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Southwest Passenger Claimed ‘Jesus Told Her’ To Open Plane Door Mid-flight, Docs Say She’ll need God on her side to get out of this one. An unruly Southwest Airlines passenger who tried to open the aircraft’s door mid-flight, then bit another passenger, claimed “Jesus told her” to do it, according to court documents. Elom Agbegninou, 34, was on the Ohio-bound flight from Texas on Saturday afternoon when she allegedly became frustrated that flight attendants prevented her from reaching the emergency exit, Click2Houston reported. When a fellow passenger intervened by tackling Agbegninou, she responded by biting the person on the thigh, refusing to let go until the victim forced their fingers into her jaw.  The crazed woman then started whacking her head on the plane floor, claiming “Jesus told her to fly to Ohio and Jesus told her to open the door,” the documents released by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas on Monday show. Agbegninou was subsequently removed...

Danica McKeller Thanks Candace Cameron Bure For Helping Her Find God: Danica McKellar is speaking out about Neal Bledsoe's exit from the Great American Family network and his view of Candace Cameron ... McKellar shared her thoughts about Bure's comments in an ... I don’t agree with his interpretation of her comments. I just didn’t see them the same way,” she added. After receiving backlash, Candace released a statement in which she said she was ... McKellar explained: While Danica McKellar indicated that she didn’t find Candace Cameron Bure’s statement as definitive as her Christmas at the Drive-In co-star did, Neal Bledsoe wasn’t ... Danica McKellar played down the comments Candace Cameron Bure recently made about traditional marriage during an interview with Fox News. When asked about her co-star Neal Bledsoe's decision to ... McKellar continued to address her thoughts about the controversy. "[Bure] started the sentence with ‘I think,’ which is not definitive, and sh...

Jonathan Roumie: Jesus Revolution Answers The Great Question Of "The Chosen" star Jonathan Roumie and ... Including Jesus. "Of course, we portray Jesus as the Son of God as divine," he said. "He does miracles. There's no question about that. Kelsey Grammer (Chuck Smith)Jonathan Roumie (Lonnie Frisbee)Kimberly Williams-PaisleyAlly IoannidesJulia CampbellJoel Courtney (Greg Laurie)Jackson Robert Scott (Young Greg Laurie)Jolie JenkinsNic ... "The Chosen" star Jonathan Roumie explains how he turned to God during his lowest point, and realized he had to give his whole self to his faith. The UN has said nuclear war is 'back within the realm ... Join Jonathan Roumie, the actor who plays Jesus; Elizabeth Tabish ... By a reading from Scripture and ends with thought-provoking questions to guide your meditative prayer. Avatar: The Way of Water debuted far ahead of the pack at the weekend box office to claim top place. Click to see which other movies made...

Conservatives Outraged Joe Biden Didn't Say 'Jesus' In Christmas Message  © Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images Above, U.S. President Joe Biden speaks as he delivers a Christmas address in the East Room of the White House on December 22 in Washington, DC. President Biden gave the address to wish Americans a happy holiday. President Joe Biden was criticized by conservatives this week for not saying "Jesus" in his Christmas speech on Thursday, with one critic saying that "Satan never mentions Jesus by name." "Satan never mentions Jesus by name, he is afraid of God and he is afraid of Christians who know how to pray in a way that brings God closer. #Biden Delivers Christmas Address Without Mentioning Jesus By Name: A Child Christians Believe To Be The Son Of God,'" said Twitter user Hamlet Garcia. Biden Warns Americans Of 'Dangerous And Threatening' Winter Storm SHARE SHARE TWEET SHARE EMAIL What to watch next House staffers directed to de...

Heresies, harassment, and Her Majesty’s death: Here are the stories Christians engaged with this year. This year was all but predictable. With the war in Ukraine, historic court cases, and civil unrest around the world, Christianity Today ’s readers came to our site for timely, faithful reflections and church-centered reporting. The top article of 2022 was written by our own editor in chief, Russell Moore. His raw response to the SBC’s third-party investigative report was read by over 500,000 people and translated into six languages. In addition to our SBC coverage , CT wrote about fantasy role-playing , Bono’s career and its connection to his faith , and pandemic fallout in the pews. Our 20 most-read stories of the year are listed below in descending order, starting with No. 20 and ending with No. 1. You can find these and other top CT stories of the year here , many of which are also offered in CT Global translations . 20. 19. 18. 17. 16. 15. 14. 13. 12. 1...

