Police Chaplains Told to Stop Invoking Jesus

By Todd Starnes

For the past seven years Pastor Terry Sartain has ministered to police officers and their families in Charlotte, N.C. Whenever the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Dept. invited him to deliver an invocation, he prayed in “the name of Jesus.”

But not anymore.

Volunteer chaplains in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Dept. will no longer be allowed to invoke the name of Jesus in prayers at public events held on government property.

Major John Diggs, who oversees the chaplain program, told television station WSOC that the policy is a “matter of respecting that people may have different faiths and that it is not aimed at any one religion or denomination.”

Sartain, the pastor of Horizon Christian Fellowship, told Fox News Radio he was scheduled to give an invocation at a promotion ceremony. Before the event, he received a telephone call from his superior major.

“I was told chaplains can no longer invoke the name of Jesus on government property,” Sartain said. “(He said) if I could refrain from that during the invocation he would appreciate that.”

Sartain said he was surprised by the telephone call. The pastor said he’s prayed “consistently” in the name of Jesus at past police department events without any issues.

“I’m very sad about it,” he said. “I’m a pastor and Jesus is the only thing I have to offer to bless people – his life and his person.”

“It brings about a very real concern about where we are heading as a nation,” he said. “I serve a God who loves people unconditionally, who died for their sins on the cross, who wants to reconcile himself to them and love them where they are at – and now I’m told I can’t bless people as a result of that.”

The police department said he could still pray – just not to Jesus.

So to whom was the Christian minister supposed to pray?

“That was my question,” Sartain said. “If I’m going to pray – what should I pray?”

He said the police department wanted him to deliver a “secular prayer.”

“Even when I wasn’t a Christian – in my past – I didn’t even know what a secular prayer was,” he said. “Why even pray if it’s to the one who’s in the room? That could be anybody.”

Sartain said the new policy has put him in a difficult spot.

“You don’t want to compromise your faith,” he said. ‘At the same time you want to honor those who are in charge over you.”

So Sartain asked the police department to withdraw his name from consideration for future public prayers.

“I didn’t really need to do that as a chaplain,” he said of the public prayers. “I still wanted to have the influence with the police officers and their families.”

At least some people in the Charlotte area support the decision to remove the “Jesus-centric” prayers.

“It’s past time when they should’ve made a policy,” ACLU member Jim Gronquist told WSOC. “It’s improper to mix up religion with the function of state agents, and as long as they’re state agents, they should not be able to do that.”

Sartain said it’s apparent that “Christians for the most part are targeted in these days that we exist in.”

“As Christians in the United States of America – what we are saying as believers – is we want the same rights and privileges as everybody else,” he said. “Let the playing field remain level.”

Mysterious Bones May Belong to John the Baptist



Bones claimed to be of John the Baptist that were analysed by the research team. Clockwise from top left, the
knucklebone, ulna, part of cranial bone and molar (together) and rib.

 By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

A small handful of bones found in an ancient church in Bulgaria may belong to John the Baptist, the biblical figure said to have baptized Jesus.

There's no way to be sure, of course, as there are no confirmed pieces of John the Baptist to compare to the fragments of bone. But the sarcophagus holding the bones was found near a second box bearing the name of St. John and his feast date (also called a holy day) of June 24. Now, new radiocarbon dating of the collagen in one of the bones pegs its age to the early first century, consistent with the New Testament and Jewish histories of John the Baptist's life.

"We got some dates that are very interesting indeed," study researcher Thomas Higham of the University of Oxford told LiveScience. "They suggest that the human bone is all from the same person, it's from a male, and it has a very high likelihood of an origin in the Near East," or Middle East where John the Baptist would have lived.

Benny Hinn Announces Reconciliation With Former Wife

Popular televangelist Benny Hinn has officially announced that he and his former wife are on the path to reconciliation after the couple decided two years ago to end their 30-year marriage.

"Our God is a God of restoration and reconciliation. The cross is the ultimate symbol of His unending yearning to reconcile man to God and will be our only hope for healing. I know, for I experienced this healing when I gave my heart to my precious Master Jesus so many years ago; but I have experienced His healing touch more recently when He began His glorious healing work in my own family, as the process of restoration in my marriage has begun," Hinn announced in a recent statement on his website. The charismatic leader revealed that the reconciliation process had started over Christmas.

