Declaring that gay rights are not civil rights, some 160 black ministers urged Congress to support a marriage amendment

More than 160 African American pastors convened on Capitol Hill Sept. 8 to register their opposition to gay marriage and in the process publicly chided the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) for failing to meet with them to discuss the issue.

The Sept. 8 press conference was the culmination of a 24-hour summit sponsored by the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), a conservative lobbying group based in Washington, D.C., and Strang Communications, which publishes Charisma magazine. The event was aimed at educating black ministers about the homosexual agenda and allowing them to voice their opposition to legislative attempts to legalize gay marriage.

Among the attendees were Bishop Paul S. Morton of the New Orleans-based Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship, California pastor Frederick K.C. Price, National Religious Broadcasters Chairman Glenn Plummer, Detroit pastor Marvin Winans and Church of God in Christ Bishop Samuel L. Green.

The pastors said their intent was not to bash homosexuals, but to oppose the assertion that the gay rights movement is a continuation of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. They also expressed concern that gay marriage would threaten the stability of black families.

Recent statistics show that more than two-thirds of black babies are born to single parents, which pastors say only adds to the challenges of divorce, teen pregnancy, fatherlessness and the disproportionate number of HIV/AIDS cases in the black community.

“These trends should not be overlooked,” said a statement signed by most of the summit participants and presented to the CBC. “Further destabilization of traditional marriage must be prevented at all costs.”

The ministers’ effort to preserve traditional marriage, which translates into support for a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples only, put them at odds with the CBC, many of whom have expressed their opposition to a marriage amendment.

When none of the CBC members showed up for a meeting scheduled before the press conference, the pastors took note. “Apparently, [the CBC] doesn’t respect God’s people enough to meet with us,” Morton told the media.

Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) and Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.) later addressed the pastors. Jefferson told Morton he would support a marriage amendment. But Kilpatrick said that though she opposed gay marriage, she did not want to open up the Constitution “under this current administration.”

Winans, who is from Michigan, was not deterred. “Anything short of an amendment … will be circumvented to allow gay marriage,” he said.

Despite their unity on gay marriage, the pastors were not all supporters of President Bush, though he opposes gay marriage. Some argued that the fight for a marriage amendment would take years and wouldn’t be won from the top down.

“The House must have two-thirds of the representatives in place,” Winans said. “It aids when you have a man at the top [who is sympathetic to a marriage amendment] … but again, the House of Representatives are from the ‘hood to represent people and vote in accordance to what the majority of people want.”

Others said supporting Kerry this month would send a conflicting message. “I could not vote for someone who was opposed to [traditional marriage],” Price said. “To me, you’re saying … that homosexuality is all right–especially when you say I have to bow my knee to it.”

In the coming year, additional summits are to be held across the country, culminating with a large meeting in Washington, D.C. More than once, the pastors were told they held the key to turning the tide on gay marriage.

“This is our Esther moment,” said Atlanta pastor Darryl L. Foster, who leads the ex-gay outreach Witness Ministries. “God has anointed African American preachers who believe the Bible to ‘save our people’–white, black, everybody. Homosexual activists know they need the credibility of black people” to cast gay rights as a civil rights issue.

The pastors hope to present themselves as a nonpartisan group, but plan to work with the TVC as they develop a lobbying plan. “We want to create a tipping point,” said TVC founder Lou Sheldon, “where every Christian knows they must call their … representatives about this issue.”
­Adrienne S. Gaines in Washington, D.C.

Tommie Harris Jr. is a Pentecostal preacher’s kid who wants God to get ‘all the glory’ during his football career

Tommie Harris Jr. is a rookie defensive tackle with the Chicago Bears, but he is not a neophyte when it comes to recognizing the spiritual challenges of playing in the NFL, with its barrage of temptations.

“The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” Harris told Charisma a few weeks before the season started in September. “It’s all about the spirit man. A man who can’t control his spirit is like a city without walls. That man has no protection. I plan on looking to God to help me control my spirit in the NFL.”