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In the New Year, we must view our time through a divine lens. A month after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, a debate raged about the responsibilities of those of us turned safely inside. For those privileged enough to find their calendars suddenly cleared, what should we do with all this newfound time ? Should we perfect our baking skills? Learn another language? Launch a business? But in her article for Wired , writer Laurie Penny took issue with those “lucky enough to be able to shelter in place” who were “using that time to launch podcasts and personal projects and life-hack [their] way to some cargo-cult pastiche of normality.” In her essay, Penny defiantly opposed the idea that we were most optimized when we were most productive. “‘Productivity,’” she argued, “is not a synonym for health, or for safety, or for sanity.” In theory, I might have agreed with Penny. But busy had always been the most recognizable version of me. L...

An Australian court is weighing whether or not Brian Houston had a “reasonable excuse” not to report his father's sexual abuse to the police. The trial of Brian Houston ended on Wednesday after 13 days of testimony, evidence, and cross-examination in courtroom 2.5 in the vast Downing Centre courthouse in downtown Sydney, in the faded splendor of a converted department store. The founder of Hillsong Church answered question after question about what he knew about his father Frank’s pedophilia, when he knew it, whom he told, whom he didn’t tell, and why. He admits he failed to report his father to police in 1999, as required by the law, but argues he is not guilty because he has a reasonable excuse. Houston told the magistrate in the bench trial he didn’t go to the authorities because the grown-up survivor of his father’s sexual abuse told him not to. He testified that the victim said, “I don’t want to be a big part of the church conversation. You know how gossipy they are. … Y...

Composed during World War I, “Shchedryk” folk song has survived the Nazi, communist, and now commercial eras to remind and revive the ties of hearth and home. Adapted from A Ukrainian Christmas (Sphere 2022): T he war between Russia and Ukraine has been described in different ways, but here is the definition we offer: The country where Christmas is one of the most significant holidays of the year and is celebrated twice, honoring both Eastern and Western traditions, was attacked by the country where Christmas has lost all meaning. But as Ukrainians bear the onset of winter cold, hearts are warmed by their millennia-long participation in the caroling tradition. And while “Shchedryk”—better known as the popular “Carol of the Bells”—has become one of the gems of world culture, many Ukrainian carols have a distinct trace of sadness to them. One illustration is “Ne Plach, Rakhyle” (“Don’t Weep, Rachel”), one of the oldest in Ukraine. Referencing the Old Testament tragedy enacted by Ki...

This children’s Christmas book paints baby Jesus in a new (or rather ancient) light. In 2010 I visited the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth and was struck by how different ethnic groups portrayed baby Jesus. From the shape of his eyes to the shade of his skin, each country portrayed Jesus as one of them. I have always been fascinated by the women God was pleased to include in Jesus’ family tree. Inspired by memories of Nazareth, I longed to disrupt the cultural norm of a white Jesus with a Biblically accurate depiction that celebrates the diverse world Jesus came to save. Four years ago, a little brown boy at church asked his white mom why everyone made Jesus so white and suggested I write a book with a brown Jesus. I crafted this story so that children like my young friend could see the multicultural weaving of love that God designed in Jesus' family tree. Continue reading ... from Christianity Today Magazine Umn ministry https://ift.tt/xp7BEG2 from Umn ministry ...

How the fact of the Incarnation fulfills the hopes of every culture. On All Saints’ Day, my wife and I often tell stories about the saints who have most impacted us. This year, I shared with my family the story of C. S. Lewis’s conversion. For some time, he had been teetering on the precipice of faith, unable to resolve his intellectual difficulties with Christianity. On a late-night walk around Oxford with his friends Hugo Dyson and J. R. R. Tolkien, he voiced his essential objection. Everything that matters, Lewis said , belongs in the realm of myth. Lewis had a great fondness for Norse mythology that went all the way back to his youth in Northern Ireland. For him, however, myth was about meaning making , whereas history was about unrepeatable facts, collected and analyzed in an empirical way. The great tragedy of human existence was that myth and history did not and could never intersect. Like the German thinker G. E. Lessing before him, Lewis described the “ ugly ditch ” bet...

Evangelical, Orthodox, and academic sources weigh security concerns against the right to associate with historic patriarchate losing popularity and suspected of war collaboration. Ukraine, a bastion of religious freedom, is moving to possibly outlaw a church. President Volodymyr Zelensky began the month by endorsing a draft law to “make it impossible” for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), canonically linked to Moscow, to operate. His December 1 decree followed raids on several monasteries under the UOC’s jurisdiction. Security services searched over 350 buildings and investigated 850 people. “We will ensure complete independence for our state. In particular, spiritual independence,” stated Zelensky. “We will never allow anyone to build an empire inside the Ukrainian soul.” The reaction from Russia was swift—but also illustrated the issue. “The current Ukrainian authorities have openly become enemies of Christ and the Orthodox faith,” stated Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman ...

