At Closing of Empowered21 Global Congress, Samuel Rodriguez Urges Christians to Stand Up for Their Faith; Warns ‘There’s No Such Thing as Comfortable Christianity’

May 25, 2015 –The Christian Post – Leonardo Blair

Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, tells Spirit-filled Christians at the Empowered21 Global Congress to stand up for their faith at the Jerusalem Pais Arena in Israel on Sunday May 24, 2015.

In a high-energy parting shot to a gathering of several thousand Spirit-filled believers at the closing session of the Empowered21 Global Congress in Jerusalem, Israel on Sunday, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Samuel Rodriguez warned that “there is no such thing as comfortable Christianity” and urged the group to use the power God gave them to declare Him to the world.

“When you are filled with God’s Spirit everything changes. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you are able to do what you were not able to do before. The Spirit came down and Peter did what? He raised his voice…Listen carefully, religion makes us complacent while revival makes us courageous. Today’s complacency is tomorrow’s captivity,” he warned.

Preaching from Acts 2:14 highlighting the reaction of the Apostle Peter after the initial descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, Rodriguez urged the believers to “be filled, stand up, and raise your voice.”

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Ed Stetzer Refutes Pew Report on Decline of Christianity; Says Christianity Isn’t Declining, ‘Fake Christians’ are Finally Showing Their True Colors

by Ed Stetzer – May 14, 2015

Fakers who don’t go to church are just giving up the pretense.

A new Pew Research Center survey found the Christian share of the American population declined almost 8 percentage points from 2007 to 2014. Drawing from this point, many continued their breathless claims that the Christian sky is falling.

Rather than predict the impending doom of the church in America, this latest study affirms what many researchers have said before. Christianity isn’t collapsing; it’s being clarified. Churches aren’t emptying; rather, those who were Christian in name only are now categorically identifying their lack of Christian conviction and engagement.

Gallup recently found that weekly religious attendance as a percentage of the U.S. population is about where it was in the 1940s — hardly a statistical collapse.

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Pakistan: Muslim mob attacks church and Christian colony after Christian accused of blasphemy

May 25, 2015  Christian homes and a church have been attacked by an angry Muslim mob after blasphemy allegations were made against a Christian man. According to reports, on May…

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US State Department Says No to Iraqi Christians

By Faith J. H. McDonnell – 2015-05-17

Writing in April in USA Today about the murder of 12 Christian migrants thrown into the sea by Muslims for praying to Jesus instead of Allah, columnist Kirsten Powers stated that President Barack Obama “just can’t seem to find any passion for the mass persecution of Middle Eastern Christians or the eradication of Christianity from its birthplace.”

The president’s response appears to be United States policy. Evidence suggests that within the administration not only is there no passion for persecuted Christians under threat of genocide from the Islamic State, there is no room for them, period. In fact, despite ISIS’ targeting of Iraqi Christians specifically because they are Christians, and, as such, stand in the way of a pure, Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East (and beyond), the U.S. State Department has made it clear that “there is no way that Christians will be supported because of their religious affiliation.”

An Anglican bishop revealed that this policy position presented to him in his most recent interaction with State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). The Rt. Rev. Julian M. Dobbs, bishop of the Diocese of CANA East (Convocation of Anglicans in North America) is an advocate for persecuted people worldwide. On this occasion, Dobbs was appealing on behalf of a group of Assyrian Christians desperately in need of rescue from northern Iraq.

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Obama, the Jews, the Muslims, and Us

by Michael Ledeen – May 24, 2015

I don’t believe that any other American president has spent so much time talking to and about Jews as Obama.  It all began in the very first months of his presidency—in August, 2009–when he called 1000 rabbis, lobbying for support for Obamacare.  It was a full month before the High Holy Days, when Jews pray for a year of life and good health, and the president remarked that “we are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”

That was a considerable misstatement, for in these matters, Jews are supplicants, not partners.  Two months earlier, Obama had similarly distorted the nature of Zionism. In his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, he maintained that Israel’s right to exist derived from the oppression of Jews for many centuries. But Zionist leaders always insisted that modern Israel’s legitimacy rests on millennia of history: it is the restoration of a Jewish state that was promised by the Almighty to Abraham, entrusted to Moses, conquered by Joshua, and ruled by David, Solomon, and their successors.

