The successor of John Piper and lead pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis has resigned over alleged leadership issues in the congregation.
Jason Meyer, the pastor for Preaching and Vision of the church’s Downtown campus, resigned from his post last week, The Roys Report said.
He succeeded Piper in 2013 after his election in 2012.
Three other church leaders have also left the church prior to Meyer’s departure, including Bryan Pickering, Ming-Jinn Tong and Richie Stark.
Pickering, former pastor for Care and Counseling, claimed that he resigned from the church due to concern over “unethical behavior” among the elders that has been going on “for a long time.”
The former minister explained this observation through his statement which was read to the congregation.
“I have seen several congregants (current and former), elders (current and former), and a former administrative assistant profoundly mistreated by elders in various ways. I have also seen leadership act in ways I would describe as domineering. I have also seen patterns of deception among our elders that are deeply concerning,” Pickering said.
“I have tried on several occasions since early 2020 to speak up to others about these patterns of behavior,” Pickering continued. “Increasingly in 2021, especially and intensely since March, I, too, have experienced what I would call bullying behavior. It is now clear to me that it is best for everyone for me to resign.”
Kyle J. Howard, a preacher and racial and spiritual trauma counselor, revealed that the resignation of leaders stemmed from the church’s effort to develop reforms over its relationship with the minorities and women in 2019, wherein he was tasked to teach about racial trauma.
Tens of thousands of French protestors march against Covid-19 in Paris on Saturday.
QUICK FACTS:
French citizens are protesting new rules announced by the government earlier this week.
The new rules include mandatory vaccination for health workers and an obligation for citizens to bring in a health pass for most public places, according to Euronews.
About 1,500 people attended in Paris.
5,000 and 4,250 protesters were counted by authorities in the southern cities of Montpellier and Marseille.
A number of right-wing party leaders joined the protest, notes Euronews.
HAPPENING: Massive demonstration on the streets of Paris against the newly annoncier French vaccine passport. Protesters chanting “freedom” and calling for the resignation of President Macron. pic.twitter.com/TvoIyKALGI
One demonstrator’s shirt read, “No to compulsory vaccination, freedom violated!”
Another’s sign said, “Macron, no to the health dictatorship.”
In Marseille, protesters held a banner portraying politicians’ faces, including French President Emmanuel Macron with Hitler’s mustache.
“We are not anti-vaccine at all. We just want everyone to have the freedom to be vaccinated or not. PCR tests may be enough and then we must keep them free,” two shopping center employees said.
NOW – People chanting "Liberté" in Paris as they protest against mandatory vaccinations of health care workers and vaccination passports on Bastille Day (#14Juillet), a national holiday in France.pic.twitter.com/YrP4l0tXwy
A California appeals court struck down a state law that penalized elder-care workers for using incorrect pronouns when referring to elderly long-term care patients.
QUICK FACTS:
The ruling came down from the Court of Appeal of the State of California, 3rd Appellate District.
The July 16 decision in the case—Taking Offense v. State of California—sided with First Amendment speech protections over activists, according to The Epoch Times.
The three-judge ruling was unanimous, representing an upset for the transgenderism movement.
It will affect the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights.
WHAT THE COURT SAID:
The court said that while it “recognized the Legislature’s legitimate and laudable goal of rooting out discrimination against LGBT residents of long-term care facilities,” they agreed with Taking Offense that “the pronoun provision, is a content-based restriction of speech that does not survive strict scrutiny.”
“The pronoun provision—whether enforced through criminal or civil penalties—is overinclusive in that it restricts more speech than is necessary to achieve the government’s compelling interest in eliminating discrimination, including harassment, on the basis of sex. Rather than prohibiting conduct and speech amounting to actionable harassment or discrimination as those terms are legally defined, the law criminalizes even occasional, isolated, off-hand instances of willful misgendering—provided there has been at least one prior instance—without requiring that such occasional instances of misgendering amount to harassing or discriminatory conduct.”
The attorney general “has not shown that criminalizing occasional, off-hand, or isolated instances of misgendering, that need not occur in the resident’s presence and need not have a harassing or discriminatory effect on the resident’s treatment or access to care, is necessary to advance that goal.”
BACKGROUND:
The California Legislature added to the state’s Health and Safety Code in 2017.
Some were surprised when U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanenruled that Barack Obama’s DACA program was created illegally. I don’t think Obama was. He knew he was exceeding his authority when he created it.
