Millions of Dalit Christians In India Forced to Choose Between Their Faith and Government Benefits

December 30, 2014 – International Christian Concern

The term “Dalit” is a term used in India to describe people from Hinduism’s lowest caste. Forced into poverty for generations from the India’s Caste system, the people from this caste used to be called “Untouchables,” but for the most part, that term died out with the British Empire. Today, an estimated 25 million Dalits across India have converted to Christianity, but are forced to choose between openly out their faith and a government benefit program that gives benefits only to Dalits coming from select religious backgrounds.

This choice has significantly affected the constitutional right India’s citizens have to freely choose a religion for themselves. It also has left millions of Dalits to have to decide between choosing to follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior and receiving government benefits that have the ability to take their families out of poverty. All added up, this discrimination has affected the official appearance of India’s religious landscape.

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Hundreds of patriotic Aussies expected for United Prayer Vigil on Australia Day to pray for Protection & Peace in Australia

Dear friends & family in Christ,Australia Day Prayer

On this Australia Day Monday 26th January 2015 from 10am – 1pm, hundreds of patriotic Aussies from many different ethnicities, Christian denominations and churches will unite as one to pray for peace in Australia at the premises of Catch The Fire Ministries at 30 Star Crescent in Hallam, Victoria.

This intercultural interdenominational prayer vigil will focus on beseeching Almighty God’s Grace, Peace and Protection over this Great South Land of Australia.

Special guest speaker is Reverend Donnie Swaggart, son of the well-known Reverend Jimmy Swaggart from USA.

Special dance presentation from 25 Indonesian Australians from Sydney and many other special cultural items.

There will be bible reading from Psalms 23 & 91 and the Lord’s Prayer.

This National Prayer Day for Australia is a major opportunity for reconciliation and unity as different ethnicities, churches, and denominations, including Anglicans, Catholics, Presbyterians, Protestants, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Evangelicals, Salvation Army and others, come together to corporately pray for our nation’s Government, Armed Forces, Emergency Services, and protection over our country from bush fires & Islamic terrorism.

Ps Daniel stated “As government leaders look for answers as to how to deal with the increasing threat of fundamental Islamism, we as the church need to play a major role in praying and standing shoulder to shoulder with our fellow countrymen to protect our nation. The church must not stay silent, as the silence of the church in history was partly the reason for the success of Nazism, Communism and now Islamism. I call on the church will rise up, pray and act as a united voice to stop the violence and to promote peace.”

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Media Release: Is flying our Australian flag on Australia Day a symbol of racism or is it patriotism?? by Daniel Nalliah

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – THURSDAY 22nd JANUARY 2015

The President of Rise Up Australia Party Daniel Nalliah stated this morning from his office in Melbourne,

“As an immigrant from Sri Lanka who now calls Australia Home, when I first saw the Australian flag I just loved it. Every Australia Day I fly our Australian Flag at home and on my car. But most of all, I fly our Australian Flag every day in my heart because I love Australia and will fight to Keep Australia, Australian for the next generation.

I was shocked to read the survey results from the University of Western Australia a couple of years ago (http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201201234297/research/study-shows-racist-views-link-car-flags) stating that flying the Australian Flag was an act of racism. I know this view is supported by the push for Multiculturalism. For me this is very offensive and at once my instincts are to react by promoting every Australian to fly the flag, not just on Australia Day, but every day of the year.

I called Australia home around 18 years, and if this is what I feel, I wonder how much more offensive it is to every patriotic Australian, especially our diggers who fought for our flag and the relatives of the many who lost their lives.

Multiculturalism has been a great mistake the West has embraced. Today the host countries in the West, such as people living in Australia, are forced to think twice before displaying their flags for fear of being called racist.

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Bereaved Israeli and Palestinian parents work together for reconciliation

Monday, December 22, 2014 – by Pat McCarthy – ASSIST News Service

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (ANS) — Although Israeli-Palestinian relations are probably best known for conflict, a group of parents from both sides has spent 20 years working for reconciliation, inspired and united by the common experience of bereavement.

More than 600 families belong to the Parents’ Circle – Families Forum (PCFF) – brought together by the pain they share through losing a close family member in the ongoing conflict.

The grassroots group was initiated in 1995 by Yitzhak Frankental, a Jew, whose firstborn son Arik was abducted and murdered by Hamas militants while he was serving in the Israeli army.

“After Arik was murdered, I understood that I had failed as a father,” he recalled in a newspaper interview. “I had brought a son into the world but he did not live — not because he was sick, but because there was no peace. Because I didn’t do anything to promote peace.”

Mr. Frankental said eyebrows were raised over his conciliatory activity in his religious congregation in Jerusalem, but he never wavered in his religious faith. “My approach to religion,” he said, “is that I worship God, not the other way around. Everything that God does is for the good, even if I do not fully grasp it.”

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Christians In Egypt Find Healing by Forgiving Those Who Persecute Them

Baptist Press – William Bagsby – September 21, 2014

A year after more than 85 churches and Christian institutions across Egypt were destroyed and burned, and three years after the country’s longest serving president stepped down in the wake of nationwide protests, Christian workers there are finding an openness rarely experienced before.

