We gentile Christians enjoy the blessing of knowing Jesus as Savior. We were grafted into the fold through the work of Christ on the cross, with a command to tell the world about Him. But the message of Yeshua is “to the Jew first.” And today, many Jews are accepting the Messiah into their lives and introducing Him to others. Here’s why. Click below to watch the video.

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You rub your chest, thinking the mild pain is nothing more than a nagging bout of indigestion. But the increasing discomfort in your upper body is accompanied by shortness of breath, and you begin to worry. You’re nauseous, lightheaded and sweaty; eventually, you fold over in pain. You’ve just had a heart attack.

And just like the physical body, there are also warning signs of decay in our spiritual lives. To discover biblical truths that will keep your heart pure, listen to The Lowe-Down with editor Valerie G. Lowe and pastor Riva Tims. Click below to listen to the podcast now.

Valerie G. Lowe         Pastor Riva Tims

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Though Jesus was born in Bethlehem, taught in Jewish synagogues, and spread His message “to the Jew first,” the majority of people in His homeland do not recognize Him as the Messiah. But thanks to what they say is a spiritual awakening unfolding in the Holy Land, many Jewish believers are sharing the gospel and leading their brothers and sisters to Christ. Click below to watch the video.

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A veteran high school coach in Michigan has filed a federal lawsuit claiming he was fired by a Muslim principal because of his Christian faith and his association with a Pentecostal minister who helped lead a Muslim student to Christ.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, Gerald Marszalek, a wrestling coach for 35 years at Fordson High School in Dearborn, accused Dearborn schools and Fordson Principal Imad Fadlallah of violating his constitutional rights to free speech and exercise of religion, as well as Michigan laws against religious discrimination.

Attorneys from the Thomas More Law Center, which is representing Marszalek, claim the coach’s contract was not renewed last year because of his association with an Assemblies of God pastor known for evangelizing the area’s large Muslim community.

“We are getting a glimpse of what happens when Muslims who refuse to accept American values and principles gain political power in an American community,” said Richard Thompson, Thomas More president and chief counsel. “Failure to renew coach Marszalek’s contract had nothing to do with wrestling and everything to do with religion.”

According to the lawsuit, in 2005 Trey Hancock, pastor of Dearborn Assembly of God and a volunteer assistant wrestling coach, baptized a Muslim student who accepted Christ during a summer wrestling camp not affiliated with the school.

It claims that after Fadlallah learned of the student’s conversion, he ordered that Hancock be removed as an assistant coach and later told Marszalek to keep him away from wrestling practices and events. Marszalek says it was impossible to keep Hancock away from the school because his son was a student and a member of the wrestling team.

The lawsuit says Fadlallah accused Hancock of wanting to evangelize at the school, where 80 percent of students are of Arab descent and many are Muslim.

Hancock told the Detroit Free Press last year that he never mixed his faith with sports. Thomas More attorneys said the student Hancock baptized is a friend of his son’s who had been attending Dearborn Assembly for two years before he embraced Christianity.

Marszalek also said Hancock never used his assistant coaching position to proselytize. “He knew the difference between church and state, ” Marszalek told the Free Press last year.

Marszalek’s lawsuit claims Fadlallah has repeatedly given preference to Islamic practices, allowing Muslim student athletes to recite Muslim prayers before, during and after school-sanctioned athletic events. The suit also alleges that Fadlallah hit the student who converted to Christianity and told him he had disgraced his family.

The Dearborn Public Schools Board of Education found Fadlallah, who is Fordson’s first Muslim principal, innocent of that charge in late May.

According to Arab-American News, Fadlallah’s supporters blame the controversy on a few Fordson staff members who want him to leave the school and “an outside group of Christian evangelizers who proudly boast about converting Muslim students.”

Thomas More attorney and spokesman Brian Rooney said the school board exonerated Fadlallah because some witnesses changed their stories. He said his firm has witnesses who are willing to testify that they saw Fadlallah hit the student.

“We feel very confident that this in fact did happen,” Rooney said. “A lot of pressure was brought to bear on this boy.”

