“Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit against Augusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling student told that her Christian beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. The student, Jennifer Keeton, has been told to stop sharing her beliefs with others and that she must change her beliefs in order to graduate from the counseling program.”

Augusta State officials ordered Keeton to undergo ‘re-education’ including “diversity sensitivity training,” remedial reading, and to complete additional papers describing the impact on her beliefs. She was also ordered to attend gay-related events, including the Augusta Gay Pride parade.

Keeton is pursuing a master’s degree in counseling at Augusta State. She has been told that if she does not change her beliefs that the university plans to expel her from the Counselor Education Program. Here’s a response from ADF Senior Counsel David French:

“A public university student shouldn’t be threatened with expulsion for being a Christian and refusing to publicly renounce her faith, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform. Abandoning one’s own religious beliefs should not be a precondition at a public university for obtaining a degree. This type of leftist zero-tolerance policy is in place at far too many universities, and it must stop. Jennifer’s only crime was to have the beliefs that she does.”

Response: It really is incredible that a public university in America would openly persecute a Christian student like this. Most of the time the treatment is far more subtle.

Is the Christian faith really ‘unethical and incompatible’ with the counseling profession? Already in this country, Christian doctors and health care workers are being challenged to participate in abortions whether it is against their personal beliefs or not.

It does indicate that Christians may be in for a rough ride in the future as our religious beliefs conflict with current policies and the prevailing culture. With the new health care bill on the horizon and recent legal upgrades to gay rights, Christians may be facing increasing difficulty in certain professions in the future.            *Top of the Blog

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Here’s a Muslim leader speaking out in defense of Christians who seem to be under assault by creeping secularism everywhere in the UK.

Muslim Imam Taj Hargey wrote in a national newspaper about the virulent secularism which is targeting Christian believers:

“We do have an undercurrent of hostility towards religion and particularly to Christianity because Christianity is after all the major faith of this country.”

In respect to Islam, he points out that Muslims are allowed to wear hijabs while Christians have been persecuted lately in a number of different instances for wearing crosses in the health care industry. Also he professes that Muslims should respect Christianity in the UK and not try to impose Islamic sharia law:

“We should not be trying to impose our values system in this Christian heritage country. I myself as an Imam of an Islamic congregation, we don’t believe that Sharia law should come here.”

Meanwhile, he wonders where the Christian leaders and Bishops are and chides them for not better supporting their own community:

“I would expect church leaders, whether it’s the archbishop or bishops or lay ministers, to speak out more firmly about the fact that their faith and religion as a whole is being sidelined.”

Response: Truth and wisdom like this usually comes out of the mouth of babes. It is an unexpected pleasure that an Muslim Imam would speak out this way. He is putting the Christian leaders to shame.

While we are at it, where is the Archbishop of Canterbury and all of the UK bishops when you need them. One would think that they would be speaking out in support of Christianity and the believers in their country rather than being so ‘politically correct’ all of the time that they seem to have lost their own unique Christian witness and testimony.           *Top of the Blog

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It is illegal for a Muslim to convert to Christianity in Egypt. Here’s a Compass Direct interview with Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary who along with his daughter lives a life under constant threat, in hiding, and on the run in Egypt since he converted from Islam to Christianity.

As he was being interviewed, the Friday service from the Mosque across the street was blaring from its mineret loudspeakers a message from the local imam on how to treat Christians:

“Do not shake their hands. Do not go into their homes. Do not eat their food. …”

El-Gohary remarks:

“I hope one day to live in a place where there are no mosques. How many megaphones do they need?”

This is the story of a man who cannot work and is afraid to even go to church or shop at the neighborhood market. His daughter doesn’t go to school or have any friends and had acid thrown on her on one occasion. Since they abandoned Islam and converted to Christianity nearly two years ago El-Gohary has been beaten, forcibly detained, his daughter has been attacked and he has had to endure death threats, poverty, and isolation.

This is the existence of a Christian convert in Egypt and not at all unique. Read the complete disturbing story.           *Top

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Pakistan is currently blocking the popular Facebook page:  “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!”

The page is encouraging Facebook users to post their own images of the prophet on May 20. The site was put up as a protest against radical Muslims who threatened the creators of “South Park” for depicting Muhammad in an episode earlier this year. The threats were successful in getting cowardly Comedy Central administrators to censor the show.

On Tuesday the Pakistani government ordered Internet service providers in the country to block the Facebook page. However, on Wednesday a Pakistani court ordered the government to block Facebook entirely because of the ‘insult’. Meanwhile, Pakistani student are said to be rallying and protesting the page.

Response: There is no freedom of speech in Muslim dominated countries, especially when it comes to Islam. Any supposed ‘insult’ can get you arrested and even killed. Islam does not allow depictions of their prophet so that can get you in real trouble in a Muslim country.

