Southern Evangelical Seminary President Dr. Richard Land lived through the civil rights movements of the 1950s and ’60s—in the South, no less. But what the country is witnessing today, nearly six decades later, begs the question, “How We Can Exorcize the Ghosts of the Past.”

In a recent column, “Racial Reconciliation and the Gospel,” he declares that America still confronts a great racial divide, and there is an urgent need to close that tragic gap as quickly as possible.

“It grieves me to witness the extent to which racial mistrust and animosity still beset and bedevil America,” Land wrote. “However, given the visceral response generated by the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York, it is clear that we still have a long way to go in our national life before we achieve Dr. King’s dream of a nation where people are not judged ‘by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.'”

Land added that it’s evident that there still exists a serious rift in the nation’s social fabric when black Americans and white Americans view incidents and headlines through such contrasting lenses—and it’s a rift that must be healed quickly before further alienation and damage are done.

The church, adds Land, will be key to achieving true racial reconciliation and justice.

“It would seem that the ‘salt’ of the law has done most of the heavy lifting it can do to relieve racial injustice,” he said. “The salt of the law can change actions, behaviors and habits. However, it is only the light of the gospel that can change attitudes, beliefs and hearts.”

In the wake of Ferguson and Staten Island, people default to their past experiences, Land wrote. He adds that he has never had a negative experience with a police officer of any color, but he knows few African-Americans who have not had truly bad experiences with the police or know someone who has.

“The only way to truly bridge this divide, heal this rift and move forward is for Christians, twice-born men and women, to come forward and take the lead in the immediate formation of ethnically diverse coalitions where people can tell each other their stories and begin to exorcise the ghosts of the past together,” he said. “Ultimately, we must seek to get out of our comfort zones and strive with intentionality to form truly multi-ethnic, multi-class churches where people of differing ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds worship together and minister to one another as equal members of the local body of Christ. Then we will hear and know each other’s stories, and we will put faces we know on racial and economic injustice. Such churches will truly transform our culture.”

Dogs go to heaven, at least according to Pope Paul IV—not Pope Francis. The statement has made its rounds through major media outlets, including , with the pet-loving sentiment attributed to the current head of the Vatican.

According to Today, “Pope Francis never actually commented on the issue of whether dogs will do to heaven. According to Vatican Radio, the Pope said to a general audience (not a distraught boy as originally reported): ‘The Holy Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this wonderful design also affects everything around us.'” 

Today attributed the pro-animal statement to a quote from Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The paper reported it was Paul VI who had comforted a distraught boy with the words: “One day, we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.”

Dogs or not, we know heaven will be a place of glory. 

It’s a cold dose of reality. Samuel L. Jackson challenged his celebrity colleagues, or “all you celebrities out there who poured ice water on your head,” to lift their voices.

Specifically, to sing the “We-ain’t-gonna-stop-till-people-are-free song,” which Jackson launches into in the video originally posted on his personal Facebook page over the weekend.

It’s Jackson’s battle cry for Eric Garner, the continuance of an nationwide campaign against racial profiling. 

The video was posted the same day an estimated 25,000 people protested in New York, calling for police officers who kill black civilians without proper cause to be held accountable. Marches also took place in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., according to The Independent.

Here are some of the lyrics: 

“I can hear my neighbor cryin’ ‘I can’t breathe’

Now I’m in the struggle and I can’t leave

Calling out the violence of the racist police

We ain’t gonna stop till people are free

We ain’t gonna stop till people are free”

Her name may not be on the tip of your tongue, but earlier this month, she joined the ranks of Gandhi, John F. Kennedy Jr., Queen Elizabeth II and dozens more. 

Katie Meyler, a graduate of North Central University whose involvement in youth group and mission trips in high school led to a deeper understanding of poverty around the world, was named as Time‘s Person of the Year for her caregiver role in fighting Ebola. She works in Liberia, combating the disease in the slum of West Point. Her life demonstrates putting others first, as she fights on the front lines of this devastating disease. 

Her time in Liberia, though, isn’t her first brush with immersing herself in poverty.

