USCIRF chair Tony Perkins gives CT a behind-the-scenes look at today’s annual report on “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” violations.

A new report aims to “unflinchingly criticize the records of US allies and adversaries alike” on religious freedom.

And there’s a lot to report, with more headlines each month confirming the Pew Research Center’s 10-year analysis that government restrictions and social hostilities involving religion have reached record levels worldwide.

Today’s 21st annual report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) identifies significant problems in 29 countries—but sees “an upward trajectory overall.”

“Our awareness is going to grow greater, and the problem will appear more pronounced,” USCIRF chair Tony Perkins told CT. “But as we continue to work on it, I think we will see tremendous progress in the next few years if we stay the present course.”

Created as an independent, bipartisan federal commission by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, USCIRF casts a wider net than the US State Department, which annually designates Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) for such nations’ violations of religious freedom, or places them on a Special Watch List (SWL) if less severe.

Last December, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced CPC status for Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

USCIRF now recommends adding India, Nigeria, Russia, Syria, and Vietnam.

And where the State Department put only Cuba, Nicaragua, Sudan, and Uzbekistan on the watch list, USCIRF recommends also including Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Central African Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, and Turkey.

USCIRF’s mandate is to provide oversight and advice to the State Department. ...

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An alternative college admissions test, used by some Christian schools, draws a record 50,000 students.

The Classic Learning Test (CLT), a niche college entrance exam aspiring to bring a sense of virtue to standardized tests, saw a 1,000 percent increase in registrations over its short history when the SAT and ACT canceled testing for the remainder of the school year due to COVID-19.

“Because we are able to administer the test remotely, we’re kind of the only game in town,” said Jeremy Tate, who created the CLT four years ago amid a renaissance in Classical education, including among Christians.

At its first administration in June 2016, 47 students took the CLT. With the bump in registration, 50,000 students will take its suite of tests—the CLT, and the CLT-8 and CLT-10, designed for lower grades—during the 2019-2020 academic year. That’s more than double last year’s total.

Though not a Christian company, CLT references figures including John Henry Newman and C. S. Lewis in its promotional materials and stresses the moral, formational dimension to education. The exam has been popular among classical Christian schools, which educate over 40,000 students in the US, and homeschoolers, who make up about 40 percent of CLT test-takers.

So far, 178 colleges and universities in the US accept the exam, mostly Catholic and Protestant schools. For other institutions, the CLT can serve as a supplemental assessment.

The College Board and ACT Inc., the companies that administer the SAT and ACT, respectively, have canceled or postponed in-person testing until the fall, leading many colleges to make the admissions exams an optional part of their applications. In 2018, around 2 million students took the SAT and 1.9 million took the ACT.

While some registrants may turn to the CLT this year for the convenience ...

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(UPDATED) The St. Louis pastor spoke up about the difficulties faced by leaders and critiqued “celebrity culture” in ministry.

Darrin Patrick, a megachurch pastor, author, and speaker, has died.

Patrick was a teaching pastor at Seacoast Church, a multi-site megachurch based in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and the founding pastor of the Journey Church in St. Louis, where he lived.

In a Friday evening update, Seacoast Church stated: “Darrin was target shooting with a friend at the time of his death. An official cause of death has not been released but it appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No foul play is suspected.”

Patrick’s unexpected death came as a shock to friends and colleagues. Robby Gallaty, pastor of Long Hollow Baptist, in Hendersonville, Tennessee, said that Patrick was scheduled to speak at his church next weekend.

“I just talked to him Tuesday and Wednesday,” said Gallaty. “This is the second close friend I have lost in a year.”

Gallaty first met Patrick in 2015 and had invited him to speak the following year at a men’s ministry event at Long Hollow. Just before the event, he said, Patrick called and said he was leaving the ministry.

At the time, Patrick had been a rising star among Reformed evangelical circles and was serving as vice-president of the Acts 29 church planting network. He was fired from Journey for what church elders called misconduct including “inappropriate meetings, conversations, and phone calls with two women” and an abuse of power.

Despite Patrick’s fall from ministry, the two stayed friends. Patrick admitted his faults and got counseling. He went through a restoration process that lasted 26 months, according to a 2019 blog interview posted at Christianity Today. He returned to the ministry as a preacher but not as a senior pastor of a church. ...

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The company has also started sales of mobile phones through Amazon, Flipkart and retail stores in permitted areas.

LIC's New Endowment Plan is a participating non-linked plan which offers an attractive combination of protection and saving features.

The company will also put in place a leave without pay program for the months of May, June and July

Domestic mobile brand Lava on Saturday said it has resumed production at its manufacturing facility in Noida with over 20 per cent production capacity.

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