Meanwhile associated Islamic states are trying to get the UN to recognize their Islamic ‘blasphemy’ laws which would make it illegal to criticize Islam in any form all around the world. There are some concerns that the Obama administration is not aggressive enough in opposition and may accommodate the Muslim UN demands.

If so-called ‘blasphemy’ laws were passed in the UN, then folks who criticize Islam in any way would be breaking international law and would be subject to the world courts. This could have serious consequences for Christian missionaries and teachers around the world. In some countries, merely preaching the Gospel is considered an implied insult to Islam.                 *Top

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Literally we could post a story nearly every day exposing Christian persecution in Pakistan. Here are two recent stories from Compass Direct News:

47 Christian Falsely Accused by Police

This one happened on Palm Sunday:  47 Christians including women and children were falsely accused by police of violating Pakistani alcohol laws and one home was ransacked by the local police looking for bribes from the poor Christian community.

Christian Chapel Attacked

RCDM Church was attacked by Islamists on Good Friday and 3 Christians were held hostage. Meanwhile the radicals ransacked the church, tore up Bibles and attacked and looted nearby Christian homes. Then they held a family hostage until police broke up the attack. The authorities were going to let the perpetrators go at first but finally did charge the 10 assailants including the 4 burqa-clad women who participated in the attack.              *Top

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Is the state government  supporting the persecution of Christians in Karnataka, India? According to one researcher, a former member of the Karnataka high court, it is.

There have been an incredible number of incidents of persecution against Christians in the state in the last 500 days–over 1,000 ranging from beatings to the destruction of church property.

The most recent attack took place at a Christian funeral last  Wednesday (March 17), when a mob of around 150 people led by the Hindu extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) refused to allow an Indian Christian to be buried on Indian soil, suggesting they send him to Rome or the USA instead.

The mob attacked the service and tore apart the coffin and desecrated the cross throwing the body onto a tractor. Later the funeral did take place with the support of the local police.

Most of the time the local government authorities have not been helpful but seem to go out of the way to support the radicals bringing on the persecution. The state government of Karnataka is currently dominated by members of the radical Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The attacks on Christians started unabated since the BJP came to power in May 2008.

Michael Saldanha, a former judge of the Karnataka High Court, conducted the ‘People’s Tribunal Enquiry’ into the attacks on Christians in Karnataka on behalf of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties’ Dakshina Kannada district chapter, the Catholic Association of South Kanara (another name for Dakshina Kannada) and the Karnataka Chapter of Transparency International. Saldanha blames the BJP run state government on the persecution:

“Attacks are taking place every day.”

“On Jan. 26 – the day we celebrated India’s Republic Day – Karnataka’s 1,000th attack took place in Mysore city.”

“I have been to many police stations where complaints of [forced] conversions have been lodged against Christians, and when I asked the police why they were acting on frivolous complaints, most of them told me that they had orders from above.”

“Numerous others have been threatened and beaten up,” the report states. “The police are totally out of control, with the lower judiciary having abdicated its constitutional obligation of safeguarding the citizens’ rights particularly from a tyrannical state machinery, while the state government proclaims that everything is peaceful.”

Saldanha also claims that the BJP officials are paying off the press and controlling the media coverage of the attacks.

Response: We really do need to be praying for these folks. This is apparently another Indian state like Orissa where the persecution of Christians is not only allowed but actually supported by the state BJP government officials.

The Indian federal government really does need get involved before this becomes another situation like Orissa where hundreds were killed, thousands injured, 100′s of churches burned and 1,000′s of Christian homes and businesses were destroyed. 50,000 Christians from Orissa are still homeless.               *Top

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(CDN): A mob of enraged Muslims attacked a Coptic Christian community in a coastal town in northern Egypt last weekend, wreaking havoc for hours and injuring 24 Copts before security forces contained them.

The violence erupted last Friday (March 12) afternoon when the local sheikh at the neighborhood mosque incited Muslims over a loudspeaker, proclaiming jihad against Christians. Then the angry Muslim mob attacked the local Coptic Christian church hurling rocks and attacking Christians trying to force them to convert. A number of Christian businesses and homes were looted and burned along with several vehicles.

It was following the afternoon mosque prayers when Sheikh Khamis rallied the mob of over 300 Muslims. The attack was apparently in response to a new wall that the Christians built around their community center.

Response: Here we go again, it seems like the Coptic Christians in Egypt are continually being persecuted in Egypt. The Copts and the Muslims lived in peace for over a thousand years. However, in this generation Islam is becoming far more radical in Egypt than it has ever been and Muslims no longer tolerate their Coptic neighbors.

Also, why do these things always seem to happen with Muslims on Fridays following their prayers and services? Then again nearly every Muslim mob is incited and lead by Muslim religious leaders either sheikhs or imams. No other religion I can think of is so closely connected with violence of this kind which is actually incited during the worship services themselves.

Then folks in this country want to call Islam the ‘religion of peace’? Hopefully it does continue to be a ‘religion of peace’ in this country.               *Top

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