“There were a lot of drugs and abuse and chaos in my family when I was growing up. … Then in high school, my youth group did a service project in Haiti. When I got there, I met a little girl who didn’t have running water, deep in a village. I realized, oh my God, I’m not poor and I never was. It just really changed me,” Meyler told One Thing New of how she came to work in Liberia. “They say that no one ever chooses Liberia—Liberia chooses you. The reason people say that is that it’s just so intense. “

Before Ebola ran so rampantly, Meyler ran a school for the girls in the slum, More Than Me, which has now been turned into an outreach center.

According to its website, “As long as there is Ebola in Liberia, our girls are at risk. More Than Me is fighting with everything we are made of to end this epidemic that terrorizes our children and the communities in which they live. We are doing this by understanding the pulse of the local people, remaining flexible to respond rapidly to urgent needs, and supporting efforts that have the highest return.”

Meyler refuses to let the disease distract from her work. Now that Ebola has been staunched in West Point, Meyler’s teams have been stationed in other areas around Monrovia, according to NBC. 

“The past few months have been filled with some of the most intense moments of my life, but they’ve also been some of the proudest. I’m honored to be listed next to these truly inspiring people and want to take this time to recognize everyone, on this list or not, who has helped fight Ebola on the front lines,” Meyler said on the More Than Me blog.

I saw the movie Exodus: Gods and Kings this weekend, and if nothing else, it certainly made me think. In fact, I spent the entire time driving home in prayer, because the film, if nothing else, will challenge you.

First thing’s first, in my opinion, you should definitely see this movie in the theater. Why? Because it’s one of the most massive films I’ve seen in a good, long while. The scale of the thing is simply enormous, and one of the things I enjoyed about it was finally being able to see that time period and this important biblical event played out in all of its 140 million-dollar budget glory.

Of course, the thing most Christians want to know going into this is probably, how did they change the story, and how did they portray God and Moses? Well, they certainly changed the story a bit, and they definitely messed up the portrayal of God and Moses.

I find it interesting how the directors of these big-­budget biblical films are, for the most part, atheists. Knowing creative people, I am certain they are not low on ideas for films to make, so why decide to make a film about a Bible story at all, if you don’t believe the Bible is anything but a series of ancient writings and hocus pocus? If pressed, I think they might say that there was something inherent in the story, as a human story, that appealed to them.

This is made clear early on in Exodus, when Christian Bale’s Moses tells his wife and son that, basically, the only thing you should really believe in is yourself. Having taught creativity for over a decade, I can say with certainty that all artists reveal their true beliefs in their work, no matter how much they may try to remain neutral. In a film like Exodus, which is essentially about God and men, it’s only natural that director Ridley Scott’s true beliefs about God will be made apparent.

As was the case with Noah, I don’t have much of a problem with some of the creative licenses Scott took with the story itself. OK, the plagues happen in rapid succession, most have a seemingly natural explanation, and Moses only talks to Pharaoh twice in all that time. It’s not how the Bible tells it, but I get that the story needs to keep moving, and in the end, it’s still very apparent that this is all God’s doing.

Hey Ridley, you want to play up the Moses/Ramses relationship? You want to make Ramses more of a short-sighted weakling than a hard­-hearted tyrant? You want to ignore the fact that Moses was less the rebel warrior and much more the cowardly lion? All fine. You’re adapting a story, and things have to change. Again, as a screenwriter and a filmmaker, I get it. The problem with this film is ultimately the same problem Noah had: The people making this film don’t know who God really is, and therefore God looks like the reason you say you don’t believe.

When I first heard Scott was going to use an 11-year-­old boy as the representation of God in Exodus, I wasn’t too concerned. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. After all, you certainly don’t want to make God some invisible voice—film is a visual medium so we need something to look at. But once I saw it and saw the effect it had in conveying who God is, I realized that this decision was either a conscious shot at the God I love, or it was an unintentionally bad decision. Either way, this, I think, will be the problem most Christians will have with this movie.

Casting God as a child inherently turns God into a child. And when He rails away at Moses (who, by the way, comes across as the compassionate one in the film—just like Noah was) God is characterized as a petulant child who just wants His way. Now, when you read the biblical text, I can see how one might view God in this way based on the raw story. God is sick and tired of His chosen people being tortured as slaves, and He’s going to show these Egyptians what a real God looks like while at the same time freeing His kids.