Some workers noted that forgiveness — along with persistence in sharing the Gospel — shown by local Christians toward Muslims has played a large role in the change.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down after 18 days of nationwide demonstrations during what is now called the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Since then Egypt has gone through various protests, elections, presidents and the quake of upheaval.

In August last year more than 85 churches and Christian institutions were attacked and burned as a result of demonstrations across Egypt calling for an Islamic state.

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Ben Carson Says Adults Must Teach Inner-City Youth to Respect Authority; Recounts His Own Run-In With Police

By Samuel Smith , CP Reporter November 26, 2014

Columnist, retired neurosurgeon and potential presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland, March 8, 2014.

In the wake this week’s grand jury decision not to indict the Ferguson, Missouri, cop who shot and killed an unarmed African-American teenager, potential Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson claims that young males living in inner cities need to be taught how to respond better to authority.

In an interview with Bloomberg Politics Monday night, the 63-year-old retired neurosurgeon and rising conservative star was asked to recount his own childhood experience with his run-ins with inner city Detroit law enforcement.

Although Carson said that as a kid there was the possibility for many run-ins with police officers, he said he was largely able to avoid harsh police confrontations because he was taught at a young age to be “polite” and how to “appropriately” react to interactions with law enforcement and other types of authority.

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Is Mentoring the Solution to the Ferguson Problem: Kirk Franklin Thinks So

November 27, 2014 – SOURCE: EEW Magazine – Reginald Daniels

America is hurting right now, particularly those within the African American community that feel like an injustice has been done in the case of Michael Brown.

Among the leaders speaking out at this critical period is award-winning gospel recording artist Kirk Franklin, 44.

The “I Smile” songwriter is addressing the Ferguson community on Twitter and admonishing leaders to mentor urban male youth to help turn things around.

“I was raised with no father, bad neighborhood, high school drop out, food stamps,” he said. “You know what saved me..? MENTORING.”

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Rick Warren, Russell Moore Go on Rant Against Sex-Charged Culture

11/18/2014 Josephine McKenna/RNS – Charisma News

Prominent U.S. evangelicals Russell Moore and Rick Warren blasted the sexual revolution at a Vatican conference Nov. 18 and said it is destroying the institution of marriage.

Moore, the public face of the Southern Baptist Convention, said sexual liberation had created “a culture obsessed with sex” that had simply led to a “boredom of sex shorn of mystery.”

“Western culture now celebrates casual sexuality, cohabitation, no-fault divorce, family redefinition and abortion right as part of a sexual revolution that can tear down old patriarchal systems,” Moore told a global gathering of leaders from Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and other faiths as part of the “Complementarity of Man and Woman” conference convened by Pope Francis.

The Southern Baptist ethicist said the sexual revolution appeared to have imposed a new patriarchy that enabled men to “pursue a Darwinian fantasy of the predatory alpha male” for the pursuit of “power, prestige and personal pleasure.”

“Does anyone really believe these things will empower women and children?” he asked. “We see the wreckage of sexuality as self-expression all around us, and we will see more yet.”

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New Year’s Eve & New Year 2015 program at CTFM at 30 Star Crescent in Hallam

Dear friends & family in Christ, 31st December—New Year’s Eve Worship Service at 9.30pm with Communion followed by supper (bring a plate of finger food) – no hot food please…

Continue ReadingNew Year’s Eve & New Year 2015 program at CTFM at 30 Star Crescent in Hallam

Pope Francis Creates Panel to Process ‘Backlog’ of Appeals From Priests Accused of Sexual Abuse

By Michael Gryboski , Christian Post Reporter – November 12, 2014

The Vatican announced Tuesday that Pope Francis will set up a panel to help process the “backlog” of appeals from priests who’ve been accused of committing sexual abuse against minors. The new judicial body, or college, will be overseen by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“Hearing the appeals is a very important job, especially those on abuse of minors, and the backlog of cases is at risk of absorbing all the time of the congregation,” Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi told The Tablet, a Catholic news weekly.

“[The accused] shall have his case examined by the whole body of members of the congregation, the ordinary session, which may also examine other specific cases upon papal request, and/or examine cases referred to it by the newly created college,” he added.

The new college will mostly focus on appeals from defrocked priests, according to Reuters, which reports that “Under the changes, the new commission would handle appeals while an existing office in the doctrinal department would continue to handle initial cases. The Vatican said earlier this year that between 2004 and 2013, it had defrocked about 850 priests who had been accused of sexual abuse of minors.”

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Lifeway Study: Almost a Quarter of American Families Have Turned to Church Food Pantries for Help

By Stephanie Samuel , Christian Post Reporter – November 26, 2014

A September Lifeway Research survey reveals that nearly a quarter of Americans have received food from a church-run food pantry. Minorities and churchgoers commonly benefit from church pantries, according to the survey.

