The Christmas season has been a very somber one for the family and supporters of Pastor Saeed Abedini, imprisoned in Iran for being a Christian.
Pastor Saeed’s wife Neghmeh has criticized the Obama administration for not taking steps during recent negotiations and communications with Iran to have her husband freed.
“Initially, when I went to the U.S. government, they said we don’t have a direct relationship with Iran,” Naghmeh Abdeini said. “Here we were sitting across table from Iran. It was our best leverage. It should have been a precondition.”
She also was critical of an Obama administration action to release an Iranian copy who tried to steal nuclear weapon technology from the United States without securing the release of American captives.
Pastor Saeed’s lawyer Jay Sekulow said that he has been routinely beaten by fellow inmates and prison guards and is infested by lice.
Supporters are spending time today praying for the release of Pastor Abedini and for God to reunite him with his family.
A cross that has been the centerpiece of a veteran’s memorial near San Diego since 1913 will be destroyed because a federal judge agreed with anti-Christanists that the presence of the cross violates the constitution.
The 29 foot Latin Cross standing at the memorial replaced the original cross in 1954. The Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial contains 3,000 granite plaques individually honoring war heroes from every American war including Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congress made the memorial a “national memorial honoring the United States Armed Forces” in 2004. Congress noted the memorial was “replete with secular symbols” and other faiths including 18 Stars of David. Congress said the cross was a plurality of faiths.
The ACLU proceeded to continue their efforts to remove Christianity from society by suing to remove only the cross from all the religious symbols at the site. A U.S. District Court judge rules for the removal but stayed the order to give defendants a chance to appeal.
Update 12/4/13: A public relations and marketing specialist for the school district has released a statement claiming the information given to Fox News was inaccurate. The statement claims the Christmas cards involved were personal cards of teachers and that the display was moved because one teacher had expressed “legitimate, personal privacy concerns” about the display. The statement also said the incident had nothing to do with “current open and ongoing discussions that the school system is having with local citizens about religious liberties and expression.” The statement did not include any response to accusations teachers were told to remove Christian items like Bibles from their rooms or that they were told to turn their backs on student-led prayers.
The Bullock Georgia County Board of Education is cleansing an elementary school of any object that could be tied to Christianity.
Teachers say that they were forced to take down Christmas cards made for them by students because of the word “Christ” in Christmas and because some of the cards contained pictures of the nativity. Now students are asking the teachers why they won’t be hanging up their cards as they’ve done in previous years.
The district’s edict, however, goes beyond just Christmas cards.
Teachers have been ordered to remove anything from their classrooms that can be connected to Christianity like Bibles or Christian music even if it is for personal use on break times or lunch. They have also been told that if they come across students leading a prayer, they are required to turn their backs on the students or face disciplinary action.
The Board of Education released a statement to Fox News attempting to justify their attacks on Christianity by saying there are “established legal requirements to which we must adhere.”
A church in Brighton, Massachusetts was destroyed by a group of vandals.
Our Lady of the Presentation Church’s organ was completely destroyed by the assailants who entered the church some time between November 23rd and November 25th. Police say a gold crucifix was ripped from the altar and thrown to the front door.
An oil portrait of Pope Francis was ripped from the wall and ripped into pieces. The vandals then painted satanic messages and emblems on the painting.
Fire extinguishers throughout the building were used to spray residue on the walls. Several doors and windows were also broken.
Officers found food and a half empty bottle of wine at the scene indicating the criminals spent some time in the building.
St. John’s Seminary released a statement saying the violators were captured on security video and that the tape is in the hands of the Boston Police Department.
The anti-Christian activist group American Humanist Association is suing allegedly on behalf of two students accusing teacher Gwen Pope and the Fayette Missouri R-III School District of violating the Constitution by allowing a Christian club to meet before the start of the school day.
The lawsuit says the teacher committed the crimes of praying for an injured student, organizing a project to feed hungry children and was cavorting with a Methodist.
Pope is no longer teaching at the school but was the sponsor of the Fellowship of Christian Students at Fayette High School. The group has gathered since 2010 to meet and pray before the start of the school day along with reading the Bible.
The anti-Christian group says the two unnamed students had faced “unwelcome encounters with the classroom prayer sessions.” Apparently the students could see their classmates inside the classroom as they walked past in the mornings.
