Author: Shalem John

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,…

Earlier in August, thousands of protesters, many of them Christians, marched nearly two miles through Narayanpur’s weekly market in India’s state of Chhattisgarh. Catholics, evangelicals, and members of other Protestant groups stood together in solidarity with the two Kerala-based Catholic nuns and a Protestant man from the Gond people group whom local authorities arrested on fraudulent charges of human trafficking and forced conversion. The three tribal Protestant women at the heart of the case walked among the demonstrators. They claim the Hindu extremists forced them to make false confessions that the nuns had trafficked and converted them to Christianity against…