In today’s News:
Lutherans respond to two hurricanes
On the morning of Sept. 16, just weeks after Hurricane Laura hit Louisiana, another hurricane — category 2 Hurricane Sally — made landfall near Gulf Shores, Ala. About two dozen Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod (LCMS) churches in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi were directly in the path of the storm, expanding the need for hurricane relief efforts already concentrated in Louisiana and Texas. At an early estimate, about 100 Lutheran families in the path of Hurricane Sally have been affected, including multiple church workers. The response to Hurricane Sally will include mucking out homes that have been damaged by flooding, especially in southern Alabama and the Florida panhandle. Seven of the Synod’s historic black churches were among those in the path of the hurricane. All have buildings between 50 and 100 years old and significant history in the LCMS and the Southern District.
Concordia Seminary St. Louis hosts virtual event
College students and men and women considering a second career in ministry are invited to participate in Concordia Seminary, St. Louis’ Virtual Green & Gold Days event, set for 2–4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14. Green & Gold Days normally are full-day events that provide a quick opportunity for prospective students to visit campus and see all the Seminary offers. While usually these are in-person visits, the November event will be held online because of the coronavirus pandemic. The event is free, and the registration deadline is Nov. 11. Interested participants can learn more and register at csl.edu/greengold.
Christian student group challenges ban
A Christian student group at the university of Iowa will be asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for The Eighth Circuit today to hold school officials accountable for targeting the group’s religious beliefs, in BLinC v. University of Iowa. Business Leaders ln Christ (BLinC) was booted off-campus in 2017 because it asks its leaders to follow its religious beliefs, even though it accepted and served all students. University officials also put 32 religious groups on a special watchlist and deregistered 10 other religious groups, including the Chinese Student Christian Fellowship, the Imam Mahdi Muslim Organization and the Sikh Awareness Club — all for requiring religious leadership. But the university broadly exempted secular groups and even some favored religious groups from its rules, holding BLinC and disfavored religious groups to a very different standard.
Documents expose illegal abortion industry activity
Documents detailing repeated requests for aborted fetal body parts from the University of New Mexico (UNM) have been released by abortion on trial. Used as evidence in the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives — a Congressional investigation into the trafficking of aborted body parts after the Center for Medical Progress videos exposed illegal activity in the abortion industry — the e-mails show a long-standing relationship between UNM and the abortion industry. The e-mails show repeated requests from UNM for specific organs, like hearts and brains, while seemingly refusing to acknowledge how the organs were being obtained. In one e-mail, the sender asked rather nonspecifically if the abortion facility would be “getting more fetal tissue,” and requested the abortionist to spare the heart.