The group also said the teacher having a Bible in her possession “violates the Establishment Clause as a student would reasonably perceive it as her promoting her religious views to her students.”
The school superintendent told Fox News that he cannot comment on the suit because they had not yet received a copy but that they will defend their students’ and teachers’ First Amendment rights.
The anti-Christian Freedom From Religion Foundation continued their campaign to drive Christians out of America by filing a suit in U.S. District Court challenging the 1954 law that allows clergy members to use untaxed income to purchase a home.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb, appointed in 1979 by Democratic President Jimmy Carter, ruled the law “provides a benefit to religious persons and no one else, even though doing so is not necessary to alleviate a special burden on religious exercise.”
Judge Crabb is the same judge that ruled in 2008 in a suit brought by the same anti-Christian activists that the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional.
The defendants in the case are U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and acting IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel. Neither agency commented on the case.
Nigerian Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram has taken to a new tactic to try and boost the morale of their soldiers. They are kidnapping Christian women, forcing them to convert to Islam through violence and then are forcing them to marry terrorist fighters.
A 19-year-old woman identified only as Hajja escaped from the group after four months of captivity. The Christian woman said she was forced multiple times to kneel and beaten while her captors yelled at her to worship Allah. She said she eventually pretended to go along with them because a fighter told her she was about to be beheaded.
She told reporters that she was forced to be a slave for a group of fourteen terrorists and was used as bait to lure in civilians working with the military so that the terrorists could slit their throats. She reported being forced to watch multiple murders at the hands of her captors.
Hajja now lives in the nation’s capital city of Abuja and is free to worship Christ. She says that she has trouble sleeping at night because of nightmares related to her captivity.
The U.S. Air Force Academy admitted to Fox News that they had removed the phrase “so help me God” from three oaths in the official cadet handbook.
Fox News’ Todd Starnes reported that two dozen members of Congress sent a letter to the Academy Superintendent demanding to explain why the phrase was removed from the 2012 edition of the handbook. The phrase was taken out of the Cadet’s Oath of Allegiance, The Oath of Office for Officers and the Oath of Enlistment.
The news comes less than a month after the Air Force Academy announced they were making “so help me God” option in the school’s honor oath after a threat from the anti-Christian Military Religious Freedom Foundation.
“This phrase is a deeply-rooted American tradition – begun by George Washington as the first president of the United States and now stated by many who take an oath of service to our country,” Ron Crews of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty told Fox. “The removal of this phrase is a disservice to the countless men and women who wish to include this phrase as a solemn reminder that they are pledging their fidelity to God and their country.”
Crews pointed out that law requires the words remain part of the oath.
The Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has targeted Christians for extermination in northern Nigeria and has killed more people for their faith in Christ in one year than the rest of the world’s martyrdom of Christians combined.
The Jubilee Campaign released a report showing that close to 1,200 Christians were killed for their faith in northern Nigeria. The persecution watchdog group Open Doors agreed with Jubilee’s data that more Christians have been killed in Nigeria than the rest of the world combined in the last year.
The group released their information at an event sponsored by the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.
One of the event’s speakers was Adamu Habila, a Nigerian Christian who survived being shot in the head at close range by a Boko Haram militant when he refused to convert to Islam.
“I give thanks to God Almighty for keeping me alive up to this moment. I know if not because of God I am a dead man now,” said Habila. “But because of His grace I am still alive in order to testify the goodness of God in my life and the work of God in my life.”
The U.S. State Department officially declared Boko Haram a terrorist organization last week.
American Pastor Saeed Abedini, who has been moved by Iranian officials to a prison notorious for prisoners killing other prisoners, has reportedly been denied medication and blankets his father tried to give him.
Prison officials said that Abedini is not allowed to have any personal belongings. Those familiar with Rajai Shahr prison say the prison is severely overcrowded and that conditions inside are “deadly and inhumane.”
Jordan Sekulow, the executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, announced Abedini’s move from Evin prison to the brutal Rajai Shahr last week although the Iranian government gave no explanation for the move. He said that without medication, the health of Abedini is likely to quickly decline.
Over 211,000 people have signed a petition calling for President Obama to take immediate action on behalf of Abedini believing that Iran moved the American pastor in the hopes that he will be killed in prison.
