Religious freedom attorneys have filed a lawsuit in California aimed at protecting the religious freedom of a first grade student who was harassed by his school for handing out candy canes last Christmas with a message of Jesus.
Isaiah Martinez was told by his teacher “Jesus is not allowed in school” and prohibited from handing out the candy canes.
Advocates for Faith & Freedom filed suit in U.S. District Court to prohibit the West Covina Unified School District from stopping Isaiah’s distribution of the candy canes this year.
“The school has neglected to correct its actions, and after exhausting all options to avoid a lawsuit we were left with no choice but to file a complaint in federal court. We are asking the court to protect Isaiah’s rights and the rights of others like him from having their religious speech censored. Students do not shed their First Amendment rights just because they enter into a classroom,” attorney Robert Tyler said.
There has been no official statement from the school, however attorney James Long with the AFF says the school has made it clear they want only “religious neutrality.”
You’ve probably heard me say that when I am in Israel, I never want to leave. It’s hard to explain that feeling, but I know others who love Jesus and come to Israel feel that way too. I love Israel because Jesus loves Israel, and I love Jesus! When Jesus is in you, you can’t help but feel as He feels!
I always feel at home in Israel. When you come over the top of the mountains and see the city of Jerusalem before you, it’s magnificent and unforgettable, more so than any other city of the world. But, as Jesus looked out over the city, he wept because of what would happen to Jerusalem and its people in the future. Luke 19:41 Continue reading →
Friday is a day of worldwide prayer for Pastor Saeed Abedini.
The event was organized by Saeed’s wife Naghmeh and is including groups of Christians from the United States to Mexico to Kenya.
The American Center for Law and Justice says the event is focusing on prayer for Abedini as the day marks the 2nd anniversary of his wrongful imprisonment for being a Christian. The event will also pray for other Christians imprisoned around the world for professing Christ.
At the Washington, D.C. event, Naghmeh Abedini read a letter that Saeed wrote to his daughter for her recent eighth birthday.
“I know that you question why you have prayed so many times for my return and yet I am not home yet,” it read. “The answer to the why is who. Who is in control? [The] Lord Jesus Christ is in control.”
“Jesus allows me to be kept here for His glory,” Abedini continued. “He is doing something inside each of us and also outside in the world. People die and suffer for their Christian faith all over the world and some may wonder why. But you should know the answer of why is who. It is for Jesus. He is worth the price. And He has a plan to be glorified through our lives.”
John went on to talk about how we will know when the Lord is coming again: “I want to share the revelation that God gave me. And that revelation is in Matthew 24 verse 3. Jesus’ disciples, they wanted to know, ‘When are you coming?’ They corner him on the Mount of Olives. I can just see him. It’s like Jesus is getting ready to go and they know he’s not going to be around much longer. ‘And before you leave, Lord, you’ve got to tell us; what are we supposed to be looking for? What are we going to have to go through?’”
“As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. ‘Tell us,’ they said, ‘when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming in the end of the age?’ When Jesus’ disciples ask this question, ‘What will be the sign of your coming?’ Do you know what they were really asking? ‘Lord, what are we going to see leading up to your coming? What are we going to have to go through leading up to your coming?’” Continue reading →
Pastor Greg Laurie hosted “2014 SoCal Harvest” at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California and over 4,000 people came forward to accept Christ as savior.
The organizers say that over 41,000 people attended the worship event’s last night. Almost 70,000 attended over the three day event.
“I know that there is emptiness deep inside you … you were born with it,” Laurie said as part of his message. “Right now, Jesus sees you; He doesn’t see a crowd. And He cares about you, and He loves you.”
The three-day event focused on Jesus within the lives of the believer and how someone who doesn’t know Christ and hasn’t accepted them as Savior has a void within them that they can’t fill no matter what the world may offer them.
The outreach was part of Greg Laurie’s 25th consecutive year of large-scale outreach events. The theme that Laurie has focused on this year is hope that can be found only in the personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
“This is something really amazing that God has done,” Laurie said. “I don’t know of another ongoing evangelistic event like this anywhere in the world that’s happened for 25 years – a large scale overt evangelistic event. I would say don’t take this for granted.”
