Asia that they are under orders to meet specific population targets when rounding up people for internment. In one township, police officials said they were being ordered to send 40 percent of the local population to the camps.
The government also uses this pathologizing language in an attempt to justify lengthy interments and future interventions any time officials deem Islam a threat. “It’s being treated as a mental illness that’s never guaranteed to be completely cured, like addiction or depression,” said Timothy Grose, a China expert at the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology. “There’s something mentally wrong that needs to be diagnosed, treated—and followed up with.” Here’s how the Communist Party recording cited above explains this, while alluding to the threat of contagion:
There is always a risk that the illness will manifest itself at any moment, which would cause serious harm to the public. That is why they must be admitted to a reeducation hospital in time to treat and cleanse the virus from their brain and restore their normal mind. … Being infected by religious extremism and violent terrorist ideology and not seeking treatment is like being infected by a disease that has not been treated in time, or like taking toxic drugs. … There is no guarantee that it will not trigger and affect you in the future.
Having gone through reeducation and recovered from the ideological disease doesn’t mean that one is permanently cured. … So, after completing the reeducation process in the hospital and returning home … they must remain vigilant, empower themselves with the correct knowledge, strengthen their ideological studies, and actively attend various public activities to bolster their immune system.
Several other government-issued documents use this type of medical language. “This stuff about the poison in the brain—it’s definitely out there,” said Rian Thum, noting that even civilians tasked with carrying out the crackdown in Xinjiang speak of “eradicating its tumors.” Recruitment advertisements for staff in the internment camps state that experience in psychological training is a plus, Thum and other experts said. Chinese websites describe reeducation sessions where psychologists perform consultations with Uyghurs and treat what they call extremism as a mental illness. A government document published last year in Khotan Prefecture described forced indoctrination as “a free hospital treatment for the masses with sick thinking.”
Mihrigul Tursun says she and her son are victims of Beijing’s growing crackdown on Muslim majority Uyghurs in China’s far western Xinjiang region.
This is not the first time China has used medical analogies to suppress a religious minority. “Historically, it’s comparable to the strategy toward Falun Gong,” said Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the European School of Culture and Theology in Germany. He was referring to a spiritual practice whose followers were suppressed in the early 2000s through reeducation in forced labor camps. “Falun Gong was also treated like a dangerous addiction. … But in Xinjiang this [rhetoric] is certainly being pushed to the next level. The explicit link with the addictive effect of religion is being emphasized possibly in an unprecedented way.” Tahir Imin, a U.S.-based Uighur academic from Xinjiang who said he has several family members in internment camps, was not surprised to hear his religion being characterized as if it’s a disease. In his view, it’s part of China’s attempt to eradicate Muslim ethnic minorities and forcefully assimilate them into the Han Chinese majority. “If they have any ‘illness,’ it is being Uyghur,” he said. In addition to Uyghurs, The Washington Post has reported that Muslim members of other ethnic groups, like the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz, have been sent to the camps. “I think the Chinese government is saying: ‘This ideological hospital—in there, send every person who is not [ethnically] Chinese. They are sick, they are not safe [to be around], they are not reliable, they are not healthy people.’”
An inmate told The Independent he suffered thoughts of suicide inside the camps. And as Uyghurs in exile around the world learn what is happening to their relatives back home, some have told reporters they suffer from insomnia, depression, anxiety, and paranoia.
Murat Harri (Uyghur), a 33-year-old doctor who moved to Finland in 2010, said he has received word from relatives that both his parents are in the camps. He has launched an online campaign, “Free My Parents,” he said will raise money to start an advocacy organization to help them, but he told me he suffers from recurrent panic attacks. He also described finding himself prone to feelings of anger, powerlessness, and exhaustion. “I try to be normal,” he said, “but I have a psychological problem now.”In an interview with The Globe and Mail, a Uyghur woman in Canada who said she had a sister in the camps said, “I cannot concentrate on anything. My mind is off. I cannot sleep.” She added, “I lost a lot of weight because I don’t want to eat anymore.”
China Rebukes Turkey Over Uighur Refugees
Some Uyghurs I spoke to who are living abroad also have to cope with a pervasive sense of guilt. They know that Beijing treats any Uyghur who’s traveled internationally as suspicious, and that their family members are treated as suspicious by association. For example, a 24-year-old Uyghur attending graduate school in Kentucky, who requested anonymity for fear that China would further punish his relatives, said it’s been 197 days since he’s been able to contact his father in Xinjiang. He tracks the days on a board tacked to his bedroom wall. “I’m afraid for my dad’s life,” he said. Asked why he believes his father was sent to an internment camp, he replied without a trace of doubt: “Because I go to school here in a foreign country.”
