Maharashtra, India’s new ‘anti-conversion law’ could criminalize ministry, Christian leaders warn
A sweeping new law regulating religious conversion took effect in Maharashtra last week, threatening to turn catechism classes, charity work and even prayer meetings into grounds for a police investigation, Christian leaders said. CD.
Aug 6, 2026 06:14 EDT
Speaking with Christian Daily International following the closing session of the Arise Asia 2026 Congress, Rev. Dr. David Ro said he believes the global missions world is at the beginning of a shift that will see missionaries from challenging context going out to share the gospel in hard-to-reach places.
Pastor & 6 others executed extrajudicially in Sudan.
'All the credit to the Lord': How a small-town Arkansas man got God on America's money.
The children of the late Arkansas man whose grassroots effort led to "In God We Trust" adorning U.S. paper currency told The Christian Post that their father's providential story shows "one person, with the Lord's help, can make a difference."
Matthew Rothert Sr., a Presbyterian furniture manufacturer and avid coin collector born in 1904, was at church in Chicago on June 21, 1953, when he believed the Holy Spirit impressed upon him the idea that "In God We Trust" should feature on American banknotes as it did on coins, according to his daughter, Alice Rothert Nelson.
"The collection plate was going around, and he felt God tell him that the coins had 'In God We Trust,' but it was the bills that went all around the world," she told CP. "And he believed he should get 'In God We Trust' on the bills of the paper money, and so that started the campaign."
'The Lord seemed to tell me to do this'
"In God We Trust" was first engraved on U.S. coins during the Civil War, after Mark Richards Watkinson, a Baptist minister from Pennsylvania, petitioned then-Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase at the end of 1861 to promote "the recognition of the Almighty God in some form in our coins" amid the fading illusion of a short, relatively bloodless conflict.
Furniture manufacturer and numismatist Matthew Rothert Sr. in an undated photograph. | Courtesy Rothert family"You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were now shattered beyond recognition? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our part we were a heathen nation?" asked Watkinson, who saw the increasingly brutal, intractable war as a divine chastening that could destroy the country.
Expressing hope that honoring God in such a public way "would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism," Watkinson wrote: "This would place us openly under the divine protection we have personally claimed. From my heart I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters."
Salmon P. Chase and James Pollock, a Presbyterian minister then serving as director of the U.S. Mint, agreed with Watkinson, ultimately leading Congress to pass a law in April 1864 allowing "In God We Trust" on the one- and two-cent pieces. They passed another in March 1865 to place the words on all gold and silver coins, which was the last act President Abraham Lincoln signed before his assassination.
Nearly a century later, the motto gained renewed attention when the U.S. found itself embattled again during the global tensions of the Cold War. Seeing its simple declaration of faith as a necessary contrast to the atheist communism that animated the Soviet Union, Rothert followed Watkinson's example. He gave speeches, rallied support and fired off many letters to officials, including President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Treasury Secretary George W. Humphrey, urging them to add the phrase to paper money.
"The Lord seemed to tell me to do this. He put the idea so strongly in my mind that I worked on it until I accomplished my goal," Rothert said during a 1987 interview with National Enquirer when he was 83. "I realized the circulation of American coins was limited to the boundaries of the country, while U.S. paper money circulated worldwide. It looked like Americans were saying they trusted in God only a few cents' worth!"
'All the stars aligned perfectly'
"Daddy wrote lots of letters, Mother wrote lots of letters. He knew the right people in the right places," said Alice Rothert Nelson, who remembers her mother, Janet, typing up thousands of letters for her father to send to public officials, organizations and other individuals about his currency initiative, which he prayerfully pursued in earnest starting in late 1953.
Treasury Secretary George W. Humphrey reportedly advised Rothert in 1954 that while he personally favored the idea of placing "In God We Trust" on the currency, it would require an act of Congress.
As a businessman and member of several organizations, including the American Numismatic Association, Rothert established personal connections with some of the politicians who would play a pivotal role in helping his vision succeed.
