Radical Islamists know exactly where to cripple America, historian and author William Forstchen warned nearly two years ago. Yet in that time, terrorists continue to strike.  

“ISIS is masters of asymmetrical warfare, a different kind of warfare,” Forstchen says. “They’re not going to go after the hard targets. They’re not going to go to Fort Hood or Fort Bragg. They’re going to go after the soft targets of America.” 

Since his words, radical Islamists shot up a Christmas party in San Bernardino, California, and a weekend party at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub.  

What’s next? 

“What’s the softest target in America? Our schools.” 

Watch the video to see more.  

The Roman Catholic cardinal-archbishop of Lyon said on Thursday he had suspended four priests accused of paedophile activities and said their cases were known to French judicial authorities. 

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin said in a statement that the four had been working in the Lyon region in central France but gave no further details about them. 

He also said other priests were the “object of special measures” without elaborating or saying how many were involved. 

The Roman Catholic Church has been rocked in the past two decades by sexual abuse scandals involving its priests in a number of countries worldwide, including France. 

Earlier this month police questioned Cardinal Barbarin for more than 10 hours over the activities of a paedophile priest, Father Bernard Preynat, in the early 1990s and why they had not been reported to the civil authorities. 

Authorities placed Preynat under judicial investigation in January for his alleged sexual abuse of Catholic boy scouts in 1991. Preynat’s lawyer said he had admitted to sexually abusing the boys. He has been released from custody on bail. 

Several victims of alleged paedophile abuse have filed complaints against Cardinal Barbarin for failing to report incidents to the authorities and for leaving accused priests in place. 

Barbarin has denied any wrongdoing, but in a statement in April he acknowledged “errors in the management and appointment of some priests.” {eoa}

© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

Islamist militants gunned down a Christian priest in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula as he was fixing his car, the Interior Ministry and the Coptic Orthodox Church said on Thursday. 

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened more attacks in the future. 

Father Rafael Moussa of the Mar Girgis church in Arish, capital of the North Sinai province, was getting his car fixed when the gunmen shot him, the ministry said in a statement. He was on his way back from prayer, the church said. 

“Islamic State soldiers were able to successfully target the priest Moussa Azmi, known as Rafael, who fights Islam,” the group said in a statement. 

Orthodox Copts make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90 million people and are the Middle East’s biggest Christian community. They have long complained of discrimination. 

In a separate attack in Arish, one policeman was killed and three wounded when an improvised bomb exploded as their convoy drove near a police station, the Interior Ministry said. 

Islamic State also claimed responsibility for that attack. 

Egypt is battling an insurgency that gained pace after its military overthrew President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement, in mid-2013 following mass protests against his rule. 

Thursday is the third anniversary of the mass protests which started on June 30, 2013 and led to Mursi’s ouster. 

The insurgency, mounted by Islamic State’s Egyptian branch, Sinai Province, has killed hundreds of soldiers and police and has started to attack Western targets within the country. 

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former military chief who led Mursi’s ouster, describes Islamist militancy as an existential threat to Egypt, an ally of the United States. 

Islamic State controls large parts of Iraq and Syria and has a presence in Libya, which borders Egypt. {eoa}

© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

For generations, Christians have pitted sharing the gospel against making disciples. So which is it?

Just as we don’t argue which side of a coin is more valuable, so it is absurd to argue about the relative importance of evangelism versus discipleship. The Great Commission has been understood only when both are fully embraced. This is the example Jesus clearly laid out, and He calls us to extend His ministry.

He preached to the unsaved: “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand'” (Matt. 4:17, emphasis added); and, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10, emphasis added).

And He developed believers: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19, emphasis added); and, “Everyone, who is trained, will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40, emphasis added).

Jesus both evangelized and made disciples. That is enough to settle any debate and get on with the work. But we must also get to the root of the debate and change the wrong thinking that caused it.

Let’s look beneath the surface of Jesus’ ministry. We have seen that for Jesus, evangelism and discipleship were two sides of the same coin, but this leads us to an important question: What was Jesus’ “coin”?

It was God’s kingdom. Every stream of Jesus’ ministry flowed from one inner spring: God’s invading dominion. The gospel Jesus preached to the lost was the “gospel of the kingdom” (Matt. 4:23). The followers He trained were disciples of the kingdom (Matt. 13:52).