So the president isn’t very well informed about Judaism or Zionism, yet he is forever lecturing Jews and Israelis about what is really best for them, as if he had some special insight.  It is no accident that Obama is the only American president to write an introduction to the official military Jewish prayer book, prepared by US chaplains.  All previous presidents had left such matters up to the rabbinate.

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American Jews: The Last Leftist Jews in the World

The Jewish Press ^ | May 20th, 2015 | Daniel

Clip on a nametag, pick up a paper cup of lukewarm water and you can sit down in the audience at a thousand liberal Jewish establishment panels where the likes of Peter Beinart or Jeffrey Goldberg will sanctimoniously lecture their bored audience on the growing gap between American Jews and Israel.

Yawn through the usual references to “settlements”, “democratic character” and “one state solution.” Wake up just in time for the sales pitch for J Street and tough love BDS for the Jewish State.

And then go out and get some fresh air.

The gap isn’t between Israeli and American Jews; it’s between American Jews and the rest of the world.

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Jeb Bush Says Homosexual Marriage is Not a Constitutional Right

May 17, 2015 – Bloomberg, David Knowles

Jeb Bush knows the way he would rule on same-sex marriage if he were a Supreme Court justice.

Interviewed Sunday by the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody, Bush was asked whether he believed that gay marriage was a right protected by the U.S. constitution.

“I don’t, but I’m not a lawyer, and clearly this has been accelerated at a warp pace,” he said.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule sometime next month on whether gay marriage should be made legal in all 50 U.S. states, and Bush tied the future of the country itself to the issue of the family structure.

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Ethiopian Christians Stay Strong Despite Persecution

May 19, 2015 – MNN – Lindsay Steele

If you were unjustly thrown in jail, would you cry out and ask God why He was doing this to you? Or would you see it as an opportunity to share Christ in a new environment?

Seven Ethiopian Christians chose the second option, and Open Doors USA encouraged them to stay strong in the midst of suffering for Christ.

Open Doors UK reported three leaders and four church members were arrested on April 25 during a baptism for 40 new believers. The believers were accused of holding illegal meetings in secret locations, which the church denied.

Though Ethiopia’s constitution gives people freedom of religion, the law requires churches and Christian groups to have written permission to meet.

An anonymous source told Open Doors UK, “They have informed government officials about their ministry and their meetings both orally and in writing.”

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Teen With Down Syndrome Becomes a Supermodel, Challenges Us to See Disability Differently

Life News –  Sarah Zagorski  – May 19, 2015

18-year-old Madeline Stuart has Down syndrome but refuses to let that stop her from her dream of becoming a model. On her Facebook page she said she is pursuing modeling to “help change societies view of people with Down Syndrome.”

According to Buzzfeed, the woman’s mother, Roseanne Stuart, said her daughter has struggled with her weight throughout her life but recently picked up dance, swimming and cheerleading. Roseanne said, “I think it is time people realized that people with Down syndrome can be sexy and beautiful and should be celebrated.”

Roseanne said that culture is much more accepting of people with disabilities now than when her daughter was first born. She said, “Things were a lot different 18 years ago. I remember having her in a [stroller] when she was a baby and small-minded people telling me she should not be out in public. Even her doctors said Madeline would never achieve anything. But things are changing every day and people are more accepting of what they don’t understand yet.”

Additionally, Roseanne explained that her daughter has become very confident despite her disability and she constantly reminds her that she’s perfect just the way she is. She said, “I have made a point of never letting anyone be critical of her. [I tell Maddy] every day how amazing, funny, smart, beautiful, [and] wonderful she is. It’s that confidence — and beauty, both inside and out — that Rosanne wants others to see. People need to see how she shines, how her personality just bursts out.”

