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Christians and climate change: Southern California churches preach very different messages
Crews started installing solar panels this week on the red tile roof at St. Mark Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach. Pastor Mark Davis said the project, once complete, should easily power the church’s entire 7-acre campus.
Last year, many of St. Mark’s 550 members attended a meeting, in keeping with Presbyterian doctrine, to vote on taking out a loan to finance the $200,000 solar project. There was some spirited debate about the financial implications, Davis said with a chuckle, but in the end members gave the project an enthusiastic green light. They see the panels as key to St. Mark’s goal of going completely carbon neutral by 2030.
. (Brooke Staggs/Orange County Register 11/19/23)
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Crews started installing solar panels this week on the red tile roof at St. Mark Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach. Pastor Mark Davis said the project, once complete, should easily power the church’s entire 7-acre campus.
Last year, many of St. Mark’s 550 members attended a meeting, in keeping with Presbyterian doctrine, to vote on taking out a loan to finance the $200,000 solar project. There was some spirited debate about the financial implications, Davis said with a chuckle, but in the end members gave the project an enthusiastic green light. They see the panels as key to St. Mark’s goal of going completely carbon neutral by 2030.
. (Brooke Staggs/Orange County Register 11/19/23)
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October 26, 2023
ELCA synod elects its first openly gay bishop
A California-based synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has elected its first-ever openly gay bishop, over a year after the regional body removed its first-ever trans-identified bishop from office.
At the ELCA Sierra Pacific Synod Assembly last week, Pastor Jeff R. Johnson of Berkeley, California, was elected to a six-year term as bishop of the regional church body. (Michael Gryboski/Christian Post)
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A California-based synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has elected its first-ever openly gay bishop, over a year after the regional body removed its first-ever trans-identified bishop from office.
At the ELCA Sierra Pacific Synod Assembly last week, Pastor Jeff R. Johnson of Berkeley, California, was elected to a six-year term as bishop of the regional church body. (Michael Gryboski/Christian Post)
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What Church Is Jesus Revolution Based On?
Jesus Revolution tells the story of Greg Laurie and how he was involved in the Jesus movement in California during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The movement was an evangelical Christian movement characterized by the increase of religion in the state, thanks to the blend of counterculture with Evangelicalism. The 2023 Christian drama film pulls inspiration from the autobiographical book of the same name that the real Greg Laurie co-wrote in 2018. Plus, the church depicted in the movie is based on a place of worship that exists in real life.
Joel Courtney stars as Laurie in the film, and the rest of the cast includes Kelsey Grammer as Chuck Smith, Jonathan Roumie as Lonnie Frisbee, Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Charlene McDaniel, Anna Grace Barlow as Cathe Martin, and Nic Bishop as Dick. Along with Courtney's Laurie, Grammer's character Chuck Smith is an instrumental figure in the movie and is based on a real pastor. As a matter of fact, the church that Greg and Cathe stumble upon in Jesus Revolution is inspired by Smith's chapel. (Sarah Little/Screen Rant)
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Jesus Revolution tells the story of Greg Laurie and how he was involved in the Jesus movement in California during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The movement was an evangelical Christian movement characterized by the increase of religion in the state, thanks to the blend of counterculture with Evangelicalism. The 2023 Christian drama film pulls inspiration from the autobiographical book of the same name that the real Greg Laurie co-wrote in 2018. Plus, the church depicted in the movie is based on a place of worship that exists in real life.
Joel Courtney stars as Laurie in the film, and the rest of the cast includes Kelsey Grammer as Chuck Smith, Jonathan Roumie as Lonnie Frisbee, Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Charlene McDaniel, Anna Grace Barlow as Cathe Martin, and Nic Bishop as Dick. Along with Courtney's Laurie, Grammer's character Chuck Smith is an instrumental figure in the movie and is based on a real pastor. As a matter of fact, the church that Greg and Cathe stumble upon in Jesus Revolution is inspired by Smith's chapel. (Sarah Little/Screen Rant)
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Inside the anti-LGBTQ effort to put Christianity back in schools
And in California the same month, a school board member who had advanced a policy banning LGBTQ pride flags from classrooms told followers they were engaged in “a spiritual battle” for their children. (Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton/NBC News 10/4/23)
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And in California the same month, a school board member who had advanced a policy banning LGBTQ pride flags from classrooms told followers they were engaged in “a spiritual battle” for their children. (Mike Hixenbaugh and Antonia Hylton/NBC News 10/4/23)
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June 14, 2023: Religion News Service: Ouster of Saddleback and Fern Creek from SBC over women pastors is affirmed
Delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting affirmed a decision to expel two Southern Baptist churches, including Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, because they employed women as pastors. The churches had appealed to the meeting, the denomination’s ruling body, to be allowed to remain.
Delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting affirmed a decision to expel two Southern Baptist churches, including Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, because they employed women as pastors. The churches had appealed to the meeting, the denomination’s ruling body, to be allowed to remain.
