Current Events Archives

This California Bill Threatens Religious Freedom

A bill threatening free speech and religious freedom is quickly moving through the California state assembly.

What’s it all about?

Assembly Bill 2943 (AB 2943) uses the state’s consumer fraud statute to penalize religious freedom and free speech on the issues of homosexuality and gender identity.

The bill adds “sexual orientation change efforts” to the state’s “Consumer Legal Remedies Act.”

How does this affect people of faith?

Both Scripture and Christian teaching are clear about God’s good plan for marriage and sexuality: God designed marriage to join one man and one woman in a committed, exclusive, lifelong relationship.

Topics: Current Events April 10, 2018 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

The Curious “Comedy” of Stephen Colbert

This past Easter Sunday, Stephen Colbert’s animated television show, “Our Cartoon President,” not only lampooned the President (which is expected), but Colbert also had the nation’s chief executive talk crassly about severing a part of God’s anatomy.

Of course, his defenders will says it’s just a joke – satire on steroids. After all, how can we take a cartoon seriously?

Mr. Colbert is an entertainer, and as such, he understands how to get a strong response from a crowd.

Topics: Current Events Tags: entertainment, faith, humor April 4, 2018 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Should Our Christianity Be Private or Public?

Today is Good Friday, the day Christians remember Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins. Sunday is Easter, the day we celebrate His resurrection.

The rest of the world spends this season conjecturing about who Jesus is or debating whether or not He ever existed.

Throughout the culture, the story of Easter is seen as having everything to do with personal faith and nothing to do with objective truth. Religion, it’s believed, doesn’t deal with facts, it deals with personal experience and feelings.

Topics: Current Events Tags: broadcast, church, faith March 30, 2018 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Walmart Removes Cosmo. Could Brio Take Its Place?

In a surprise move yesterday, the retail giant Walmart announced that it will stop selling the controversial magazine Cosmopolitan at the checkout shelves in over 5,000 of its stores.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company will still continue to carry the magazine, but it’ll be housed in a less prominent part of the store.

Meggan Kring, a spokesperson for Walmart, said, “While this was primarily a business decision, the concerns raised were heard.”

Over the years, those concerns came from plenty of frustrated parents and organizations like Focus on the Family, but most recently from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE).

Topics: Current Events Tags: entertainment, events, sex March 28, 2018 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Does Focus on the Family Promote “Gay Conversion Therapy”?

In recent years, reporters and commentators have repeatedly and regularly alleged that Focus on the Family has practiced and endorsed so-called “gay conversion therapy.”

Here are the facts.

As an unapologetically Christian organization, we believe sexuality is a gift from God designed to be stewarded according to the principles He has outlined in Scripture. As part of that understanding, we believe in and support the availability of professional counseling in matters of sexuality that is respectful, safe, ethical and responsive to the client’s values and desires.

Topics: Current Events Tags: faith, homosexuality, relationships March 21, 2018 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

HBO’s John Oliver Attacks Focus on the Family

Social media is abuzz today concerning HBO’s John Oliver’s Sunday night attack on Vice President Mike Pence and Focus on the Family. The “satirical” late-night talk show host’s screed was not just vicious in tone, but also vulgar and vile in every sense of the word and way.

Mr. Oliver’s rant was motivated by the release of a new book by Mrs. Karen Pence and daughter, Charlotte. Entitled, “Marlon Bundo’s Day in the Life of the Vice President,” the second family’s project is centered on the Pence’s pet rabbit.

Topics: Current Events Tags: events, faith, homosexuality, policy March 19, 2018 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Focus on the Family Best Seller List

Week Ending March 9:

The Will of a Man & the Way of a Woman (by Robert & Pamela Crosby)
Family: How to Love Yours (and Help Them Like You Back) (by Jessie Minassian)
Raising a Modern-Day Knight (by Robert Lewis)
Enjoy!: The Gift of Sexual Pleasure for Women (by Cliff and Joyce Penner)
The Married Guy’s Guide to Great Sex (by Cliff and Joyce Penner)
Heaven: My Father’s House (by Anne Graham Lotz)
10 Ways to Say “I Love You” (by Josh McDowell)
Little Book of Great Dates (by Dr.

Topics: Current Events/ Family and Home Tags: faith, family, promos, relationships March 15, 2018 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Take 17 Minutes and Pray for Our Students

You’ve likely heard about the national school walkout happening tomorrow:

Thousands of students will engage in a historic, national demonstration by walking out of their classrooms for 17 minutes—at 10 a.m. in all time zones– to honor the 17 students and staff who were tragically murdered in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. It will likely impact your community—more than 180,000 school kids are expected to participate.

Why the walkout?

Many students simply want a significant way to memorialize those who lost their lives, several of whom heroically sacrificed their own life or incurred injuries while protecting others.

Topics: Current Events March 13, 2018 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Less Hollywood, More Heartland: How the Oscars Forgot Middle America’s Values

Guest Post: Paul Asay, Movie Reviewer, Plugged In:

It’s only fitting that Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water took home an Oscar for Best Picture (and three others) at Sunday night’s Oscars.

Both a lyrical, sensual fable and a brutal immolation of Leave It to Beaver-era America, the movie is a study in inclusion and exclusion: It posits that god-like mermen are people, too, while hypocritical Christian Cadillac buyers are the real monsters.

The film feels pretty emblematic of where Hollywood stands right now—a Hollywood that has pushed through the #OscarsSoWhite and the #MeToo movements with a desire to reward new, diverse storytellers, looking toward a hoped-for future while perhaps burning the (in Hollywood’s eyes) problematic past.

Topics: Current Events Tags: entertainment, events March 7, 2018 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Going Beyond the Gun Control Debates

Last week’s extraordinary public debates about guns, both at the White House and at CNN’s Florida Town Hall, were highly emotional and contentious events. Over a week after the catastrophic carnage in Parkland, Florida, debate concerning what to do about it is raging red-hot, and understandably so. People committing violent acts with guns is a growing epidemic, particularly in schools. Since early January, in addition to Florida, there have been school shootings in Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Topics: Current Events Tags: events, news, policy, pro-life February 27, 2018 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura