Category: Faith

United Methodist Officially Lifts Ban on LGBTQ Members Joining Its Clergy

Just the News
LGBTQ members at United Methodist Church congregation

The delegates are also expected to vote on whether to replace its “Social Principles” document with one that changes the definition of marriage from being between a man and a woman to a union between “two people of faith.” It would also remove a line in the document that considers the practice of homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

United Methodist delegates voted to remove a ban on members of the LGBTQ community serving as clergy members on Wednesday, ending decades of controversy around the issue.

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Commentary: The Myth of the Pagan Origins of Easter

South Carolina Sun Staff
Jesus Christ

You may not get any chocolate bunnies this Easter, but you’re bound to stumble across an article or meme suggesting that the story of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead is just a reincarnation of some pagan myth. Whether it’s Ishtar, Osiris, or Attis, these claims are tantalizing but devoid of scholarly content–much like the sugar rush of the chocolate bunny, with its deficit of actual nourishment.

Claims like these are at least as old as James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, published in 1890. However, they circulate routinely in new packaging. Unfortunately, the public tends to remain ignorant of the results of alternative scholarship. Sensationalism (like sex) sells. So does controversy. And when the sensation or the controversy revolves around beliefs that millions believe in whole-heartedly, sorting fact from fiction becomes increasingly difficult.

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Commentary: Cabrini Film Calls Audiences to Dedicated Service and Unwavering Faith

South Carolina Sun Staff
Cabrini Film

On International Women’s Day, March 8, Angel Studios’ latest film, Cabrini, was released in theaters across America. The movie tells the incredible true story of the first American saint, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, and her mission to help vulnerable, impoverished, and destitute immigrants in the United States. 

In the late 19th and early 20th century, millions of Italian immigrants came to America, most through Ellis Island, in search of their American dream. But many who journeyed in search of opportunity were met with poverty, desperation, and difficulty. Italian immigrants were ostracized from society, perceived to be of inferior intelligence, and struggled to speak English.

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Attacks on Christian Churches on the Rise in the United States

South Carolina Sun Staff
Church mass

Over the last five years, the United States has suffered a dramatic increase in the number of attacks on Christian churches, often the result of far-left political movements.

As reported by Breitbart, the data from the Family Research Council (FRC) revealed a record-high number of church attacks in the year 2023 alone, with 436 incidents; these attacks range from arson and gun-related attacks, to vandalism and bomb threats.

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Commentary: Rapidly Declining Mainline Church Seeks to Require Ministers to Support Transgenderism, Gay Marriage

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Woman Pastor

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has permitted, but not required, its ministers to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies since 2014. But that allowance is no longer sufficient for the progressive denomination; it now aims to mandate that future ministers affirm transgenderism and same-sex marriage as prerequisites for ordination. At its General Assembly this June, the denomination will take up legislation that would implement that requirement.

The Presbyterian Church (USA)’s proposed requirement stands out for its inclusion of affirmation for transgenderism alongside same-sex marriage. Specifically, it does so by adding “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” to its list of groups protected from discrimination, included in “worship, governance, and emerging life.” The proposal would also change the denomination’s “[s]tandards for ordained service” to make it obligatory for ministry candidates to pledge adherence to this principle of “non-discrimination.”

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Catholic Churches Attacked 400 Times Since 2020, Tracker Finds

South Carolina Sun Staff
Catholic Mass

 Catholic churches in the United States have been attacked at least 400 times over the past four years, according to data compiled by the Catholic advocacy organization CatholicVote.

The hundreds of attacks across the nation began in connection with widespread civil unrest in May 2020, CatholicVote said. Examples include church burnings, beheadings of statues of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, swastikas painted on grave stones, satanic and blasphemous statements graffitied on walls, windows smashed, Masses disrupted, and even the murder of a Catholic priest.

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Pope Francis Decries Transgenderism as ‘Ugliest Danger,’ Urges Embracing Differences Between Sexes

Just the News
Pope Francis

Pope Francis is delivering another robust denunciation of liberal transgender ideology sweeping the West, declaring it was the “ugliest danger” while urging the world to embrace the differences between men and women.

“Erasing differences is erasing humanity,” the pontiff declared Friday in Rome. “Men and woman, however, are in a fruitful tension.”

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Catholics Demand Exorcism of St. Patrick’s Cathedral After Trans Activists Hold ‘Blasphemous and Sacrilegious’ Funeral

South Carolina Sun Staff
Cecilia Gentili Funeral

A Mass of Reparation was quietly held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan over the weekend after a depraved funeral service for a renowned transgender activist scandalized parishioners. Some Catholics, however, say that’s not enough and are calling for an exorcism to be performed at the cathedral.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York has condemned the heavily attended February 15 funeral of Cecilia Gentili, a biological male who identified as a female.

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Commentary: The Meaning of Ash Wednesday

South Carolina Sun Staff
Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday is—oddly perhaps—a day I have long associated with bushfires, better known in the American hemisphere as wildfires.

I come from the Adelaide Hills in South Australia, where on Ash Wednesday in 1983, catastrophic bushfires, driven by 70-mph winds and fueled by years of drought-ravaged eucalyptus forest, tragically claimed 28 lives. In the neighboring state of Victoria, even more lives were lost under similar conditions. In total, 75 Australians perished and 3,000 homes were destroyed in what were the nation’s deadliest bushfires up to that point.

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Commentary: Americans Embrace Religion, Reject Religious Bigotry

RealClearWire
People Praying

More than half a century ago, Time magazine famously asked, “Is God Dead?” The black and red cover, the magazine’s first to include only text, sparked countless angry sermons and thousands of letters from readers accusing Time of engaging in tasteless nihilism, Marxist pandering, and outright blasphemy.

The question, which typified the counter-culture movement and the intellectual radicalism of the 1960s, was far off the mark both then and now. The United States has always been and remains a very religious nation despite steep declines in attendance at churches, synagogues, and mosques – trends that have captured far more headlines in recent years than the nation’s enduring faith. America is also a majority Christian nation, though other religious groups and affiliations and those identifying as non-believers are growing.

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