If he needs any reminders, Harris can look at a cross tattoo on his left arm and another tattoo on his shoulder that says: “For God I live and for God I die.” Harris, who got his tattoos when he was 17, can also look at his No. 91 jersey number, which will remind him of Psalm 91.

“I want to dwell in the shelter of the most high and keep my eyes always on God,” said Harris, who credits his parents for their Christian influence.

Harris’ father, Tommie Sr., is a retired career Army man and Pentecostal minister. His mother, Janie, is a former missionary and special education teacher.

Tommie Sr. said his son calls himself MAGOH–“Man After God’s Own Heart.”

“My wife and I are not concerned with the trappings and pitfalls of life in the NFL because he’s well versed about the issues of life, and he tries to apply God’s Word,” he told Charisma. Tommie Sr., 51, is a former Church of God in Christ pastor who is currently a music minister at a Spirit-filled Methodist church in Texas.

Harris has also made an impression on former Green Bay Packer and ordained minister Reggie White. The NFL’s all-time sack leader when he retired in 2000, White believes Harris has the right priorities.

“Most of the time, I just talk to Tommie on how to get stronger,” White told a Chicago newspaper. “He didn’t want me to show him anything about football. He just said I just want to know the truth and life and get closer to the Father. I haven’t heard a lot of young men as concerned with that as he was.”

Harris, who turned 21 five days after being picked 14th overall during the NFL draft in April, left Oklahoma University after his junior season when he won the prestigious Lombardi Award as the nation’s top interior lineman.

A three-year starter who was a two-time Associated Press All-American first-team selection, Harris made news off the field at Oklahoma because of his twice rejected Playboy’s offer to be photographed as part of its preseason All-America team out of respect for his four sisters and his dislike for the magazine’s portrayal of women.

In addition, before Oklahoma’s game against Louisiana State University in last season’s Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Harris passed on the party atmosphere of Bourbon Street.

Oklahoma Sooners coach Bob Stoops called Harris “one of the spiritual leaders on our team.”

“He participated in a number of Christian activities and often spoke publicly about his faith,” Stoops, who expects Harris to be “an exceptional professional player,” told Charisma. “His faith provides him a great base.”

Harris, who stands 6 feet, 2-1/2 inches tall and weighs 289 pounds, became the first Bears rookie to start an opening game since 2000 after impressing coaches with his speed and athleticism in training camp and the preseason.

Harris, who is involved with a team Bible study made up of several Bears players, said he wants to live a lifestyle in the NFL that aligns with the Bible.

“The way I live may be the only Bible that someone reads,” explained Harris, who has two cousins in the NFL, Detroit Lions guard Stockar McDougle and his brother, Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Jerome McDougle.

Harris said he desires to stay spiritually focused as a professional football player. “During training camp, I heard it said that man doesn’t stumble over mountains; he stumbles over rocks,” recalled Harris, who sees himself preaching someday. “It’s the little things that keep us from Christ. … My prayer is that God may get all the glory for me playing in the NFL and that God would continue to grow me in Christ.”
Eric Tiansay

Author of the best-selling Wild at Heart, Eldredge says he wants to help Christians break free of works-oriented religion
John Eldredge has a simple way of summing up Isaiah 61:1–“God has sent Jesus on a mission. He has great news for us. God has sent Him to restore and release something. That something is you. He came to give [us] back our hearts and set us free.”

That’s the crux of the message he shares in books such as his best-selling Wild at Heart, which has sold more than 1 million copies, and at conferences across the country that attract thousands of participants each year.

“It’s possible that reading my books may create more questions than provide answers,” Eldredge told Charisma. “That’s OK with me. I want my readers to seek God with their whole heart and get the answers for themselves.”

He offers some assistance in his latest book, Epic, which summarizes the gospel and helps readers share the reasons for their faith. But Eldredge’s own journey to faith has been less structured.

He describes himself as a “flaming pagan” who experimented with drugs in the 1970s. The son of an alcoholic parent, Eldredge realized he didn’t like the person he had become and at the age of 19 prayed that God would begin changing him.

