Christian Persecution

Blood of the Martyrs: Christian Man Tortured, Beheaded in Iraq

May 24, 2011June 10, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

Iraqi Christians Persecuted and Murdered by Deacon Keith Fournier –
Last Friday, a 29 year old Christian husband and father of three children was kidnapped by Islamic militants in Iraq. A ransom of the equivalent of $100,000 US was demanded.

On Monday, May 16, 2011, his mutilated body, showing signs of extreme torture was found by a bridge. His head had been severed and his eyes had been gouged out.

The heroic Archbishop of Kirkuk, Louis Sako, praised the heroism of this Christian man and the continuing strength and faith of the Christian community in Iraq.

He strongly condemned the evil noting the growing hostility toward Christians in Iraq, “In all these years, I have never heard of a single Christian converting to Islam, despite the many threats.”

He indicated that many Muslims regularly seek to convert to the Christian faith but noted “I am not allowed to baptize them. There is no religious freedom!” [Read more…]

Secularists, or Just Anti-Christians?

May 17, 2011May 17, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

Christian Persecution Secularists by Keith Riler
The liberal activists we know as secularists do not behave as broadly as the term might imply. When held to their own standards of tolerance and fairness, these focused meddlers fail because, in truth, secularists are just anti-Christians. The intriguing question is why.

First, are secularists particularly hostile to Christianity? A recent study indicated a marked bias against Christians by university faculties. These faculties are a good proxy for secularists in general. Among other unsurprising findings, the study observed:

[…] political liberalism is the dominant ideology on college campuses, especially in the social sciences and humanities. This study demonstrates that this political ideology is not benign. Indeed, it may be connected to a hostility and prejudice about a major religious group in America.

[Read more…]

Egyptian Christians Are ‘Under Organised Attack’ from Muslims

May 12, 2011May 13, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

Coptic Church burned by Muslims by Richard Spencer –

A priest whose church was at the centre of sectarian riots at the weekend has said Egyptian Christians were “under organised attack” as religious authorities warned the country was at risk of civil war.

Armed troops and riot police guarded the streets around St Mena’s church and nearby burned-out shops and apartment blocks in the impoverished, crumbling Cairo suburb of Imbaba.

Inside, Father Cherubim Awad said a conspiracy was the only possible explanation for the violence that had engulfed relations between Christians and Muslims in recent weeks.

“Five churches were attacked on the same night,” he said. “From the beginning of this year we have had all these attacks in a short space of time.

“There is some hidden hand behind this, whether from inside the country or outside it.” [Read more…]

Christophobia in the Muslim World

May 11, 2011May 13, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

Saint Mena Coptic Orthodox Church - Embaba, Giza

by John Eibner –

Last weekend’s scenes of anti-Christian mob violence in Cairo, against a background of churches in flames, is a powerful reminder of a grim reality: Non-Muslim communities have become endangered species throughout much of the Islamic world.

Some statesmen have begun to acknowledge the existential crisis facing non-Muslims. Former Lebanese Prime Minister Amine Gemayel warned earlier this year that Islamic extremists are waging a war of “genocide,’’ while French President Nicolas Sarkozy now refers to the region’s Christians as the victims of “a perverse program of … religious cleansing.’’

The most sensational acts of anti-Christian terror command headlines — for a moment. Such was the case when 41 worshippers at Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church were held hostage and then massacred by Islamic extremists last October, and 23 Egyptian Christians in Alexandria were killed by a bomb blast as they left mass early this year.

Pakistan’s only Christian Cabinet member, Shahbaz Bhatti — the minister for minority affairs — was shot dead in March. He was a critic of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. [Read more…]

Gay Activists Bullying the Boy Scouts

May 9, 2011January 23, 2020 by Orthodox Editors

by Chuck Colson –
I’ve been warning you that the current push to legitimize homosexual conduct and so-called gay “marriage” represents today’s greatest threat to religious liberty. I’ve told you about attacks against iPhone apps for the Manhattan Declaration and Exodus International, as well as a boycott of Chick-fil-a.

Their crime? Supporting marriage as only between a man and a woman and having the temerity to not support so-called gay “marriage.”

The Boy Scouts’ politically incorrect stands on homosexuality and atheism have long put this great organization in the extremists’ cross-hairs, and now the pressure is getting even more intense.

