In Lakewood, Colorado, Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, had won a partial victory in a 2018 Supreme Court case for refusing to design a wedding cake for a gay couple on account of his own religious beliefs. Now again, he finds himself being the subject of another case regarding state discrimination laws for refusing to bake a birthday cake for a trans woman.
In January 2021, Republican Tennessee State Senator Mark Pody sponsored Senate Joint Resolution 55 to amend Article IX of the Constitution of Tennessee. Article IX has three sections that bar church ministers, atheists, and people who participate or aid a duel from holding any office in the civil department of the state.
A 41-year-old Christian woman claims to have married the Holy Spirit after abandoning her husband of 20 years in a bizarre incident in Kenya. A mother of six, Elizabeth Nalem married the spirit on May 25 in the small town of Makutano, near Kapenguria in the western part of the country. The ceremony took place in the presence of high-ranking local officials from the Anglican Church of Kenya.
A Texas federal court received a petition from Braidwood Management, Inc. to provide a religious exemption that will allow them to discriminate against LGBTQ+ staff.
A study of Protestant churches closings for 2019 found there were significantly more churches closed in 2019 than those that opened. This evangelical Lifeway Research organization studied 34 groups and denominations, representing 60% of all Protestant churches.
For 14 years in a row, statistics for Southern Baptists, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, are still declining. In 2020, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) saw crucialcomponents falling, including membership, attendance, donations, and the total number of congregations.
The founder of the Ayurvedic brand Patanjali, Baba Ramdev, made controversial comments regarding COVID vaccines. A video surfaced on the internet on May 24 where Ramdev was seen commenting in one of his Yoga sessions that many people have died from COVID-19 after taking both doses of the vaccine, including 10 thousand medical practitioners.
NBC News interviewed a handful of former students (or ex-interns) regarding a Christian leadership training program at Bethany Church in Baton Rouge, LA. These ex-interns attested that the program was abnormally brutal. They described their disturbing experiences.
