Tag Archives: Religious Liberty

News

China church leaders blocked from attending Lausanne Congress

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Story here from Christian Today. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

China’s government is preventing Christian leaders in the country from attending a major international gathering of mission-minded leaders by stopping them as they reach the airport and confiscating their passports.

While it is unclear how many Chinese Christian leaders have been stopped so far, more than 230 were invited to go to the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation in Cape Town, South Africa.

On Sunday, five members of China’s “underground” church in Beijing were blocked from leaving the country from Beijing International Airport and at least one was detained.

Liu Guan, one of the five, told Hong Kong-based newspaper Ming Pao News that border inspectors refused to let them go through after seeing information about the Lausanne Congress on their passport visas. Shortly after, five or six government security officers arrived along with other authorities who seized their luggage and confiscated their passports.

Though Liu reported that the law enforcement officers were polite and that there were no conflicts between the two sides, he was not allowed to board the plane and was sent home about three hours later. Liu’s passport and those of his colleagues will not be returned to them until October 25 – the last day of the Lausanne Congress.

In another report, Texas-based ChinaAid Association said one house church Christian was blocked from flying out of Shanghai International Airport, though another was cleared and is en route to South Africa.

According to the Christian persecution watchdog group, which has been monitoring the situation closely, around 1,000 law enforcement officers have been assigned to restrain would-be Lausanne delegates from China and prevent them from boarding the planes.

According to ChinaAid sources, all of the 200 or so house church representatives who were invited to attend the Lausanne Congress – whether Uyghur Christians from Xinjiang or Han Christians from Beijing – have been contacted by authorities for questioning.

Religious liberty is not a guaranteed right in many parts of the world. The main Lausanne Congress web site is here.

News

Frank Turek lists ten alleged facts about same-sex marriage

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The article is here on One News Now. (H/T Owen)

Excerpt:

When one judge overturned the will of more than seven million Californians last week in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, he listed 80 supposed “findings of fact” (FF) as evidence that Proposition 8 violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Many of those 80 findings are not facts at all. They’re lies or distortions.

Here’s my favorite of the 10:

5. “Proposition 8 does not affect the First Amendment rights of those opposed to marriage for same-sex couples.” (FF 62) It’s too bad Judge Walker didn’t look to evidence from Massachusetts for this false fact. If he had he would have seen that court-imposed same-sex marriage has severely affected First Amendment rights. Same-sex marriage may not affect heterosexual marriage behavior quickly, but it certainly affects the free exercise of religion very quickly.

Parents in Massachusetts now have no right to know when their children are being taught about homosexuality in grades as low as kindergarten, neither can they opt their kids out (one parent was even jailed overnight for protesting this). Businesses are now forced to give benefits to same-sex couples regardless of any moral or religious objection the business owner may have. The government also ordered Catholic Charities to give children to homosexuals wanting to adopt. As a result, Catholic Charities closed their adoption agency rather than submit to an immoral order. Unfortunately, children are again the victims of the morality that comes with same-sex marriage.

“But you can’t legislate morality!” some say. Nonsense. Not only do all laws legislate morality, sometimes immorality is imposed by judges against the will of the people and in violation of religious rights. There is no neutral ground here. Either we will have freedom of religion and conscience, or we will be forced to adhere to the whims of judges who declare that their own distorted view of morality supersedes our rights — rights that our founders declared self-evident.

Think I’m overreacting? If this decision survives and nullifies all democratically decided laws in the 45 states that preserve natural marriage, religious rights violations in Massachusetts will go nationwide. In fact, it’s poised to happen already at the federal level. President Obama recently appointed gay activist Chai Feldblum to the EEOC. Speaking of the inevitable conflict between religious rights and so-called gay rights, Feldblum said, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

Read the other nine here. Some of them I’ve mentioned before.

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News

Dearborn police publicizes Christian evangelist’s home address

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From David Wood of Acts 17 Apologetics.

Excerpt:

When Dearborn gets angry at someone, they don’t mess around. Last year, Nabeel and I exposed the thug tactics of Arab Festival security. (They were using these tactics against many other Christians; we just caught their actions on tape.) What was the response this year? Festival volunteer Roger Williams lied about us. Police lied about us (see here, here, and here). Even the Mayor lied about us (see here, here, here, and here). They threw us in jail on false charges and launched a smear campaign against us.

But they were just getting warmed up. Through the Freedom of Information Act, anyone can request our police reports. Before releasing our reports, however, police are supposed to block out our personal information, such as home addresses. Not long ago, someone forwarded me the report being released by the Dearborn Police Department. Nabeel’s address, Negeen’s address, and Paul’s address had all been taken out. My full name and home address, however, were prominently displayed on page six of the report! This is disturbing, as I know that Muslims now have access to the report.

Why would police include my personal information in the report being sent to the public? If you recall, I’m the one who made a video publicly rebuking Police Chief Haddad. Is this deliberate retaliation from Dearborn Police, or a mere oversight? Either way, police have endangered my family. I fully accept that I’m in a risky ministry, and that Muslims may kill me one day. But I try to make sure my family is safe, and Dearborn just drew a map for Muslims who want to invade my home.

The rest of the post shows some of the death threats received by Acts 17 from Muslims.

So the Chief of Police is basically deliberately endangering the lives of David Wood and his entire family by exposing them to reprisals from violent Muslims. I’m sure the media will be all over this story, too.