Breaking Christian News on The Gospel Herald

For 75,000 "queen and king" teens with special needs, the annual Tim Tebow Foundation "Night to Shine" prom was the place to be Friday evening, across 375 host churches in 50 states, 11 countries and six continents. Making it even better in Haiti and in Jacksonville, Fla. was that Christian athlete and former Florida Gator quarterback Tim Tebow attended those events to add his personal, special blessings.

Faith allows people to put everything into perspective, said Mark Jackson, former Golden State Warriors head basketball coach who once served as the pastor of True Love Worship Center International in Reseda, Calif.

The second season of CNN's original series "Finding Jesus" reportedly explores groundbreaking science and discoveries to reveal more about the life and times of Jesus Christ. Premiering March 5 at 8 p.m. CST, the show's producers said the latest scientific techniques and archaeological research were tapped to learn more about Jesus.

Former pro football athlete and current author, motivational speaker and actor T. C. Stallings said the Lord shifted his passion from sports to acting, and he deliberately has managed that part of his career through film representation that protects his faith. "God is author of my life, and the director of my movies," he proclaims.

Wednesday night on The Late Show, host Stephen Colbert and his guest, actor and comedian Ricky Gervais, proved it's possible to have a civil, yet robust, discussion about different viewpoints regarding religion. Colbert, a devout Catholic, started off by asking Gervais, an outspoken atheist, "Why is there something instead of nothing? Why does the universe exist at all?"

Pastor Rick Warren, of Saddleback Church in California, said this year's 65th annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., on Thursday is particularly important due to how estranged Americans have become following the recent presidential election. More than 3,000 attendees are expected.

President Donald Trump announced on social media Monday he will announce his Supreme Court choice two days earlier than scheduled. "I have made my decision on who I will nominate for The United States Supreme Court," Trump tweeted. "It will be announced live on Tuesday at 8:00 P.M. (W.H.)."

U.S. Supreme Court judges said they won't hear an appeal from the family on TV's "Sister Wives," which challenges Utah's law that bans polygamy. The decision ends the long legal fight of Kody Brown's family to overturn a seldom used and unique provision of Utah's law about polygamous families, which bars married people from living with a second purported "spiritual spouse" even if the man is legally married to just one woman. Utah's law is stricter than anti-bigamy laws in other states.

Incarcerated men and women will receive a free copy of Sr. Pastor Tony Evans' latest book "Detours: The Unpredictable Path to Your Destiny" through a special, "buy one-give one" launch campaign offered by B&H Publishing Group and the Prison Fellowship Ministries. For each purchase of Detours redeemed on www.DetoursBook.com before Feb. 28, 2017, B&H will donate a corresponding copy to the prison ministry program.

Church choirs sang, a half-dozen religious leaders prayed and Donald Trump, as U.S. presidents before him, mentioned God in his inauguration speech. "There should be no fear. We are protected and we will always be protected. We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement. And most importantly, we will be protected by God," he said.

Bishop Eddie Long, pastor of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., died Sunday morning. Long, 63, had been battling cancer- and health-related issues for several months.

Martin Scorsese, Academy Award winner and director of the new film Silence, joined Fuller Theological Seminary faculty for a private screening of the movie, followed by a discussion about faith. The sold-out screening and interview with Scorsese, held at Laemmle's Playhouse 7 Theatre in Pasadena, was coordinated through Reel Spirituality, an initiative of the Fuller's Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, and the Arts at Fuller Seminary.

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and other civil rights landmarks in Birmingham, Ala., were designated on Thursday as the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument by President Barack Obama in one of his last official acts as U.S. leader. This church is where four girls died in 1963 after Ku Klux Klan members detonated more than a dozen sticks of dynamite outside the church basement. He also deemed two other new national monuments: Freedom Riders National Monument in Anniston, Ala., and the Reconstruction Era National Monument in South Carolina.

In what some people are calling the most high-profile religious persecution case since the Cultural Revolution, the former pastor of China's largest state-run megachurch was arrested on Saturday by a local public security bureau in China's coastal Zhejiang province, according to persecution watchdog China Aid. Authorities reportedly re-apprehended Gu "Joseph" Yuese sometime before Christmas; on Jan. 7, his family received an announcement he had been arrested on charges of embezzling funds.

Sex addiction is a very real and dangerous problem - and, like drug and alcohol addiction, can destroy every area of life.

Backpage.com, a website notorious for its facilitation of prostitution and sex trafficking shut down the "adult" sexual services advertising section of its website. The website, which Polaris Project calls "the world's top online brothel," removed the prostitution ads' section hours after a scathing U.S. Senate report concluded the website was the "largest commercial sex services advertising platform in the United States."

Fuller Theological Seminary received a new $50,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to assist evangelical communities in fostering peaceful, respectful engagement with Muslims neighbors. Fuller is the largest multi-denominational seminary in the world.

Rev. John Schlicher said he lay on the ground praying, thinking he and his family would die at the hands of a gunman who killed five people around him in Florida at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Jan. 6. "Even in the midst of evil, there was peace - a peace I can only attribute to God," the United Methodist pastor said, his voice shaking.

Requests are circulating on social media platforms for people to pray for gospel-recording artist James Fortune, who was hit by a drunk driver in four-car accident Wednesday night. Fortune was headed to church at the time of the crash.

New York Police Department (NYPD) managers now allow police officers for religious reasons to wear turbans in place of traditional police caps, and to have beards up to an inch away from their faces.

Famed evangelist Billy Graham has made the Gallup Poll's list of the 10 men most admired by Americans - for a record 60th year.

While Pope Francis tries to heal a decades-old religious rift with China within which Chinese Catholics are divided between loyalty to him and those who are members of a government-controlled official church, China's head of religious affairs on Tuesday said Beijing is willing to have constructive dialogue with the Vatican but stressed Catholics should "hold up high the flag of patriotism" and adapt Catholicism to Chinese society.

The ministries of Samaritan's Purse and Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) recently were listed in the top 10 charities changing the world. "That is an incredible privilege. All of our work is done in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is the One able to change hearts and lives - and able to change the world," stated Franklin Graham, president and CEO of both relief groups.

The award-winning weekly public television series (PBS), "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly," is slated to end after 20 years of broadcasting, announced representatives of WNET, the parent company of Thirteen Productions. The show's last episode will be Feb. 24, 2017. The group's website will remain available, providing an extensive archive, including transcripts of individual shows and streaming videos. Des Moines Register staffers called this show "a blueprint for how to accurately report on religion."

Conservative author and commentator Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News Thursday the destruction in Aleppo, Syria, will be an often remembered part of U.S. President Barack Obama's legacy, rather than his foreign policy for the Iran deal or the death of Usama bin Laden. The chaos in Aleppo is the result of a years-long civil war between Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and rebel forces trying to overtake the government. Obama, during his final press conference on Friday, said he feels "responsible" for some of the suffering in Syria, but he defended his decision to avoid significant military action there. He said while military options short of invasion were tempting, it was "impossible to do this on the cheap."