Cartoon Network will be airing a show in its late night “adult swim” block that will feature a character who the show says is Jesus that smokes marijuana, swears and use the Lord’s name in vain.
The show is called “Black Jesus.”
The show will have the “Jesus” character living in Compton, California, participating in illegal activities with drug addicts and alcoholics and conducting other activities that mock Christians.
The character claims that he’s just about “spreading love and kindness” while participating in questionable activities.
Several groups including One Million Moms is calling for Christians to protest the show saying that the Christian faith should not be used as a source of derision in manners that would never be allowed on television for Muslims or Jews.
Supporters of the show’s creator Aaron McGruder say that the show is just satire and people need to develop a sense of humor.
Brothers David and Jason Benham, who lost their HGTV show when anti-Christianists launched a campaign against them for their Christian beliefs, told a Washington, D.C. conference that Christians can speak boldly if they’re willing to lose it all.
“Freedom isn’t the ability to do get what you want, it’s the willingness to let go of what you have,” Jason Benham said. “When you are willing to release that back to God, what God has so graciously given to you, and you give it back to Him, then you have been set free. And on the foundation of freedom, you can be as bold as a lion.”
The brothers own a real estate company and were filming episodes for their reality show in May when HGTV announced the cancellation. The cancellation was attributed to anti-Christian activists that protested the brother’s traditional Christian views on issues such as abortion.
The brothers told the Christian Post that they don’t regret anything that has happened including the cancellation of the TV show because it allowed them to proclaim Christ to a wide audience in national media that reported on the cancellation.
The talk at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference came as the brothers were given an award for their public stand for faith and Jesus.
David Benham told the Christian Post that unless Christians speak up and assert their rights in the public arena, more incidents like what happened to them with HGTV will take place in America.
A Facebook page dedicated to attacking and slandering Christians featuring a picture of an aborted baby Jesus was been taken down after protests from pro-life groups.
The web page featured a photo of the Virgin Mary holding an aborted Jesus who was wearing a crown of thorns. The Virgin Mary was smoking a marijuana cigar looking as if she was very satisfied with aborting God’s son.
A spokesman for the group Catholics & Protestants Against Facebook Religious Discrimination said that this wasn’t a case of shutting down someone’s First Amendment rights but rather a case of hate speech.
“It’s one thing to say we’re atheists and we’re proud of it,” Cary Bogue said in a statement, “It’s another to say that [Jesus’s] mother should have aborted him.”
Facebook’s policies say they encourage discussion and permit parody on their site but do have a line when it comes to hate speech.
“While we encourage you to challenge ideas, institutions, events, and practices, we do not permit individuals or groups to attack others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition,” Facebook’s Community Standards page states.
Pope Francis said that one cannot be a Christian without the church in their life.
“Our Christian identity is belong to a people: the Church,” the Pontiff said during Mass. “Without this, we are not Christians. We entered the Church through baptism: there we are Christians.”
The Pope said that someone who says they are a Christian but not a part of the church is simply a laboratory experiment. He pointed out that not even Jesus was alone.
“Jesus Christ did not fall from the sky like a superhero who comes to save us. No. Jesus Christ has a history. And we can say, and it is true, that God has a history because He wanted to walk with us. And you cannot understand Jesus Christ without His history. So a Christian without history, without a Christian nation, a Christian without the Church is incomprehensible. It is a thing of the laboratory, an artificial thing, a thing that cannot give life,” Francis said.
The Pope also said that people should seek to renew the covenant of grace with God every day.
For an hour on April 24th, New York City’s Times Square proclaimed the name of Jesus.
Hillsong Church bought all the screens in the square and played a loop of a video that flashed “Jesus” and “No Other Name”. Hillsong is releasing a new album called “No Other Name” and is hosting conferences this year, but the video did not say anything about the church.
Hillsong members in the Square that night reported many passersby stopping to look at the display, openly wondering what business was behind the loop of Jesus and “No Other Name”.
“Times Square, one of the most iconic locations on Earth, is a place where so many names scream for fame,” Hillsong Art and Communications Director Jay Argaet said. “The most powerful brands, biggest shows and famous celebrities. Every name wants to be the greatest! Perhaps this would be the most powerful way to remind the world HIS name trumps them all.”
The “No Other Name” campaign is based on Acts 4:12, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”