Today

The Day in the Churches: A Sentencing, Several Cases, and a Fire in Congo

By The FaithDaily Desk

Good morning. A man who brought more than 100 explosives to a Washington, D.C., church has been sentenced, Charisma News reports. The outlet identifies him as Louis Geri, arrested nearly a year ago outside the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, ahead of the Supreme Court Red Mass. Charisma News describes the case as a threat that could have ended very differently. The sentencing closes a case that began with that arrest.

The day carried several other cases involving Christian figures. Religion News Service reports that Heather Thompson Day and Seth Day, co-authors of a best-selling Christian book on relationships, have been arrested on allegations of abuse. In a separate matter, Religion News Service reports that Brooke Covington, a leader of the Word of Faith Fellowship in North Carolina, received probation. Prosecutors said she led a group of church members in 2013 who choked and beat a young man for two hours while praying to expel what they called "homosexual demons."

Charisma News reports that a Maryland pastor alerted police after an 87-year-old congregant, named in charging documents as Irwin Joseph Dickstein, allegedly came to Frederick Christian Fellowship Church and confessed to killing his roommate.

Abroad, United Methodist News reports that United Methodists in Congo have lost their homes in a fire, in a region already strained by insecurity and an Ebola outbreak. The church is scrambling to shelter those left homeless and to assess further needs, the outlet says.

Two governance disputes also drew coverage, both from Anglican Ink. A federal judge in South Carolina dismissed the Jurisdiction of the Armed Forces and Chaplaincy's lawsuit against the Anglican Church in North America, holding that the dispute could not be decided by a civil court without intruding into matters of church discipline and governance. Separately, Anglican Ink reports an impasse over episcopal oversight for St Helen's Bishopsgate, a conservative evangelical church in the City of London, a question it says will fall to the next Bishop of London.

In comment and review, Religion News Service reports that the pope's message on artificial intelligence is drawing interest among technology leaders in Silicon Valley and beyond. The Gospel Coalition offered twelve book recommendations to help readers think about the technological and theological questions AI raises. Christianity Today published a review weighing whether seeing a miracle would truly convert an atheist, a Q&A with historian George Marsden on what defines an evangelical, and an essay on the rapper known as Diddy. Religion News Service also examined whether America was founded as a Christian nation.