Terror Attacks In France: A Culture Of Denial

On October 3, 2019, a knife-wielding Muslim employee of the Paris Police Department Intelligence Directorate stabbed to death four other employees at police headquarters in the center of Paris, before a trainee police officer shot and killed him. While it was not the deadliest terror attack France has experienced in recent years, the fatal stabbings that took place at the Paris police headquarters were perhaps the most worrisome. Its author (a French public servant employed by the police), its highly sensitive target, and the catastrophic handling of the aftermath of the attack reveal the failure of the French institutions.

As it was the case for all recent terror attacks, French media and authorities first tried to downplay what happened. The attacker was initially described through potentially mitigating factors, such as his handicap (the killer is partly deaf and mute). It took 24 hours before it was eventually revealed that he was an Islamist militant who had carefully planned his attack.

That a radicalized militant had been able to remain undetected in a critical security institution for years sent shockwaves throughout the country. Members of the parliamentary opposition asked for the resignation of Home Affairs Minister Christophe Castaner, who at first had said that the attacker "had never shown any warning signs or behavioral difficulties." For the record, this "very normal behavior" included cutting down to a bare minimum communication with women (he had for months being avoiding all women but his wife), attending a notoriously radical mosque, and having a phone full of Islamist contacts. His colleagues reported that already in January 2015, he had cheered the murderous Islamist terror attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in front of other police employees. In many countries, a mistake of this scale would be enough for a government minister to resign, but not in France.

The whole picture of the attack, which is still not clear, demonstrates an incredible failure of internal control inside the French police. The French Parliament is now asking how the murderer managed to fly under the radar when everything in his behavior clearly signaled an increasing radicalization.

Notably, this is the first time that the French state and its institutions were directly targeted. Also for the first time, the victims were not journalists (as was the case for the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January 2015), Jews (who have been targeted several times in recent years) or civilians (such as the massive coordinated attacks in Paris on November 2015 that caused more than 131 deaths and 413 wounded). This latest attack also demonstrates how inadequately prepared France is to tackle the problem. The killer was not just any civil servant: his security clearance allowed him to have access to sensitive files such as the personal details of police officers and individuals monitored by the department, including several individuals suspected of terrorism.

After Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan in Paris, the truck-ramming massacre in Nice, and countless other attacks, French institutions have failed repeatedly. However, instead of recognizing this failure and assuming a share of responsibility, instead of hitting the problem of religious radicalization head-on, French President Emmanuel Macron regularly describes it as a "societal problem," that "institutions alone will not be able to solve." It is necessary first to recognize and name a problem in order to tackle it. In the current state of affairs, French political institutions are a long way from success in the fight against terrorism. Beyond the political sphere, there is also a culture a denial of the Islamist threat in the French media. Journalists, academics and politicians, with a few exceptions, have consistently played down not only the risk of terrorist attacks but also the threat of growing Salafist radicalization in the country. A growing number of Muslims, while not advocating the use of violence, desire to live under Sharia law, separate from the rest of French society. According to a study by the Montaigne Institute, 29% of Muslims in France believe that Sharia law is more important than French law. This means that almost one-third of French Muslims live according to values that are fundamentally incompatible with French or Western standards.

Although France is the European country most targeted by Islamists (263 killed since 2012), politicians are paralyzed by the fear of being accused by the mainstream media of discrimination against Muslims, of creating an amalgam between terrorists and Muslims or of "fueling tensions."  Senior figures acknowledge a major problem only when they are no longer in charge. In a book published after he stepped down, the socialist former president François Hollande wrote: "Islam? Yes, there is indeed a problem with Islam. Nobody doubts this. The Islamic veil is a form of enslavement. We cannot continue welcoming migrants without any form of control in the context of increased terror attacks." Hollande never would have said such a thing when he was president. Like others, he sheepishly ignored the problem.

The same happened with Christophe Castaner's predecessor, Gerard Collomb, after he resigned as Interior Minister. He warned against no less than the risk of civil war in France."In some suburbs (...) it is the rule of the strongest, of drug dealers and radical Islamists that prevails instead of the laws of the Republic... Today we live side by side, next to each other, but tomorrow, I fear that we might end up facing each other. It is important to note that theses quotes are not from right-wing thinkers or activists. Both François Hollande and Gerard Collomb were long-time eminent figures of the Socialist Party.

These are typical examples of what some call "la démission des élites" (the abdication of the elites): refusing to act on a situation of which they are perfectly aware but afraid to mention because of the dominant ideology of political correctness.In the meantime, France's police officers are increasingly unmotivated and demoralized. Since the start of the year, more than 50 police officers have committed suicide. They face increasingly difficult working conditions, in particular, rioters in the suburbs of cities like Paris, Marseille, Lille or Lyon -- suburbs that are progressively escaping the control of the French authorities. Attack after attack, the ritual is the same. There are flowers, tributes and words for the victims, political leaders affirm their resolve to act to protect the people. But after a few days, the news cycle ends and things go back to normal -- until the next terrorist attack.

China’s War on the Bible: If You Can’t Ban it, Alter it

A recent article at WORLD Magazine reported how the Chinese-language app called “WeDevote” recently surpassed 10 million downloads. That number, as well as the overall success of “WeDevote,” is even more remarkable given the back story, one that illustrates Beijing’s ongoing war on the Bible. “WeDevote” is a Bible-reading and devotional app known for its “aesthetically-pleasing” design and respect for copyright laws, a rarity in China. The month after its launch, China’s biggest app store listed WeDevote as a “Recommended App” right on its homepage. The Communist Party’s crackdown on Christianity in recent years meant that both the app and its developers faced increasing government scrutiny. Eventually, they were given a choice: shut down the app or face jail time.

Well, a third option, transferring ownership of the app to a Hong Kong-based company, provided a temporary respite from the ultimatum, but the government has now banned “WeDevote” from Chinese app stores. Though the developers are actively seeking some kind of work-around, it’s a struggle to get the app in the hands of users on the mainland. The government’s shut down of “WeDevote” is part of a disturbing trend. Last year, China banned online Bible sales. Of course, that doesn’t mean Bibles are unavailable in China. Chinese publishers continue to print Chinese-language Bibles. Some are exported, of course, but plenty remain in China. That’s good news. The bad news is that soon, at least spiritually speaking, Chinese-language copies of the Bible may not be worth the paper they’re printed on. According to the Guardian, the Communist Party has plans “for ‘retranslating and annotating’ the Bible,” in order to “establish a ‘correct understanding’ of the text.” Is there any doubt this “correct understanding” will include reinforcing the primacy of the Communist Party? As one pastor told the Guardian, “The Chinese Communist party . . . wants to be the God of China and the Chinese people. But according to the Bible only God is God.” The reality on the ground is that “The government is scared of the churches,” and is cracking down on them.

Any attempt to control and re-write the Bible is a tacit admission by the Communist Party that it’s failing to eradicate Christianity. It’s way too late for that, of course. Depending on who you ask, there are between 60 and 100-plus million Christians in China. Since they cannot eliminate Christianity, the Party’s goal is to pervert it, creating a version of Christianity that doesn’t threaten the Party’s claim of ultimate authority. This demand for sole allegiance not only targets Christians, but other religious minority groups, like the Muslim Uighurs. Anyone who believes that “only God is God” is a threat to the Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping. Such repression also reflects that the Party is concerned about its rule. As many experts have pointed out, China’s stability rests on an implicit bargain: The Party promises economic growth and broad-based prosperity in exchange for the Chinese people giving up the kinds of political freedoms taken for granted in the West. With the Chinese economy slowing down, the demographic legacy of China’s “one-child” policy, the pervasive corruption and the ever-widening chasm between urban “haves” and rural “have nots,” it’s not clear the Party will be able to hold up its end of the bargain. More and more the Party is looking like yet another would-be “god” that has failed its worshipers. We know, given China’s tumultuous history, the sort of bloodshed and chaos that comes from disappointed worshipers there. We also know, given the inherently religious nature of human beings, that such dissatisfaction will only catalyze the growth of the Church and the spread of the Gospel. That means we should pray that God’s Word will prosper in China ... and that God will protect all those who preach it.

Ex-Drug Addict Baptized at Church He Vandalized 6 Months Earlier – ‘God Is Real’

A homeless drug addict who broke into an Arkansas church and vandalized $100,000 worth of property was baptized at the same congregation six months later – all because the staff and church members displayed grace and got him much-needed help. Brenton Winn, 23, was arrested in February after breaking into Central Baptist Church of Conway, Ark., and destroying $100,000 in church property. He threw the soundboard over the worship center balcony. He set part of the family life center on fire. He destroyed laptops. At the time, the church’s senior pastor, Don Chandler, told KTHV it was “about as messy of vandalism as you could possibly imagine.” Winn, who was homeless and high on drugs, faced multiple charges and seemed destined for years behind bars.

But Chandler, while meeting with the prosecutor, chose to extend grace, according to Baptist Press. Chandler wanted Winn to get help. “You can't preach something for 50 years without practicing it, especially in front of your whole church,” Chandler told Baptist Press. “Had we not shown some grace to him, everything we've talked about and encouraged, would have gone by the wayside. It was simply the right thing to do. This was not a hardened criminal. This was a young man who had made some mistakes. He was on drugs and alcohol when he did what he did. But he was redeemable.”

The judge gave Winn an option: Face up to 20 years in prison or voluntarily enter a 12-month rehab and recovery program run by a Christian-based ministry, Renewal Ranch. Winner chose the latter, Baptist Press reported. Winn had been doing methamphetamines and other drugs, off and on, since age 14. “Before I knew it, I had a full-blown drug addiction,” Winn told Baptist Press. “From the time I was 16 until a few months ago, my life was nothing but chaos, suicide attempts and brokenness.” Winn accepted Christ at one of the Renewal Ranch Bible studies. In August – six months after his crime – he was baptized at Central Baptist Church, the same congregation he tried to destroy.

