This weekend, Emmy-award winning actress Patricia Heaton is being honored for her humanitarian work with the Christian nonprofit World Vision.

The Creative Coalitions 4th Annual Television Advocacy Awards recognizes leaders in the television industry who effectively use their voices for social change.

Earlier this year after her nine-season television series The Middle came to an end, Patricia Heaton flew 9,325 miles to Uganda to put a spotlight on South Sudanese refugees. Heaton and her co-star Jen Ray (Nancy Donahue) visited the world’s largest refugee camp with World Vision, serving meals to refugees who just crossed the border—many of them children. This was Heaton’s third humanitarian trip with World Vision. In 2015 she traveled to Zambia, where she met her sponsored child, Gracious. In 2017, she met with Syrian refugees in Jordan.

Inspired by her sponsored child, Heaton has also designed a new accessory collection for World Vision’s 2018 Gift Catalog. The Grace Collection by Patricia Heaton is made by fair-trade artists in India and goes to fund World Vison’s work where it’s needed most. She will also be appearing at World Vision’s Give-back Gift Shop in New York City, a unique charitable pop-up that brings the agency’s Gift Catalog to life.

Attacks by members of the Islamic State group against Egypt’s Coptic Christian community “were among the deadliest acts of religious persecution” last year, according a new report presented in Washington D.C. yesterday, Sept. 13.

“Fifty-three per cent of ISIS attacks against the public in 2017 were aimed at the Coptic community,” described by the Islamist group as its “favorite prey,” having threatened “to eliminate all ‘worshippers of the Cross’,” according to the Global Extremism Monitor for 2017, published by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

Among other attacks, IS claimed responsibility for three church bombings in Egypt in 2016 and 2017 in which 70 people were killed and more than 100 injured.

“Overall, the Middle East’s Christian population is in decline,” the report noted, confirming earlier reports by World Watch Monitor. “Christians make up some four per cent of the region’s population today, compared with 20 percent before the First World War,” it said.

Fragile States and Conflict Zones

Violent Islamist extremism killed at least 84,023 people globally in 2017, according to the report, with Syria being the deadliest country.

“Islamist extremism didn’t begin with Al-Qaeda, nor will it end with the defeat of ISIS,” said former UK prime minister Tony Blair, in the report’s foreword. “Guided by a transnational religious-political ideology going back over half a century, the more than 120 groups my institute has documented believe that anyone who doesn’t adhere to their totalitarian thinking is a legitimate target.”

Together, the more than 120 groups were responsible for 27,092 incidents in 66 countries. Besides causing widespread destruction, the attacks killed extremists (57 percent), civilians (26 percent), security personnel (12 percent) and non-state actors (4 percent). In Syria alone 34,853 people lost their lives in 2017 due to violent Islamist extremism.

More than 90 Islamist groups committed violent attacks in at least one country in 2017, according to the report, which said: “Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Mali’s Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin demonstrated the fluidity of violence across the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin, instigating attacks in four countries each.”

Yet, sectarianism was the root of most attacks, with 95 per cent targeting Shia Muslims. Hence, most of the victims of violent Islamist extremism in 2017 were Muslims, the report noted.

Fragile states and conflict zones are particularly vulnerable, as they present a vacuum that Islamist extremists exploit, the report said. Five of the 10 deadliest countries in 2017 were very fragile states: Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Women are also taking part in plotting and executing attacks on civilians, with Boko Haram being the largest “employer,” according to the report.

“Of all suicide attacks conducted for Boko Haram last year, attacks by women had a 6-percentage-point lower interception rate than those by men,” it said.

‘Tackle Underlying Ideology’

Many of the violent groups have roots in movements that are decades old, according to Blair. “From the Muslim Brotherhood, which armed its members in the 1940s on an anti-imperialist mission, to the band of international fighters who once fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, to the creation of Hezbollah in Lebanon following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, this ideology has festered and spread across borders,” he said.

The military containment of the Islamist threat and expansion is limited, the report added, saying that although Islamic State has been defeated in some areas, violence fueled by Islamist extremist ideology takes place in other parts of the world where both ISIS and Al-Qaeda “continue to inspire attacks.”

