The Billy Graham Evangelical Association has reposted a 1973 article by the Rev. Billy Graham in Decision magazine, titled "The National Crisis," where he addressed what he called the disease of sin in America.

"Our newspapers and our television screens are bringing news of a hundred and one dangerous problems that are rocking the world. Each day seems to add to our already impressive number of crises here at home – an accelerating crime rate, mass murders, soaring drug use, rampant inflation, pollution, the breakdown of families, a jittery stock market," Graham wrote, which the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association aid still speaks to the age-old problems plaguing the earth since the fall of man.

In his 1973 article, which came after the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion in the country, Graham said that "American people have suffered an emotional trauma that has had few parallels in our history." more >>

The Roman Catholic Church has excommunicated the popular Brazilian priest Father Roberto Francisco Daniel for teaching that same-sex marriage is OK.

Reuters reported that the church decided to impose on Daniel the rare punishment because he has "injured the Church with grave statements counter to the dogma of Catholic faith and morality."

Excommunication, or expulsion from the church, bars a believer from participating in the liturgy in a ministerial capacity, but encourages the guilty party to work toward restoring their relationship with the church. more >>

Among various Christian groups in the United States, evangelicals were found to be the most "Christ-like," according to the findings of a recently released study on Christians.

Overseen by the Barna Group, the results, released Tuesday, showed that 23 percent of evangelical respondents exhibited both Christ-like actions and attitudes. The 23 percent number puts evangelicals above the other categories, which included "Practicing Protestant" (16 percent), "All Christians" (14 percent), "Practicing Catholic" (14 percent), "Non Evangelical Born Again Christians" (13 percent), and "Notional" (13 percent).

The findings were derived from 1,008 telephone interviews of which 718 respondents self-identified as Christian from Nov. 11 until Nov. 18, 2012. Respondents who identified themselves as Christian were asked 20 questions, ten of which compared their responses to Jesus' actions and attitudes and ten of which compared their responses to the Pharisees of the New Testament. more >>

An independent panel has made ten suggestions for Bible translating ministries Wycliffe Global Alliance and SIL International, after being asked to review their practices in light of various translation controversies, including interpretation for a Muslim context.

The panel, organized by the World Evangelical Alliance, wrote in one of its suggestions that it recognized "that there is significant potential for misunderstanding of the words for 'father' and 'son' when applied to God, and that in languages shaped by Islamic cultures, the potential is especially acute and the misunderstandings likely to prove especially harmful to the reader's comprehension of the gospel."

The panel recommended that translators consider the addition of qualifying words and/or phrases (explanatory adjectives, relative clauses, prepositional phrases, or similar modifiers) to the directly-translated words for "father" and "son," in order to avoid misunderstanding. more >>

Best-selling Christian author Frank Viola takes a unique look at the relationship between Jesus Christ and the town of Bethany through his interpretation of what Lazarus may have witnessed in his upcoming book, God's Favorite Place on Earth. In essence, Viola says that through his research for the book he came to the conclusion that all Christians should be God's "Bethany," a place where God is welcomed.

"The premise of the book is simple and 100 percent biblical: when Jesus was on the earth, he was rejected everywhere he went – from Bethlehem, to Nazareth, to Jerusalem. The only exception was the little village of Bethany," Viola stated.

Viola describes the book, planned for release on May 1, as a hybrid between devotional prose, historical fiction and biblical scholarship. He told The Christian Post in an interview on Monday that it is also a practical book written to help Christians face the struggles of every generation, namely: doubt, discouragement, fear, division, rejection, consumerism and complacency. "It does so by bringing a rarely taught story in the Gospels to life," he said. more >>

The following is an edited transcript of the audio (from 2010).

Has God predetermined every tiny detail in the universe, such as dust particles in the air and all of our besetting sins?

Yes. more >>