Tag: religion

The Islamic State Spreads Images of Christian Executions in An Naba from Northern Nigeria and Issues Ultimatum of Conversion, Taxes or Murder to the Infidels

A publication attributed to the Islamic State (ISIS) has appeared in its weekly magazine An Naba with graphic and textual material that documents the execution of at least two people shot at close range in northern Nigeria. The victims, according to the jihadist propaganda, were immobilized on the ground and executed with no possibility of defense.

The same bulletin claims responsibility for the death of 17 Christian civilians and four Nigerian soldiers in additional operations, along with the burning of two entire localities in the region.

One of the actions described took place in the village of Kautekari, where terrorists armed with automatic rifles burst into a residents’ meeting and opened fire.

The jihadist text does not limit itself to boasting about the massacres. It includes an explicit doctrinal justification: “Islamic law gives Christian infidels two options among three options: Islam, a tax, or murder.” The victims, according to the terrorists, “chose their fate.”

This rhetoric reproduces the classic dhimmi ultimatum that ISIS applied in Iraq and Syria: forced conversion, payment of the jizya (the humiliating protection tax) or death. The propaganda also includes images of beheadings of Nigerian Christians and mentions kidnappings in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all framed in a narrative of Islamic supremacy and holy war.This is not an isolated event.

The African branch of ISIS, known as the Islamic State in the West Africa Province (ISWAP), has been consolidating its presence in northeastern Nigeria for years, where it competes with Boko Haram in brutality against Christian communities.

Thousands of the faithful have been murdered, churches burned, and entire villages razed in what religious freedom defense organizations describe as systematic persecution. ISWAP itself has claimed responsibility in the past for executions of Christians, offering them precisely the same three “options” that it now repeats in An Naba.

The Western left and much of the mainstream media continue to maintain a deafening silence in the face of this reality. While they mobilize for any narrative that fits their ideological agenda, the genocide of Christians in Africa and the Middle East barely deserves a paragraph.

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Liberal HuffPost Mocked for Article Claiming Pentagon ‘Excluded Catholics’ from Good Friday Service

Liberal Huffington Post breathlessly wrote about the Pentagon and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth allegedly “excluding Catholics” from Good Friday services.

Jennifer Bendery, a senior politics reporter at the outlet, wrote that the Pentagon “invited more than 3,500 employees to attend a Good Friday service at its in-house chapel.”

“Except it’s only for Protestants, not Catholics,” Bendery claimed.

Was there not a single Catholic Bendery could have queried about religious traditions during the period surrounding Easter and Holy Week?

And, in sharing the actual text from the Pentagon invitation, does she not understand sentence structure?

Bendery shared a memo sent to staff by Air Force leadership that read, “Just a friendly reminder: There will be a Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass) for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel.”

“No Catholic Mass” does not exclude Catholics; it simply notes that a Catholic Mass is not being held. Why? Because Catholics traditionally do not attend Mass on Good Friday.

Catholic Holy Week and Easter form the most sacred period in the liturgical year in the Catholic church, which commemorates the final days of Jesus Christ’s life, his Passion (suffering), death, and Resurrection.

Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday and culminates in the Easter Triduum (the “Three Days”), a single unified celebration from the evening of Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday evening.

Palm Sunday marks the start of Holy Week, recalling Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when crowds welcomed him with palm branches. In Catholic churches, a procession with blessed palm branches takes place at the beginning of Mass, and many families take the blessed palms home and display them, often woven into crosses. The palms are later burned to make ashes for the following year’s Ash Wednesday.

Holy Thursday (Maundy Thursday) marks the beginning of the Easter Triduum. It commemorates the Last Supper, where Jesus instituted the Eucharist (the sacrament of his Body and Blood) and the priesthood, and washed the feet of his disciples as an example of humble service.

Good Friday (The Passion of the Lord) is the most solemn day of the year — a day of mourning, fasting, and penance that commemorates Jesus’ crucifixion and death on the cross.

It is a day of strict fasting and abstinence from meat for Catholics aged 14 and older, with some observing additional silence or prayer between noon and 3 p.m.

Popular devotions include the Stations of the Cross (a meditation on 14 scenes from Jesus’ Passion) and processions or reenactments in some cultures. For the first time since Pope John Paul II, Pope Leo Pope personally carried the wooden cross himself through all 14 stations.

But there is no Catholic Mass on Good Friday. The tabernacle is empty, and the altar remains bare.

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Prominent New York synagogue hosts presentation on why U.S. Jews should support the ethnic cleansing of Gaza

The American press does its best not to cover savage Israeli views of Palestinians, but a leading New York synagogue gave an honored platform to those views ten days ago. It hosted an Israeli advocate with connections in its government who argued for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and said American Jews need to support that operation.  

Benjamin Anthony said that all “Palestinian Arabs” in Gaza pose such a threat to Israel that the international community should use “muscular diplomacy” with Egypt so as force the population out of Gaza into an “enclave” in the Sinai peninsula. 