After studying drama at California Polytechnic University, he spent more than a decade at Focus on the Family, first in its public policy division then as an instructor in its institute. Writing came later, as a byproduct of his interests in acting and counseling.

But he was also seeking a deeper Christian life. “I realized in order for my words to touch others I could not write about anything that I had not first lived,” he said. “To this day I do not teach beyond my personal experiences and my own walk with God.”

He says his best-known book, Wild at Heart, “is not about things a man can do to be a nicer guy. It is a book about the recovery of a man’s heart, his God-given masculinity, and his need to be real.

“Many churches have taught men to be nice, be passive, be polite. The real life of the average man seems a universe away from the desires of his heart.”

A member of Imago Dei church, which he describes as charismatic, Eldredge said he was deeply influenced by the teachings of Jack Hayford, former senior pastor of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, Calif. “From pastor Hayford I learned the dynamics of healing, counseling, deliverance and discipleship–to see God’s people truly set free,” Eldredge said.

He brought those characteristics to Ransomed Heart Ministries in Colorado Springs, which he founded in 2000, and to the four-day retreats he hosts in Colorado for approximately 300 people six times a year. He refers to the events as times for “open heart surgery.”

“God shows up and heals the hurting and brokenhearted,” Eldredge said. “Dogma doesn’t do it. Legalism doesn’t do it. If people come with open hearts and a desire to pursue Jesus, they will find Him.

“Jesus is the antidote for our wounds. One of the things I tell men is this: Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs are men who have come alive.”

Today Eldredge, who holds a master’s degree in biblical counseling from Colorado Christian University, is perhaps one of the nation’s best-known men’s ministers, with Wild at Heart video Bible studies held at thousands of churches nationwide. Jason Kemp led a Wild at Heart Bible study at the Church at Rocky Peak in Chatsworth, Calif.

“The teaching of John Eldredge was deeply impactful,” Kemp told Charisma. “It helped me become more adventuresome and to view my life from the perspective of a spiritual battle. There are few books that have changed my life like Wild at Heart has.”

“I went because I had read the book and was hoping his video would expand on the book to make it come alive, and it did,” added Greg Hunt, a small-group leader at the Church at Rocky Peak and a participant in the Bible study.

“I was reminded that God designed the husband to love and ‘rescue’ his beautiful wife, and to offer her my strength, which I gain from following the Lord and making right decisions based on the Bible. It has had a tremendous impact on my marriage.”

Eldredge’s message, however, is reaching beyond men. He is collaborating with his wife, Stasi, on a book for women titled Captivating, which is scheduled to release next spring.

And his Waking the Dead is aimed at helping the American church get unstuck from a works-based Christianity. He said many Christians think more knowledge, performance and duty will result in righteousness, and they become exhausted trying to use clever designs of their flesh to handle life and to stay on the straight and narrow path.

“I see a richness in Scripture that beautifully portrays the progressive relationship God desires to have with His people,” Eldredge said. “Many Christians get stranded in the servant-master stage. The full and ultimate height of our relationship is to be a bride to God the bridegroom.”
Judith Hayes

Patricia King’s reality show documents her Extreme Prophetic school’s street outreach in cities in North America and Europe

The camera reveals the eyes of a man hardened by anger, vestiges of prison life still marking his face as he listens to Extreme Prophetic team members on the streets of Las Vegas.

Canadian minister Patricia King and participants in her Extreme Prophetic school are shooting a reality show documenting their evangelism activity on city streets in North America and Europe. The man in this segment had walked out of prison just hours before team members stopped him on the sidewalk outside a casino and told him that God loved him and had a plan for his life.

Tears ran down the man’s face when Stacey Campbell, one of the team members from Kelowna, British Columbia, shared prophetic insights about childhood events that had filled the man with anger. He accepted Christ there on the street, virtually unconscious of the cameras that would spread his testimony around the world.

“We don’t even think of it as religious broadcasting,” King told Charisma. “It’s not at all churchy. It’s just God being God and touching people’s lives with His love. We are so blessed that He shows up every time we shoot, and the people He touches are never the same.”