Jesus’ whole vision was to establish and advance God’s kingdom in people’s lives. “Your kingdom come … on earth as it is in heaven,” He prayed (Matt. 6:10).

Wherever God rules, there is salvation and increasing peace (Is. 9:7). God’s kingdom is not merely a ticket to heaven. It is the expansion of divine life.

It begins as a tiny seed but grows into a huge tree (Matt. 13:31-32). After it initially delivers a person from sin, it gradually permeates him with the character of its king. 

That kingdom was Jesus’ whole mission! Thus, for the lost, God’s kingdom meant evangelism; for followers, it was discipleship; for the sick, healing; for the demonized, deliverance; and for the dead, resurrection. Jesus’ ministry was the full expression of God’s kingdom.

So we must replace our narrow ministry visions with Jesus’ vision! Evangelism and discipleship are two sides of same coin: God’s kingdom.

It is this “lost coin” for which we must light a lamp, sweep our house and search until we find it again (Luke 15:8-9). Let’s end the debate by doing exactly what Jesus taught us: seek first God’s kingdom. {eoa}

Daniel Kolenda is an evangelist and the president and CEO of Christ for all Nations (CfaN), the worldwide ministry of evangelist Reinhard Bonnke.

Whenever folks in Penfield, New York get a hankering for pancakes for lunch—they head over to the 5 Mile Café.

The family-owned restaurant is known in those parts for serving breakfast any time of the day. (Order their homemade corned beef hash.)

They are also known for their patriotism.

“We are very patriotic here at the café—all year round—not just this time of year,” owner Jennifer Aquino told me. “We have American flags and patriotic things around the café.”

So Jennifer decided to ask the town for a permit so she could post a “God Bless America” banner on the front of her restaurant.  She wanted to display the banner from Memorial Day through Independence Day.

There was just one significant problem.

Penfield has a strict banner allotment policy. Businesses are only allowed to post banners for a total of three weeks out of the year. And Jennifer had used up her allotment.

“At one point we had banners all over the town and the town just looked trashy and our residents said enough’s enough,” town supervisor Tony LaFountain told WHEC.

Jennifer’s request was denied.

Instead of posting the banner outside the restaurant, she posted it inside. And that was that—until the Orlando terrorist attack.

“I decided on my way to work that I was going to put it up regardless of the town telling me I couldn’t,” she said. “So I put it up.”

A bit later that day she received an email from the town telling her to remove the banner. They warned her that she could face a possible fine for violating the ordinance.

“I didn’t take it down,” Jennifer told me. “And I was willing to pay the fine.”

“The [message on the banner] means a lot to me—especially during this time in our country with all that’s going on with terrorism,” she said. “I just can’t believe that I can’t have this banner up and be supported by the town board.”

You would think most folks would appreciate the sentiment behind “God Bless America.” Lord knows we need it.

But rules are rules, and the town board does not seem interested in accommodating Jennifer’s patriotic banner.

“The fact that I’m being asked to take it down is wrong,” she said. “It’s against my First Amendment rights. People need to open up their eyes. If we start letting them tell us we can’t do this—it’s going to get worse.”

Lots of folks seem to agree with Jennifer’s sentiment. Hundreds and hundreds of supporters have posted messages on the café’s Facebook page and several customers have dropped off money—to help pay for any fines.

Jennifer tells me she never imagined there would be a day like this in America.

“I have lots of veterans in my family,” she said. “I have a cousin who fought in Desert Storm so that we could have the freedom to hang a banner that says, ‘God bless America.'”

And yet we live in a nation where you can be punished for simply being patriotic.

“Suddenly we have this wedge within us; the community in Christ is torn asunder by the politics of a socially conservative agenda.” 

The chaplain’s voice cracks as he pours out his heart: Namely how the American church is so fiercely Republican that they confuse party values as gospel truths.  

Scott Scrimshaw is a former Vineyard pastor who now serves as a chaplain for Vine and Branches and as the head of “Oregon for Gary Johnson,” as well as a volunteer Chaplain to the Campaign and to the Campaign Coalition in Oregon state. 

Today’s church is so afraid of religious freedom battles that they willingly embrace candidates—like Donald Trump—who promise to eliminate the political confines placed on churches who identify as 501(c)(3) nonprofits.  

If Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton are the only options, it is logical church support falls to Trump; but they are not.  

