Newsmakers

The owner of a Christian coffee shop in Colorado said his business and ministry have continued to be under a barrage of attacks from communist and LGBTQ protesters who have reportedly incessantly sought the establishment's closure.

Jamie Sanchez, the founder of Recycle God's Love, joined CBN News last summer to discuss the chaos surrounding the Drip Cafe, a coffee shop he launched to further his mission through affiliated ministry Project Revive of helping the homeless through employment and connections to resources.

"The Drip Cafe is basically an idea from our project where we're helping homeless people get out of homelessness, to break the chains that are holding them down with homelessness," he said in a recent follow-up interview. "One of those important areas is to have a real job, to build a resume, to get work experience, to get used to socializing in a normal setting."

In addition to working toward the goal of employing those without homes, Sanchez said the Drip Cafe has been able to come alongside community members in prayer and encouragement. But the effort hasn't been easy. Months later, he said protests against Drip Cafe persist. As previously reported, people began gathering last June outside the shop, shouting, and taking aim at the fruits of the ministry's labor. 

A statement affirming biblical sexuality on the Recycle God's Love website was reportedly a catalyst for the protests that began in June and haven't ceased. Hear Sanchez explain.

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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.

John Cooper has been known for years as the frontman for Skillet, the popular rock band with a Christian lyrical bent. But, in recent years, Cooper has also become an outspoken commentator on the state of the nation — and the church. His new book "Wimpy, Weak, & Woke" examines "increasing conflicts in America" and explores what he says is truly at the core of cultural angst: "a war between gods – the living God and the god of Man."

"I wanted to write this book about utopianism ... for anybody whose eyes are open — and you don't even have to be all that smart to see our world is crumbling," Cooper told CBN News. "Western civilization is on the brink of just collapse." He continued, "I think every week people go, 'OK, it can't get weirder than this,' and then the next week, wrong, it just got weirder." Cooper said it's time for people to confront the fact that too many Christians have elevated winsomeness over truth, subjugating the latter to a point that has made some churches ineffective.

"They die the death of a thousand caveats, because we don't want to hurt people's feelings," Cooper said. "And, obviously, we should be gracious and loving towards people but we have to tell people the truth. And, so, we've become wimpy, we've also become weak." Cooper believes worldly philosophies and ideals have infiltrated the church to a level that some feel embarrassed by and about who God is, leading to weak theological stances and woke ideologies.

In the end, Cooper said it's all about going back to God's word to determine what's valid — and what's not, regardless of what one emotes or feels. This is particularly true, he said, when it comes to assumptions about oppression and the ways in which issues like transgender players in sports are handled. He's hoping his decision to write "Wimpy, Weak, & Woke" will have a deep and profound impact and motivate believers to action.

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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.

"The demons in her screamed like you wouldn't believe." That's how evangelist Ray Comfort described a shocking encounter he once had in Christchurch, New Zealand, with a young woman who he believes was fighting the demonic. "I'm right in the middle of a horror movie that I couldn't believe was happening," he said of the experience.

Comfort told CBN Digital the entire ordeal surrounded a young woman named Jane who was experiencing blackouts and other spiritual issues. The evangelist said she came to his office for help one day — and chaos broke out. "Her friend ran out crying and screaming out that Jane was manifesting," Comfort said. "She'd gone into a blackout state, and she was crawling on her hands and knees ... I went in and began talking with Jane and praying — exercising prayer — and telling her that she needed to get right with God."

The evangelist noticed "trinkets" Jane was wearing and described them as "demonic-looking." One looked like a little fairy, so comfort told her to ditch these items and to become a Christian. While the situation tempered that day, it was hardly the end of their encounters. "Two weeks later, I received a phone call from a friend [who] said, 'Jane is having blackouts again. Can we come and see you?" Comfort recalled. "And it turned out she hadn't become a Christian and she hadn't gotten rid of that trinket."

While he waited in his office, Jane's friend screamed to him that Jane had once again blacked out on the stairs. Comfort went to investigate and found her leaning against the wall in a "blackout state." "I went to take hold of her and put my hand on her arm, and she ran ahead of me," he said. "And I'm not exaggerating here: she threw herself over a 15 or 20 foot drop." But Comfort said he ran after her and grabbed on as he screamed for her friends to help stop her from fully going over the ledge. Once she was safe, they carried her back to his office as she descended back into her blackout state — but that didn't last for long.

"[She was] sitting down in my office, manifesting all these different weird demons," he said. "And, at one point, the dexterity was quite amazing. With one hand she reached into a blouse and pulled out a safety pin ... and tried to swallow it." Listen to comfort share the other horrific details — and how Jane found eventual freedom, among other stories.

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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.

For parents and students looking to help children navigate the onslaught of secularism in education, after-school Bible clubs have in recent decades been a positive and effective tool. Yet newfound debates have unfolded in recent years as Satanists have begun to target these gathers by launching clubs of their own, a dynamic Moises Esteves, executive director of Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), the Christian organization that runs Good News Club gatherings, knows all too well.

