1| Our friends at The Philos Project have an upcoming webinar worth taking note of:
Our next webinar, The Disappearing Church: The Persecuted Assyrian Christians of Iraq and Syria, will be on July 15 at noon EST. Philos Project Fellow Juliana Taimoorazy will join as a special guest to speak about her work with Christians fleeing the terror of the Islamic State. Tune in to find out how you can become involved in supporting Christians fleeing the persecution of the Islamic State.
2| Church’s bold move to help the homeless has big impact on the government, report finds |Deseret News
…Questions about the worth of each church congregation are nothing new, though calculating the costs and benefits can sometimes be a difficult task.
It’s a task that Ram Cnaan of the University of Pennsylvania undertook a few years back, concluding that First Baptist Church in Philadelphia contributed $6,090,032 to its local community — a sum that was six times its annual budget.
The debate, of course, is whether churches offer more value to communities than the “cost” of their tax-exempt status, with atheist activist groups routinely taking issue with the way in which the tax code handles religious issues.
Either way, the Highway House appears to be giving back quite a bit, offering up a model that other houses of worship can potentially follow.
3| Platform proposal on Hyde Amendment challenged by Pro-Life Democrats |America Magazine
***Pro-life Democrats. I wish that was a useful category still. But how do you support the entire Democratic Party apparatus and worldview under the labeling of: “I’m a pro-life Democrat, looking to make a difference”?
In an interview with America last September, Vice President Joe Biden said that pro-life people are “absolutely, positively” welcome in the Democratic Party. Some may be wondering, however, as the party prepares its 2016 platform for November. Though the proposed platform this election cycle includes a call for an end to the death penalty that pro-life Democrats would cheer, it also for the first time seeks to overturn federal rules that prohibit tax dollars from funding abortion.
“We believe unequivocally that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion—regardless of where she lives, how much money she makes, or how she is insured,” states a draft of the party platform released Friday.
The draft, which will be voted on later this month at the party’s convention in Philadelphia, echoes calls from presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to overturn the so-called Hyde Amendment. The rule, first introduced in 1976 by Republican Congressman Henry Hyde, a Catholic, bars Medicaid from funding most abortions.
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