The Libertarian party, Scrimshaw says, gives every branch of Christianity what their heart desires most: Religious liberty. The Libertarian Party is the only third-party option available in all 50 states. Johnson and Vice Presidential Nominee Bill Weld both served as state governors. The duo has more governing experience than rivals Trump and Clinton combined.  

The Libertarian party now polls in double digits, nabbing support from Republicans and Democrats evenly. One main principle guides the party: upholding the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  

If Americans elected a constitutional president, Scrimshaw says, “This opens the floodgates for the church to be the church.” 

And Scrimshaw knows the church: He came in on the tail end of the Jesus People Movement in the early 1980s; he planted and served as a leader on a handful of Vineyard Church staffs; he studied at L’Abri under Dr. Francis Schaeffer; and Demos Shakarian’s granddaughter Renee Scalf-Berge is the godmother for Scrimshaw’s daughter. Scrimshaw says Scalf-Berge taught him one of the most valuable lessons of all: For the community to learn from Christians, we must maintain our credibility. If we lose it, we lose our ability to communicate.  

Scrimshaw sat at the feet of Calvary Chapel’s Brian Larson, he saw the formation of the Christian Coalition, and he was an early supporter of Pat Robertson’s presidential run.  

Now, Scrimshaw fiercely advocates for the same liberty those familiar with the Reagan administration admire.  

“The Reagan Revolution was one about small government, individual freedom and a sovereign United States, which are issues still dear to my heart,” Scrimshaw says. “But wrapping this all up into a hard right political agenda … of particular social issues—not larger social issues like drinking and driving, the right to bear arms—the church is afraid to speak its conscience (because it could) lose its IRS status.” 

Scrimshaw’s passion demands a restoration of personal civil liberties outlined by the Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  

Indeed, Johnson and Weld’s Libertarian, third-party ticket fits the bill of a Christian wishlist.  

“As a chaplain, Gary Johnson and Bill Weld—what we talk about here is to look at Gary Johnson’s integrity. He has no scandal; he has integrity! Nothing can impune his character,” Scrimshaw says.

“(Johnson’s) taking a stance against corruption. He wants term limits to end the corruption we see in Congress,” Scrimshaw says. “Honesty—isn’t that one of the virtues and ethics the Christian Coalition should rally around? It’s not just the face of things; he’s calling for removal and term limits for Congress to stop corruption, which is in complete alignment for our Christian values.” 

As for the faith of the candidates, Johnson believes in God, and the Lutheran faith of his childhood left an imprint, Scrimshaw says. The Welds understand the power of prayer and nearly teared up as they thanked Scrimshaw for his constant invocations to God on their behalf. 

The ticket wants to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, which would assist churches in getting more involved in politics, and the Department of Education, which would eliminate restrictions some families face when home-schooling their children.  

Under a constitutional presidency, Scrimshaw says, Americans would be protected from the political ideologies of Sharia.  

And for other issues, the third-party option gives charismatics the ability to embrace their personal liberties and all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. But Scrimshaw says a deeper theological perspective lurks beneath.  

Scrimshaw is desperate for the nation—and the American church—to return to this liberty.  

The nation cannot turn back to God, Scrimshaw says, because they do not have the liberty to do so. In the current system, morality is legislated from the top down, when real change—revival and refocus on God—needs to happen at a grass-roots level.  

“I would plead with the Charisma audience, plead with them that we can no longer behave in this manner because we have lost our ability to speak to the larger community because we isolated ourselves from the community. We’ve become the fundamentalists … ,” Scrimshaw says. “We’ve gone from the fundamentalism of 1920s to an evangelical fundamentalism of 2016. We’ve changed the name but are doing same thing. Our message should be one of liberty. We say God gives people a choice to accept Him or not accept Him, so why do we impose a fatalistic view for the person next to us when we pass this law? We have a fatalistic view toward our neighbor while embracing the free will view of God for ourselves.”  

Scrimshaw says many prominent evangelical and Pentecostal leaders embrace this mentality. That’s why they’ve come alongside Trump, a move that devastates the chaplain.  

Trump’s Faith Advisory Board is a virtual who’s-who of the Christian community: James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Jr., Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, and Jentezen Franklin among others.  

What horrifies Scrimshaw isn’t their endorsements but their apparent complicity in Trump’s words and actions.  

