Religion/ Spirituality

The Lord has spoken -- he wants his followers to keep coming to church ... through their TV screens, phones and laptops. Coronavirus be damned, doggonit!

Yes, the Christian community (pretty much all denominations) is moving to digital church services and masses during the coronavirus pandemic -- and one company in particular that specializes in broadcasting the word of God says it's seeing a massive spike in the millions.

A rep for Life.Church tells TMZ ... their streaming feature, called the Church Online Platform, has been overloaded with users logging on and accessing different services all over the world. Literally, this company streams sermons from the U.S. of A all to the way to Israel, Korea and beyond. We're told this past weekend, a whopping 6.9 million unique devices were registered as using their platform ... up from 4.7 mil just last weekend.

It's safe to assume there were WAY more people actually watching through these various services, though, as we're told Christian families often tune in together. So, if these unique devices have at least 4 people watching on average -- that's about 27 mil pairs of eyeballs at a time, probably more.

The number of congregations that have signed up to partner with Life.Church is pretty stunning too -- around 40,000 total different churches are on board with the org ... and we're told a staggering 12,000 new congregations alone got signed up just over the past week.

BTW, there are several more companies that stream services outside of just protestant sects of Christianity -- Catholics (who are Christian too) exclusively have EWTN to watch mass throughout the week ... so you can only imagine what sorts of numbers they're raking in.

The cool thing about Life.Church, however, is that they encourage participation -- there's a live chat aspect they incorporate within their broadcast services ... where people can write in and have their specific questions answered. And, perhaps as expected, this is all free to use.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are wrapping up their senior royal duties before Megxit becomes official, but not before a reunion with Queen Elizabeth ... before God.

QE2, her grandson and his wife all attended Sunday service at the Royal Chapel of All Saints in Windsor Great Park.

Now, it wasn't as warm and fuzzy as you might have hoped -- Harry and Megs drove in separately from the Queen -- but it was the first time all 3 appeared at the same public event since the couple bolted for Canada.

Meghan and Harry are in the middle of a farewell tour of sorts -- they've been in the UK since last week attending several events ... their last engagements as senior royals.

On Monday they're scheduled to perform their final duty at a Westminster Abbey service for Commonwealth Day.

They've been greeted with cheers at most of their stops around the country -- and even when Meghan went solo for an event on Friday, she was embraced.

They always love ya when you're walking out the door.

Julian Edelman says he's been speaking with a Rabbi every week -- but he's not just praying for Tom Brady to stay in New England, he's about to get Bar Mitzvah'd!

The Patriots WR has previously described himself as "kind of Jewish" -- his father is Jewish but religion wasn't a big part of his upbringing.

But, the 33-year-old has started going to temple and leaning into his Jewish roots -- even telling L.A. Magazine's Allen Salkin, "I speak with a Rabbi every Friday."

“I converted pretty much. I’m going to have a Bar Mitzvah here soon," Edelman said.

FYI, a Bar Mitzvah is an important Jewish ceremony where a child formally becomes an adult in the eyes of the religion and is allowed to participate in Jewish rituals like reading from the Torah.

Most people have a Bar Mitzvah around the age of 13 -- but hey, better late than never right?!

Can you imagine the Bar Mitzvah party Edelman will throw? And what's he gonna do with the Bar Mitzvah money? Here's an idea ... give it to Tom in hopes he'll stay!

Mazel tov!

Michael Bloomberg's controversial past with minorities and people of color isn't going away -- that much is clear by the striking protest he received during an event in Selma.

The billionaire media mogul and ex-NYC Mayor was among the many Democratic candidates in Alabama this weekend to commemorate the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday -- when hundreds of civil rights marchers were brutally beaten by cops during a demonstration.

At this particular service at the Brown Chapel AME Church -- where Bloomberg and Joe Biden delivered remarks -- a handful of people stood up and turned their backs when Mike stepped to the podium. It was done in silence, and they sat down when he finished.

The pastor who intro'd him, Reverend Leodis Strong, said he thought it was important for MB to show and to speak ... and for people to hear him out on how he's changed. Clearly, not everyone felt that way.

Of course, Bloomberg has come under fire for old comments he made about the policy he adopted when he was in power -- namely, unchecked and blatantly racist implementation of stop-and-frisk by the NYPD. At first, Bloomberg said it was effective to deter crime.

Later, he scaled it back and eventually apologized for his words. Apparently, some folks aren't accepting his apology. It should be noted, more people didn't protest than those who did.

Bloomberg's looking to rake in delegates for the first time on Tuesday -- when several states will hold primaries and offer up a third of the needed share to claim victory.

