Pakistan’s government won’t abolish blasphemy law because it “fears the reaction of extremists”

June 25, 2015 By Robert Spencer – Jihad Watch

All over the world, the principle is being reinforced: terrorism works. To get what you want, threaten violence, and the “free world” will jump to comply with your wishes.

And Archbishop Coutts’ brother bishops in the U.S. are pursuing an illusory and self-defeating “dialogue” even to the extent of silencing those voices that speak honestly about the root causes of the Muslim persecution of Christians. They are heading the Church in the West off a cliff, and will bear the responsibility for that.

“Pakistan’s ‘fear of extremists’ prevents abolition of blasphemy law,” by Felipe Avillez and Abigail Frymann Rouch, The Tablet, June 24, 2015:

The Government of Pakistan might be willing to abolish the country’s draconian blasphemy law, if it were not for the fact that it “fears the reaction of extremists”, the President of the Pakistani Bishops’ Conference said.

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If Pastors Don’t Stand and Preach the Truth, America Will Fall

If Pastors Don’t Stand and Preach the Truth, America Will FallShane Idleman – Christian Post – July 15, 2015

A paraphrase that is often attributed to Alexis De Tocqueville—a Frenchman who authored Democracy in America in the early 1800s, helps to open this letter: “I looked throughout America to find where her greatness originated. I looked for it in her harbors and on her shorelines, in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and in her gold mines and vast world commerce, but it was not there.”

“It was not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her success. America is great because she is good, and if America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Over the last few decades, Americans have seen the destruction of the institution of marriage between a man and a woman, the removal of God’s Word in several areas, and the blatant murdering of millions of babies. This is an indictment against America and the pulpit is partially responsible – our silence speaks volumes.

The pulpit regulates the spiritual condition of God’s people which affects the nation. A lukewarm, sex-saturated culture (and church) simply reflects the lack of conviction in the pulpit as well as the pew.

Sadly, many pastors are exchanging truth for passivity, boldness for cowardliness, and conviction for comfort…they are not aflame with righteousness. We aim to be motivational speakers rather than preachers of righteousness.

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Rifqa Bary details transformation from Islam to Christianity

By JoAnne Viviano – The Columbus Dispatch – May 19, 2015

A woman who said she feared for her life after she converted from Islam to Christianity as an Ohio teenager has written a book through which she hopes to inspire girls and women who are desperate for freedom.

Rifqa Bary, 22, gained national attention in 2009 when she ran away from her northeast Columbus home to Florida, saying her father had threatened to kill her.

The book Hiding in the Light: Why I Risked Everything to Leave Islam and Follow Jesus tells her story. It was released on Tuesday by the WaterBrook Press division of Penguin Random House.

“Writing this book was so painful. I wept so much reliving everything again, and my hope is to save others who read it, to shed hope and light, and that it would cause other people to see that you can leave, that there is hope,” Bary, an evangelical Christian, said on Tuesday in a telephone interview.

“Even though I’ve had so much loss in my life, I’ve experienced more joy and love than I ever dreamed of, and I found that to be in my faith in Jesus Christ.”

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Academic World Rocked by Discovery: The Free World Owes the Church for the Great Magna Carta

Teresa Neumann : Jun 22, 2015 : Bill Muehlenberg – Barbwire

“The Church… was central to the production, preservation and proclamation of the Magna Carta. The cathedrals were like a beacon from which the light of the charter shone round the country, thus beginning the process by which it became central to national life.” –David Carpenter

(United Kingdom)—As the world celebrates the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta—the historic British document that provided a modern foundation for freedom and instigated the West’s long march toward democracy—news from the world of science and archaeology has turned academics on their heads. (Photo via Barbwire.com)

A report in The Medievalists, noted that the question of who all were involved with the document has been “a conundrum that has puzzled scholars for centuries” but now has been discovered.

Originally, it was assumed that the equal-rights document approved on June 15, 2015, by King John was an entirely secular venture.

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Jerusalem Bishop: ‘There is a real escalation in anti-Christian violence’

Lucinda Borkett-Jones Christian Today Features Editor 22 June 2015

A Catholic bishop in Jerusalem has said the arson attack on an historic church near the Sea of Galilee last week is symptomatic of the growing threat of anti-Christian violence from extremist Jews.

Thursday’s attack on the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, in which two people were treated for smoke inhalation, is the second time the church has been targeted in the last 18 months. Last April an altar and a cross were also desecrated.

Bishop William Shomali, Auxiliary Bishop of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, told Aid to the Church in Need: “There is a real escalation in anti-Christian violence: from a small fire which leaves little damage, to a bigger fire, and finally to an arson attack which is intended to produce major damage and even killing,” he said, adding: “We are allowed to ask: What will come next?”

The bishop acknowledged that the violence was likely perpetrated by “a very small and aggressive group”.