“As I'm starting to understand how God works, I've realized I didn't pick the church that night. God picked me,” Winn told Baptist Press. “If it had been any other church, I think I'd be sitting in prison right now.” He added, “I used to think it was a coincidence [that I chose to break into the church that night], but now I call it confirmation that God is real, and He answers prayers. What was weighing on my heart was that I needed a relationship with Jesus Christ.”

No Place To Hide: DHS' New HART Database Uses Scars, Tattoos, & Voice ID

These days, you can't really go anywhere without encountering cameras.  Going into a store? Chances are there are security cameras. Getting money at an ATM? More cameras. Driving through the streets of a city? More cameras still. Your neighbors may have those doorbells from Amazon that are surveilling the entire neighborhood. And many of these cameras are tied into facial recognition databases, or the footage can be quite easily compared there if "authorities" are looking for somebody. But as it turns out, it isn't just facial recognition we have to worry about.

DHS has a new recognition system called HART.

Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology system is the alarming new identity system being put in place by the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is retiring its old system that was based on facial recognition. It's being replaced with HART, a cloud-based system that holds information about the identities of hundreds of millions of people. The new cloud-based platform, called the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology System, or HART, is expected to bring more processing power, new analytics capabilities and increased accuracy to the department's biometrics operations. It will also allow the agency to look beyond the three types of biometric data it uses today--face, iris and fingerprint--to identify people through a variety of other characteristics, like palm prints, scars, tattoos, physical markings and even their voices.  Incidentally, the cloud hosting for HART is being done by none other than Amazon - you know, the ones with surveillance devices like the Ring doorbell and the Alexa home assistant and the Nest home security system. Does anyone see a pattern here? Also note that Amazon Web Services also hosts data for the CIA, the DoD, and NASA.

More about HART

As HART becomes more established, that old saying "you can run but you can't hide" is going to seem ever more true. The DHS is delighted at how much further the new system can take them into surveilling Americans. And by freeing the agency from the limitations of its legacy system, HART could also let officials grow the network of external partners with whom they share biometric data and analytics capabilities, according to Patrick Nemeth, director of identity operations within Homeland Security's Office of Biometric Identity Management. "When we get to HART, we will be better, faster, stronger," Nemeth said in an interview with Nextgov. "We'll be relieved of a lot of the capacity issues that we have now ... and then going forward from there we'll be able to add capabilities." 

The DHS wants to break free of the limitations of the old system with their new and "improved" system. HART will use multiple pieces of biometric data to increase identification accuracy. Today, when an official runs a person's face, fingerprint or iris scans through IDENT's massive database, the system doesn't return a single result. Rather, it assembles a list of dozens of potential candidates with different levels of confidence, which a human analyst must then look through to make a final match. 

The system can only handle one modality at a time, so if agent is hypothetically trying to identify someone using two different datapoints, they need to assess two lists of candidates to find a single match. This isn't a problem if the system identifies the same person as the most likely match for both fingerprint and face, for example, but because biometric identification is still an imperfect science, the results are rarely so clear cut. However, the HART platform can include multiple datapoints in a single query, meaning it will rank potential matches based on all the information that's available. That will not only make it easier for agents to analyze potential matches, but it will also help the agency overcome data quality issues that often plague biometric scans, Nemeth said. If the face image is pristine but the fingerprint is fuzzy, for example, the system will give the higher-quality datapoint more weight.

"We're very hopeful that it will provide better identification surety than we can provide with any single modality today," Nemeth said. And palm prints, scars, tattoos and other modalities are added in the years ahead, the system will be able to integrate those into its matching process. 

HART will also use DNA.

Remember a while back when we reported that DNA sites were teaming up with facial recognition software? Well, HART will take that unholy alliance even further. The phase-two solicitation also lists DNA-matching as a potential application of the HART system. While the department doesn't currently analyze DNA, officials on Wednesday announced they would start adding DNA collected from hundreds of thousands of detained migrants to the FBI's criminal database. 

During the interview, Nemeth said the agency is still working through the legal implications of storing and sharing such sensitive data. It's also unclear whether DNA information would be housed in the HART system or a separate database, he said. Nifty.

The DHS is operating without any type of regulation.

Currently, there's no regulation or oversight of government agencies collecting and using this kind of data. Civil liberty activists and some lawmakers are alarmed by this, citing concerns about privacy and discrimination. This hasn't slowed down the DHS one iota, however. Critics have taken particular issue with the government's tangled web of information sharing agreements, which allow data to spread far beyond the borders of the agency that collected it. The Homeland Security Department currently shares its biometric data and capabilities with numerous groups, including but not limited to the Justice, Defense and State departments.

In the years ahead, HART promises to strengthen those partnerships and allow others to flourish, according to Nemeth. While today the department limits other agencies' access to IDENT to ensure they don't consume too much of its limited computing power, HART will do away with those constraints. 

Mana Azarmi, the policy counsel for the Freedom, Security and Technology Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology is one of those people voicing concern. A person might give information to a single agency thinking it would be used for one specific purpose, but depending on how that information is shared, they could potentially find themselves subjected to unforeseen negative consequences, Azarmi said in a conversation with Nextgov.

"The government gets a lot of leeway to share information," she said. "In this age of incredible data collection, I think we need to rethink some of the rules that are in place and some of the practices that we've allowed to flourish post-9/11. We may have overcorrected."  You think?

Many people voluntarily provide biometric data.

Many folks provide biometric data without giving it a second thought. They cheerfully swab a cheek and send it into sites like Ancestry.com, providing not only their DNA, but matches to many relatives who never gave permission for their DNA to be in a database.

Then there are cell phones. If you have a newer phone, it's entirely possible that it has asked you to set up fingerprint login, facial recognition, and even voice recognition. It isn't a stretch of the imagination to believe that those samples are shared with folks beyond the device in your hand. Add to this that your device is tracking you every place you go through a wide variety of seemingly innocuous apps, and you start to get the picture.

You can't opt-out. Back in 2013, I wrote an article called "The Great American Dragnet".  At that time, facial recognition was something that sounded like science fiction or some kind of joke. Our drivers' licenses were the first foray into creating a database but even in 2013, it far exceeded that.

Another, even larger, database exists. The US State Department has a database with 230 million searchable images.  Anyone with a passport or an immigration visa may find themselves an unwilling participant in this database.   Here's the breakdown of who has a photo database:

- The State Department has about 15 million photos of passport or visa holders

- The FBI has about15 million photos of people who have been arrested or convicted of crimes

- The Department of Defense has about 6 million photos, mainly of Iraqis and Afghans

- Various police agencies and states have at least 210 million driver's license photos

This invasion of privacy is just another facet of the surveillance state, and should be no surprise considering the information Edward Snowden just shared about the over-reaching tentacles of the NSA into all of our communications. We are filing our identities with the government and they can identify us at will, without any requirement for probable cause. Some people don't even seem to mind that their identities have been tagged and filed by the US government. And even those of us who do mind have no option. If you wish to drive a car or travel outside of the country or have any kind of government ID, like it or not, you're in the database. Six years ago, I wrote:

The authorities that use this technology claim that the purpose of it is to make us safer, by helping to prevent identity fraud and to identify criminals.  However, what freedom are we giving up for this "safety" cloaked in benevolence? We are giving up the freedom of having the most elemental form of privacy - that of being able to go about our daily business without being watched and identified. And once you're identified, this connects to all sorts of other personal information that has been compiled: your address, your driving and criminal records, and potentially, whatever else that has been neatly filed away at your friendly neighborhood fusion center.

Think about it:  You're walking the dog and you fail to scoop the poop - if there's a surveillance camera in the area, it would be a simple matter, given the technology, for you to be identified. If you are attending a protest that might be considered "anti-government", don't expect to be anonymous.  A photo of the crowd could easily result in the identification of most of the participants.

Are you purchasing ammo, preparedness items, or books about a controversial topic?  Paying cash won't buy you much in the way of privacy - your purchase will most likely be captured on the CCTV camera at the checkout stand, making you easily identifiable to anyone who might wish to track these kinds of things.  

What if a person with access to this technology uses it for personal, less than ethical reasons, like stalking an attractive women he saw on the street?  The potential for abuse is mind-boggling.

If you can't leave your house without being identified, do you have any real freedom left, or are you just a resident in a very large cage? 

When I wrote that, it still seemed far-fetched but remotely possible, even to me. This was before we were really aware of anything like the social credit program in China or how crazy the censorship was going to become or how social media would change the very fabric of our society.

Now, it's here and it looks like there's no stopping it.

Christian Family in Hiding after Hindu Extremist Mob Assaults Them in India

NEW DELHI, October 3, 2019 (Morning Star News) – A retired pastor, his wife and their sons are in hiding from police after a Hindu extremist mob injured them in a gruesome assault in northern India, sources said.

Patram Mangala, retired Church of North India pastor now helping to run St. John School in Sohna, Gurugram District in Haryana state, sustained injuries to his nose when he was hit with a spade in the face, and his 28-year-old son Abhishek Mangala lost four front teeth and ruptured blood vessels in his eye in the Sept. 22 attack. 

Pastor Mangala’s 65-year-old wife Sarla Mangala sustained an injury under her right eye apart from internal injuries to her body, and their son Raj Kumar Mangala, 40, sustained internal injuries in the attack, which appeared to be rooted in a recent court judgment against the Hindus in their attempt to erect a Hindu idol on the property, the retired pastor said.

The 68-year-old Pastor Mangala and his wife were cleaning their front yard in the early evening when a group of Hindu extremists with wooden sticks surrounded them and began to assault them, he said. Between 30 to 40 other people then joined in the assault.

Pastor Mangala’s sons ran to help their parents but were also attacked. The pastor said he could identify only some of the assailants, and that those who joined in had been notified earlier for a well-planned attack.

