A Christian missionary from Australia is being held captive by the North Korean government on unknown charges.
75-year-old John Short, a missionary to Hong Kong for 50 years, was taken into custody a day after arriving in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. Short’s family says that police came to his hotel to question him and then later returned to place him under arrest.
While no charges were mentioned for the arrest, Short was believed to be carrying Christian tracts written in the Korean language.
Short has been arrested previously in China for giving out Christian materials including Bibles written in Chinese.
Short is the second Christian missionary known to be held by the North Korean government. American Kenneth Bae was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor after being convicted of committing hostile acts. Bae provided Christian materials to North Korean Christians.
Australia has no embassy in North Korea and usually works with the Swedish embassy on international matters. The Swedish embassy says they have had no contact with North Korean officials about Short.
The anti-Christian American Humanist Association has sent a threatening letter to a school in Minnesota that was working with a local church to feed starving children in Haiti.
The AHA claims parents of a student at the School of Engineering and Arts were angry that their children were taken to a local church where they packed boxes of food for starving children in Haiti. The food would be distributed through a Christian organization that focuses on feeding the hungry.
The packing of the boxes happened at a local Lutheran church and the AHA claims that just being there violates the student’s First Amendment rights. The group also objected to the fact the packages were called “manna” packages.
The school defended the action by saying the first through third graders participated in a valuable community service learning activity with hundreds of community residents.
“The students learn there are people the world who are not as fortunate as them,” Latisha Gray told Fox News. “They believe they are being a part of the solution.”
The anti-Christian group Americans United for Separation of Church and State says a cross on the top of an elementary school is a horrific violation of the Constitution.
The AUSCS says that a small concrete cross on the top of Spearville Elementary School in Spearville, Kansas offends an unknown person in the town. The group routinely uses anonymous people as the basis for their claims against any Christian emblem or symbol being seen in a public place.
The Dodge City Globe obtained a letter from the group that said the “school’s cross display violates the constitutional prohibition against government action that ‘conveys or attempts to convey a message that religion or a particular belief is favored or preferred’.”
The USD 381 Board of Education told the Globe that they won’t be taking any action until the group files a lawsuit.
The building used for Spearville Elementary was a Catholic school until the Dodge City Diocese to the local school district in 1975. Because the building was constructed in 1925, it’s possible that the building could be considered a historical landmark in the town.
Fox News is reporting that Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, the Vatican’s observer to the United Nations, will be testifying before Congress on the level of Christian persecution in the Middle East and around the world.
Chuillikatt is expected to focus on the Middle East according to prepared testimony.
“No Christian is exempt,” the text reads, “whether or not he or she is Arab.”
The hearing before a House subcommittee will be focusing on the underreporting of assaults on Christians, the targeting of Christian communities and areas in major cities along with the need to protect human rights for Christians.
The hearing will receive information on kidnappings of women and children by Islamic militants in Syria as well as beheadings of Christians who refuse to convert to Islam at the demand of the terrorists.
Polin Pumandele just wanted to sell some firewood to buy food to eat.
Instead, around 9:30 in the morning, a gang in the middle of a street in Bangui, Central African Republic murdered him in cold blood.
Why? Because he was a Christian. No other reason.
A Washington Post reporter was standing near the attack as the mob of Muslims grabbed Pumandele and slit his throat before throwing his body in a ditch to watch him die. The group threatened the reporter until he fled the area.
After Pumandele was dead, the gang loaded his body into a wheelbarrow, pushed it to the nearest Red Cross office and dumped the corpse on the doorstep.
According to sources connected to international peacekeeping forces in the area, the Muslims tried to claim that Pumandele had been part of a group that threw grenades into a mosque and thus his murder was justified. However, an investigation showed there was no grenade attack on the mosque.
The violence in the country is still onging despite 6,500 French and African soldiers in the country that try and maintain peace. Christians are being killed by Muslims on a daily basis.
The anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation is at it again. This time, they’re targeting hotels that are connected to state universities and demanding that Gideon Bibles be removed from the rooms.
“We atheists and agnostics do not appreciate paying high prices for lodging, only to find Gideon Bibles in our hotel rooms, sometimes prominently displayed,” FFRF Co-President Dan Barker wrote in a statement obtained by Fox News.