Blair criticized the over-emphasis on increasing security in response to violence. “Presently, the world collectively spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year on additional security in airports, protection and counter-terrorism. It spends a small fraction of that on soft-power measures that tackle the underlying ideology,” he said.

Instead, the report suggests that for the ideology to be defeated, a “comprehensive, multifaceted strategy” is needed which involves education, exposure of the “false readings groups use to justify their acts,” empowering community leaders and providing government institutions with resources to support them, and the use of evidence-based research and data. {eoa}

This article originally appeared on World Watch Monitor.

Matt and Melissa Graves welcomed a little boy this month, just two years after an alligator killed their son while they were vacationing at Disney World.

“We are happy to announce the birth of our son, Christian Lane Graves. Although we know the pain of losing Lane will never go away, we feel God has blessed our family with this precious miracle of life,” the couple said in a statement Wednesday.

The Graves also have a daughter, Ella.

“Although we know the pain of losing Lane will never go away, we feel God has blessed our family with this precious miracle of life,” the couple said. “We know Ella and Christian have their brother, Lane, watching over them as their guardian angel.”

The statement continued, “The love and support we continue to receive from so many is greatly appreciated, but we ask that our desire for privacy continue to be honored.”

On June 14, 2016, an alligator snatched 2-year-old Lane off the bank at Disney’s Grand Floridian. An autopsy concluded the alligator drowned Lane.

“We just met with the family and spent some time with them and delivered this update,” Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said the next day. “They do appreciate all of the prayers that have gone forward. It was a tough message to deliver to them, to let them know that their child is dead.”

Demings said a Catholic priest accompanied him to deliver the devastating news.

The Graves family launched the Lane Thomas foundation in their child’s honor.

According to the website, the Lane Thomas Foundation was established to give honor and light to Lane’s life. The foundation is dedicated to supporting families of children needing life-saving organ transplants.

PJ Media contributor and Fox News guest Denise McAllister and her family are in fear for their lives after receiving threats of rape and murder because of an anti-abortion tweet.

“I have worked with the police,” McAllister said in a tweet Tuesday. “My home is now on police watch.”

McAllister shared news of the threats with her nearly 14,000 Twitter followers.

“I am facing legit death & rape threats because I have dared to call out women who are hysterical about abortion and to challenge them to be responsible and not to elevate sex to the point that they’re willing to kill human life to avoid their responsibilities,” McAllister said. “How sick is that?”

Last week McAllister condemned abortion in a tweet, saying, “At the root of abortion hysteria is women’s unhinged desire for irresponsible sex. Sex is their god. Abortion is their sacrament. It’s abhorrent as women have flung themselves from the heights of being the world’s civilized force to the muck and mire of dehumanizing depravity.”

McAllister says the threats, which were sent to her privately, are serious and credible.

“They are threats outside of Twitter, stating they know where I live,” McAllister told JP Media. “Threats of rape and strangling. I spoke to the police. I am on home watch. My children are very frightened.”

Elizabeth Johnston, the Activist Mommy, said when she was threatened similarly, she reported the threat to Facebook and was told it didn’t violate community standards. {eoa}

For the rest of this story, visit our content partners at . Copyright The Christian Broadcasting Network, all rights reserved.

The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee is calling for a delay in the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in light of new information concerning the judge’s nomination.

In a statement released Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., announced that a letter from an anonymous source reportedly alleging a decades-old incident involving Kavanaugh has been forwarded to the FBI.

“That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision,” she said. “I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.”

Meanwhile, the White House has expressed extreme skepticism over the timing of this new information.

“Throughout his confirmation process, Judge Kavanaugh has had 65 meetings with senators—including with Senator Feinstein—sat through over 30 hours of testimony, addressed over 2,000 questions in a public setting and additional questions in a confidential session. Not until the eve of his confirmation has Sen. Feinstein or anyone raised the specter of new ‘information’ about him,” White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec said in a statement.

