Tag: religion

China Arrests Almost 30 Pastors, Members Of One Of Its Biggest Underground Churches

Nearly 30 pastors and members of China’s unsanctioned Zion Church were detained Friday in the biggest Christian crackdown since 2018.

Founder and Pastor Jin Mingri was also detained at his home, his daughter, Grace Jin, and church spokesperson, Sean Long, told Reuters.

“What just happened is part of a new wave of religious persecution this year,” Long said, adding that authorities have questioned more than 150 church members and have increased harassment during Sunday church services over the last few months.

Long said five pastors and church members have been released, but he showed Reuters an official detention notice saying Mingri is being held on suspicion of “illegal use of information networks.” The charge could potentially land Mingri in jail for up to seven years, the outlet reported.

Jin said she is concerned for the health of her 56-year-old father, who was previously hospitalized for diabetes.

“We’re worried since he requires medication,” Jin said. “I’ve also been notified that lawyers are not allowed to meet the pastors, so that is very concerning to us.”

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Ken Paxton Uncovers “Illegal Activities” by Developers of ‘Sharia City’ – Takes Action to Stop Mega Mosque and Sharia Compliant Schools

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton uncovered “illegal activities” by the developers of the ‘Sharia City’ and super mosque.

“I’ve uncovered illegal activities by EPIC City developers and requested a referral from the State Securities Board to file a lawsuit,” Ken Paxton said.

“After a thorough investigation, it has become clear that the developers behind EPIC City flagrantly and undeniably violated the law,” he said.

“Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the identification of evidence that entities connected to the East Plano Islamic Center (“EPIC”) land development project violated federal and state securities laws and regulations. Attorney General Paxton has formally requested that the Texas State Securities Board (“TSSB”) immediately review the findings and refer the matter back to the Office of the Attorney General in order to file a lawsuit against those who broke the law,” Paxton’s office said.

“In March, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into EPIC City. He then expanded the investigation and requested documents from local municipalities and other entities that may have coordinated with those involved in the unlawful development. This thorough investigation revealed that certain people and entities affiliated with EPIC City violated state and federal securities law,” Paxton’s office said.

“In order to sue and hold the parties behind EPIC City accountable, the Office of the Attorney General must receive a referral from the Texas State Securities Board. Attorney General Paxton has invited Chairman E. Wally Kinney and Commissioner Travis J. Iles to examine the initial findings and corresponding evidence that demonstrates the EPIC City development project violated the law and subsequently refer the matter back to the Attorney General’s office for further legal action if the TSSB agrees with the office’s findings,” they said.

Earlier this year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched a campaign against a planned Islamic “mega-city” outside Dallas.

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Want Slavery Reparations? Go Ask Muslim Countries, Says Scholar

It’s arguable that the people who complain about slavery most actually may love it, in a perverse way. After all, it provides so many with excuses for failure, anti-Western talking points, and opportunities to extract hand-outs. Just consider “reparations,” which are now continually demanded (by people enslaved only by their own indoctrination). Why, California Governor Gavin Newsom, panderer-in-chief, just signed a bill Friday to create a reparations-administration agency. Never mind that California was never a slave state.

But to African-descent people who want reparations, a British-Bangladeshi scholar has a message: You’re barking up the wrong tree.

You need to seek your booty elsewhere — from Muslim countries.

Dr. Rakib Ehsan, a commentator and author of the book Beyond Grievance, mentions the Ottoman Empire in particular. Now the nation of Turkey, chattel slavery was a major part of its economy and society for more than six centuries, Ehsan points out. He elaborates at The Telegraph:

Millions were enslaved — including Slavs, Eastern Europeans, Africans, and people in the western Mediterranean.

The Ottoman Empire captured and utilised “white slaves” — primarily European Christians — through various methods such as raids into European territories and the Black Sea slave trade originating from the Balkans and Caucasus.

Under the “Devshirme” system, Christian boys were conscripted and forced to convert to Islam, trained to serve as slave soldiers (the Janissaries). The gradual rolling back of Ottoman imperial slavery was ultimately the result of Western pressure.

Note here that white slavery, in a de facto sense, wasn’t unknown in the early United States, either. According to the 2007 book White Cargo, in fact, more than 300,000 white de facto slaves were sent from Europe to the United States over two centuries. And among some groups within this number, the mortality rate was 25-50 percent.

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Massachusetts parents lose foster license after refusing to sign gender affirming policy for kids

A devout Christian couple has been stripped of their foster license after refusing to sign a gender-affirming policy they say conflicts with their faith.

Lydia and Heath Marvin, from Woburn, Massachusetts, have looked after eight children under the age of four since 2020, including many infants and toddlers with serious medical needs.

But the couple say social workers pulled their license because they refused to sign a clause requiring foster parents to ‘support, respect, and affirm a foster child’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.’

It put them in a position where they were essentially forced them to choose between their religion and the vulnerable children they had dedicated their lives to helping.

