University Student Vindicated After Expulsion for Religious Beliefs

(Billy Hathorn)

Julea Ward has been vindicated. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit on Friday ruled in the Eastern Michigan University (EMU) graduate student’s favor in the case that sought justice after the university expelled her from a counseling program for her religious beliefs.

In a strongly worded opinion, the court reversed a district court decision in favor of the university and sent the case back for trial, saying “a reasonable jury could conclude that Ward’s professors ejected her from the counseling program because of hostility toward her speech and faith …”

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Pope Warns Of Threat To Freedom Of Religion, Conscience In U.S.

Pope Benedict XVI warned visiting U.S. bishops that “radical secularism” threatens the core values of American culture, and he called on the church in America, including politicians and other laypeople, to render “public moral witness” on crucial social issues.

The pope spoke Jan. 19 to a group of U.S. bishops who were in Rome for their periodic “ad limina” visits, which included meetings with the pope and Vatican officials, covering a wide range of pastoral matters.

Opening with a dire assessment of the state of American society, the pope told the bishops that “powerful new cultural currents” have worn away the country’s traditional moral consensus, which was originally based on religious faith as well as ethical principles derived from natural law.

Prayer Cases Turned Away by U.S. Supreme Court Justices

By Greg Stohr - Jan 17, 2012 12:14 PM ET

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to give government bodies more freedom to open sessions with prayers, rejecting a pair of appeals that sought to loosen the restrictions some lower courts have imposed.

The justices today left intact a federal appeals ruling that said a North Carolina county board was violating the constitutional separation of church and state by opening most of its sessions with a Christian prayer. The high court also refused to review a separate decision that barred prayers at meetings of a Delaware school board.

Bloomberg 

More on the Religion of Peace

Islamic Majority Countries Top Open Doors 2012 World Watch List

North Korea  No. 1 Persecutor of Christians for 10th Straight Year

Jan 02 2012

SANTA ANA, Calif. (Jan. 4, 2012) – The Open Doors 2012 World Watch List has a familiar look to it. North Korea tops the list for the 10th straight time as the country where Christians face the most severe persecution, while Islamic-majority countries represent nine of the top 10 and 38 of the 50 countries on the annual ranking.

Afghanistan (2), Saudi Arabia (3), Somalia (4), Iran (5) and the Maldives (6) form a bloc where indigenous Christians have almost no freedom to openly worship. For the first time Pakistan (10) entered the top 10, after a tumultuous year during which the nation’s highest-ranking Christian politician, Cabinet Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, was assassinated  for his attempts to change the blasphemy law.

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Christianity Under Fire by Radical Islam

By: MARSHALL FRANK

The stage is set. Christians in Islamic Africa and the Islamic-dominated middle east are on the chopping block and barely a peep is heard from the left-leaning media.

So much for the Arab Spring rebels seeking freedom. They were seeking freedom all right, freedom to kill, pillage and ethnically cleanse without reprisals.

Little attention is given in the media to the new crises being suffered by Christians in Islamic nations. With the de facto backing that the United States government has provided the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and other places, they are doing exactly what their manifestos have predicted which is to fundamentally Islamize the region.  To do that, is to oust non-Muslims.

Where’s the outrage? Where’s the UN?  Where’s the Obama administration?

IS NIGERIA ON THE BRINK OF A MUSLIM VS. CHRISTIAN CIVIL WAR?

 (The Blaze/AP)– Thick black smoke and flames rose Tuesday from the burning roadblock that cut off a highway linking Nigeria’s mainland to the islands where the oil-rich nation’s wealthy live. The bare-chested young men who live under the bridge said they had had enough.

“This is oligarchy, this is not a democracy!” shouted Danjuma Mohammed, as he stood before the fire holding rocks in his hands. “We are no longer afraid of you! We are ready for war!”

The President’s own words over the weekend were discomforting. “During the civil war, we knew and we could even predict where the enemy was coming from,” President Jonathan said, “but the challenge we have today is more complicated” as quoted by  London’s Telegraph.

Christians Given 3 Days to Leave North Nigeria or Face Death

The militant Islamist group, Boko Haram, has issued a chilling warning to all Christians in northern Nigeria, giving them three days to leave or face further extensive attacks.

The violence in Nigeria by Boko Haram has led to a stiff ultimatum by the group, which has warned that it is ready to confront soldiers sent to engage them under a state of emergency declared by Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan.

A MONTH OF CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION

This morning, I wrote about my family’s enjoyment of the Christmas holiday. Unfortunately, in many parts of the world, Christians cannot celebrate Christmas safely. In Nigeria, Islamic terrorists bombed three churches on Christmas day, killing at least 40 worshippers. But that was only the latest of many outrages. Persecution of Christians has reached new heights this year.

At the Middle East Forum, Raymond Ibrahim sums up acts of anti-Christian persecution that have occurred. One really can’t get the impact without reading the whole thing, so I am taking the liberty of reproducing the whole article, leaving out the links which you can follow in the original:

Warning Sounded Iran May Kill Condemned Christian Pastor in Secret

Monday, 02 Jan 2012 03:51 PM

By Mike Tighe

An Iranian pastor facing death a death sentence for refusing to renounce his Christian faith and embrace Islam is expected to spend another year in jail, awaiting an appeal on his death sentence, while government authorities try to force him to convert to Islam.

However, the delay could be a ruse and the Iranian government could kill him in secret, warns the founder of Present Truth Ministries, which was the first to report on Pastor Yosef Nadarkhani’s arrest in October 2009.

That’s the most recent development in Nadarkhani’s religious and political nightmare of more than two years, according to The Christian Post.

Pastor Yosef Nadarkhani