Christian rapper The Ambassador has launched a new album, “Stop The Funeral,” after a long hiatus from ministry amid news of an inappropriate relationship in 2009.

Recently,  William “The Ambassador” Branch said on the 700 Club that the relationship that almost ended his marriage was “non-sexual but very inappropriate.”

That year The Ambassador, who founded The Cross Movement, was dropped by Cross Movement Records.

Now his newest album “Stop The Funeral” was produced with a new label, Xist Movement, and his marriage is intact.

The Ambassador told HipHopDX that his new album is different from the rest, because “It’s the first time where I purposely spent a little more time talking about me and less time scolding the culture, less time scolding the surroundings and do more scolding of myself and exhorting from a non-authoritarian standpoint.”

One song, Thug Joint describes his journey after the scandal broke. Part of the lyrics say:

“As truth crashed through my heart ached like a bad tooth
This hard rock got softer than brown spots on bad fruit
I came with a heart stone like a statue
then the rap group got under my skin like a tattoo
They rapped about a man diein’ and I was cryin’
They said He died so I could be saved like Private Ryan
We all could see zoomorphically He’s a lion
Coming to rule from Zion with a scepter of iron”

Of the relationship that sent everything crashing down, The Ambassador, who appeared on 700 Club with his wife Michelle, said the woman was a member of the church.

At the time he was not communicating well with his wife, while this woman was easier to talk to.

The Ambassador said, “The lack of communication made me just try to communicate with somebody that it wasn’t as much work as it would have been to communicate with my wife,” BREATHEcast reported.

Michelle, who became suspicious, learned of the relationship when she confronted the other woman.

Initially she thought of bailing, but told 700 Club, “Someone said to me, ‘Michelle if you leave, people will support you and you know people will understand, but I want you to know that the devil would’ve won’ and that struck me.”

The couple agreed that pastoral counseling helped a lot in restoring their marriage, and in enabling Michelle to forgive her husband.

She told 700 Club, “When you get hurt there’s always scars but you know the Savior has forgiven us and he has not done more to me than I’ve done to the Savior.”

Don’t put Katelynne Cox, 16, in a box just because her debut album, “One Girl,” displays her Christianity.

She has had a textured life as the child of separated teen parents, with one side fully agnostic and the other Christian.

She went to nine different schools, was bullied, and at one point considered suicide.

But the tracks on her album have surprising things to say. “Ordinary Day” is about how God can make the most ordinary things extraordinary.

And “Me” is about surrendering to God—not just in parts, but completely.

Her album took two years before it was completed. It was supposed to be secular, but midway Cox encountered Christ and figured that Christian music was the way for her to go.

“[We] were about a year into it when I became a Christian. From everything I had gone through, and all the experience over those two years, I became a Christian and I realized halfway through the project that God didn’t want me to go that route — that His plan for me was to be a Christian artist. I really felt called to do Christian music and positive music,” she told BREATHEcast.

Cox describes her album, produced by Red Hammer Records, as “positive pop with some throwback 80s guitars.” She told Cross Rhythms, “I chose songs that I feel I can relate to and things I’ve experienced and that other people have gone through too. Every song is a little piece of Katelynne. I want my audience to get a feel for who I am through my music and be able to relate to me and my life.”

By everyone, she doesn’t just mean Christian music lovers. She has kept secular pop songs in the album as well, which she hopes can be a way to reach out to a wider crowd. But the focus is God.

Born in Portland, Ore.  and now based in Camas, Wash. , Cox told BREATHEcast that her parents were teenagers when they divorced, and while one side was agnostic, the other was Christian. She started out being agnostic.

She says middle and high school were especially difficult. She had changed schools nine times, and switched from private to public schools. She told Cross Rhythms, “[In public school] I got called words that I didn’t even know, that I didn’t even understand. I had to look them up or ask my parents what they meant. I had threats to kill me. I had people stalking my house and people got arrested for some of the stuff that they were doing to me.”