He's never been Bar Mitzvah'd. He doesn't fast on Yom Kippur. So, why is Alabama WR Jerry Jeudy rockin' a Star of David around his neck at the NFL Combine?

"My last name's Jeudy. People sometimes call me [Jew for short]."

OY VEY!!!

Long story short ... Jeudy really likes his "Jew" nickname and decided to cop himself some "jew"elry to let everybody know!

"So, I just got a Jewish star ... I'm not Jewish though."

Jeudy also has a decorative piece with the word, "Jew" spelled across.

Everyone in the media room laughed when Jeudy offered up his explanation -- but the question ... is it all Kosher with actual Jewish people?

We asked some of the Jewish people in the office for their thoughts -- here's what we got.

-- "I think it's weird and f**ked up."

-- "If it's not used in a derogatory way, I don't care."

-- "It doesn't bother me."

-- "I'm not offended by it. I hope somehow the 'Jew' nickname will spark interest in Judaism and Jewish culture."

-- "I don't like that one bit. I think it's making a mockery of people's identity. I find it very offensive."

So, division in the office ... how do you feel about the chain?

Originally Published -- 8:00 AM PT

Kanye West has linked up with another A-list celeb who's just as religious as he is ... one Justin Bieber, who put his talents to good use at Sunday Service.

The Biebs was a special guest this weekend at Kanye's latest gathering, which appears to have migrated indoors after almost a full year of outdoor get-togethers. At one point, Kim filmed Justin giving the crowd a taste of his crooning voice ... they loved it.

Sounds like Justin's singing the opening lines to Marvin Sapp's gospel hit, "Never Would Have Made It," which was actually remixed by Teyana Taylor on her album that Ye produced.

Full circle!

Anyway, it's pretty interesting ... Justin and Ye are definitely the pillars of Christianity and faith these days when it comes to the mainstream music scene, so you would've figured it was just a matter of time before they met up in a creative setting like this.

President Trump is pretty stoked to be at the Daytona 500 --  so much so, in fact, he might even get behind the wheel himself and zoom off into the night. Settle down, Donnie.

45's down in Florida right now taking in the annual NASCAR race with the First Lady, Melania, and while talking to a FOX Sports reporter, he made it clear he wants to drive again. It's funny and actually kinda interesting ... DT can't really do that anymore, huh?

In a somewhat rambling response, Trump calls Daytona "the great American race," going on to say he stopped by because he sees it as "almost a patriotism kind of thing." Well said!

Trump also gave a shout-out to the drivers, saying it takes great courage to drive in such a beast of a vehicle. Sounds like he wants to take one for a spin, actually -- joking he might hop in one himself and "get in this race." He won't, obviously, but imagine if he did 😅.

Another humorous moment during POTUS's Daytona day out -- he made sure to point out where exactly God is to the people listening to his opening remarks to kick off the event.

The New Orleans Saints are adamantly DENYING helping top Catholic church officials in N.O. cover up sex abuse crimes, despite allegations to the contrary ... this according to court docs.

Here's the deal ... more than 20 men are suing the Archdiocese of New Orleans for employing George F. Brignac, a schoolteacher and deacon who allegedly sexually abused several boys.

Despite allegedly knowing about the abuse, the church continued to employ him as a lay minister until 2018.

Several alleged victims are suing the church for keeping him around while knowing he was a danger to kids.

Now, attorneys for the accusers are going after the Saints -- claiming team executives used their official Saints email accounts to help advise the church on how to deal with the crisis.

In fact, the attorneys claim there are HUNDREDS of emails showing an attempted P.R. effort from the Saints and they want a judge to release them to the public, according to the AP, which broke the story.

The attorneys are pointing the finger at the top Saints people -- including owner Gayle Benson and Senior V.P. of Communications Greg Bensel ... suggesting they aided the Archdiocese of New Orleans in its "pattern and practice of concealing its crimes."

What is known is that Saints owner Gayle Benson is a major backer of her local Catholic archdiocese and she’s given millions to the church ... and, she’s buds with Archbishop Gregory Aymond. Gayle inherited the team when Tom Benson died in 2018.

"Obviously, the Saints should not be in the business of assisting the Archdiocese, and the Saints’ public relations team is not in the business of managing the public relations of criminals engaged in pedophilia," the attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote in the court filing. "The Saints realize that if the documents at issue are made public, this professional sports organization also will be smearing itself."

According to the AP, the Saints have strongly denied the allegations in court filings.

The Saints had no immediate comment when we reached out Friday.