Kupec suggested the letter is just the latest attempt by Democrats to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

“Senator (Chuck) Schumer promised to ‘oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with everything I have,’ and it appears he is delivering with this 11th-hour attempt to delay his confirmation,” Kupec said. {eoa}

For the rest of this story, visit our content partners at . Copyright The Christian Broadcasting Network, all rights reserved.

If Bob Woodward’s Trump-bashing, mega-bestseller is true, how should conservatives vote in the midterms? If the White House is in chaos, led by an unqualified and out of control president, what course should we take on November 6?

Woodward speaks of “a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.” And he describes Trump as “an emotionally overwrought, mercurial and unpredictable leader.”

The infamous, anonymous op-ed piece in The New York Times spoke of Trump’s leadership style, “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective” and claimed he was “amoral.”

Yes, we are told, “Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.”

What if these charges are true? Should Trump supporters hang their heads in shame and stay home in November? Should conservatives throw in the towel and capitulate to the inevitable demise of the Trump White House?

Not a chance. Now, more than ever, conservatives should get out and vote. Here are four reasons why.

First, we are not voting for a new president. Donald Trump is the duly elected 45th president of our nation, and the next presidential vote doesn’t come until 2020.

Consequently, regardless of his behavior, this vote is not directly about him. It’s about other issues, about a larger agenda, about campaign promises that are important to many of us. Why in the world would we not want to vote to see those promises kept?

So, while we are not voting for a president, we are voting for congressmen who can thwart or advance the president’s agenda. And if anything has been clear over the last two years it’s that Trump has tried to deliver on many of his pledges and commitments.

The question, then, is simple: Would we be better off with a president who is empowered to continue to push forward with a conservative agenda or by a president who is hamstrung? Would we be better off with radical leftists dominating the House and Senate or with conservatives holding their ground?

That’s what the midterms are about.

In short, our vote is not a specific endorsement of the man Donald Trump. Our vote is a call to continue to advance an ideological agenda (while, at the same time, voting against a very different, even dangerous ideological agenda). And since this is about advancing an agenda, the president’s demeanor and leadership style are not the major issue.

Again, I’m not downplaying the concerns. I’m simply putting them in their proper place. Many of those who held their noses when they voted for Trump have been pleasantly surprised by the good he has done while getting what they expected on the negative side.

The midterm elections are about helping him do more good.

Conversely, if we choose not to vote, we will not thereby bring about any change in the man, Donald Trump, himself. How, then, does our non-vote help?

Second, we must remember who wants us to stay home.

It is militant pro-abortionists who despise the pro-life movement. It is unashamed socialists who see capitalism as the enemy. It is sexual revolutionaries who abhor our biblical values. It is the deeply biased “masters of the universe” who want to suppress our voices online and in the public square. It is the left-wing media, already forecasting the inevitable blue wave.

Who will be smiling if conservatives, by the millions, decide not to vote in November?

Third, if Republicans lose the House (or, even more significantly, the Senate), this would only plunge our nation into greater turmoil and conflict. How in the world will this make things better?

Talk about chaos. The next two years would likely be chaos personified.

Put another way, if you’re genuinely concerned that President Trump is about to explode (or implode), by not voting (or by voting Democrat), you are doing nothing to stop this explosion (or implosion).

Conversely, if you can surround the president with good men and women, people of principle and character and conviction who share his values, you can help forestall a feared collapse. (Again, I’m not predicting any such collapse is coming. I’m simply addressing this mindset.)

Fourth, you can maintain your integrity (and your Christian testimony!) while voting for a pro-Trump agenda, since politics is not the gospel.

You are not pledging your soul to a party. You are not hitching your personal salvation to a leader (as emphasized in the title of my forthcoming book). You are not looking to a political party to bring about moral transformation or spiritual awakening.

You are voting to strengthen our national security. To keep our economy growing. To appoint Constitutionally-based justices to the courts. To stand against radical LGBT activism. To preserve religious freedoms.

And if you put aside the daily scandals and controversies and accusations (from the Mueller investigation to the payment of porn stars to the latest tell-all book)—in short, if you put away the drama—it’s clear that President Trump has accomplished a lot that is good.

The midterm elections are about saying, “Let that good continue!”