Suzanne Hinn separated from Benny Hinn on Jan. 26, 2010 and filed a petition for divorce in Orange County Superior Court on Feb. 1, citing irreconcilable differences, court papers revealed.

"I pray every day for you, my precious partner, and I ask that He will move in a mighty way on your behalf -- healing your home, your life, and your finances. I pray that He will make you whole in every area of your life. You are precious to Him, just as you are precious to me. And together we can truly be part of the coming greatest harvest!" Hinn added in the recent statement, addressing his former wife.

Back in 2010 when Pastor Hinn received the news, his ministry expressed shock over Suzanne Hinn's petition for divorce.

"Pastor Benny Hinn and his immediate family were shocked and saddened to learn of this news without any previous notice," said Don Price, longtime senior adviser to Benny Hinn Ministries.

"Although Pastor Hinn has faithfully endeavored to bring healing to their relationship, those efforts failed and were met with the petition for divorce that was filed without notice."

Upon reflecting on his life with his family, Pastor Hinn later suggested that it might have been his constant traveling around the world that distanced him from his wife.

"I've made mistakes because I wasn't the perfect husband and the perfect dad because I was always gone traveling the world," he said on the Aug. 5, 2010 edition of his show "This Is Your Day."

"That's probably what broke the whole thing up," he added. Hinn urged viewers "not to neglect your family," saying that the call of God should first touch the family.

A year after the separation announcement, the Benny Hinn Ministries leader was reported by some sources to have been in a relationship with megachurch pastor Paula White, who herself went through a divorce in 2010.

Hinn and White were pictured last summer in the National Enquirer leaving a hotel in Italy holding hands and were accused of having an affair.

"They're going to talk about you and write ... because it sells ragtag magazines," White said several months after the photo was published. "They're going to lie on you but God's going to tell you to keep your mouth shut."

Hinn admitted to having a friendship with White while he was still married, but said that he "forcefully, categorically and absolutely renounce(s) the lies that have been spread about me and want to set the record straight with you. There is nothing inappropriate or morally improper about my friendship with Paula White. There has been no immorality whatsoever!"

Pastor Hinn is a well known prosperity preacher who travels around the world performing faith healings and teaching that those who follow Christ will be rewarded. He has been the subject of media scrutiny and faced questions over the lavish lifestyle he leads, including the possession of a private jet and a multimillion-dollar home, but he has refused to apologize for it.

"Look, you know there's this idea supposedly that we preachers are supposed to walk about with sandals and ride bicycles. That's nonsense," Hinn has said.

Benny Hinn Ministries and Hinn's World Healing Center Church are located in Grapevine, Texas.

Jesus’s language resurrected

Christian communities in the Holy Land are teaching Aramaic and reviving the ancient dialect

By Diaa Hadid

JISH, Israel (AP) — Two villages in the Holy Land’s tiny Christian community are teaching Aramaic in an ambitious effort to revive the language that Jesus spoke, centuries after it all but disappeared from the Middle East.

The new focus on the region’s dominant language 2,000 years ago comes with a little help from modern technology: an Aramaic-speaking television channel from Sweden, of all places, where a vibrant immigrant community has kept the ancient tongue alive.

In the Palestinian village of Beit Jala, an older generation of Aramaic speakers is trying to share the language with their grandchildren. Beit Jala lies next to Bethlehem, where the New Testament says Jesus was born.

And in the Arab-Israeli village of Jish, nestled in the Galilean hills where Jesus lived and preached, elementary school children are now being instructed in Aramaic. The children belong mostly to the Maronite Christian community. Maronites still chant their liturgy in Aramaic but few understand the prayers.

“We want to speak the language that Jesus spoke,” said Carla Hadad, a 10-year-old Jish girl who frequently waved her arms to answer questions in Aramaic from school teacher Mona Issa during a recent lesson.

“We used to speak it a long time ago,” she added, referring to her ancestors.

During the lesson, a dozen children lisped out a Christian prayer in Aramaic. They learned the words for “elephant,” ”how are you?” and “mountain.” Some children carefully drew sharp-angled Aramaic letters. Others fiddled with their pencil cases, which sported images of popular soccer teams.

The dialect taught in Jish and Beit Jala is “Syriac,” which was spoken by their Christian forefathers and resembles the Galilean dialect that Jesus would have used, according to Steven Fassberg, an Aramaic expert at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

“They probably would have understood each other,” Fassberg said.

