The governor of Indiana has said he will defend a veterans memorial in a state park that contains a small cross.
“So long as I am governor, I will defend the right of Hoosiers to display this sculpture in Whitewater Memorial State Park as a lasting tribute to the service and sacrifice of all who have worn the uniform of the United States,” Governor Mike Pence said in a statement.
The anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a threatening letter last month to the director of Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources saying that the existence of the cross on the monument was a government endorsement of Christianity.
“I fully support the decision by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to accept the sculpture commissioned by local citizens to honor all who have fallen in service to our country,” Governor Pence said. “The freedom of religion does not require freedom from religion. The Constitutions of our state and nation more than allow the placement of this Hoosier artist’s sculpture on public land.”
Supporters of the cross say if it’s offensive to an atheist just to see the cross there, it’s just as offensive to a Christian or any other people of faith to have no symbols there that endorses an atheistic belief system.
A Christian man in Iraq has been used “as an example” by the Islamic terrorist group ISIS in an attempt to intimidate other non-Muslims in the region.
Salen Matty Georgis, 43, had stayed in the Christian town of Bartella after ISIS overran the Iraqi forces protecting the town on August 7th. Georgis had a heart conditions that made it impossible for him to travel.
After living in hiding for three weeks, Georgis ran out of food. ISIS seized him immediately after he left his home.
“The [terrorist] patrol arrests him and tried to force him to convert to Islam,” a relative who did not want to be identified told the Christian Post. “He completely refused [to renounce Christ.] The militants beat him and tortured him until he died in their hands.”
“The international community cannot remain silent about the existential threat that Iraq’s Christian communities are facing. We are witnessing the emptying of Christians from their homelands,” Todd Daniels of International Christian Concern said. “We applaud the United Nations for meeting regarding these human rights abuses, but in the face of such horrific violence, action must be taken to ensure the protection of these communities.”
A 13-year-old Christian boy that escaped an ISIS prison camp told reporters that he saw beheadings, stonings and crucifixions carried out by the terrorists. Other Christians were forced to watch the killings.
Two American missionaries that have been imprisoned in North Korea for their faith were brought out for a “press conference” designed to have the government generate propaganda.
Kenneth Bae and Jeffrey Fowle were given five minutes with a reporter to send messages to friends and family along with pleading for the U.S. government to take steps to free them.
“Right now, what I can say to my friends and family is continue to pray for me and continue in efforts in getting me released from here,” Bae told reporter Will Ripley. Bae has been facing a sentence of 15 year hard labor for “hostile acts to bring down the government” although those “hostile acts” were never presented to anyone.
“The only hope that I have is to have someone from the U.S. comes,” Bae said. “But so far, the latest I’ve heard is that there has been no response yet. So I believe that officials here are waiting for that.”
Bae’s family says he’s suffering from diabetes along with heart and liver problems.
Fowle told reporters that within a month he could be sharing Bae’s cell at the labor camp. He said his treatment so far has been “good” although he was speaking with North Korean officials sitting beside him.
A woman died two weeks after suffering burns all over her body in an act of sabotage by Islamists in her village.
A woman named Nazeera went into her kitchen to cook breakfast when the room suddenly burst into flames. Her four children watched as she burned alive on the floor of their home until her husband Saeed was able to put out the flames and rush her to a hospital.
Nazeera suffered third degree burns all over her body. Doctors provided treatment to minimize her pain but she suffered for two weeks before she died.
When Saeed returned home from his wife’s bedside, a relative told him his wife’s death was no accident.
The family’s Muslim neighbors, who were furious the family has accepted Christs a few years ago, had been looking for a way to kill the family in a way that appeared to be an accident. The neighbors bragged to the Islamic relative of the family that they replaced the family’s cooking oil with a form of gasoline so it would explode when she tried to cook.
Saeed and his children are now in another country under new names. They had obtained papers to leave the country two days before the explosion.
An Arkansas pizza parlor owned by a strong Christian who offered a discount on Sundays to anyone who brought in a church bulletin has been dealing with harassment and threats for his refusal to cave to anti-Christianist demands.
Bailey’s Pizza even received a bomb threat delivered through their Facebook page.
“Better get the bomb squad out,” one of the comments read. “Stand fast and get blown up quicker,” it also read. Police are investigating the comment as a legitimate threat.
Shop owner Steven Rose said that despite the threats from the anti-Christian organization Freedom From Religion Foundation saying he was violating the Civil Rights Act by offering the discount, there’s no discrimination.
The church bulletin discount is just one of many offered to the community. The discount does not require anyone to be a part of the church whose bulletin is brought in.
Advocates for Faith and Freedom, who is representing the pizza parlor in any legal actions, says the attack of the anti-Christianists is backfiring.
