A former pastor at Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, is speaking out in the wake of the Robert Morris scandal to share what he believes are helpful steps to address and prevent abuse in Christian circles.

Bob Hamp served as executive pastor of pastoral care at Gateway Church from 2005 to 2014, developing the house of worship’s Freedom Ministry, a component of the church’s outreach that helps individuals “find freedom from bondage in their life,” according to Gateway’s website.

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Hamp told CBN News the allegations that Morris molested a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s were not known to him before hearing accuser Cindy Clemishire’s harrowing account. Hamp said he joined the church well after these purported events took place and had no involvement. He now runs Think Differently Academy, helping people heal and find spiritual fulfillment in Christ.

“I’m heartbroken,” Hamp told CBN News. “And first and foremost, of course, the first thing I read was the post that described that [Clemishire] was a 12-year-old girl in pink pajamas, and the very first thing is—my heart just broke for a little 12-year-old girl in pink pajamas.”

Hamp helps people who have been sexually abused. He spoke compassionately about the tragedy of Clemishire being forced to deal with what unfolded as a child and then carry it throughout her life.

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He also said something else noteworthy about the Morris saga: the specific allegations surrounding the pastor were not in line with what he had been told in the past.

“The first thing: my heart just went out to her,” he said. “And I think, secondly, I felt a sense of, ‘This is not the story that I was told.’ So … a sense of betrayal, and anger about that, and sadness.”

Hamp said church leadership at his level at Gateway and the public were seemingly both given the “same information” about Morris’ past sin issue.

“That information is that there was an inappropriate relationship with a young woman,” Hamp said. “And, in that, I think there’s a language there that leads to a certain conclusion.”

He spoke about how language can sometimes be used in these circumstances to “fog the actual truth.”

“So, I, along with, I think, the general public, had heard the same story, which is, at some point in his life, there was a period of, or an experience of, immorality,” Hamp said. “Or an inappropriate relationship with… ‘a young woman.’ I had no idea that it was a 12-year-old little girl.”

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A new series about the life of King David that will air on Amazon Prime Video has filled its cast of Bible figures.

Egyptian-American actor Michael Iskander will play the lead role of David in “House of David,” according to Variety magazine. The outlet reports Ali Suliman will play King Saul, Stephen Lang will play Samuel, Goliath is played by Martyn Ford, and Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer will play Ahinoam of Jezreel, one of David’s wives.

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The series is the first undertaking birthed out of The WONDER Project, a faith-based, values-driven movie studio co-founded by Jesus Revolution-Director Jon Erwin and former Netflix executive Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten.

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“I believe entertainment sits upstream from culture. And today, the world needs a way to find common ground again,” Hoogstraten told Deadline recently. “Here at The WONDER Project, our goal is to flood the world with hope.

“I am convinced we can make a difference by telling stories that restore hope in things worth believing in–family, community, God and America,” she added. “We will do this at scale for a global audience that seeks faith and values-driven entertainment. And we will give the audience a brand they can call their own.

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“‘House of David’ is our telling of a 3,000-year-old hero’s journey, and it all starts with our David, Michael Iskander,” Erwin told Variety. “Finding Michael and getting to work with him has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. Our entire cast is incredible, and I can’t wait for a global audience to get to know them the way I do.”

The “House of David” is Erwin’s idea and is the first project for Prime Video after entering into an agreement with Amazon MGM Studios.

To read the full story, visit our content partners at CBN News.

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TIRASPOL, Transnistria – A remarkable Christian revival is underway in a Russian-controlled part of Moldova, despite Moscow’s heavy hand. Very few foreign journalists are allowed in, but CBN News gained rare access to the Transnistria region.

Getting here is no easy feat. We began the 5,000-mile journey from the U.S. East Coast, stopping first in the tiny former Soviet republic of Moldova’s capital Chisinau. From there, we drove north along Ukraine’s southwestern border, where Moscow has recently stirred up political turmoil.

We made our way through several Russian checkpoints to Transnistria’s capital Tiraspol where a huge statue of Lenin still adorns the town square.

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The Lord put a burden on Yuriy Semenyuk’s heart to move his family to this volatile region.

“In my heart, I really love people, that is my passion to serve people. I love God and I wanted to do something for Him all my life. And after a while, God told me, ‘Yuriy, I need you in one place that name is Transnistria’,” the pastor of Church of Christ Savior tells us.

