church – The Faithful Watchman

‘Preaching the Gospel May One Day Become Hate Speech,’ Legal Expert Warns

Michael Foust – May 5, 2022

Noting that certain tenets of the Christian faith are growing more unpopular each year, two prominent attorneys on Thursday called on believers to pray for the Supreme Court and the rest of the judicial system, saying it’s essential that judges follow the Constitution and not the whims of the culture.

David Nammo, CEO of the Christian Legal Society, and Gregory S. Baylor, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, made the comments on the National Day of Prayer, emphasizing that Justices need prayer just as politicians do. They spoke during a virtual event sponsored by MyFaithVotes.org.

“I think one of the specific ways we can pray for judges is that they don’t get kind of sucked into the deep polarization and tribalism that’s plaguing our culture right now,” Baylor said. “We don’t want judges to become part of that – to think of themselves in one tribe or the other.”

Baylor urged Christians to pray that judges “do the job that God has called them to do.”

“Even at the recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings … there was a consensus that judges ought not to be legislators [and] ought not to be the primary resolvers of the big disputes and debates in our country,” Baylor said.

It’s especially critical to pray for judges as the culture becomes more hostile to the gospel, Nammo said.

“I think it’s important that [pastors] understand that preaching the gospel may one day become hate speech in this country,” Nammo said, noting that in many countries, “that’s already the case.”

https://www.christianheadlines.com

Leading Into Passover and Easter Weekend, The New York Times Calls on Readers to Kill God

Robert Spencer – April 17, 2022

Passover started Friday and Sunday is Easter for most Christians (Orthodox Christian Easter, or Pascha, is next Sunday). In keeping with the season, The New York Times thought Thursday was the perfect day to publish a rancorous anti-God screed written by an angry former believer. The Times is now openly proselytizing for atheism, and while that’s certainly its prerogative, it also must be asked: why now, in the lead-in to two of the holiest of times for both Jews and Christians? And also, cui bono — who benefits?

The Times op-ed was the work of Shalom Auslander, the author of a book called Foreskin’s Lament: A Memoir, in which he bitterly recounts his Orthodox Jewish upbringing and how he has said goodbye to all that. He does essentially the same thing in the Times piece, presenting some acid recollections of being an eight-year-old learning about Passover, and adding, “In this time of war and violence, of oppression and suffering, I propose we pass over something else: God.”

This is because God’s judgment on the Egyptians in the Exodus story seems to Auslander to be excessive. “God, it seems, paints with a wide brush. He paints with a roller. In Egypt, said our rabbi, he even killed first-born cattle. He killed cows. If he were mortal, the God of Jews, Christians and Muslims would be dragged to The Hague. And yet we praise him. We emulate him. We implore our children to be like him.” Auslander adds, “Perhaps now, as missiles rain down and the dead are discovered in mass graves, is a good time to stop emulating this hateful God. Perhaps we can stop extolling his brutality. Perhaps now is a good time to teach our children to pass over God — to be as unlike him as possible.” That’s the Times’ message for Passover and Easter.

Auslander doesn’t explain, of course, where he thinks he got the moral sense that he used to judge God’s actions in the Exodus account as he understands them. The Times, of course, has no space to consider answers to Auslander’s theological questions, which have been considered by Jews and Christians throughout the ages who were far more thoughtful than Auslander himself is. It does, however, have plenty of space for Auslander’s practical conclusion: “Killing gods is an idea I can get behind.”

https://pjmedia.com

American Bible Society survey finds ‘unprecedented drop’ in Bible reading

Ryan Foley – April 7, 2022

There has been an “unprecedented drop” in the number of Bible users in the United States since last year, according to a report released by the American Bible Society.

The 2022 State of the Bible report, released Wednesday, based its findings on responses collected from a survey of 2,598 U.S. adults conducted in January. The 12th annual report asked Americans a variety of questions about their Bible use and their thoughts on its role in society.