“Now I know that if I ever go home,” he added, “I will be imprisoned just like my dad.”
The Canadian province of Ontario is considering legislation that would officially criminalize Christianity and other religions that oppose same sex marriage, homosexuality, abortion, and everything else that God considers as sin.
The Canadian province of Ontario is considering legislation that would officially criminalize Christianity and all other religions that oppose same sex marriage, homosexuality, abortion, and everything else that God considers as sin.
The bill, “Prohibiting Hate-Promoting Demonstrations at Queen’s Park Act, 2019,”bans any demonstration, rally or other activity that is deemed hateful by the Speaker from being permissible on legislative grounds – effectively insulating the government from Christian speech.
Life Site Newsexplains that the nebulous nature of Canada’s anti-hate laws essentially give leftist legislators carte blanche to ban all Christian protest:
As Canada becomes more restrictive toward Christianity, they open their arms for the LGBT agenda and Islam to take a foothold in their culture.
The Royal Canadian Mint issued a commemorative coin last month to celebrate homosexual love as a core principle of Canadian society.
“Marking 50 years since a landmark decision that began a process of legal reforms to recognize the rights of LGBTQ2 Canadians is a powerful way to recognize Canada’s profound belief in equality and inclusion,” said Marie Lemay, president and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint.
Meanwhile, the far-left Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been revealed to be plotting different ways to bring ISIS terrorists to his nation and possibly be re-introduced in public life.
“None of the options are ideal and all present different challenges and risks,” said the three-page secret paper, which was heavily redacted after its release through the Access to Information Act.
As globalism and liberalism takes a stronger hold in Canada, the government can be expected to become even more hostile to Christianity and more hospitable to subversive agendas.
The 58 year old told police he had been running what he described as a healing ministry since 1986 and that the people had been chained to prevent them from escaping.
Nigerian police say they have rescued 15 people kept chained in an illegal so-called prayer house in the country’s biggest city, Lagos. The victims were men and women between 19 and 50 years old with some said they had spent five years in the facility.
They were brought there by relatives who believed spiritual treatment could help cure their mental illnesses, drug addictions and other conditions.
“Police are working closely with other agencies of government to provide adequate medical attention and shelter to the victims,” police spokesman Bala Elkana said.
The police raided the house in the area of Ijegun after receiving a tip. The man who ran the facility, and called himself a prophet, was arrested.
The 58 year old told police he had been running what he described as a healing ministry since 1986 and that the people had been chained to prevent them from escaping. This is the latest raid on such privately run facilities, where people are often kept in deplorable conditions, the BBC’s Mayeni Jones in Lagos reports.
Rev. Robert E. Morey, pastor of the church, confirmed Monday he denied communion to the former vice president because an public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching.
The pastor of a South Carolina church refused Sunday to give communion to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden due to his support for legal abortion. Biden, who is Catholic, was campaigning in South Carolina when he stopped Sunday morning at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Florence, S.C.
Rev. Robert E. Morey, pastor of the church, confirmed Monday he denied communion to the former vice president.
“Sadly, this past Sunday, I had to refuse Holy Communion to Former Vice President Joe Biden,” Morey said, according to WPDE in Florence. “Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that. Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching. As a priest, it is my responsibility to minister to those souls entrusted to my care, and I must do so even in the most difficult situations. I will keep Mr. Biden in my prayers.”
During a Democratic debate in mid-October, Biden pledged to ensure abortion remains legal, even if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“I would make sure that … we codify Roe v. Wade,” Biden said. “The public is already there. Things have changed. … Reproductive rights are a constitutional right. And, in fact, every woman should have that right.”
Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – who later became Pope Benedict XVI – wrote a memorandum to U.S. Catholic bishops in 2004, explaining what they should do when a Catholic politician who supports abortion rights presents himself or herself for communion, Catholic News Agency reported.
A politician “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” would constitute “formal cooperation” in grave sin, the letter said. Ratzinger was referencing Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law, which states that “those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
“[The] Pastor should meet with him,” Ratzinger wrote, “instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.”
If the politician refuses to change, Ratzinger wrote, then the “minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it.”
“I will not bow down at the altar of the LGBTQ agenda nor worship their rainbow pride flag,” Rev. Graham said in reaction to Beto O’Rourke’s promise to strip churches of their tax-exempt status if they do not recognize homosexual marriage.