In 2000, Pastor Yuriy, his wife, and 3 children decided to move from their home country in neighboring Ukraine to Transnistria. The first seven years of ministry as a missionary family were not easy.

“I was targeted by some people from the government, policemen, KGB, and gangsters. The worst of course was from the gangsters because they tried to kill me, they tried to kidnap my children. Once I was kidnapped, but praise God, God let me escape,” he recalls.

A home video from May 2000 shows Semenyuk’s first foray into preaching. Despite ongoing threats, he continued to openly share the gospel, often taking his message to areas controlled by gangs.  

“Some of the gangsters became Christian, they became evangelical, their wives became evangelical, so they hated this, so that’s why they tried to stop us,” Semenyuk says.

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In 1990, Transnistria broke away from Moldova to establish its own government, currency and statehood. And while it’s not recognized by the international community, the breakaway territory became economically, politically, and militarily dependent on the Kremlin. Russia has about 2,000 troops stationed here.

Moscow’s agents soon began harassing Pastor Semenyuk. But he was undeterred.

“Each morning, I wake up I say to myself, ‘Yuriy, you are still alive, and you have one more day to preach the gospel, one more day to do something for God’s Kingdom,'” he says.

From those humble, and at times nerve-wracking beginnings, Church of Christ Savior today is the largest congregation in Transnistria.

“We have an unbelievable revival,” he says. “We are still alive 24 years later on the mission field, we are still alive!”

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ISIS has claimed responsibility for recent attacks in the Democratic Republic of Congo that resulted in the death of more than 80 Christians and the closure of several churches in the nation.

The Islamic terrorist group said through a post on their Telegram channel, “More than 60 Christians were killed, including a Congolese army officer, in an attack by Caliphate soldiers in eastern Congo.”

It was the latest in a series of attacks where jihadists with the ISIS-affiliated Allied Democratic Forces launched coordinated assaults in North Kivu province.

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Agence France-Presse reports nearly 150 people have been killed by the group since the beginning of June, including on June 7, when at least 41 were killed, some of whom were found “tied up” and “decapitated.”

A Congolese spokesperson told Reuters there were additional attacks in other areas including Masawu village on June 4 that left 15 dead, Mununze village where six were found dead in a river, and five bodies were found in Kabweli and Mamulese communities.

More than 120 terror groups “fight for power, land and valuable mineral resources” in the DRC wreaking havoc in the region, African News reports.

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“Terrorist groups are taking advantage of the chaos to expand their hold on an already very unstable region,” EU foreign affairs spokeswoman Nabila Massrali told Reuters.

According to the outlet, the DRC government has not made a statement about the recent attacks.

Open Doors’ World Watch List ranks the DRC as #41 among the nations where Christians face the most extreme persecution around the globe.

To read the full story, visit our content partners at CBN News.

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The 2024 intersection of faith and politics is on display, from a messianic-like video which claims, “God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump,” to some comparing the former president to Jesus Christ.

“Believe that the man that can help this nation – the one man that was ridiculed, destroyed as – Jesus. Trump can come back and save the American dream for all,” Academy Award winner Jon Voight said in a video earlier this year.

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When President Trump entered the scene in 2016, he was not a regular churchgoer, nor was he seen as a person of deep faith. Now, eight years later, he is incorporating religion into his re-election bid for the White House.

“We have to bring Christianity back into our lives and back into what will be again a great nation,” Trump said in one video online.

Jackson Laymeyer heads Pastors4Trump – a group supporting the former president.

“The religious themes I think are very appropriate because this is a very spiritual battle,” Laymeyer told CBN News.

Leading up to Easter, Trump began promoting the sale of the “God Bless the USA” Bible.

“This Bible is the King James version and also includes our founding father documents,” Trump said in a promotional video. “I want to have a lot of people have it. You have to have it for your heart, for your soul.”

Laymeyer applauds the message. “How in the world could pastors and Christians complain about the potential president of the United States encouraging Americans to read the Bible? That’s what all of us pastors want,” he said.

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On the other side, President Biden who is a Roman Catholic comes off much more muted on religion. His recent move, however, to make a sign of the cross at a Florida abortion rally has come under fire.

“Making the sign of the cross is one of the most profound gestures a Catholic can make in showing reverence for Christ’s death on the cross and belief in the Holy Trinity as we sign ourselves in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” said Bishop Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, IL. “To misuse this sacred gesture is to make a mockery of our Catholic faith.”