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Iranian Muslim Interrogator Surrenders Life to Jesus Christ Thanks To Witness of Christian Prisoner

By Leah Marieann Klett (news@gospelherald.com) Jun 09, 2015

Open Doors is encouraging Christians in Iran to be brave and continue their ministry work despite ongoing persecution. The organization is also urging Christians worldwide to pray for and support believers in Iran, and for the persecution to subside.

An Iranian interrogator known for persecuting religious minorities surrendered his life to Jesus Christ after a Christian woman locked in solitary confinement shared the Gospel with him, Open Doors USA reports.

Noushin, a house church leader in the predominantly Muslim country, was arrested for her faith and forced into solitary confinement for three days.

“I wasn’t ready to go to prison,” she told Open Doors. “I knew it was a dirty place, a place where people are tortured and locked up in solitary confinement. I was afraid that I would be so fearful that I would give up all the names of the members of house church. I even feared that I would deny my faith if they tortured me.”

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China Sees an Explosive Growth In Christianity

June 14, 2015 – BreakPoint – Eric Metaxas

In 1992, Bei Cun, considered to be one of China’s leading avant-garde writers, did something that really shocked his readers and admirers: He converted to Christianity.

But given the explosive growth of Christianity in China, it shouldn’t be all that surprising.

If you haven’t heard of Bei Cun, that’s okay. Neither had I, probably because his work hasn’t been translated into English. I only learned of his story because my BreakPoint colleague and friend Roberto Rivera recently read Philip Jenkins book, “The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South,” which tells Bei’s story.

After becoming a Christian, Bei wrote what Jenkins calls a “Kafkaesque story” entitled “The Marriage of Zhang Sheng.” In it, the protagonist, a scholar, opens a Chinese-language Bible and happens upon Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.”

The passage leaves Zhang’s “intellectual assumptions in ruins.” Bei, just like his literary creation and hopefully his readers, interprets it as pointing out “the failure of relying upon mere human ideologies that neglect God.”

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Pakistan’s ‘Pro-Taliban’ Gov’t Encourages Violent Muslim Attacks Against Christians, Fmr. Parliament Member Says

1 June 2015- Christian Post

People from the Christian community hold candles while taking part in a protest rally to condemn the suicide bombings which took place outside two churches in Lahore, in Peshawar, March 18, 2015.

Suicide bombings outside two churches in Lahore at least killed 16 people and wounded nearly 80 others during services on Sunday in attacks claimed by a faction of the Pakistani Taliban.

Human rights activist Pervez Rafique, who’s also a former minority member of parliament representing the Pakistan People’s Party in Punjab, said it will be hard to change Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which he said are upheld by an Islamic government that has “strong relations” with Muslim extremists.

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As West Moves Toward Secularism and Irrelevance, Africa and Asia Embrace Christianity

By Isaiah Narciso  Jun 06, 2015

Christianity’s stronghold was historically based in the United States and Europe. However, while many in the West embrace secular values at their own peril, countries in Africa and Asia have become to embrace Christianity.

According to Dr. Susan Berry of Breitbart, the church is thriving in Africa and Asia while its decline continues in the U.S. and many parts of Europe. John L. Allen Jr. of Crux reported back in October 2014 on that shift.

“[African bishops] no longer regard themselves as junior partners in Catholicism Inc.,” Allen wrote. “This time, they’re ready for the board room.”

Allen observed that when liberal German bishops tried to push their agenda, including a “more compassionate tone overall on sexual morality” and a more permissive position on “giving Communion to Catholics who divorce and remarry outside the Church,” the African bishops pushed back hard on those concepts.

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The Holocaust and the Silence of the Church resulted in the deaths of millions of people / You must watch this to protect history repeating itself

Dear family & friends in Christ,

Last Sunday at church, we had Hugh Kitson, Producer, Director & Writer from Hatikvah Film Trust, as our guest speaker.

During his presentation he showed a video of the Holocaust.  You may click the following link to watch a brief clip of it from their Facebook page. When you watch this, just think, what did the Jews do to be slaughtered like animals (mother, father and children)?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMSupynF1Bc

It is not funny, but we all know history tends to repeat itself ever so often. In the full 1 ½ hour documentary (Jacob’s Tears) many Christian leaders of that day speak with great sadness on behalf of the Church which for most part stayed silent. One Pastor stated, “if the Church and the rest of the community had spoken up, we would have had possibly 10 thousand deaths and not 10 million+ deaths.”

The problem?? The Church was lulled into a false sense of peace and security. Unfortunately, we are looking at another Holocaust already happening all over the world through fundamental Islam. Most of the Church leaders, Government leaders and others are silent about it, with many Church and other leaders constantly denying that Islam is a violent religion. Due to political correctness, they state that Islam is a religion of peace.

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Christians in China Stand Up to Government Tyranny: Restore Crosses After They have Been Removed

June 09, 2015 -Robert Marquand – Christian Science Monitor

A group of Protestant churches in China’s Zhejiang Province are staging an unusual tryst with local authorities who have knocked down the cross from atop their churches: They are fighting back and restoring the traditional symbol of Christianity.