“Two men, Anil Kumar and Danny, smashed a stone on Abhishek’s face, breaking four of his front teeth,” Pastor Mangala told Morning Star News. “His mouth was profusely bleeding, and his face was covered with blood. Abhishek’s lip tore, and his left eye blood vessels ruptured.”

Their home is part of the St. John’s school premises, and the assailants picked up a spade used for repair work on the institution in the attack, he said. They also struck them with rocks lying outside the gate, along with sticks.

“They began to hit me with their legs and fists and manhandled my wife by pushing her and hitting her,” he said. “They abused us using vulgar language and threatened to kill us. The attackers snatched the gold ring that I was wearing in my finger and snatched my son Abhishek’s cell phone as well.”

Besides the injury to his nose from the spade, Pastor Mangala sustained injuries to his thigh and other parts of his body, he said.

The family reported the assault to city police in writing on Sept. 24, but officers registered no complaint for nearly a week – in stark contrast to a false complaint registered against the Christians the day of the attack, he said.

“The culprits have been threatening us to kill us, and they have warned us that if we go to the police, they will kill us,” Pastor Mangala reported in his complaint, translated from Hindi. “In the future if I or my family members are attacked, these people named in the complaint should be held responsible. I request that strict action be taken against these hooligans and a First Information Report be registered and they be arrested. I pray that justice be given to me and my family.”

Local news media broadcast the Hindu extremists’ false charges as stated by a police official and the main accused in the pastor’s complaint, Anil Kumar. Officer-in-Charge Arvind Dahiya told Punjab Kesari News Channel that an FIR had been registered against Pastor Mangala, his wife and their two sons for “breaking the Hindu temple and illegally trying to take possession of the Hindu temple land under the Indian Penal Code.”

They were also charged with rioting, being armed with a deadly weapon, unlawful assembly, disobedience to an order lawfully promulgated by a public servant, injuring or defiling a place of worship with intent to insult the religion, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation, he said.

Kumar told media that the Christian family attacked him and the others.

Denying all allegations, Meenal Mangala, the daughter of Pastor Mangala, told Morning Star News that she felt helpless as she does not know who to contact for help.

“The allegations against us are false and fabricated,” she said. “We don't know what to do. It is our property, and we have the papers to prove it. They forcefully wanted to worship their god on our land. Through court we stopped that and won the legal battle, but now they are spreading a false and fabricated story through media, and it is being telecasted on local TV.”

Meenal Mangala said the family has submitted a CD to the police containing footage from CCTV cameras installed at the school facing its front gate. The cameras captured the entire assault and show how the Hindu extremists beat the family, she said.

Fearing arrest, the Christian family has left their home and gone into hiding since being released from the hospital.

Only after Morning Star News spoke to Investigating Officer and Assistant Sub-Inspector Shish Ram asking why no action was taken on the complaint of trespassing and assault filed by the Christian family did officers register a case against the assailants on Friday (Sep. 27).

Ram said a case was registered against the Hindu assailants under First Information Report 608 for rioting, rioting armed with deadly weapon, unlawful assembly, disobedience to an order lawfully promulgated by a public servant, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation.

He said justice would be done, though no action has been taken yet.

The land on which the St. John’s School was built was purchased in Sarla Mangala’s name on Sept. 30, 1985, according to official records. She and Pastor Mangala were running the school and residence in 2015 when some Hindus trespassed and erected a Hindu idol and brought construction material onto the campus, Sarla Mangala charges in a lawsuit.

“On June 10, 2015, in the evening between 6-6:30, some anti-social elements came to our land and tried to enter forcefully,” Pastor Mangala said. “They threatened to kill my wife if she did not leave the property, hence we filed a complaint in the court claiming that the property is ours and that no construction should be done on that land. I approached the court against the trespassing four years ago and got a stay from the court. The court pronounced judgment in our favor two months ago.”

Tehmina Arora, director of legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom-India, said in a press statement earlier this year that India must enact laws to protect religious minorities from such attacks.

“Nobody should be persecuted because of their faith,” Arora said. “It is worrying to see these horrendous acts of mob violence continue. It is high time special laws are enacted to protect Christians and other religious minorities from being attacked and then imprisoned under false accusations.”

Mob attacks are not isolated incidents in India, added Paul Coleman, executive director of ADF-International.

“While the right to religious freedom is protected by the Indian constitution, we nonetheless see Christians face persecution and denial of their fundamental rights,” he said. “Sadly, the recent mob attacks are not isolated incidents but testify to what many Christians experience in India today. All people have the right to freely choose, and live out, their faith.”

India is ranked 10^th on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. The country was 31st in 2013, but its position has been worse each year since Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014. 

‘Give Your Life to Christ’ — Brother Forgives, Hugs Ex-Cop Who Killed Botham Jean

The brother of a man shot and killed in his own apartment by a former Dallas police officer shocked the courtroom and sparked a national debate Wednesday by forgiving his brother’s killer and urging her to turn her life to Christ. 

The brother, Brandt Jean, then hugged the officer who had killed Botham Jean. The interaction even brought the judge to tears. 

“I forgive you,” Jean said before urging the former officer to “... Give your life to Christ.”

Amber Guyger was convicted of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison for the 2018 fatal shooting of Botham Jean. Guyger had mistakenly entered the wrong apartment and believed he was in her apartment. 

Brandt Jean, who is 18, took the witness stand after the sentencing and addressed Guyger.  

“I don't want to say twice or for the hundredth time ... how much you've taken from us. I think you know that,” Jean said. “But ... I hope you go to God with all the guilt [and] all the bad things you may have done in the past. Each and every one of us may have done something that we're not supposed to do. If you truly are sorry – I know I can speak for myself, I forgive you. And I know if you go to God and ask Him, He will forgive you.”

As he spoke, sobbing could be heard throughout the courtroom. 

“But I love you just like anyone else. And I'm not gonna say I hope you rot and die just like my brother did, but I personally want the best for you,” Jean added. “And I wasn't gonna ever say this in front of my family or anyone, but I don't even want you to go to jail. I want the best for you. Because I know that's exactly what Botham would want you to do. And the best would be [to] give your life to Christ.”

Seconds later, Jean turned to Judge Tammy Kemp and asked, “Can I give her a hug? Please?”

Kemp, wiping away tears, responded, “Yes.”

Jean and Guyger hugged in front of the courtroom for nearly a minute. 

Later, Kemp gave Guyger a Bible. 

Some on social media said Brandt Jean went too far. 

“Why on earth would anyone with a brain hug his brother's murderer?” one person on Twitter asked.

Most people on social media, though, were in awe at the moment. 

“There is hope for the country with young men like this,” one person wrote. “If only there were more.”

When The Culture War Comes For Your Kids            

In the October edition of The Atlantic, there is a fascinating and revealing long-form essay by George Packer titled "When the Culture War Comes for the Kids." Packer, who appears to be an old-school liberal with a few progressive sympathies, writes about his family's decision to remove his son from an elite private school and send him to a public school in New York City, where he will be exposed to more diversity and give the family a chance to participate in a community. For the first several years, he writes, they were happy with their choice--until, around 2014, the school community began to be seized by wokeness.

The first sign of this was the school's attempt to do away with traditional grading systems as well as test-taking. Test-taking, the parents were told, was too stressful for children and often discriminatory towards minority students (the racism of low expectations present in this surge of sympathy, as always, went unnoticed). Soon, the staff were actively discouraging parents from permitting their children to take tests, and there was enormous pressure to get with the new political program. 

Additionally, Packer says, identity--sexuality, race, disability, etc.--became such a focus that Packer grew concerned that the school was entrenching differences rather than reducing them. In fact, he wrote, several other schools in New York "had taken to dividing their students by race into consciousness-raising 'affinity groups,'" which caused several mixed-race families to transfer their kids out because they were sick of the focus on race. They didn't need their children to start with the identity politics at such a young age.

And then, Packer writes, the "bathroom crisis hit our school...A girl in second grade had switched to using male pronouns, adopted the initial Q as a first name, and begun dressing in boy's clothes. Q also used the boys' bathroom, which led to problems with other boys."  The school began searching for a solution, but instead of simply creating a single-stall bathroom (one already existed), they decided to "get rid of boys' and girls' bathrooms altogether." This, they presumed, would handily eliminate any confusion, and the problem would be solved, and "within two years, almost every bathroom, from kindergarten through fifth grade, had become gender-neutral."

Every previous generation could have predicted that this would end in disaster, but with minds addled by wokeness and identity politics, the school staff somehow forgot some very fundamental facts about children--and human beings in general. Packer's description of the confusion experienced by the school children as a direct result of the decisions of deluded adults is genuinely sad to read: Where signs had once said boys and girls, they now said students. Kids would be conditioned to the new norm at such a young age that they would become the first cohort in history for whom gender had nothing to do with whether they sat or stood to pee. All that biology entailed--curiosity, fear, shame, aggression, pubescence, the thing between the legs--was erased or wished away...The school didn't inform parents of this sudden end to an age-old custom, as if there were nothing to discuss. 

Parents only heard about it when children started arriving home desperate to get to the bathroom after holding it in all day. Girls told their parents mortifying stories of having a boy kick open their stall door. Boys described being afraid to use the urinals. Our son reported that his classmates, without any collective decision, had simply gone back to the old system, regardless of the new signage: Boys were using the former boys' rooms, girls the former girls' rooms. 

This return to the familiar was what politicians call a "commonsense solution." It was also kind of heartbreaking. As children, they didn't think to challenge the new adult rules, the new adult ideas of justice. Instead, they found a way around this difficulty that the grown-ups had introduced into their lives. It was a quiet plea to be left alone.

Fortunately, at least some of the parents were outraged when they discovered what had taken place, and a crowd of them showed up at a PTA meeting to protest this policy, where they faced off with parents who proposed a series of profoundly stupid ideological solutions to the problem:

The parents in one camp declared that the school had betrayed their trust, and a woman threatened to pull her daughter out of the school. The parents in the other camp argued that gender labels--and not just on the bathroom doors--led to bullying and that the real problem was the patriarchy. One called for the elimination of urinals. It was a minor drama of a major cultural upheaval. The principal, who seemed to care more about the testing opt-out movement than the bathroom issue, explained her financial constraints and urged the formation of a parent-teacher committee to resolve the matter. After six months of stalemate, the Department of Education intervened: One bathroom would be gender-neutral.