Esteves recently told CBN News his organization, which has been around since 1937, is very much at the heart of the After School Satan Club debate, as Satanists intentionally focus on schools where religious clubs are present. This is a strategy explicitly noted on The Satanic Temple's website, where it's written: "The After School Satan Club does not believe in introducing religion into public schools and will only open a club if other religious groups are operating on campus." Thus, the Good News Club tends to come into Satanists' crosshairs.

"They come and make a big splash with the media," Esteves said. "They invite all the media to come, and, basically, their strategy is to shut down our clubs, and so they bring the media and they present themselves as ... Satanic, which gets everybody riled up." With parents and administrators reacting, Esteves said the response from administrators and parents tends to immediately be one aimed at not letting Satanists to host their club. "And, of course, that's what they want," he said. "They want to be pushed out, because, once they're pushed out, they will actually use our [Supreme Court] victory that we had in ... 2001 to then turn around and file a lawsuit against the school to say, 'Hey, we have the right to be there.'"

Esteves continued, "And then ... if the school still wants to push them out, they got to shut down all the after-school clubs. That's their strategy." The CEF leader was referencing the Good News Club v. Milford Central School District Supreme Court case in 2001, a victory for his ministry. Despite Esteves' beliefs about Satanists' motivation and strategy, he said such efforts haven't been successful in shutting down his Christian clubs.

"It hasn't accomplished their goals to shut our clubs up," he said. "As a matter of fact, sometimes it does the opposite, because Christians that are not aware about the work we do in the public schools ... go, 'Hey, we like what you guys are doing. Can we help?' So, it helps us have more clubs."

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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.

John Burke, a pastor and author who has studied and examined over 1,000 accounts of near-death experiences, believes these reports provide faith-building evidence of God and the Bible. Burke, author of the new book "Imagine the God of Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God’s Revelation, and the Love You’ve Always Wanted," told CBN News why he believes these experiences corroborate Scripture and detailed what a near-death experience entails.

"It's when someone clinically dies ... their heart stops, they have no brain waves," Burke said. "And yet either modern medicine or miracle brings them back ... minutes later, sometimes it's hours." He continued, "And when they come back, they talk about experiencing the life to come, and they talk about how it's more real than anything they've ever experienced in this world."

Burke said his latest book looks at scores of interviews with people from all over the world who've had these clinical near-death experiences. "They are seeing and experiencing the God of Scripture," he said. "And we're looking, not only at His love story told throughout history in the Bible, but also his heart and characteristics, the mystery, the majesty of God." 

Burke, though, knows not everyone believes these heaven visitation stories, and explained exactly why he thinks there's so much skepticism. He said one factor is a failure to understand that "these are testimonies" that shed light on God's nature. Another is the complexities that come from trying to describe other-worldly experiences using human language. 

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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.

A Christian leader on a mission to bring the Bible and truth to public school kids said atheist activists' recent attacks on his organization have helped spread the word about his efforts. Joel Penton, founder and CEO of LifeWise Academy, told CBN News his organization offers something truly compelling to American youths. "LifeWise Academy provides Bible education to public school students during school hours, which to most people sounds crazy, because of the whole separation of church and state and how the Bible has been removed from the public school day," Penton said. "But what very few people realize is that, in 1952, the Supreme Court actually ruled that public school students can be released from school during school hours to receive religious instruction." 

Penton launched LifeWise Academy with just two schools in 2019, with the effort quickly exploring to more than 340 schools across 15 states. With LifeWise making such a massive splash, it didn't take long for the organization to come into the crosshairs of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), an atheist activist group based in Madison, Wisconsin. The group recently took action to dissuade schools from taking part. "They sent a letter out to every single superintendent in the state of Ohio, in part, because LifeWise is spreading so rapidly in Ohio, and ... next year we will be in a full quarter of the 600 school districts in the state," Penton said. 

But Penton said the FFRF actually ended up making a "really great" case for why LifeWise and other programs like it are perfectly legal and permissible. He also responded to the atheists' letter with a fair amount of gratitude for the attention it garnered. "We were asked to make a public comment about them sending this letter, because we heard about it and, of course, we publicly thanked the Freedom From Religion Foundation for investing their time and money to spread the word about LifeWise," Penton said. "Because ... when People learn about it, they tend to get pretty excited, and the people that don't like it are a very, very small minority."

But far beyond platitudes and areas of debate, Penton said he believes there's evidence LifeWise Academy is very literally helping kids in all areas of their lives. He recently commissioned a study juxtaposing schools where LifeWise Academy has been implemented against locations where it has not been put into place. "When LifeWise is implemented, attendance increases significantly," Penton said. "Kids are that much more interested in going to school that there's in fact a net increase in class time if LifeWise is implemented." He continued, "Many more kids come to school so much more regularly that they actually get a net increase in class time."

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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.

Country singer Granger Smith stunned fans when he announced he would be retiring from music to pursue ministry, with the musician telling CBN Digital how he plans to serve the Lord. "I'm just so excited about it," he said. "I have so much joy just even thinking about it."

Smith said he's already begun speaking before audiences about his Christian faith. While he once traversed the nation and world sharing his music, he now plans to travel with a very different message. "I'm used to air travel, I'm used to hotels," he said. "But I have a different message to give, and it's a life-giving message. It's one beggar — me — telling another beggar where I found bread."