The Scouts prohibit open homosexuals from serving as leaders. That’s because the organization believes that “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the obligations in the Scout Oath and Scout Law to be morally straight and clean in thought, word, and deed.” [Read more…]

Why Don’t Christians Help … Christians?

April 19, 2011April 21, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Dennis Prager –

In 1969, at the age of 21, I was sent to the Soviet Union. I was a young American Jew who spoke Hebrew and Russian and who practiced Judaism. My task was to bring Jewish religious items into the Soviet Union and the names of Jews who wished to leave the Soviet Union out of that country. Upon returning to the United States, I became the national spokesman for the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, one of the most effective organizations for Soviet Jews in the world.

As such, I spoke before synagogues of every denomination, Hadassah groups, Jewish federations, Jewish groups on college campuses. If there was a Jewish organization, it cared about the plight of Soviet Jews. For decades, virtually every synagogue in America had a “Save Soviet Jewry” sign in front of it.

Over time, the plight of the Soviet Jews awakened me to the plight of all Soviet dissidents, whether secular ones — such as that great man, the physicist Andrei Sakharov — or Christian. [Read more…]

Film Director Peter Weir On ‘The Way Back’ Interview

April 18, 2011April 21, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

Radio Free Europe –

Peter Weir is Australia’s most acclaimed film director, with movies like “Gallipoli,” “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” “The Truman Show,” and “Dead Poets Society” to his name.

His most recent release, “The Way Back” starring Ed Harris and Colin Farrell, traces the purportedly true journey of prisoners who escaped from the Siberian gulag and made it to India, via the Gobi Desert, the Himalaya Mountains, and Tibet.

Weir recently visited Prague for the Febiofest film festival, where he was given the Kristian Award. He spoke with RFE/RL writer-at-large James Kirchick about his research of the gulag, his political reawakening, and how audiences are reacting to “The Way Back.” [Read more…]

Unfit to Foster, Christianity an ‘Infection?’

March 31, 2011March 31, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Chuck Colson –
For 15 years, Owen and Eunice Johns served as foster parents to British children. Social workers praised them as “kind and hospitable people” who “respond sensitively to” children.

But London’s High Court has just ruled that the Johnses are unfit to foster.

The reason: The Johnses are devout Christians, and their views about homosexuality may harm the children in their care. This opinion echoes that Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, which, according to the Daily Mail, claimed foster children risked becoming “infected” by the Johnses’ Christian beliefs.

The case came about when the Johnses re-applied to the Derby City Council to foster children after taking a break. But instead of welcoming them back with open arms, social workers expressed concern that the couple’s beliefs were in violation of the new Equality Act Regulations, which protect the rights of homosexuals. [Read more…]

ACLU v. Religious Liberty

March 24, 2011March 25, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by J. Matt Barber –
Irony is defined as “the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.” The term doublespeak means “evasive, ambiguous language that is intended to deceive or confuse.”

There is perhaps no greater example of ironic doublespeak than inclusion of the phrase “civil liberties” within the inapt designation: “American Civil Liberties Union.”

Indeed, few leftist organizations in existence today can compete with the ACLU in terms of demonstrated hostility toward what the Declaration of Independence describes as “certain unalienable rights” with which Americans are “endowed by their Creator.”

Consider the doublespeak inherent throughout the “progressive” Goliath’s flowery self-representation:

The ACLU is our nation’s guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

[Read more…]

Christianity Isn’t Dying, It’s Being Eradicated

March 2, 2011March 2, 2011 by Orthodox Editors

by Cristina Odone –
It’s official: Britain is no longer a Christian nation. In banning Eunice and Owen Johns, a devout Christian couple, from fostering children, Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson declared that we live in a secular state, and that the Johns’ religious convictions disqualified them from raising citizens of that state. We’ve outgrown Christianity, the judges professed. Instead, we have graduated to the status of a multicultural nation, blessed by a plurality of faiths.

Ironically, the justices who have pronounced that Britain is no longer Christian did so in a court where witnesses swear on the Bible and invoke God’s help in telling the truth. I do not imagine that these judges leave out the first word in “God Save the Queen” – nor would they shun an invitation to the Royal wedding, which is happening not at a registry office but the centrepiece of official Christendom, Westminster Abbey. [Read more…]