Tag: religion

Offshoot Of Syria’s Ruling HTS Claims Credit For Damascus Church Bombing

On Sunday, a massive suicide bomb attack tore through the important Greek Orthodox church Mar Elias in Damascus, killing 27 and wounding dozens more. The huge attack just added to the spate of sectarian violence across Syria, which undercuts the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government’s claim to be protecting religious minorities.

The HTS was quick to blame ISIS for the Mar Elias bombing, and on Monday announced the arrest of a number of ISIS associates who they claimed were involved, vowing to bring them to justice. Now that whole narrative seems in doubt.

ISIS never took credit for the Mar Elias bombing, which, since it was the biggest attack in Damascus in a very long time, would be an unusual oversight. Now, another group, Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah (SAAS), issued its own statement claiming credit for the attack.

SAAS, which was said to be formed in February, went on to say that the government’s claims of arresting people involved with the attack were “untrue, fabricated.” The group is being presented as an ISIS splinter group by some reports, but the reality is substantially different.

SAAS does indeed have some ISIS defectors within, according to reports, but it also has a substantial number of HTS defectors.

SAAS founder Abu Aisha al-Shami was an HTS member, and said he broke away and formed his own group because he perceived HTS as being too soft on Shi’ites and other “rejectionists.”

While HTS has undergone a massive reformation in its presentation in the media, the group was a renamed al-Qaeda affiliate that retains its deeply Salafist ideologies.

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They Should Have Been Called Martyrs: Syria’s Church Bombing and the Government’s Possible Involvement

On what should have been a peaceful Sunday morning of worship, 25 Syrian Christians were slaughtered for their faith.

As the faithful gathered for Divine Liturgy at Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Dweila, outside Damascus, on June 22, 2025, at least three terrorists shattered the sanctity of the service with bullets and explosives.

The main attacker entered the packed church, opened fire on the 350 worshippers, and detonated his explosive vest at the entrance as they tried to force him out.

Meanwhile, at least one terrorist remained outside, firing at worshippers and into the stained-glass windows, while the other attempted to enter and detonate a grenade.

Two parishioners intervened and managed to wrest the device away before it exploded. Still, the blast tore through the church, destroying pews, shattering glass, and leaving blood-stained icons and scattered bodies in what should have been a sanctuary.

“People were praying safely under the eyes of God,” said Father Fadi Ghattas, who witnessed the carnage that left 25 dead and at least 63 wounded. Among the victims were children, innocent lives taken in a place meant to offer peace and protection.

This attack is the latest in a series of assaults on Christians, but it is the first known to be launched from inside a church since the Syrian conflict began in 201, marking a disturbing escalation in violence and a grave violation of holy spaces.

But the historical significance was even more damning.

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Suspect confesses to crucifying pastor in Arizona home – and had others on hit list

In a chilling jailhouse interview, the man accused of a gruesome, religiously motivated murder of a beloved pastor in Arizona said he had committed the crime and revealed he had a broader hit list of religious leaders he intended to kill during his murderous rampage.

Adam Christopher Sheafe, 51, told True Crime Arizona Monday that he crucified 76-year-old Pastor William Schonemann, known in the community as “Pastor Bill,” inside his New River home in April.

Sheafe said the attack was part of what he claimed was a divine mission to punish religious leaders who, in his view, were misleading followers.

“I drove from there (Phoenix) to Bill’s house, like two in the morning on a Sunday night, and I executed him,” Sheafe told the correspondent Briana Whitney, who sat across the table from him.

Schonemann was found dead in his bed, covered in blood, on April 28 during a welfare check.

During the interview, Sheafe spoke about the disturbing scene, which included details about a crown of thorns, which he said he made from what he found in the woods, and placed on Schonemann’s head.

“Because what I’m saying is, what you’re preaching is not what God said,” Sheafe explained. “It’s the opposite of what God said.”

Sheafe revealed that Schonemann was not his only target. Prior to the murder, he said he had followed a priest home after Easter services in Phoenix with the intent to kill him — the first of 14 intended “executions” across the country.

“Starting in Arizona, where I was born,” Sheafe said. “Where it starts is where it ends, like the Garden of Eden.”

