By Todd Starnes, Fox News BARTLESVILLE, Okla. (Christian Examiner) — A chapel sermon on love left a student at Oklahoma Wesleyan University feeling "offended" and "victimized." But instead of capitulating to the offended young scholar, OWU President Everett Piper pushed back with a blistering rebuke of what he called "self-absorbed and narcissistic" students. "This is not a day care. This is a university," he wrote in a blog that has since gone viral. Back home in Tennessee, we call that a "Come to Jesus" moment. To read the rest of the story, click here. … [Read more...]

By Art Toalston, Baptist Press NASHVILLE (BP) - LifeWay has completed the sale of its 14.5-acre campus in downtown Nashville. "Although this momentous event is cause for thanksgiving, it is also bittersweet," Thom S. Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, wrote in an email to the Southern Baptist entity's trustees and employees Nov. 24 after the sale was announced around 5 p.m. "LifeWay has served the bride of Christ from this property for more than 100 years," Rainer wrote. "Those of us who serve today continue an unbroken line of tens of thousands of employees who have stewarded the responsibility to produce trustworthy Christian resources for the church. And, we will continue to do so into the future, but from a new location." The sale was announced in a joint news release from LifeWay and Southwest Value Partners, a private real estate investment firm based in San Diego. The news release noted that LifeWay "will continue to occupy a portion of the campus over the near term until it determines the permanent location of its corporate headquarters." A sale price of $125 million cash was stated by an attorney for Southwest Value Partners to The Tennessean daily newspaper, but the joint news release did … [Read more...]

By Roy Hauhurst, GuideStone Financial Resources DALLAS — The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 6 agreed to hear appeals by several ministries, including GuideStone, to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate that would require certain ministries served by GuideStone to provide abortion-causing drugs and devices or face crippling penalties. The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the appeal means that ministries continue to be protected from sanctions until at least June 2016, when a final ruling is rendered. The announcement is welcomed news, said GuideStone General Counsel Harold R. Loftin Jr. “We are grateful that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear our appeal,” Loftin said. “We trust the Court will provide a fair hearing of our arguments early in 2016 and look forward to the resolution of the case.” The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case was expected by legal observers after the St. Louis-based Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in September in favor of a group of ministries seeking relief from the mandate. The Eighth Circuit’s decision broke with decisions by most other circuit courts, including a three-judge panel of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against GuideStone in its … [Read more...]

  By Will Hall, Message Editor ALEXANDRIA  – Conservative political and cultural commentator Ann Coulter has accused Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm of being “desperate for liberal approval” after publication of his editorial in the New York Times which took aim at evangelicals who support billionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump. Moore, president of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee, which, broadly speaking, is tasked with representing Southern Baptists’ views in the public square, published an opinion piece in which he alluded to Trump as “a cartoonish TV character.” “Donald J. Trump stands astride the polls in the Republican presidential race, beating all comers in virtually every demographic of the primary electorate,” Moore wrote. “Most illogical is his support from evangelicals and other social conservatives. “To back Mr. Trump, these voters must repudiate everything they believe,” he said. Listing Trump’s known moral failings, Moore was incredulous that “some self-identified evangelicals are telling pollsters they’re for Trump. Worse, some social conservative leaders are praising Mr. Trump for ‘telling it like it is.’” “In the 1990s, … [Read more...]

Houston residents vote down LGBT equal rights measure...   And elsewhere in the country: Pot legalization loses big in Ohio COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio voters rejected a ballot proposal Tuesday that would have legalized both recreational and medical marijuana in a single stroke — a vote-getting strategy that was being watched as a potential test case for the nation. Failure of the proposed state constitutional amendment followed an expensive campaign, a legal fight over its ballot wording, an investigation into petition signatures — and, predominantly, a counter campaign against a network of 10 exclusive growing sites it would have created. It was the only marijuana legalization question on the 2015 statewide ballots. About 65 percent of voters opposed the measure, compared to 35 percent in favor. McAuliffe and Bloomberg Gun control flop in Virginia Republicans retained their 21-19 majority in the Virginia Senate on Tuesday, prevailing in a more than $43 million off-year election battle with Democrats for control of the General Assembly. With Republicans easily maintaining their 2-1 edge in the House of Delegates, the apparent victory by Glen H. Sturtevant in a key Senate race in the Richmond area … [Read more...]