She remembers being tackled to the ground and getting sprayed with foul smelling men’s cologne. She also remembered feeling suicidal. “It took a big chunk out of my life,” she told BREATHEcast. “I really let it control everything that I went through…people don’t realize how much it affects you, not only personally but spiritually, and kind of how you view yourself…”

But now she tells BREATHEcast that God allowed her to be bullied so that she could share her experience with other kids and inspire them to move forward. Her title song, One Girl, talks of “being one girl in a huge crowd and making a difference, making your voice heard.”

After a most exhausting and draining thirty hours or so, Jesus Christ is led away to be crucified. We are in Luke Chapter 23 and at verse 26. The authorities force a dark skinned man from Tripoli to carry this heavy wooden beam. No Roman would carry the cross, and the Romans would not ask a Jew, not in this situation, in the middle of a Religious Festival. It was the Passover.

Simon of Cyrene carries the cross of Jesus, and this man received a mighty reward. It appears from Mark 15 and verse 21 that he and his wife and two sons became disciples of Jesus.

No man carries the cross of Jesus faithfully without receiving a work of God in his own life, and on occasions, through his life into the lives of his family.

Remember what your Cross is. You can lift it up or put it down. It is not sickness or anything of that nature.

Luke 23:27. The news had travelled fast of what was happening in Jerusalem and a sympathetic crowd had gathered, and they are not afraid to express their emotions.

They are not afraid to allow their deep feelings for Jesus to flow out towards Jesus. And yet, Jesus says, Do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for your children.

Jesus knew what was going to happen to him, but they did not know what was going to happen to them, just as many today have no idea what Jesus is doing, and what is about to happen to those who live as if there were no God.

Jesus, as he climbs Calvary, begins to refer to the coming day of judgement, because as the Judgement of God is revealed, unconverted unrepentant sinners will cry out to the mountains and rocks to fall upon them.

These, understandably, are serious and solemn words. There are not many new songs and choruses based on these words from Jesus Christ! I wonder why?

It has been found that people believe what they sing and find it easier to believe what is sung rather than what is preached and taught.

We have to be very careful as to what words we give people to sing when they come together for praise and worship. Some of the songs today are no more than vain repetition. And, there is a difference between singing and praise and worship and we need to inform and teach our people that too. This is an area out with these current studies but it is a crucial matter which demands our serious consideration.

When I hear people say, “O, the worship was wonderful today”, I usually make the comment, “I wonder what God thought about it”. That is what counts. Not the feelings in the hearts of men, important though these are, but was the singing and praise pleasing to God the Father?

After a most exhausting and draining thirty hours or so, Jesus Christ is led away to be crucified. We are in Luke Chapter 23 and at verse 26. The authorities force a dark skinned man from Tripoli to carry this heavy wooden beam. No Roman would carry the cross, and the Romans would not ask a Jew, not in this situation, in the middle of a Religious Festival. It was the Passover.

Simon of Cyrene carries the cross of Jesus, and this man received a mighty reward. It appears from Mark 15 and verse 21 that he and his wife and two sons became disciples of Jesus.

No man carries the cross of Jesus faithfully without receiving a work of God in his own life, and on occasions, through his life into the lives of his family.

Remember what your Cross is. You can lift it up or put it down. It is not sickness or anything of that nature.

Luke 23:27. The news had travelled fast of what was happening in Jerusalem and a sympathetic crowd had gathered, and they are not afraid to express their emotions.

They are not afraid to allow their deep feelings for Jesus to flow out towards Jesus. And yet, Jesus says, Do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for your children.

Jesus knew what was going to happen to him, but they did not know what was going to happen to them, just as many today have no idea what Jesus is doing, and what is about to happen to those who live as if there were no God.

Jesus, as he climbs Calvary, begins to refer to the coming day of judgement, because as the Judgement of God is revealed, unconverted unrepentant sinners will cry out to the mountains and rocks to fall upon them.

