A group of New York City pastors is banding together to get the policy banning churches from using public schools for worship services reversed despite a court saying schools had the right to ban Christians from their buildings.
Pastor William Devlin told the Christian post that he was optimistic the policy would be reversed and surprised many by saying the far-left mayor of the city was on their side.
“Pastors across New York City are very encouraged about recent developments on the right to worship. We know that Mayor de Blasio is with us 100 percent and any day we will hear that he has reversed the draconian and discriminatory Department of Education policy … we have his word,” Devlin told the Post.
An appeals court in New York City ruled in favor of the Board of Education in their battle against churches holding worship services in school building after school hours.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mayor Bill DeBlasio said “I believe that a faith-based organization has a right like anyone else … to use that space.”
The ruling against churches is being appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
Another school has been forced to remove a Bible verse after the virulent anti-Christianist group Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a complaint.
Parkersburg South High School in West Virginia had Philippians 4:13 hanging in their gymnasium and also posted on the school wrestling team’s website. The team has been using the verse “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” as a way to encourage the team’s members to strive to be their best.
The FFRF, which is not even located in West Virginia, filed a complaint with the school earlier this month as part of their campaign to eradicate Christians and any reference to Christianity from the public.
The foundation’s attorney claimed the simple existence of the verse meant the school was endorsing Christianity.
Wood County Superintendent said they painted over the verse on the wall of the gym that was above the entrance to the wrestling room and has removed it from the website.
Nigerian officials admitted they mislead the media regarding an attack by Islamic extremists Boko Haram where they invaded a girl’s school and carried off the students.
Security officials had initially said that 85 girls were taken but now admit the terrorist group seized 234 girls.
The admission from the regional military officials came after the governor of Borno state demanded to be taken to the site of the attacks and be allowed to question troops that were supposed to be protecting the school.
Military police say they are in “hot pursuit” of the kidnappers but none of the girls have been found. The girls, between 16 and 18, were reportedly science students at the school undergoing physics exams.
Boko Haram has pledged to kidnap Christian girls in the region to force into conversion to Islam and forced marriages. Girls who have been rescued from previous Boko Haram kidnappings say they were forced to be cooks and sex slaves.
Boko Haram has increased their actions this year, with over 1,500 people killed and thousands kidnapped.
The town of Pismo Beach, California will no longer have any form of prayer in their council meetings after bowing to the demands of the virulent anti-Christian groups Freedom From Religion Foundation and Atheists United San Luis Obispo.
The city claims they are trying to save taxpayer dollars by giving in to the demands of the anti-Christianists.
The two groups had filed a lawsuit against the city six months ago claiming the city was violating the mythical separation of church and state because the prayers were mostly Christian in nature. They said the city’s volunteer chaplain was a Christian and thus had a Christian tone to his prayers.
They also said that the volunteer chaplain, Rev. Paul E. Jones, would tell people to live a life “in accordance with the Bible.”
The city agreed in their settlement to eliminate the volunteer chaplain position but claimed no liability in the lawsuit.
David Leidner, a member of the anti-Christian Atheist United, said he was “very happy” that the Christian chaplain was no longer part of the meetings and that there will be no prayers allowed.
Young Christian women in Egypt are being abducted, tortured, raped and forced to convert to Islam in record numbers.
The report from International Christian Concern says that since the Arab Spring uprising in 2011, it has been open season on Christian girls by the Muslim population of the country. At least 500 confirmed cases of kidnapped Christian girls being forced into Islamic marriages have been reported and many other incidents have not been confirmed.
The ICC reports that Christian girls who resist and refuse to convert to Islam are then brutally killed including being thrown off buildings by their captors.
An ICC spokesman told Fox News that the government is doing more than turning a blind eye.
“Not only are they turning a blind eye, they are often compliant,” Issac Six said. “It’s pervasive; police at the local level are not stopping the abductions. There needs to be more pressure from the top. We have seen cases before where we’ve seen victims returned when the police put pressure on the kidnappers. We know it’s possible, unfortunately, the police are often complacent.”
The actions are reportedly being taken by radical Islamists connected to the Muslim Brotherhood who are angry they have been thrown out of power in the country.
