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CBNNews.com - The U.S. military says some Bibles in Afghanistan have been confiscated and destroyed, Reuters reported. Their decision to destroy them came after Al Jazeera television showed U.S. soldiers at a Bible class with a stack of Bibles translated into the local languages.It's illegal to proselytize in Afghanistan and military officials forbid troops to convert Afghans to Christianity.The military says the Bibles were brought to the Bible class by an Evangelical Christian solider who received them from his home church.

The U.S. military is confirming that it has destroyed some Bibles belonging to an American soldier serving in Afghanistan. Reuters News says the Bibles were confiscated and destroyed after Qatar-based Al Jazeera television showed soldiers at a Bible class on a base with a stack of Bibles translated into the local Pashto and Dari languages. The U.S. military forbids its members on active duty -- including those based in places like Afghanistan -- from trying to convert people to another religion. Reuters quotes Maj. Jennifer Willis at the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, who said "I can now confirm...

The U.S. military has confirmed that it has "destroyed" some Bibles belonging to an American soldier in Afghanistan. "Reuters News says the Bibles were confiscated and destroyed after Qatar-based Al Jazeer television showed soldiers at a Bible class on a base with a stack of Bibles translated into the local Pashto and Dari languages. " "The U.S. military forbids its members on active duty -- including those based in places like Afghanistan -- from trying to convert people to another religion." But I thought they said we needed to change "hearts and minds" over there?

Iraq Government Wants U.S. Troops Out by June 30 [2009-05-04]. (This is the title of the story but as you can see has nothing to do with the actual article) Arlington, VA -- The U.S. Military said that reports from Al Jazeera English that evangelical Christian soldiers in Afghanistan handed out Bibles to local Afghans and operated under instructions from their chaplain to "hunt people for Jesus" grossly misrepresent the truth and that in reality Bibles were confiscated, not handed out. The Al Jazeera broadcast includes a video taken a year ago in which a small group of U.S. Soldiers...

The U.S. military is confirming that it has destroyed some Bibles belonging to an American soldier serving in Afghanistan. Reuters News says the Bibles were confiscated and destroyed after Qatar-based Al Jazeer television showed soldiers at a Bible class on a base with a stack of Bibles translated into the local Pashto and Dari languages.

The U.S. military is confirming that it has destroyed some Bibles belonging to an American soldier serving in Afghanistan. Reuters News says the Bibles were confiscated and destroyed after Qatar-based Al Jazeer television showed soldiers at a Bible class on a base with a stack of Bibles translated into the local Pashto and Dari languages. The U.S. military forbids its members on active duty -- including those based in places like Afghanistan -- from trying to convert people to another religion. Reuters quotes Maj. Jennifer Willis at the Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, who said "I can now confirm...

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2009 – A report broadcast by the Arab news network Al Jazeera about U.S. servicemembers proselytizing in Afghanistan is just plain wrong, Pentagon officials said today. The Al Jazeera story showed an evangelical religious service on Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and a discussion about distributing Bibles that had been translated into Dari and Pashtu – the two major languages of Afghanistan. “American servicemembers are allowed to hold religious services,” a Defense Department official speaking on background said. “The clip shows one of those services with an American chaplain leading a religious service for American servicemembers. In it,...

A Southwest Florida man who in past years has been allowed to distribute free Bibles to high school students on Religious Freedom Day was turned down this year by the district's superintendent. Jerry Rutherford, president of World Changers, appeared before the Collier County School Board on Thursday to ask for a reversal of the decision but received the same response. "This rejection is a slap in the face," said Rutherford, according to Naples News. "The decision to deny access to community groups that are religious in nature is censorship and bias." In November, Rutherford routinely submitted his request to set...

You want change? McCain decided to offer you REAL change we can believe in! McCain is nothing if not unpredictable! Only hours after the Hollywood made for TV DNC pander fest ended, confirming Barack Hussein Obama as the first multiracial candidate for the executive branch, Republican John McCain upstaged lefties by announcing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Four members of a Christian group from the United States are refusing to leave an airport in China after authorities confiscated their 300 Bibles, the group's director said Monday. The four members of Vision Beyond Borders -- based in Sheridan, Wyoming -- arrived in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming on Sunday. Customs officials discovered the Bibles during an X-ray scan of their luggage, said Pat Klein, director of the group, which supplies Bibles and other Christian material to people in China and other countries. Under Chinese law, it is illegal to bring printed religious material...

