Every single day, magical moments are made. For Ana T’s son, one of those moments took place in Ollivanders at Universal Studios. In case you aren’t aware, this is a wand shop located in the Harry Potter section of the park — Diagon Alley, to be more specific. While here, Mom says that a kind stranger surprised her son with a private wand ceremony. The purpose of this ceremony is to see which wand “chooses” the young fan, similar to how it happens in the series. Ana’s son didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this level of magic! Experience this unforgettable moment yourself in the video below. @anacf93 @Taylor your kindness had mom and dad in tears. We will never forget this moment with him. Thank you for setting this up for us! @Universal Destinations @Harry Potter #harrypotter #harrypottertiktok #booktok #books #reading #harrypottertok ♬ Gentle and warm background piano(1262846) – Noru “Taylor, your kindness had mom and dad in tears,” Ana writes in the caption of her post, tagging the kind stranger. “We will never forget this moment with him. Thank you for setting this up for us!” While Visiting Ollivanders at Universal Studios, This Young Harry Potter Fan Experiences an Unforgettably Magical Moment With some help from the tech team, this private wand ceremony felt like a scene from an actual Harry Potter film. It’s no wonder this young fan is both excited and nervous. So much so, in fact, he gets hiccups! Moments like this are what make visits to theme parks oh-so-special for kids — and their parents, too, of course. “His ‘sorry’ for knocking the shelves haha I literally felt like I was watching a scene from Harry Potter! This is amazing,” a fellow fan writes in reply to Ana’s video, another person adding, “Okay but shoutout to the employee for making it such a realistic and memorable moment.” “I went to Universal years ago and watched a kid get their wand ceremony,” a third person shares. “It was pure magic seeing their face light up with all the theatrics.” You can find the source of this story’s featured image here! The post Magical: Young “Harry Potter” Fan Gets The VIP Treatment At Universal’s Ollivanders appeared first on InspireMore.

Just because you understand something logically doesn’t necessarily mean you understand it emotionally. Bridging that gap between knowing and feeling can be difficult. Luckily, mental health professionals, like therapists, are able to help. A woman named Kaileen is one of those people. As a therapist, she helps clients with a variety of issues, but shame is her biggest focus. Almost everyone struggles with shame at some point in their lives. That said, some of us have an extra tough time of letting that shame go. While there’s a lot of ways to handle shame, there is no one “right’ way. Curious to see what has helped others, Kaileen presented a prompt on social media: “Tell me something your therapist said (or did) that let shame completely fall away.” TikTok Kaileen’s post has gotten thousands of replies, and they are full of insightful answers like the one above. Boundaries are needed for any healthy, safe relationship. But when you’re not used to setting boundaries, it’s totally normal for feelings of shame to crop up. Thankfully, that doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It’s a common part of the process! Mental Health Therapist Invites Strangers Online to Share How Their Own Therapist Helped Them Finally Let Go of Shame It can be easy to label our feelings as “good” or bad.” Similarly, we often assign morality to certain feelings. For example, someone who is super stressed out may feel like they’re inferior. That’s how the commenter below felt until their therapist gave them a new perspective. TikTok After going through a difficult time, have you ever asked yourself, “Why didn’t I handle that better?” While it’s true that there is value in learning from our mistakes, sometimes, there was nothing more for us to do. This is especially true for people like the commenter below, who were still children at the time. TikTok Shame can be a difficult emotion to process and, eventually, let go of entirely. That said, these kind strangers remind us that it is possible. Plus, it’s nice to be reminded that, while shame can make us feel alone, that’s far from true. In other words, there’s absolutely no shame in feeling shame! What has your therapist said about shame that stuck with you? You can find the sources of this story’s featured image here and here! The post Strangers Share The One Thing Their Therapist Said To “Let Shame Completely Fall Away” appeared first on InspireMore.