The Prime Minister of Great Britain says that Christianity is now the most persecuted religion in the world and that his nation should be “unashamed” in standing up for the rights of Christians.
Prime Minister David Cameron, in a speech to a group attending an Easter reception, said that he believes his nation can play a leading role in stopping the persecution of Christians around the world.
“We’re seen as a country that is engaged internationally,” Cameron said. “We should stand up against persecution of Christians and other religious groups wherever and whenever we can, and we should be unashamed in doing so.”
The Pew Research Center says that Christians are the most oppressed religious group with persecution against them reported in at least 110 countries around the world.
Cameron also said there was a need to expand the role of faith and faith based organizations in the country.
“[We need] more belief that we can get out there and actually change people’s lives and make a difference and improve the spiritual, physical and moral state of our country,” Cameron said.
A California school district has ruled that teachers violated the rights of Christian students when they prohibited the distribution of a series of Bible coins.
The students were giving classmates coins that were printed with different Bible verses including John 3:16 and John 3:36.
“We’re going to make sure that students are protected,” Apple Valley School District Superintendent Thomas Hoegerman told the San Bernadino Sun. “There was no malicious intent but we clearly had folks who didn’t fully understand the implications.”
The children were giving the coins to their friends during recess periods and not during actual class time when they were stopped by teachers.
One of the teachers, Stormy DeHaro, told her student she hated the coins and they were a distraction to her class. A second teacher removed them from Valentine’s cards a student brought to her class and returned them to the child saying they were a violation “of the Ed Code.”
The superintendent says he regrets the incident and the problems it caused to the student’s family.
A virulent anti-Christian organization has complained to Clemson University accusing the football team of promoting “Christian worship.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation of Wisconsin claims, “Christian worship seems interwoven into Clemson’s football program. We are concerned that this comingling of religion and athletics results, not from student initiative, but rather from attitudes and unconstitutional behaviors of the coaching staff.”
The FFRF’s main problem is that the coach of the team hired a Christian to be the team’s chaplain. They claim that because the coach is an employee of a public university, his hiring of a Christian is showing preference and endorsement of the Christian religion.
The group is also upset that almost the entire team shows up for a voluntary chapel service the night before each game. They also reportedly know the coach’s favorite Bible verses, 1 Corinthians 9:24-25.
Coach Debo Swinney dismissed the accusations saying that there is no Christian coercion on the team. He told the Chronicle of Higher Education that his team has Muslims, Catholics and Mormons and that the best player takes the field every game regardless of their personal faith.
A group of Australian Christians who entered a government Minister’s office and held a prayer vigil protest have had all charges against them dismissed by a court.
The five Christians had pleaded guilty in court to the charges against them before the Magistrate dismissed them.
“The aim was to pray about the asylum seeker issue in public, to draw attention to Australia’s cruel policies of indefinite detention,” said Matt Anslow, one of the Christians involved in the protest.
The Magistrate said “If ever there was a peaceful protest this was it” as he dismissed the charges.
“Martin Luther King Jr spoke about there being times when civil disobedience is necessary to dramatise an issue of injustice so that it can no longer be ignored,” Anslow said. “For us to be silent in the face of injustice is to be complicit in the injustice, for us not to speak is to speak.”
Minister Scott Morrison was targeted for the protest because he has said that he is a Christian. The group wanted to encourage Morrison to act on his Christian beliefs.
The lawyers of a Christian couple accused of sending text messages insulting the prophet Mohammed released a new development.
The couple is illiterate.
The court and those connected with the conviction of Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar have not been able to say how a couple that cannot read or write could be sending text messages. They were basically convicted on the word of one Muslim mosque leader who had been trying to take the couple’s property.
A local Christian leader said incidents like this are increasing in the region.
“We are seriously concerned. Cases like these are common and cause great suffering. We continue to pray, while the issue remains unresolved,” Fr. Aloysius Roy, Superior of the Pakistani province of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, said in the Christian Post. “We express our solidarity, but Christians keep a low profile, because life is full of difficulties and dangers, and for us the first commandment is to survive. Christians are afraid and they move with extreme caution.”
Lawyers for the couple say they not only will use the couple’s illiteracy as the basic for the appeal but also to appeal to the international community.