Free Republic

After receiving backlash, a new “God Bless the USA” Bible has been dropped by a large Christian publisher.HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Zondervan’s parent company, retracted an agreement to print the Bible inspired by country music singer Lee Greenwood, in the New International Version, after a petition gained traction among Christians.According to Religion Unplugged, John Morehead — a concerned Christian in Utah — created the petition. He said, “This is a toxic mix that will exacerbate the challenges to American evangelicalism, adding fuel to the Christian nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiments found in many segments of the evangelical church.”

Three Christian murder victims were brutally tortured for hours before their death, Turkish media reports reveal. The Islamic zealots who attacked a Christian publishing house in the city of Malatya on April 18 prolonged the suffering of their victims by stabbing them repeatedly with dull knives, the media report. A Sabah newspaper story notes that one victim, the German missionary Tilman Geske, suffered 156 knife wounds. An AsiaNews correspondent notes that the Turkish media have provided gruesome details of the crime, but still shy away from mentioning the motivation of the killers, who were apparently influenced by a vitriolic anti-Christian...