If judges ban religion from our courts, guess who gets to play God…

Can it be that the judges have decided to replace God with their own views, asks Peter HitchensMail Online By Peter Hitchens 3 November 2013

For what exactly is it that holds up the law? Why should parents have charge over their children, teachers over their pupils? Why should we stop  at zebra crossings if we’re in a hurry? Why give a seat to a pregnant woman or an old  man? Lots don’t. Why pay your debts or your taxes, if you can get out of it?

Authority, and the test of  what was right or wrong, used to come from the Christian religion. But Sir James Munby, a distinguished High Court Justice, is the keenest of several judges to say that is all finished now.

He says ‘Once upon a time, the perceived function of the judges was to promote virtue and discourage vice and immorality.’ But he adds: ‘I doubt one would now hear that from the judicial bench.’

 Idoubt it too. Lord Justice Laws said back in 2010 that providing legal protection to one religion over another would be ‘deeply unprincipled’. ‘This must be so, since in the eye of everyone save the believer, religious faith is necessarily subjective,’ he remarked.

Of course, that’s so in a way. Faith is a choice. But the respect given to Lord Justice Laws and Sir James Munby is much more subjective, as is the set of beliefs which seat them on the Bench and pay their salaries.

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IRAN: FOUR CHRISTIANS SENTENCED TO 80 LASHES FOR DRINKING COMMUNION WINE

IranFor Immediate Release – 23 October 2013 – Christian Solidarity Worldwide

A court in the Iranian city of Rasht has sentenced four members of the Church of Iran denomination to 80 lashes each for drinking wine during a communion service.

The verdict, dated 6 October, charges Behzad Taalipasand, Mehdi Reza Omidi (Youhan), Mehdi Dadkhah (Danial) and Amir Hatemi (Youhanna) with drinking alcohol and possession of a receiver and satellite antenna. They received the verdict on 20 October and have ten days to appeal the sentence.

Behzad Taalipasand and Mehdi Reza Omidi (Youhan) were detained on 31 December 2012 during a crackdown on house churches by the Iranian government.

Mervyn Thomas, Chief Executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), said, “The sentences handed down to these members of the Church of Iran effectively criminalise the Christian sacrament of sharing in the Lord’s Supper and constitute an unacceptable infringement on the right to practice faith freely and peaceably. We urge the Iranian authorities to ensure that the nation’s legal practices and procedures do not contradict its international obligation under the International Convent on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to guarantee the full enjoyment of freedom of religion or belief by all of its religious communities.”

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Premier Barry O’Farrell condemns Jewish attack as community on alert folllowing Bondi bashing

by: Clementine Cuneo, Leigh Van Den Broeke and AAP From: The Daily Telegraph - October 28, 2013 NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell says there will be zero tolerance for religious discrimination…

Continue ReadingPremier Barry O’Farrell condemns Jewish attack as community on alert folllowing Bondi bashing

Atheists Continue Relentless Attack on the Ground Zero Cross

Ground Zero Cross

Matthew Clark (Oct 18, 2013)

Simply put, the Constitution is not an atheist manifesto.

Following a big victory for the Ground Zero Cross earlier this year, where a federal judge threw out an atheist lawsuit to tear down the Cross, angry atheists are now appealing that ruling to a federal appeals court.

The Ground Zero Cross, two intersecting steel beams found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, became a symbol of hope and healing for first responders on the ground in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and for thousands of Americans across the nation.

Atheists, from the particularly vitriolic American Atheists, demanded that it be torn down. They attempted to make a federal case of their hurt feelings and lost.

The trial court correctly noted that the Cross was a historic artifact – an actual piece of 9/11 history. It really meant something to those affected. (more…)

Continue ReadingAtheists Continue Relentless Attack on the Ground Zero Cross

US should condemn Saudi Arabia religious abuses

Christian Today –  24 August 2013  |  Mark Caplin

The World Evangelical Alliance has said the US government must do more to hold Saudi Arabia to account on religious liberty.

Saudi Arabia has been on the US State Department’s Country of Particular Concern (CPC) list since 2004.  Countries on the list can be subject to economic sanctions but the WEA states in a new report that these have been waived in the case of Saudi Arabia since 2006.