King, the woman behind Extreme Prophetic, is a hip and extroverted 50-something grandmother who lives with her husband in Kelowna, about a three-hour drive from Vancouver. Saved in the 1970s after practicing the occult, then serving as a missionary with Youth With A Mission, King has become known as a Bible teacher who emphasizes prayer, evangelism and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

She credits a 1994 visit to the Toronto Blessing renewal with spawning both a storm of questions and some “amazing” spiritual experiences that motivated her to dig deeper in prayer and Bible study. The result was a teaching series about biblical encounters with a supernatural God. She later founded a “glory school” and wrote a book, Third Heaven, Angels and Other Stuff.

“The Western church, for the most part, has an academic orientation rather than spiritual,” said King, who says God led her to change her name from Pat Cocking last year after her ministry began receiving obscene messages. “The school offers an invitation to walk in that divine realm and dispels people’s fear of legitimate supernatural encounters.”

But she hasn’t stopped there. King believes supernatural encounters should be taken to the streets. “[People] are not hungry for institutionalized religion; they are hungry for true encounters with God,” King said. “The whole idea behind the Extreme Prophetic school is to take God’s prophetic gift with extreme love into extreme places–anywhere and everywhere the unsaved congregate.”

The four-day schools, held in such cities as Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Chicago, offer hands-on training in prophetic evangelism. King and her team offer what they call “spiritual readings”–a New Age-sounding term they use to describe personal prayer during which they offer any prophetic insights they believe God has given them.

One episode of the Extreme Prophetic show pans in on people lined up outside a Kelowna juice café. They had waited for up to an hour to hear what Extreme Prophetic team members had to say. Many received words of encouragement, others accepted Christ.

The Extreme Prophetic school has spawned similar ministries in other cities. Doug Addison, a Los Angeles pastor and evangelist, attended one of King’s glory schools and now runs InLight Connection, a prophetic street outreach.

“I immediately saw that this type of evangelism is relevant for our spiritually curious culture,” Addison said. “It is a great way to get into deeper spiritual conversations with people, pray with them, and lead them to Jesus.”

Others stepped out more hesitantly. Former Chicago ad executive Rob Hotchkin said he’d been conditioned to ignore people on the street. “During the Extreme Prophetic school God gave me a heart for these people,” he said. “I remembered that these people are human beings. They are lost and broken but God loves them.” Today he works for Extreme Prophetic ministries.

The show airs on Monday nights and Sundays on The Miracle Channel, which streams a simulcast of the show on its site, . King’s Web site, , also carries the program. Sky Angel has recently agreed to air an Extreme Prophetic TV special, and King anticipates that the show will be picked up in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Julia Loren

Jon and Sonnet Barr say their technique at The English Exchange is centered around building relationships
In the 15 years since the Iron Curtain fell in Russia, Christian missionaries from the United States have witnessed decidedly mixed results in their efforts to gain a foothold in the largely atheist country.

Through the years, evangelists flooded in, sparking reports that thousands of Russians were professing new faith in Christ. But almost as soon as the missionaries packed their bags, many of the new believers fell away and developed an aversion to Christianity.

Now another wave of missionaries has launched a new movement aimed at producing more lasting results in Russia. The idea is to lay the groundwork for evangelism by developing loving and trusting friendships between Russians and American Christians first. Their vehicle: English classes.

“The missionaries [of the past] rushed in to do ministry without researching the culture to realize that Russians make life-changing decisions differently than the Western perspective,” said Sonnet Barr, a missionary with Moscow-based The English Exchange, affiliated with the interdenominational United World Mission based in Charlotte, N.C. “You can’t fault their hearts, but you can fault the failure to respect and understand the attributes and characteristics of a different culture.”

Added Jon Barr, her husband: “Russians were quick to raise hands, come forward in meetings and say the sinner’s prayer. But the reality was that they were looking for a relationship that would last a lifetime, and the lengthy dialogue required by Russians to change the ideas of the heart.”