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Media Release – Islam is a Religion and not a Race / Reclaim Australia Rallies are not Racist but Patriotic, says RUAP NP Daniel Nalliah

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –  THURSDAY 25th June 2015

Rise Up Australia Party’s National President Daniel Nalliah is calling every Patriotic Aussie to join the Reclaim Australia Rallies on 18th & 19th July across the country.

He will be personally addressing the rally in Melbourne on 18th and the rally in Sydney on the 19th of July.

You may click the following video link to watch his promotion message.

https://youtu.be/Qoxag83oVkw

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Losing their religion: the hidden crisis of faith among Britain’s young Muslims

Sunday 17 May 2015- Andrew Anthony

As debate rages over the radicalisation of young British Muslims, are we overlooking a different crisis of faith? Ex-Muslims who dare to speak out are often cut off by their families and fear for their lives. A brave few tell us their stories.

Sulaiman Vali is a softly spoken 32-year-old computer engineer. A natural introvert not drawn to controversy or given to making bold statements, he’s the kind of person who is happiest in the background. He lives alone in a modest house on a quiet street in a small town in East Northamptonshire. He doesn’t want to be any more specific than that about the location. “If someone found out where I lived,” he explains, “they could burn my house down.”

Why should such an understated figure, someone who describes himself as a “nobody”, speak as if he’s in a witness protection programme? The answer is that six years ago he decided to declare that he no longer accepted the fundamental tenets of Islam. He stopped being a believing Muslim and became instead an apostate. It sounds quaintly anachronistic, but it’s not a term to be lightly adopted.

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Christian Businessman Builds 140-Foot ‘Bulletproof’ Cross In the Middle of Pakistan’s Largest City

May 16, 2015 -The Washington Post – Tim Craig

A Christian businessman is building a 140-foot cross in the middle of Pakistan’s largest city. The cross, expected to be completed this summer, is being billed as the “largest cross in Asia.” (Tim Craig/The Washington Post)

Pakistani businessman Parvez Henry Gill says he was sleeping when God crashed into one of his dreams and gave him a job: find a way to protect Christians in Pakistan from violence and abuse. “I want you to do something different,” God told him.

That was four years ago, and Gill, a lifelong devout Christian, struggled for months with how to respond. Eventually, after more restless nights and more prayers, he awoke one morning with his answer: He would build one of the world’s largest crosses in one of the world’s most unlikely places.

“I said, ‘I am going to build a big cross, higher than any in the world, in a Muslim country,’ ” said Gill, 58. “It will be a symbol of God, and everybody who sees this will be worry-free.”

Now, in this overwhelmingly Muslim country, in the heart of a city where Islamist extremists control pockets of some neighborhoods, the 14-story cross is nearly complete.

It is being built at the entrance to Karachi’s largest Christian cemetery, towering over thousands of tombstones that are often vandalized. Once his cross looms over such acts of disrespect, Gill said, he hopes it can convince the members of Pakistan’s persecuted Christian minority that someday their lives will get better.

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CTFM & RUAP lending a helping hand to the community

Dear friends & family in Christ,

We at Catch The Fire Ministries and Rise Up Australia Party are committed to helping the community.

With the cost of living sky rocketing like never before, many Aussies are finding it very difficult to put meals on their tables and many families are looking for help.

We are so blessed to be able to provide food to around 100 families living in our local area.

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‘Free Speech Battler Daniel Nalliah’ is main speaker at Reclaim Australia Rallies in Melbourne Sat 18th & in Sydney on Sun 19th July 2015

Dear friends & family in Christ, You may click the following link to read a very good article titled ‘Danny Nalliah – free speech battler’ regarding Rise Up Australia National…

Continue Reading‘Free Speech Battler Daniel Nalliah’ is main speaker at Reclaim Australia Rallies in Melbourne Sat 18th & in Sydney on Sun 19th July 2015

8th Anniversary Free Speech Victory in Australia with Daniel Nalliah

Dear friends & family in Christ, You may click the video above to watch a special message from RUAP National President Daniel Nalliah about his court case victory for free…

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