The backlash comes at a time when the president’s disapproval rating among Catholics stands at 64%, an all-time high according to a recent Pew Research poll. Wear said the Biden camp also has a strategy to reach voters of faith.

“They will have folks on their campaign doing religious outreach,” said Wear. “I think he’s making an appeal on character. He’s making an appeal on decency. He’s going to be focused on the issue of democracy and some of the legal issues that his opponent has.”

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Randy Kay’s “afterlife” experience still leaves him visibly emotional as he recounts visiting heaven, meeting Jesus and returning to share his harrowing journey.

Kay, author of “Heaven Stormed: A Heavenly Encounter Reveals Your Assignment in the End Time Outpouring and Tribulation,” told CBN News he was once a denier of near-death experience claims—until he faced his own purported heaven journey.

“I would have said, ‘You know … they may have believed that they had that experience, but that the mind can play tricks, essentially,'” he said. “You know, some of them, I would say, were looking for attention.”

But Kay now holds a very different view, recognizing that people sometimes sacrifice their careers and success when they share these stories—journeys that the masses don’t always receive or believe.

It’s no secret there’s debate about heaven visitation stories, which can make it difficult to be open, honest and candid.

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“This is not the type of attention that somebody who has been a physician, or an executive, or somebody who has gained some modicum of recognition in the world would want,” Kay says.

He recalled his own afterlife experience, which began with a sore calf, something he initially ignored. At first, he thought it was a strained muscle, but, when his calf swelled during a bike ride, he knew something else was happening.

“I was able to make it back home and then went to the doctor to get an anti-inflammatory prescription, and, lo and behold, when I pressed my heel into the floor as the doctor had suggested, I collapsed,” Kay said. “And I was rushed to the emergency room.”

It turns out, the pain and swelling were due to seven blood clots that had formed. He then contracted Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a drug-resistant bacteria.

“The doctor said I was a walking dead man,” Kay said. “And then the septic shock [that] entered into my body caused a traffic jam in my vessels, my vascular system.”

The chaos landed Kay in a dire situation—one that he believes sent him to heaven.

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“Everything went dark initially, and the next moment of recall, I was looking down on my body,” he said. “I was being pulled by this light. I know that sounds cliché almost, but it’s absolutely true.”

Kay continued, “I was in a kind of very vague, ethereal space initially where I saw these figures in front of me, and they were warring against each other. There’s no other way of putting it.”

After his return from his after-death experience, Kay came to believe these scenes allowed him to see spiritual warfare very literally play out.

Regardless of whether people choose to believe the heaven portions of his story, one detail is definitively true: Kay’s physical body was dead during this experience, making these memories and claims quite fascinating.

“My heart had stopped,” he said, noting hospital records indicate he was clinically dead for 30 minutes and 49 seconds.

To read the full story, visit our content partners at CBN News.

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday to preserve access to a drug that has been used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the country in the last year.

This marks the court’s first abortion decision since it overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago.

The high court considered whether the Food and Drug Administration violated federal guidelines when it rushed approval of the drug two decades ago.

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The justices ruled that abortion opponents lacked the legal standing to sue over the FDA’s expedited approval of the drug, mifepristone, and the FDA’s subsequent controversial decision to ease access to it.

As CBN News reported in August, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FDA was wrong to remove safety measures for mifepristone.

“In loosening mifepristone’s safety restrictions, FDA failed to address several important concerns about whether the drug would be safe for the women who use it,” Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote. She was joined by Judge Cory Wilson.

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In that ruling, the court restored other safety measures to protect women, saying mifepristone should only be allowed through the seventh week of pregnancy rather than the 10th, and it must be administered in the presence of a physician.

To read the full story, visit our content partners at CBN News.

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News of revival from countries outside of the United States continues to travel around the world. This time, a massive gospel event in London last month saw more than 70,000 moved by the Spirit of God with many people giving their lives to Jesus Christ, experiencing healing and seeing deliverance.

Evangelist Daniel Chand, pastor of Pragma Church and founder of Walking Like Jesus Ministries (WLJM), says thousands worshipped Jesus and heard an encouraging message in Trafalgar Square in the U.K. on May 4th.

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A post shared by WLJ – Walking Like Jesus International 🌎 (@walkinglikejesusministries)

“We witnessed not only history but prophecy being (fulfilled),” he wrote. “Thousands in Trafalgar Square heard the Gospel. 70 years after Billy Graham stood in the same spot, myself along with other evangelists and pastors shared testimonies, prayed for the sick and of course declared the greatest love story – The Gospel.”