The idea of using conversational English as a ministry tool is not new in Russia or elsewhere around the world. But what distinguishes the Barrs’ approach from others, according to experts, is their focus on building relationships–an often tedious and painstaking task.

“The Barrs have made their approach less evangelistic,” said Eugene Richardson, missions pastor at Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch, Calif., which has sent several of its members to serve on short-term assignments with the Barrs.

“Their approach is to establish a relationship so there is trust,” Richardson said. “Who they are becomes a greater witness than what they say.”

The Barrs arrived in Moscow in May 2001 to minister at a camp that used the Bible to teach English. Jon Barr, a graduate of Calvary Bible College in Kansas City, Mo., was assigned to train Russian youth leaders. Sonnet Barr, who has an undergraduate degree in music from California State University in Bakersfield and a certificate in Bible from Columbia International University in South Carolina, was assigned to train worship leaders.

Just eight days into the mission, one of the main ministers suffered a stroke and returned to the United States. “With three other teammates who had been in the country less than a year,” Sonnet Barr said, “[God] started what He wanted: a program based on loving relationships with His people totally dependent on Him.”

The Barrs’ program uses staples of the American summer-camp experience–silly songs, dances, skits and other activities designed to build camaraderie.

Teachers, recruited from U.S. churches and Christian colleges, are encouraged to maintain a fun and friendly atmosphere, sharing their faith only in informal settings outside the classroom.

Not everyone, though, has been satisfied with the slow, long-term approach to evangelism. Some missionary organizations working with the Barrs have pulled their ministers out of Russia because of a lack of quick, quantifiable results in the form of church plantings and baptisms.

The Barrs defend their plan, defining their ministry as a “plowing” mission. They measure success in the relationships established with several Russians who became Christians through the program and now share their faith with successive students.

They also measure success in their effort to tackle tough subjects. This summer they held lectures on black history and race relations in the United States to counterattacks by skinheads on Africans, Armenians and Georgians.

But the Barrs say they are most gratified by the response to their follow-up efforts with graduates of the program. After the July camp, a group of Americans maintained the social ties through kite-flying, bowling and other activities. As a result, 15 of the students took the next step and attended a church service.
Dion Haynes in Moscow

Three years after the prayer meeting, the Wiyot Tribe was given 40 acres of land on the site of a 144-year-old Indian massacre
A leader of California’s Wiyot Tribe credits a 2001 prayer and reconciliation meeting with paving the way for the historic transfer of a sacred land site where scores of Native Americans were massacred nearly 150 years ago.

On May 18, the Eureka, Calif., city council voted unanimously to return to the Wiyot Tribe 40 acres of Indian Island, located off the coast of northern California. Nearly 500 people attended the official deed-signing ceremony June 25.

Amid cheers, Eureka Mayor Peter La Vallee signed over the deed to the Indian Island property to Cheryl A. Seidner, chairwoman of the Wiyot Tribe. Then they exchanged gifts in a gesture of goodwill.

“I think what we are doing is reinventing history,” La Vallee said, the Associated Press (AP) reported. “You can’t say you’re sorry, but 144 years later, we can say it wasn’t right and honor the culture of the tribe and its roots.”

Historical documents show that on Feb. 22, 1860, a band of white men invaded the Wiyot village at night, killing scores of elders, women and children as they slept. Seidner said more Indians were killed in two other massacres on nearby South Spit and at the mouth of the Eel River.

“We lost our regalia, our elders, our weavers and our dreamers–all the things that make a community,” Seidner said, the AP reported. “We have not danced since that day. We have to relearn. I can’t wait for that first dance.”

The tribal leader credits a reconciliation conference in 2001 with creating an atmosphere that made the deed-signing ceremony possible. In May of that year, a group of pastors with the Humboldt Evangelical Alliance (HEAL) invited the Native American ministry Wiconi International, based in Vancouver, Wash., to facilitate a time of healing and reconciliation between evangelical churches in Humboldt County, the Wiyot and other First Nations people in the region. Wiconi led a three-day event at Arcata First Baptist Church.