“I believe the international community would very handily be able to create some sort of enclave for the…Gazans in the Sinai peninsula. And then we might have the breathing room to think about long-term solutions.” 

Though those two million Gazans would likely be displaced again, into African countries, said Anthony, the leader of an Israeli think tank called the MirYam Institute. 

“I think someone like [Egyptian president] Sisi would likely move the Gazans along from the Sinai peninsula in the event that he didn’t want to build a place for them there, and you would probably see them dispersed through the continent of Africa quite quickly.”

Anthony’s argument is widely shared by Israelis (according to a 2025 poll), and it only received mild push back from Eliot Cosgrove, a leading conservative rabbi in the U.S., who had brought Anthony, his first cousin, onto the synagogue dais.  

Cosgrove called the scheme “very intriguing,” but protested that Anthony was conflating “Hamas with the entire Gaza population.” And that by creating a refugee population with a “narrative”, Israel was practically and morally kicking the can down the road. Speaking “as a proud Zionist,” Cosgrove said the scheme is not in Israel’s interest.

Anthony insisted that no Gazans could be trusted because Gazan civilians cheered the atrocities against Israelis on October 7. Cosgrove folded his hand: “Well, I love you, and I disagree with you, but let’s move on.” 

Cosgrove ended the hour-long dialogue by thanking Anthony “for fighting the good fight” and “for representing our people.”

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Professor of Christian ‘sexual ethics’ at Midwest university and father of TEN charged with rape and child sexual abuse

A former Midwest university professor who fathered at least 10 children and wrote about Christian sexual ethics has been charged with rape and sexual battery of one or more minors.

John Kent Tarwater, 55, was indicted last Friday in Greene County, Ohio, about an hour west of Columbus, on two counts of rape, three counts of sexual battery and three counts of gross sexual imposition.

Tarwater was booked into the Greene County Jail, where he remained in custody as of Friday night.

One victim was known to Tarwater and was as young as 10 years old when the alleged years-long abuse began, per the indictment viewed by the Daily Mail.

Tarwater had worked at Cedarville University, a Baptist school with roughly 6,400 students, as a business administration faculty member and associate finance professor since 2017.

In December 2022, he penned an article titled ‘Does Sexual Self–Gratification Glorify God?’ which has since been deleted but remains archived online.

‘Perhaps the issue that causes the greatest confusion for both single and married people centers on the permissibility or impermissibility of masturbation,’ Tarwater’s article read.

He co–authored a piece the previous year titled ‘Business Ethics in the Marketplace: Exploring Transgenderism.’

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Trace DNA Found on Shroud of Turin Suggests ‘Unexpected’ Connection to India

Scientists examining DNA contained on the Shroud of Turin were surprised to find evidence indicating that the materials used to make the relic may have originated in India. The fascinating study reportedly involved researchers re-examining samples collected from the controversial artifact in 1978, with the intention of gaining new insights from the genetic information left behind on the pieces. In detailing their analysis of the trace DNA, the scientists revealed that they detected a remarkably diverse array of plants and animals that had their proverbial prints on the relic.

But what particularly intrigued scientists were their findings with regard to the people who came into contact with the shroud. Specifically, the researchers noted that nearly 40 percent of the human DNA found on the relic was from “Indian lineages.” This “unexpected” result, they noted, “is potentially linked to historical interactions associated with importing linen or yarn from regions near the Indus Valley.” Alas, given the complex history of the relic, the scientists were unable to determine its age based on the trace DNA from “centuries of social, cultural, and ecological engagement” with the shroud.

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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Targets Anti-Christian Bias

The Chicago Bulls recently released Jaden Ivey from his contract for being outspoken about his Christian beliefs when he expressed discontent with the NBA’s Pride Month celebrations. Discrimination against Christians isn’t exclusive to the world of professional sports — and thankfully the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), following a Trump administration executive order, has begun to increase efforts to counter violations of Christians’ religious rights.

This week, the EEOC announced it is suing the Cogar Group, a private security company, after it allegedly forced a disabled veteran working as a security guard to resign over his Christian beliefs. In February 2024, the Virginia-based company told the security guard that his schedule would be shifted so that he would be required to work on weekends, according to an EEOC press release. The guard had previously informed the Cogar Group in March 2021 that he was unable to work on Sundays due to his religious beliefs, as he identifies as a devout Baptist and a church deacon. The EEOC says that the Cogar Group refused to honor the employee’s religious practice, forcing the security guard to resign.

Employers who don’t make accommodations for their employee’s religious beliefs are violating Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

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US ICE detains Islamic Society of Milwaukee President Salah Sarsour

Islamic Society of Milwaukee President Salah Sarsour, who is a Palestinian American, has been detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the mosque said on Thursday.

ISM, which is Wisconsin’s largest mosque, said Sarsour, 53, is a legal permanent resident who has lived in the U.S. for over three decades and was detained on Monday. He grew up in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“He was pulled over while driving by over 10 ICE agents with no cause,” a page on the mosque’s website said, adding he was taken out of the state to a detention facility in Chicago before being transferred to a detention center in Indiana.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel cited Othman Atta, the executive director of the mosque, as saying that deportation documents focused on Sarsour’s arrest by Israeli authorities as a teenager living in the West Bank to argue he provided material support for extremists.