A preface to the report also highlights changes in the percentage of Bible users in the U.S. over time. The American Bible Society defines Bible users as “those who use the Bible at least 3-4 times each year on their own, outside of a church setting.”

After reaching a high of 53% in 2014, the share of Bible users among the U.S. adult population consistently remained between 48% and 51%. Just last year, 50% of Americans were Bible users. However, in 2022, Bible users in the U.S. accounted for just 39% of the adult population, the lowest in more than a decade.

The State of the Bible report described the 11% decrease as an “unprecedented drop in the percentage of Bible users in the United States.” When applied to the U.S. population as a whole, the figure suggests that the number of Bible users in the U.S. dropped from 128 million in 2021 to 103 million in 2022.

https://www.christianpost.com

Greece: Muslim Migrants Desecrate and ‘Turn into Toilets’ 2,339 Churches

Raymond Ibrahim – March 14, 2022

According to a new report published by Greece’s Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, there were 2,339 incidents of church desecrations in the country between 2015 and 2020, when tiny Greece, seen as Europe’s eastern gateway, was flooded with migrants from the Islamic world. As the Greek City Times writes in regards to the report, “There appears to be a correlation between the increase in illegal migration and the incidents of attacks on Greek Orthodox religious churches and religious spaces during the five year period which occurred during the peak of the migration crisis.”

Of the most recent year in the recording period, 2020, there were 385 incidents against Christian churches and buildings, including “vandalism, burglary, theft, sacrilege, necromancy, robbery, placement of explosive devices and other desecrations.”

Over the years, a few of these desecrations made it to English language media.

In April 2021, Muslim migrants entered into and utterly desecrated a small church. Proud of their handiwork, they also videotaped portions of the incident and uploaded it on TikTok (available here). It shows a topless migrant dancing to rap music as he walks towards and inside the church. The next clip shows the aftermath: devastation inside the church, with smashed icons and the altar overthrown.

In 2020, Muslim migrants ransacked and transformed another church into their personal toilet. This public restroom was once the St. Catherine Church in Moria, a small town on the island of Lesvos, which was flooded with migrants who arrived via Turkey. “The smell inside is unbearable,” said a local. “[T]he metropolitan of Mytilene is aware of the situation in the area, nevertheless, he does not wish to deal with it for his own reasons.”

While there are many such examples from between 2015-2020—in 2016, the Church of All Saints in Kallithea near Athens was set aflame by “Arabic speakers”—historically conscious Greeks see a continuum in the Islamic targeting of their churches. As one report on the desecration of Greek churches explains,

We should remember that Greece spent 400 years under Turkish Islamic rule and that the fight for freedom was bloody. With that in mind it is even more dramatic seeing these images of fighting age migrants desecrating Greek holy places and having no respect for the country they are allegedly seeking refuge in.

https://www.frontpagemag.com

Is the Pope Marxist?

Robert Spencer – March 8, 2022

Is the pope Catholic?

It used to be the epitome of a question for which the answer was obvious, but in the days of Pope Francis, it’s hard to tell anymore. The present occupant of the Chair of St. Peter has given many people cause to wonder if a more revealing question would be, “Is the Pope Marxist?” Recently, Pope Francis issued a curious warning against the dangers of hybrid Marxist Catholic theology. The Spanish-language Argentine edition of Aleteia reported that, in a letter to the Santa Maria Spirituality Center in Buenos Aires, the Pontiff warned against “the ideologizing of a Marxist tint of some Latin American centers in the ‘70s.” The pope’s rejection of Marxism, however, is nominal and inconsistent.

Pope Francis stunned opponents of the idea of an economy controlled by government fiat when he wrote in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti: “The marketplace, by itself, cannot resolve every problem, however much we are asked to believe this dogma of neoliberal faith. Whatever the challenge, this impoverished and repetitive school of thought always offers the same recipes. Neoliberalism simply reproduces itself by resorting to the magic theories of ‘spillover’ or ‘trickle’ – without using the name – as the only solution to societal problems.”

Actually, the name “trickle-down economics” is indeed used by critics of the view that those who innovate, create, and provide employment opportunities for others should be penalized for doing so.

