After a steady decline in conditions for India’s Christian minority in recent years, there are fears that things may be about to get worse if the ruling BJP holds onto power in the forthcoming election.

Millions of Indians will cast their votes from 11 April to 23 May in the world’s largest democratic elections, but one pastor who asked to be unnamed for security reasons fears election rigging.

“People regret their choices of 2014. Where I live, most people don’t like the BJP at all,” the pastor told Open Doors UK.

“They shouldn’t win. But we are afraid that the elections will be rigged. Maybe the voting machines will be hacked or maybe people will be given money if they vote for the BJP.

“We, as pastors, were promised land and protection if we voted for them.”

Instead of land and protection, Christians have seen an increase in attacks since the BJP came to power in 2014.

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The situation for India’s Christians is “worsening year on year” @OpenDoorsUK https://t.co/39yZZ7IwXG

— Christian Today (@ChristianToday) April 6, 2019

Three historically black churches have burned in less than two weeks in one south Louisiana parish, where officials said they had found “suspicious elements” in each case. The officials have not ruled out the possibility of arson, or the possibility that the fires are related.

“There is clearly something happening in this community,” State Fire Marshal H. Browning said in a statement on Thursday. “That is why it is imperative that the citizens of this community be part of our effort to figure out what it is.”

The three fires occurred on March 26, Tuesday and Thursday in St. Landry Parish, north of Lafayette. A fourth fire, a small blaze that officials said was “intentionally set,” was reported on Sunday at a predominantly black church in Caddo Parish, about a three-hour drive north.

“But just as we haven’t connected the three in St. Landry, we haven’t connected the one in Caddo,” said Ashley Rodrigue, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, on Friday.

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3 black churches have burned in less than 2 weeks in one Louisiana parish. “There is clearly something happening in this community,” said the state fire marshal. https://t.co/iish89EPlf

— NYT National News (@NYTNational) April 6, 2019

It was [Samuel] Coleridge who acutely observed: “Socinianism is as inevitable a deduction from [Jeremy] Taylor’s scheme as Deism and Atheism are from Socinianism.” This remark not only exposes the fatal flaw in Taylor’s own theology but also sums up the trend from orthodoxy in the early Caroline period to a moralism and deism in the eighteenth century and on to the secularism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

–C. FitzSimons Allison, The rise of moralism: the proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter (New York: Seabury Press, 1966)

in the early Caroline period 2 a moralism and deism in the 18th century +on to the secularism of the 19th+20th centuries’ 2/2 C. FitzSimons Allison, The rise of moralism: the proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter (New York: Seabury Press, 1966) #anglican #soteriology pic.twitter.com/nJHSYVpCOU

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) April 6, 2019

Ernest Frederick “Fritz” Hollings, the charismatic and quick-witted former U.S. senator and South Carolina governor who became one of the state’s most important national political figures, died early Saturday after a period of declining health.

He was 97.

“Our father, Fritz Hollings, was dedicated to his family, the United States Senate and the people of South Carolina,” his three surviving children said in a statement. “He was a hero for us and millions of Americans.

“While we are heartbroken, we hope that in the coming days and weeks as we celebrate our father’s life, all South Carolinian’s will be reminded of his service to our state and nation.”

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Hollings steered South Carolina through the civil rights era, established a program to feed poor pregnant women, enacted legislation to protect the environment and brought home millions of dollars as he also fought to balance the federal budget.

No recent history of the state could be written without him in it.

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JUST IN: Former SC governor, US Senator Ernest F. ‘Fritz’ Hollings passed away this morning at age 97.

Read more: https://t.co/RG5Fyu9Fv8

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) April 6, 2019

Almighty and most merciful God, who hast given thy Son to die for our sins and to obtain eternal redemption for us through his own blood: Let the merit of his spotless sacrifice, we beseech thee, purge our consciences from dead works to serve thee, the living God, that we may receive the promise of eternal inheritance in Christ Jesus our Lord; to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honour and glory, world without end.

Concerning the prophets:

My heart is broken within me,
all my bones shake;
I am like a drunken man,
like a man overcome by wine,
because of the Lord
and because of his holy words.
For the land is full of adulterers;
because of the curse the land mourns,
and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.
Their course is evil,
and their might is not right.
“Both prophet and priest are ungodly;
even in my house I have found their wickedness,
says the Lord.
Therefore their way shall be to them
like slippery paths in the darkness,
into which they shall be driven and fall;
for I will bring evil upon them
in the year of their punishment,
says the Lord.
In the prophets of Samar′ia
I saw an unsavory thing:
they prophesied by Ba′al
and led my people Israel astray.
But in the prophets of Jerusalem
I have seen a horrible thing:
they commit adultery and walk in lies;
they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
so that no one turns from his wickedness;
all of them have become like Sodom to me,
and its inhabitants like Gomor′rah.”

Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets:

“Behold, I will feed them with wormwood,
and give them poisoned water to drink;
for from the prophets of Jerusalem
ungodliness has gone forth into all the land.”

Jeremiah 23:9-15