5 questions about the global icon you see every Christmas. The Virgin of the Passion, also known as Our Lady of Perpetual Help, has been called the most popular Christian icon of the 20th century. I would argue the same applies to our own century as well. As an art history professor, I’ve been chasing her around the globe for nearly two decades (and have now collected those studies in my recent book, Mother of the Lamb : The Story of a Global Icon ). Here’s what you need to know about her. 1. Where does the story of the icon start? The first surviving instance of the image appears on the island of Cyprus, where the icon was painted as an Eastern Orthodox response to Western Crusaders occupying the island—specifically King Richard the Lionheart of England and the Knights Templar. After the Knights slaughtered the Orthodox population on Easter morning of 1192, the image was offered as a prayer of lamentation. The angels flanking Mary traded their scepters of triumph for instruments ...

His popular Sunday school curriculum was translated into 32 languages and dialects. Francis Sunderaraj, an evangelical leader in India who prioritized spiritual education and ministry to lay Christians, died last month at 85. As head of the Christian education department of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), Sunderaraj developed the most popular Sunday school curriculum in India. It has been translated into 32 languages and dialects. He believed that “training laypeople to be the Lord’s workers in society at large is a greatly productive ministry,” said longtime friend Saphir Athyal. The curriculum is also credited with fostering a sense of unified evangelical identity in India. It distinguished evangelicals from liberal Christians and gave them direction and focus. “Education is absolutely vital for the growth of the Church,” Sunderaraj wrote. “Our focus must always be building up the Kingdom of God.” Sunderaraj was born to a middle-class Anglican family in Chennai, Ta...

Answering Stephen Wolfe’s arguments for blood, soil, and sedition. E arlier this year, just months apart, two books on Christian nationalism hit shelves. Both were written by veterans of the US Army with PhDs in political science. Both books define nationalism as an effort to use the government to preserve a people’s cultural particularity, founded on a felt sense of affinity and similarity with one another. The main difference is that one book argued that these are good ideas and the other that they are bad. The first book was Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism . The second was my own, The Religion of American Greatness: What’s Wrong with Christian Nationalism . Our books do not cite each other, yet it is remarkable the degree to which they speak to the same issues from opposite perspectives. Sacralizing tribalism Wolfe argues that we have a natural affinity for similar people and that, since God is the author of nature, this natural affinity is good. He believes...

Chinese believers reflect on the relationship between faith and culture and rethink their seasonal evangelism. On Christmas Eve in 2018, media technology researcher Su Lun experienced a sense of depression while walking on the campus of Nanjing University. It was like walking into Narnia in the middle of a hundred-year-long winter “surrounded by few people and silence, and not feeling any semblance of a Christmas atmosphere.” On the same day, he received a notice in a college students’ WeChat group that read, “Today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, it is forbidden to post pictures or words about Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or holiday celebrations in this group. We only celebrate Chinese holidays. We don’t need foreign holidays!” That year, several Chinese universities and secondary schools banned students from celebrating or talking about Christmas on social media. And governments in several cities in the provinces of Hebei, Guizhou, and Guangxi issued bans on businesses ...

Theologians and church leaders around the region share how December 25 is perceived in their contexts. Christmas is widely celebrated in Asia. But is it seen as a secular holiday imported from the West or a religious one? CT spoke with seven theologians and church leaders from Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam to find out how Christmas is regarded in their contexts, the unique traditions that take place, and how evangelicals celebrate the birth of Christ there. Responses range from people who acknowledge and accept the Westernized, commercialized nature of Christmas in their countries to those who rally against such misconceptions and others who see it in a more religious light. Taiwan: Wen-Chuan Lin, assistant professor of church music at Taiwan Graduate School of Theology Christmas is known as a Western holiday to the general public in Taiwan. Because it is heavily influenced by its highly commercialized image from Western media and enterpris...

Q&A with religious studies scholar Eric Vanden Eykel on the history, mystery, memes, and meaning of the wise men in the Book of Matthew. How many Magi visit Jesus in the Bible? Where do they come from? The answers, for many, are as easy to recall as the first line of the beloved Christmas hymn: “We three kings of Orient are.” And yet, in the Gospel of Matthew, there are not three of them. Nor is a region specified beyond the very general “east.” Also, they’re not kings. The wise men have become essential to the iconography of Christmas, but as religious studies scholar Eric Vanden Eykel argues in his new book The Magi , the difference between the accepted imagery and the text of the gospel is instructive. We can learn something about biblical interpretation by looking at all the ways people have read the Magi ’ s story. CT spoke to Vanden Eykel about the biblical account of Matthew 2:1–12, the many interpretations and creative retellings, and the gifts the Magi can give an att...

