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Talking about religion and politics can be dangerous among friends. It's doubly so for businesses.
That double-edged sword became crystal clear last year after Chick-fil-A's COO made comments about the chain's opposition to gay marriage. It sparked a massive backlash from the media, gay and lesbian couples, and even the mayor of Boston.
The controversy also helped the company shatter sales records after former Arkansas governor and Fox commentator Mike Huckabee organized a "Chick-fil-A appreciation day."
Many other big companies in America are also religious, including some that might surprise you.
1. Chick-fil-A provoked a firestorm of criticism after its COO made comments about gay marriage.
2. Forever 21 prints a reference to one of the most oft quoted passages of the New Testament on the bottom of all of its bags.
3. Tyson Foods employs 1290 office chaplains to provide "compassionate pastoral care" to employees
4. In-N-Out, the California-based burger chain is beloved for its commitment to fresh ingredients and its secretive "special menu."
5. Alaska Airlines passes along an inspirational notecard with an Old Testament passage with your breakfast.
6. You may still find a Book of Mormon alongside the Bible in your Marriott hotel room.
7. JetBlue founder David Neeleman was featured in a book titled "The Mormon Way Of Doing Business"
8. Interstate Batteries includes references to the glory of God alongside its products in its online mission statement.
9. The Trijicon sight pictured here has a coded reference to Bible verse John 1:7
10. Hobby Lobby sued the government on religious grounds over being required to provide emergency contraception.
11. ServiceMaster's core commitment is to "honor God in all we do."
12. Mary Kay founder Mary Kay Ash attributed her success to her company's commitment to God.
13. Texas based grocery chain H.E.B's Vice Chairman runs a Christian retreat center.
14. Curves founder Gary Heavin is an outspoken Christian
As bullying problems land in the headlines month after month, it’s natural that our culture frowns upon any form of fighting. And for Christians, the familiar verse about turning the other cheek leads many of us to a place where we see fighting as a failure in living out our faith.
Do you want my reaction as a father? As a pastor? Teach your son to fight. That’s what he’s made to do.
That’s right—our sons need to learn how to fight. In addition to learning how to fight, more importantly they need to know when to fight and why to fight. They also need to learn when to walk away.
God has given us a divine desire to fight for righteousness.
But saying there’s no place for fighting just isn’t true.
And guess who your child needs to hear that from? That’s right, YOU.
The father. The grandfather. The brother-filling-in-as-a-father. The man who knows your heavenly Father, and knows that you were made to fight.
I read a book recently that suggested our culture has tried to turn good men into women—nicer, softer, kinder, more compassionate and fashion savvy. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but men are not women. (For the record, women don’t make good men, either.) After all, God created us differently. “So God created human beings in his own image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27, NLT). Both men and women reflect the image of God, but in unique, distinct ways.
God created men with the heart of a warrior, placing within us a desire to stand up and fight for what’s pure, for what’s true. A man has a warrior’s heart. That’s God’s design, not ours. That doesn’t mean all men should be aggressive, alpha bullies. It simply means God has given us a divine desire to fight for righteousness.
A number of developments in the lawsuit against Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) have taken place since I first covered it for RD back in early March.
On May 14, a second amendment was filed to the suit:
[The suit] adds three new plaintiffs, making a total of 11. Five plaintiffs are now using their real names, and the rest are pseudonyms. It accuses church leaders of conspiracy, negligence, misrepresentation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
On May 17, however, Maryland Circuit Court Judge Sharon V. Burrell dismissed most of the suit on the grounds of statute of limitations: under state law, civil charges must be brought in many cases of child abuse within three years of the victim turning 18. If Burrell’s ruling stands, only the two remaining plaintiffs who are under 21 (both of whom are from Virginia) will be able to bring suit against SGM.
On May 29, Susan Burke and William O’Neil, lawyers for the plaintiffs, filed a motion for Burrell to reconsider her decision. They plan to appeal if this request is denied. Burke has also stated that “Going forward with a civil lawsuit does not in any way prevent criminal actions—perhaps may even make it more likely.”
