Signs and Wonders: Churches welcome Son of God to theaters nationwide

Churches to pack theaters. T0night, publicists in some cities are giving churchgoers free admission to theaters showing the new Son of God movie, which is receiving mixed reviews from critics. In Charlotte, my hometown, all 10 screens of the upscale Phillips Place theater plan to show the movie. The film’s producers have already shown it at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church and at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, hoping for favorable word-of-mouth. Also coming soon is Noah, scheduled for a March 28 release, and Heaven Is for Real, set for release on April 16.

Missouri breaks. Last night, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062, which would have allowed companies to deny services based on the religious beliefs of the business owners. But that veto likely won’t stop other states from attempting to pass similar laws. On Monday, a Republican lawmaker in Missouri introduced a similar bill. Missouri state Sen. Wayne Wallingford said the legislation would “protect Missourians from attacks on their religious freedom.” Wallingford said his bill was based loosely on the Arizona bill, and another introduced in Kansas. Christian groups, including Alliance Defending Freedom, have supported such legislation, though some said the Arizona bill was too vaguely worded. Expect other states to follow Missouri’s lead, with slight modifications to get the language dialed in just right.

Black genocide. According to Mario Diaz, Concerned Women for America’s legal counsel, more black babies were aborted in New York in 2012 than were born that year, according to a report recently released by the city. Diaz combed through the numbers to come to this startling conclusion: “There were 31,328 abortions of black babies and only 24,758 black children born. That’s 6,570 more abortions than births. And it makes up almost half the total number of abortions in NYC. If you combine Hispanic women, who had 22,917 abortions, for about 31 percent of the total, these two minority groups alone make 73 percent of the total number of abortions!” Some have called such numbers a “black genocide,” and it’s hard to argue.

Progress or regress? According to a surprising report from National Public Radio, there’s a “real debate taking place in Spain now: whether the freedoms that came with democracy in the 1980s represent true progress, or a breakdown of traditional Spanish values.” At issue is whether Spain should put back in place protections for the unborn, or—as NPR chooses to describe it—to “severely restrict abortion.” Spaniards, who threw off the reins of the fascist Francisco Franco in the 1980s, has suffered under the consequences of liberal “freedoms.” Unemployment tops 25 percent, abortion is rampant, the country’s infrastructure is in decline, and even the population is shrinking. The evangelical population of Spain is less than 1 percent, so “conservative” in Spain doesn’t mean exactly what it means in the United States, but there is nonetheless a resurgence of conservative ideas there. One of the results likely will be new protections for the unborn put in place later this year.