Category: Warning

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.

Read more at: www.christianitydaily.com

“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.

Read more at: www.israel365news.com

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

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.”

Read more at: www.dailywire.com

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.

Read more at: washingtonstand.com

MCPS recommends book that teaches ‘cisgender,’ ‘transgender’ to 7-year olds

Maryland’s wealthiest school district has unveiled a new LGBTQ-inclusive book list for elementary schools that teaches words like “intersex” and “drag queen” to children as young as 4.

A PowerPoint presentation by Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) shows a list of LGBTQ+ books that will be provided for pre-K through fifth-grade classrooms this year. The presentation explains that the LGBTQ-inclusive reading list aims to “reduce stigmatization and marginalization of transgender and gender nonconforming students.”

“All students deserve to see themselves in their school and classroom, including students who identify as LGBTQ+ and come from LGBTQ+ headed families and have family members that are a part of the LGBTQ+ community,” the presentation states. “There are no planned explicit lessons related to gender and sexuality, but these books do mean that LGBTQ+ identities will be made visible. Inclusive curricula support a student’s ability to empathize, connect, and collaborate with a diverse group of peers, and encourage respect for all.”

Read more at: www.foxnews.com

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Homeland Security Committee House members Tuesday that the video-sharing app TikTok poses national security threats from the Chinese Communist Party.

Concerns from Wray and the FBI come off the heels of Federal Communications Commission officials urging the U.S. government to ban the app to protect American citizens’ private data, citing issues with controlling the information flow back to Beijing. TikTok officials denounced the federal agency’s accusations, saying FCC officials have no role in the confidential discussions with the U.S. government related to the app.

“We do have national security concerns — at least from the FBI’s end — about TikTok,” Wray said in a hearing focused on Worldwide Threats to the Homeland. “They include the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users. Or control the
recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so chose. Or to control software on millions of devices, which gives it opportunity to potentially technically compromise personal devices.”

Chinese tech giant ByteDance owns TikTok, which currently has more than 200 million downloads in the United States — and according to Fox Business, the company must share its data with the CCP upon request, as required by Chinese law.

Read more at: www.dailywire.com

Companies are continuing to warn against the diesel fuel shortage and how it will affect the trucking industry moving forward.

South Carolina Trucking Association CEO Rick Todd recently spoke about the problems facing trucking businesses and the reasons behind the fuel shortage, as well as high costs.

“Truckers are feeling the hurt right now. Supply chain challenges just keep coming,” he said on Fox News, adding that truckers often essentially pay cash for gas and don’t get paid for several weeks or more.

Read more at: www.dailywire.com