The personal and organizational fallout for SGM and in the churches named as defendants—aside from legal consequences—remains to be seen. The second amended lawsuit named well-known, long-time members as well as a former pastor at CLC as perpetrators, and added graphic detail to previous accuasations that Covenant Life Church (CLC) harbored a "pedophilia ring" in which children were passed between perpetrators. In a May 19 sermon responding to the new charges, current CLC senior pastor Joshua Harris informed the congregation that he is also a survivor of child sexual abuse.
In short, SGM’s and CLC’s legal and organization turmoil are far from over. Despite this, evangelical leaders and organizations with close ties to former president C.J. Mahaney have broken the
Atheists are outraged that a Bible sits right next to the mayor’s desk, inside a Pinellas Park City Council chamber, and they’re demanding its removal.
City officials, however, say that’s a no-go. The Bible’s been there for more than 30 years, and laws don’t prohibit its presence, The Blaze reported. The book was an Oct. 19, 1975, gift to council members from the Kiwanis club, and it’s been a traditional fixture ever since.
Freedom From Religion Foundation officials say they don’t care. They sent a letter to city officials, saying the Bible needs to go because it violates the principle of separation of church and state.
“It’s on display. And that certainly is improper,” said president Annie Laurie Gaylor, in The Blaze. She added: What if it was the Koran? “It shows an endorsement of the Bible as a holy book over other holy books.”
The government relations administrator for the city, Tim Caddell, said nobody has ever filed a grievance.
“We’ve not had complaints from residents, from people who participated,” he said, in The Blaze.
“I think we need to recognize that it may be time to quit worrying so much about the tax code and start thinking more about the truth of the living God, and if it means that we give up tax-exempt status and tax deductions for charitable contributions, I choose freedom more than I choose a deduction that the government gives me permission to say what God wants me to say.” -Mike Huckabee
Should you stay or should you go?
Besides being a riff on the title of one of the great pop-punk songs of the early 1980′s, it is a question with which congregants whose leaders have had moral failures by their leaders must grapple. Whether it is the stuff that grabs headlines (like the Sovereign Grace Ministries lawsuit or the sexual misconduct charges filed against leaders Virginia’s Richmond Outreach Center) or the kinds of things that spur gossip in a local community (a pastor’s affair with a congregant, a church secretary embezzling funds, an ugly political power play by a disgruntled posse of church members), church members who have not been directly involved with the implosion must still deal with the fallout. Church finances take a hit, attendance drops, reputations suffer, the leaders left in the wake tend to turn inward as they cycle through all the emotions that accompany loss.
Geronimo Aguilar, founding former pastor of ROC, was charged in Texas with seven felonies in two cases of sexual assault of two sisters under the age of 14.
Four of the five pastors at Richmond Outreach Center (ROC) in Virginia resigned last week amid a sex scandal, but its members are working toward a new beginning. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Jonathan Falwell will begin advising the church's board of directors.
Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., is a son of the late Jerry Falwell. ROC board member Billy Croxton said on Saturday that Falwell and one of his executive pastors “would serve as spiritual advisers and offer counsel as the ROC looks for a new leader while continuing to operate the church’s ministries,” according to the Times-Dispatch.
“Pastor Falwell continues to support the mission and vision of the ROC,” Croxton said.
The board announced Wednesday that it had accepted the resignations of its founding pastor, Geronimo Aguilar, and pastors Jason Helmlinger, Andrew Delgado and Matthew Aguilar.
“We wish the best for the pastors and their families,” the board said in a brief statement. “The Richmond Outreach Center remains focused on serving those in need and we will never stray from this mission.”
The resignations followed a scandal-filled month, when Geronimo Aguilar—known as “Pastor G”—was charged in Texas with seven felonies in two cases of sexual assault of two sisters under the age of 14.
The alleged assaults—which were said to have taken place before Aguilar founded ROC in 2001—date back to 1996. Four of the felonies he faces carry potential life sentences.