Chinese customs officials confiscated more than 300 Bibles on Sunday from four American Christians who arrived in a southwestern city with plans to distribute them, the group's leader said. --snip-- "I heard that there's freedom of religion in China, so why is there a problem for us to bring Bibles?" Klein said. "We had over 300 copies and customs took all of them from us."

Christian groups are appealing a federal judge's ruling that bars the Gideons from distributing Bibles to students of the South Iron Missouri School District. The South Iron School District allows off-campus organizations to distribute literature to students before and after school, and during other non-instructional times such as lunch breaks. But the American Civil Liberties Union sued, saying the Gideons should not be allowed to hand out Bibles because of their religious nature. U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry agreed. "In fact, the federal judge said...the ACLU must be able to have the say-so over whether religious literature can be distributed...

A new plant can turn out 12 million copies a year. Some are for export, but most are for domestic sale. The factory looks like it could be any plant in this export-driven nation. Hundreds of Chinese workers huddle over loud machines churning out large orders for customers at home and abroad. But what they're making might surprise you: Bibles. As Tibetan monks grab headlines protesting the lack of religious freedom under Chinese rule, a booming Bible industry is on its way to turning the world's biggest atheist nation into the world's largest producer of the Good Book. Chairman Mao...

Some of you may be aware of my recent thread about Bible translation preferences. On that thread that I was introduced to a freeware Bible study program called eSword. It is available here at no cost (Windows only). It comes with the King James Version and Strongs built in, but seems to be unbelievably expandable.For instance, I have added to mine: The Douay-Rheims Challoner BibleHaydock's Commentaries (in a rough "0.2" work-in-progress form)The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1899The Catechism of the Catholic ChurchThe Baltimore CatechismSumma Theologicae...and probably is still more out there that I've yet to find. I'm focusing on public domain...

The Pocket Testament League is celebrating 100 years of incredible ministry in the United States. Founded in England in 1893, the ministry opened its first US office in Pennsylvania in April, 1908. Described by 'the Sunday School Times' in 1920 as "the greatest movement of God since the 14th Century," the League has a mission to mobilize and equip Christians to Read, Carry, and Share the Word of God. Since opening in its first office in Philadelphia in 1908, over 8 million people have pledged to read the Bible daily, to carry pocket-sized Scripture everywhere they go, and to share...

The authors of the books discussed in this year’s survey are senior scholars who have distinguished themselves through many years of teaching and lecturing, original contributions to biblical research and proven ability to communicate their learning to the general public. Their recent publications offer reliable and accessible points of entry to important areas within the biblical field. What do today’s biblical scholars do? What should they do? In The Nature of Biblical Criticism (Westminster John Knox), John Barton, professor of the interpretation of holy Scripture at Oxford University, contends that the main task of biblical criticism is to read texts...

Church official worries country is becoming less tolerant of other religions KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysian customs officials seized 32 Bibles from a traveler, a church federation said Monday, adding its voice to a raft of complaints that the Muslim-majority country is becoming less tolerant of other religions. The Royal Malaysian Customs department, however, said it was only trying to determine if the Bibles were imported for commercial purposes. Custom officials at an airport in Kuala Lumpur took the Bibles from a Malaysian woman Jan. 28 on her return from the Philippines, according to the Rev. Hermen Shastri, general secretary...

FAYETTEVILLE — School officials in Cumberland and Harnett counties who have banned organizations from offering Bibles to elementary students may want to beef up their studies of Constitutional case law and reconsider their decisions. "In their efforts to appease the American Civil Liberties Union, these eastern North Carolina school systems are violating citizens' First Amendment rights to free speech and failing to acknowledge a 2001 Supreme Court ruling," said Christian Action League Executive Director Rev. Mark Creech. The Cumberland County Public Schools notified elementary principals Nov. 19 to prohibit Bibles or other "poselytizing texts" from being handed out, citing a...

In the rooms of Manhattan's trendy Soho Grand Hotel guests can enjoy an eclectic selection of underground music, iPod docking stations, flat-screen TVs and even the living company of a complimentary goldfish. But, alas, the word of God is nowhere to be found. Unlike traditional hotels, the 10-year-old boutique has never put Bibles in its guest rooms, because "society evolves," says hotel spokeswoman Lori DeBlois. Providing Bibles would mean the hotel "would have to take care of every guest's belief." What might be surprising to many Americans is that the Bible-free room isn't a development just in hip New York...

Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries. The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons or donated by churches and religious groups. Some inmates are outraged. Two of them, a Christian and an Orthodox Jew,...