04a Faith

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Excerpt from news.google.com

Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo is behind bars for something many do every day: he posted on Facebook.

Abdo, a Yemini asylum seeker, has been in prison for two-and-a-half years because — after converting from Islam to Christianity — he began discussing theological matters in a private Facebook group with other recent converts to Christianity.

The Alliance Defending Freedom International, the religious liberty advocacy group representing Abdo, recently announced the persecuted believer has declared a hunger strike in a recent letter sent to his wife and family.

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Excerpt from NY Post

A Kentucky high school allegedly held a graduate’s diploma when the student went off script during his graduation speech to preach his belief in Jesus.

Micah Price received the green light to praise Jesus Christ in his commencement speech at Campbell County High School in Alexandria, KY on May 24, but followed his address with “urging other Christians to stand up.”

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Excerpt from news.google.com

‘Christian role in Lebanon has ended,’ says Hezbollah-affectionate commentator  The Jerusalem Post

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Excerpt from www.washingtonexaminer.com

More Christian migrants have resettled in the United States and Canada than any other religious group over the past three decades, according to a new analysis by an American think tank.

A Pew Research Center study released on Monday found that 7 in 10 international migrants living in the U.S. or Canada identify as Christian, a category that includes Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Restorationism, and the Church of the East.

The Christian immigrant population grew from 72.7 million in 1990 to 130.9 million in 2020.

The 59 million total immigrants who have resettled in the two North American countries make up 16% of their combined populations. Pew did not include Mexico in the North American figures.

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Excerpt from news.google.com

Christian charity volunteer wins compensation for arrest over silent prayer  Premier Christian News

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Excerpt from news.google.com

A Ninth Circuit panel found Monday that a Christian ministry in Washington state had standing on its claims that the state’s anti-discrimination law may potentially unconstitutionally restrict its decisions on hiring employees.

The three-judge panel determined a federal judge in 2023 improperly dismissed a Christian ministry’s lawsuit against Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson and other state representatives and reverses that ruling. The panel held that the Union Gospel Mission of Yakima, a Christian organization in central Washington, had standing for its claims under Article III, in a case questioning the constitutionality of the Washington Law Against Discrimination.

The Washington Law Against Discrimination prohibits religious organizations from exclusively hiring employees of a certain faith unless the position is ministerial.

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Excerpt from www.lifenews.com

With the world focused on the Olympics, the American elections, the war in Gaza, and the shifting balance of war in Ukraine, the topic of assisted dying is flying under the radar.

But in the United Kingdom, it is high up on the political agenda. Lord Falconer, a former Lord Chancellor who has been lobbying for legalisation of assisted dying for years, says that with Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, Britons have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to change the law.

“This is such an opportunity,” he told The Observer. “The last time this was voted upon, there was a clear vote against it in the Commons. But of the 650 MPs who were present in 2015, 477 of them have gone. It’s a completely new House of Commons with a wholly new atmosphere, with a prime minister who is saying: ‘You must decide as a free vote – and if you decide in favour, the government will make sure that procedural stratagems don’t doom the bill.’”

As columnist Polly Toynbee, an ever-reliable voice for progressive policies, put it: “It will join the roll call of great liberal reforms that only happen under Labour.” (These include abortion and divorce reform, gay rights, ending the death penalty, decriminalising suicide, and reform of obscenity laws.)

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Excerpt from www.westernjournal.com

At its core, professing the Christian faith means believing with all our heart that God brings light out of darkness.

Thus, it should not surprise us when we see it happen, but it still has the power to amaze.

At a press conference on Friday at the woke and blasphemous Olympics in Paris, gold medalist Yemisi Ogunleye of Germany responded to a moderator’s question by breaking into a gospel song in praise of Jesus.

To his credit, the moderator prompted Ogunleye with a question seemingly designed to call forth a worshipful hymn.

“Yemi, is it true you sing in the gospel choir?” he asked.

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Excerpt from news.google.com

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department have struck a deal with the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction (NCDAC) to expand religious freedoms for those within the state’s prison system. This arrangement will allow increased access to group worship and kosher-for-Passover meals, ensuring observance opportunities for religious holidays like Passover, according to a statement by the Justice Department.

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Excerpt from Muslim Mirror

More than 300 Christian leaders in the United States, including denominational heads, are calling on the U.S. State Department to designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) due to escalating violations of religious freedoms, particularly against Christians. The leaders, representing a wide range of denominations and Christian organizations, have expressed concern over the increasing violence and “systemic persecution under the Hindu nationalist government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.

In a letter sent earlier this month, the leaders, including 18 bishops, three archbishops, and numerous clergy, highlighted the worsening situation for religious minorities in India since Modi’s government came to power in 2014. The letter, organized by the Federation of Indian-American Christian Organizations in North America, is the first concerted effort by U.S. Christian leaders to address religious persecution in India.