The pope went even farther in the same encyclical, giving justification to state confiscation of the bank accounts and possessions of dissidents by stating that “the Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute or inviolable, and has stressed the social purpose of all forms of private property.”

Instead, he continued, “the principle of the common use of created goods is the ‘first principle of the whole ethical and social order’; it is a natural and inherent right that takes priority over others,” which certainly sounds a great deal like Marxism.

https://www.frontpagemag.com

Report: Early 2022 Marked by ‘Epidemic’ of Anti-Christian Arson and Vandalism

Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D. – February 22, 2022

ROME — Christian churches in Europe have been “targets of repetitive vandalism, desecration and even arson” in the first two months of 2022, a human rights watchdog group reports Tuesday.

Every year sees numerous incidents of vandalism against nativity scenes, notes the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC), but the beginning of 2022 has also seen “many incidents of threats, arson and severe vandalism” against Christian sites.

It is “terrible to see so many churches being attacked with vandalism and arson in such a short period of time,” declares OIDAC executive director Madeleine Enzlberger. “The amount of vandalism that took place in France at the beginning of the year even prompted the Ministry of Interior to release a new four million Euro budget to secure religious sites” following “an epidemic of attacks against churches at the beginning of 2022.”

“As the minister in charge of cults, my job is to protect them,” said French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. “In this way, we increase the means that make it possible to equip places of worship, in particular with video protection.”

Elsewhere, arsonists set fire to the Paul Gerhardt Church in Berlin on January 20, and the flames destroyed the altar, an image of Christ, and the organ, OIDAC observed, and 30 Firefighters were required to extinguish the fire.

On February 13, the Jackson Church of Scotland in Airdrie, a North Lanarkshire town near Glasgow, was also set ablaze in an attack that police are treating as arson. The vandals started the fire around 3:00 am and the fire brigade was called around 4:00 am, OIDAC reports, and the fire caused extensive damage to the church vestibule.

Physical violence against Christian sites is not the only form of anti-Christian activity taking place, OIDAC states.

https://www.breitbart.com

Freedom of Religion on Trial in Finland

William Kilpatrick – February 25, 2022

Päivi Räsänen is a member of the Finnish Parliament, a former minister of the interior, a public speaker and the mother of five grown children.

She faces a heavy fine and two years in prison for quoting the Bible. In response to the Evangelical Lutheran Church’s affiliation with the Helsinki LGBT Pride event, she posted the Bible passage from Romans 1: 24-27 which condemns homosexual behavior.

Finnish prosecutors stated that the use of the word “sin” could be harmful, and alleged that Ms. Räsänen’s comments were made to cause intolerance, contempt, and hatred toward homosexuals.

But couldn’t the prosecutor’s remarks cause intolerance, contempt and hatred toward Ms. Räsänen? If criticizing another person’s beliefs or behavior is a hate crime, then isn’t she the victim of a hate crime?

The court prosecutors worried that the word “sin” could be harmful. One supposes they mean harmful to one’s self-esteem. And, indeed, the list of sins in Romans 1: 24-32 is meant to make you feel bad about yourself. From a Biblical perspective, acknowledgment of sin, followed by repentance, leads on to salvation. In other words, feeling bad about your behavior is, in some cases, a good thing. It’s not only homosexual behavior that is condemned in Romans I. The extended passage condemns all manner of sins including idolatry, deceitfulness, envy, gossip, slander, and disobedience to parents.

From one point of view this is highly offensive and insulting to those disposed to deceitfulness and slander. From another point of view, it can be looked upon as highly therapeutic—a moment of self-recognition that leads on to change.

Prosecutors should have no difficulty understanding the concept. After all, they apply painful therapeutics as a matter of course. They hope that a heavy fine or a dose of prison will force the criminal to recognize his crimes and put himself on the road to rehabilitation.

