Breaking Christian News on The Gospel Herald

No one is more afraid of the consequences of President Donald Trump's executive order banning travelers from seven Muslim-majority states than Christians within those designated countries, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Residents of Rienzi, Miss., rallied Saturday after the town's mayor said he was forced to remove a Christian flag from Veterans Memorial Park, following the threat of a lawsuit by an atheist organization, Freedom From Religion Foundation. More than 100 supporters united at the park, where the group waved Christian flags. FFRF representatives said the flag in question needed to come down to avoid unconstitutionally endorsing religion on public grounds.

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?"

One of the most well-known broadcasters in America's history, Paul Harvey, voiced a powerful and straightforward Super Bowl TV commercial for Ram Trucks in 1978, which is being lifted up today as one of the most memorable Super Bowl ads of the past...partially because God plays a starring role in the commercial.

President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and a few family members prayed with Judge Neil Gorsuch before his nomination this week to the nation's highest court, along with Maureen Scalia, and Fr. Paul Scalia, the wife and son of the deceased conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Gorsuch attends an Episcopal church and cited his faith in his nomination speech.

American filmmaker, actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie, who also serves as a special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, stated in an opinion-editorial in the New York Times Thursday it is simply not true that U.S. borders are overrun, or that refugees are admitted to the United States without close scrutiny.

"The only explanation for this [immigration/travel ban] order is that refugees are being used by the president to appeal to his base at the expense of U.S. security," stated Natasha Hall, a former immigration officer with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in an opinion piece published Tuesday in The Washington Post. "Such a move is not only despicable and devastating to the people who desperately crave the safety of our country -- it erodes the American legal system by turning it into a political tool."

A mosque leader in Dearborn, Mich., confirmed that a man who claimed his mother died in Iraq after being barred from returning to the United States under a travel and immigration ban instituted by President Donald Trump this weekend made false claims about when her actual death occurred.

Proclaiming that he believes U.S. religious freedom is "under threat," President Donald Trump vowed Thursday to repeal a rarely enforced IRS rule that indicates pastors who endorse political candidates from the pulpit risk losing their tax-exempt status.

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the late televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr., was tapped by President Donald Trump to lead a task force to reform the U.S. Department of Education.

Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, or Purification of the Blessed Virgin, is being observed today (Feb. 2) by Christians around the world. While it is customary for Christians in some countries to remove their Christmas decorations on Twelfth Night (Epiphany Eve), those in other Christian countries historically remove them on Candlemas. On Candlemas, many Christians (especially Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans, Orthodox and Roman Catholics) also take their candles to their local church, where they are blessed and then used for the rest of the year.

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.

While there may be significant disagreements by religious backgrounds among Americans about the function God plays in sports, one-quarter, or 25 percent, of Americans polled during last month by nonprofit PRRI believe God plays a role in determining the outcome of sporting events. However, 73 percent of the public polled disagreed with this concept.

Former first daughter Jenna Welch Bush Hager shared her thoughts on President Donald Trump's controversial immigration ban on Tuesday, saying the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. "That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war."

After acting attorney general Sally Yates issued a memo Monday ordering U.S. Justice Department lawyers not to defend President Trump's controversial immigration executive order, he "relieved" her of her duties," according to a White House statement late Monday evening. Yates, 56, a career official with a history of bipartisan support and former U.S. President Barack Obama appointee, said she was "not convinced" Trump's immigration order is "lawful" and that the Justice Department would not defend it in court "until I become convinced that it is appropriate to do so." The Washington Post reported Yates was informed of her dismissal 2 minutes before the statement announcing it was sent to reporters.

Clergy were part of a religious outpouring against President Donald Trump's plan to suspend refugee entry from seven Muslim-majority countries. Faith leaders who support the president's executive order as a way to fight terrorism were less vocal this weekend.

President Donald Trump defended his controversial executive order that bars the citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States, as thousands of protesters chanted outside of the White House and at multiple, major U.S. airports on Sunday in opposition of the president's sudden immigration policy change. Trump denied the ban was religiously-driven, but confused matters by also announcing Christian refugees would get first priority for U.S. entry. Many people now are seeking answers about why Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are not on Trump's immigration ban, which are countries in which Trump companies do business.

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.)."

Franklin Graham, evangelical pastor and president of international Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse, said this week President Donald Trump's attempt to protect America from harm is "not a Bible issue." During an interview about Trump's executive orders issued on Friday to impose a four-month refugee freeze into the United States, Graham said there is a difference between showing love and putting lives at risk.

After Steve Bannon was promoted to a role on the National Security Council on Saturday by President Donald Trump, the hashtag #StopPresidentBannon hit the top of Twitter's U.S. trending chart as thousands objected to President Trump's chief strategist. Before his political career, Bannon served as executive chair of Breitbart News, which is considered a far-right news, opinion and commentary website that Bannon described as the platform of the Internet-based alt-right, anti-mainstream movement. Associated Press sources from the White House stated Bannon's addition was "essential to the commander in chief's decision-making process."

Two Christian families from Syria who had been working for nearly 15 years to join relatives in the United States were stopped Saturday at the Philadelphia airport and told to return to Doha, Qatar, due to the immigration travel-related executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Friday. Syria was one of seven countries on Trump's list for short-term banning of entry into the U.S., along with Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. These two families are not refugees, but Christian Syrians, who according to US relatives, had paid for and had earned their visas.

Silicon Valley leaders immediately expressed concern and denounced an executive order signed on Friday by U.S. President Donald Trump that temporarily banned immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States, even if they already were approved to do so. However this ban was temporarily overturned on Saturday after American Civil Liberties Union officials won an emergency stay in federal court, meaning those affected with valid visas cannot be deported and sent back to their home countries.

Persecuted Christians from other nations will be given priority over other refugees seeking to enter the United States, said President Donald Trump in an interview Friday. His full remarks to Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody of The Brody File are slated to air Sunday evening on Freeform, as well as Monday on The 700 Club. The United States admitted a record number of 38,901 Muslim refugees in 2016, according to a Pew study, but nearly the same number of Christians, 37,521, also were admitted.

The closest view yet of Saturn's moon, Daphnis, being between Saturn's rings was just taken by equipment on NASA's Cassini spacecraft, as the moon maneuvered through one of its ring-grazing passes. NASA photographs are still being collected of Saturn, its rings and moons. This particular moon has become popular due to the ripples it creates on the planet's ring.

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.