GREENVILLE COUNTY, S.C. ( WHNS/Gray News ) - A former youth pastor in South Carolina has been sentenced to federal prison after appearing in court on Tuesday. Daniel Kellan Mayfield was sentenced to the maximum sentence of 240 months in prison on a federal charge for possessing child pornography. The judge said he must serve 85 percent of his sentence and is also required to register as a sex offender. Officials said 5,344 images of child pornography were found on Mayfield’s phone.

By Dillon Thomas Updated on: November 11, 2025 / 5:45 PM MST / CBS Colorado     F ort Collins, Colorado police have arrested Matthew McGinley, 30, accusing the former worship pastor and teacher of sexual assault of a minor by a person in a position of trust. In police and court records obtained by CBS News Colorado, McGinley is accused of having a sexual relationship with a former student that continued for more than one year. McGinley was a part-time educator at a prominent Northern Colorado Christian school for the 2018-2019 school year, according to the school. According to police, that is when McGinley met the victim in one of the classes he helped teach. The student was younger than 18 when they met. Police reported that McGinley, 24 at the time, and the student began by exchanging flirtatious late-night texts before the relationship progressed to kissing. Police said the two started having sex at the beginning of 2020. It continued through part of 2020 until the v...

From the Oklahoma Attorney General: OKLAHOMA CITY (Oct. 2, 2025) – The founder of a Texas megachurch pleaded guilty today to five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child stemming from incidents that date back to the 1980s. Robert Preston Morris, 64, appeared in court today in front of Osage County District Special Judge Cindy Pickerill. Morris, who resigned last summer as senior pastor of Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas, was indicted by a Multi-County Grand Jury earlier this year. The abuse began in December 1982 when Morris was a traveling evangelist visiting the family of the victim in Hominy. The victim was 12 years old at the time, and the abuse continued over the next four years. Under the plea agreement, Morris received a 10-year suspended sentence with the first six months to be served in the Osage County Jail. He must register as a sex offender and will be supervised by Texas authorities via interstate compact. Morris was also ordered to pay his costs of incarcerat...

By Mike Hixenbaugh and Elizabeth Chuck ~ This article is part of “ Pastors and Prey ,” a series investigating sex abuse allegations in the Assemblies of God. A children’s pastor was caught filming girls in a church bathroom in Arkansas. Elders suspended him for a few weeks. In Illinois, a preacher was accused of sexually abusing children. Church leaders sent him to therapy rather than call police. In California, a worship minister went to prison for molesting boys. His congregation threw him a party when he returned. All of these men remained in ministry in the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination. All went on to abuse more children. Since the 1970s, Assemblies of God churches have repeatedly reinstated ministers and volunteer leaders accused of sexual misconduct, returning them to pulpits and youth groups [...] Survivors say they were violated in sanctuaries, at pastors’ homes and in tents on camping trips. Read the entire NBC news article here:...

By Webmdave ~ I f you've been watching the news, you know that astronomers have revealed the first-ever "image" of the black hole at the center of the Messier 87 galaxy, 55 million light-years away. Thinking this image and the ensuing conversations about the age of universe, etc. might've thrown a monkey wrench into the confirmation bias of some Christians, I decided to trawl the Internet for evidence of initial Christian reaction to this tremendous scientific revelation. Below are a few examples of what I found: A black hole is a perfect example of something we’ve believed in even though we cannot see it or touch it. -- The Jesuit Review It is a reminder of the amazing complexity of the universe that God created. The fact that black holes exist and that we cannot see inside them because no light escapes, reminds us there will always be mystery in God’s creation – and in God himself. -- Eternity News I was fascinated by the first photograph of a black h...

Excerpted from Cincinnati.Com. T he church told her not to let it go, and the pastor called her a hero. The congregation stood and applauded. You might know the story by now. It made  Fox News  and  Yahoo , dividing people across the country.  School officials disciplined a 14-year-old Lebanon High School student in March after she posted Bible verses at school. She did so because she saw rainbow flags there, and she said she was trying to help students who were confused. “I seen that there was people in my school that needed help, and they don’t need to be living in the confusion of wondering if they should gay, bi, lesbian, trans – anything like that," Helsinger said in a video her mom posted to Facebook. "God is the only way that they can be healed by that."   School officials have disputed the student's version of events, without going into detail because of student privacy laws, they say. Her video has been viewed more th...

Homo sapiens   is the only living species of a diverse group called hominins (members of the human family tree who are more closely related to each other than they are to chimpanzees and bonobos). Most extinct hominin species are not our direct ancestors, but instead are close relatives with evolutionary histories that took a slightly different path from ours.   Writing in  Nature , Détroit   et al . 1   report the remarkable discovery of one such human relative that will no doubt ignite plenty of scientific debate over the coming weeks, months and years. This newly identified species was found in the Philippines and named   Homo luzonensis   after Luzon, the island where bones and teeth from individuals of this species were excavated from Callao Cave. Specimens of   H. luzonensis   were dated to minimum ages of 50,000 and 67,000 years old, which suggests that the species was alive at the same time as several other hominins belonging to the...

A n investigation has uncovered hundreds of abuse allegations against leaders of a conservative, loosely affiliated network of evangelical Christian churches. The report , identified 412 abuse allegations in 187 independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) churches and institutions across 40 states and Canada, with some cases reaching as far back as the 1970s. About 2.5 percent of American adults identify as independent fundamental Baptists, according to the a higher percentage than those who identify as Episcopalians, Presbyterians or members of the Assemblies of God. The most well-known independent fundamental Baptists are likely the Duggars, who starred on TLC’s reality show “ 19 Kids and Counting .” The show was canceled in 2015 after had been accused of sexually abusing girls, including four of his sisters, and that his parents had kept the abuse hidden. America’s estimated 6,000 IFB churches can be part of loosely tied fellowships or pastors’ networks. There are also shared ...