An atheist organization is targeting a Christian sheriff in Lakeland, Florida for preaching at a church while wearing his uniform.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), who routinely targets Christians for harassment and lawsuits, is claiming they received complaints from anonymous residents about Sheriff Grady Judd speaking to churches while in uniform.
“I was invited to this church, as I am to many churches and secular events, and you know what, the message was clear,” Judd told BayNews9. “The message was uplifting. The message talked about and bragged on how wonderful our community was.”
The FFRF took issue with the appearance, claiming that by wearing his uniform Judd is endorsing Christianity.
“Promoting your personal religion using a Polk County government title and uniform gives the unfortunate impression that the county supports and endorses the First Baptist Church on the Mall and its religious teachings,” the letter read.
“Giving this sermon in your official capacity, wearing your official uniform, unabashedly promotes this church and its religious views,” it continued. “You are excluding the nearly 30% of U.S. adults and the 30% of Florida adults who are non-Christian. This message alienates both non-Christians and nonbelievers in Polk County by turning them into political outsiders in their own community.”
Judd said he will not be intimidated by the atheists.
“Let me say this clearly and unequivocally: When people call the sheriff’s office and ask me to come speak, I’m going to come speak, [and] I’m going to wear my uniform,” he told reporters. “You can guarantee it.”
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has made persecution of Christians a major part of his Islamic dominated government, is on the run after the International Criminal Court declared him a war criminal.
The President returned to Sudan from South Africa, defying a court order to stay in that nation while the government of South Africa considered the ICC’s request for al-Bashir’s arrest. He had been attending an African Union summit in Pretoria at the time of the warrant being issued for his arrest.
The South African government eventually issued the order for arrest about two hours after al-Bashir flew out of the country.
“We still remain quietly optimistic and determined to see justice done in this case,” deputy prosecutor James Stewart told the BBC.
U.N. head Ban Ki-moon reminded nations that have signed the ICC’s statues they’re obligated to arrest those who are sought by the court.
“The president of the assembly expresses his deep concern about the negative consequences for the court in case of non-execution of the warrants by states parties and, in this regard, urges them to respect their obligations to cooperate with the court,” said in a statement H.E. Mr. Sidiki Kaba, president of the Assembly of States to the Rome Statute of the ICC.
The charges are in connection with the genocide in Darfur and al-Bashir’s actions in setting up a strict Sharia law system in his country that included the killing of non-Muslims. While he will be able to move freely within Sudan, he will not be able to leave the country for fear of arrest.
The atheist government of China has been removing crosses from church buildings throughout the country for the last few years.
Now, the Christians are pushing back.
A group of protestant churches are putting their crosses back on the buildings in an act of civil disobedience to the government. Sixteen churches in the cities of Lishui and Fuyang are replacing the crosses. In some cases, elderly church members are replacing the churches three times a day after the government comes back to take the crosses back down.
Last month, government officials said all crosses in the nation need to come down. The move is believed to be in response to the exponential growth of the church despite the government’s efforts.
“The central goal of this campaign is to minimize Christianity and to limit its access to ordinary people,” says Bob Fu, director of ChinaAid.
“There’s an enormous struggle across China brought by the rise of worshipers that seem to really believe,” says Terence Halliday, a director of the Center for Law and Globalization in Chicago who has worked in China. “Christianity now makes up the largest single civil society grouping in China. The party sees that.”
A new survey shows that protestant Christians in the country number between 50 and 100 million with about 6 million Catholics. The ruling party has 70 million members.
Islamic terrorists have burned down an ancient Iraqi church so they can build a mosque on the site.
Christian symbols and relics were destroyed in the church. Terrorists posted fliers throughout Mosul saying the Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Ephraim is going to be reopened as “mosque of the mujahideen.”
“They (ISIS) take everything from us, but they cannot take the God from our hearts, they cannot,” said Nicodemus Sharaf, archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Mosul, who’s now a refugee.
The homes and businesses of Christians in Mosul are now marked for destruction according to a report in the BBC.
The terrorists have become so extreme that Muslims in Mosul say they’ve stopped attending mosques.
“The group has even replaced the imams in the mosques with pro-IS people,” a Mosul resident named Hisham told the BBC. “Many of us have stopped going to the mosques because those attending are asked to give an oath of allegiance and we hate that.”
Hisham reported that restrictions on women are so severe that a man was beaten because his wife’s gloves did not completely cover her hands.
Two jailed Sudanese pastors facing criminal charges were moved to a high security prison where they are being denied any visitors including their lawyers.
The Muslim-dominated government has filed false charges against Christian pastors Rev. Peter Yen Reith and Yat Michael for spying, undermining the government and insulting religion. Initially, the men were kept at low security military prison Omdurman. Now, they have been rushed to high-security Kober Prison.
The move came after an American Pastor who visited the pair was found taking pictures and video from the prison waiting room.
The pastor’s lawyers tried to meet with their clients but were denied by the prison’s director who said they needed a court order.
“We are concerned by this development in the clergymen’s case. They already endured extended detention without access to their families at the beginning of this year, and they and their families should be spared further emotional distress,” Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s Chief Executive, Mervyn Thomas, said in a statement shared with The Christian Post.
Pastor William Devlin of Infinity Bible Church in New York has visited Sudan nine times in the last eight years. He went to see the two men at the invitation of three local Sudanese pastors.
“Western pastors, African pastors, European pastors must go to Khartoum to advocate for these imprisoned pastors,” Devlin wrote. “Even if they cannot visit them, they can meet with their wives and support their wives and children financially.”
The health of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman wrongfully imprisoned in Pakistan on false charges of blasphemy, is quickly fading according to family members.
Bibi is having trouble walking and had been throwing up blood.