But he claimed to have stopped that first attempt when two women unexpectedly entered the priest’s garage.

“I’m not interested in executing anyone other than the pastors or the shepherds leading the flock astray,” he said.

After killing Schonemann, Sheafe said he traveled to Sedona, where he planned to murder two more religious leaders. He would later be identified as the suspect in a burglary which led to a high-speed chase with Sedona police.

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Ted Cruz Should Move On From Sunday School Geopolitics

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, recently appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show, and what he had to say proves the vital role that a good Sunday school teacher can play — as well as the damage that can be caused by one who is misinformed. It also reveals the importance of actually verifying whether what you learned when you were 6 years old is correct, and asking yourself the question: “Was what I learned 50 years ago a faithful expression of what the Bible actually teaches?” And finally, it reminds us that if you’re going to base your geopolitical decisions on a Biblical doctrine, it would be most helpful for you to understand where, if anywhere, that doctrine is to be found in Scripture.

The two discussed the subject of Israel and specifically Cruz’s thoughts regarding current goings-on in the Middle East — the stakes of which are even higher after the United States’ weekend bombings of Iran’s nuclear sites. Carlson, as is his wont, was challenging Cruz and going where few journalists dare to go, seeking genuine, meaningful responses, and not being satisfied with empty talking points.

While discussing his apparently unqualified support of the modern-day nation-state of Israel, Cruz began to reminisce about what he had learned many years ago in Sunday school: “Those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.” This is not an unusual view; such sentiments are commonly expressed in American politics and by the various Christian organizations that lobby fervently in favor of Israel, describing that country as America’s “greatest ally” and declaring it an absolute must that she be supported in all her endeavors. In the American “Christians for Israel” world, it is exactly this guiding principle that stands front and center.

Carlson challenged Cruz. “Where is that [in the Bible]?” he asked. (Notice that Carlson himself knew where, citing Genesis amid his barrage of questions, which showed he was not asking out of ignorance.) “I’m a Christian. I want to know what you’re talking about.”

Cruz, however, was unable to say where in Scripture that phrase was found, and when Carlson asked whether that statement refers to the modern nation-state of Israel (a good question!), Cruz merely assumed such was the case.

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Utah Passed a Religious Freedom Law. Then Cops Went After This Psychedelic Church.

When Bridger Lee Jensen opened a spiritual center in Provo, Utah, he contacted city officials to let them know the religious group he had founded, Singularism, would be conducting ceremonies involving a tea made from psilocybin mushrooms. “Singularism is optimistic that through partnership and dialogue, it can foster an environment that respects diversity and upholds individual rights,” Jensen wrote in a September 2023 letter to the Provo City Council and Mayor Michelle Kaufusi. Seeking to “establish an open line of communication” with local officials, Jensen invited them to ask questions and visit the center.

Jensen’s optimism proved to be unfounded. The city did not respond to his overture until more than a year later, when Provo police searched the Singularism center and seized the group’s sacrament: about 450 grams of psilocybin mushrooms from Oregon. The seizure resulted from an investigation in which an undercover officer posed as a would-be Singularism facilitator.

That raid happened in November 2024, less than eight months after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, had signed the state’s version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The state law likely protects Singularism’s psychedelic rituals, a federal judge ruled in February. U.S. District Judge Jill Parrish granted Jensen’s request for a preliminary injunction against city and county officials, ordering them to return the mushrooms and refrain from further interference with the group’s “sincere religious use of psilocybin” while the case is pending.

“In this litigation, the religious-exercise claims of a minority entheogenic religion put the State of Utah’s commitment to religious freedom to the test,” Parrish wrote in Jensen v. Utah County. If such a commitment “is to mean anything,” she said, it must protect “unpopular or unfamiliar religious groups” as well as “popular or familiar ones.”

Parrish noted that “the very founding of the State of Utah reflects the lived experience of that truth by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” In light of that history, she suggested, “it is ironic” that “not long after enacting its RFRA to provide special protections for religious exercise, the State of Utah should so vigorously deploy its resources, particularly the coercive power of its criminal-justice system, to harass and shut down a new religion it finds offensive practically without any evidence that [the] religion’s practices have imposed any harms on its own practitioners or anyone else.”