And because God decides to flex His muscles a bit, a lot of people suffer and die. If you simply take that at face value, of course you’re going to think God is a borderline lunatic with a (cough) messiah complex. But you cannot understand any story in the Bible outside the context of the rest of the Bible, as well as taking into account the enormous cultural differences between 1300 B.C. and 2014 A.D. When you read the rest of the Bible, and indeed even the rest of the Exodus story, you find a God who has emotions, is hurt by His own children, but is also overwhelmingly patient and loving. He’s not a schizophrenic, or “mercurial” (in other words, moody) as Christian Bale characterized him in an interview.

With Exodus, we’re left, ultimately, with a flawed God who is far less compassionate than His chosen instrument, Moses. I guess it could have been worse. At least in the film God is real, however flawed, heartless and stubborn as He’s portrayed. Thankfully, this isn’t the true God of the Bible, the true God whom I love and is my friend, and who I trust with everything that I am.

Looking at the many reviews for Exodus, from Christians and non-Christians alike, I certainly have to agree with the majority. Exodus: Gods and Kings is an enormous, beautiful, ambitious, yet fundamentally flawed film.

Darren Wilson is the founder of Wanderlust Productions and the creator of various films, including Finger of God, Furious Love, and Father of Lights. Darren’s new book,Finding God in the Bible, is available in stores everywhere. Visit his website at .  

It’s not that I have something against the friendly, old guy with the red suit and reindeer. I like his belly laugh and think it’s cute that he has a perpetual twinkle in his eyes. Even so, my husband and I have decided to ban Santa from the Christmas activities at our house. 

Before I get to the whys of our decision not to include Santa at Christmas, let me get this off my chest. Santa is not a doctrinal issue. Santa isn’t even an issue that defines good parents or good Christians. Lots of people I know who love the Lord and love their kids tell their children about Santa. And to my knowledge no one has been scarred for life by the fairy tale of Santa and his eight tiny reindeer. 

I’d just like to start a conversation about the reasons why I’ve decided the story of Santa is best untold to the little ears on my watch. Here are the reasons we’ve opted not to tell our children about Santa. 

• We want them to understand what happened in the manger as clearly as possible.  

Noel Piper wrote a great blog about her own decision not to tell her children about Santa. Her logic helped me crystallize my own reasons for leaving Santa out of our Christmas conversations. She writes: 

“We want our children to understand God as fully as they are able at whatever age they are. So we try to avoid anything that would delay or distort that understanding. It seems to us that celebrating with a mixture of Santa andmanger will postpone a child’s clear understanding of what the real truth of God is. It’s very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part-truth and part imagination to find the crumbs of reality.” 

• Santa has some God-like characteristics.

“He sees you when you are sleeping. He knows when you’re awake.” In other words, Santa is omnipresent and omniscient—he sees everything and knows everything. In reality, these are characteristics reserved only for God. 

When pressed about our reasons for not teaching our kids about Santa, my wise husband usually says something like this: 

“We don’t think they can understand the difference when we say, there is an Easter bunny who brings you presents if you’re good, but he’s not real. There is a tooth fairy who knows when you are sleeping and brings you money if you lose a tooth, but she’s not real. There is a Santa who brings you gifts if you are good, but he’s not real. And there is a Jesus who is always watching you and wants to give you good things, but He is real.” 

It just seems plain ole’ confusing to ascribe attributes of God to fictional characters and then have to explain the difference between those characters and a living God some day. 

• Santa is soft on sin.  

No one actually gets a lump of coal for Christmas. It doesn’t matter how bad my children behave, there will always be gifts under the tree. I think it might be confusing to them to hear that Santa is keeping a list of their rights and wrongs, but there won’t really be any consequences for their sin. Also, that long list of naughties and niceties doesn’t really speak much to the gift of grace. Especially since Santa always checks the list twice. 

• We want our kids to know where presents come from.  

Our gifts are already under the tree. Our kids know that we bought them, we wrapped them, and we can’t wait to give them to them! They understand that those gifts cost money out of our pockets. It’s not that I want to hold over their heads the financial sacrifices that come with giving gifts to them, but I do want them to be grateful, both to us as their parents, and to God who provides us with jobs so we can have money to buy gifts. Santa has a whole city full of elves making gifts all year long. Those gifts don’t cost anybody anything. I think that makes them easier to disregard and be ungrateful for. 