The Bibles were given by the Gideons to the Lowell Center, a lodge owned by the University of Wisconsin-Extension in Madison.
The FFRF claimed a lodge guest was terrified by the presence of the Holy Bible in their room.
“As you may know, the mission of the Gideons is to ‘win the lost for Christ,’” the FFRF’s attorney wrote in a letter to the university. “The Gideon’s [sic] efforts to proselytize have frequently brought about conflict with non-religious persons and persons from minority faiths.”
The University of Wisconsin then immediately removed all Bibles from the rooms.
A first grade student at Helen Hunt-Jackson Elementary School in Temecula, California was told by her teacher that she can’t say the name of Jesus in her classroom.
Brynn Williams’ teacher interrupted her during a one-minute speech on her family’s Christmas traditions, telling the 6-year-old that she can’t “talk about the Bible in school.”
Brynn had brought the Star of Bethlehem that her family places at the top of their Christmas tree for her report. Her family told Fox News that she had written and practiced her one-minute presentation to say her family’s tradition was to remember the birth of Jesus at Christmas.
“Our Christmas tradition is to put a star on top of our tree,” Brynn said in her report. “The star is named the Star of Bethlehem. The three kings followed the star to find baby Jesus, the Savior of the world.”
The teacher then stopped her saying “Stop right there! Go take your seat!” Brynn was the only student not allowed to complete her assigned report.
Brynn’s parents say the little girl was upset because she believed she had done something wrong and was in trouble. The school’s principle told the parents that she could not do the report because she might offend another student by saying the name of Jesus.
The school district gave Fox News the following statement:
“The Temecula Valley Unified School District respects all students’ rights under the Constitution and takes very seriously any allegation of discrimination. Due to the fact that District officials are currently investigating the allegations, it would be inappropriate to provide further comment at this time.”
Out of the top ten countries for oppression against Christians, nine of them are because of Islamic Extremism.
The annual World Watch List was released yesterday showing that Islamic extremism is a threat worldwide. Of the top ten, only North Korea, which was ranked number one for the 12th straight year, does not have Islamic extremism driving its persecution of Christians.
The rest of the top ten: Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Pakistan, Iran and Yemen.
The overall list shows the top 50 nations worldwide that contain levels of persecution against Christians. 27 of the 50 listed have what is considered “severe” levels of prosecution according to Open Doors, which conducts the survey.
Only one nation in the top 50 is located outside of Asia and Africa. Colombia is ranked 25th on the list despite Christianity being the main religion in the nation. The nation routinely has Christians attacked by FARC rebels and drug cartels who oppose acts of Christian charity.
The Christmas season has been a very somber one for the family and supporters of Pastor Saeed Abedini, imprisoned in Iran for being a Christian.
Pastor Saeed’s wife Neghmeh has criticized the Obama administration for not taking steps during recent negotiations and communications with Iran to have her husband freed.
“Initially, when I went to the U.S. government, they said we don’t have a direct relationship with Iran,” Naghmeh Abdeini said. “Here we were sitting across table from Iran. It was our best leverage. It should have been a precondition.”
She also was critical of an Obama administration action to release an Iranian copy who tried to steal nuclear weapon technology from the United States without securing the release of American captives.
Pastor Saeed’s lawyer Jay Sekulow said that he has been routinely beaten by fellow inmates and prison guards and is infested by lice.
Supporters are spending time today praying for the release of Pastor Abedini and for God to reunite him with his family.
A cross that has been the centerpiece of a veteran’s memorial near San Diego since 1913 will be destroyed because a federal judge agreed with anti-Christanists that the presence of the cross violates the constitution.
The 29 foot Latin Cross standing at the memorial replaced the original cross in 1954. The Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial contains 3,000 granite plaques individually honoring war heroes from every American war including Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congress made the memorial a “national memorial honoring the United States Armed Forces” in 2004. Congress noted the memorial was “replete with secular symbols” and other faiths including 18 Stars of David. Congress said the cross was a plurality of faiths.
The ACLU proceeded to continue their efforts to remove Christianity from society by suing to remove only the cross from all the religious symbols at the site. A U.S. District Court judge rules for the removal but stayed the order to give defendants a chance to appeal.