Lee Ardis

Laos Pastor Likely Tortured, Killed for Spreading Christianity

Local police and Christian authorities in Laos jointly believe that a Christian pastor was tortured and killed for spreading Christianity and converting villagers to the Christian faith.

According to a report by Christian Headlines, investigators discovered the body of Pastor Seetoud in October with visible signs of torture. The pastor was known to minister in Laos’ Khammouane Province, where his church was.

Details of the Incident
The same report disclosed that Pastor Seetoud was supposed to minister to Christians in the village of Thakhek on Oct. 20. The village is at least 100 kilometers away from his house in Done Keo village in Khammouane Province’s Nakai District.

When the pastor did not arrive at the meeting place three hours after his supposed arrival, 20 people began looking for him.

The search team reportedly went to a mountain pass close to Don Keo village but failed to locate the pastor. They also visited a local hospital to look for Pastor Seetoud, but he was not there.

Following the failed attempts to locate him, the search party secured CCTV footage from a local store in Nakai the following day. The footage showed the pastor leaving a gas canister, which he intended to retrieve afterward.

Christians are attacked in Bethlehem. A rabbi calls on Israel to intervene

“You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt. EXODUS 23:9 (THE ISRAEL BIBLE)

A series of attacks targeting Christians and Christian sites in the Bethlehem area has many faith leaders deeply concerned. The persecution is threatening the existence of the oldest Christian community in the world.

There has been a marked uptick in religiously motivated attacks by Palestinian Muslims on Christians in Bethlehem. Just over two weeks ago, a Muslim man was accused of harassing young Christian women at a Forefathers Orthodox Church in Beit Sahour near the city of Bethlehem. Soon after, the church was attacked by a large mob of Palestinian men who hurled rocks at the building while congregants cowered inside. Several of the congregants were injured in the attack.

The Palestinian Authority, responsible for security in the area, did nothing.

In October, unidentified gunmen shot at the Christian-owned Bethlehem Hotel after a video on social media associated the hotel with a display that included cardboard cutouts of a Star of David and a Menorah. The video showed the display in the conference room of the hotel which also included cardboard cutouts of sheep and a wine chalice that had been set up by Filipino guests. The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism ordered the closure of the hall, claiming the hotel was preparing for a Jewish festival.

No arrests were made in connection with the shooting.

Perhaps the greatest shock to the community came in April when the Palestinian evangelical pastor, Johnny Shahwan, was arrested by the Palestinian Authority security forces on charges of “promoting normalization” with Israel. The arrest came after Shahwan appeared in a photo alongside Rabbi Yehuda Glick, a former member of the Knesset. After the photo of the pastor and rabbi appeared on social media, unidentified gunmen fired shots at the center. The pastor was held for 40 days and his ministry was shut down, purportedly for his own protection.

Indonesia earthquake: Search for survivors as death toll soars

Rescuers in Indonesia have continued their efforts to find survivors trapped after Monday’s earthquake in West Java.

The latest official figures say 271 people were killed – many of them children – and are 40 still missing. Hundreds of others were injured.

Damaged roads and the vast size of the affected area are making it difficult to locate and help victims.

Aprizal Mulyadi was at school when the quake hit, and was trapped after “the room collapsed”.

The 14-year-old said his “legs were buried under the rubble”, but he was pulled to safety by his friend Zulfikar, who later died after himself becoming trapped.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said on Tuesday that 22,000 houses had been damaged, and that more than 58,000 people had taken shelter in several locations in the region.

The 5.6 magnitude quake struck a mountainous region the previous day, causing landslides that buried entire villages near the West Java town of Cianjur.

‘We Are Living In A Dystopian Future:’ San Francisco Police Introduce Policy Granting Robots A License To Kill

San Francisco authorities proposed a new “dystopian” policy heading for approval next week that would license department robots to kill suspects who threaten the lives of citizens and police officers in the crime-ridden city.

San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) drafted the blueprint for officers to use its military-style weapons, which includes 17 remote-controlled robots available in its inventory that are typically used for defusing bombs or surveilling areas too difficult for authorities to access.

“Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD,” the policy reads.

The proposal also authorizes authorities to use the robots for “training and simulations, criminal apprehensions, critical incidents, exigent circumstances, executing a warrant or during suspicious device assessments.”

SFPD Officer Eve Laokwansathitaya told The Verge the department has always had the ability to use lethal force when a suspect threatens the lives of officers or members of the public after all other force options are unavailable.

Tucker Carlson: Could a Lie Have Gotten Millions of Americans Killed?

Not since the pre-Glasnost days, when mutually assured nuclear destruction between the Soviet Union and the United States was the only logical way a shooting war between the two superpowers would end, has the world teetered so close to the brink of atomic conflict.

In the early days of the Ukraine war, Russian President Vladimir Putin put his nuclear forces on high alert — seldom a good sign. It was even worse when U.S. President Joe Biden began talking about “Armageddon.”

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Biden told a Democratic Party fundraiser last month.

Needless to say, that tends to put a fellow on edge. And, when a missile lands in Polish territory — Poland being a NATO ally — things start to get hairy. That’s especially true when early reports seemed to indicate it was a Russian missile.