‘We were told you must sign the form as is or you will be delicensed,’ Lydia told WBZ. ‘We will absolutely love and support and care for any child in our home, but we simply can’t agree to go against our Christian faith in this area. 

‘Our Christian faith, it really drives us toward that,’ husband Heath explained. ‘[The Book of James] says that true, undefiled religion is to care for the fatherless.’

The Marvins say they were blindsided by the decision. Their last foster child, a baby with complex medical needs, lived with them for 15 months. 

‘Every night for 15 months, we were up at least three times,’ Lydia said. ‘We certainly thought we would have young children in our home for… we didn’t know how long, but we were not done.’

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Judge blocks sanctions on boys who objected to female in locker room, rejects district’s Hail Mary

Awealthy suburban D.C. school district belatedly justified its 10-day suspensions of two boys for complaining about a female who identifies as a boy recording them in their locker room, by claiming they had harassed the female student “over weeks and months.”

That wasn’t enough for U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to reinstate suspensions by Virginia’s Loudoun County Public Schools, which she paused Sept. 16 shortly after the anonymous Christian boys sued.

The President Clinton nominee granted the boys’ preliminary injunction motion at a hearing Friday, shielding the 11th graders throughout litigation from punishment and a disciplinary notation on their record that could sink their college applications. 

One left LCPS after suing but “the threat of discipline remains” if he returns, their lawyers at America First Legal Foundation and Founding Freedoms Law Center wrote in their motion for preliminary injunction. (Brinkema asked last month why he should remain a plaintiff.)

Brinkema didn’t give her reasoning in Friday’s bench order, but AFL lawyer Ian Prior told the media she cited serious constitutional questions, the harm of removing their educational experience and the timing of the “permanent mark on their records.” The judge will issue an order with her reasoning but didn’t give herself a deadline.

“We’re extremely pleased” suspensions are off the table throughout litigation, Prior said. They expect to succeed on all counts – likelihood of success is a factor supporting preliminary injunctions – but need to win only one, he stressed. 

It’s arguing discrimination by religion, because a Muslim student who complained about the female wasn’t punished, and sex, for LCPS telling the boys to find a different place to change but not the female student. LCPS also violated the boys’ constitutionally protected free speech and misused its Title IX probe and findings “as a pretext for viewpoint discrimination.”

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Palisades Fires arsonist: “I literally burnt the Bible I had. It felt so amazing. I felt so liberated”

When fires broke out in Los Angeles in January, climate alarmists were quick to point to “climate change” as the reason,  including Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann of Climategate fame.  “Conspiracy theorists” and citizen journalists who were doing their own research, of course, knew better.  Investigators, led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, were not fooled by climate change propaganda either.

Yesterday, Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 29-year-old Uber driver from Melbourne, Florida, was arrested and charged with malicious arson for allegedly starting the 2025 Palisades fire in Los Angeles, a blaze that caused widespread destruction, destroying more than 6,000 homes and buildings, and at least 12 fatalities.

Rinderknecht was charged with one count of “destruction of property by means of fire” and is accused of intentionally setting the Lachman fire on 1 January 2025, which later escalated into the Palisades fire.

Federal prosecutors revealed that evidence collected from his digital devices included AI-generated images of a burning city created via ChatGPT and text prompts describing the burning of a Bible and feeling “liberated” after burning a Bible:

“I am 28 years old. And… I basically… This just happened. Maybe like… I don’t know, maybe like 3 months ago or something. Like, the realisation of all this. I literally burnt the Bible that I had. It felt amazing. I felt so liberated,” Rinderknecht wrote in a ChatGPT prompt.

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Italian PM Meloni Sends Bill to Parliament Banning Burkas and Niqabs in Public Spaces

Curbing forced marriages is another target of the legislation.

Conservative Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has introduced legislation in Parliament against ‘Islamic separatism’ that, among other things, would institute a ban on the burka and niqab in public places.

The Telegraph reported:

“The prime minister’s ruling Brothers of Italy party put forward a bill imposing fines of between £260 and £2,600 for wearing the face-covering garments in schools, universities, shops and offices.

The party called it a bill against ‘Islamic separatism’ aimed at combating ‘religious radicalization and religiously motivated hatred’.

It introduces criminal penalties for virginity testing, while strengthening punishment for forced marriages by adding religious coercion as grounds for prosecution.”

The bill also lays out transparency rules on the funding of Mosques and other religious organizations.

Muslim organizations must disclose all funding sources, ‘with financing restricted to entities that pose no threat to state security’.

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Maryland State University Student Government Excludes Jewish Students From Vote On Boycotting Israel

On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, the University of Maryland (UMD) Student Government Association (SGA) passed a boycott, sanctions, and divestment resolution against the state of Israel, 29-0 with one abstention. 

Because Jews fast, pray, and abstain from work on Yom Kippur, Jewish students, who comprise 20 percent of UMD’s student body, were not able to participate in the voting process. The bill was initially scheduled for a few days prior on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Only two SGA members supported a motion that would have pushed the vote after the Jewish holidays. 