Dearborn’s Muslim community has accused Hancock, who is listed as a home missionary for “intercultural ministries” by the Assemblies of God Michigan District, of targeting youth with overzealous evangelism tactics.

In 2007 a Muslim father filed a lawsuit claiming the Michigan Department of Human Services and Hancock’s church were conspiring to keep his 13-year-old daughter from practicing Islam.

Hancock said the dispute was part of a larger custody battle in a divorce case in which the girl’s mother came to the church complaining that her husband abused her. He said the situation had nothing to do with the wrestling team or the school.

Rooney said Marszalek’s case highlights a double standard regarding Islam that is growing more common nationwide.

“With Christianity you have this sense that there’s the separation of church and state,” Rooney told Charisma. “But when it comes to Islam the notion is this isn’t necessarily the separation of church and state because we want to encourage inclusion and multiculturalism. That’s a double standard. If you’re going to hold Christians’ feet to the fire, you should hold everyone’s feet to the fire.”

Marszalek is seeking his back pay, injunctive and declaratory relief, damages and to be reinstated as coach of the wrestling team.

On the Monday episode of The Bachelorette, Jillian Harris picked her man. She chose Ed Swiderski, a computer software consultant from California, to be her future husband.

He bowed down on one knee, slipped a $60,000 diamond ring on her finger and declared his love for her: “I want to be with you forever … I want you to give me a hard time when we’re 80 years old. Jillian, will you marry me?” Of course she said yes, and the show went off.

But marriage is not staged or prerecorded. There are no dress rehearsals. I’ll probably never land a role on a hit TV show, and a Hollywood producer will certainly never pick my husband for me. Sure, Jillian made the final decision, but men from around the country auditioned to be in the running to be her husband.

I know personally how difficult it is to be single, hoping the right person will come along and ask for your hand in marriage. But no matter how long the wait or unbearable the loneliness, we must resist the temptation to choose a mate without His guidance and compromise our morality. Scripture says, “For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness (Ps. 107:9, NKJV).

I used to exhaust myself in prayer about marriage, cutting deals with God, telling Him I’ll do this or that if He would bless me with a husband. It’s tough, but we must learn to wait actively, not passively. I encourage you to focus on things  you’re passionate about. And whatever you’ve been called to do for Him, do it!

And the love you have on reserve for that special guy, share it with someone else. God will open doors for you to reach others with His covenant message. Whether you get married or remain single for the rest of your life, He promises to woo you with His everlasting love. He is faithful.

Whether good or bad, what we think dictates the choices we make in life. When we entertain wrong, inappropriate thoughts, our minds become receptacles of lust, disobedience, rebellion and other vices that produce strongholds in us. We actually become what we think!

Our minds were not created to be a dumping ground for sin. We must discipline ourselves to think and act according to the Word. Scripture says “let this mind be in you,” which is also in Christ. Click below to watch the video.

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During my trip to Israel several months ago, I ran into a group of Jewish kids on a field trip in the Old City. They reminded me of my nieces and nephews, running around playing and giggling nonstop.

But not far from Jerusalem are children whose faces have been draped with anger and rage. Radical Islamists who seek only death and destruction have seared their minds with lessons of hate. But these children need our prayers too. Click below to watch the video, then ask God to turn their hearts toward Him.

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Pro-lsrael Christians from across the U.S. gathered in the nation’s capital this week to participate in the fourth annual Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Washington Summit. The event gave some 4,000 participants the opportunity to demonstrate their support for the Holy Land by lobbying U.S. lawmakers to back the Jewish nation.

“America really shouldn’t be pressuring Israel to make concessions Israelis don’t want to make,” said CUFI executive director David Brog. “Israel has been devoted to the peace process.”

He said Israel has withdrawn “over and over again” and made “painful concessions for peace.”

“But it hasn’t brought peace,” he told Charisma. “It’s brought renewed aggression.”

He said CUFI wants the U.S. to “respect Israel’s allies … and its democracy.”