During this event more than 75 people came together to pray over the Indian Island site. Fern Noble, a Cree and Native Representative for the International Reconciliation Coalition in Los Angeles, told participants: “We must allow the Holy Spirit to heal the wound so we can all come together as one, as God the Creator intended.”

During the 2001 conference, members of HEAL honored the Wiyot Tribal Council of Table Bluff Reservation with gifts and a commitment in writing to work with the tribe to get back this sacred site.

First Baptist’s pastor, Clay Ford, said that when he first heard about the massacre, he and some colleagues wanted to apologize to the tribal leaders.

“It’s dawning on more and more Christians to see the need … for us to repent for the sins of the past,” Ford said, the AP reported. “I wrote a proclamation of repentance acknowledging that though we personally weren’t there when the massacre happened, we represented Christian people and churches who did nothing, as far as we could tell, to make things right. And we apologized and asked for forgiveness.”

When Ford’s proclamation was presented to the Wiyot during the reconciliation meeting, the tribe also was given $1,000. Many churches and individuals continued to pray for the Wiyot and to raise funds to help them purchase the land on Indian Island, a goal they had been working toward since the 1970s. They had purchased 1-1/2 acres before the city voted to give them 40 acres.

“As I have been told, this has not happened in any city in the state of California, and I’m hearing that this might be something really new across the nation,” Seidner said. “I don’t know … for sure.”

Richard Twiss, president of Wiconi International and keynote speaker at the 2001 conference, said the land restitution is “the fruit of following traditional indigenous protocol in presenting the redemptive message of faith and hope in Jesus Christ as Healer, Great Spirit and Chief Shepherd of all tribes and nations.”
Jim Uttley Jr.

Judge Orders Bible Moved From Courthouse

U.S. District Judge Sim Lake ruled Aug. 10 that a Bible displayed in a monument outside a county courthouse in Houston must be removed, United Press International (UPI) reported. Real estate broker and lawyer Kay Staley filed a lawsuit against the county, arguing that the display violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The 4-foot monument, which contains the King James Bible under glass, was constructed with private funds during the 1950s as a memorial to Houston philanthropist William Mosher, the Washington Times reported. Harris County argued the display primarily honored Mosher, the Times reported, but the plaintiffs said it promotes a specific religion at a government building. County Judge Robert Eckels planned to appeal the decision.

Pastors Asked to Make Invocations Generic

Pastors who give the invocation at Tampa, Fla., city council meetings can no longer use the name “Jesus,” the St. Petersburg Times reported. Saying she was following the “nonsectarian rule that we must follow as a governing agency,” council chairwoman Gwen Miller issued a memo telling council members that all invocations must be nonsectarian, the Times said. She also asked that council members send guest ministers a brochure from the National Conference on Community and Justice that explains how to prepare interfaith invocations.

Florida Court Refuses to Recognize Gay Marriage

In July, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion that voided the marriage between Linda Kantaras and “Michael” Kantaras, who was born a woman. The appeals court said it “must adhere to the common meaning of the statutory terms and invalidate any marriage that is not between persons of the opposite sex determined by their biological sex at birth.” Represented by Liberty Counsel (LC), a Christian law firm that seeks to advance religious freedom, Linda said she knew of Michael’s sex-change operation when they married, but after becoming a Christian believed their relationship was improper. LC chief counsel Mathew Staver called the decision “a victory for traditional marriage and common sense.”

French Christians and French-Canadian Christians met in Quebec City in hopes of healing long-held resentment
Ministry leaders and intercessors from across Canada gathered in Quebec City in July to witness a dramatic, teary reconciliation between French-Canadian Christians and Christians from France after 245 years of estrangement.

Dubbed The Homecoming by its organizers, the reconciliation quickly became a love-in between the two French groups following a visit to France by leader David Demian just one month earlier.

“I had to visit France for other ministry work, but the Lord told me then to invite French church leaders over here for our reconciliation meetings,” said Demian, director of Watchmen for the Nations, a group of 500 Canadian church leaders committed to prayer and reconciliation in Canada and around the globe.