Why in the world would you want to stay home?

What’s the relationship between the spirit, the soul and the body? How are the spirit and the soul different? And how do these definitions affect our walk with the Lord? Andrew Wommack answers these questions in this powerful teaching video, which uses animated graphics to help illustrate the points. Wommack says, “To me, this is one of the most exciting things the Lord has ever shown me.” Watch to find out why.

The other day, I got busy changing our bedsheets. Although I have no sight, it’s an easy task except for the fitted sheets.

The challenge is matching the right corners. And this particular time, no matter how much I turned the sheet, stretched, pulled and yanked, the corners just wouldn’t reach to fit around the mattress.

Could they have shrunk in the dryer? Or did the mattress grow in size? I don’t give up easily. So, I hopped on the bed to give more force to the effort.

While on my knees, to my surprise, I felt a large lump (we blind folks have to do everything by feel). In the middle of the bed was a blanket, all bunched up. No wonder the sheet didn’t fit; the big lump of blanket kept it from lying flat to fit around the corners.

Have You Done That?

Not with bedsheets, but in life. You try to make it all fit, but something gets in the way. Something elusive but real prevents life from being nice and smooth.

That something is the lump called misconceptions or mistaken expectations. We carry them with us. With a spring in our step, we move forward, whistling an upbeat tune, carrying our notion of how life should be. How it should go. And what it should include. We expect the right person to make us whole. The right job to bring security. The right doctor to bring a cure. The right counselor to help take our guilt away.

But when none of that happens, life isn’t smooth. We’re undone, unsettled and incomplete.

5 Questions We Need to Answer

The only way we can remove the lump of misconceptions is when we answer these five questions found in Psalm 103:2-5.

1. Who forgives all your sins? We live under the lump of condemnation, unaware of what to do with our guilt, unless we know that we know God Almighty forgives, forgets and cleanses our sin.
2. And [who] heals all your diseases? The lump of worry disappears when we know God has the power, the supernatural way and the ability to heal, restore and renew.
3. Who redeems your life from the pit? Self-pity is gone when we know God has His redeeming, never-failing love ready, available and abundant enough to pull us out of that pit.
4. And crowns you with love and compassion? In a dark world, filled with violence, cruelty and uncertainty, His mercy and compassion lift us to a safe place of security.
5. Who satisfies your desires with good things? When we try to fulfill and satisfy our own desires, often the result brings discontentment and grief. But when God satisfies those desires, they’re good, noble and pure.

The Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you and myself too: Sit back, take a deep breath and commit to remove that lump of misconception of what we think life should be. Instead, we relish in the truth that God’s power wrapped in love removed guilt by cleansing our sins through Jesus. We boldly claim the fresh confidence we now have, knowing He healed us. We wear that crown of His mercy and compassion that has our name on it. And we declare those desires sitting in the waiting room of our heart to be fulfilled. And then, with security in our step, we sing the victory that’s already ours.

Let’s Pray

Father, help me remove the lump of my own feeble misconception of what life should be. I ask for wisdom to recognize that You have the only way to make my life fit your plans, wonderfully good. In Jesus’ name.

What is the lump you need to remove? {eoa}

Janet Perez Eckles is an international speaker and the author of four books. She has helped thousands conquer fear and bring back joy.

This article originally appeared at .

PJ Media contributor and Fox News guest Denise McAllister and her family are in fear for their lives after receiving threats of rape and murder because of an anti-abortion tweet.

“I have worked with the police,” McAllister said in a tweet Tuesday. “My home is now on police watch.”

McAllister shared news of the threats with her nearly 14,000 Twitter followers.

“I am facing legit death & rape threats because I have dared to call out women who are hysterical about abortion and to challenge them to be responsible and not to elevate sex to the point that they’re willing to kill human life to avoid their responsibilities,” McAllister said. “How sick is that?”

Last week McAllister condemned abortion in a tweet, saying, “At the root of abortion hysteria is women’s unhinged desire for irresponsible sex. Sex is their god. Abortion is their sacrament. It’s abhorrent as women have flung themselves from the heights of being the world’s civilized force to the muck and mire of dehumanizing depravity.”