During a pre-summit event on Sunday and in workshops on Monday, speakers such as Jane Hansen Hoyt of Aglow International and former Sen. Rick Santorum, now senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, addressed such issues as praying for Israel, the relationship, the vanishing Christians of the Middle East and ending America’s dependence on foreign oil.

American Values President Gary Bauer moderated a Middle East briefing Tuesday that included Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu via closed circuit TV, as well as Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard; Rep. Shelley Berkely of Nevada; Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Asaf Shariv, consul general of Israel in New York.

Tuesday night, CUFI hosted A Night to Honor Israel, with CUFI founder John Hagee and syndicated radio-show host Dennis Prager. Since 2006, CUFI has hosted more than 100 Night to Honor Israel events around the world.

Participants went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to lobby lawmakers and address Iran’s nuclear program. Brog said the group asked members of Congress to support the “Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act,” which will sanction U.S. companies for selling gasoline to Iran if the bill becomes law.

He added that the separate Iran Sanctions Enabling Act “will send a green light to companies that they can divest from Iran without fear” of being sued.

“We’re very worried that Iran is making such rapid progress toward obtaining nuclear weapons,” Brog said. “We want to use every peaceful means at our disposal to try to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program.”

I was in church one day when a friend in her late 20s slipped me a note that said she wanted to speak with me about something that had been weighing on her heart for months. “It’s about the A-word,” she wrote. I hadn’t a clue what she meant by the “A-word,” but I gave her a call later that night. Her story was heartbreaking.

“I had an abortion in February, and I feel guilty and ashamed,” she said. “I tried telling my mom and the care-group leader at church, but I was afraid.” I listened for an hour as she grieved the death of her unborn baby. When it was over, I prayed with my friend and gave her the number to a ministry that offers post-abortion counseling.

The entire conversation took place barely above a whisper, but I knew why she had refused to raise her voice. Christian women, especially, don’t want to talk about abortion. We skirt the issue in church and pretend it doesn’t happen to women who love God, but it does. The secrecy is part of the reason so many babies are aborted every year. Abortion on demand comes with a hefty price.

I wrote a cover story about a woman God is using to address the issue of abortion not only in political circles, but also in the church. Alveda King is the niece of slain Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and she is committed to defending the unborn. She overcame the shame of two abortions, and her message can help you or someone you know in a crisis pregnancy.

Let’s not walk around church using the “A-word.” Let’s call abortion what it is and offer help to our hurting sisters.

To read the article, scroll down.

A Voice for the Voiceless

The niece of Martin Luther King Jr. was an unlikely woman to become a pro-life activist. She had an abortion herself, but the painful experience helped her uncover the lies used by the abortion industry.

Alveda King is an unlikely poster child for pro-life causes. In 1970, when abortion was still illegal in the United States, her doctor gave her an abortion under false pretenses. Then in 1973, the 22-year-old walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic and underwent a second abortion, performed by a doctor who assured her, “It’s just a blob of tissue.”

The procedures damaged her cervix and forced her to miscarry another baby months later. In addition, the physical toll on her body and the emotional strain of the abortions led to the demise of her first marriage.

She divorced two more times in her life, but she says when she met Jesus in 1983, He opened her eyes to the reality of what she had done and forgave her for destroying her babies.

“God rescued me from a cycle of death, and the only thing that kept me from losing it was knowing I will one day see my babies in heaven,” she told Charisma.

The mother of six adult children, King, 59, says her love for the unborn trumps her painful past, and today she is driven by spiritual conviction to defend the most vulnerable of human beings.

In 2004, she joined forces with Priests for Life, which is said to be the nation’s largest Catholic, pro-life organization dedicated to ending abortion and euthanasia. As pastoral associate for the organization, King travels the country preaching, rallying support, and among other things, going after lawmakers who are “pro-murder.”

But advocating for the rights of others is in her genes-literally. King is the niece of the late Martin Luther King Jr. and wife Coretta. Her late father, A.D. King, was a high-profile leader in the civil rights movement who marched alongside his famous brother until Martin’s assassination in 1968. In 1978, she was elected to the Georgia state legislature and later appointed regional deputy of the U.S. Department of Education for region four by President George H.W. Bush.