Celebrated Christian evangelist Franklin Graham has taken issue with the Democrats’ extreme push of the LGBTQ agenda, saying he will stand with biblical morality.
“I will not bow down at the altar of the LGBTQ agenda nor worship their rainbow pride flag,” Rev. Graham said in reaction to Beto O’Rourke’s promise to strip churches of their tax-exempt status if they do not recognize homosexual marriage.
“I’m going to stand with the Word of God, the Holy Bible, which is truth from cover to cover,” Graham added in a three-part tweet.
Rev. Graham, the son of “America’s Pastor,” Billy Graham, was reacting to CNN’s “Equality in America” town hall meeting held on Thursday, which focused on LGBTQ issues with 2020 presidential candidates of the Democrat party.
Beto O’Rourke “said churches, religious organizations, universities that don’t go along w/ same-sex marriage should lose their tax-exempt status,” Graham noted. “This gives you a clue of what the progressive, socialist-leaning Dem. Party would try to force on our nation if they win any election.”
“They will create laws & ‘consequences’ that would punish those who don’t agree with them. This is a threat to religious freedom & free speech,” he said.
Last month, Rev. Graham came out against South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg for his efforts to defend abortion and homosexuality as Christian positions.
“Mayor Pete Buttigieg has been speaking openly about his support for abortion, which he says is a woman’s right to choose. That’s a crock — No one has the right to choose murder,” Rev. Graham wrote to his eight million Facebook followers in response to a Townhall article on Buttigieg’s efforts to redefine Christian morality.
During an interview with The Breakfast Club, Mayor Pete said the Bible is ambiguous about when life begins, and, thus, Christianity allows for a range of positions on abortion.
“There’s a lot of parts of the Bible which talk about how life begins with breath,” the Democrat presidential hopeful said. “And even so, that’s something that we can interpret differently.”
Mayor Pete has also insisted that Christianity has no problem with same-sex marriage, despite the numerous biblical passages that condemn homosexuality as an abomination before God and the unbroken Christian tradition that treats homosexual practice as gravely sinful.
“Mayor Pete is trying to tell people that the homosexual lifestyle is okay with God and that abortion is okay,” Graham wrote on Facebook. “His brother-in-law is right when he said, ‘This is leading people astray and it’s very, very dangerous.’”
“God defines right and wrong, not us,” Graham concludes. “As Christians, we are to live by the standards He gives us in His Word. ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me.’ (Isaiah 45:5).”
“We’re the majority and we’re having the minority push something down our throats that we don’t accept, and we need to speak out and fight against this.”
Televangelist and staunch Trump supporter Franklin Graham came out in strong defense of a New Jersey mayor for his opposition to a state law that will require public schools to add LGBTQ history to their curriculum.
Graham, the president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association — the notoriously anti-LGBTQ right-wing organization — was a guest on The Todd Starnes radio show a few months ago. Starnes is the ultra-conservative Fox News Radio host whose show “is here to defend the faith by reporting the truth.”
He asked Graham about a decision of the mayor of Barnegat, N.J., Alfonso Cirulli, who spoke outagainst the legislation.
Graham said that he agreed with Cirulli wholeheartedly.
“The mayor is absolutely right,” Graham started. “[Cirulli] said, ‘this is an affront to God’,” the pastor continued. “He’s correct,” he said. “I don’t believe that the schools have the right to teach our children something that is an affront to God. So the mayor is absolutely right and I back him 100%.”
To justify his reasoning, Graham used a common — if overused — homophobic argument that demonizes LGBTQ people.
“God made us and created us, he made us male and female so that we can carry on the population, so that we have children and that we would increase, and homosexuality goes against God’s plan for the human race.”
Asking for guidance, the radio host told the televangelist that “a lot of schools around the country are dealing with [the same issue] right now,” and parents call him on his show asking what they should do. “What advice do you give Christian moms and dads,” he asked his guest. “Do they pull their kids out of public school, do they home-school? Private school?”Graham immediately suggested pulling kids out of the public system and enrolling them in private schools.
“We can fight [by] writing your legislators, letting them know how you feel, organizing a march on your state capital,” the right-wing pastor added. And “if the churches would just get behind this and begin to speak out, it would make a big difference,” he said.
“We’re the majority and we’re having the minority push something down our throats that we don’t accept, and we need to speak out and fight against this.”
The enlightening exchange of ideas came just a day after Starnes compared immigrants to “Nazis invading France and Western Europe,” Media Matters noted.