McAllister says the threats, which were sent to her privately, are serious and credible.

“They are threats outside of Twitter, stating they know where I live,” McAllister told JP Media. “Threats of rape and strangling. I spoke to the police. I am on home watch. My children are very frightened.”

Elizabeth Johnston, the Activist Mommy, said when she was threatened similarly, she reported the threat to Facebook and was told it didn’t violate community standards. {eoa}

For the rest of this story, visit our content partners at . Copyright The Christian Broadcasting Network, all rights reserved.

While Islam proves to be the fastest-growing religion in the world, ACT! for America’s president and founder Brigitte Gabriel addresses radical Islamic terrorism in the face of political correctness. In 2014, during a Q&A session at a Heritage Foundation forum, Gabriel addresses a Muslim woman’s comment on how majority of Muslims are peaceful:

“Of course, not all of them are radicals,” Gabriel affirmed. “The radicals are estimated to be between 15 to 25 percent. …That leaves 75 percent of them as peaceful people, but when you look at 15 to 25 percent of the world’s Muslim population, you’re looking at a 180 million to 300 million people dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization. That is as big as the United States.”

In her book Rise: In Defense of Judeo-Christian Values and Freedoms (Frontline, 2018), Gabriel writes on “the irrelevance of the peaceful majority,” citing points in history when genocide was committed by a minority group; such as the Holocaust—”Most Germans were peaceful, yet the Nazis drove the agenda”—and, of course, 9/11 when it only took 19 hijackers to bring about the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans.

“There are plenty of peaceful Muslims in the world who do not practice or endorse the type of barbarism that threatens our way of life,” Gabriel says, “but my point is that these peaceful Muslims do not magically cancel out the threats posed by violent ones.”

It’s for this reason that Gabriel exhorts fellow patriots to not fall into believing that they’re morally inferior, or ‘Islamophobic,’ when speaking out about radical Islamic terrorism. Rise includes steps on how to navigate this tension without fighting fire with fire:

“When hostile leftists resort to ad hominem attacks, labeling you bigoted, Islamophobic, racist or worse when facts you’ve outlined conflict with their feelings, stick to a fact-based response as best you can.”

Rise also provides statistics from Pew Research Data and other polls to challenge former President Barack Obama’s claim that 99.9 percent of Muslims seek order, peace and prosperity.

“99.9 percent?” Gabriel says. “Really?”

In a Charisma magazine interview, she asserts, “Two percent of the passionate will always rule the 98 percent of the indifferent.”

Gabriel speaks from her experience as a Lebanese Christian whose home was blown up by Islamic radicals in 1975. For seven years, she and her family resorted to living below ground in an eight-by-ten-foot bomb shelter. A military tank drove her to school while, on other days, Gabriel had to sprint to and from school, diving into ditches while bombshells exploded over her head.

Having experienced extremism firsthand, Gabriel hopes her daughter and her daughter’s children—and her daughter’s children’s children—will never face the same threat of terrorism in America. She urges readers to not become the irrelevant majority and to take action on behalf of their country, community and family.

“Fragmented we are fragile, but united we possess the potential to save this nation from doom and restore it to its rightful place as the greatest in the history of mankind. But we cannot accomplish this from our keyboards. We must rise and take action, matching the enthusiasm of our enemies.” {eoa}

This article is based on Rise: In Defense of Judeo-Christian Values and Freedoms (Frontline, 2018) by Brigitte Gabriel. Gabriel is one of the leading terrorism experts in the world, providing information and analysis on the rise of global Islamic terrorism. She lectures nationally and internationally about terrorism and current affairs. She has addressed the United Nations, members of the US Congress, the Pentagon, the Joint Forces Staff College, the US Special Operations Command, the FBI and many others. In addition, Gabriel is a regular guest analyst on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and radio stations across America. She is founder and chairman of ACT for America, the largest national security grassroots organization with almost 1 million members dedicated to keeping America and its citizens safe from foreign and domestic threats. Gabriel is the author of two New York Times best- sellers: Because They Hate and They Must Be Stopped.