Persecution

Closing Orthodox Churches is Unjustified Offense Against God

Georgian Church Closing Orthodox Churches is Unjustified Offense Against GodHoly Synod of the Orthodox Church of Georgia –
The Georgian Patriarchate issued a strong statement, both reiterating its call for the faithful to follow necessary sanitary guidelines and responding to those who are attacking the Church’s ancient practices.

In many places where services have continued and the faithful have continued to partake of Holy Communion, those who are ill-disposed to the holy Orthodox faith, including amongst media representatives, are loudly attacking the Church and its hierarchs, accusing them of putting people in danger, such as in Serbia and Ukraine, Romania, and in Georgia as well, as testified to by yesterday’s statement from the Georgian Church.

While calling on the faithful to observe heightened sanitary practices,the Georgian Patriarchate asserts strongly that a ban on Church attendance is an unjustified offense against God, [Read more…]

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The Pursuit of Happiness: Bear Your Cross With Gratitude

The Pursuit of Happiness: Bear Your Cross With Gratitudeby Fr. Thaddaeus Hardenbrook –
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the Declaration of Independence states, are unalienable rights granted by our Creator, to be protected by the government. Unfortunately the definitions for these terms were never truly agreed upon and, being defined by men, change over time. When does the right to life begin? In the womb or after birth? To what extent are we free? Until we hurt ourselves or others? And happiness, that popular but pitiful word constantly bent to the whim of emotions and impulses.

At the time of the writing of the Declaration, the meaning of the word happiness was greatly debated. Some restricted its meaning to only the acquisition of material possessions. For others it meant absolute freedom. Others insisted that happiness was attained only through the practice of reason and truth. [Read more…]

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The Left Embraces Blacklisting and Christian Persecution

Left Embraces Blacklisting and Christian Persecution by Sally Zelikovsky –
David and Jason Benham had their HGTV show canceled when it was discovered that they are Christians (oh, the horror) and are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage (high crimes and misdemeanors, doncha know). It won’t be long before people who hold these views will be hauled off by PC mobs and stoned to death.

The web is a cyber galaxy of information and connectivity that allows for full expression of the individual in the cyber marketplace of ideas. There is no question that the World Wide Web has enhanced so many aspects of our lives. But the very same platform that gave rise to this information highway — this liberating agent — can also be used by both private and public concerns as a weapon against the individual.

We all know what happens to law-abiding citizens when they express their private opinions outside of work: left wing zealots dig up whatever “dirt” they can find on them — usually related to race, sexual orientation, religion — publish these findings on the internet, and demand any business arrangements with the alleged “extremists” be canceled forthwith. [Read more…]

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Government Violates First Amendment Rights of Parents of ‘Gay’ Minors

Government Violating Parental Rights of Parents of Gay Minorsby Robert Carle –
California and New Jersey’s new laws banning talk therapy to address same-sex attraction in minors violate the rights of parents and children to seek counseling that conforms to their values. They also endanger First Amendment rights.

The governors of California and New Jersey have recently signed bills into law that violate First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

These new laws ban licensed counselors from engaging in talk therapies that reduce the level of same-sex attractions in minors for whom such reduction is a personal goal. Strikingly, these bills apply to all minors except those who wish to change their sex (“gender identity”) altogether, via hormones and surgery. Legislators in New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania are pushing for similar talk-therapy bans. Such legislation usurps the rights of parents and children to seek counseling that conforms to their values. [Read more…]

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Destroying Christianity in Syria, The West Supports the Wrong Side

Syrian Orthodox Church Destroyed by Islamic Terrorists Rebels by Robin Phillips –
The pattern of persecution is being repeated in Syria as Muslim rebel groups seek both to overthrow the lawful government as well as to eliminate the native Christian population. Consequently, Christians in Syria are frightened to worship publicly and many have had to flee to refugee camps in neighbouring countries. …

The equilibrium in Syria began to be disrupted after the, so called, ‘Arab Spring’ hit the country in 2011. Rebel groups, many of whom have links to Al-Qaeda, began seeking to overthrow the government. Syria’s Christian population became engulfed in the crossfire of this civil war. Because most Christians in Syria have remained neutral in the two-year civil war and some have supported the government, the insurgents with the ‘Free Syrian Army’ perceive Christians as enemies. Consequently, they have begun systematically confiscating land belonging to Christians, in addition raping women and killing children. Dozens of churches have also been desecrated or completely destroyed, mainly around Homs and Aleppo.