Throughout the Church’s history, it has warred with Islam. Yet, it has nothing to offer us today. This is the typical answer I get when I discuss Christian history with many Evangelicals. They tell me that beyond the Bible, there is nothing else we need. So next time you have a fire in the house, read the Bible, don’t forget to pray while you forget dialing 911 and enjoy the smoke and fire billowing inside the house.
I find it difficult to even ask questions: What was Christian history like, that withstood Islam’s evil and defeated it in Europe? Why and how did Christendom lose Egypt and Asia Minor to Islam? And what are we doing in our days to emulate or not emulate from that history?
The one million dollar question that no one can answer – although I will get many remarks from people damning me as a heretic – is this: Why did God choose Catholics to stop Islam in its tracks in all the major battles intended to destroy Christendom? Anyone who has the answer, please step forward.
Jesse Johnson joins Brannon for this installment of Worldview Weekend Radio. Topic: Are you under the influence of the devil? Topic: What is the message of the cross and why is the cross and the gospel not the center of most churches? Topic: The church of which Pastor Jesse is the teaching pastor, hosts the largest Boy Scout unit in the entire state of Virginia. How will the leadership at Immanuel Bible handle the new policy of the Boy Scouts that allows for homosexual Scouts? Topic: Unity is not always possible so what are the crucial issues that keep us from unity with other self-professing Christians? Topic: We take your calls.
But archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel believes otherwise and has set out to prove the validity of the biblical accounts and its most famous historical figures.
"These guys said, 'We didn't have any archaeological memories, so David and Solomon are mythological figures," Garfinkel said. Yet one by one, those "archaeological memories" are being uncovered and all over Israel excavators are confirming the biblical story of Israel's greatest king.
The Bible records David's story in great detail from his days as a shepherd boy to his death in the royal palace in Jerusalem. Today, you can walk in the same places where David walked and they still have the same names as they did 3,000 years ago.
The Missing Church:
The second reason that the rapture will take place before the Tribulation period even begins relates to the absence of any reference to the church on earth in Revelation 4–19. This point becomes clearer upon considering the broad structure of the Book of Revelation. Revelation 1:19 furnishes the three-part structure of the book. It says, "Therefore write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things." "The things which you have seen" consist of John’s interaction with the glorified Christ as recorded in Revelation's first chapter. "The things which are" comprise the seven letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor as recorded in Revelation 2–3. "The things which will take place after these things" constitute the futuristic section of the book as recorded in Revelation 4–22. That Revelation 4:1 begins this third and futuristic section is evident from the two-fold repetition of the expression "after these things" (meta tatuta), which is the same phrase used to describe this final section of the book in Revelation 1:19. It is in this final section of the book that we discover the most vivid description of the Tribulation period in the entire Bible (Rev. 4–19). Yet, this section contains no single clear reference to the church on the earth during this time period. While the Greek word ekklesia translated "church" is found 19 times in Revelation 1–3 comprising the first two sections of the book, the word is not found a single time in the book’s futuristic section (Rev. 4–22). In fact, the only time in this section that ekklesia is used is when John signs off in the benediction reminding his readers of Christ's exhortation to preach these prophetic truths in the churches (Rev. 22:16). Other than this scant reference to the church, the word "church" is totally absent from the book’s futuristic section. We might inquire as to why? The obvious answer lies in the fact that the church wi
So what is Glenn Beck’s movement about? Its a difficult subject to deal with since Americans as of late have departed from fundamental Christianity into admiration of men whom they erect as idols. People usually get upset when their idols are destroyed, its not easy, but our investigation began with several of Beck’s speeches guiding people into a universal religion, consisting of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Mormonism, a universal religion that fits all. In our first video, Beck, despite that Christians adore the Temple Mount for Jews and Christians, declares that Islam has a share in it:
How could the Holy Land–the land where God Himself walked and in which He was buried and rose from the dead–be compatible with heresy and error? Do people like this truly believe that when Christ establishes His kingdom that he will enact a policy of toleration for other religions? Isaiah proclaims this about Christ’s coming:
And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols he shall utterly abolish. And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made [each one] for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. (Isaiah 2:17-21)