On Oct. 25, 2010, when groups supporting rights for undocumented immigrants asked Obama to unilaterally implement immigration reform, he said, “I’m president, I’m not king.”
Six months later, he said, “With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case. … There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president.”
Nevertheless, during the summer before he ran for a second term, he established the DACA program, which suspended deportation for roughly one million undocumented immigrants.
Then, after the drubbing his party took in the 2014 midterm elections, he expanded DACA and established the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program.
Opponents of DAPA and the expanded DACA program obtained a temporary injunction stopping these programs, which in 2016 was affirmed by the Supreme Court in United States v. Texas.
DHS terminated these programs pursuant to a settlement agreement before a final decision could be issued on their legality.
DACA didn’t follow the rules
The plaintiffs argued that DACA was improperly established by a memorandum without undergoing the notice and comment rule makingprocedures required by section 553 of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).
The defendants argued that the memorandum was just a general statement of policy and therefore was not required to comply with the APA’s rulemaking requirements.
A general statement of policy just advises the public of the manner in which the agency issuing it proposes to exercise a discretionary power. It does not impose rights or obligations, and it leaves the agency and its decisionmakers free to exercise discretion.
Judge Hanen found that the DACA Memorandum required USCIS to establish processes to identify individuals who met the DACA criteria and to begin the proceedings for deferred action, and it gave DACA participants the right to request work authorization, Social Security, and Medicare.
It also imposed obligations on individual states and on the federal government.
It gives participants lawful presence, which obligates the states to spend money in various areas, including social services, education, and healthcare. In addition, the judge found, it obligates the federal government to forebear from implementing immigration enforcement proceedings.
In places, the DACA Memorandum purports to confer discretion. For instance, it instructs agencies to review applications on a case-by-case basis and exercise discretion.
But it also has mandatory language that contradicts the purported conferral of discretion. It specifies the criteria to be used in determining whether a DACA applicant is eligible, and it does not grant discretion to vary from those criteria. The Judge found this narrowly limits administrative discretion and prohibits DHS agents from granting DACA status to applicants who do not meet the prescribed criteria.
Even assuming that the DACA Memorandum leaves the agency and its decision makers with some degree of discretion, it cannot be considered a general statement of policy under the APA, according to Judge Hanen, because of the fixed criteria and the significant rights and obligations it confers.
Accordingly, the general statement exception does not apply. Judge Hanen said DHS should have complied with the rule making procedures; therefore, the DACA program has never had legal status.
David Ralston wants the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to determine if “any irregularities or willful fraud occurred” in Georgia’s largest metropolis.
Georgia’s Speaker of the House David Ralston is demanding an investigation to “determine if any irregularities or willful fraud occurred” in the state’s largest metropolis last November, saying recent revelations about problems with vote counting in Fulton County merit an independent probe.
Ralston sent a letter late last week to Fulton County election officials requesting that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation be allowed to conduct the investigation.
The request comes after Just the News reported last month that an independent observer for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger noted two dozen pages of irregularities in the Atlanta vote counting center last Nov. 3, including double scanning of ballots, insecure transportation of ballots and possible voter privacy violations.
Raffensperger told Just the News he believes the problems in Fulton County are so extensive that the state should take over running elections in the Atlanta area.
Ralston said the recent reports of problems require a “thorough examination and explanation.”
“Given the seriousness of this situation and the possible repercussions for our state and nation, it is time we have an independent investigation — once and for all — of the way in which Fulton County conducted, counted and audited the November 2020 Presidential Election,” he wrote in his letter. “To that end, it is my urgent recommendation that your office request that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation conduct its own, independent forensic investigation into the November 2020 Presidential Election in Fulton County.
Last year, 56,000,000 children were aborted world-wide.
In the UK, since 1967 and out of a current population of 68 million, we have aborted 9.5 million unborn, 98% of which were for what are termed ‘social reasons’; meaning that the child was, at the time – and for whatever reason – unwanted.
To put this in some kind of context, this means that in England and Wales, since 1967, we have legally killed around the equivalent of 14% of the population. Or, to put it another way, the entire population of Austria.
As our population goes into terminal decline, with a national reproductive rate of 1.6% – well below the 2.1% needed to maintain the population – Voice for Justice’s new book, Missing Millions, explores the hidden cost of abortion on society, arguing that the declining birthrate means our ageing, indigenous population is moving inexorably towards extinction, bringing in its wake destabilising and possibly cataclysmic cultural, political, and economic change.
The burden for looking after our ageing population will fall squarely on the young – but who will pay?