“Why are our leaders doing this? You can still support and endorse a candidate, but that doesn’t mean you can’t speak out, that you can’t be true salt and light to speak out against what Donald Trump is. Call him to task!” Scrimshaw says.  

“Why is no one saying Donald Trump’s language is inappropriate? They could say, ‘As a spiritual leader of this nation, I endorsed him because I love him.’ You can build him up and still hold him to task.” 

The bottom line, Scrimshaw says, is Christianity holds the seeds of change within its DNA.  

“I as a Christian man, reaching out I see our phenomenal Christian heritage,” Scrimshaw says. “We talk in theology about special grace and common grace … and it’s the same with Jesus and God: God gives His grace, a common grace available to all. (The United States is) a city on hill (because of the) unique U.S. experience of freedom. But it’s not simply freedom, but liberty. Our Founders, their rallying cry was liberty—not social conservatism.”

Vice President Joe Biden made headlines Thursday night when an interview he conducted, which isn’t supposed to air until Sunday, was leaked, suggesting he believes U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) would soon endorse former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“I’ve talked to Bernie, Bernie’s going to endorse her, this is going to work out,” Biden said in the pre-recorded interview with National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition.” “The Democrats are coalescing even before this occurs.”

To add fuel to the fires of speculation, The Hill soon reported that a Sanders spokesman couldn’t deny the rumor. According to Michael Briggs, the report stated, the two campaigns were “talking.”

Two and a half hours later, the headline had changed. During a live interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Sanders himself attempted to shut down the rumor entirely.

“Joe and I talked about three weeks ago, and as I said, right now my hope is we can reach an agreement on some very important issues and I can go forward to the millions of people who supported me and say, ‘Look this is the progress we’ve made, this is where we’re gonna go as a country,'” Sanders said. “So, I hope it happens. As of this moment we’re not there quite yet.”

The Vermont senator has yet to concede the Democratic presidential nomination. And currently, Clinton’s status as nominee-in-waiting is based largely on the support of unbound “superdelegates” who are notoriously fickle—as she learned in 2008. Sanders told Hayes his holding out was based on his desire to influence the party platform, though.

“We’re trying to do everything we can right now to make the Democratic platform most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party,” he said.

In the meantime, however, the Sanders campaign sent out a “personal message” from campaign manager Jeff Weaver to its donors that sends an entirely different message. While it does emphasize the need to have Sanders delegates present to push his agenda onto the platform, it also suggested a secondary motive:

The world is going to have answers to two very important questions about our campaign in about three weeks.

1. 1. Are we able to bring all of our nearly 1,900 delegates to the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, where with Bernie they will cast important votes for a progressive platform that includes issues like opposition to a vote against the disastrous TPP, or a $15 federal minimum wage?
   2. Will the FEC fundraising report we must file days before the convention show that we have the momentum and the power to continue the incredible work of our political revolution?

I want the answers to both of those questions to be yes. The future of our movement depends on it. Can you help before the FEC deadline at midnight?

The June 30 quarterly fundraising deadline is generally considered crucial because it is the last report that will be filed prior to the national conventions. The implication of the Sanders campaign statement is that if it can show it out-performed Clinton, and in light of the many scandals she is facing, perhaps the superdelegates can be convinced to switch their votes on the eve of the convention.

With the mainstream media continuing to push speculation of a “convention coup” at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, are they about to be blindsided by one at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia instead?

Over a drinking fountain at church, a friend asked me if I was enjoying the summer break from teaching. I had a newly formulated answer for her, after much thought these last few months.

“I love teaching, but I am enjoying the rest from the complexities of the job,” I said.

Truth was, I was very sad for the year to come to a close. My students make me smile, and I am driven by my daily goal of becoming an excellent teacher.

But teaching is exhausting work—so difficult. It requires my own mastery of the subject, classroom organization, behavior management, building rapport with students, challenging the high achievers, engaging the students who are bored, setting goals, writing curriculum, creating engaging activities one can’t find in a textbook, keeping a long range vision while presenting information in chewable chunks, doing administrative assignments and caring about colleagues.

It is a difficult job, to say the least.

I love it.

It makes me weary and stressed. (And I think it makes my husband weary and stressed.)