Smith said he wants to share his journey of faith, explaining how he was once hurting and in a "really bad place," but how he found hope in Jesus. "I don't know what the future looks like five years down the road, ten years down the road," Smith said. "But, right now, immediately, it's writing books, it's taking speaking engagements, Lord-willing, when the right ones come around, it's attending seminary, and it's going to church on Sunday mornings with my family, and sitting under teachings of my pastor."

Smith also discussed his recent memoir, "Like a River: Finding the Faith and Strength to Move Forward after Loss and Heartache," a book chronicling how he handled grief and sorrow and found faith. Smith's family made headlines in 2019 when the singer's 3-year-old son, River, died in a drowning accident. It's a topic at the heart of his book. Watch Smith discuss his plans, his son, and how he found faith.

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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.

North Korea remains the worst nation in the world for Christian persecution, with the situation in Nigeria continuing to devolve, according to a new report on global religious discrimination. Overall, Open Doors’ World Watch List 2024 found 4,998 Christians were killed over their faith, a figure the organization said is likely much higher due to underreporting. Meanwhile, 365 million Christians face intense persecution and discrimination for their views. 

One of the most alarming statistics in the latest report is the massive, seven-fold rise in church, Christian school, and hospital attacks, with that total increasing from 2,110 in the 2023 study to 14,766 in 2024. Assaults on Christians' homes also rose from 4,547 to 21,431, with the number of believers pushed out of their houses expanding from 124,310 to 278,716.

One of the most sobering lines from a press release surrounding the World Watch List 2024 reads, "More than 82% of Christians killed across the globe for faith reasons were in Nigeria."

The most recent rankings put Nigeria in the sixth spot for persecution and discrimination. But Nigeria isn't alone, as persecution in sub-Saharan Africa, more broadly, is an area of concern.

"Faith-related killings in sub-Saharan Africa far outstripped those of any other region on the annual list," the release read. "This has been a trend for several years." Watch Ryan Brown, CEO of Open Doors US, describe the report and the full scope of the problem.

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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.

As global persecution rages, a watchdog is launching a first-of-its-kind, open-sourced database allowing people to track incidents of violent religious persecution across the globe. Global Christian Relief and the International Institute For Religious Freedom have teamed up to create the Violent Incidents Database (VID), which is being dubbed the "first and only events-based global religious freedom dataset." 

David Curry, CEO of Global Christian Relief, told CBN News the database will help give a voice to persecuted Christians and others across the world, as it tracks killings, abductions, forced marriages, arrests, and other acts of persecution, allowing users to search by religion, country, and perpetrator. "I'm concerned about ... this enormous growth in religious persecution, be it the persecution of Christians, which is the largest minority group, as far as numbers, that faces severe persecution, or if it's antisemitism," Curry said, warning that there are diabolical "governments, and dictators, and extremists" who want to control peoples religious inclinations. 

He pointed to the plight of not just Christians but also groups like Uyghurs whom the Chinese have rounded up and put in concentration camps. Plus, nations like Nigeria face escalating persecution crises, with Christians being slaughtered by Muslim extremists at a rapid rate. Persecution, Curry said, is a plight that must be called out and halted. "I'm a follower of Jesus, and I want to support the church, the persecuted believers, wherever they may be, to practice their faith, to worship Jesus, to read their Bible in peace, civilly, within whatever country and context they're in," he said.

The VID database tracks thousands of incidents of persecution starting with 2022 data, though Curry cautioned that the dataset isn't "exhaustive," as it's impossible to capture every incident, particularly in countries where communicating persecution comes with intensive barriers. Listen to him discuss violent persecution in China, Nigeria, and other nations. 

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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.

Dr. Päivi Räsänen, the Finnish politician who was victorious in court this past November after facing a years-long legal battle for sharing her biblical views on sexuality, is back in the prosecution's crosshairs.

Räsänen's attorneys with ADF International released a statement Friday revealing the Finnish state prosecutor is appealing the case to Finland's Supreme Court, potentially forcing Räsänen to once again defend her religious freedom rights.

But the member of parliament and former interior secretary said she's not fearful of what's to come if the Supreme Court does decide to take up the case.

"After my full exoneration in two courts, I’m not afraid of a hearing before the Supreme Court," Räsänen said in a statement. "Even though I am fully aware that every trial carries risks, an acquittal from the Supreme Court would set an even stronger positive precedent for everyone’s right to free speech and religion."

Even if Räsänen loses at the Supreme Court, she said she is prepared to take the case outside of her country to affirm her rights, fighting back against the hate speech charges she has incessantly faced throughout her years-long struggle.

"If the Court decided to overturn the lower courts’ acquittals, I am ready to defend freedom of speech and religion as far as the European Court of Human rights, if necessary," she continued.

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Welcome to "The Newsmakers Podcast," a show where we go behind the headlines each day to bring you interviews with pastors, entertainers, politicians, and other notable figures. Based on the "Newsmakers" show on the CBN News Channel, this daily podcast featuring CBN's Billy Hallowell provides full interviews with one newsworthy person every weekday.