The WEA suggests the US is having little impact in improving religious rights in the Wahhabi Sunni kingdom and points to the recent sentencing of cyber activist Raef Badawi to seven years in prison and 600 lashes for offending Islam and violating the kingdom’s cyber crime law.

Similar sentences this year include that handed to a Christian Lebanese man accused of helping a Saudi women convert to Christianity. The Saudi Gazette reported that he was sentenced to six years in prison and 300 lashes, and the daughter sentenced to six years and 300 lashes, although she reportedly fled to Sweden.

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Over 11,000 Egyptian Youth Gather in Desert to Dedicate Their Lives to Christ

Open Doors Staff (Oct 9, 2013)

“I was surrounded by a massive crowd of people who were taught to love and forgive. Their genuine spirit of love and angelic worship did not leave my thought!” –a Muslim journalist

Given the precarious political and security situation in Egypt, including the death of 53 over the weekend in fighting between security forces and former president Mohammed Morsi supporters, it is hard to imagine that a huge Christian youth conference being held for three days by over 11,000 youth from 250 churches from all denominations could actually be a reality.

But from Sept. 26-28 the “One Thing 2013” youth conference took place for the fifth year in a row in a stadium inside a church conference facility out in the desert 70 miles north of Cairo.

Thousands of youth gathered to seek God’s will not only in their own lives, but in their own country of Egypt as well. It was a major operation to transport thousands from their home cities, towns and villages to the conference venue. About 4,000 youth came all the way from various southern Egyptian cities, even though Egypt’s train system was suspended due to security threats.

Around 7,000 young people had to commute each day back and forth from Cairo, Alexandria and other nearby cities in order to attend the conference. To make sure people came and left on time inside curfew hours, and buses safely commuted everyone, was a daily miracle. None of these hundreds of cars, vans or buses engaged in any minor or major road accidents—something that Christian Egyptians don’t take for granted.

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More exciting Pro-Life Testimonies / Live webcast & Pr Daniel’s birthday at CTFM this Sunday 20th Oct / Ev Jason spreads Holy Spirit fire in Perth

Dear friends & family in Christ,

1) Last Sunday 13th Oct, we at Catch The Fire Church in Melbourne we were blessed to have Kay Painter from Remembering S.A.R.A. Ministries International speak to us at our 9.30 am and 6.30pm services.

Kay spoke of her abusive marriages, her abortion and her joy of finally coming to know, really know Jesus forgiveness, healing, being born again and that God had a purpose for her life. That’s why she came to Australia.

Kay also was our guest speaker at our Ladies Afternoon Tea. As many people were touched by Kay’s testimony which is in her book “From Sin And Sorrow To Service” we opened the Ladies meeting to men as well. At all three meetings many men women and some children received healing from trauma, restoration of their lives, Salvation and deliverance. Jesus said that He came to set prisoners free and heal the broken hearted and He did just that.

Ps. Geraldine of CTFM, who is in charge of “Option Plus Care” Pregnancy Crisis and Care Counselling (A division of CTFM) told us of one lady’s amazing testimony after the March for Babies last Saturday 12th Oct.

“I came to this rally and watched both sides with curiosity. I have to admit I was planning to join the ‘other side’ and I was pretty excited, it was to be my first ever rally. I got the shock of my life when I saw how ugly they were and I had to sit down to stop myself trembling. I am having triplets, cancelling my abortion Monday morning. Thank you. My heart has been changed.”

You may click the following link to read Ps Geraldine’s report from the March for Babies in Melbourne.

https://reformationharvestfire.com/events/march-for-the-babies-sat-12-oct-2013/

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Continue ReadingMore exciting Pro-Life Testimonies / Live webcast & Pr Daniel’s birthday at CTFM this Sunday 20th Oct / Ev Jason spreads Holy Spirit fire in Perth

The Blood of Christians on Obama’s Hands

Townhall.com ^ | September 10, 2013 | Scottie Hughes

Thirty-five miles northeast of Damascus is a small Christian village built into the mountains of Syria. Until yesterday, the most interesting thing about this town called Maaloula was that its 6,000 residents are among the last in the world who still speak Aramaic – the language Christ spoke as a boy in a carpentry shop, as man giving a sermon from a mount, and on the eve of his death and resurrection when he broke bread and poured wine and said, “This is my body…. This is my blood.”