In Jish, about 80 children in grades one through five study Aramaic as a voluntary subject for two hours a week. Israel’s Education Ministry provided funds to add classes until the eighth grade, said principal Reem Khatieb-Zuabi.

Several Jish residents lobbied for Aramaic studies several years ago, said Khatieb-Zuabi, but the idea faced resistance: Jish’s Muslims worried it was a covert attempt to entice their children to Christianity. Some Christians objected, saying the emphasis on their ancestral language was being used to strip them of their Arab identity. The issue is sensitive to many Arab Muslims and Christians in Israel, who prefer to be identified by their ethnicity, not their faith.

Ultimately, Khatieb-Zuabi, a secular Muslim from an outside village, overruled them.

“This is our collective heritage and culture. We should celebrate and study it,” the principal said. And so the Jish Elementary School become the only Israeli public school teaching Aramaic, according to the Education Ministry.

Their efforts are mirrored in Beit Jala’s Mar Afram school run by the Syrian Orthodox church and located just a few miles (kilometers) from Bethlehem’s Manger Square.

There, priests have taught the language to their 320 students for the past five years.

Some 360 families in the area descend from Aramaic-speaking refugees who in the 1920s fled the Tur Abdin region of what is now Turkey.

Priest Butros Nimeh said elders still speak the language but that it vanished among younger generations. Nimeh said they hoped teaching the language would help the children appreciate their roots.

Although both the Syrian Orthodox and Maronite church worship in Aramaic, they are distinctly different sects.

The Maronites are the dominant Christian church in neighboring Lebanon but make up only a few thousand of the Holy Land’s 210,000 Christians. Likewise, Syrian Orthodox Christians number no more than 2,000 in the Holy Land, said Nimeh. Overall, some 150,000 Christians live in Israel and another 60,000 live in the West Bank.

Both schools found inspiration and assistance in an unlikely place: Sweden. There, Aramaic-speaking communities who descended from the Middle East have sought to keep their language alive.

They publish a newspaper, “Bahro Suryoyo,” pamphlets and children’s books, including “The Little Prince,” and maintain a satellite television station, “Soryoyosat,” said Arzu Alan, chairwoman of the Syriac Aramaic Federation of Sweden.

There’s also an Aramaic soccer team, “Syrianska FC” in the Swedish top division from the town of Sodertalje. Officials estimate the Aramaic-speaking population at anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 people.

For many Maronites and Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, the television station, in particular, was the first time they heard the language outside church in decades. Hearing it in a modern context inspired them to try revive the language among their communities.

“When you hear (the language), you can speak it,” said Issa, the teacher.

Aramaic dialects were the region’s vernacular from 2,500 years ago until the sixth century, when Arabic, the language of conquering Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula, became dominant, according to Fassberg.

Linguistic islands survived: Maronites clung to Aramaic liturgy and so did the Syrian Orthodox church. Kurdish Jews on the river island of Zakho spoke an Aramaic dialect called “Targum” until fleeing to Israel in the 1950s. Three Christian villages in Syria still speak an Aramaic dialect, Fassberg said.

With few opportunities to practice the ancient tongue, teachers in Jish have tempered expectations. They hope they can at least revive an understanding of the language.

The steep challenges are seen in the Jish school, where the fourth-grade Aramaic class has just a dozen students. The number used to be twice that until they introduced an art class during the same time slot — and lost half their students.

German Researchers Reveal Date of Christ's Death

The U.S. and German geologists claim they had discovered the exact date when Christ was crucified, the International Geology Review reported.

According to the report, published in the academic journal this week, the scientists discovered that Christ had been crucified on Friday, April 3, 33 AD.

Jefferson Williams from the U.S. Supersonic Geophysical together with his German colleagues, Markus Schwab and Achim Brauer analyzed seismic activity near the Dead Sea and the earthquakes’ descriptions in the New Testament’s first book, Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew’s Chapter 27 says that as Jesus lay dying on the cross “the earth did quake, and the rocks rent.”

The scientists, who had detected the signs of two earthquakes in the soil samples from the Dead Sea, revealed that the latter earthquake had occurred between 26AD and 36AD, at the time when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea and when, as all four canonical gospels say, Jesus was crucified.

By putting together several clues from the Gospel of Matthew, combined with the Jewish calendar and astronomical data, the researchers revealed the date of the crucifixion with a fair degree of precision, the journal said.