“They readily agreed, having forgotten all about France’s history of abandoning the French-Canadians. The French-Canadian church leaders who were with me thought it was a wonderful idea and agreed to welcome them with open arms,”

Quebec is one of the largest of 10 Canadian provinces and three territories, and French-Canadians make up 22.9 percent of the country’s population. Quebec has held several votes to separate from the rest of Canada and was the site of much civil unrest and some violence during the 1960s and 1970s.

French-Canadians in Quebec have the lowest church attendance of any group in the country, despite a rich history of Catholicism and a wealth of Christian place names. Although the second ethnic group to populate Canada, following the First Nations people, the French were eventually defeated by the British during the 1700s, and the country became a British colony.

After winning a battle with the French in 1759, the British occupied Quebec City, the capital of the province. The following year, the French sent six frigates filled with soldiers and supplies to bolster the French-Canadians, but the British heard of the plan and blocked their entrance to Quebec City’s harbor. The French sunk some of their own boats and returned to France, never to be heard from again.

The reconciliation included a reconstruction of historical events; French church leaders arrived on a ferry boat to symbolically represent a return to Quebec City’s harbor, where French-Canadians welcomed them with open arms. After a teary reunion, they traveled to the Plains of Abraham, site of the 1759 French-British battle. There the French repented for abandoning the French-Canadians and made a commitment to stand with the French-Canadian church.

The French-Canadians then expressed their forgiveness toward France. Church leaders from English Canada also committed to stand with France to see the growth of the church in French Canada. Seed was planted in the ground to symbolize healing and growth in relationships, and communion was later held.

The Homecoming was part of an ongoing series of reconciliation gatherings that Watchmen for the Nations has held since 1995. Demian said the goal is to mend Canada’s spiritual rifts and regional strife so the nation can reflect the glory of God and help other nations find healing.

“When God called me to this ministry, I believed the reconciliation was to happen first between the white man and the First Nations, but He said no, it was to happen between French and English first,” Demian said. “So we started off two years ago at Charlottetown, the birthplace of Canadian confederation, where we read what Canada’s first prime minister declared when he wrote that there would be holy matrimony between French and English. Using that as our theme, we moved across the land … gathering history and praying.”

Demian said Watchmen for the Nations also is acting as a spiritual mentor and supporting several other nations that are repenting for former conflicts in hopes of finding spiritual wholeness. Among them are Germany, Switzerland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Denmark.
Josie Newman in Quebec City

First on the list of upcoming projects is Gifted, a talent show patterned after Fox’s popular program American Idol Inspirational Speaker

A music-industry veteran and the son of Christian TV pioneers are teaming up to produce Christian-themed entertainment that will reach secular audiences.

The partnership will fuse Johnny Wright’s experience in the music industry as president and CEO of Wright Entertainment Group (WEG) with Matt Crouch’s background in the Christian entertainment industry as the founder of Gener8Xion Entertainment. Together they plan to create entertainment that will enjoy large crossover appeal.

“It is our goal to wrap God’s message–His love–in acceptance, and in a way that blends seamlessly into ‘pop’ culture while still upholding the values we, as Christians, value most,” says the mission statement of the partnership, tentatively called Wright Generation.

As a first step, Wright, a Christian who heads the management group for Britney Spears and ‘N Sync, and Crouch, son of Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) founders Paul and Jan Crouch, are creating a TV show titled Gifted, a Christian talent show similar to American Idol.

Scheduled to air Thanksgiving evening on TBN, Gifted will feature 12 solo artists, aged 18-24, who will compete by singing gospel and contemporary Christian songs in front of a live studio audience and an experienced panel of judges.

A cross-country audition tour was to begin in September. Finalists were to be chosen from such cities as Denver, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Mobile, Ala., and Nashville, Tenn.

The TV audience will select the winner, who will receive a record deal and future management in both the secular and Christian markets under Johnny Wright. This fall the show will be a two-hour special, but Wright Generation is planning a full 10-episode second season.