In some cases, the often elderly evangelical resisters in 16 churches around the cities of Lishui and Fuyang have persistently replaced the cross three times in a single day. So far, the restored crosses – some of makeshift raw lumber – remain.

Such civil disobedience is part of a mostly polite but intensifying standoff between the faithful and party authorities in the wake of a state campaign to target Protestants in the place where their numbers are growing and their churches are visible.

A number of churchgoers who have conducted late night and early morning campaigns to reaffix the cross say they are acting out of conviction and aren’t afraid. One man, Zhao Lizhong, who tried in early May to defend the Pinguan church in Lishui, has not been heard from since police escorted him from the site.

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Should the Church be involved in politics? – by Ps Daniel Nalliah

Dear family & friends in Christ,

I am sure everyone of us has asked the above question, “Should the Church be involved in politics?“

The simple answer is YES.

For many years, I was a strong believer, like many Christians, that the Church should not get involved in politics. Unfortunately, I believed in this lie for more than half of my Christian life, as the devil very cleverly deceived me.

But thank God that I had a major paradigm shift, when in Saudi Arabia on 21st July 1997 at 3.40am, Jesus appeared in my house and spoke to me for 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Just 40 minutes from Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Jesus very clearly spoke to me with His audible voice and said, “Your time here is over. I am taking you to Australia and you will go into many parliaments and be a voice for the voiceless speaking in My name.”

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Marriage tide is turning in Australia

FamilyVoice Australia – Media Release – 14 July 2015

“A number of indicators suggest that more Australians are turning against Rodney Croome’s deceptive ‘marriage equality’ campaign,” FamilyVoice national research officer Ros Phillips said today.

“In Mr Croome’s home state of Tasmania, where the campaign has been waged relentlessly over several years, a new ReachTEL poll commissioned by The Examiner found that a minority of northern Tasmanians support same-sex marriage, and only a small percentage think it is important.  Liberal voters are at least 2:1 against same-sex marriage.”

Ros Phillips said another indicator of the nation’s change of heart is the big difference between the Crosby Textor poll of last August – where 72% of Australians said they backed “marriage equality” – and the Newspoll of June this year, where the figure had dropped to 58%.  “The trend is clearly down,” she said.

“Then there is the large volume of mail in support of natural marriage flooding the inboxes of federal MPs.  The Strewth column in today’s Australian noted that the Mamma Mia website published a ‘rogue’s gallery of the 10 people blocking marriage equality in Australia (all Coalition parliamentarians, apparently), complete with email addresses, last Monday.  By the end of the week the sole woman on the list, parliamentary secretary Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, was surprised by the volume of supportive emails coming her way…’

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What Many Congregations are Now Doing on Sundays in Support of Persecuted Christians in the Middle East

Aimee Herd : Jun 1, 2015 : Ashley Webster, Inwook Song – Fox News

It’s a way of sending persecuted Believers the message that “we’re standing with you on this—you’re not alone.”

Many Christian Believers are exchanging their good Sunday clothes for a symbol of support for fellow Believers in the Middle East who are being persecuted for their faith. (Photo via Facebook)

Congregants are donning orange apparel, the same color as the jumpsuits ISIS terrorists have forced the Christians to wear before beheading them.

According to a Fox News report, it’s a trend that was made popular by a handful of Christian leaders, including Rev. Patrick Mahoney who runs the #OrangeJumpSuit project.

Speaking to reporters, a churchgoer in Dumont, NJ—John Estrada—said, “The reason why I am wearing an orange shirt is to represent the Christian brothers and sisters that are being persecuted.”

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Iraqi Nun Testify Before Congress, Calling on U.S. to Help Rebuild the Lives of Christian Refugees Displaced by ISIS

By Suzette Gutierrez  May 16, 2015

After getting caught in a controversy when she was denied a U.S. visa in April, Sister Diana Momeka was finally able to enter the country when the U.S. State Department reversed its earlier decision and granted her a visa to travel to Washington, D.C. She appeared before the House Committee of Foreign Affairs and testified about the cruelties of ISIS on fellow Iraqi Christians.

Her testimony rang with a simple message: that the U.S. government help displaced Christian Iraqis who have been victims of ISIS go back to their homeland.

Addressing the House Committee of Foreign Affairs, she said, “I call on all Americans to raise your voices on our behalf so that diplomacy and not genocide, social well-being and not weapons, and the desire for justice, not selfish interests determine the future for Iraq and all of her children.” Her testimony appears on the website of Christian News Wire.

Sister Diana said the faith of the homless Iraqi Christians are ‘increasing more and more’ despite living in devastating conditions – families taking shelter in containers, parents without jobs and children without an education.

“It’s making us stronger,” she said. “We were displaced, yet we feel that the hand of God is still with us. … In the midst of this darkness, this suffering, we see that God is holding us,” she explained, adding that it is a “gift of the Holy Spirit” to be able to stay and have faith through hardship.

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