As we seek unity in our churches, there are three counterfeit forms of unity to watch out for. The first is coercive unity, in which people are pressured to conform outwardly while they secretly harbor unspoken dissent. The second is token unity, in which people appear to tolerate everything but instead become detached from it all. The former represents an overreach of authority, while the latter represents an overabundance of love. With coercive unity, love is extinguished, leaving behind a temporary order. With token unity, unconditional love becomes a new form of tyranny, for it leaves no room for differences. This type of unity is also often temporary. In China today, the Catholic Church leans toward high-authority unity, while evangelical churches favor low-authority, all-inclusive love. The goal of Reformed churches in China, however, is to achieve (and sustain) a balance. But there’s another kind of false unity that’s harder to spot because it can closely resemble gospel unity. Let’s call it homogeneous unity. Homogeneous Unity Many feel that small churches are more intimate and unified and that larger churches lose this intimacy as they grow. Thus, they believe smaller churches have greater unity and better embody the church’s grand purpose as described in Ephesians 3:10–11. I believe this is mistaken, because those who think this way fail to realize one thing: The smaller a group, the higher its degree of homogeneity and the lower its diversity; conversely, the larger a group, the greater its diversity and the lower its homogeneity. The purpose of the gospel isn’t to achieve unity among a homogeneous group but to achieve unity among a highly diverse group. In Ephesians, the two groups with the least homogeneity were Jews and Gentiles. The gospel’s greatness lay in uniting that which couldn’t possibly be reconciled, thus testifying to Christ’s impossible sacrifice and impossible resurrection. The purpose of the gospel is not to achieve unity among a homogeneous group, but to achieve unity among a highly diverse group. We see homogeneous unity in churches when teachers easily connect with teachers, business people with business people, intellectuals with intellectuals, high-income earners with high-income earners, literature enthusiasts with literature enthusiasts, drinkers with drinkers, children with children and the elderly with the elderly. When such affinities exist within a church, it isn’t necessarily bad—it may even be good. But such affinities are likely not based in the gospel, for they’re the norm in human society. They don’t manifest the gospel’s power. The church’s mission is to continually break down this natural unity, disrupt the tendency toward “homogeneous associations” within the church, and shatter our cultural identities to humble us. Through constant evangelism, church planting, and missions, the church reduces the cultural homogeneity of the covenant community so the glory of the gospel might shine more brightly, the Accuser might be silenced, and the sins of this evil world might be condemned. This is a dangerous task. Dangerous Task As the church’s homogeneity decreases, interpersonal conflicts will inevitably increase. Being “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” will be an ongoing challenge in the lives of Christians as the church grows and diversifies (Eph. 3:6). At Early Rain, for example, we’re incredibly diverse—from income disparity to class differences to educational gaps to the proportion of migrants and temporary residents to differences in geographical origins, occupations, and cultural and political views. This brings many choices: acceptance or comparison, inferiority or arrogance, clinging to cultural identities or letting them go, breaking free from self-imposed limitations or imposing them. When believers leave a church, many say it’s because the church has grown too large, or because their relationships aren’t as close as before, or because they don’t feel sufficiently loved. In reality, however, many are unable or unwilling to accept the challenges that come with the church becoming less homogeneous. They think, Let’s just stop here. Many Christians harbor an alarming desire—that the church would stop growing. They aren’t willing to personally bear the cost of the church’s growth. They’re terrified of their comfortable fellowship being disturbed by outsiders, of being intruded on by someone with questionable habits. One theologian poignantly calls this tendency, which opposes the Great Commission, the “Great Disobedience.” Unity in Diversity It’s true that the less homogeneity within a church community, the greater the challenges and relational conflicts we may encounter. But it’s also true that the greater our challenges and conflicts, the greater may be the display of the gospel’s power and glory among us. The unity produced by the gospel is a unity in diversity. Only then can it be considered a “supernatural” unity. Let me pose a series of questions: Where else in this world can you find young men and 80-year-old women having lunch together, without any blood or legal ties between them? Where else in this world can you find children under 10 attending a funeral with their parents for someone with no familial ties to them? Where else in this world can you find a CEO attending a gathering with an ordinary employee, in which the CEO is the one serving and the employee the one being served? Where else in this world can you find men of vastly different incomes sitting and eating together, talking and weeping with each other, all without being in a same-sex relationship? Where else in this world can you find university professors, corporate executives, designers, and engineers singing and shaking hands with janitors, repairmen, and ex-convicts while calling them brothers and sisters? In society today, such