The Nashville-based Christian research firm polled 1,158 respondents about church food pantries and found that 22 percent said they have relied on a church program to feed their families. Of those who have received food from a church pantry, 26 percent were churchgoers. Over a third identified as evangelical.

More than one in three church pantry users (37 percent) were African Americans, 25 percent were Hispanic while 19 percent of the pantry users were Caucasian.

Scott McConnell, vice president of LifeWay Research, said of the survey’s results, “There is an abundance of food in the U.S., but plenty of people still go hungry.”

Some 50 million Americans struggle to put food on the table, according to national food bank network Feeding America.

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The Church’s Responsibility to Address Male Violence Against Women

September 09, 2014

Male violence against women is a real problem in our culture, one the church must address. Our responsibility here is not simply at the level of social justice but at the level of ecclesical justice as well.

We must teach from our pulpits, our Sunday school classes, and our Vacation Bible Schools that women are to be cherished, honored, and protected by men. This means we teach men to reject American playboy consumerism in light of a Judgment Seat at which they will give account for their care for their families. It means we explicitly tell the women in our congregations, “A man who hits you has surrendered his headship, and that is the business both of the civil state in enacting public justice and of this church in enacting church discipline.”

Church discipline against wife-beaters must be clear and consistent. We must stand with women against predatory men in all areas of abandonment, divorce, and neglect. We must train up men, through godly mentoring as well as through biblical instruction, who will know that the model of a husband is a man who crucifies his selfish materialism, his libidinal fantasies, and his wrathful temper tantrums in order to care lovingly for a wife. We must also remind these young men that every idle word, and every hateful act, will be laid out in judgment before the eyes of the One to whom we must give an answer.

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Majority of Americans Recognize Christ in Christmas

Charisma News – Melanie Korb

While some “grinches” try to secularize Christmas and remove any mention of Christ from Christmas, the majority of Americans still celebrate the “reason for the season.”

According to Rassmusen Reports, 78 percent of Americans believe that Jesus is the Son of God who came to earth to die for our sins; 79 percent of Americans say religious holidays should be celebrated in public schools, and 70 percent prefer “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays” on store signs.

The majority of Americans believe that Christmas should be celebrated in public schools. Public schools are not religion-free zones. Classroom discussion of the religious aspects of the holidays is permissible. A holiday display in a classroom may include a nativity scene or other religious imagery, so long as the context also includes secular symbols.

A choral performance may include religious songs. Indeed, the majority of the songs may be religious, so long as the performance also includes secular holiday songs. If the students select their own songs, there is no requirement that the songs include secular numbers. (more…)

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Muslims Sexually Enslaving Children: A Global Phenomenon

September 4, 2014 by Raymond Ibrahim

As shocking as the Muslim-run sex ring in Rotherham, England may seem to some—1,400 British children as young as 11 plied with drugs before being passed around and sexually abused in cabs and kabob shops—the fact is that this phenomenon is immensely widespread. In the United Kingdom alone, it’s the fifth sex abuse ring led by Muslims to be uncovered.

Some years back in Australia, a group of “Lebanese Muslim youths” were responsible for a “series of brutal gang rapes” of “Anglo-Celtic teenage girls.” A few years later in the same country, four Muslim Pakistani brothers raped at least 18 Australian women, some as young as 13. Even in the United States, a gang of Somalis—Somalia being a Muslim nation where non-Muslims, primarily Christians, are ruthlessly persecuted—was responsible for abducting, buying, selling, raping and torturing young American girls as young as 12.

The question begs itself: If Muslim minorities have no fear of exploiting “infidel” women and children in non-Muslim countries—that is, where Muslims themselves are potentially vulnerable minorities—how are Muslims throughout the Islamic world, where they are dominant, treating their vulnerable, non-Muslim minorities?

The answer is a centuries-long, continents-wide account of nonstop sexual predation. Boko Haram’s abduction and enslavement of nearly 300, mostly Christian, schoolgirls last April in Nigeria is but the tip of the iceberg.

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Wishing you a blessed CHRISTMAS and a victorious New Year in 2015!

Dear family & friends in Christ in Australia & around the World,

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and blessed Christmas, in addition to a victorious New Year in 2015, overflowing with the supernatural power and glorious presence of the Holy Spirit!

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for believing in and supporting the vision of Catch The Fire Ministries and Rise Up Australia Party to take Australia and the Nations for JESUS!

Thank you for your support, prayer, action and many forms of contact that have been such a blessing to me, my family and each team member.

I pray God’s richest blessings upon you and your family during this extraordinary season of remembering the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!

I just love Australia and the people of all nations. I just absolutely love to see souls won into the Kingdom of God.

I look forward to working in the Spirit of unity with all of the body of Christ in the New Year in 2015 and beyond until His Kingdom come on earth as it is heaven! United we stand; divided we fall.

Let’s all reach out in love to those in need this Christmas season. Invite someone in need to your home. Invite your neighbours home for a meal and those who do not know Jesus that He is the reason for the season. Make peace with someone you have been angry with.

Share the love of Jesus as we remember His birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!

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