Having a famous last name may open doors for her, but King knows the pro-choice industry is giving up no ground in the battle for abortion. She says she is one voice among millions crying out for the unborn.

And today the fulfillment of her uncle’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech is coming to fruition in her own life.

“My uncle Martin said he had a dream that Protestants and Catholics, gentiles and Jews would join together to sing that age-old spiritual, ‘Free at last / Free at last.’ But he also said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ and killing unborn babies is unjust.”

Legal Genocide

Since the Supreme Court’s historic 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the U.S., 45-million-plus unborn babies have been aborted. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, about 19 percent of women having abortions in the U.S. are teens; 33 percent are between the ages of 20 and 24; and 48 percent are ages 25 and older.

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of abortions, made more than $1 billion last year, according to the agency’s 2007-2008 annual report, providing 305,310 abortions to its clients. The not-for-profit agency says it “provides and protects trusted health care services and medically accurate sexuality education,” but Jamie Matthews, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, says Planned Parenthood preys on young women.

“They told me ‘the fetus’ was not yet a baby and my career would be ruined if I continued with the pregnancy, so I consented to the abortion. When I returned to the clinic a few days later complaining of sharp pains, they gave me a second abortion-and I wasn’t even pregnant!” she blurted while weeping over the ordeal.

One woman who asked Charisma not to disclose her identity said the doctor who aborted her baby when she was 14 misled her. “He led me to believe there would be no negative consequences to having an abortion since a ‘fetus is nothing.’ But he never told me I would be depressed, fearful and suffer from anxiety for years to come. He lied.”

King knows all too well the lies the “pro-death” industry tells desperate, unsuspecting women. “I told my doctor I hadn’t had a menstrual cycle in three months, and he said, ‘You don’t need another baby,'” she claims.

King says he dilated her cervix and performed what he called “a menstrual extraction.” “I heard a pop, and blood gushed out. I didn’t ask for it, but he gave me an illegal abortion with no anesthesia.”

Abortionists may use many of the same tactics today, but pro-life groups are initiating new legislation that will stem the tide of abortion in the United States. When voters in South Dakota, Colorado and California went to the polls in November and said no to legislation that would have redefined or restricted abortion-or in the case of Colorado, put it on a par with first-degree murder-pro-life advocacy groups went to work on new legislation.

Observers credit the pro-life surge to President Barack Obama’s staunch pro-choice voting record and recent actions that support abortion. In January, he struck down the Mexico City Policy, which would have prohibited U.S. dollars from being used to fund family-planning clinics in other countries. And his selection of Kathleen Sebelius as Health and Human Services Secretary is a sure sign, say observers, of his commitment to “rescind the abortion conscience clause,” which allows doctors and other medical personnel to refuse to participate in abortions for ethical reasons.

The president’s decisions have brought strong reactions from conservatives, who believe their views represent those of the majority of Americans. A Gallup Poll released in May confirms that more Americans are pro-life. The data revealed that 51 percent of Americans polled consider themselves “pro-life” compared to 42 percent who identify themselves as “pro-choice.”

The research company says “it was the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking the question in 1995.”

The shooting death of prominent late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller by a lone gunman in late May brought to light the hailstorm of controversy that continues to drive the abortion fight. Advocacy groups quickly denounced the shooting but said the president would use the shooting as an excuse to restrict pro-life activities protected by law.

“The Obama administration will use this [murder] as a means to try to punish the pro-life movement,” Mathew D. Staver, founder of the pro-life legal firm Liberty Counsel, told Charisma News Online.

“We will diligently and aggressively resist the administration’s attempt to use this or any other matter that does not represent the pro-life movement to trample on the constitutional rights of pro-lifers.”