“When vomiting there is also shown traces of blood. Asia has difficulty feeding properly, while constant pain in the chest,” The Global Dispatch quoted the unnamed family source as saying. “Therefore it is necessary that Asia Bibi be submitted as soon as possible [for] a full medical checkup, including blood work.”
Bibi has been jailed after a group of Muslim women made false accusations of blasphemy after the Christian woman drank water from the same water supply.
Wilson Chowdhry of the British Pakistani Christian Foundation says that Bibi has been forced to cook her own food in a “dingy” cell for the last five years after attempts to poison her.
“Asia Bibi has been facing rapidly declining health for some time and we call on Christians to uphold her in their regular prayers,” Chowdhry said in a statement. “Asia continues to believe that God will release her from her captivity, however, the Supreme Court hearing date is proving hard to achieve. Many believe the delay is instigated by Pakistani authorities in an attempt to subvert justice through her early demise.”
The family’s visit was the first in months because Bibi’s family has been on the run due to death threats from Muslims.
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has revealed that Pastor Saeed Abedini has been viciously beaten by other inmates at the brutal prison where he is being illegally detained.
“Unprovoked, fellow prisoners attacked Pastor Saeed as he attempted to leave his cell, punching him in the face near his left eye and nose,” Executive Director Jordan Sekulow wrote. “In addition to physically beating the persecuted pastor, prisoners demolished a small table Pastor Saeed used to study and read.”
“As he was attacked, Pastor Saeed called out for help,” he continued. “Iranian prison guards did intervene and prevent further injury. However, Pastor Saeed suffered injuries to his face—his eyes beaten black and blue. He was able to be seen briefly by a prison doctor, and thankfully he did not receive any broken bones.”
Abedini has been illegally detained by Iranian officials since 2012.
“It is heartbreaking to me and my family that Saeed was again beaten in prison. Saeed’s life is continuously threatened not only because he is an American, but also because he is a convert from Islam to Christianity. It’s time to get Saeed home before it is too late,” Naghmeh Abedini said in response to the news.
This is not the first assault at the hands of other inmates and Naghmeh Abedini has stated she fears his health will continue to decline with each successive beating.
Iranian officials have reportedly told Saeed his sentence will be extended if he does not deny Christ.
“The times they have moved him in and out of solitary [confinement] and the times they have threatened him, they said ‘You will stay here longer than the eight years and your only key to freedom is if you deny your Christian faith and you return to Islam.’ The guards have said that, officials have said that continuously,” Abedini said.
A gang of Muslims want to seize the property of a Christian church in Karachi, Pakistan and are threatening to file false charges of blasphemy against those in the church if they do not surrender the land.
The members of the Jerusalem Church have told the International Christian Concern they are receiving death threats from a Muslim gang known for seizing property from the poor and also for various murders.
One of the church’s pastors, Ilyas Masih, said that they have been threatened since May.
“These Muslims have been pressuring the church people not to play musical instruments and asked the church leaders to stop girls from singing with boys in the church,” Masih explained. “Several times they stopped and threatened the worshipers and pastors for going into church for prayers and harassed the women in the past.”
Muslims in Pakistan routinely use false accusations of blasphemy against Christians as a way to persecute them since it’s extremely difficult for Christians to defend themselves in court.
The members of the church have vowed to die before giving up the church to the Muslim mob.
A Muslim mob attacked Christians, including attempting to burn a church, after someone claimed a mentally ill man burned pages of the Koran.
Police had arrested Humayun Faisal, a mentally challenged Christian man, after some Muslim residents told police that Faisal had burned the Koran. He was charged under a Pakistiani law that prohibits the desecration of the Koran.
“Many people gathered on the spot and some of them even tried to burn him alive, however, we saved him and handed him to the police,” one witness told the Express Tribune. “Later a charged mob reached the house of the accused and recorded their protest.”
The mob, chanting “allahu akbar”, looted the homes of 15 Christian families, forcing the Christian to flee out of fear of their lives. The mob tried to burn St. Joseph’s Catholic basilica but police confronted the mob and dispersed them using tear gas.
“I immediately requested help from some Muslim leaders and local politicians,” Archbishop Sebastian Shaw told international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. “Thanks to their intervention, the police succeeded in dispersing the crowd by midnight. It is the first time the government has succeeded in acting in time to save both the people and their homes.”
Muslim is Pakistan’s official state religion and 97 percent of the country identifies as Muslim.
For years in the country of Albania, the communist government once exerted such control over the publications and broadcasting that you could not buy a dictionary with God in it.
Now, the country is undergoing a revolution of hope as a Christian radio station is airing programming in the Albanian’s native language aimed at bringing the good news to the lost.
Radio 7 has been broadcasting Christian material to the country since 2002 but had been hampered by the fact their programs were translations of North American programs that were aimed at believers in the United States and Canada.
The head of Radio 7 contacted an American ministry called The Tide which works to create locally produced Gospel shows around the world. The group helped launch radio ministries in countries such as Nigeria, Nepal and India. They knew they could bring the kind of help to Radio 7 that would impact Albania.
“Like all of our programming, The Tide Albanian-language program, which also reaches into neighboring Kosovo, is produced on-site, using indigenous speakers who tell people about Jesus in the language they were born to speak,” said The Tide Director Don Shenk. “But our ministry in Albania also goes beyond airtime, and our ministry leaders invest into the lives of those to whom they minister, visiting with them, giving them radios so they can listen to the program, praying with them and encouraging them in their faith.”
The ministry of Radio 7 and The Tide has produced noticeable results in just a few short months with letters from those who said they were atheists or Muslims who have now accepted Christ as Lord.
Albania’s population today is less than one percent Christian.