• Because of the baby in the manger.  

The most important reason we have opted not to include Santa in our Christmas is because it isn’t about him. It’s about Immanuel—God with us! I know there are many other good things that creep into our holiday celebrations such as time with family, good food, and gifts, but I don’t want anything to distract my kids from the wonder of the King who came to earth to die for their sins. It’s not worth taking the risk of allowing a fella as jovial and generous as Santa to do just that. 

What about you? What will you do to keep your family focused on Jesus this Christmas?

Taken from Erin Davis’s blog post “Some Thoughts on the Guy With the Red Suit.”. Used with permission.

The Voice contender Craig Wayne Boyd gave an incredible, heartfelt performance of “The Old Rugged Cross” to prime-time audiences last week. Watch, and be moved!

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is at it again, attempting to force two American towns to remove their nativity scenes from near government buildings. But Jay, Florida, and Brookville, Indiana, have no intention of removing the real meaning of Christmas from public display.

Instead, the city of Jay declared the nativity scene as surplus property, which was then acquired by the Santa Rosa County Ministerial Association. It now stands at a busy corner at the town’s main stop light—ironic, say nativity supporters, because many more people will see it there.

Brookville is going a step further and ignoring FFRF’s letters and instead rallying around its nativity. The town even planned a candlelight walk for this past Saturday as a show of support.

American Pastors Network says FFRF’s actions are a direct attack not simply on religion but on religious liberty in America.

“Anyone who actually takes time to study our nation’s history and read the writings of our founders—not the interpretations of those writings written 200 years later—knows that religious liberty and the acknowledgement of Almighty God as the source of that liberty are the bulwark of our nation,” said APN President Sam Rohrer. “Threats like these against towns that want to display nativities are a blatant attack on our God-given and constitutionally protected freedoms.

“Groups like FFRF base their arguments on the sound bite of ‘separation of church and state,’ but again, history proves these arguments wrong, as Thomas Jefferson’s famous ‘wall’ was in response to the sincere concerns of the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut that religious freedom might be considered a favor granted by government rather than an inalienable right given by God. FFRF would do well to remember that Jefferson himself attended congressionally approved church services held in the U.S. Capitol building itself—the seat of American government. The truth remains that public displays of the nativity scene on government property in no way violate the Constitution. FFRF’s attempts to stifle religious liberty, however, do.”

In 2012, FFRF also targeted a nativity scene in the town of Century, about 25 miles from Jay. In Century, the nativity was also purchased by a church, placed on donated property and illuminated with donated electricity.

Do you ever wonder why teenagers, whom you have seen brought up in the church, aren’t very forthright about spreading the gospel? There could be several reasons for this, including these seven:

1. Because you’re doing it for them. Think “outreach” in youth ministry and we automatically think “event.” The words go together like “dodge” and “ball.” The challenge is that our teenagers themselves are our biggest outreach “event.” Because the average teenager has around 400 online and face-to-face friends they must be inspired, equipped and unleashed to engage them in Gospel conversations. Think about that for a moment, the average teenager has more friends than the average youth room can hold! But we have an almost irrepressible appetite for doing outreach events instead of mobilizing our teenagers to be the outreach event.

To make the switch we must turn from quarterbacks to coaches. Instead of just saying, “Hey, kids, bring your friends out and watch me throw the touchdown throw of salvation in their lives,” we must equip them to bring the “J” word up with their own peers. Of course, outreach events are fine and good and needed from time to time. But if they are replacing, rather than enhancing, our teenagers’ personal evangelism efforts then they are limiting our true outreach effectiveness.

2. They don’t understand the urgency. When’s the last time you talked about the reality of hell with your teenagers? Yes, that’s right, hell. Of the 12 times the word “hell” is mentioned in the New Testament 11 are mentioned by Jesus Himself. Perhaps the scariest story in all of the Bible is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus paints a picture of eternity in hell in terrifying colors. Was he using scare tactics? Of course he was! In the same way a dad uses scare tactics on their 4-year-old child who is chasing a ball toward a busy street at rush hour.