It is interesting to note that it is again students--in this case children--who are pushing back against the delusions that adults are imposing on them. As I reported back in April, teenage girls have staged school walkouts to protest biological males identifying as females being permitted into their bathrooms. 

In Sussex, England recently, a large crowd of female students protested outside their high school, furious that the staff was enforcing a change to "gender neutral" uniforms and eliminating the traditional--and feminine--skirts. In Alberta, Canada, students rebelled against a gender-neutral bathroom policy and started a petition to demand a return to the old system. "I don't know whose idea this was," one student remarked bitterly, "but it wasn't a very good one." I sometimes wonder if the adults creating and imposing these policies remember anything at all about growing up, going through puberty, or being a teenager. Would they have wanted to sit in the bathroom stall next to the girl they had a crush on? Or vice versa? Would they have wanted to use the same change rooms as awkward teens from the opposite gender, just as their bodies were changing and they were trying to make sense of everything? 

Did they not stop to consider that essentially eliminating privacy for boys and girls--or pretending, with brazen asininity, that there is no difference between the two--would make difficult years even harder? Obviously the ideologues do not remember such things, or perhaps they have forgotten them. But perhaps it will be children and teens who will be forced, out of embarrassment and necessity, to lead the pushback. It is possible, after all, to force your ideology on to other people. But it is not possible to conform the natural world to your will, no matter how hard you try.

The 'Fastest Growing Church' in the World Is 'Spreading Like a Wildfire' in Iran: New Documentary

Large numbers of Iranian Muslims are walking away from Islam and toward Christianity, a new documentary says. According to the Frontier Alliance International Studios’ Sheep Among Wolves Volume II documentary, inside of Iran — a country where the majority of the citizens are Muslim — the “fastest-growing church” in the world is blossoming underground. 

One unidentified Iranian church leader even went as far as to say that “Islam is dead” in Iran. The church leader — who remained anonymous for their protection — asked, “What if I told you Islam is dead? What if I told you the mosques are empty inside Iran? What if I told you no one follows Islam inside of Iran? Would you believe me?” “This is exactly what is happening inside of Iran. God is moving powerfully inside of Iran,” the church leader asserted.

The church leader also shared that they believe that Ayatollah Khomeini is “the best evangelist for Jesus.”  “The ayatollahs brought the true face of Islam to light and people discovered it was a lie ... After 40 years under Islamic law — a utopia according to them — they’ve had the worst devastation in the 5,000-year history of Iran,” the leader said.

According to Fox News, the church is without buildings, property or central leadership, but still, it is steadily growing. The movement's aim is not to plant churches, but to grow discipleship. “The seismic shift that’s happened in the church of Iran is, when all these church planters found out that converts run away from persecution, but disciples would die for the Lord in persecution,” the church leader said.

"Disciples forsake the world and cling to Jesus 'till he comes. Converts don't. Disciples aren't engaged in a culture war. Converts are. Disciples cherish, obey, and share the word of God. Converts don't. Disciples choose Jesus over anything and everything else. Converts don't. Converts run when the fire comes. Disciples don't," the leader asserted.

The underground movement — which is pro-Israel and is largely led by women — is being dubbed by film director Dalton Thomas, the “Iranian Awakening.” One believer said in the video that they understand the danger of participating in the Iranian Awakening, but it is a risk they must take. “We know that if they get us, the first thing they will do to us as a woman is rape us and then they will beat us and ultimately they will kill us. “This is the decision we have made that we want to offer our bodies as sacrifices. Because I have this thought when I wake up, that when I leave, that door I might not come back."

Ransom Paid, but Kidnapped Pastor's Wife Is Killed in North-Central Nigeria

Muslim Fulani herdsmen this month kidnapped and killed a pastor’s wife in north-central Nigeria’s Kaduna state three days after suspected herdsmen killed a Baptist pastor in another part of the state, sources said.

Unaware that Esther Ishaku Katung had been killed after being kidnapped in Bagoma, 122 kilometers (75 miles) west of Kaduna City on Sept. 14, her family paid a 250,000 naira (US$690) ransom before discovering her body, said the Rev. Joseph Hayab, chairman of the Kaduna state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

Her husband, the Rev. Ishaku Katung of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) congregation in Bagoma, escaped but was wounded by gunfire when the herdsmen broke into their home on church premises at 11:30 p.m. as they slept, Pastor Hayab said.

“Information we got from some of the kidnapped victims who escaped from the herdsmen’s enclave shows that Esther Katung and two other victims had escaped from the herdsmen’s captivity, but she was recaptured by them,” Pastor Hayab told Morning Star News. “She attempted to escape with two others after they were kidnapped by the herdsmen; this infuriated the herdsmen, leading them to kill her. They broke her legs in order to prevent her from escaping and smashed her head too. This led to her death.”

The kidnappers dumped her corpse in the bush, he said.

“After they had killed her, they were still demanding the ransom without telling her family that they had killed her,” Pastor Hayab said. “It was only after the ransom was paid that it was found by her family that she had been killed by her abductors.” 

Baptist Pastor Slain 

In Jema’a County some 230 kilometers (142 miles) south of Kaduna City, suspected Muslim Fulani herdsmen shot a Baptist pastor dead on Sept. 11, sources said.

The Rev. Alhamdu Mangadus, pastor of Nasara Baptist Church in Asso, was killed while working on his farm at about 1 p.m., said the Rev. Danladi Boyis Hassan of the ECWA church in the Ungwan Kadara area of Kaduna City.

Given the high level of killings and kidnappings by Muslim Fulani herdsmen in southern Kaduna in recent years, Christian leaders suspect herdsmen killed the pastor. Pastor Hassan, a native of the slain pastor’s village, visited the area after the killing and was told that the assailants were Muslim Fulani herdsmen.

“Pray along with the church and family as they mourn the barbaric act by Fulani terrorists,” Pastor Hassan told Morning Star News.

Pastor Hayab of the CAN also said Fulani herdsmen were behind the killing.

“He was shot dead on his farm, and the attackers injured another fellow from Tanda,” he said. “The corpse of the pastor was taken away by the Fulani herdsmen but was eventually recovered in the bush after a frantic search by our brethren in the area.”

Pastor Hayab said the killing of the pastor was one too many for Christians in violence-wracked Kaduna state.

“We are going back to the era of senseless killings. When will people be safe to go out and seek food to feed their families?” he said.

Nigeria ranked 12^th on Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List of countries where Christians suffer the most persecution. 

Live Birth Abortions Continue To Happen In Canada

One of Canada's best pro-life bloggers is Pat Maloney, who writes at Run With Life and has consistently made use of Freedom of Access to Information Requests to uncover shocking and sobering information about Canada's ugly abortion regime. Her work on the issue of babies born alive in Canada after abortions and left to die, and her research into the 491 babies that survived abortions and subsequently died between 2000 and 2009 triggered a National Post investigation and a call by Members of Parliament for RCMP involvement. 

In a country where there are no legal restrictions on abortion from fertilization until birth, awful things are guaranteed to occur. Maloney has been fantastic at uncovering those horrors.

Her latest discovery is timely considering the fact that abortion, as always, is a hot topic in Canada's federal election (never in the history of the country has there been a "closed debate" that receives so much media attention, stump campaigning, and oppo research.) 

Canada's progressive politicians (who only campaign on their pro-abortion credentials in English and French, but ensure that their campaign literature in Punjabi, Urdu, and other common languages avoid all social conservative issues to avoid alienating new Canadians, who reliably tell pollsters that regardless of how they vote, they are very traditionalist in regard to their values.)  Research like Maloney's is very inconvenient to the progressive narrative of a compassionately pro-choice country: Live birth abortions continue to happen in Canada.

Here are the latest numbers of late term abortions in Canada from CIHI. There were 910 late-term (20 weeks and greater) stillbirths and 150 born alive abortions. ([See] previous years here.)

20 of these born alive abortions were greater than 25 weeks gestation.

107 of these born alive abortions were between 21 - 24 weeks gestation.

23 of these born alive abortions were 20 weeks gestation.

Note: These are for hospital abortions only and do not include clinics or physician's offices. These numbers also do not include late-term abortions done in Quebec. Think about this carefully for a moment: A "born alive abortion" means that the child was born, and then subsequently died, often in the presence of parents or medical personnel.  This is happening in Canada, while Justin Trudeau scampers across the country claiming that opposition to these sorts of things is evidence of a medieval mindset. His government is funding the death of these children around the world and in developing countries--and although he likes to claim that Canadians are in lockstep behind him on this issue, keep in mind that a full 80% of Canadians do not know that we have no restrictions on abortion. That means that the vast majority of people who are claiming to support Canada's abortion regime have no idea how brutal and extreme that regime actually is.

And that, of course, is why abortion activists will do everything to try and close this debate, including the censorship of billboards that simply read "Canada has no abortion laws." The supporters of Canada's abortion regime would like the discussion to be filled with rhetoric and devoid of facts--and they want to keep the babies who perish after being born out of sight, tucked away in medical bio-hazardous waste buckets or in dumpsters with lids shut tight. 

Maloney has reminded us once again that they were here, briefly, before dying before they could even see or enjoy this country that our politicians will spend the upcoming weeks bragging about. For them, the promise of Canada is a cruel joke.

Christian Persecution on the Rise in India with Over 200 Violent Incidents This Year, New Report Finds

Christians in India have endured a rapid increase of violent persecution with over 200 reports of incidents this year.

“The attacks are spread across the country and usually take the form of mob attacks, which can include interruptions to worship and prayer services, intimidation, verbal assault, and even death threats and violence,” Johanna Hohenberg, Communications Officer for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) told Faithwire.

