Author: Shalem John

Gulfcrest Street curves sharply and rises slowly as what had been the nation’s largest Planned Parenthood facilities comes into view. The blue-windowed building stairsteps into the sky, looming over Houston’s Gulf Freeway as a bastion to abortion rights advocates and an abomination to pro-life supporters, many of whom prayed for the center to close. Soon their prayers will be answered, with the clinic set to shutter at the end of September, part of a restructuring plan due to funding cuts. When Planned Parenthood Prevention Park opened in Houston in May 2010, more than a dozen protesters demonstrated outside the 78,000-square-foot…

James Dobson, author and child psychologist who told millions of evangelicals how to raise children and order their families, died on August 21 at the age of 89. Dobson believed in strict-but-loving discipline and obedience, which he held out as the antidote to America’s cultural permissiveness and slide toward moral chaos and social disorder.  The founder of Focus on the Family, Dobson wrote more than a dozen books, including Dare to Discipline, Parenting Isn’t for Cowards, and The Strong-Willed Child, and answered questions on radio programs broadcast on thousands of stations across the United States. His advice was embraced by…

A mob of 200 Hindu nationalists stormed Bethel Prarthana Bhavan (Bethel Prayer Hall) in Maharashtra’s Malegaon town, with police and revenue authorities in tow, to disrupt the ongoing Sunday service on July 20. Shouted slogans decrying “Christian conversion” replaced the typical praise and worship, the church’s pastor, Simon Raut, told CT. Worshipers stood in disbelief as the mob, made up of people who belonged to the Hindutva militant group Bajrang Dal, confronted the pastor and church elders, claiming they didn’t have the government’s permission to worship in the building. They snatched gospel tracts from the Bibles where they were tucked,…