Image via World Vision/Kari Constanza
During his tenure, World Vision grew to collect $1 billion in annual revenue in 2017, making the 67-year-old ministry No. 15 on Forbes’ list of the nation’s largest charities. The agency’s statement on Stearns cites its “two million supporters, child sponsors, and partners and says it is on track to serve 30 million children by 2022.”
That track was nearly derailed in March 2014, however, with a blowup in Christian evangelical circles over how World Vision would deal with LGBT employees.
Image via Faithleaks.org/RNS
For would-be whistleblowers, the attraction of FaithLeaks is its security features. The site uses a software platform designed to receive documents from anonymous sources, meaning those documents cannot be traced back to the sender, its founders say.
Image from the 2018 World Watch List.
Open Doors USA, a ministry that works with persecuted Christians around the world, released its 25th annual World Watch List at the National Press Club Wednesday in Washington, D.C. The list, a compilation of field interviews and aggregated data from other agencies, ranks the 50 most dangerous countries in the world for Christians. Dangers include religious militancy, organized corruption, Islamic extremism, among other factors.
“In the midst of the critical national conversation now taking place on issues of sexual harassment and assault, this survey shows that young Americans in their teens and early twenties see serious negative consequences flowing from traditional depictions of masculinity,” Robert P. Jones, CEO of PRRI, said. “Young women, in particular, are worried that these expectations carry within them the seeds of sexually aggressive or even violent behavior.”
DACA rally in front of the White House Sept. 5, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
A U.S. judge in San Francisco temporarily barred President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday from ending a program shielding young people brought to the United States illegally by their parents from deportation.
Image via Karen Gillerman Harel / Shutterstock
But with Holocaust Memorial Day coming up on Jan. 27, the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz, her Christian Democrats have decided to wait no longer. They want the Bundestag, the German parliament, to pass a resolution calling for migrants who promote hatred of Jews to be expelled.
Image via Rahmeek Rasul / RNS
“There’s a lot of intergenerational trauma in our community — a lot of issues that come up that have gone unaddressed: depression, marital issues, suicide among youth, LGBT sexuality,” she said. “Our community is suffering.”
Salvadoran immigrant Mirna Portillo, following the announcement to end TPS Jan. 8, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
The Department of Homeland Security announced on Monday that it would terminate the temporary protected status for Salvadorans living in the U.S. beginning September 2019, putting 200,000 of them at risk of being sent back to a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world.
Image via Paul Drinkwater/NBC/Handout/Reuters
The night belonged to Oprah.
U.S. ambassador to the Holy See Callista Gingrich and her husband talk with Pope Francis during the traditional exchange of the New Year greetings in the Regal Room at the Vatican January 8, 2018. REUTERS/Andrew Medichini/Pool
"Nuclear weapons must be banned," Francis said, quoting a document issued by Pope John XXIII at the height of the Cold War and adding that there is "no denying that the conflagration could be started by some chance and unforeseen circumstance".
1. I Wanted to Do a Good Deed. I Talked Myself Out of It Because I Thought of All the Ways I Might Get Killed
“I almost pulled up to the house right then, but I decided to drop off my daughter first. Should something go awry, I do not want my daughter there.
Should something go awry.”
2. How to Survive a Bomb Cyclone
A very practical how-to for those of us on the East Coast.
Pastor Charles Stoker looks over damage to Hi-Way Tabernacle Assembly of God Church after Hurricane Harvey in Cleveland, Texas. Photo courtesy of Becket Law Firm
After lawsuits and a Supreme Court decision, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued a new policy extending disaster relief to churches, synagogues and other congregations.
FILE PHOTO: Policemen inspect the site of attack on Mar Mina church, Egypt, Dec. 29, 2017. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
The incident took place just days after attacks on a Coptic church and another Christian-owned shop also south of the Egyptian capital that killed more than 10 people, as security forces braced for attacks against the Arab world's largest Christian minority ahead of Orthodox Christmas celebrations.
Pope Francis arrives to lead a mass to mark the World Day of Peace in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican Jan. 1, 2018. REUTERS/Max Rossi
Pope Francis described migrants and refugees as the world's "weakest and most needy" on Monday, using his traditional New Year's address to "give voice" to people he has urged leaders to do more to help.
Image via Osservatore Romano/Handout/Reuters.
Francis, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, urged people to see the defenseless baby Jesus in the children who suffer the most from war, migration, and natural calamities caused by man today.
Image via Reuters/Marvin Gentry
“I am so pro-protest and call-out and raising hell. I feel it coming,” one Auburn graduate and Alabama native, who recently moved to Minnesota, told me.
"I think the opportunities to act on these convictions for the good of others will continue opening. I hope they do. I’m ready for them.”
2. Bringing Light to Our Nation’s Very Dark Night
“We feel the chill in our souls. We taste the darkness all around us. It’s important to remember: It’s only temporary. The light is still there – dimmed but never extinguished, ready to warm and lead us all over again, if we let it.”
A gorgeous photo essay featuring Bjorn Nilsen, the man who drives 125 miles every day to deliver mail to the residents of the isolated Lofoten Islands. “Among older residents, who suffer most from isolation, he might be the only person they see for days."
Retired engineer John Wider, 59, is greeted by a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump as he holds up a sign reading "Welcome Refugees" at the international arrivals terminal at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S. on June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
The U.S. State Department announced that it will drastically cut down the number of refugee resettlement offices across the country since the Trump administration's plans to sharply reduce refugee admissions into the U.S., according to a Reuters report.
Dec. 21, 2017. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi
The successors of St. Francis of Assisi, who invented the nativity scene, craft a different scene each year outside the basilica in the Italian hill city of Assisi, the burial place of the 13th-century patron saint of peace and the environment.
Image via Nadin Panina / Shutterstock
Kevin L. Ladd, a professor of psychology at Indiana University South Bend, said it makes sense that, as society grows less religious in the traditional sense, fewer people are turning to prayer.