We’re now almost certain it wasn’t. The missile in question is only operated by the Ukrainians, which means it was likely an accident that occurred while fending off a Russian attack. The Ukrainians aren’t admitting responsibility, however.

Biblical flooding in Saudi Arabia sees cars swept away after King prays for rain

King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud demanded that the people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pray for rain after recent dry spells, but it appears that they prayed a little too hard

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been hit by biblical flooding after the country’s king prayed for rain.

King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud had called on the locals of Saudi Arabia to pray for rain earlier this week.

Due to a lack of rain in recent months, the King, who is also the custodian of the two holy mosques, told his people to “supplicate Allah almighty” and ask for “forgiveness and repentance”.

Read more and see video at www.dailystar.co.uk

Senate Advances Same-Sex Marriage Bill With Some GOP Support

A bill that would codify same-sex marriage protections into law passed a procedural vote with the support of 12 Republican senators on Wednesday, despite concerns that it would infringe on religious freedoms.

The Respect for Marriage Act would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that legally defined marriage as between one man and one woman, and permitted states to not recognize same-sex marriages from other states. The RMA would make it so that any “person acting under color of State law” must fully recognize a marriage between two people in another state. It also makes it so that the federal government must recognize marriages if they were valid in the state where the marriage took place.

The procedural vote passed 62 to 37. The Republican senators who voted to advance the bill were Roy Blunt (MO), Richard Burr (NC), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Susan Collins (ME), Todd Young (IN), Joni Ernst (IA), Cynthia Lummis (WY), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Rob Portman (OH), Mitt Romney (UT), Dan Sullivan (AK), and Thom Tillis (NC).

Greg Baylor, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Wire that “the original version of the bill created serious threats to religious liberty. The changes to the bill did virtually nothing to address those threats. The amendments to the bill that purport to protect religious liberty are mere window dressing.”

United Methodist Church body elects openly gay bishop in violation of its rules: ‘Inmates running the asylum’

The UMC Book of Discipline forbids ordaining ‘self-avowed practicing homosexuals’

A regional body of the United Methodist Church (UMC) voted to elect the denomination’s first openly gay Black bishop last week in violation of its rules prohibiting the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.”

The UMC Western Jurisdiction, which encompasses the western U.S. and Alaska, voted to promote Rev. Cedrick D. Bridgeforth of the California-Pacific Conference to the rank of bishop on Nov. 4 after Bridgeforth secured 73 votes out of the 93 cast. He needed 63 votes to win.

Bridgeforth, who is married to another man, said in remarks following his election that he was “grateful to God Almighty” and “to my husband, Christopher.”

“It’s in the church where I have found purpose, even when I felt like it was chewing me up and spitting me out, I still couldn’t let it go,” the new bishop said.

Sports Star Jailed 10 Months for ‘Transphobic’ Message that ‘God Created Adam and Eve’

One of the most legendary soccer players of his time received a jail sentence and a fine for posting “transphobic” social media messages citing the Bible’s creation account.

“God created Adam and Eve,” wrote retired Greek football legend Vassilis Tsiartas in the second of two Facebook posts opposing a 2017 law that would have lowered the age to legally change one’s gender to 15 and removed other legal barriers.

The 49-year-old initially responded by saying, “I hope that the first sex changes will be made to the children of those who voted for this abomination.” Members of Parliament may as well “legalize pedophiles and complete their crimes” against nature, he wrote.

While citing the Book of Genesis, the 18-year soccer standout explained his faith-based objection to extreme gender ideology and the redefinition of marriage. “Anyone can have his preferences whether he is a man or a woman, and I completely respect that. For me, however, a couple is only a man and a woman, the rest are just together. I’m not going to accept all the weddings, all the parades, and anything else they do as normal,” Tsiartas wrote. He said he had no time for anyone who claims “those who don’t agree are racists.”

Human “dignity,” he said, came from a higher power than mankind. “God created Adam and Eve. The rest [of gender identities] were manufactured for consumption,” he concluded.

Tsiartas received a 10-month suspended prison sentence and a suspended fine of 5,000 euros from the Single-Member Misdemeanor Court of Athens. The Transgender Support Association, which brought the lawsuit, called punishing his biblical views “particularly important for the transgender community.” Tsiartas plans to appeal the decision.

The ruling marks at least the second time a European court has ruled that biblical values violate the human rights of transgender individuals.

Gen Z more close-minded than parents, grandparents’ generations: ‘Young, illiberal progressives’

Generation Z is less open-minded and more intolerant than older generations, according to a recently released study by the left-leaning British media outlet Channel 4.

Defined as people aged 13-24, Gen Z were more likely to believe that people should be “canceled” for their views and held less acceptance of different opinions than older generations.

For its study, Channel 4 drew from a survey of 1,500 people, which was divided into cohorts of people aged 13-24 and people older than 25.

Channel 4 Chief Executive Alex Mahon noted in a speech on Tuesday about the study that it documented the rise of what she described as “young, illiberal progressives” (YIPs).