Trump's Former Campaign Manager Indicted For Conspiracy Against US, Money Laundering

Paul Manafort, a former campaign manager for U.S. President Donald Trump, and an associate were indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 counts including conspiracy against the United States and money laundering, the federal special counsel's office said on Monday.

Dear Christian, Don't Waste Halloween

Halloween is a strange day for Christians. A wide array of convictions are held concerning Oct. 31. For many, it stirs up images of ghosts and witches and sacrificial ceremonies that find their genesis in the occult. It is the one day of the year that is a reminder of a very real devil and his kingdom of darkness and destruction. Countless Christians (who love Jesus deeply), have a profoundly held belief that to participate in this day in any way is to celebrate, or at the very least, acquiesce to the destructive forces of the enemy of our souls. I understand and have a deep respect for those who choose not to dress up, hand out candy, go to Fall Festivals or any other activity that seeks to normalize a dark holiday. I get it.

However ...

Trump admin will directly help Christians in the Middle East rather than use ‘ineffective’ UN programs

Vice President Mike Pence

Vice President Pence announced Wednesday that the U.S. will provide relief to persecuted Christians in the Middle East directly through USAID rather than “ineffective” United Nations programs.

“It is my privilege to announce that President Trump has ordered the State Department to stop funding ineffective relief efforts at the United Nations,” Pence told the In Defense of Christians summit. “From this day forward, America will provide support directly to persecuted communities through USAID.”

USAID is a government agency that provides foreign assistance.

It “carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad,” its website says.

Cdl. Sarah: Some people ‘exploit the Word of God’ to promote multiculturalism, immigration

Cardinal Robert Sarah has affirmed a nation’s right to distinguish between refugees and economic migrants.

According to Polish newsmagazine wPolityce.pl and other Polish publications, the African cardinal supported Poland’s resistance to a certain “logic” of migration that outside forces are trying to impose on the nation.

“In what manner is it possible to remove the rights of the nation to distinguish between a political or religious refugee, who must flee from his homeland, and the economic migrant, who wants to change his address without adapting himself, identifying with, and accepting the culture of the country in which he will live?” Sarah asked.

Operation Christmas Child rubbishes Humanists UK's claim they are using shoebox appeal to evangelise secretly

A Christian charity has hit back at claims from British humanists that they are using a Christmas appeal to 'manipulate' and secretly evangelise vulnerable children.

Operation Christmas Child is a nationwide campaign where shoeboxes full of gifts are sent from schools across the UK to deprived children in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

But Humanists UK are repeating claims made in previous years that the project, run by the evangelical disaster relief charity Samaritans Purse, is covertly using the appeal to proselytise recipients.

Education campaigns manager Jay Harman described the practise as 'appalling', saying Samaritans Purse was using 'the donations of well-meaning parents and children as a tool for promoting an evangelical Christian agenda'.

5 Teens Charged, Face Life in Prison for Rock Throwing That Killed 32-Y-O Dad

Five Michigan teenagers accused of throwing rocks from a highway overpass that caused the death of a young father were arraigned on second-degree murder and other charges and were all denied bail by a local judge Tuesday.

Calling them a "danger to the public" Genesee District Judge William H. Crawford II said Kyle Anger, 17, Mark Sekelsky and Mikadyn Payne, both 16, as well as 15-year-olds Alexzander Miller and Trevor Gray, all of Clio, should remain in custody due to "the seriousness of the nature of these charges," MLive Michigan reported.

Day one, year zero: October 23, 4004 BC

How old is the universe? Scientists say it's around 14 billion years; young-earth creationists, perhaps around 10,000 years.

For Archbishop Ussher, however, today's the day: because according to him, the world was created on October 23, 4004 BC.

The Gulf of Mexico seen from the International Space Station.

Ussher was the Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland during the most turbulent period of modern British history, the terrible Civil War. He was a fervent anti-Catholic Protestant, though a Royalist who supported King Charles; he watched his execution, but fainted before the axe fell.

Pope offers clarifications on new process for liturgical translations

In a letter responding to questions raised by Cardinal Robert Sarah on the new process of translating liturgical texts from Latin into vernacular languages, Pope Francis offered several points of clarification.

The Pope discussed points regarding the approval of new translations and the relationship between translations and Latin texts.

3 Foods To Make You Feel Happier And Beat Off Depression

We all know that exercise and a balanced diet are keys to being healthy. But did you know healthy foods can also make you feel more happy?

That's right; the foods that you put in your body every day can have an impact on how you feel.

That's especially good to know as we head into the winter months, when the days are shorter and the nights longer.