One SGA member claimed, in a statement to UMD’s student newspaper, The Diamondback, “The priority for us was to make sure that there was [sic] accommodations, and I believe SGA did provide them,” referring to proxy voting measures. 

This does not take into consideration the fact that observant Jews do not work or use electronics on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. 

“The timing denied our community the opportunity to engage in a fair and meaningful discussion,” said Meirav Solomon, a junior at UMD on the pre-law track. “This decision adds to the growing sense that Jewish students are not safe or heard on campus. SGA is meant to represent the entire student body, and that means ensuring that every community has a voice in decisions that impact them.”

The Trump administration has opened Title VI investigations into various universities, including Harvard and Columbia, for campus antisemitism. Given how Jewish students are being treated on UMD’s campus, there may very well be a case against the university, so long as leadership allows open hatred to continue unfettered.    

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‘Blatant Viewpoint Discrimination’: Alito Slams Colorado For Telling Therapists They Can’t Affirm Kids’ Natural Sex

Associate Justice Samuel Alito exposed the absurdity of a Colorado law prohibiting so-called “conversion therapy” for minors during a high-profile case before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

The moment came during oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, a case focused on a legal challenge brought by Colorado resident Kaley Chiles. A licensed therapist who provides counseling to children struggling with issues related to sexual orientation and gender dysphoria, Chiles alleges that the Centennial State’s “conversion therapy” law infringes upon her First Amendment right to free speech by inhibiting the types of discussions she has with her minor clients.

When questioning Colorado Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson, Alito posed a pair of hypothetical scenarios undermining the state’s argument that the statute does not engage in “viewpoint discrimination.” Alito’s questioning exposed the state’s policy of permitting therapists to encourage a child’s homosexual- or transgenderism-related behaviors, while at the same time prohibiting therapists from offering counseling that could help a child overcome them.

“So in the first situation, an adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist and says he’s attracted to other males, but he feels uneasy and guilty with those feelings. He wants to end or lessen them, and he asks for the therapist’s help in doing so,” Alito said. “The other situation is a similar adolescent male comes to a licensed therapist, says he’s attracted to other males, feels uneasy and guilty about those feelings, and he wants the therapist’s help so he will feel comfortable as a gay young man.”

The Bush appointee went on to argue that Colorado’s interpretation of the statute “dictates opposite results in those two situations … based on the viewpoint expressed.” “One viewpoint,” he noted, “is the viewpoint that a minor should be able to obtain talk therapy to overcome same-sex attraction, if that’s what … he or she wants,” while “the other is the viewpoint that the minor should not be able to obtain talk therapy to overcome same-sex attraction, even if that is what he or she wants.”

This “[l]ooks like blatant viewpoint discrimination,” Alito said.

In response, Stevenson claimed that both examples would “be permissible” under Colorado’s law “because it didn’t sound like in either case the goal was to actually change sexual orientation.”

“And again, that’s the touchstone because that’s where the harms come from,” Stevenson said.

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National Guard “Accidentally” Gives Service Members COVID-19 Vaccine Instead of Influenza Shot

This week it was revealed that the US National Guard wrongly administered the Covid vaccine to a group of service members who were expecting to receive an influenza vaccine, according to The Epoch Times. The incident occurred during a mobile vaccination clinic for the Maine National Guard and at least one member who refused the mRNA vaccine on religious grounds received the experimental injection without his knowledge.

That service member, Mathew Bouchard, is no longer a member of the National Guard. After the incident, he felt that the trust was completely broken. He was ordered to take a flu shot and feels like he was duped. Because the incident happened close to the end of his service contract, he chose not to renew.

Bouchard explained his decision to The Epoch Times:

“Bouchard said he was ordered to receive an annual flu vaccine and went to the clinic to get that vaccine. He verified his name, date of birth, and part of his social security number, and told officials at the clinic he was there for the flu vaccine. But he was injected with a dose of a messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine, officials told him.

‘You know how you went in for the flu shot? Well, that wasn’t a flu shot. That was a COVID-19 vaccine,’” Bouchard told The Epoch Times, recounting the meeting with superiors.

“I think, in my mind, at that point, it was like, I completely didn’t know if I trusted any people in the military,” he added.”

In addition to Bouchard, two other service members “were accidentally given a Covid vaccine” instead of a flu injection that day, Maine National Guard spokesperson Maj. Carl Lamb explained in an email to The Epoch Times. The clinic was administering both types of vaccine, which likely led to the egregious error.

“Accident” or not, the incident is inexcusable. Especially considering the recent data that has been revealed about the dangerous and deadly adverse reactions caused by the experimental mRNA vaccines – particularly among otherwise healthy young adults. Just this week, the surgeon general of Florida announced new guidelines about the vaccine that show the jab causes a stunning 84% increase in cardiac-related death among 18-39-year-old men. The state of Florida now officially recommends that young males refrain from receiving the mRNA vaccine completely.

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