Increasingly, however, prosecutors are prosecuting “thought crimes” rather than real crimes, and courts are using hurt feelings as a criterion for making decisions. Take the case of Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, an Austrian woman who was found guilty of “inciting hatred” by an Austrian Court because of her assertion that the prophet Muhammad was a pedophile. In 2018, the ruling was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights which held that her right to freedom of expression was outweighed by “the right of others to have their religious feelings protected.” In short, feelings trumped facts, and the alleged pain caused to Muslims by the “slander” of their prophet became the deciding factor.

https://www.frontpagemag.com

‘Revival and Reformation Is Needed’: Canadian Pastors Sound Off On New Law That Threatens To Criminalize Evangelism

Ben Zeisloft – January 16, 2022

Days ago, Canada approved a “conversion therapy” ban that condemns Christian doctrine on the sinfulness of homosexuality and transgenderism as “myth.” Indeed, bill C-4 — passed unanimously by both the Senate and the House of Commons — threatens pastors with up to five years of prison time if they remain faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

As thousands of American ministers stand in solidarity with Canadian believers by preaching about biblical sexual ethics on Sunday, January 16, two Canadian pastors — Jacob Reaume of Trinity Bible Chapel and Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church — told The Daily Wire about the implications of C-4 and how Canadian Christians plan to respond.

‘The Church must be a prophetic witness’

While describing C-4, Reaume — whose church incurred over $100,000 in fines last year for refusing to shut its doors in defiance of Canada’s COVID-19 lockdowns — noted that the edict will “make the preaching of the biblical gospel a criminal act.”

“The biblical gospel is a message of conversion, whereby Christ causes sinners to be born-again, thus converting them from sinful propensities to godliness,” he explained. “The bill’s language is vague enough that many think it might criminalize a biblical call to forsake sodomitic propensities to embrace righteousness.”

Stephens — who was jailed in a maximum-security facility last summer for refusing to close his church — added that “the law is overly broad in defining conversion therapy,” thereby enshrining “progressive gender ideology and queer theory as normative.”

https://www.dailywire.com

Hell of a victory: Satanists convince Pennsylvania school district to change anti-satanic dress code

Mike Snider – November 2, 2021

Satanists earned a victory after convincing a Pennsylvania school district to remove a student dress code ban on clothes that are “satanic in nature.”

The Rose Tree Media School District, just west of Philadelphia, had included a ban on satanic clothing, along with clothes those that are sexually suggestive, obscene or promote violence. But earlier this week, the superintendent issued a statement that the dress code’s reference to satanic clothing would be removed, reported WPVI-TV, an ABC TV station in Philadelphia.

“Although we have had no complaints or concerns brought forward by any student, parent, or resident we will remove this language from our current dress code information in the student handbook,” the announcement read, according to WPVI.

Joseph Rose, founder of the Philadelphia area group Satanic Delco, began contacting the school district about a month ago after learning about the dress code language from parents with children in the district. The wording is discriminatory, he argued.“The idea that a public school, which really isn’t a place for religion to begin with, would allow all but one religion is just so obviously unfair and unconstitutional,” Rose told WPIV-TV.

https://www.msn.com

Broken Arrow pastor arrested outside Tulsa Women’s Clinic

Katie Keleher – September 02, 2021

TULSA, Okla. — A Broken Arrow pastor is charged with disturbing the peace after being arrested outside of the Tulsa Women’s Clinic.

Pastor Greg McEntire said he and members of his church, Broken Arrow Baptist Temple, have prayed and sung while protesting abortion outside of the Tulsa Women’s Clinic every week for five years.

He said there were about 25 of them outside of the clinic. He said after being there for about an hour, a police officer showed up, asking them to tone down their singing. McEntire said the officer told them you could hear them singing from inside the clinic, which is a violation of Tulsa’s noise statute. McEntire said the officer was going to write him a ticket, but McEntire refused to sign it. He was then arrested.

McEntire said he feels like they were trying to take his voice away.

“We feel like it’s an attempt to silence our voices because if we get so soft we can’t be heard, why should we be there. If people can’t hear us, why are we there,” McEntire said.

https://www.kjrh.com