It's easy for our mood to slide when it's cold and gloomy outside and we've hardly seen the sun. If you're prone to depression or bouts of sadness, then you might want to try making some simple changes to your diet.

Why We Go 'Lookin' for Love in All the Wrong Places'—and How to Stop

Sure, others wound us. But many of our wounds are self-inflicted. God created us for intimacy, but we too often end up looking for love in all the wrong places. And what can we possibly hope to do about it now?

It's not your fault, really. At least it didn't start as your fault. You never fully got the kind of love you needed growing up as an impressionable child. You didn't see "learning to love well" modeled in a healthy way. Your early attempts at feeling important, making it, connecting with someone else, getting your needs met, giving something of yourself—most or all of them ended up leading to some kind of rejection, some lack, some wounds that wouldn't go away. You learned early on that if you were ever to get what you needed, you'd have to claw and scrape and grasp and hold on for dear life.

Some of us seem more wounded than others. If you grew up with parents who loved each other well, stayed together and loved you well, you got a foundation more solid than many others received. But even you have felt the sting of bullying, tragedy, disappointment, failure or just plain old sin.

And so you go looking.

End Time Headlines: How The Enemy Attacks at Infancy

In this message, we will show you how all through history and to the present, the enemy attempts to destroy in its infancy what God has ordained and assigned for the kingdom of God, no matter how great or small

California Okays Third Gender on Driver's Licenses

On the heels of shooting down a bill that would have harmed churches, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill allowing nonbinary people to select a third gender on their driver's license.

While liberals praise the move, conservatives see the negative impact of such a bill.

For the first time, most Americans now say you can be good without God

Most people in the US now accept individuals can have morality without religion as, for the first time, a majority of Americans – 56 per cent – say it is possible to be a good person without believing in God.

This is according to new Pew Research Center data drawn from two polls conducted among some 5,000 American adults in June and July.

The 10 Commandments are a building-block of civilisation – but do you need to believe in God to be moral?

'God is not a prerequisite for good values and morality,' said Greg Smith, Pew's associate director of research. '[T]he public's increased rejection of the idea that belief in God is necessary for morality is due, in large part, to the spike in the share of Americans who are religious "nones"'.

Church shocked and grieving after beloved pastor is found 'burned beyond recognition'

The body of a South African pastor has been found "burned beyond recognition" with his hands tied behind his back in a small farming town about 50 miles outside of Johannesburg.

The body of 45-year-old Martin Beneke, the senior pastor and founder of the Johannesburg-based Life in Christ Network, was discovered in Magaliesburg on Monday. The Life in Christ Network confirmed the pastor's death in a Facebook post Wednesday.

"It is with heavy sadness and sorrow that we have to inform everyone that the founder and head pastor of LICN, Pastor Martin, has passed away on Monday, Oct. 16, 2017," the statement reads. "There are still so many questions we have and answers we need but we trust the process. Thank you to each and everyone who is supporting his wife, two daughters and family. We appreciate it."

Police spokesperson Sergeant Mpho More told media that the discovery of Beneke's body was made by a local farmer who noticed smoke as he traveled a gravel road on his farm.

The Roodereport Record reports that when the farmer went to investigate the smoke, he found Beneke's Nissan pickup truck on fire and a body burned beyond recognition.

Gauteng police announced that Beneke's body was found with his hands tied behind his back and believe that he was kidnapped.

Why does Mike Pence continue to serve a President who mocks his beliefs?

The revelation that President Donald Trump mocks the religious beliefs of his vice-president Mike Pence shouldn't really have surprised anyone.

In a far from flattering profile of Pence in the New Yorker, reporter Jane Mayer recounts how Trump would ask people who saw him after stopping by Pence's office, 'Did Mike make you pray?' He also needled Pence on his views about abortion and homosexuality, once gesturing to Pence when the conversation turned to gay rights and saying, 'Don't ask that guy - he wants to hang them all!'

President Donald Trump (R), and Vice President Mike Pence (L)

Pence's views on these issues are well documented. As an evangelical from a Catholic background, he is vehemently opposed to abortion and homosexuality. As Mayer says: 'He was as far right as you could go without falling off the earth,' Mike Lofgren, a former Republican congressional staff member, who has become a Trump critic, told me.'

Shortage of monks forces abbey closure after nearly 900 years of prayer

A German monastery almost 900 years old will close due to a shortage of men wanting to be monks.

The Himmerod Abbey near the village of Grosslittgen in west Germany is one of the country's oldest prayer houses and was founded in 1134 by the French abbot Bernard of Clairvaux.