scenes are unusual—almost unimaginable. And yet, over the years, I’ve witnessed these remarkable scenes. In them, I see the glory of the gospel—the unity that comes only through the cross of Christ. I firmly believe that God is using the church to demonstrate that the “foolish” wisdom of the gospel is greater than the fleeting wisdom of this world. Pursue Gospel Unity Early Rain’s low level of homogeneity is partly because of our size but not entirely determined by it. It’s driven to a greater extent by the church’s vision. For many years, we’ve been constantly pushing the gospel to its limits within China’s social and legal spheres by creating ministries for prisoners of conscience, petitioners, intellectuals, and university students; by founding schools; by holding prayer meetings for the nation on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre; by engaging in anti-abortion ministries; and so on. If not for our commitment to this vision, this church—once known by outsiders as the “new urban intellectual church”—would never exhibit the social and cultural diversity it does today. This observation brings me much encouragement and affirmation. It means the challenge of diversity and unity will continue among us. This is a battle we yearn for. That All Would Be Made One Some may ask, “Does this mean we shouldn’t have men’s or women’s fellowships? Or that we shouldn’t have any functional fellowships based on cultural identity?” Not necessarily. Building friendships in the church with those who share your age, profession, or interests can be wonderful, and God often uses those relationships. However, if the church becomes defined by homogeneous friendships and groups, then the diversity brought about by the gospel and the supernatural unity that displays its glory are in danger of vanishing or becoming obscured. In Paul’s day, this meant that if you were a Jewish Christian, you could discuss food preparation and dietary considerations with a few fellow countrymen. If you were a Greek Christian, you could discuss a certain Platonic ideal with brothers who have visited Athens. But in a fellowship where both Jewish and Greek believers are present, you must set aside your cultural identities and turn your focus to the gospel. This is the source, power, and purpose of the supernatural unity that has come to us, and it’s the vision for which we must labor: that from north to south, from citizens to officials, from rich to poor, from young to old, from liberals to conservatives, from the intelligent to the simple-minded, from celebrities to former prostitutes, from prime ministers to tax collectors—that all would be made one through the cross of Christ. Our mission “to the ends of the earth” at the very least entails becoming a community that comprises all communities and a people that embraces all peoples. Without the gospel, even department heads and bureau chiefs would be unwilling to attend the same Bible study group. Yet, on this day, in this ancient city of Chengdu, university professors and elementary school graduates are sweeping the sanctuary floors together. And one day, mayors and petitioners will take Communion together in the same church, and judges and ex-convicts will share a meal in the same fellowship. O gracious Lord, I know that unless you help us, these things will not happen.

Most pro-life Christians are well versed in the scriptural, philosophical, and scientific arguments that support our belief that the fetus is a person. We can probably quote Psalm 139:15–16 and several other passages that affirm the value of unborn life. We can appeal to science by pointing out that from the moment of conception, the zygote has a unique genetic code and therefore isn’t merely an appendage of his or her mother. Yet we may never have examined the complexities of legal recognition of fetal personhood. The pro-life movement has argued for the last 60 years that the Constitution affirms the rights of people from the moment of conception. So far, the Supreme Court hasn’t accepted this argument. In Personhood: The New Civil War over Reproduction, Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, rigorously explains some of the legal implications of fetal personhood in the debate over abortion and suggests that if the Supreme Court did embrace the pro-life movement’s constitutional argument, it might create more complications than pro-life activists expect. Ziegler isn’t part of the pro-life movement. She doesn’t write as a Christian or engage with any theological or philosophical arguments. However, she’s remarkably fair-minded and does her best to be as nuanced and objective as possible. For this reason—as well as the fact that she’s the nation’s most prominent legal expert on the history of abortion policy—it’s worth listening to what she says about the law. She reveals legal complexities that pro-life advocates should consider as we work to end abortion. Criminal Consequences As Ziegler shows, based on arguments about fetal personhood, the repeal of Roe v. Wade was never going to be sufficient for the pro-life movement. Instead, we can expect the pro-life movement to push for a Supreme Court declaration that the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition on depriving a person of life without due process applies to the unborn from the moment of conception. The pro-life movement has argued for the last 60 years that the Constitution supports affirms the rights of people from the moment of conception. So far, the Supreme Court hasn’t accepted this argument. One legal implication of fetal personhood is that women who obtain abortions might be charged with homicide. This doesn’t have to be the case. Ziegler notes that from the 1960s until the late 2010s, nearly all national pro-life leaders insisted constitutional protection of fetal life wouldn’t result in