Local leaders weigh in on the Muslim-majority nation’s new penal code and whether governments should legislate morality. Last week, Indonesia’s parliament approved a new penal code that received backlash from the United Nations and human rights groups inside and outside the Southeast Asian nation. The new code, which replaces a colonial-era code enacted while the archipelago was under Dutch rule, includes the criminalization of cohabitation and sex outside marriage, bans insulting the president, and keeps in place blasphemy laws that have been used at times against religious minorities, including Christians. The law will go into effect after a transitional period of three years. Home to the world’s largest Muslim population, Indonesia places a high value on religious harmony—known officially as Pancasila—among its 277 million citizens, and its constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population, have mostly kept quiet on the new c...

Even with today’s nonstop Christmas soundtrack, churches can still embrace the storytelling and nostalgia that comes with seasonal hymns. “Once a year,” wrote Brennan Manning in Reflections for Ragamuffins, “the Christmas season strikes both the sacred and secular spheres of life with sledgehammer force: suddenly Jesus Christ is everywhere.” It’s true. When I walk through the grocery store, trying to remember if I have vanilla extract in the pantry, I hear Nat King Cole crooning, “O Come All Ye Faithful” in the background. My daughter comes home from preschool singing, “Joy to the World” (they have been practicing for next week’s school Christmas performance). On Sunday mornings, the hymns include “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.” Christmas music is the soundtrack to my life in December. Yet those of us who try our best to center the Incarnation throughout the season experience both joy and exasperation as we hear rich carols shuffled together with “...

Remembering the heroics and good works of athletes, coaches, and fans. This third Sunday of Advent, millions of Christians will be at church. But millions will also be glued to a screen, anxious to find out if the Argentinian GOAT will at long last claim a World Cup title. Though past his prime, the 35-year-old team captain Lionel Messi has been sublime in the competition, with five goals and three assists under his belt, and is leading the golden boot race in his fifth World Cup. Although the reserved Messi, whose right arm bears a tattoo of Jesus crowned with thorns, has not expressed his faith openly beyond pointing to heaven after his goals, this World Cup has featured numerous heroics of confessing Christians. Leading the freewheeling French attack against Argentina will be 36-year-old striker Olivier Giroud, who has Psalm 23’s “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want” tattooed in Latin on his right arm. During this World Cup, Giroud became the all-time top scorer for Franc...

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State judge says the school’s legal strategy was a mistake. Gordon College has a reached a settlement with a social work professor who alleged discrimination when she was denied promotion. President Mike Hammond and board chair Carrie Tibbles notified faculty and staff in an email this week. “We are pleased to finally reach a resolution of this dispute,” the email said. “This has been a protracted legal journey through the judicial system which we did not seek out but were compelled to pursue, and one which we know has been at times uncomfortable for Gordon as a strongly relational community.” Margaret DeWeese-Boyd claimed the administration punished her for critiquing the school’s sexuality policies and arguing those policies hurt her LGBT students. She also said the school treated her more harshly than male colleagues who took similar stances. The prominent evangelical college disputed the facts of the case but spent most of its time in court arguing DeWeese-Boyd should legally...

christmas star decorations கிறிஸ்துமஸ் ஸ்டார் ;கிறிஸ்துமஸ் நட்சத்திரம்                                                                                                அரேபிய நாடான சிரியா நாட்டைச் சேர்ந்த வானசாஸ்திரிகள் இயேசு பிறந்த இடத்தை காட்டிய வான் நட்சத்திரத்தை வாழ்த்தவும் அப்புதுமையை நினைவுபடுத்தவும் கிறிஸ்துமஸ் நட்சத்திரம் தொங்க விடப்படுகிறது.மார்ச்சு மாதம் 25ஆம் நாள் மரியா இயேசுவைக் கருத்தரித்தார் என்னும் நம்பிக்கை தொடக்க காலக் கிறித்தவரிடையே நிலவியது. அதிலிருந்து ஒன்பது மாதங்கள் கணக்கிட்டு, டிசம்பர் 25இல் இயேசு பிறந்தார் என்று கிறித்தவர்கள் ஆண்டுதோறும் கிறிஸ்து பிறப்புவிழாக் கொண்டாடலாயினர்.கிறிஸ்துமஸ் தாத்தா :  கிறிஸ்துமஸ் காலத்தில் வெள்ளைத் தாடி, சிவப்புத் தொப்பி-ஆடையில் வரும் “சான்டா கிளாஸ்” எனப்படும் கிறிஸ்துமஸ் தாத்தா, இர...