Tag: Christians

AU Attempts to Intimidate 60,000 Pastors (Public Catholic)

Warning Letter to 60,000 Pastors: We’re Watching What You Preach

September 29, 2012 By  9 Comments

Americans United for Separation of Church and State evidently sent copies of this letter to 60,000 pastors recently. It’s important to remember that Americans United is not an official agency of any governmental entity. This letter has no force of law and is just their opinion. Our local AU affiliate here in Oklahoma has sent similar letters to pastors in my House district in the past. The pastors I talked to about it tell me they threw it in the trash.

Please Pray for New Believers – Christian Persecution: The High Price of Conversion

Peanut Gallery: Grace is a free gift from God… but many who receive it around the world pay a high personal price. And yet – what other hope is there for the world around us?

“And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins.” Romans 5:16 NLT

Please pray for those new believers in unbelieving countries who are paying a heavy personal price to follow Jesus… shining God’s light in a very dark world.

Please click on following link to Public Catholic – Christian Persecution: The High Price of Conversion.

Christian Persecution: The High Price of Conversion
September 28, 2012 By Rebecca Hamilton

India: Converting from Hinduism
An Indian state’s draconian “anti-conversion” law has been partially struck down in a legal challenge brought by Christians and celebrated as “a triumph for religious freedom” in the country.

The Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) took its case against the Himachal Pradesh Religion Act 2006 to the state’s high court, which ruled on 30 August that some provisions of the law were unconstitutional.

Supreme Court of India

The court removed a section that required a person intending to convert from one religion to another to give 30 days’ notice to the district magistrate. Failure to do this was punishable with a fine.

Two rules regarding the implementation of the act were also struck down. One required the district magistrate to give notice of the conversion request to any affected party before granting approval, and the other required a police case to be registered if the conversion was thought to have taken place using force or inducement or without notice.

The EFI challenged the law because of the ways in which it was being used, especially by Hindu extremists, to stop people from converting to Christianity. Continue reading “Please Pray for New Believers – Christian Persecution: The High Price of Conversion” →

Need a 2012 Voter Guide? Take your pick –

Peanut Gallery – In America, churches can’t force anyone to do anything. Freedom of Religion includes freedom from government interference, freedom of religious choice… and freedom of concsience.

That said – pastors and churches have every right to proclaim the Gospel Truth as they see it. They might be right, they might be wrong – but they are free to say what they want to from the pulpit as long as it conforms to the standards of the particular church or association of churches to which they belong.

Parishoners can agree or disagree and are free to vote with their money and/or their feet. We live in America folks – not Saudi Arabia.

So… here are a selection of voter guides for you to ponder. They are all pro-life, so don’t bother looking for a counter argument here. But they come from different sources and therefore have differing degrees of authority depending on your point of view. This list is not exhaustive and I welcome your pro-life additions that others might be able to use. But it’s a start… and November 6th is only a few weeks away.

From the US Conference of Catholic Bishops –

In this coming election and beyond, we urge leaders and all Catholics to share the message of faithful citizenship and to use this document in forming their own faithful citizenship consciences, so we can act together to promote and protect human life and dignity, marriage and family, justice and peace in service to the common good. This kind of political responsibility is a requirement of our faith and our duty as citizens.

The full document – Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship – may be found here (click on link.)

From the Catholic Spanish Leadership Alliance –

Our lives are filled with grace and blessings too numerous to count. But we are also filled with struggles of every kind. No small part of those struggles is how we feel about certain things and what our individual opinions are about other things. Often we have strong opinions and old habits to which we cling. It seems that in this presidential election year, more than most, we are challenged to reconcile our strong feelings, opinions or old habits with what our Catholic teaching tells us is right and wrong as we come face-to-face with our expressed commitment to our faith versus our public choices in the voting booth.

For the full text of – Catholic Voters Education Guide – please click here.

From the Family Research Council –

FRC Action seeks to fortify the traditional foundations of civil society through efforts to educate, inform and influence elected officials in support of the country’s historic ideals of equality under the law, and the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on which the nation was founded.

For the full text of –2012 Values Voter Presidential Voter Guide – please click here.

Peanut Gallery: The Faith and Freedom Coalition also has a voter guide that it is sending out to swing state voters, but I haven’t been able to find a free online copy yet. If you know of other pro-life voter guides for 2012, please let me know.

Speak out for Rimsha Masih today! – Open Doors

Speak out for Rimsha Masih today! – Open Doors

On August 17th, Rimsha Masih, a young Christian girl with learning disabilities, was arrested on charges of ‘blasphemy’ in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Rimsha was accused of burning pages of the Quran, a serious crime under Pakistan’s infamous blasphemy laws. After an initial court appearance, Rimsha was held in detention for about 3 weeks before being granted bail and released.

Read more of Rimsha’s story

Punishment for desecrating the Quran carries a potential life sentence in prison. Vigilante killings of those accused and acquitted of blasphemy charges are common in Pakistan.

A witness has come forwarded saying that a local cleric planted the pages of the Quran in Rimsha’s bag of trash and that the accusations against her are completely false.

We praise God that Rimsha was released on bail! But her situation is far from resolved. We need to press the Pakistani authorities to drop all charges against Rimsha and to ensure her safety.

You can help!

Email Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S.

Prayer Requests:

  • For  safety and justice for Rimsha and her family
  • That the  displaced Christians will be able to resettle in safety in their homes
  • For  other Christians facing blasphemy charges such as Aasyia Noreen (Bibi)

Please Pray for U.S. Christians

Peanut Gallery: This article, in brief, lays out the history of Government encroachment of religious freedom in America. It has been slow and steady for decades. But, now, the current administration has turned up the heat and believers are taking notice.

Why is this important? Because the more we suppress our expression of religious freedom at home, the less likely we are to advocate for religious freedom for others abroad. And if not Americans, who…?

How to Boil a Frog: They say that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will leap out right away to escape the danger. But, if you put a frog in a kettle that is filled with water that is cool and pleasant, and then you gradually heat the kettle until it starts boiling, the frog will not become aware of the threat until it is too late. The frog’s survival instincts are geared towards detecting sudden changes.

Rising Persecution of U.S. Christians
Posted on: 2012-09-21 02:58:20
By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Worthy News)– A joint report by Liberty Institute and the Family Research Council shows that anti-Christian persecution is not only increasing in America, but that it’s coming from our own government.

“There are children being prohibited from writing Merry Christmas to the soldiers, senior citizens being banned from praying over their meals in the Senior Center, the VA banning the mention of God in military funerals, numerous attempts to have veterans memorials torn down if they have any religious symbols, such as a cross, and I could go on and on,” said Liberty Institute Founder Kelly Shackleford.

“Religious hostility is the red light on the dashboard that tells us we have a problem and that violence will come next if not fixed,” Shackleford said. “The recent attacks on the faith-based Family Research Council and the attack on the Sikhs are recent examples alone.”

Many public facilities are also masking American Christianity, according to ACLJ senior counsel David French.

“One of the most strident examples: the misuse of the Establishment Clause to attempt to ban any mention of God from historical markers, monuments or even museum exhibits. This represents an effort to whitewash God from American history and change our national identity.”

French said that though the Obama administration has contributed to this, it didn’t begin with his inauguration; in fact, anti-Christian persecution has been stewing here in America for decades. Continue reading “Please Pray for U.S. Christians” →