Faith News Network

The U.S. House of Representatives passed and sent to the President’s desk the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act (H.R. 1150).

With a new year on the horizon, many Americans are once again facing difficult health care decisions because of the health insurance requirement still in force under the federal Affordable Care Act. This is especially true as the open enrollment deadline of Jan. 31, 2017, is just around the corner.

Samaritan Ministries International (samaritanministries.org), with 64,000 members (210,000 individuals), has practiced health care sharing through a biblical lens for 22 years. Its focus has been Christians helping other Christians with their needs as the Bible instructs in Galatians 6:2, which says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (ESV).

“Every day we hear from people who are in a health care crisis of sorts, especially now during open enrollment,” said Anthony Hopp, Samaritan’s vice president for external relations. “Samaritan Ministries works to bring health care back to Biblical basics, applying the definition of Biblical community to health care. Our members share medical burdens with one another on a monthly basis, which means about $23 million is sent from household to household. Why do we do this? Because Jesus told us to love one another.”

Hopp noted that health care sharing ministries like Samaritan are exempt from the individual mandate under the Affordable Care Act. Members of these ministries who share each other’s health care needs are not required to pay any penalties, as this approach to health care satisfies the federal requirement that individuals purchase insurance or pay a penalty.

He added that Christians may choose a health care sharing ministry like Samaritan for a variety of reasons, such as the Biblical teachings of trusting in God, caring for fellow believers, and desiring to obey Jesus’ commands to love one another, which includes sharing each other’s burdens.

A Samaritan Ministries member family from Denver says they are “grateful to have Samaritan Ministries.”

“It shows our family that Christians do take care of each other. And we serve an awesome God who heals us. We are in prayer always for our Samaritan family.”

Today, Samaritan Ministries members from all 50 states and several foreign countries are directly sharing their health care needs from household to household. Those with health care burdens also receive notes of encouragement and prayers from the Samaritan Ministries member community.

For more information, visit www.samaritanministries.org, or follow the ministry on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

(Source: Christian Newswire)

Activists will be holding signs with Christian women wearing head coverings to stand in solidarity with their Muslim neighbors and friends.

Liberty Counsel filed a brief opposing the latest efforts by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) in its lawsuit against Pastor Scott Lively, in which SMUG seeks to silence and impose significant financial penalties against Lively for his speaking and writing about his biblical views on homosexuality. Liberty Counsel’s filing is in response to a brief filed by SMUG as a last ditch effort to save SMUG’s case from dismissal after it utterly failed to present evidence supporting its claims at a summary judgment hearing last month.

Parents are deeply concerned about an After School Satan Club that targets children as young as five scheduled to open at Point Defiance Elementary School in Tacoma, Washington, on Wednesday, December 14.

The Franklin (PA) City Council has elected to maintain a Nativity display in Bandstand Park despite an anonymous demand letter received on Monday from two local residents in Seneca. The letter’s authors, “RM, SJ and family,” copied the email to the atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and stated that a Nativity display is a violation of church and state and should be removed from Bandstand Park.