As founder and president of the Camden Furniture Company in small-town Camden, Arkansas, Rothert came to know Mike Monroney, who was also in the furniture business and served as a U.S. senator from Oklahoma from 1951 to 1969. Also among his friends were Oren Harris in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as Arkansas Senators John L. McClellan and J. William Fulbright, all of whom expressed support for Rothert's mission.
Harris had been planning to introduce legislation to place "In God We Trust" on the currency until a Florida congressman beat him to it by filing H.R. 619 on Jan. 5, 1955. Fulbright had just become chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, which positioned him to fast-track the House bill when it reached the Senate that June. Monroney was also a high-ranking member of the committee and acted as its main champion and floor sponsor after promising Rothert he would get the bill to a vote before the end of the legislative session.
In an unusually swift and bipartisan action, the bill was on Eisenhower's desk by July 11, 1955. Changing the master dies and printing plates at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to include "In God We Trust" would typically have been too cost-prohibitive, but they were already set to be replaced that year to accommodate a new printing process.
"In God We Trust," which Congress unanimously went on to establish as the official national motto in 1956, first appeared on $1 silver certificates on Oct. 1, 1957.
Rothert's daughter, Hope Rothert Taft, suggested to CP that her father's connections, the political position of his friends and the remarkable timing could only have been orchestrated by God.
"You can see how all the stars aligned perfectly to make this happen," she said. "Who would have ever thought that a small businessman from the small state of Arkansas could make something so big happen?"
'All the credit to the Lord'
Hope, who married into the famous Taft political family and served as first lady of Ohio from 1999 to 2007, said when she tells her father's story to others, she offers a dollar bill as an object lesson in how God can use anyone to accomplish His purposes.
"I use it as an encouragement to let people know that they can make a difference. It doesn't matter where they come from or what size of a family, or whether they're well-known or not. They can make a difference, like my father did." CP.
How a partnership between African churches is helping communities see again.
Across much of Africa, churches have long been more than places of worship - they are also trusted centres of community life that step in where public services cannot reach.
Now, a partnership between global social enterprise VisionSpring and church networks in Uganda, Zambia and Malawi is adding an unexpected dimension to that role: training pastors to carry out vision screenings and distribute affordable reading glasses to people in their communities.
For millions of adults in low-income and rural areas, poor vision affects everything from earning a living to reading Scripture. Through VisionSpring's Reading Glasses for Improved Livelihoods programme, churches are helping to address a need that is both practical and frequently overlooked.
The bishops held the line at Synod - but for how much longer?
(Photo: Unsplash / Shelby Deeter)Hold up the front page. A majority of bishops on the General Synod gave a positive pastoral lead to the Church of England in vetoing a motion affirming “intimate” same-sex relationships.
It took the 14 bishops who voted against the motion on July 13 some courage to do so. It was obvious during the debate that the majority of Synod members in the chamber at York University supported the Private Member’s Motion.
Moved by Professor Muriel Robinson, a lay member for Lincoln Diocese, the motion as amended expressed “delight in the lives and ministries of LGBTQIA+ people in the Church of England” and stated that “committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationships” can be “entirely compatible with Christian discipleship and ministry”.
In the final vote 93 clergy supported the motion with 79 against. Among the laity 101 voted for it with 83 against. Because the motion needed to pass in all three Houses of Synod, the 14 bishops effectively vetoed it - but only just. Eleven bishops voted for it with four abstaining.
Until the C of E releases the electronic voting results from the July 2026 Synod, the names of the 14 bishops who voted against the motion and the 11 who voted for it are unknown. But the Bishop of Sheffield, Pete Wilcox, led the episcopal charge against a measure that, had it passed, would have set the established Church on the path towards changing its traditional teaching on marriage and sexual morality.
He spoke in support of an amendment to the motion stating “that the teaching of the Church of England provides that sexual intimacy properly belongs within marriage”. That amendment moved by Dr Jamie Harrison, a lay member for Durham Diocese who is on the Archbishops’ Council, was supported by the majority of bishops but was sunk by the clergy and the laity.
Harrison’s motion tried to keep the Church on the course set by the bishops at the February 2026 General Synod. It was then that members backed the bishops’ motion to wind down the years-long Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process which had led to the Synod approving services of same-sex blessing in February 2023.
