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A possible hate crime is under investigation after a fire was set at a Central Florida church, where vandals also spray-painted "Allahu Akbar." The incident happened around 3 a.m. Monday at the New Shiloh Christian Church in Melbourne. About 1,500 members attend the church. Melbourne police said officers and firefighters discovered the blaze after a fire alarm sounded. Arson was the expected cause, police said. Fire sprinklers helped contain the flames to a storage unit connected to the 125,000-square-foot building. The words "Allahu Akbar" were spray-painted on the storage unit. "Allahu Akbar" is an Arabic phrase typically translated as "God...

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson One evil man had the audacity to attack Christianity and defend Islam in the midst of 3,500 Christians at the recent National Prayer Breakfast. Many criticized and complained about Barack Obama’s speech afterward, but not a single Christian in that room had the courage to speak “truth to power.” Why is that? Evil operates through people, and it does what it’s supposed to do. Evil lies, seduces, divides and gives false illusions in order to conquer. God is greater than Satan. If we were truly God’s children, we would have...

Scarcely a day passes that media personalities aren’t sounding the alarm over the relentless march of “Islamism”—i.e. militant Islam. To hear them tell it, one could be forgiven for thinking that “Islamism”—exemplified by the likes of ISIS—is mere centimeters away from destroying both America and Israel. Of course, this is hysteria. Jihadists are dangerous individuals, for sure, but America and Israel have ample resources with which to protect their citizens. Such, however, cannot be said for the Christians of dozens of countries around the world who daily suffer unimaginable predations at the hands of the Muslim majorities of their homelands....

Yahoo Canada News - "HORRIBLE PHOTOS reveal ISIS marched 21 Coptic Christians to beach, beheaded them all" Image via Twitter/ @trscoop / The Right Scoop CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State released a video on Sunday purporting to show the beheading of a group of Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya, violence likely to deepen Cairo's concerns over security threats from militants thriving in the neighboring country's chaos. Egypt's state news agency MENA quoted the spokesman for the Coptic Church as confirming that 21 Egyptian Christians believed to be held by Islamic State were dead. In the video, militants in black...

Boko Haram forces appear poised to attack Maiduguri, a city of 2 million in northeast Nigeria -- meaning that 200,000 Christians could be at risk of slaughter by the Islamist terror group, say U.S. intelligence officials and experts on Nigeria. "An attack on Madiguri is very likely," said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Project at the Atlantic Council, echoing U.S. intelligence officials. Pham believes, as do other experts, that Boko Haram has already placed "sleeper cells" among the tide of refugees who have fled the group's murderous rampage through Africa's most populous nation. "They've done it everywhere else...

The Islamic State has announced the killing of 21 Eyptian Christians who were abducted from Libya early in January. A report issued on the internet by the Islamic State said that the Coptic Christians were killed in “revenge for the Muslim women persecuted by Coptic crusaders in Egypt.” The reference was evidently to an incident in which two Egyptian women married to Copts were allegedly pressured to repudiate Islam. The Egyptian government has not confirmed the deaths of the 21 kidnapping victims, but fears that the internet report is accurate. Additional sources for this storySome links will take you to...

Islamic State blows up Church of Immaculate Virgin FEBRUARY 6, 2015 9:42 AM BY RAYMOND IBRAHIM] According to Rudaw, an Iraqi news agency, on February 2, security sources from the Ninevah police district said that the Islamic State blew up the Church of the Immaculate Virgin—one of the largest and oldest Chaldean churches in the ancient section of Mosul. The security source said: “The organization finished wiring the church with explosives this morning and detonated it, leaving widespread destruction in the church and neighboring buildings.” Prior to this, the old church — which stood on the foundation of what was...

The world looks away as a genocide against a people continues apace Despite the current focus on ISIS, the ongoing barbarity inflicted against the Yazidis, a group of people who have inhabited Iraq’s mountainous northwestern region for centuries, remains largely below the radar. And while this estimated population of approximately 500,000 has been the target of hatred by Muslims who see them as heretical devil-worshipers, ISIS has upped the ante. While the world largely looks away, a genocidal level of extermination proceeds apace. “Our entire religion is being wiped off the face of the earth,” warned Yazidi leader Vian Dakhil—last...

Millions of people around the world were horrified by the recent display of abject barbarism when ISIS doused Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh with accelerant, put him in a cage, and burned him alive. And horrified we should be. Some say, as I have read in comments on blogs, that perhaps this act of terror will be the catalyst that will wake people up to the ruthless and relentless savagery sweeping across the Middle East under the banner of the Islamic State. And the awakened masses will finally understand what we are up against and who the enemy is. But I’m...