ADF in India has discovered that 218 incidents have occurred this year. Despite the large number, only 25 police reports after the attacks have been filed. According to Hohenberg, the violence “rarely receives the police attention that it should.”

For many of these incidents, a mob will appear at a Christian gathering, shouting and beating up anyone in their way. Often, when the police arrive, the perpetrators are not arrested. The police instead bring in the pastors or priests under the false allegation of forced conversions, which is illegal in India.

“These are not isolated incidents and there has been an increase recorded this year—the average has risen from 20 to 27 per month since last year,” Hohenberg said.

Many watchdog groups point to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the increased persecution. Ever since the party rose to power in 2014, the attacks have more than doubled.

“The Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) documented 147 incidents of anti-Christian violence in 2014, the year the BJP took control of the central government,” International Christian Concern’s Regional Manager for South Asia, William Stark, said to Faithwire. “That number skyrocketed to 351 documented incidents in 2017 and then 325 documented incidents in 2018.”

According to Stark, the BJP uses divisive language to stir up trouble. “In their speeches, these leaders and politicians single out Christians and Muslims as followers of ‘foreign faiths’, individuals who are ‘anti-national’ and deserving of suspicion,” he said.

The attacks are often committed by radical Hindu nationalist groups who take the messages to heart. The police rarely take action to help victims after the violence and Christians are often unable to take legal action, though ADF is attempting to seek legal victories for survivors.

“Nobody should be persecuted because of their faith,” Hohenberg said. “It is very worrying to see these acts of mob violence not only continue but also increase. Special laws should be put in place in order to protect Christians and other religious minorities from these attacks and false accusations,” Hohenberg concluded.

Children Should Not Be Allowed to Medically Change Their Genders,' Says Johns Hopkins Professor

A psychiatry professor at Johns Hopkins University says children should not be allowed to medically change their genders because the treatments are similar to a “frontal lobotomies.”

“[Doctors] don’t have evidence that [the treatment] will be the right one,” said Dr. Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “Many people are doing what amounts to an experiment on these young people without telling them it’s an experiment," CBN News reports.

“You need evidence for that, and this is a very serious treatment. It is comparable to doing frontal lobotomies.”

McHugh said there could be longterm negative impacts in using the hormonal treatments used for gender transitions, which McHugh says are “reckless and irresponsible.”

McHugh said he believes that children struggling with gender dysphoria are likely dealing with mental health issues or “being driven by psychological and psychosocial problems.”

“I think their mental problems, often depression, discouragement, are the things that need treatment,” he said. “I’m not positive about this. It’s a hypothesis, but it is a very plausible hypothesis, and it would explain why many of the people who go on to have treatment of their body discover they are just as depressed, discouraged, and live just as problematic lives as they did before, because they did not address the primary problem.”

It’s also possible that children who transitioned early in life may “be in the hands of doctors for the rest of their lives,” he added.

McHugh warns that many trans-identifying young people may be “sterilized and not able to have their own children,” noting that he believes, “many will regret this.”

“Can you imagine having a life where you need to seek doctors all the time, for everything, just to live?” McHugh continued. “Getting your hormones checked, getting everything checked. That is something doctors should like to spare people of.”

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National Worship Centre is a centre where the Lord of hosts, the Lord God Almighty is worshipped in His majesty all the 24 hours. Per day 12 worship teams come to worship from different parts of the Nation. One slot consists of 2 hours. The opening of NWC also turns to be the trumpet sign to start the fatal war against satan to this Nation for Christ! Do you want to join this praising Army?

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Drone Warfare/Terrorism Only Just Beginning

The vulnerability of infrastructure to drone terrorism was just laid bare this week as ten drones launched by Iran-backed militants sparked a huge fire at the world's largest oil processing facility and a major oilfield in Saudi Arabia where over 5 percent of the world's daily supply is produced. Yemen's Houthi rebels, considered an Iranian proxy force in the region, have claimed responsibility for the attacks at Abqaiq in Buqayq, which contains the world's largest oil processing plant, and Khurais, which contains the country's second largest oilfield.  

The fires have now been brought under control but the disruption is still expected to have an impact on oil prices around the world as the flow of oil is disrupted with some estimates suggesting 50% of Saudi output could be temporarily affected. Last week Hamas militants used a drone to drop a bomb on the Israeli side of the Gaza-Israel perimeter fence hitting a military vehicle, marking the first time an attack occurred with a drone piloted from Gaza.

During the same time period Hezbollah shot down an Israeli drone performing reconnaissance over Lebanon and last month Iran shot down a US drone flying over the Strait of Hormuz, almost sparking a larger conflict. Drone and anti-drone conflict is on the rise worldwide and many experts fear the use of weaponized drones by lone individuals or small groups--some acting as proxies of nation-states, on US soil is only a matter of time.

The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have declared unmanned aerial systems, or drones, as one of the greatest national security threats to America -- rating it as severe a concern as cybersecurity hacks, critical infrastructure attacks, and terrorism. Civilian drones pose a "steadily escalating threat," as the devices are likely to be used by terrorists, criminal groups or drug cartels to carry out attacks in the U.S., FBI Director Christopher Wray previously told a Senate committee.

"The FBI assesses that, given their retail availability, lack of verified identification requirement to procure, general ease of use, and prior use overseas," drones will be used in an attack in the U.S. including "a mass gathering," Wray said. One nightmare scenario universally feared by law enforcement and security services is the use of a small drone to deliver chemical or biological agents in an attack. It is already well-established that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups have long sought to engineer a spectacular attack in the West using weapons of mass destruction. The possibility that drones could be used to disperse deadly agents or viruses over public gatherings is a harrowing prospect. Even if a drone attack fails to result in large numbers of fatalities, the attempt could still achieve an attacker's goal of perpetuating the psychological dimension of terrorism.

Sporting events are undoubtedly one of the top targets for a drone attack. Upwards of 100,000 people attend college football games. Open air stadiums used for football, soccer, baseball and other events such as music concerts are more vulnerable than domed stadiums as the crowd, players and coaches are not protected by a shield above. Drones are already used by transnational criminal syndicates and drug cartels. On the U.S.-Mexico border, drones are being used to spy on federal law enforcement operations and smuggle contraband through the sky. The first drug smuggling incident via drone was documented in Nov. 2015. Now, it's a daily occurrence in some regions of the southern border, but it's rarely reported because they are unable to seize the devices and arrests are rare.

Many countries are now using armed drones in combat--Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey have recently done so--the chances for sophisticated drone technology getting into the wrong hands increases exponentially. If a terrorist group can steal or purchase a drone from a rogue state or corrupt military or intelligence officials, then they could rely on the myriad online videos posted that essentially demonstrate how these unmanned systems could be used to conduct an attack.

In Syria, the Islamic State has successfully used drones to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance in addition to carrying out offensive actions like dropping explosives on an adversary's military base. The most well known drone attack was the attempt last year to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. That the drones were able to get so close to the leader at a public outdoor event in Caracas, Venezuela, speaks to how easy drones are to use--and how difficult they are to defend against. The most recent attack in Saudi Arabia was only 10 drones. More advanced militaries in China and Russia have already shown that drone swarms of 100 or more controlled by AI are possible and how they can defeat almost any defensive measure currently available. It is clear that a new era of warfare (& terrorism) is just getting started and we should expect more drone related conflicts in the days ahead.

Father’s House,

Brotherhood Missions,

4/364 E, Anna Salai 1st Cross Street,

ECR, Palavakkam, Chennai 600041.

Tamil Nadu, India.

National Worship Centre is a centre where the Lord of hosts, the Lord God Almighty is worshipped in His majesty all the 24 hours. Per day 12 worship teams come to worship from different parts of the Nation. One slot consists of 2 hours. The opening of NWC also turns to be the trumpet sign to start the fatal war against satan to this Nation for Christ! Do you want to join this praising Army?

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The Rising Tide Of Christian Antisemitism in America

Soon after I came to faith in Jesus in 1971 as a 16-year-old, drug-abusing, hippie rock drummer, my father said to me, "Michael, I'm glad to see the changes in your life, but we're Jews, and we don't believe in this." He introduced me to the new rabbi of our synagogue, fresh out of Jewish Theological Seminary, and the rabbi and I quickly became friends, a friendship that has lasted to this day. One of the first books the rabbi gave me detailed the history of antisemitism in the Church -- a shocking, painful, and often bloody history. It made for some very difficult reading, replete with disturbing quotes from famous Church fathers, Catholic popes, and the great reformer, Martin Luther. In the eyes of many Jews, there was a straight line from the Church Fathers to the Holocaust. How could this be?

Unaware of Our History

The Christians I had met had a great love for the Jewish people, even a reverential respect. And to this day, evangelical Christians are Israel's best friends. How could there be such a thing as "Christian" antisemitism? As an Iranian Christian once said to me, "You cannot love Jesus and hate the Jews!" One of the first books the rabbi gave me detailed the history of antisemitism in the Church -- a shocking, painful, and often bloody history.

Over the years, I discovered that many contemporary Christians were completely unaware of their painful history with the Jewish people. As expressed by the Catholic historian Edward Flannery in his book The Anguish of the Jews, "The vast majority of Christians, even well educated, are all but totally ignorant of what happened to Jews in history and of the culpable involvement of the Church. ... It is little exaggeration to state that those pages of history Jews have committed to memory are the very ones that have been torn from Christian (and secular) history books." This is what led me to write the book Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the 'Church' and the Jewish People, which came out in 1992 and has never gone out of print. Since I could relate to both Church and Synagogue, I wanted other Christians to feel the pain the Jewish people had felt.