Mar 30, 2023: Religion Unplugged: Hillsong Founder Brian Houston Charged With Drunk Driving In California
Disgraced Hillsong founder Brian Houston has been charged with drunk driving in southern California, the latest of several legal charges facing the former megachurch pastor.
Newly uncovered court records reveal that Houston was arrested in Newport Beach, California, for driving under the influence of alcohol on Feb. 26, 2022. The case filed in the Superior Court of California in Orange County also charges Houston with driving with a blood alcohol content of .08% or more and failure to display two license plates on his vehicle.
Disgraced Hillsong founder Brian Houston has been charged with drunk driving in southern California, the latest of several legal charges facing the former megachurch pastor.
Newly uncovered court records reveal that Houston was arrested in Newport Beach, California, for driving under the influence of alcohol on Feb. 26, 2022. The case filed in the Superior Court of California in Orange County also charges Houston with driving with a blood alcohol content of .08% or more and failure to display two license plates on his vehicle.
Feb 23, 2023: Baptist Press: Churches respond to action of Executive Committee
Several churches deemed “not in friendly cooperation” with the SBC have responded to action taken by the SBC Executive Committee earlier this week.
The recommendation from the SBC Credentials Committee regarding Saddleback Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif., came “on the basis that the church has a faith and practice that does not closely identify with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith, as demonstrated by the church having a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of pastor.”
Several churches deemed “not in friendly cooperation” with the SBC have responded to action taken by the SBC Executive Committee earlier this week.
The recommendation from the SBC Credentials Committee regarding Saddleback Community Church in Lake Forest, Calif., came “on the basis that the church has a faith and practice that does not closely identify with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith, as demonstrated by the church having a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of pastor.”
Jan 24, 2023: Religion News: How Southern California helped birth white Christian nationalism
Bradley Onishi became a Christian at age 14 when his eighth grade girlfriend invited him to a Bible study at her church in Yorba Linda, California, just south of Los Angeles. Ten years later, he would serve as its youth minister.
Over that decade, he writes in his new book, “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism — And What Comes Next,” Onishi grew to see his faith as less about Jesus and more about perpetuating a certain myth of the United States, one that he says forms the bedrock of white Christian nationalism.
Bradley Onishi became a Christian at age 14 when his eighth grade girlfriend invited him to a Bible study at her church in Yorba Linda, California, just south of Los Angeles. Ten years later, he would serve as its youth minister.
Over that decade, he writes in his new book, “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism — And What Comes Next,” Onishi grew to see his faith as less about Jesus and more about perpetuating a certain myth of the United States, one that he says forms the bedrock of white Christian nationalism.
July 13, 2020: Baptist News Global: California and the making of American evangelicalism
While many Republicans decry the state of the party today, California provided the staging ground for creating the American evangelicalism that we now know, and California continues to be a prominent center of evangelicalism in American culture.
While many Republicans decry the state of the party today, California provided the staging ground for creating the American evangelicalism that we now know, and California continues to be a prominent center of evangelicalism in American culture.
June 18, 2019: CalMatters: How Redding, California, became an unlikely epicenter of modern Christian culture
God brought Golibé Omenaka to Northern California. The journey started in Manchester, England, when he encountered the teachings of a Redding-based megachurch called Bethel, and took off when a friend prophesied that God had called Omenaka to Bethel.
Specifically, God called Omenaka to the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, where the 24-year-old would undertake a spiritual transformation and be trained in miraculous healing.
God brought Golibé Omenaka to Northern California. The journey started in Manchester, England, when he encountered the teachings of a Redding-based megachurch called Bethel, and took off when a friend prophesied that God had called Omenaka to Bethel.
Specifically, God called Omenaka to the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, where the 24-year-old would undertake a spiritual transformation and be trained in miraculous healing.
Jan 24, 2016: KCET: How Los Angeles Helped Make the U.S. an Evangelical Nation
Carey McWilliams once called Louis Adamic Los Angeles’ greatest “prophet, sociologist and historian” of the 1920s. Adamic loved California not so much because of the famed climate, though that certainly didn’t hurt, but more because he found it a source of endless entertainment and absorption, and not always toward the good. “Actually, and in spite of all the healthful sunshine and ocean breezes, it is a bad place ... full of curious and wild and poisonous growths.” For the skeptical Adamic, “decadent religions and cults” served as warning of such perils. “Hardly a day passed … that I was not stopped in the street and handed a religious tract,” he noted. L.A. might be “the essence of America” but it was a cacophony of faiths, a veritable ecclesiastical jungle
Carey McWilliams once called Louis Adamic Los Angeles’ greatest “prophet, sociologist and historian” of the 1920s. Adamic loved California not so much because of the famed climate, though that certainly didn’t hurt, but more because he found it a source of endless entertainment and absorption, and not always toward the good. “Actually, and in spite of all the healthful sunshine and ocean breezes, it is a bad place ... full of curious and wild and poisonous growths.” For the skeptical Adamic, “decadent religions and cults” served as warning of such perils. “Hardly a day passed … that I was not stopped in the street and handed a religious tract,” he noted. L.A. might be “the essence of America” but it was a cacophony of faiths, a veritable ecclesiastical jungle