Under the federal RFRA, which Congress enacted in 1993, the government may not “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless it shows that the burden is “the least restrictive means” of furthering a “compelling governmental interest.” In 2006, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that RFRA protected the American branch of a syncretic Brazil-based church from federal interference with its rituals, even though the group’s sacramental tea, ayahuasca, contained the otherwise illegal psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine.

The Supreme Court has said RFRA cannot be applied to state and local governments. Laws like Utah’s, which 29 states have enacted, aim to fill that gap.

The defendants in Jensen’s case—Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray, the county, and the city of Provo—argued that Utah’s RFRA did not apply to Singularism, which they portrayed as a drug trafficking operation disguised as a religion. Parrish rejected that characterization. “Based on all the evidence in the record,” she wrote, “the court has no difficulty concluding that Plaintiffs are sincere in their beliefs and that those beliefs are religious in nature.”

Parrish also concluded that “preventing Singularism’s adherents from pursuing their spiritual voyages” imposed a substantial burden on their religious freedom that was not “the least restrictive means” of addressing the government’s public safety concerns. She noted that Utah allows religious use of peyote and has authorized “behavioral health treatment programs” in which patients can receive psilocybin.

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Authorities Identify Michigan Church Shooting Suspect

Police have identified the gunman who opened fire outside CrossPointe Community Church on Sunday, during a morning service attended by about 150 people.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, a 31-year-old man on Sunday opened fire outside the CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne, Michigan.

Churchgoers first noticed the gunman driving erratically in the parking lot, and as he exited the vehicle, several parishioners noticed he was wearing a tactical vest and wielding a rifle.

Police Chief Ryan Strong, in a press conference, revealed, “A parishioner struck the gunman with his vehicle as the gunman shot the vehicle repeatedly.

Strong later noted, “At least two staff members shot the gunman, causing the fatal wounds.”

Now, authorities have revealed the 31-year-old gunman has been identified as Brian Anthony Browning, from Romulus, Michigan.

Per NBC News:

A man was shot dead by a security guard on Sunday after he opened fire outside a Michigan church during a service has been identified as a 31-year-old who attended the church with his mother.

Brian Anthony Browning, from Romulus, Michigan, was armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle with more than a dozen magazines of ammunition, a semi-automatic handgun with an extended magazine, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, Wayne Police Department said in a statement.

“The suspect’s mother is a member of the church, in which he has attended church services two or three times over the course of the last year,” the statement said.

Police said their ongoing investigation suggests “he may have been suffering a mental health crisis” and had no prior contact with law enforcement officers.

There have been no details on the possible motive for the shooting, but police pointed out there was no evidence to suggest it was linked to ongoing conflict in the Middle East, as has been the case in recent attacks across the U.S. The suspect had no previous contacts with the Wayne Police Department or a criminal history.

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Whistleblower exposes forced sexual rituals at Catholic university

Naomi Epps Best is a Christian graduate student at Santa Clara University studying family and marriage counseling — and what she was forced to partake in was so inappropriate that she wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed sounding the alarm about her experience.

“One of the final classes I have to do to graduate is called human sexuality, and that is a requirement for marriage and family therapists in California,” Best tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey on “Relatable.”

“But when I first enrolled in this course in summer of 2024, I dug into the syllabus, and I was shocked by the sexual ethic that was being not just presented but promoted. I immediately discovered sadomasochistic erotica,” she explains.

Sadomasochism is when people derive pleasure from inflicting pain on another person, or when people derive pleasure from being hurt.

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Florida Police: Christian School Teacher May Have Used Student Images to Create AI Child Porn

A sixth-grade teacher in Central Florida was arrested this week on a host of charges for possessing child pornography, apparently created with online AI technology and possibly using student photos from his Christian school.

State Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office charged David McKeown of Holly Hill with 19 enhanced felony counts of possession of child sexual abuse material and six counts of possession of animal pornography, according to a statement released by the office.

McKeown was arrested Friday by the Holly Hill Police Department at his home in Volusia County. He was a sixth-grade teacher at United Brethren in Christ (UBIC) Academy, a school affiliated with the UBIC church.