“I do believe that we have been invaded,” he said on the Aug. 14 edition of his show. “We have been invaded by a horde, a rampaging horde, of illegal aliens. This has been a slow-moving invasion. And that’s — I believe that’s a fair description of what we have suffered here in this country.
~ Original post written by Muri Assunção New York Daily News
Anyone can be a church leader in Babylon today, Episcopal priest Reverend Katherine Ragsdale in a prime example of that!
Episcopal priest Reverend Katherine Ragsdale, with her organization National Abortion Federation, will hand out pre-paid gas cards for women seeking abortions, according to FaithWire.
“Since there are a limited number of providers and states continue to impose additional restrictions, many women have to travel long distances to reach the closest provider who can help them,” NAF said in a statement. “And this situation will only worsen as the political environment continues to become more hostile toward abortion rights.”
Ragsdale, who is the Interim President and CEO of NAF, believes the initiative will provide more support for women “so that they can make, and act on, the best decisions for themselves and their families.”
The pilot program will run for three months and start in states that have waiting periods or other abortion restrictions, LifeNews reports.
The response comes in light of several states furthering restrictive abortion limits. States such as Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana have nearly abolished terminations and several other states are poised to do the same.
Former Plymouth priest the Rev. Mally Lloyd married the Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, dean and president of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, on New Year’s Day. The Rev. Lloyd, a former pastor at Christ Church in Plymouth, is now a ranking official of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.
As the first lesbian to become a leader of an Episcopal seminary, Ragsdale has been no stranger to controversy. World Magazine reportedRagsdale’s allegiance lies not only with pro-choice causes, but pro-abortion.
“Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done,” she said at a pro-abortion rally. “Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.
She continued: “The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply [a] blessing.”
Catherine Glenn Foster, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, the largest pro-life legal organization in the country, believes the pilot program doesn’t help women but abortion centers.
Katherine Ragsdale Babylonian pastor
“This is a half-baked publicity stunt by NAF meant to create the impression that there is even a need for this,” she said. “Why doesn’t the abortion industry—dominated by a ‘non-profit’ that has over a hundred million in the bank—lower its prices instead? Because it’s all about profit for them.”
~ Original Post Written By Mikaela Mathews | ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor
Isaiah 13:19
And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
Songs were interspersed with tributes to various homosexual leaders in the gay rights movement. Gaga also lectured the crowd that throughout the evening they would need to pay close attention to using the right gender pronouns, an overture to the “trans community,” because “we are all in this together.”
Pastor Joel Osteen and his wife, ministers of the Word of Faith prosperity gospel movement, were seen at Lady Gaga’s pride celebration at Apollo Theater. The New York Daily News reports,
Poehler wasn’t the only heavy hitter in the crowd. From Alaska Thunderf–k, a drag performer who won Season 2 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” to the controversial televangelist and anti-LGBTQ pastor Joel Osteen, the event drew an eclectic mix of fans, industry insiders and celebrities, from the movies (Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Douglas), the music universe (Clive Davis, Adam Lambert), the fashion world (Alexander Wang), television (John Oliver, Camila Mendes) and the America’s gay Royal couple and Harlem residents Neil Patrick Harris and husband David Burtka.
It was reported that Osteen was wearing a blue blazer while his wife was wearing a long, black dress.
Osteen asserted a few years ago that he believes that the Scriptures are clear that homosexuality is a sin. Yet, he has continuously softened his tone and downplayed the significance toward homosexuality since then. In an effort to remain culturally relevant and inclusive, Osteen generally avoids the topic altogether.
In 2017 during a conversation with with HuffPost’s Marc Lamont Hill and Joel Osteen and his wife Victoria Osteen, HuffPost Live’s Marc Lamont Hill asked whether gay marriage is against the fundamental “rules” of Christianity.
Osteen replied, “It would be, but I don’t really focus on a lot of those things.” “I try to stay in my lane of what I feel called to do. [Gay marriage] does come up in interviews and things, but that’s not my core message.”
What his message does include, Osteen said, is advising his congregation on how to let go of the past, raise good children and achieve their dreams. He added that the sexuality of gays and lesbians is one of the “issues” faced by many different types of people in his church.
“Everybody’s welcome, but my take on it is it’s easy to make one issue — to become known for that or to let it sidetrack your message,” he said. “If you look at our congregation … including myself, we all have issues. Everybody’s on a journey.”
Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you
In 2017 during a conversation with with HuffPost’s Marc Lamont Hill and 
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