Oregon

The Oregon couple who chose prayer over medicine to heal their infant daughter asked a judge Wednesday to dismiss criminal charges against them, arguing their right to religious freedom.

Carl Brent Worthington and his wife, Raylene, have both pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminal mistreatment in the death of their 15-month-old daughter Ava.

The infant girl died March 2 of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection that could have been treated with antibiotics, according to the state medical examiner’s office. more >>

Bypass the cold wind and maze of look-a-like Christmas trees and go online to hunt for your ideal pine-needle beauty this season. That’s what the staff at Coyote Hills Christmas Tree Farm in Oregon are hoping people will do, and they’re serious about the digital shopping experience - even assigning serial numbers to the trees.

Pictures of uncut Christmas trees can be seen online and shoppers can browse through the selection in the comfort of their home or office. The trees are shown still growing in the field and will not be cut until the day they are shipped to ensure the freshest tree possible.

“So you are seeing the actual tree you would be buying, not just a tree off a truck or from a lot,” explains Coyote Hills. more >>

Evergreen Community Church likes to keep their gatherings small and interactive. So when they outgrew their worship space in Portland, Ore., they decided to go multi-site – but without the video.

Now one church in two locations, Evergreen meets at the Lucky Labrador Brew pubs on Hawthorne Boulevard and Quimby Street. But when launching its second site in May, the Portland congregation decided not to beam live video messages to its other campus like many other multi-site communities do.

Bob Hyatt, lead pastor of Evergreen Community and a church planter, says video venues focus "entirely too much on the preaching gifts of one person, a trend even we small 'emerging' types need to counter," Hyatt said in a recent column on Leadership Journal's Out of Ur blog. more >>

PORTLAND, Ore. – “I have a bone to pick with you,” a Christian writer told a group of fellow evangelical writers Thursday.

Evangelical writers nearly always alienate non-evangelicals in their works, noted long-time Christian writer and editor Tim McLaughlin.

While most writers write to impact non-believers, as well as believers, the phrases they use and how they ignore some faith passages are real obstacles to reaching the unchurched, the Oregon native added. more >>

PORTLAND, Ore. - The inability of the church to discuss a topic that has become taboo among many Christians is one of the root causes why millions of Americans are leaving the church and never to return, says one author.

There are "Christians who have experientially lost their faith" but have no one to turn to since church culture shuns the topic, David Sanford said Thursday.

It's not that these Christians lost their salvation, but that they have lost their faith in the Bible, the church and Christian beliefs, said the author, who was addressing attendants at the annual convention of the Evangelical Press Association in Portland, Ore. more >>

A federal judge halted a law, which gives same-sex couples many of the benefits as married couples, from taking effect on Jan. 1.

U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman granted the injunction on Friday at the request of Alliance Defense Fund, which is asking the courts to first review a petition effort seeking to overturn the law.

The Christian legal group filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Oregonians after the Secretary of State and clerks’ offices in 12 different counties ruled in October that they had failed to collect enough valid signatures for a referendum that would allow voters to decide the “civil unions” issue. Many state residents, however, showed up in person to revalidate their signatures. more >>