Holly Hill Police Department’s investigation alleges that McKeown shared and downloaded pornographic images depicting child porn via Discord, an online chat service, while at school and connected to the school’s Wi-Fi network.

Some 30 images were allegedly shared, including six files depicting McKeown sexually abusing animals, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLA) reported.

Uthmeier said in the statement:

As a teacher, parents trusted Mr. McKeown to impart knowledge to their children. Instead, he spent parts of the school day sending and receiving child sex abuse material and providing other pedophiles with UBIC Academy students’ personal information. What he did is beyond betrayal — it’s devastating and sick.

The investigation was launched early this month after receiving a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which tracks the internet for exploitative content involving minors, Orlando’s Fox 35 reported.

The news outlet also reported authorities believe McKeown used AI technology to create the pornographic images and may have used photos of real children, perhaps his own students. The investigation is continuing.

Detectives seized a number of devices from the teacher’s home in Holly Hill and from the school. He was booked into the Volusia County jail and a judge denied him the possibility of bond.

If convicted, he faces up to 315 years in prison, officials said.

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Cops remove 88 children from a Bible study camp in Iowa as part of a human trafficking investigation: officials

Deputies raided an Iowa church and removed 88 children participating in a Bible study camp as part of a sweeping human trafficking investigation, police said Monday.

The youngsters are now in protective custody of local agencies after they were taken from the Shekinah Glory Camp run by Kingdom Ministry of Rehab and Recreation, according to police and local reports.  

Deputies executing search warrants removed the children over the weekend and took them to nearby Wapello Methodist Church to meet with child protection workers, deputies told KWQC.

The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services placed the children in temporary foster care until they could be reunited with their parents or guardians, deputies added.

The Kingdom Ministry of Rehabilitation and Recreation, founded in 2018, was hosting the summer camp from June 8 to 29.

The family behind the ministry that runs the camp in Columbus Junction denied the allegations, according to WQAD8.

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Al-Qaeda Leader Makes Chilling Demand of Muslims in America

What is happening in Los Angeles these days is insurrection enough, but Sa’ad al-Awlaki, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), wants much more. If he gets his way, America will be awash in blood, with the principal leaders of the Trump administration, above all the president himself, all assassinated. Al-Awlaki sees such assassinations as an Islamic religious duty, and made his case to Muslims in America, some of whom are already out on the streets in Los Angeles, on the basis of their Islamic responsibilities. Whether any will take heed remains to be seen.

In a video published on Sunday, al-Awlaki asserted that assassinating non-Muslim leaders was a form of Islamic jihad: “Anyone who can revive the tradition of assassinations and is near the leaders of apostasy – those who support the war in Gaza with money, aid, and logistics, the Jewish Arabs, like the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, and all the rulers of the Arabian Peninsula – should not hesitate even for a moment. By Allah, [assassinations] are the greatest form of jihad today.” The “Jewish Arabs” are the Muslim leaders whose countries have accords with Israel, or who have, like Saudi Arabia, been working toward a rapprochement with the Jewish state largely behind the scenes.

As for assassinating leaders, that is indeed an Islamic tradition. As “The History of Jihad” explains in detail, in the twelfth century, a Shi’ite Muslim sect, the Nizari Ismailis, came to be known as the Assassins. With their planned murders of many of their individual opponents, the Assassins gave the English language its word for one who commits planned, premeditated murder, and foreshadowed the individual jihad terror attacks of the twenty-first century. 

The word “assassin” is derived from “hashashin,” or hashish smokers, a name given to the group by its foes and based on stories about their novel method of recruiting new members. Recruits would be given hashish and taken into a garden where beautiful women awaited them. Later, when they came to their senses, they were told that they had been in paradise and that they could return there by killing Allah’s enemies and being slain in the process, thereby taking hold of Allah’s promise of paradise to those who “kill and are killed” (Qur’an 9:111). 

Today, al-Awlaki has some very specific targets in mind. He called upon observant Muslims in countries that aren’t attacking Israel, and who “fear Allah’s punishment for abandoning their brothers in Palestine,” to take matters into their own hands and “strike the Jews, the American military bases in the region, and the American aircraft carriers that are looming in the sea here.”

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