Americans United for Life (AUL) launched an aggressive campaign to counteract the efforts and influence of pro-choice organizations such as Planned Parenthood. Denise Burke, vice president of legal affairs, called for “common-sense, medically appropriated regulations of abortion, including informed consent, ultrasound requirements, parental involvement and abortion clinic regulations.”

Christians across the country are using their influence to protect the lives of unborn babies and say believers have a biblical mandate to protect human life. Lou Engle, visionary and co-founder of TheCall solemn assemblies, posted an open letter to the president criticizing his actions concerning the unborn.

“This debate over abortion will only intensify and be inflamed if President Obama, the Congress, and Senate keep pushing the issue of abortion over to the far side of where millions of Americans refuse to go.”

The Church Can Turn the Tide

In 2000, King traveled with Real Women’s Voices to Washington, D.C., to lobby then-Sen. Barack Obama. But she says when the group arrived at his office, the senator walked out the back door.

“I saw him and said, ‘Hello, Sen. Obama.’ He looked down at the floor and walked away.” It’s a response she is used to, but she says it won’t stop her from mounting the steps of Congress to keep the issue of abortion before lawmakers.

In November, King found herself on the opposite side of the political aisle when other members of the King family publicly supported Obama for president. She says her family’s situation is a reflection of a larger issue in the body of Christ.

She knows the struggle some people face because of the overwhelming popularity of the president, especially among African-Americans. But the voices of her babies who died at the hands of abortionists and the millions more who will be aborted this year force her to put racial issues and politics aside and fight for the cause she’s been called to uphold.

She says Christians have a responsibility to protect the next generation of children, and nothing is more important to God than issues of life and spiritual death. “God will deal with the skin-color issue, and yes, there is a problem with racism in America,” King says.

In fact, black pro-life advocates say black babies are aborted at a higher rate than babies in any other racial group. According to staunch pro-life advocate, Johnny Hunter, 1,452 African-American babies lose their lives to abortion every day. He says if the numbers continue to rise, the population of black people in America will dwindle.

Hunter resigned a full-time pastoral position to work with LEARN Inc., a pro-life advocacy group created to save black babies from abortion through education and other resources.

“Abortion is racism in its ugliest form. It nullifies every civil rights gain we’ve ever made,” he says. “What good is the Voting Rights Act to a dead baby?”

Like other pro-life, African-American Christians, King is asked the race question, but says the church must move beyond “political machinations” and start a prayer movement that will lead to spiritual reform.

“Morality cannot be legislated. The human heart must be changed by a divine touch, and the church has the key, the responsibility of leading the way. Has the church fallen short? The answer is yes, and yet it is never too late to return to God,” says King, who attends Believers’ Bible Christian Church, a full gospel congregation in Atlanta.

She says Christians won’t deal with issues of life and abortion because of what she calls “mistaken compassion” and “misplaced compassion.”

“Pastors will say, ‘Oh, we don’t want to hurt the woman’s feelings.’ Or, ‘It’s such a personal issue.’ But the church can stem the tide of abortion in America,” she says.

King urges women around the country to go to their pastors and speak out. “Tell them abortion is bad for children; it’s destroying families.”

Her message to Christians who voted for Obama: Go to Washington on behalf of the babies. She says their voices should be heard first and foremost in Washington.

“They need to tell the president of this land and all of Congress: ‘It is not OK to kill the weak. It is not OK to kill the babies in the name of science. It is not OK to kill the youngest,'” she says.

King says she nearly had a nervous breakdown when she accepted Jesus and came to grips with the fact that her unborn babies were not “blobs of tissue” but were in fact human beings.

“I have a dream in my genes,” King wrote in a message to pro-life constituents. “Ultimately, what brings us the greatest rewards or the worst scars are the choices that we make concerning things that have spiritual consequences. … As my uncle Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘The time is always right to do what is right.’ “

Valerie G. Lowe is associate editor of Charisma. To contact Alveda King, go to

To Christians, death is the doorway to eternal life with God, where troubles cease and peace abounds. To others, it represents uncertainty. But Christ offers salvation through His death, and Jews and gentiles alike can know for certain where we go when we die.

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