The letter attributes the surge in violence to a “Hindu ethno-nationalist or Hindutva supremacist political ideology,” which it claims has distorted both the Hindu religion and India’s constitutional secular democracy. This has led to state-sanctioned violence against Christians, Dalits, and other religious minorities, both in public and within state institutions.

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Excerpt from www.lifenews.com

… Only a handful of abortionists in the United States perform late abortions. One of them, Warren Hern of Colorado, was profiled in The Atlantic.

He specializes in abortions late in pregnancy—the rarest, and most controversial, form of abortion. This means that Hern ends the pregnancies of women who are 22, 25, even 30 weeks along.

In The Atlantic interview, it is noted that, “Hern is reluctant to acknowledge any limit, any red line. He takes the woman’s-choice argument to its logical conclusion…”

Rovner trots out her trump card, Katrina Kimport, a medical sociologist and professor at the University of California at San Francisco, who has interviewed “more than 50 women who terminated pregnancies after 24 weeks.”

There is nothing new in Prof. Kimport’s report, certainly nothing that challenges the number of late-term abortions which Rovner dismisses as “vanishingly small.”

John McCormack of National Review, put this “vanishingly small” number in context:

NBC’s Dasha Burns pointed to the fact that 1.3 percent of abortions happen at 21 weeks or later, but 1.3 percent of 930,000 total abortions still equals 12,000 unique human beings killed each year at 21 weeks or later, when babies are capable of feeling pain and sometimes capable of surviving outside of the womb. There are fewer than 12,000 total gun homicides in the United States each year. Burns, in an attempt to minimize the horror of late-term abortion, actually ended up agreeing that late-term abortions do in fact happen in the United States.

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Excerpt from www.lifenews.com

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin reportedly asked Planned Parenthood to edit his 2022 consumer alert attacking crisis pregnancy centers before it was officially released, according to a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The information was obtained through a public records request, which uncovered emails between Platkin and Planned Parenthood. According to the Wall Street Journal, Platkin, a Democrat, asked the abortion giant to “preview and edit” his draft of a consumer alert that warned state residents that crisis pregnancy centers “seek to prevent people from accessing reproductive health care.”

The interaction constituted a conflict of interest, especially as Platkin’s consumer alert directed pregnant mothers to Planned Parenthood’s website.

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Excerpt from news.google.com

Mass Executions Underway as Islamic Republic Escalates Its Killing Spree  Center for Human Rights in Iran

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Excerpt from news.google.com

The mostly theologically liberal United Methodist Church and the theologically conservative Global Methodist Church are each claiming control of a regional body based in Nigeria.

The UMC Nigerian Episcopal Area comprises four regional bodies known as annual conferences, with a reported 560,000 members.

The GM Church released a statement on Wednesday announcing that its Transitional Leadership Council officially welcomed Nigerian Bishop Johnwesley Yohanna and the four annual conferences into membership with their denomination.

According to the conservative denomination, the Southern Nigeria, Central Nigeria, Northern Nigeria and Northeast Nigeria Conferences voted unanimously to end their affiliation with the UMC and join them.

However, days before the GM Church released its announcement, the UMC Council of Bishops issued a statement saying that Yohanna had resigned as bishop and the liberal denomination had appointed an interim leadership team for the Nigerian Episcopal Area.

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Excerpt from news.google.com

Angry South African schoolchildren allegedly looted and set alight a church Tuesday belonging to a pastor who stormed a school with machetes, according to local reports, the BBC reported.

Paseka Motsoeneng, the pastor, allegedly stormed the primary school to forcibly remove his two grandchildren from its premises due to a custody battle following their mother passing away, the outlet reported.

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Excerpt from www.lifesitenews.com

(LifeSiteNews) — A team of conservative attorneys is making another attempt to force the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its 2015 decision to force same-sex “marriage” on the country, starting with a brief to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of former Rowan County, Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis.

After the Supreme Court’s controversial Obergefell v. Hodges ruling that forced all 50 states to recognize unions between members of the same sex as marriages, Davis declared that she would cease issuing marriage licenses, arguing that her required signature on the documents would constitute a personal endorsement of homosexual unions that violated her Christian beliefs. 

Her resistance to the new normal has persisted for years despite public pressure from lawsuits, judges, and politicians alike. Last year, she was ordered to pay $100,000 to a same-sex couple to whom she refused to issue a marriage license on top of damages awarded to other plaintiffs. The nonprofit Liberty Counsel vowed to appeal on her behalf.

This May, Liberty Counsel filed its notice of appeal with the Sixth Circuit, arguing Davis was not liable for damages to anyone and touting the case’s “potential to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges and extend the same religious freedom protections beyond Kentucky to the entire nation,” calling the move the beginning of a “march to the Supreme Court.”