Christian Philo-Semitism and a Rising "Christian" Antisemitism

But to be perfectly candid, in all my travels across America and around the world (almost always in evangelical circles), I witnessed very little "Christian" antisemitism first hand. To the contrary, I experienced an outpouring of philo-Semitism in nation after nation, from Mexico to Korea and from Kenya to India. And where I did see signs of "Christian" antisemitism, it was on the fringes. Not so today. It is rising again in some influential, Catholic circles as well as among evangelicals, some of whom seem obsessed with bashing the Jews. As I prepared to release an updated and revised edition of my book, what I discovered was chilling.

According to bestselling evangelical author Texe Marrs, "Of all the diseased schools of racial supremacism, I am convinced that the Jewish specimen is the most evil and most threatening to the lives, bodies, and eternal destinies of humankind." Yes, Marrs states, "Zionism has existed as a satanic ideological force in opposition to all things good and even to life itself for three thousand years."

Indeed, "Zionism and its accompanying religious disease, Judaism, are the champions of all time in terms of the total number of innocent men, women, and children being imprisoned in concentration camps, beaten, bludgeoned, raped, robbed, humiliated, and unmercifully slaughtered" (from his book Blood Covenant With Destiny: The Babylonian Talmud, the Jewish Kabbalah, and the Power of Prophecy).

"Synagogue of Satan"

Echoing these sentiments is evangelical broadcaster Rick Wiles on his TruNews TV network. He recently claimed that, "Our culture has been decimated through abortion, pornography, the sexual liberation movement, filthy, raunchy movies [and] television shows, vile, violent rap music and hip hop and all of it owned by the synagogue of Satan." Consequently, he opined, "I cannot be a preacher of the Gospel and not confront the synagogue of Satan, even if it costs me my life. A day is coming [when] Christians are going to lose their lives as they confront the synagogue of Satan. You cannot stand for Jesus Christ and righteousness in this world without confronting the synagogue of Satan." It's time we wake up to these harsh, disturbing realities and uproot these insidious lies once and for all.

So, not only are these nefarious Jews everywhere, they are deadly as well. To expose their evil deeds is to risk your life.

Echoing similar sentiments (albeit, with more erudition) is Catholic scholar E. Michael Jones, who opined that, "Jews are never content to integrate themselves into existing structures, whether those structures are states, universities, art museums or the military. They feel compelled to infiltrate and subvert the institutions which admit them as members." Consequently, "If the Church wants to have its history back, then it will have to contend with the Jews once again as the Apostles and the Church Fathers did 2000 years ago." (From his book The Jews and Moral Subversion.) And what, exactly, will it look like when the Church once again "contends" with "the Jews"?

Uproot Dangerous Antisemitic Lies

Jones, in turn, has influenced Owen Benjamin, a conservative comedian and professing Christian. As pointed out by Dexter Van Zile, Benjamin "declared that Jews use pornography to destroy the masculine strength of American men so that they will be unable to father children and have the courage to protect their families from Jewish control. 'It is literally by design so the West doesn't have kids,' he said, adding later, 'The Jews are only one percent of the population and yet they're in control of the media, all of banking, pornography, opioids.'"

These quotes represent but the tip of a very dangerous, lie-infested iceberg. And they reflect the alleged ideology of the Poway, California, synagogue shooter, who felt it was his Christian duty to slaughter the Jews. It's time we wake up to these harsh, disturbing realities and uproot these insidious lies once and for all. Antisemitism has no place in the heart or mind of a true Christian.

Father’s House,

Brotherhood Missions,

4/364 E, Anna Salai 1st Cross Street,

ECR, Palavakkam, Chennai 600041.

Tamil Nadu, India.

National Worship Centre is a centre where the Lord of hosts, the Lord God Almighty is worshipped in His majesty all the 24 hours. Per day 12 worship teams come to worship from different parts of the Nation. One slot consists of 2 hours. The opening of NWC also turns to be the trumpet sign to start the fatal war against satan to this Nation for Christ! Do you want to join this praising Army?

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Prophecy Unfolding: Israel & Iran Prepare For War                         

Are we about to see World War 3 erupt in the Middle East?  Over the past several days, Israel has attempted to prevent attacks by Iranian forces and their allies by striking targets in Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq.  

As you will see below, political leaders in both Lebanon and Iraq are now accusing Israel of a "declaration of war", and Hezbollah is pledging to strike Israel back extremely hard.  

Of course if a full-blown war erupts between Israel and one of her neighbors, it is likely to become a multi-front war almost immediately.  

But at the core, this is a conflict between Israel and Iran.  The Iranians have repeatedly pledged to wipe the nation of Israel off the face of the planet, and the coming "final war" is going to literally be a matter of life or death for those two nations.  

Both sides have been preparing for this "final war" for a very long time, and once it fully erupts the death and destruction that we will witness will be off the charts.

Just within the past few days, the fighting has escalated dramatically as the Israelis have conducted operations in four different territories...

Israeli forces openly claimed attacks over the weekend in Syria and the Palestinian-administered Gaza Strip and were blamed for two more operations in Lebanon and Iraq. As reports of what occurred across the region emerged, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at his country's ongoing efforts abroad, telling a Monday planning meeting that "we will deepen our roots and strike at our enemies."

The attacks in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq specifically targeted Iranian forces and their allies, and the goal was to prevent imminent attacks against Israel...

In Syria, Israeli warplanes killed two members of the Lebanese Hezbollah. Israel says the individuals were supporting an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plot to launch explosive-laden drones into Israel. 

The Israelis say that the specific Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps unit responsible was the Quds Force, led by Qassem Soleimani. If true, the Quds Force was likely using Hezbollah as a deniable proxy to avoid direct links between the plot and Tehran.

In another operation in Lebanon, Israel targeted another Iranian-allied group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. In Iraq, senior Iran-aligned figures accused Israel of another air strike.

Missiles are not flying directly back and forth between Israel and Iran yet, but at this point a state of war essentially exists, and many are deeply concerned about what is going to happen next.

In particular, it looks like Hezbollah could launch a large scale attack against Israel at any moment, because their leadership is absolutely furious that the Israelis just hit their headquarters building in Beirut...

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretary-general, threatened to attack Israel in retaliation for a drone attack over the weekend on the organization's headquarters in Beirut. Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah are now at their highest point since the 2006 war.

And the Lebanese government itself is extremely angry as well.  In fact, the president of Lebanon has publicly stated that what Israel has just done is essentially the equivalent of "a declaration of war"...

Lebanese President Michel Aoun met Monday with the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis, calling Israel's moves in Beirut and Qusaya "a declaration of war."

The statement echoed the words of Iraq's powerful Fateh Alliance, which called separate strikes that killed a militia commander in the border town of Al-Qaim "a declaration of war on Iraq and its people," according to the Associated Press.

This is an extremely serious situation.  Israel is literally on the brink of war with Hezbollah, and many feel that such a war is inevitable.

Meanwhile, a very powerful bloc in the Iraqi government has also accused Israel of "a declaration of war"...

A powerful bloc in Iraq's parliament has called for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, following a series of air raids targeting Iran-backed Shia militias in the country that have been blamed on Israel.

The Fatah Coalition said on Monday that it holds the United States fully responsible for the alleged Israeli aggression, "which we consider to be a declaration of war on Iraq and its people."

We had not seen the Israeli military strike targets in Iraq until just recently, and this latest attack has absolutely enraged the Shia militias.  During the funeral procession for the commander that was killed in the attack, some of the Shia fighters were actually trampling the American flag...

The Shia militia group, meanwhile, held a funeral procession in Baghdad for the commander killed on Sunday.

"There is no greater God but God!" the mourners shouted as they marched behind a banner with the words "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." Some trampled on an American flag as they marched.

Thousands of U.S. soldiers died, thousands more were injured, and we spent trillions of dollars in the process of "liberating" Iraq, and this is how they feel about us.

What a colossal waste.

Ultimately, nothing is going to be able to stop the massive war that is coming to the region.  The Iranians and all of their allies have a religiously-fueled hatred for Israel that most people living in the western world will never understand, and they are absolutely obsessed with permanently destroying the nation of Israel as it exists today.  

There will never be peace between the two sides, and the coming apocalyptic conflict will literally be a battle for national survival.

This can definitely be described as a time of "wars and rumors of wars", and the situation on the ground is extremely fluid right now.  The fact that the Israelis have another national election coming up adds another layer of complexity to all of this, and that election may cause events to accelerate even faster than many were anticipating.

Let us pray for peace, because right now tensions are extremely high and things are beginning to spiral out of control.

And when a full-blown war does break out, it is highly likely that the U.S. will get involved, and that will have enormous implications for all of us.

Father’s House,

Brotherhood Missions,

4/364 E, Anna Salai 1st Cross Street,

ECR, Palavakkam, Chennai 600041.

Tamil Nadu, India.

National Worship Centre is a centre where the Lord of hosts, the Lord God Almighty is worshipped in His majesty all the 24 hours. Per day 12 worship teams come to worship from different parts of the Nation. One slot consists of 2 hours. The opening of NWC also turns to be the trumpet sign to start the fatal war against satan to this Nation for Christ! Do you want to join this praising Army?

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The Push To Kill Cash - Next Up Is Australia                             

The supposed coordination of governments and tech companies to create a one-world, cashless society is often viewed as little more than fodder for silly YouTube conspiracy videos. After all, cash is still king in daily life, even in extremely high-tech, innovative societies like Japan. 

Upon closer examination, though, current realities like Australia's proposed cash transaction ban for 2020, the continuing removal of higher denomination bills from several world economies, and the creation of centralized, state cryptocurrencies by governments worldwide cannot be ignored.

These trends signal a global push to kill paper money in the name of safety, security, and financial inclusion.

You Can Pay, But It Better Be Our Way

Australia's "Black Economy Taskforce" wants to put people accepting over 10,000 AUD (~$6,750) in cash in the slammer for up to two years, or fine them up to 25,000 (~$16,890), in an ostensible bid to fight black market economies. The Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill 2019 states:

Transactions equal to, or in excess of this amount would need to be made using the electronic payment system or by cheque. The Black Economy Taskforce recommended this action to tackle tax evasion and other criminal activities.