These, understandably, are serious and solemn words. There are not many new songs and choruses based on these words from Jesus Christ! I wonder why?

It has been found that people believe what they sing and find it easier to believe what is sung rather than what is preached and taught.

We have to be very careful as to what words we give people to sing when they come together for praise and worship. Some of the songs today are no more than vain repetition. And, there is a difference between singing and praise and worship and we need to inform and teach our people that too. This is an area out with these current studies but it is a crucial matter which demands our serious consideration.

When I hear people say, “O, the worship was wonderful today”, I usually make the comment, “I wonder what God thought about it”. That is what counts. Not the feelings in the hearts of men, important though these are, but was the singing and praise pleasing to God the Father?

Author bio:
Alexander “Sandy” Shaw is pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship in Nairn, Scotland. Nairn is 17 miles east of Inverness – on the Moray Firth Coast – not far from the Loch Ness Monster! Gifted as a Biblical teacher, Sandy is firmly committed to making sure that his teachings are firmly grounded in the Word. Sandy has a weekly radio talk which can be heard via the Internet on Saturday at 11:40 a.m., New Orleans time, at wsho.com.

Two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled to protect the Mojave Desert War Memorial, thieves stole the Sunrise Rock cross. 

On May 10, a Park employee noticed the cross was missing and said it was probably removed during the night, according to CityWatch (CW).  

An anonymous caller who clamed to know who stole the cross sent an email to a reporter saying the cross was “lovingly” removed and would be returned after a non-sectarian memorial is placed on the site, CW reported.

CW cited US Reps Buck McKeon, Ken Calvert and Congressman Jerry Lewis who condemned the theft of the cross.  Calvert called it an act of vandals and an insult to anyone who had served in the US Armed Forces. 

Calvert also promised that he, Congressmen Lewis, McKeon, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Liberty Institute will work with all involved entities to recover the cross and replace it on its rightful place on Sunrise Rock, CW reported.

Wanda Sandoz, who with her husband Henry were longtime caretakers of the cross said, “Whoever did this either cut it off or put a chain around it a dragged it off with their vehicle,” according to CW.

The memorial was first set up in 1934 by a group of World War I veterans.  It has been torn down and replaced twice, and 10 years ago received the ire of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), according to The Press Enterprise.

The Park Service has collected some physical evidence from where the cross was located, and investigators are reviewing messages left on a tip hot line that was set up after the theft, The Press Enterprise said.

Liberty Institute is also offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who vandalized the area and stole the cross, according to CityWatch.

In 1999, the ACLU sued to have the cross removed after a former employee of the park, Frank Buono, retired and moved to Oregon, then claimed that it offended him to see the cross on public land, according to the Tulsa Beacon.

In 2002, the U.S. District Court in Riverside, California ruled in favor of the ACLU case.  An appeal was immediately filed to forestall the cross’ removal, but it was covered by a wooden box, the Tulsa Beacon reported.

Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), helped the Legionnaires get the cross legally designated as the “National WWI Veterans Memorial” and worked in Congress to transfer a one-acre tract of land containing the cross to private ownership through a land swap deal, the Tulsa Beacon reported.

The ACLU complained that this was done solely to evade the District Court’s order for the cross to be removed. In the appeal, the 9th Circuit Court upheld the lower court’s decision and invalidated the congressional act in transferring the land to private ownership, according to the Tulsa Beacon.

However when the case was raised to the U. S. Supreme Court, the decisions of both lower courts were overturned by a 5-4 vote, and the SC refused to order the removal of the cross, the Tulsa Beacon noted.

Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, said “The goal of avoiding governmental endorsement (of religion) does not require the eradication of all religions’ symbols in the public realm.”

After recent successive issues that have reached the courts over Christian symbols such as the cross and an army emblem, some are asking, “Are Christian symbols under attack?”