But due to the legal difficulties standing in the way of ‘bespoke’ or ‘standalone’ services of blessing for same-sex couples without two-thirds’ majority support in Synod, the bishops wanted to ditch LLF and instead set up a Relationship, Sexuality and Gender Working Group, effectively kicking gay wedding celebrations into the long grass.
Speaking for Harrison’s amendment, Wilcox began by paying tribute to the late Andrew Watson, the former Bishop of Guildford, who died of pancreatic cancer last March. That was significant because Watson was one of only two diocesan bishops who voted against the same-sex blessings in February 2023.
Wilcox voted for that motion but by October 2023 he had decided to join Watson in contending for the Church’s traditional teaching.
In a pointed remark against some of the revisionist stridency in the chamber, Wilcox said: “If Andrew were still alive, I’m sure he would have wished to speak in this debate. His words would have been careful and courteous. We miss his wisdom and his grace in this chamber.”
At one point in the debate, an LGBT activist clergyman cracked a joke about his lack of homosexual encounters in Norwich. The look that Wilcox, sitting a few feet away from the podium, shot at the speaker could have set his flowery summer shirt on fire.
An important aspect of Watson’s positive spiritual legacy is arguably his impact on Wilcox, an unlikely contender for biblical truth but who is now emerging as the chief episcopal champion for the Church’s traditional teaching.
Wilcox managed to take 13 of his fellow bishops with him this time around in defying majorities among the clergy and laity and doing what bishops should do.
Bishops are not delegates of the General Synod; they are senior pastors answerable ultimately to Jesus Christ in the Lord's revealed truth. In voting down the motion, they gave the Church a positive pastoral lead. But with elections for a new Synod due to take place this autumn the question arises: for how much longer can Wilcox persuade his colleagues to resist the pressure in their own dioceses and in wider society to ditch the Church’s traditional teaching?
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
Consultation to allow weddings in back gardens, pubs and forests.
The government has launched a consultation into liberalising the country’s marriage laws.
Christian group casts doubt on Ofcom's online porn age checks.
(Photo: Getty/iStock)Christian think tank has disputed claims from Ofcom that the majority of major pornographic websites are providing “highly effective” age verification procedures.
Since the introduction of the controversial Online Safety Act, pornographic websites have been required to introduce age verification measures.
Christian groups have generally had mixed views on the Act, praising efforts to reduce online pornography consumption, particularly among children, but raising concerns about the possible censorship of dissent online.
Nearly one year after it came into force, regulator Ofcom has published a report stating that 66 of the top 100 pornography websites in Britain are meeting the requirements of the law with “highly effective” age verification measures.
These figures have been disputed by Christian policy group CARE, which said that only 44 such websites were using “highly effective” measures. CARE conducted its own research between 9 and 16 July, and found that among the top ten websites, only half met the “highly effective” standard.
According to CARE, 26 websites had attempted to meet the standard, but fell short of it and, of these, most (15) permitted access to “highly explicit thumbnails” before any age verification process kicked in. In addition, 18 of the 26 also provided explicit titles before age verification controls took effect. Nearly a third of sites (30) had no age verification measures at all.
CARE said it had contacted Ofcom in a bid to clarify why there was such a “serious discrepancy” between their own figures and Ofcom’s official report.
Tim Cairns, online safety lead at CARE, said, “While our data set might be different from the one Ofcom used, we would strongly dispute the claim by Ofcom that as many as 66 of the top 100 porn sites in the UK are providing highly effective age assurance controls.
“If you take Ofcom’s figure of 66, our research, conducted just days ago, only arrives at a similar figure if you combine sites that have ‘highly effective’ age assurance with sites that just have some form of age checks in place.”
Cairns questioned whether Ofcom was taking a sufficiently robust approach to the standards set out in the legislation, although he also accepted the fact that CARE and Ofcom could be looking at a different top 100 list, due to fluctuations in site popularity.
"In light of the very serious discrepancy between our research and that of Ofcom, the regulator needs to reassure the public that it has properly taken account of how frequently the data changes," he said.
And what is being done about the fact that just a few days ago, some 30 of the top 100 porn sites in the UK had absolutely no age assurance controls in place at all.
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