Note the similarity here with talking points of other governments. India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, when announcing the devastating surprise removal of 86% of the country's circulating paper cash in 2016, proclaimed:

Black money and corruption are the biggest obstacles in eradicating poverty. Not surprisingly, Modi's shock move put the dominantly cash-based society in a panic, forcing people to take their now worthless 1,000 and 500 rupee notes to banks within 50 days of the announcement, to exchange them for smaller denominations. Now The Royal Bank of India is moving to ban all cryptocurrencies but one, the state-approved, digital rupee.

The removal of large cash bills is a worldwide, ongoing reality, with the European Central Bank (ECB) stopping production of the 500 euro note earlier this year. The note, dubbed by the media as "the Bin Laden," was said to be used disproportionately in financing terrorism. 

The U.S. used to have banknotes worth $500 and higher as well, some which were known as gold certificates, entitling the bearer to physical gold upon redemption. As fractional reserve banking took over, however, and national debt increased, these systems were progressively abandoned. The trend continues today in the form of Negative Interest Rate Policy (NIRP), and the resultant push for digitization of money.

Stop Holding Cash and Take Our Debt

"If everyone is holding cash, negative interest rates become useless." These are the words of former People's Bank of China (PBOC) governor Zhou Xiaochuan after the Chinese government had just completed a trial run of their new national cryptocurrency back in 2017. Now the country's sovereign digital currency is "almost ready." Zhou has also officially stated:

At the current stage, the central bank's major goal of issuing digital currency is to replace the physical cash.

Earlier in the same interview, he maintained that "The cost for cash transaction will gradually increase in the later stage. 

For instance, banks do not charge any fee for counting a large amount of coins now, but in the future they may charge their clients for such services." Zhou's remarks about negative interest rates are arguably the biggest giveaway as to what is going on here. If people are holding cash outside of banks, reckless, Keynesian NIRP policies won't have the desired effect of coercing spending in the populace.

New Zealand Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr agrees with Zhou:

Let's tax cash holdings, simple as that: we're back to monetary policy as usual; people are disincentivised to be holding large lumps of physical cash; they are having to think harder about putting money to work. While draconian government monetary policy is alarming, the lack of support for actual financial sovereignty in the crypto and tech space is indicative of another problem. 

Government's designs on eliminating paper money and fighting permissionless, decentralized crypto exchange -- both moves to control money supply and populations of individuals -- are obvious, and to be expected. But even big tech companies and exchanges like Facebook and Binance are jumping on the propaganda bandwagon, dragging many well-meaning enthusiasts into the fight against financial freedom (even if unintentionally) right along with them.

"We believe that we all have a responsibility to help advance financial inclusion, support ethical actors, and continuously uphold the integrity of the ecosystem." - Libra whitepaper

"This is why we believe in and are committed to a collaborative process with regulators, central banks, and lawmakers..." - Facebook's David Marcus

"Binance is looking to create new alliances and partnerships with governments, corporations, technology companies, and other cryptocurrency companies and projects involved in the larger blockchain ecosystem, to empower developed and developing countries to spur new currencies." - Binance's 'Venus' announcement

The common theme here is eager compliance with Keynesian value destroyers. And these examples are illustrative of the true financial epidemic.

Forced 'Perfection'

Digital currencies really are extremely convenient. Everybody in the world really should have a chance at financial inclusion. Holding wads of paper cash and coins really can be a bother, as well as a safety hazard, where crime is concerned. 

In Finland, passengers on state railways won't be able to purchase tickets with cash for long-distance trips, starting in September. Much easier than messing with the paper stuff. ATMs are becoming less common worldwide, even in countries like China, the U.S., and cash-obsessed Japan. Settlements and payments can be made effortlessly, though, with just a quick scan or entering a PIN, so it's no big deal. But this is not a perfect world. Governments are corrupt. Artificial monopolies and seas of red tape exist, keeping the life-threateningly impoverished and entrepreneurial from accessing crypto and banking services via strict KYC and AML policy, and by mandating, like Modi in India, that their hard-earned and hard-saved money is worthless. People already have the opportunity for extreme financial inclusion. 

A $40 smartphone and an internet connection enables anyone, anywhere in the world, to make or receive money with Bitcoin. In the name of regulation, safety, and financial inclusion, however, the state makes the situation more chaotic, less safe, and extremely exclusive where real human need is concerned.

Some of us crazy people still like paper cash, and prefer to pay that way. Some annoying, behind-the-times Luddites still put money in their mattresses, where global financial policy turns more and more toward negative rates, continued inflation, and devaluation of money sitting in banks.  Some entrepreneurs and tech-savvy fans of crypto simply think it's nobody else's business, preferring paper wallets, coin shuffling, and VPNs, in a world where everyone but those in power are presumed guilty until proven innocent. 

Some of us "conspiracy nuts" just like crypto for crypto, and paper cash is still closer to that clean and private model than any slimy, centralized digital state currency could ever hope to be.

Christians Beg for Government Protection after Nigerian Pastor Is Killed in Cold Blood, His Wife Abducted

A Nigerian pastor has been killed in cold blood while traveling along a dangerous stretch of highway with his wife and child. Kaduna pastor Jeremiah Omolara of Living Faith Church was gunned down and his wife was abducted when militants stopped the family’s car on the notorious Abuja-Kaduna Highway Sunday evening.

According to Nigerian outlet The Punch, the pastor’s son was miraculously able to escape the brutal assault. The captors, however, are demanding a staggering $137,500 ransom for the release of Omolara’s wife, whose life is currently in grave danger.

The chairperson of the Christian Association of Nigeria’s Kaduna chapter, Joseph Hayab, confirmed the details of the horrific incident and urged security forces to do more to protect the Christian population in light of a spree of additional attacks.

"Now the Living Faith Church pastor was killed along Kaduna-Abuja in the presence of his wife, who was later abducted," Hayab explained, according to the Daily Post Nigeria. "That tells you that the new trend is to attack us in our homes or in our churches or on the roads. We are just not safe anywhere and we are asking the same question we have been asking: 'where are our security agencies?'"

Hayab continued to plead with security agencies to help the Christian population, which remains under siege from militants, including the fierce Islamic terror organization Boko Haram.

“Are we being told tactically that we should defend ourselves?" Hayab asked. "If we start defending ourselves, it means that we no longer have security or we no longer have government. Or is this government only for those they love and they don’t care about others?"

On Wednesday, two female Boko Haram suicide bombers killed three civilians and wounded eight more after detonating their explosives while walking through crowds in the town of Mafa, according to the Defense Post.

Boko Haram’s vicious war against anything non-Islamic has claimed the lives of more than 30,000 people over the past decade, according to the BBC. Indeed, with new links developed with the so-called Islamic State and a rejuvenated mission to kill and destroy, the heavily-armed group appears to be going nowhere anytime soon – unfortunately, this means that the threat to Nigerian Christians is likely to remain extremely high. 

Foreign Christians Arrested on Charges of 'Converting' in Nepal

NEW DELHI, Aug. 8, 2019 (Morning Star News) – A Christian from South Korea arrested in Nepal on charges of “attempting to convert” was released on bail on Wednesday (Aug. 7), sources said.

Cho Yusang, a 73-year-old evangelical Christian, posted bail of 150,000 Nepalese rupees (US$1,330) after being arrested on July 23. His health deteriorated after he was incarcerated, and he had been hospitalized, said Tanka Subedi, chair of the Religious Liberty Forum Nepal (RLFN).

On Monday (Aug. 5), Subedi told Morning Star News that Cho had been released from hospital care.

“Though he was out of hospital, he was feeling dizzy this morning also,” Subedi said. “His health is still not good. He does not want to go back to the hospital, because he does not have much money left. He does not have insurance cover to pay his bills.”

In Nepal on a business visa, Cho was also charged with misuse of visa.

The charge of “attempting to convert” under Section 158 (1) of the Nepal Penal Code of 2017 calls for as much five years in jail and/or a fine of up to 50,000 Nepalese Rupees (US$445), according to Subedi.

Cho and two other foreigners working separately from him were found involved in conversion activity in Pokhara, in central Nepal, Raj Kumar KC, spokesperson of the District Police Office in Kaski, reportedly said.

Police arrested Cho for allegedly distributing leaflets and Bibles in the Barachi area of Kaski District, in Gandaki Pradesh Province, KC told the Kathmandu, Nepal-based news outlet Republica. The police spokesman said officers also arrested two Japanese nationals, Jehova's Witnesses unaffiliated with Cho, in the Ratna area of the same district on the same charges.

KC reportedly said their arrest shows that “some foreigners do not come with good intentions,” and that they would be charged with proselytizing.

B.P. Khanal, national coordinator of Nepal for the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief [IPPFoRB], told Morning Star News that after arresting Cho from his lakeside lodging, police raided his room and confiscated some Bibles and Christian literature.

Khanal, who is responsible for inter-faith relations for the Nepal Christian Society, said possession of a Bible and Christian literature is not evidence of a crime.

“In this case the law is discriminatory, because it is not an offense to have Bibles in your room,” Khanal told Morning Star News. “The recovery of some Bibles and Christian literature from Yusang’s personal belongings is projected as an offense and as a crime Yusang committed. Anybody can have a Bible – it is not a drug or an explosive. Carrying a Bible should not be and must not be a criminal offense.”

The Nepal Christian Society has hired an attorney for Cho, he said. 

U.S. Citizen Charged 

Earlier, in Basgadhi of Bardiya District, police on June 21 arrested U.S. citizen Bradley Navarro Anagaran on a charge of possessing Christian literature, according to the RLFN.

When local pastor Hira Singh Sunar went to the police station to inquire about his arrest, officers arrested him as well, according to an RLFN statement. Both Anagaran and Pastor Sunar were charged with “attempting to convert,” it stated. 

Anagaran was found with two discipleship leaflets designed for use within a church circle, Christian sources said.