Yesterday, according to reports by eyewitnesses, the Christians of Maaloula were attacked by a vicious army with no respect for human life and a special hatred for the Christians it calls infidels. They were driven from their homes. They were murdered in their streets.

Based on the recent rhetoric from President Obama and his administration, you might at first assume that the Syrian dictator and his army were responsible for this hate crime against the innocent Aramaic-speaking Christians of Maaloula. But the truth is quite the contrary. As has been the case in many prior attacks on Syria’s Christian minority, the culprits were al-Qaeda-linked rebels – the very same rebels Mr. Obama is preparing to help by bombing the Assad regime.

This past Sunday, as President Obama and his administration ratcheted up the usual media spin machine to promote their agenda, I was hoping pastors across the United States would stand up with moral courage and tell their congregations the truth about the ethnic cleansing of Christians in Syria. I was hoping that they would ratchet up the calls for the truth about who our enemies are. However, this administration and their media puppets have done such a good job of confusing the situation, many of those pastors have no idea who our enemy is.

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Blunt words about Muslim backwardness

Mark Steyn – Jewish World Review Sept. 9, 2013/ 5 Tishrei, 5774

In 2010, the bestselling atheist Richard Dawkins, in the “On Faith” section of the Washington Post, called the pope “a leering old villain in a frock” perfectly suited to “the evil corrupt organization” and “child-raping institution” that is the Catholic Church. Nobody seemed to mind very much.

Three years later, in a throwaway Tweet, Professor Dawkins observed that “all the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge. They did great things in the Middle Ages, though.” This time round, the old provocateur managed to get a rise out of folks. Almost every London paper ran at least one story on the “controversy.”

The Independent’s Owen Jones fumed, “How dare you dress your bigotry up as atheism. You are now beyond an embarrassment.”

The best-selling author Caitlin Moran sneered, “It’s time someone turned Richard Dawkins off and then on again. Something’s gone weird.” The Daily Telegraph’s Tom Chivers beseeched him, “Please be quiet, Richard Dawkins, I’m begging.”

None of the above is Muslim. Indeed, they are, to one degree or another, members of the same secular liberal media elite as Professor Dawkins. Yet all felt that, unlike Dawkins’s routine jeers at Christians, his Tweet had gone too far. It’s factually unarguable: Trinity graduates have amassed 32 Nobel prizes, the entire Muslim world a mere 10.

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The war on Christians – The global persecution of Christians is the unreported catastrophe of our time

5 October 2013- The Spectator

Imagine if correspondents in late 1944 had reported the Battle of the Bulge, but without explaining that it was a turning point in the second world war. Or what if finance reporters had told the story of the AIG meltdown in 2008 without adding that it raised questions about derivatives and sub-prime mortgages that could augur a vast financial implosion?

Most people would say that journalists had failed to provide the proper context to understand the news. Yet that’s routinely what media outlets do when it comes to outbreaks of anti-Christian persecution around the world, which is why the global war on Christians remains the greatest story never told of the early 21st century.

In recent days, people around the world have been appalled by images of attacks on churches in Pakistan, where 85 people died when two suicide bombers rushed the Anglican All Saints Church in Peshawar, and in Kenya, where an assault on a Catholic church in Wajir left one dead and two injured.

Those atrocities are indeed appalling, but they cannot truly be understood without being seen as small pieces of a much larger narrative. Consider three points about the landscape of anti-Christian persecution today, as shocking as they are generally unknown. According to the International Society for Human Rights, a secular observatory based in Frankfurt, Germany, 80 per cent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians. Statistically speaking, that makes Christians by far the most persecuted religious body on the planet.

According to the Pew Forum, between 2006 and 2010 Christians faced some form of discrimination, either de jure or de facto, in a staggering total of 139 nations, which is almost three-quarters of all the countries on earth. According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, an average of 100,000 Christians have been killed in what the centre calls a ‘situation of witness’ each year for the past decade. That works out to 11 Christians killed somewhere in the world every hour, seven days a week and 365 days a year, for reasons related to their faith.