But I’ve been chewing on Malcolm Gladwell’s words since I read them last summer, in Outliers: The Story of Success. He wrote a fascinating chapter about rice farming. Did you know rice farms put in 3,000 hours a year? Malcolm uses the word “staggering” to describe the amount of work they do. But the whole chapter is about success, and part of rice farming success is because the work is extremely complex and exacting.

My new discovery: There is a deep satisfaction to be found in doing a complex job.

I think that when we run into something that is exhausting because of its complexity, we feel the fatigue and often react with complaining and longing for the weekend. But toward the end of the year, when I felt worn out by the challenges in my classroom, I stepped back and thought about how rewarding teaching is because it is so hard.

Enough about Spanish, though. What I really want you to think about is the complexities of your life. Maybe your job is extremely exacting. For sure your relationships are. Have you ever thought about what a complex task we undertake when we get married? When we parent children? What about when we have more than one child, and each child has their own personality? If you’re a homemaker, think about what an incredibly complex job it is to maintain a home and all the relationships within it.

That’s why we’re tired.

But isn’t it awesome? Isn’t there deep satisfaction when you start mastering the intricate details of whatever it is you do all day long?

Rice farmers spend 3,000 hours a year to be successful at something that is rewarding—what do you think of that? Moms with little kids are saying, “Try 3,000 hours a week, sister!”

We are instructed in God’s word to be thankful people, so I encourage you to look at your challenging job, whatever that is, and thank the Lord when it wears you out. Thank Him for the intricacies of the work He has put in front of you, because in conquering this complex job, you will find a rewarding satisfaction. It’s a good kind of tired, don’t you think?

God is abandoning America, Anne Graham Lotz says, because we abandoned Him and refuse to repent for three specific sins: abortion, abandoning Israel and gay marriage.  

“I don’t think we are too far gone, but I believe we are reaching the point of no return,” Lotz said in a video.  

The evangelist says our country easily fulfills Romans 1, which details how God gave man over to sin.  

“God just backs away and gives us over in His first path in this downward spiral to sexual immorality. That is the sexual revolution, that is free sex, which actually is very expensive,” Lotz says. 

“When we refuse to repent of our sin and turn to God, then in [Romans 1] verse 26, God gives us over to sexual depravity, which is what we see all around us today. Then, we refuse to repent of our sin and turn to God.”

Click here to watch the video to see more. 

Though #NeverTrumper Caleb Howe announced that he wouldn’t switch his vote from Gary Johnson even if the delegates at next month’s Republican convention tossed out Donald Trump and replaced him with someone like Ted Cruz, there are a lot of Trump opponents who are hinging their hopes on such a possibility.

They reason that if they can get enough support on the party’s Rules Committee, it’s conceivable the dump-Trump movement would at least get a chance to vote to oust him on the convention floor.

Or would they…

Tim Alberta of National Review reports on a new proposal to squelch such a movement. “What’s the surest way to prevent Donald Trump’s opponents from re-writing the GOP’s rules to deny him the nomination at next month’s convention? According to a new proposal from Republican National Committee member Solomon Yue, the answer is simple: Don’t allow any new rules adopted in Cleveland to take effect until the 2020 convention…

“Such a drastic modification to the party’s rule-making process seems unlikely, especially at this late stage. But with GOP officials increasingly fearing an ugly anti-Trump rebellion in Cleveland—starting in the Convention Rules Committee, where amendments will be offered to unbind delegates or allow them to vote their conscience—Yue’s proposal could offer a preemptive solution.”

I’ve got to admit, Yue’s is a dramatic solution. It’s almost like killing the patient along with the disease, but yes, it would effectively end the #NeverTrump movement’s hopes of bringing in a White Knight to replace Trump.

But it would also serve to alienate a lot of people who might otherwise be persuadable to support the party nominee once the nomination vote is over. I wouldn’t be surprised if such a policy were adopted that some of the delegates would just get up and leave. The commotion caused by the jilted party members would arguably be just as damaging as the tumult saved by preventing a dump-Trump vote.

There is no easy solution to the delegate revolt issue, though the best possibility appears to be to just let the process play out. Party conventions have become dull and boring in the past few decades just because there isn’t any drama and therefore no reason for anyone other than the most politically tuned-in to watch.

The chances of the delegate revolt succeeding aren’t very good, but it would be riveting to witness. Therefore, let people see that the process itself actually works by having the insurgents lose right before our eyes.

The GOP might just earn some respect in the no one on either side will be able to claim the system is “rigged”.