Approximately 15 seconds of video from the March for Life had many Christian leaders united in a harsh condemnation of an anonymous teenage boy this weekend.

The clip showed a tight shot of a Catholic high schooler in a red “Make America Great Again” hat grinning, or, to some minds, sneering, at a Native American veteran who stood inches away playing a drum. The clip was circulated with the claim that the boy and his classmates surrounded and taunted the veteran by chanting, “Build the wall.”

The elders of Harvest Bible Chapel announced Wednesday that Pastor James MacDonald would take an “indefinite sabbatical” from preaching and leadership at the Chicago megachurch while it works to reconcile with past critics. The decision came after the church’s Executive Committee of the Elders held a closed-door meeting on Monday and presented its recommendations to the entire Elder Board Tuesday night.

Five years ago, Harvest Bible Chapel, a Chicago-area megachurch with multiple campuses and an average weekly attendance exceeding 12,000, sent shock waves through the Christian community when it publicly excommunicated two former elders and indirectly censured a third.

We may think of Europe as largely a democratic continent and the seedbed for U.S. law and government. But a recent landmark case in Europe shows just how far Western jurisprudence is divided—or should be—by the Atlantic Ocean.

The European Court of Human Rights last month found an Austrian guilty of “disparaging religious doctrine” and fined her under Austria’s blasphemy law, Section 188 of its criminal code. 

I write on the cusp of a momentous event—the most crucial midterm election of my lifetime. It replaces the previous most-crucial midterm of my lifetime, which occurred in 2014. Farther back in memory is the third most-crucial midterm of 2010. But no sooner will Nov. 6 come and go than the general election of 2020 will loom like a tidal wave of crucial importance. Every two years the stakes crawl higher, with more lives and futures at risk. Everything we hold dear is on the line, threatened with extinction if the other side wins.

Or maybe not.

Evangelical churches have become political echo chambers—and many of their congregants prefer it that way. Surprisingly, younger evangelicals—those 35 to 49 years old—desire homogeneity more than their elders.

The entire board of Willow Creek Community Church and its remaining lead pastor, Heather Larson, announced at a church meeting Wednesday night they were stepping down. Their departures follow the abrupt resignation of Lead Teaching Pastor Steven Carter on Sunday and the publication of another report of sexual harassment involving church founder and former Pastor Bill Hybels.