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Continue ReadingThe war on Christians – The global persecution of Christians is the unreported catastrophe of our time

Nick Vujicic Shares About ‘Divine Appointment’ With Limbless Girl in Malaysia

Charisma News – 9/5/2013 Gina Meeks

Evangelist Nick Vujicic shared an inspirational story of “divine appointment” on his Facebook page Tuesday.

Vujicic, who was born with no arms or legs, is in the midst of a two-week Christian outreach tour of several Asian countries.

With a photo of the family in the capital city of Malaysia, Vujicic begins, “Friends, I have an incredible story to share about a family I met in Kuala Lumpur.”

He goes on to say the family drove seven hours to meet him but found the event was filled when they arrived.

“After patiently waiting for more than 4 hours for us to leave the venue, they managed to track down which van I was in,” he continues. “That in itself was no easy task, as there was quite a bit of commotion exiting the event, and our convoy was made up of three different vans which carry the team and our gear.

“They followed behind us, planning on saying hello whenever we reached our destination. When we stopped for fuel, they came running out of their car. Our host, Joshua, saw them coming up to the van and said to me, ‘Wow, you’ll never believe what I’m seeing. There’s a family with a girl who has no arms and no legs, and they’re coming to see you.’

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Continue ReadingNick Vujicic Shares About ‘Divine Appointment’ With Limbless Girl in Malaysia

More CTFM media articles / Pr Daniel ministering in Darwin, NT this weekend / Ev Jason ministering in Perth, WA this weekend

Dear family & friends in Christ, 1)  You may click the following links to read several articles regarding CTFM & the Doveton mosque that recently appeared in the local media…

Continue ReadingMore CTFM media articles / Pr Daniel ministering in Darwin, NT this weekend / Ev Jason ministering in Perth, WA this weekend

We are you, and you are us – Israel and Australia share values

Yuval Rotem – The Australian – September 28, 2013

IN the next few days I will depart Australia. Every departure comes with a certain lingering sadness. Although this is the third time we are returning to Israel from an overseas assignment, it does not become any easier with age or experience. With my departure comes the task of bidding farewell to close friends who helped to build a home away from home, who have provided a sense of belonging and a treasured family bond.

My family and I have had the privilege of exploring this great country from the Great Barrier Reef in the north to Hobart in the south and Uluru in the centre, our trips allowing us to wander through the Bungle Bungles, swim at Fraser Island and test our nerves on rides at Dreamworld. Australia has welcomed, inspired and amazed us at every corner.

The historical relationship between Australia and Israel was forged in the heat of battle during WWI. Members of Zion Mule Corps served alongside Anzac troops on the shores of Gallipoli. The corps, largely made up of Jewish volunteers, recognised the importance of fighting with the Allies and the values they stood for. This relationship strengthened as members of the Australian Light Horse Brigade strove gallantly through the Turkish Ottoman trenches in the city of Be’er Sheva. Fighting for freedom of the land, the soldiers were welcomed into the homes and hearts of Jewish residents.

Acknowledging and appreciating the role of Australia in the re-establishment of the modern state of Israel, the work of then foreign minister Dr HV Evatt to secure the decision in November 1947 was courageous and dedicated. Australia was the first to vote in favour of the establishment of Israel in May 1948 in the General Assembly and also sponsored the resolution for Israel’s admittance to the UN in 1949.

As I prepare to leave, I am overcome with emotions, connected to the places visited and enriching years that I have spent here. My reflections are dominated by images of this wide brown land, memories made through friendships forged over long dinners, and a warm recollection of our travels.

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CTFM & Islamic mosque newspaper articles / RUA Prayer in Melbourne tonight Friday 4th Oct / Live webcast with Pr Daniel this Sunday 6th Oct

Dear friends & family in Christ, 1)  You may click the following links to read several newspaper articles regarding our recent peaceful resolution with the Islamic mosque in Doveton, Victoria.…

Continue ReadingCTFM & Islamic mosque newspaper articles / RUA Prayer in Melbourne tonight Friday 4th Oct / Live webcast with Pr Daniel this Sunday 6th Oct