punishment of women. But she also suggests this insistence might be hard to maintain in our current legal system because withholding punishment is based on the assumption that women are victims rather than agents of abortion. That victim status reflects a patronizing view of women, which is at odds with how women are generally seen in civil law. That view probably can’t be sustained in the case of women who self-abort through pills taken in the privacy of their own homes. “If a court recognized personhood, that might require prosecutors to treat the fetus like any other homicide victim,” Ziegler states. “How could the anti-abortion movement claim that personhood required equal punishment of those who harmed the fetus without calling for the prosecution of women?” (143–44). Ziegler hopes she’s wrong on this point. She gives extensive coverage to fetal personhood advocates who support defending the value of fetal life through an expanded social safety net rather than criminalization of those who obtain abortions. “Even today,” she says, “it is possible to imagine a vision of fetal rights less focused on criminalization” (220). Yet she notes that those who support stiff penalties for abortion may have logic on their side if constitutional recognition of fetal personhood becomes a reality. Constitutional Confusion Ziegler also argues that a fetal personhood declaration from the Supreme Court will have unfortunate consequences for constitutional law. She explains that historical evidence is at odds with the pro-life movement’s view that the Fourteenth Amendment includes fetuses in its reference to “persons.” Thus, an originalist view of the Constitution—the view that the text should be interpreted according to the original intended meaning of its authors—won’t produce the interpretation of the amendment that the pro-life movement favors. If the amendment had been widely understood at the time of its passage as mandating protection of the unborn from the moment of conception, it’s strange that none of the people at the time, such as Horatio Storer, who campaigned for stricter anti-abortion laws at the state level, cited the amendment. It’s also strange that several states waited for decades after the amendment’s ratification before passing anti-abortion laws. The most likely originalist reading of the amendment, whose text begins “All persons born or naturalized in the United States,” must account for its opening clause—that is, the amendment likely applies only to people already born, not those still in the womb. Only in the 1960s—a century after the amendment was ratified—did anyone begin to claim it protected fetal personhood. When they did so, Ziegler argues, “they developed something new” (3). It may be because of originalism’s limitations that some postliberal pro-life legal scholars, such as Adrian Vermeule, have already abandoned originalism. Instead, some favor theories of constitutional interpretation that give greater latitude to reinterpreting the text according to natural law principles of morality. In addition, Ziegler says, the attempt to apply the amendment’s equal protection clause to fetuses may jeopardize judicial precedents for some civil rights protections for African Americans. During the civil rights era, Ziegler states, “the courts, in interpreting the Equal Protection Clause, had begun pointing to the fallout a group face from years of discrimination.” In contrast, the fetal personhood argument focuses on “physical dependence and weakness, not past injustice or present political powerless” as “the central concern of the Equal Protection Clause” (xiv). Ziegler’s arguments may be hard to accept for many pro-life Christians. She relies on specific understandings of legal concepts likely unfamiliar to those who aren’t lawyers or legal historians. It seems intuitive that if fetuses are people made in God’s image, we should want to enshrine this principle in civil law and have fetal personhood recognized by the Supreme Court. But the law’s evolution sometimes makes implementing simple ideas much more complex. Those committed to applying the Constitution’s original meaning need to be certain we’re interpreting the amendment correctly and craft legislation in light of that understanding. Committed Consistency Ultimately, the church’s theological affirmation of fetal personhood doesn’t depend on what the Constitution says. Regardless of whether or not Ziegler’s constitutional arguments are valid, our convictions about unborn children as image-bearers of God remain unchanged. The law’s evolution sometimes makes implementing simple ideas much more complex. Moreover, as Ziegler suggests in her conclusion, pro-lifers can protect fetal life even without a fetal personhood declaration from the Supreme Court. For example, the pro-life movement can and should continue the work of crisis pregnancy centers and even legal restrictions on abortion at the local level in the current legal regime. Constitutional protection of fetal personhood has long been the holy grail for the pro-life movement. Many Christians will continue working to achieve it. Nevertheless, Ziegler’s warnings about the unintended consequences of a common pro-life constitutional strategy may well influence our thinking about the best approach. Whatever we do in the legal sphere to protect unborn human life must reflect not only our convictions about the value of the unborn but also our commitment to honest interpretation of the Constitution and love for our neighbors. Those looking for shortcuts will not be happy with this book. But those willing to consider the full complexity of abortion policy debates will find useful insights in Ziegler’s carefully reasoned legal analysis. Personhood reminds us of the complexity of maintaining respect for all persons when campaigning against abortion in the legal sphere.