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According to Walking Like Jesus Ministries, there were several testimonies of healing including healing from back pain, arthritis, nerve pain and macro degenerative disease. 

One woman pushed through a crowd on stage to testify about the miraculous healing she received when a lump in her body completely disappeared.

“I’ve had a lump disappear,” she declared as the crowd cheered and shouted for joy.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Daniel Chand (@evangelistdanielchand)

“God’s not finished with the United Kingdom,” WLJM said on Instagram. “We saw the Lord move powerful(ly) in our nation’s capital! God is hearing from heaven and healing our land. He’s shaking everything that needs to be shaken and he’s pouring out his Spirit!

Chand stood in the square boldly “proclaiming, pleading and preaching the blood of Jesus over the nation.”

To read the full story, visit our content partners at CBN News.

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In the upcoming school year, Florida public schools will join other states in allowing volunteer chaplains on campus to counsel students. Now that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has signed the measure into law, even more states are expected to follow suit. 

After this law takes effect July 1, the process will begin as volunteer chaplains apply and undergo background checks. Then it will be up to school districts, individual students, and their parents to take part.

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“No one’s being forced to do anything,” Gov. DeSantis said in a press conference after signing the measure into law. “But to exclude religious groups from campus, that is discrimination. You’re basically saying that God has no place. That’s wrong.” 

“It’s a great thing – my dad was a preacher. I’m a preacher’s kid and it’s great,” Paul Renner (R) of the Florida House of Representatives told CBN News. 

More than a dozen states, including Iowa, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio have proposed measures to allow a chaplaincy program in public schools. 

“Seventeen states are involved in chaplain legislation,” Rocky Malloy, CEO of the National School Chaplain Association, told CBN News. “It just recently, it passed out of both houses of Louisiana. We expect it to be sent to the governor soon. It is happening around the country because it’s so needed.”

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Renner believes chaplains can offer alternatives for students, pointing out that guidance counselors in the state had allowed and even encouraged students to transition to the opposite sex without their parent’s consent. 

“They were given different clothes to wear, changing their name without ever telling their parents,” Renner commented. “If this is the kind of guidance they’re getting from guidance counselors, I think it’s about time we have a different perspective in the middle of the school that does respect our values.”

The recent push for chaplains comes as mental health issues among students are growing and schools face a shortage of counselors. 

According to the American School Counselor Association, the disparity for the 2022-2023 school year came in at a ratio of 385 students to one counselor. The recommended number is 250 to one.

Malloy said he cannot overemphasize the great need.

“I got news of two children that committed suicide,” Malloy explained. “One was in eighth grade, one was in 10th grade, and it’s schools that did not have chaplains. The chaplain’s role is to prevent that type of calamity from happening.”

To read the full story, visit our content partners at CBN News.

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The faith-based seller of military-themed dog tags engraved with inspirational Bible verses has been cleared to pursue a lawsuit against the Department of Defense after the Pentagon halted its production effort.

As CBN News reported, the DoD prohibited Shields of Strength from producing or selling licensed items with religious content after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an anti-religious group, in 2019.

Kenny Vaughn and his wife, Tammie, had been producing the inspirational dog tags for 20 years without issue until MRFF demanded they stop.

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The anti-religion group sent letters to the Pentagon, the Army and Marines complaining about the Bible-based product.

“The letter of the law states that you cannot do this because that would be in this case breaching the separation of church and state and applying, in this case, an endorsement by the Department of Defense and military branches on a clearly proselytizing message,” said MRFF.

After reviewing the complaint, the Marines and the Army sent Vaughan cease and desist letters. One of them said in part, that it could not “…tolerate merchandise that had a) Marine Corps trademarks and b) a religious theme. This is in direct violation of the Department of Defense Instruction.

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“Further, please refrain from submitting items for approval that are clearly of a religious nature and which bear USMC trademarks,” the letter continued.

First Liberty, a non-profit legal group, filed the lawsuit on Dec. 14, 2021, calling the Pentagon’s move “arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion.” It also stated that the military violated the First Amendment’s right to religious liberty.

“This lawsuit may set precedence to protect against First Amendment restrictions for Christians serving in uniform and to protect Christian-owned businesses against unfair trademark practices by the federal government,” reads a 2021 statement on the SoS website.

To read the full story, visit our content partners at CBN News.

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