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Excerpt from thefederalist.com

The Olympics is an opportunity for host nations to celebrate their cultural contributions to the world. Apparently, the French are most proud of mocking Christians under the shadow of Notre Dame.

I’m not straight and I’m not baptized, but you don’t have to be either to be repelled by the openly naked ugliness on display at the Paris Olympics Friday night.

🚨Just in: The 2024 Olympic Games featured imagery involving women and drag queens at the opening ceremony re-creating the last supper.pic.twitter.com/xuCflvlJT4

— The Calvin Coolidge Project (@TheCalvinCooli1) July 26, 2024

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Excerpt from www.businesstoday.in

The official Olympics account has removed footage of the Paris 2024 opening ceremony from its YouTube channel following widespread criticism. Viewers attempting to access the video encountered a message stating, “this video is not available.”

Neither the Olympics committee nor Paris 2024 organizers have provided an explanation for the video’s removal.

The opening ceremony, noted for its unconventional presentation, featured a diverse array of performers including models, dancers, fashion icons, and drag queens. One of the most controversial segments recreated Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” with drag queens and other performers, which drew significant backlash.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and X, was among the prominent critics, commenting that “Christianity has become toothless.” Another notable moment involved a large display of fake fruits with a performer dressed as Dionysus, the Greek God of wine and festivity, sitting atop the display.

Despite the criticism, the show’s creator defended it, stating, “It wouldn’t be fun if there were no controversy. Wouldn’t it be boring if everyone agreed on this planet?”

Critiques of the ceremony varied widely. The New York Times labeled it a “bloated made-for-TV spectacle,” while the New York Post described it as “boring, ill-conceived and choppy.” French newspaper Le Figaro acknowledged the show’s ambition but noted that some elements were “just too much.”

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Excerpt from www.breitbart.com

Organizers for the Paris Olympics issued an apology to people who were left offended by an LGBTQ parody of the Last Supper during the opening ceremony.

Thomas Jolly, the artistic director for the Olympics opening ceremony, explained that he had “wanted to send a message of love” and inclusion, and did not have intentions “to be subversive.”

“My wish isn’t to be subversive, nor to mock or to shock,” Jolly told the Associated Press. “Most of all, I wanted to send a message of love, a message of inclusion and not at all to divide.”

In response to the parody of the Last Supper, the French Catholic Church’s Bishops’ Conference of France released a statement that the ceremony had “included scenes in which Christianity was mocked and ridiculed.”

“This ceremony unfortunately included scenes in which Christianity was mocked and ridiculed, which we deeply regret,” the organization said in its statement.

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Excerpt from premierchristian.news

King Charles III officially opened the new session of parliament on Tuesday, setting out the government’s planned programme of new laws.

His Majesty outlined 40 new draft laws which Sir Keir Starmer says will ‘take the brakes off Britain’.

Among them was proposed legislation for a ‘no loopholes’ fully inclusive ban on conversion therapy.

The move comes amid fears that the law risks criminalising concerned parents and Christian practices, such as prayer.

The proposed ban was initially raised under the previous Conservative government, who faced criticism for not bringing the legislation forward.

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Excerpt from albertmohler.com

More than 10,000 Southern Baptists gathered in Indianapolis last week for the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC was confronted by an unusually urgent set of decisions this year, and the messengers, as those sent by the churches are known, had a full agenda.

That agenda included several blockbuster actions on issues of controversy in the larger culture as well as regular reports from the convention’s ministries and boards. Anyone who thinks the annual meeting of the SBC is boring should come and watch next year in Dallas. This year, there wasn’t a spare moment on the agenda.

SBC president Bart Barber of Texas finished his term only after he presided over a complicated meeting with massive challenges. The first of these challenges is presiding in a way that allows a maximum number of messengers to speak to issues, following the convention’s adopted rules. In a hotly contested election that required three ballots, conservative North Carolina pastor Clint Pressley was elected the convention’s next president. It had been a long time since six candidates were nominated for the office at a single convention. The tellers committee got a real workout.

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Excerpt from www.thecollegefix.com

Billionaire halts donations to Columbia, says leaders’ actions ‘antithetical to the University’s mission’

Another Ivy League school just lost a major donor due to concerns about its leaders’ actions regarding antisemitism.

Billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, who is Jewish, decided to stop supporting Columbia University after lengthy discussions failed to allay his concerns, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

Among other things, the New York university is facing criticism for not firing four deans who were caught mocking a campus panel on antisemitism. It also canceled graduation in the spring due to virulent anti-Israel protests.

“The recent decisions and actions taken by Columbia have been antithetical to the University’s mission …” a spokeswoman for Zuckerman told the Free Beacon. “We will continue to evaluate the situation in the hope that Columbia will restore its reputation, standing and mission as a respected educational institution.”