Across the United States, we see a generational crisis in our churches. Older and younger Christians often don’t understand each other and their differing priorities and perspectives. It’s understandable, since in only one generation, our culture has dropped from 90 percent identifying as Christian to less than half belonging to a church and only 3 percent participating in weekly worship. Bryan Chapell has written a new book, The Multigenerational Church Crisis: Why We Don’t Understand Each Other and How to Unite in Mission, that demonstrates remarkable breadth and depth of understanding of these issues. Published by Baker, The Multigenerational Church Crisis sketches a way forward that can keep the church on mission during our turbulent times. Bryan is the president of Unlimited Grace Media. He’s a Council member of The Gospel Coalition and also leads the administrative committee of the Presbyterian Church in America. Bryan has seen how monogenerational churches die with the generation that dominates them. And he wants our churches to maintain faithfulness across many generations. That’s hard to do today when so many evangelicals feel a sense of cultural loss and direct their anger toward fellow Christians they fault for failing to resist liberalism and secularism with sufficient zeal. Bryan joined me on Gospelbound to discuss the causes and solutions for the multigenerational church crisis.

Actor Pedro Pascal revealed more of his political sentiments during a press conference about his latest movie, which is described as anti-MAGA by Variety magazine. Journalists asked Pascal if he was afraid of returning to the U.S. after making several political statements, and he vehemently rebuked the idea of fearing government retaliation. He made the comments during a press conference for his newest movie at the Cannes Film Festival. 'It’s far too intimidating the question for me to really address; I’m not informed enough.' Variety described the movie as critically portraying the pro-Trump movement. Pascal responded passionately when the actors were asked if they were afraid of retribution. "Fear is the way they win," the actor said. "Keep expressing yourself and keep fighting to be who you are," said Pascal while sitting next to Joaquin Phoenix. "And, I don't know, f*** the people that try to make you scared, you know, and fight back." He was also asked to comment on the immigration policies of President Donald Trump and admitted he wasn't informed enough to speak out definitively. “I mean, it's obviously very scary for an actor who participated in a movie to sort of speak to issues like this. It’s far too intimidating the question for me to really address; I’m not informed enough,” he said. "I want people to be safe and to be protected, and I want very much to live on the right side of history." He also cited his personal history as an asylum-seeker to explain his support for expansive immigration policies. "I'm an immigrant; my parents are refugees from Chile. I myself was a refugee; we fled a dictatorship, and I was privileged enough to grow up in the U.S., after asylum in Denmark. And if weren't for that, I don't know what would have happened to us, and so I stand by those protections." He added, however, "I’m too afraid of your question; I hardly remember what it was.” RELATED: Socialist actor Brian Cox calls Fox News 'the devil,' but also criticizes CNN for being redundant without nuance Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic Pascal was publicizing his new movie, "Eddington," which is about a New Mexico town's residents giving way to conspiracy theories during the coronavirus pandemic. The movie is scheduled for release in July. Video of Pascal's comments can be viewed on the YouTube channel for Guardian News. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

This is it, everybody. This is the big one. After more than 12 months of fighting across the Helldivers 2 galaxy, the war to protect democracy has finally breached the bastion that is - or was - Super Earth. Battlefield 6 might be on the way. Rival multiplayer shooters like Delta Force and Tarkov are still going strong. But with the new Helldivers 2 update, Arrowhead has just hit the biggest, reddest button. The Illuminate are on our home turf. There are new teammates, mechanics, and weapon customization tools. If you’ve gone AWOL from the galactic war, it’s time to take up arms and march back to the Helldivers 2 frontline. Continue reading New Helldivers 2 update finally delivers the gigantic battle teased since launch MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Helldivers 2 weapons, Helldivers 2 stratagems, Helldivers 2 system requirements

A new satellite photo has revealed that the "megaberg," A23a, is beginning to break apart, spawning thousands of smaller ice chunks around the Antarctic island of South Georgia.

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