The Cistercian monastery has just six monks in residence, down from around 30 less than 40 years ago in the 1970s.

President Trump: Our ‘religious heritage’ will be ‘cherished, protected, and defended’

President Trump said Friday morning that his administration is “stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values” in a rousing speech at the Values Voter Summit.

In his first major speech to a socially conservative conference since his election, Trump addressed parental rights, religious liberty, the right to life, and the importance of God over government.

“This morning, I am honored and thrilled to return” as the first sitting president, he said. Trump joked that he didn’t even need to ask attendees to vote for him, but he was still there.

“Religious liberty is enshrined in the very First Amendment in the Bill of Rights,” he said. We “very, very beautifully” pledge allegiance to “one nation under God."

Pope Francis, Lebanese prime minister discuss Middle East

Pope Francis and the prime minister of Lebanon, Saad Rafic Hariri, discussed Friday the current situation in the Middle East and Lebanon, which has received a large number of refugees from Syria.

According to an Oct. 13 statement from the Vatican, the meeting took place “in an atmosphere of great cordiality,” which enabled a productive discussion of various issues in Lebanon and the Middle East.

The Prophetic Meaning Behind the Full Moon of Tabernacles

The Jewish Feast of Tabernacles began at sundown on Wednesday, Oct. 4, but the best celestial views come at dawn on tabernacles morning.

Two years ago, the fourth blood moon of the 2014-2015 Tetrad occurred on Sept. 27, 2015. Some had seen the blood moons as harbingers of disaster, but the Scriptures speak of blood moons as a sign of the outpouring of the Spirit and salvation (Acts 2:17-21). The blood moon is also a sign of overcoming evil, as the moon, symbolic of believers (Ps. 89:37) is covered by the blood (Rev. 12:11). The fact that the tabernacles blood moon of 2015 occurred in the constellation Pisces (the fish), the sign of the church, reminds us that tabernacles is about the ingathering of the church to spend eternity with God. See our book, The Mystery of the Blood Moons, available on Amazon, for more information.

Robert Grosseteste: The medieval bishop who (nearly) invented the Big Bang Theory

Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253) is remembered today by the Church of England. As Bishop of Lincoln he was a fiery reformer. He stood up for the privileges of the Church against the state, like the martyred Thomas Becket, but he was also dedicated to the spiritual care of his flock. He stood against the practice of settling Church incomes on state officials, because he believed the money should go to supporting priests who would care for their parishes instead.

Grosseteste's Tomb and Chapel in Lincoln Cathedral

But it's as a scientist and philosopher that Grosseteste is remembered today. He lived at the time the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle were becoming known in the Christian West. Aristotle's work had a huge effect on the Western Church as theologians were forced to grapple with new ideas, and Grosseteste learned from and wrote about Aristotle's scientific theories.

Feedback Is Food That Strengthens

The famed management consultant Peter Drucker wrote in Drucker on Asia that the most important thing we can know about ourselves is our personal strengths.

Drucker believed that the Jesuits, a Catholic order founded by St. Ignatius Loyola, and the Calvinists, a Protestant Reform movement founded by John Calvin—both started in the mid-16th century—developed a very valuable technique called "feedback analysis" to help their priests and ministers find their strengths and grow into what they were called to be. Drucker wrote:

'Christ Coin': new Christian digital currency launches - with rewards for the faithful

A 'groundbreaking' new initiative has seen the launch of the world's first Christian cryptocurrency. 'Christ Coin', from the mission company Life Change, seeks to unite the church with its own currency, akin to Bitcoin, that offers financial rewards for the faithful.

A Cryptocurrency is a digital token-based currency that operates independently of a bank or government control. It offers a new way for parties to transfer funds, using encryption techniques to guarantee security.

Microsoft rep calls Catholic Church a key ally in protecting kids online

The head of Microsoft's office for online safety has said the Catholic Church is a key ally in the ongoing effort to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation online.

When asked why a major tech company would partner with the Catholic Church on such an important issue, Jacqueline Beauchere, Chief Online Safety Officer for Microsoft Inc., had a simple response: “why not?”

UK Schools Removing BC, AD Dating to Avoid Offending Non-Christians

Critics have blasted the "capitulation to political correctness" after it was revealed that some schools in the U.K. are removing historical dating terms like B.C., which stands for Before Christ, and A.D., so that they do not risk offending non-Christian students.

Both Muslim and Jewish community representatives have said that they are not offended by the terms being used in religious education classes, however.

The Mail on Sunday reported on the syllabus for schools in East Sussex, which now reads: "BCE and CE are now used in order to show sensitivity to those who are not Christians."