Upgrade 26 holds this Saturday 20th, 2017.

Please join us for this unique event.

A 22-year-old who lives with his parents stopped the worldwide malware hack by registering a domain for $10.69

The "accidental hero" who halted the global spread of an unprecedented ransomware attack by registering a garbled domain name hidden in the malware has warned the attack could be rebooted.

The ransomware used in Friday's attack wreaked havoc on organizations including FedEx and Telefónica, as well as the UK's National Health Service, where operations were canceled, X-rays, test results, and patient records became unavailable, and phones did not work.

But the spread of the attack was brought to a sudden halt when one UK cybersecurity researcher tweeting as @malwaretechblog, with the help of Darien Huss from the security firm Proofpoint, found and inadvertently activated a "kill switch" in the malicious software.

The researcher, who identified himself only as MalwareTech, is a 22-year-old from southwest England who works for Kryptos logic, a Los Angeles-based threat-intelligence company.

Trump’s Religious Liberty Order Doesn’t Answer Most Evangelicals’ Prayers

• Prayer breakfast pledge to ‘totally destroy’ Johnson Amendment comes up shy; conscience exemptions from LGBT anti-discrimination rules missing.

Image: WhiteHouse.gov

In his biggest religious liberty push since taking office, President Donald Trump officially laid out in an executive order some of the protections he has promised faithful supporters for months. The move came on the same day that evangelical leaders gathered in Washington for the annual National Day of Prayer.

One problem: This is not the executive order many evangelicals had been praying for.

Gone are the exemptions for religious groups faced with accommodating LGBT antidiscrimination regulations that conflict with their faith convictions. Instead, the order—titled “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty”—extends political speech protections for pastors and religious organizations, aiming to let them to talk about politics without penalty. It also requests “regulatory relief” for religious groups, including evangelical universities, caught in a court battle over the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.

“I am signing today an executive order to defend the freedom of religion and speech in America, the freedoms that we wanted, the freedoms that you fought for so long,” the president said in a Rose Garden ceremony. “The federal government will never ever penalize any person for their protected religious beliefs.”

This Black Pastor Led a White Church—in 1788

CHRISTIAN HISTORY

The remarkable tenure and steadfast faithfulness of Lemuel Haynes.

THABITI ANYABWILE

Image: Wikimedia Commons

A Model of Fidelity and Love


“If the church is to prosper and mature, she will need faithful men to lead and care for her. The church will need men who are sound in doctrine, whose lives are guided by the Word of God, and who are willing to defend the truth. The church will need to hold up as its ideal those who model fidelity and love toward God, men who will pour themselves out for the benefit of the Lord’s sheep. Men of this mold are gifts to the church from her Lord. In the late 1700s the Lord did indeed give such a gift to the church”
—Lemuel Haynes.

Lemuel Haynes was born on July 18, 1753 in West Hartford, Connecticut. Early biographers speculated that Haynes’s mother was either a daughter of the prominent Goodwin family of Hartford or a servant named Alice Fitch who worked for one John Haynes. However, speculations about his parentage proved profitless. Abandoned by his parents at five months of age, Haynes was raised as an indentured servant by the Rose family in Middle Granville, Massachusetts. The Roses treated Lemuel as one of the family’s own children, giving him the same pious instruction in Christianity and family worship that Deacon Rose gave all his children.

Following his indenture, Haynes volunteered in 1774 as a Minuteman and in October 1776 joined the Continental Army, thus becoming part of the American Revolution. Haynes volunteered just as the Continental Navy and Army suffered heavy casualties at the Battle of Valcour Bay on October 11, 1776 and General Washington’s forces met defeat at the Battle of White Plains on October 28, 1776. In November 1776 Continental forces witnessed over three thousand casualties and the loss of over one hundred cannons and thousands of muskets in defeats at Fort Washington and Fort Lee. Lemuel served in the Continental Army until November 17, 1776, when he contracted typhus and was relieved of duty. Despite the dismal prospects of the Revolution at this point, as a patriot Haynes was determined to defend with life and tongue the newly developing nation and its ideals of liberty. His political values were shaped by his “idealization of George Washington and allegiance to the Federalist Party.”

War-Torn Middle East Churches

Syria and Lebanon celebrate the historic ordination of a pair of faithful clergy.

Image: Patrick Baz / Getty

The turnover among Christians in the Middle East, in addition to years of stirring among reformist Arab evangelicals, has made way for female pastors to rise into leadership positions vacated by clergy who have fled amid the mass migration in the region.

Not since three women were ordained by the Church of God in 1920 had an Arab woman been granted the ecclesial backing to administer the sacraments in Syria or Lebanon. Nearly a century later, a pair of female pastors—Rola Sleiman and Najla Kassab—were ordained in February and March of this year.

They represent a unique way forward for the meager evangelical population in the Levant, which has followed traditional gender roles.

“It wasn’t in my dreams,” said Sleiman, who studied at Beirut’s Near East School of Theology (NEST). “I just wanted to serve God. I never planned that I’m going to be ordained.”

Donald Trump signs executive order 'vigorously promoting religious liberty'

• The order includes provisions regarding the IRS and Obamacare

The ‘Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty’ order is meant to protect the tax-free status of politically active churches Reuters

Donald Trump has signed an executive order allowing religious leaders a more active role in American politics on the National Day of Prayer.

Mr Trump said “faith is deeply embedded in the history of our country”. He also called the US a “nation of tolerance...we will never stand for religious discrimination”.

Vice President Mike Pence said the order reinforces the “importance of prayer” in the US and said Mr Trump has an “unshakeable faith in God and the American people”.

Mr Trump’s rhetoric about not standing for religious discrimination, will jar with some given the fact that Mr Trump took a hard line about letting Muslims into the US during his presidential campaign.