CN Morning Rundown: Faith Leaders Respond to COVID-19 Vaccine

Here’s a quick summary of the top stories on cn.mycharisma.com:

Faith Leaders Respond to COVID-19 Vaccine: ‘We Have a Big Role to Play’

With the COVID-19 vaccination rolling out this week, many are looking to faith leaders to gain insight on how to respond moving forward.

The responses are varied, with many prominent faith leaders like Vice President Mike Pence encouraging Americans to be among the first to receive the vaccine.

Vice President @Mike_Pence: “Karen and I wanted to step forward and take this vaccine to assure the American people that while we cut red tape, we cut no corners.” pic.twitter.com/EPb58JdOYa

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 18, 2020

Others are more cautious, especially those within the Black community.

Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams understandably promotes the vaccine, but addresses the fears of many, saying:

As a Black man, I recognize the very real history of harm people of color have suffered at the hands of the medical community and government. Which is why we must acknowledge these wrongs, address them honestly & engage w/ folks. I hope my vaccination can help restore trust pic.twitter.com/C2x5ADjqhM

— U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) December 18, 2020

Medicaid Money Being Withheld From California for Bucking Federal Law

Forcing people to pay for abortions is about to cost California—in dollars. While the legal war has raged since 2014, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday that it will withhold $200 million in federal funds from the state for forcing all employers, including churches, to pay for elective abortions in their health insurance plans.

California requires all insurance policies to include coverage for abortion on demand without any restrictions. Its guidelines consider all abortions “medically necessary.”

This mandate violates conscience protections for companies and organizations which provide health insurance coverage, according to Life Legal Defense Foundation. Such protections have been included in the federal appropriations bill every year since 2005.

HHS also announced that it will continue to strip California of $200 million in federal funding per quarter until it complies with the law.

8 Reasons Why the Church Lost the Culture Wars in North America

It is evident that the Bible-confessing church has been losing cultural influence over the past several decades.

At the turn of the 20th century, Judeo-Christian values were promoted in this nation. By the 1950s, they were celebrated. By the ’70s and ’80s, they were tolerated, and by the late 2000s, they were hated in popular secular culture.

While there are many reasons for this, I will talk about only a few reasons in this article. The following are some of the reasons why the Bible-confessing church has lost the culture wars. (By using the word “lost,” I do not mean that I believe it is a done deal, but for now, it has lost its cultural influence.)

Pastors abandoned the gospel of the kingdom. Since the end of the Civil War in the late 19th century, the church has replaced preaching the kingdom of God to focus on waiting for the rapture. This new focus led the church to go from cultural engagement to cultural escape. This resulted in almost all elite higher learning institutions being taken over by secular humanists in the 1920s. Secular humanism became the religion of choice amongst the cultural elite way before it became mainstream in America. It took only one generation before students’ mass inculcation resulted in the sexual or cultural revolution during the mid-’60s. Now our nation is being ideologically led by the children of the ’60s rebellion. {eoa}