The most recent issue, as reported by the Associated Press (AP) involves an army emblem of a Colorado hospital.  The emblem contains a cross and the motto, “Pro deo et humanitate” or “For God and humanity.”

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has asked the Army to change the emblem of Evans Army Community Hospital at Fort Carson, Colorado noting it could violate the constitutional requirement for separation of church and state, the AP reported.

The AP said the MRFF is the same group that persuaded the Pentagon to rescind their invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham to speak on the May 6 National Day of Prayer, because in 2001 Graham had said that “Islam is evil.”

In a separate incident, a judge had ruled recently that the National Day of Prayer, which is an annual event that has been held since 1952 is unconstitutional.  The Obama administration expressed plans to appeal the ruling and the Justice department filed a formal notice of its plans for appeal, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

With regard to the hospital emblem, Lt. Col Steve Wollman said Fort Carson commanders will review the MRFF complaint.   However he noted that the motto on the emblem, approved in 1969 by the Army Institute of Heraldry, dates back to pre-Christian, Hippocratic times.  Hippocrates is renowned as the father of medicine, the AP said.

Wollman also said the cross with the spiked base was used by pilgrims to mark the ground of their campsite.  Mikey Weinstein, president of the MRFF said he filed his complaint on behalf of 43 people in Fort Carson.  However, Weinstein said the 43 did not want to be identified, according to the AP report.

In another incident, the Supreme Court (SC) overturned a federal court ruling which sought to remove a 75-year-old, seven foot tall cross from the Mojave National Park in California, the AP said.

The SC, through a slim 5-4 vote said the cross honored military veterans from WWI and furthermore, the land on which the cross stood on had already been transferred to private ownership.

Two similar cases are currently filed in the Federal courts.  One involves a 29-foot cross on Mt. Soledad, San Diego.  The other involves the state of Utah, which uses 12-foot high crosses that are placed along the roadside as memorials to honor deceased highway patrol officers, according to the AP.

The Supreme Court decision that overruled a lower court regarding the cross in the Mojave National Park noted that separation of church and state “does not require eradication of all religious symbols in the public realm,’’ the Boston Globe reported.

Penn State University is all abuzz with complaints…or should we say six complaints out of thousands of students…about a new school T-shirt design that resembles a cross.

There is no cross. The T-shirt, which is intended to advertise the football team’s annual “White Out” game, does not bear a cross. A few students who are offended by any hint of the Bible choose to see a cross in the t-bar shaped design. And because of one student letter, the Anti-Defamation League’s Philadelphia office is now involved. Readers can see a photo of the imaginary cross T-shirt here at a FOX News story.

This makes PSU the latest school with a broo-ha-ha over the imagined “separation of church and state” (see the Underground’s previous article about cheerleaders’ posters in Georgia).

Many other Penn State students have voiced their opinion to the school newspaper, The Daily Collegian, stating they are “OK” with the design; and 30,000 T-shirts have been sold so far. The design was intended to resemble the blue stripe on the football helmets.

According to the FOX story, the school bookstore has no plans to remove the T-shirts from its shelves. That is, probably until the school gets slapped with a lawsuit by the ADL or the ACLU on behalf of the six students who feel they are being “defamed.”

“There must be a separation,” one student who didn’t buy the T-shirt told FOX. The FOX reporter might have done well to ask her to point out the phrase “separation of church and state” in the First Amendment. It isn’t there.

On the other hand, an Eastern Asian studies student told the school paper the whole thing is ridiculous, and that if you look hard enough, you can see crosses in many other designs around the school.

Frankly, this reporter/editorialist thinks it would be wonderful if people started at least seeing God, if not Jesus, in more places. We can’t keep catering to the few who are “offended” by taking away the rights of the thousands who are not. Unless, of course, it really is the end times and unbelievers must be left to their own defenses against spiritual darkness.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, peresecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…“  Matthew 5:11-12a (NIV)