Astoundingly, the anti-government ‘Free Syrian Army’ is considered moderate by the West and is supported by the David Cameron, the Obama administration, NATO and [Read more…]

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Christians Massacred by ‘Free’ Syrian Army Terrorists (Rebels)

Orthodox church destroyed in Christian village of Duwayr/Douar Syriaby Editors –
Obama’s and John McCain’s friends in Syria – the so-called “Syrian rebels” continue to bring death and destruction upon Christians and Christian churches in Syria. They’re nothing more than bloodthirsty killers seeking to impose Islamic law on the Syrian people.

The following describes some of the latest atrocities committed by Obama & McCain’s supposed allies in Syria:

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (BosNewsLife)– Mourning Christians in Syria were still awaiting answers Monday, July 8, as to why  Islamic militants with links to opposition rebels entered Christian villages more than a month ago killing several people,  including children, in what locals called a “massacre”.

Vatican-backed news agency Fides said the gunmen raided the village of al-Duwayr/Douar, outside the city of Homs near Lebanon, where they immediately executed a man and his daughter in their home and burned their bodies.

The fighters reportedly also occupied the village church from where snipers began firing at terrified civilians, killing an- 11-year-old boy and a girl of 18, [Read more…]

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The Search For Meaning

The Search For Meaning in Lifeby Dan Doyle –
Suffering comes into every life. Often it is so terrible we wonder how we can ever survive it. We can’t imagine the there could be any meaning in it. One of the most important books I’ve ever read is Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” In it he tells of his experiences as an inmate in several of the Nazi death camps during WWII. Frankl was one of the lucky ones, he survived. He was liberated at the end of the war from Auchwitz as the only survivor of his family. Out of his pain and loss, out of the hell of it all, he came away with a deeper faith in God and, ironically, in humanity. We are the lucky ones, then, who can read this small book and be edified by the powerful meaning he discovered in and through his own suffering.

When we suffer, nothing makes sense to us. We are overwhelmed with a feeling that the world is cold, indifferent to our suffering, that we are utterly alone in it and imprisoned by it. How could there be any meaning in it at all? This is the central question of Viktor Frankl’s book. The core responsibility of our individual human lives is to find meaning and purpose, not just in fame, or wealth, but in transcendent ways, through faith, hope and, most importantly through love. [Read more…]

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Truth is Hate (To Those That Hate Truth)

Truth is Hate To Those That Hate Truthby Bill Muehlenberg –
On the outside wall of the Ministry of Truth building are the three slogans of ‘The Party’: “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.” Those who have read Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell will be quite familiar with all this.

In his chilling 1949 novel Orwell warned of where society was heading, and in it offered us a horrific police state where Big Brother controlled everything through extensive use of propaganda, government censorship and surveillance, and nonstop indoctrination and mind control.

The book prophetically spoke of “thoughtcrimes,” “Newspeak,” and “doublethink”. Who would have thought that just sixty years on these very things would increasingly be part of life in Western societies? Today we have “hate crimes” and “hate speech” which refers to anything the secular social militants regard as non-PC. [Read more…]

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Religious Freedom is Necessary for Other Freedoms to Flourish

Religious Freedom key to all other freedomsby Thomas Farr –
Is religious freedom necessary for other freedoms to flourish? This is indeed a big question. It implicates an array of philosophical issues and scholarly disciplines, but it also has distinctly practical, even strategic, dimensions. That is to say, it raises questions not only about human nature and human flourishing, but about the freedom and stability of whole societies, as well as international peace.

The “other freedoms” with which we are here concerned typically exist in a mature democratic system of civil society and ordered liberty. They include the freedoms of expression, association, assembly, economic activity, and equality under the law, and freedom from persecution or unjust violence. [Read more…]

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The Marxist Heart of Darkness

Marxist Darkness Evil Deadly by Bruce Walker –
Those who doubted Obama’s immersion in Marxism now have a perfect window into his soul — namely, in the form of the stunning class warfare remarks he recently made in Roanoke, Virginia.

We must grasp, however, what Marxism is and what it is not.  Marxism is not a political philosophy to help the poor at the expense of the rich, and it is not a design for a utopian future.  Marxism is simply a Heart of Darkness, a Siamese twin of Nazism, a curse on all humanity committed to three themes: (1) hatred, (2) misery, and (3) lying.

Marxism is neither a science nor a system of belief.  It is a rationale for seizing power and terrorizing all those who are not its cadres.  Marxism — English Socialism, or “Ingsoc” — was the secular religion of George Orwell’s Oceania.  In Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984, the interrogator of Winston Smith explains the goals of Ingsoc:

“Power is not a mean, it is an end.  One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.  The object of persecution is persecution.  The object of torture is torture.  The object of power is power.”
[Read more…]

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