“Apart from the literature on discipleship, police have confiscated a few pairs of reading glasses from his backpack, which means that the police did not find him distributing the literature to anybody,” Khanal of the IPPFoRB said.

The two Christians were moved from district headquarters of Gulariya to Bansgadhi police station. They were released on bail on July 3, and Anagaran has returned to the United States, but he must return for a hearing at the end of this month and every court date thereafter, Subedi of the RLFN said.

“I personally don’t know how he will be able to do that, as it is a great financial burden to travel every time for his court date from the United States to Nepal,” Subedi told Morning Star News. “The court procedures in Nepal take several years and are tiresome.”

A team from the Nepal Christian Society in Kathmandu, including Khanal, went to speak with local officials.

“We met with about 60 local pastors and mobilized prayer, as well as formed a task force,” Khanal said. “We met Bradley and Sunar inside the jail and comforted them. We met the police inspector who arrested Bradley, the deputy superintendent of police, chief district officer and the prosecuting attorney to discuss how the charges in the case could be minimized, for there was no ‘conversion attempt’ in the case at all.”

After the initial order for a week’s remand ended, police kept them in custody while extending the investigation for no apparent reason, sources said.

“Both Bradley and Sunar were being kept in a miserable condition while in custody,” read an RLFN newsletter. “They were treated as criminals even though they had not committed any crime.”

The Rev. Mukunda Sharma, spokesperson of the RLFN, was a part of the team visiting the duo in jail. He urged human rights and diplomatic officials to support them.

Khanal issued a plea for foreigners visiting Nepal to refrain from doing anything that will land them in legal trouble. He said that sharing the gospel where there are already local churches should not be taken up by Christians from other countries.

“Their role can be to inspire, educate and train local churches if they really want the bring the gospel to the people,” he said. “Let the local church in their local language share the gospel.”

As the Nepal Christian Society is taking up an increasing number of legal cases, he asked that the international Christian community pray for those accused under Nepal’s new criminal code.

An increase in persecution of Christians in Nepal began after a new criminal code was passed in October 2017, which took effect in August 2018. 

Targeting Christians 

Pastor Sagar Baiju, a senior Christian leader in the country, said that such incidents make it clear that government officials, police and politicians are targeting Christians.

“Unless this new law is revoked, such incidents will continue to increase in Nepal,” Baiju told Morning Star News. “When I travel to foreign counties, I carry my identity with me – and my identity is that I am a Nepali, but apart from being a Nepali, I am a Christian, so I always carry my Bible with me. How is it a crime, when foreign tourists come to Nepal to tour the country or to visit their friends, and carry their Bible in their hands?”

People of other religions erect huge tents, gather in large numbers and use loud sound systems for worship, and the lawmakers do not question them, he said.

“All the schools in Nepal have their morning devotions according to the faith that the school authorities follow," he said. "In schools run by Hindus, they make the children perform Saraswati Vandana [a common Hindu mantra] in their morning devotion, and nobody objects to it. Then why is it a crime, if a Christian school makes the children say The Lord’s Prayer in the assembly? Why are objections raised and Christians ghettoized as criminals?”

There is a need for Christians to unite and raise the issue with a single voice, he said.

“A hospital owned by a Hindu has a big Hindu temple inside the premises,” he said. “They are free to write Hindu scriptures on the walls of the hospital and nobody objects. But if a Christian hospital has a Bible inside the hospital or a Bible verse hung on any wall, we are accused of preaching our religion, and the authorities running the hospital are in trouble.”

Nepal was ranked 32nd on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. 

Father’s House,

Brotherhood Missions,

4/364 E, Anna Salai 1st Cross Street,

ECR, Palavakkam, Chennai 600041.

Tamil Nadu, India.

National Worship Centre is a centre where the Lord of hosts, the Lord God Almighty is worshipped in His majesty all the 24 hours. Per day 12 worship teams come to worship from different parts of the Nation. One slot consists of 2 hours. The opening of NWC also turns to be the trumpet sign to start the fatal war against satan to this Nation for Christ! Do you want to join this praising Army?

Book your slots

Tel : 7708505152

Email ID: worshipcentreindia@gmail.com

Praise God for the successful completion of  21040 slots in National Worship Centre with a Non Stop Worship (24/7)

Vice President Mike Pence Is Criticized for Saying He Prays for His Critics

Vice President Mike Pence, who has been routinely criticized for his faith, said he handles such attacks by praying for his critics—which garnered him a few more.

"No. 1 is, spend more time on your knees than on the internet," Pence said during an Aug. 6 Q & A session with Michael Farris, president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom. The gathering included ADF staff.

The vice president went on to talk about the power of forgiveness.

"As a Christian believer, we’re charged to pray for our loved ones but also pray for our enemies,” Pence said.

“You have lots of opportunities in politics to do that," he said. "But I would say that forgiveness is a great gift, and my wife and I literally try to work through forgiving people who might speak woefully against us or might mischaracterize who we are and what our family’s all about,” he said.

Since taking office Pence has been targeted numerous times for his biblical approach to living.

As covered by Christian Headlines early in the Trump administration, the vice president was ripped on social media for saying he protects his marriage by avoiding situations where he is alone with a woman.

Earlier this year, 2020 Democrat presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana while Pence was governor of the state, challenged the vice president’s biblical view of marriage and mocking his Christian faith, Christian Headlines previously reported.

And in January, Pence’s wife, Karen, was criticized for taking a teaching job at a Christian school in Virginia that has a “moral purity” policy that prohibits LGBT students and faculty.

During his talk with ADF, Pence admitted he and his wife were taken aback by the reaction to her job.

“We honestly didn’t see that one coming,” the vice president said. “Our kids went to the school when I was in Congress.”

Not long after the conversation with ADF, Twitter users began mocking Pence’s comment on prayer, some twisting the intent of spending “more time on your knees.” Comments quickly turned sexual, including an obscene cartoon of Pence with President Trump, and a retort by Monica Lewinsky, the intern who had an affair with President Bill Clinton while he was in office. Others made reference to the NFL players’ protest of taking a knee during the national anthem.

Author Sasha Strachan used the NFL controversy as a backdrop to challenge Pence’s faith and call the president racist.

Another user, calling himself the Tattooed Theologian, also took a swipe at Pence’s faith and integrity, saying: “On your knees...That sounds pretty authoritarian to me. I don't have to be on my knees to pray.

“@VP should spend some time reading the #Gospels. If he did, he wouldn't be supporting @realDonaldTrump.”

Comedian and atheist Paula Poundstone dismissed praying outright saying, “I will spend no time on my knees.”

During his conversation with ADF, Pence said that when he’s in the midst of criticism he tries “just focusing on the cause.”

“I really do think it's important that we stay focused on things that are more important than ourselves, that are more important than any intermittent controversy that might arise,” he told Farris. “And for me, that's about being a part of an administration, standing next to a president that's rebuilding our military, who's revived our economy, who's appointing a historic number of conservatives to our federal courts, who's standing, as I said, for our first freedom, for religious liberty, for the right to life. I get up every day and I just... I feel incredibly blessed to be a small part of an administration that is making America great again. So focus on the positive.”

Ironically, a portion of the discussion at the ADF event also included the topic of religious liberty and free speech, especially on America’s colleges and universities.

“Whenever I was governor or vice president... I see somebody waving an unflattering sign, or we... Some people shouting something out. I always look at my kids and I say, ‘That's what freedom looks like.’
“That's what freedom sounds like, right? And the ability to disagree, the ability to be critical of people that are in public life, that's at the very center of what the people that founded this country had in mind and has been preserved through the generations. And we have to make sure it's preserved on the campuses of America.”

16 Percent of Christians Think the Church Should Apologize for America's Racist Past

According to a new study undertaken by Barna research group, just a tiny fraction of the American church feels obliged to repent of the country’s racist past.

In Barna’s latest publication entitled, “Where Do We Go from Here?,” just over 1,500 practicing Christians were asked what they believe should be done to make amends for the decades of racist history that plagued the United States.

Respondents were presented with several different answers to choose from, including nothing, "repair the damage, "repent," "pursue restitution," "lament," and "don't know." Shockingly, just 16 percent of American Christians asserted that the Church needed to repent for America's racist history of slavery and segregation.

Among African-American participants, the percentage of those who believe repentance to be the way forward was at 24 percent, whereas among the white respondents it plummeted to just 13 percent.

Interestingly, some 26 percent of all respondents indicated they "don't know" when asked about what the church’s response should be to historical racism, perhaps indicating a lack of insight or understanding on the issue.

"This could represent confusion over the specific options provided, which range from the symbolic to the material, or it could simply be a way of saying respondents are unsure what should — or even what can — be done by churches to help with racial reconciliation," Barna noted.

In light of the survey’s results, well-known left-leaning Christian leader, Jim Wallis told the Christian Post that “until the Church, notably the white Church, acknowledges its history and complicity with racism, we cannot move towards healing.”

Often, white Christians “refuse to recognize that racism is more than a problem from the past,” Wallis added, before noting that “until the operative word in 'white Christian' is Christian, we won’t move towards a place of healing.”

Wallis insisted that an active repentance “for the sin of racism” will “bring congregations together." 

Father’s House,

Brotherhood Missions,

4/364 E, Anna Salai 1st Cross Street,

ECR, Palavakkam, Chennai 600041.

Tamil Nadu, India.

National Worship Centre is a centre where the Lord of hosts, the Lord God Almighty is worshipped in His majesty all the 24 hours. Per day 12 worship teams come to worship from different parts of the Nation. One slot consists of 2 hours. The opening of NWC also turns to be the trumpet sign to start the fatal war against satan to this Nation for Christ! Do you want to join this praising Army?

Book your slots

Tel : 7708505152

Email ID: worshipcentreindia@gmail.com

Praise God for the successful completion of  21000 slots in National Worship Centre with a Non Stop Worship (24/7)