It’s out of love that Jesus “scares” us with what is at stake for those who are lost. And, of course, we want to motivate teenagers to share the good news of Jesus to their lost friends, not just because of the hell they are headed to but because of the “hell” they are going through apart from Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself was clearly motivated by this: “But when He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion for them, because they fainted and were scattered, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36).

3. It’s not a true priority in your youth ministry. I’ll never forget getting a personal tour of a multimillion dollar nonprofit Christian ministry and asking the tour guide an awkward question. On a plaque this ministry had listed their values and priorities for all who entered their building to see. The first one was evangelism. I simply asked the tour guide which of their many divisions were focused on evangelism and how it was being fleshed out on a grass-roots level. She looked at me dumbfounded (as the other ministry leaders who were with me cringed.) Evangelism was a plaque priority but not a real priority in this ministry. The same is true in many churches and youth ministries.

D.L. Moody used to say that he could tell more about a man’s priorities by his checkbook than his prayerbook. Why? Because we put our money where our heart is! I say that I can tell more about a youth ministry’s priorities when it comes to evangelism by its Wednesday night program rundown than any clever missional slogan (“to know him and make him known,” etc.) on their ministry flyer or website page.

If evangelism is truly a priority, then are youth leaders scheduling time for evangelism training on their calendars and in their weekly meetings? Are you carving out time to have teenagers share stories (good, bad and ugly) about gospel conversations they are currently engaged in? Are you taking the time to give the gospel just in case any unreached teens showed up that week? Youth leaders schedule time for games, announcements, teaching, worship and even snacks on a weekly basis. Are you also scheduling time for the advancement of the most important message on the planet (aka “the gospel”)?

4. They don’t know how to bring it up. If teenagers don’t know how to bring up the gospel to their friends they probably won’t. If their friend says, “It’s hot in here” and they respond “It’s hot in hell too,” that’s probably not the best strategy. Teenagers must be equipped to naturally engage their friends by asking questions and listening. The free Dare 2 Share app has a simple strategy we use called “Ask, Admire, Admit” on the “How 2 Share” segment than can be very effective in equipping teenagers to bring the good news up with their peers. We also have developed high-quality, beautifully illustrated outreach books that youth leaders can receive free of charge on .

Over 260,000 of these books are being used across the nation to help teenagers engage in gospel conversations. Teenagers simply write a note in the front of the book, hand it to their friend, ask them to read it and then to talk with them about it afterward. A brilliant and simple plan for teenagers to bring the gospel up with their friends.

5. It’s not being modeled by your leaders (and, yes, that includes you). Share the gospel. Have your leaders do the same. Set the pace as leaders. Enough said.

6. They suffer from a lack of gospel fluency. Could your teenagers pass the microphone test? If I put a microphone up to their face as they were leaving youth group and said, “You have two minutes to explain the gospel message to me” could they do it in a clear and comprehensive enough way for a lost person to understand the good news? If not, then your teenagers are not fluent enough in the gospel message.

A few years back, Propaganda (Jason Petty) and yours truly did a youth group curriculum video series called Life in 6 Words: The Gospel Explored that is designed to build your teenagers’ gospel fluency. Get it and use it. When you’re finished your teenagers should be able to pass the microphone test.

7. Not enough intercessory prayer. “Therefore I exhort first of all that you make supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for everyone, for kings and for all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty, for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:1-4).

Is intercessory prayer for the lost a “first-of-all” level priority in your youth ministry? As someone once said, “We must learn to talk to God about men before we talk to men about God.”

If every week in youth group you set aside some time for intercessory prayer for the salvation of the unreached teenagers in your community, God’s unquenchable love for the lost will begin to marinate into the souls of your teenagers. As they yield to the person of the Spirit in prayer they will also yield to the passion of the Spirit in evangelism.

These seven obstacles to your teenagers sharing their faith can be removed if you are willing to prayerfully and persistently make evangelism a youth-group wide priority as well as one in your own life.

So let’s get cracking!

Greg Stier is a husband, a father, a preacher, an author, a twitchy revolutionary and a fanatic for Jesus. He’s the president of Dare 2 Share Ministries which has led thousands of students to Jesus and equipped thousands more to reach their world with the gospel. He blogs at .

For the original article, visit .