The similarities between Gifted and American Idol are obvious, and Freemantle Media, the producer of Fox’s hit show, has noticed. Freemantle recently sent Wright Generation a letter stating that it is infringing on American Idol’s copyright trademark and requesting that it stop production of Gifted.

“We’re not going to be bullied,” Wright told Charisma. “Our show is completely different than theirs.”

In addition to being a two-hour special, Wright said, Gifted will have a number of features different from American Idol. He also noted that in his time working on Fame, an NBC talent show of similar mold, there was never any talk about accusations of copyright infringement from American Idol.

“Is this just a veiled attempt to shut us down so they can move forward with the same kind of idea?” Wright said. “The Christian community, as well as the secular community, deserves to have a show delivered to them like this, and it deserves to come to them from people that are in the Christian community.”

The statement is interesting coming from Wright, who until this point has not worked in Christian entertainment but now says that it is what he is going to move into in the future.

“I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve had people come up to me and say: ‘I have a great daughter that can sing, but I really don’t want them to be in that pop world because I don’t want them singing about those subjects. I would really like them to be singing about church and faith,'” Wright said. “How many times are people going to say that to me before it clicks?”

When Wright’s assistant, Philip McIntyre, met Crouch, he saw an opportunity for the two to work together. He said the chemistry between Wright and Crouch was apparent from the start.

Now a producer for Gifted, McIntyre said the whole project came together in less than six months–which is rare in the entertainment industry. “It absolutely happened fast, like it was definitely meant to be,” McIntyre said. “In our industry, it normally takes a lot longer.”

Crouch said that in their first conversation, Wright told him he wanted to “reshape pop culture that [he] was in part responsible for creating.” At that point Crouch says he knew God had orchestrated Wright’s career through the mainstream communications world and his career through Christian media so they could each bring a unique perspective to this venture.

“What burns inside of me … is to really put a new face on what the world thinks Christians are and what they think a life of faith in Christ is and does, and what it accomplishes,” Crouch said.

Wright Entertainment is currently making plans past Gifted for future TV and music projects, which they hope will help reinvent the cultures that each of them have come out of.

Crouch said they want to help people understand that “we, as people of faith, can blend seamlessly into the world because that was really what Christ said for us to do.”

Chris Glazier

Police Halt Christian Wedding in Eritrea

On July 25, police disrupted a Christian wedding ceremony in the Eritrean town of Senafe, arresting 30 guests and members of the wedding party, Compass Direct reported. Police ordered everyone who was not Pentecostal to leave immediately, Compass said. Thirty Christians remained and were taken to the police station. In early August, all but two had been released after signing a document promising not to participate in any evangelical Christian weddings in the future.

Anti-Conversion Bill Ruled Unconstitutional

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruled that certain significant clauses in a controversial bill prohibiting conversions were unconstitutional, Sri Lanka’s Daily News reported. The Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Bill was introduced in July by the all-Buddhist Jathika Hela Urumaya party, which has been working to ban allegedly “unethical” conversions to Christianity. The legislation proposed fines of up to $11,000 and up to seven years in prison for violators. The court said the bill would have to be approved by two-thirds of the Parliament and put before the people through a national referendum in order to become law, the News reported.

Brazil Court Reverses Pastors’ Conviction

An appeals court in Sao Paulo has reversed the conviction last year of two evangelists charged with violating the South American nation’s “hate crime” law. The landmark case involving evangelicals and Afro-Brazilian spiritists is the first to test a federal law declaring it a crime to “practice, induce, or incite discrimination” against members of another religion, Compass Direct reported. Umbanda and Candomble spiritist groups brought criminal charges more than two years ago against Baptist pastor Joaquim de Andrade and Anglican Aldo dos Santos, claiming that gospel tracts they distributed at the annual Iemanja festival disparaged the African deity, and therefore violated the federal law. In April 2003, the men were found guilty, but refused to pay the fine imposed and appealed the verdict. Andrade hailed the appeals court’s decision as upholding freedom of speech and their right to conduct personal evangelism in public places.