“The majority of the responses to the promotion have been positive,” it stated. “Bailey’s Pizza has received enthusiastic support from the local community and around the country. Some people have come from other states to dine at Bailey’s Pizza and show their support. One Pennsylvania gentleman purchased 150 dollars’ worth of pizza each day for a week, for delivery to different organizations, such as the police and fire departments.”
A Satanist has been arrested in Prescott, Arizona after threatening a Christian-owned homeless shelter.
Eric Minerault, 22, was arrested after he was seen burning something on the steps of the Yavapai Territorial Gospel Rescue Mission in Prescott. The staff of the mission said that someone had set a fire on their steps.
Minerault was found on the steps of the church next to a burned and wet Bible.
Police said that Minerault then admitted that he burned the Bible and then urinated on it because he wanted to “curse the Christians.” He said that he was the “dark Lord” and that he was putting curses on the Christians who were inside the building.
Police are trying to determine if Minerault is being a series of Bible burnings on church properties around the Mesa area or if he is working independently of others.
Officials say they consider the other case separate and an arsonist on the loose until they can find evidence to prove otherwise.
Republican congressmen have been raising the alarm about the Islamic terror group Islamic State, saying that the group already has plans in place for a takeover of the United States.
Now, NationaLReview has released an outline of the plan that is based on a tactical guide released after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The first phase is “attrition” where they carry out attacks in an attempt to recruit more terrorists and to build morale in the established group. The second phase is to build an army to keep ground gained from the initial offensive. The third phase is to use their army to launch “dramatic assaults” to destabilize the government of the country they wish to possess.
“By means of these mujahadin conventional forces, the mujahidin will begin to attack smaller cities and exploit in the media their successes and victories in order to raise the morale of the mujahidin and the people in general and to demoralize the enemy,” the terrorist author writes in a passage quoted by National Review. “The reason for the mujahidin’s treating of smaller cities is that when the enemy’s forces see the fall of cities into the mujahidin’s hands with such ease their morale will collapse and they will become convinced that they are incapable of dealing with the mujahidin.”
Versions of the plan have been found at Islamic terrorist training camps around the world since 2008.
The document clearly says multiple times the enemy are “Jews, Christians and their agents.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is making a strong public stand for imprisoned American pastor Saeed Abedini.
Kerry cited the hardship of Abedini’s family and the fact it’s almost two full years since Abedini has been wrongly imprisoned for his faith.
Kerry also spoke out about other Americans imprisoned in Iran.
“The United States respectfully calls on the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to release Amir Hekmati, Saeed Abedini and Jason Rezaian to their family and work cooperative with us to find Robert Levinson and bring him home,” Kerry said.
Lawyers for Abedini say that he has been under death threat from ISIS terrorists within Iranian prisons. The Islamist group sees Abedini as an emblem of western Christianity and his killing would be a seen as a symbol to Islamic terrorists.
The virulent anti-Christian group Freedom From Religion Foundation is now using an injured high school football player in their campaign to eradicate Christians from daily life.
The group is upset because after a player from Seminole High School was injured and being tended to by trainers, players took a knee and bowed their heads in prayer for their injured teammate.
The FFRF claimed that an adult lead the prayer and so they threatened the school over it.
“It is our information and understanding that Seminole High School (is) allowing an adult, a local pastor, to act as a ‘volunteer chaplain’ for the football team,” FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel wrote.
A school spokesman said the FFRF was flat out lying about the school having a team chaplain. The school also said that no adults are seen anywhere around the students who were praying.
“There is nothing to cease and desist because our behavior was within the guidelines in the first place,” spokesman Mike Blasewitz told television station WFTV. “No adults in the photo, no adults participating, no adults leading it.”
A Texas school district has covered two plaques dedicating the school and its students to the Lord because of an anti-Christian group’s threat.
The Midlothian Independent School District confirmed plaques at Mountain Peak Elementary School and Longbranch Elementary School because of the threats of anti-Christian group Freedom From Religion Foundation.
The plaques read: “Dedicated in the year of our Lord 1997 to the education of god’s children and their faithful teachers in the name of the Holy Christian Church.” The plaques also contain the phrase “Soli Deo Gloria” which means “Glory To God Alone.”
“It should go without saying that a public elementary school may not proclaim ‘glory to God alone’ nor dedicated itself to a particular church,” FFRF said in a statement. “We do applaud the school district for taking swift action to correct this Constitutional action.”
“Although MISD has not been threatened with a lawsuit,” Superintendent Jerome Stewart told Fox News’ Todd Starnes, “the school district’s attorney advised that it would not prevail in court if it refused FFRF’s request and a lawsuit followed.”