Originally published by the Gatestone Institute. Once again, the month of Christmas witnessed some of the most barbaric attacks on Christians throughout the Islamic world. After Andrew White, an Anglican priest known as the “Vicar of Baghdad,” told of how the Islamic State (IS) “chopped [Christian] children in half; they chopped their heads off,” he offered the following anecdote: IS turned up and they said to the [Christian] children, “You say the words [shehada, convert to Islam], that you will follow Muhammad.” And the children, all under 15, four of them, they said, “No, we love Jesus [Yesua]. We have...

A small, but elite group of Americans demonstrate signs of anti-Christian hostility, sociologists David Williamson and George Yancey claim in their new book, So Many Christians, So Few Lions: Is There Christianophobia in the United States? In an email interview with The Christian Post, Yancey, professor of sociology at the University of North Texas, explained that Christians are fortunate in one sense, because those with anti-Christian hostility are small in number; but in another sense, they should be concerned, because those with "Christianophobia" tend to be powerful elites with influence in certain important areas, such as higher education. The data...

Close to 300 Muslim students armed with iron bars and sticks attacked a Christian boys' school in northern Pakistan, reportedly in retaliation to French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo's controversial drawings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. The attack left four Christians injured. "It is very sad that Islamic radicals attack Pakistani Christians because of Charlie Hebdo. Christians condemn the blasphemous cartoons. It is a shame that even after 67 years since the birth of Pakistan, Christians have not yet been considered Pakistani citizens, but are seen as 'Western allies,'" Nasir Saeed, director of the NGO Center for Legal Aid Assistance &...

Muslim persecution of Christians is at a high tide — and there are grave fears of more sectarian bloodletting as millions of people in Nigeria, which is half Muslim and half Christian, vote for their national leaders next month. These religious atrocities cry out for media attention and political awareness, said Raymond Ibrahim, author of the monthly report “Muslim Persecution of Christians,” which has chronicled attacks on Christians in dozens of countries since July 2011. Mainstream media rarely cover attacks on Christians, even though they happen “all around the Islamic world,” Mr. Ibrahim said Tuesday.

Since at least the time of the outset of the Iraq War—and quite possibly well before then—there has been much debate among those to the right over why Islamic militants have set their sights upon America and the West. George W. Bush expressed the consensus among most Republican politicians and commentators when he remarked that they hate us because of our values. Ron Paul, in contrast, represents most libertarians when he attributes to America’s enemies a hatred of, not American liberties, but American foreign policy. Both groups are both right and wrong. For failing to see this, they argue past...

Citing the widespread destruction of churches and other Catholic institutions and the general situation of insecurity, the bishops of Niger have indefinitely suspended the operation of all Catholic schools, health centers, charities, and development agencies. The bishops said that this suspension would allow them to pray and reflection upon “the painful events we have just endured.” The bishops pleaded for donations and attributed the destruction to rampaging young people who were responding to caricatures of Muhammad that appeared in Charlie Hebdo. The West African nation of 17.1 million is 80% Muslim and 0.1% Catholic.

Since at least the time of the outset of the Iraq War—and quite possibly well before then—there has been much debate among those on the right over why Islamic militants have set their sights upon America and the West.

It has become a scary time to be a Christian professional in Canada. In 2014, lawyers and doctors were targeted by their own professional associations for direct attack because of their religious beliefs. For Christian lawyers, the first salvo was fired at Trinity Western University’s law school. TWU, which exists to “develop godly Christian leaders” in a variety of marketplaces, requires its students and staff to sign a Community Covenant. This pledge, based on religious beliefs, to abstain from certain activities and behaviours during their time at TWU, includes the use of alcohol on campus, viewing pornography, and “sexual intimacy...

"Glorifying God with One Voice and One Mind." - Romans 15:6 HCSB CCM United, One Message. Many Voices. Contemporary Christian Music has impacted millions of listeners around the world for the last forty years. In the process, artists like Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman, Sandi Patty, The Imperials, Newsboys, Petra, 4Him, Point of Grace, Carman and countless others have become household names.Their albums and songs define a new era of music we now call CCM. But that era actually began with another group of artists including Love Song, Larry Norman, Andrae Crouch, Keith Green, and Evie...

While in 2014 the days of throwing Christians to wild beasts in the arena may be behind us, the persecution of Christians around the world isn't. In fact, the number of our brothers and sisters subjected to imprisonment, torture, and death for their faith in just the last twelve months dwarfs the number who suffered during the entire tenure of Nero. As a new report from a leading ministry to the persecuted church shows, last year was one of the most violent on record for believers worldwide—and 2015 could be worse. Open Doors International released its World Watch List earlier...

At the end of World War II, the Jewish survivors of Europe’s Holocaust found that nearly every door was closed to them. “Tell Me Where Can I Go?” was a popular Yiddish song at the time. Decades later, the Christians of the Middle East face the same problem, and the Obama administration is keeping the door shut. America is about to accept 9000 Syrian Muslims, refugees of the brutal war between the Assad regime and its Sunni opposition, which includes ISIS, Al Qaeda, and various other militias. That number is predicted to increase each year. There are no Christian refugees...