Atta said Sarsour was convicted as a teenager in an Israeli military court, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Though Israel has ratified the U.N. convention against torture, Israeli rights group B’Tselem says military courts in the West Bank, where Palestinians are tried for alleged crimes, have a 96 percent conviction rate and a history of extracting confessions through torture.

Atta denied that Sarsour supported the militant group Hamas.

Sarsour is “being targeted on the basis of his Palestinian and Muslim background, and his advocacy for Palestinian rights,” the mosque said.

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Christian Nationalists in US Government Push Attacks on Iran as Holy War

How Christian clergy talk about Jesus this Easter Sunday will tell you a lot about their politics. While parishioners in the U.S. are likely to be greeted by the traditional refrain, “He is risen,” at their April 5 Easter service, they’re just as likely to be met with the phrase, “Christ is King.” This rhetoric replaces the traditional understanding of Easter as a celebration of Jesus’s sacrifice and resurrection with a more aggressive vision of a warrior Jesus that resonates strongly with Donald Trump-aligned white Christian nationalists.

The phrase “Christ is King” isn’t new — it’s sometimes used by Christians to refer to the belief that Jesus’s divine rule goes beyond that of earthly leaders. But the phrase has recently become “a kind of rallying cry for Christian supremacy,” historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, told Truthout.

Over the last few years, the slogan has spread from far right provocateurs like Nick Fuentes to Trump’s cabinet and the military. In February, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth used the phrase at a convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, galvanizing Christian nationalists’ thirst for authoritarian rulers whose Jesus is defined by militant masculinity — more like a crusader or cowboy than the peace-loving, “sacrificial lamb” celebrated on Easter, who was executed for challenging the hierarchies of empire.

Along the way, the phrase has become a dog whistle for antisemitism, and it’s often combined with other Christian nationalist “holy war” rhetoric that has been spiking since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

Popular Christian Zionist preachers like John Hagee came out of the gate praising Operation Epic Fury in a sermon from March 10. On March 23, Rep. Andy Ogles posted an AI-generated video of himself, Pete Hegseth, and Marco Rubio dressed as crusaders with the caption: “This is a battle of good vs evil. We must reaffirm that our nation was built on Christian principles.” Their language and iconography distract from the fact that the U.S. and Israel’s attacks on Iran were launched without congressional approval, are unpopular, and have killed more than 1,500 people.

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Dems Hope To Hide Anti-American Policies Behind ‘Straight, White, Christian Man’ 2028 Nominee

A hilarious article in Axios over the weekend re-upped one of my favorite self-perpetuating problems in the Democrat Party — the party’s refusal to do anything but change its destructive, unpopular policy positions.

“Some top Democrats,” read the piece by Holly Otterbein and Alex Thompson, “are quietly debating a fraught question: whether the party’s best bet for winning back the presidency in 2028 is to nominate a man — perhaps a straight, white, Christian man.”

Democrats had their rears smacked and handed to them red hot in 2024, in large part because they wouldn’t accept that voters aren’t as preoccupied with race and sex as they are. It’s how they permanently screwed themselves with Kamala Harris, first as vice president and then inevitably as the party’s replacement nominee.

To her credit, at least Kamala, with a herculean assist from the dying news media, pretended not to support all the things she and the rest of the party in fact did support up until the last second. Namely, importing every destitute foreigner who made it to the southern border, allowing crime to run rampant (so long as the perpetrators were of a particular demographic), and crushing the middle class by hooking as many people as possible on welfare.

If Kamala hadn’t had a record as, you know, vice president for the previous three-plus years, she might have had a shot. But a policy reversal isn’t the lesson Democrats appear to have taken from that loss. Instead, they have settled on a new strategy that involves going on podcasts, publicly cursing a lot, and — wait for it — hunting down a nominee who might fit the profile of the very type of person the party has tried to destroy. The white, straight, Christian male.

They’re no longer considering a policy shift, it seems.

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EU Parliament Told Continent Is ‘On Track For CIVIL WAR’

Europe’s ruling class has spent decades importing chaos under the banner of “diversity,” and now the bill is coming due in the most explosive way possible.

A major conference held inside the European Parliament has heard stark warnings that the continent is barreling toward civil war as mass migration erodes trust, creates no-go zones, and fractures societies along ethnic lines.

Professor David Betz of King’s College London cut straight to the point, telling the assembled lawmakers and experts: “Europe is on track for civil war”.

The event, titled Civil War: Europe at Risk?, was hosted by French populist-right leader Marion Maréchal and Sweden Democrats MEP Charlie Weimers. 

It also launched a new report documenting up to a thousand no-go zones across Europe based on public data including crime rates, sexual violence, youth gangs, unemployment, school performance, antisemitism, homophobia, mosque density, attacks on firefighters, and NGO presence.

Maréchal opened the conference by reflecting that formerly peaceful and stable societies are “rapidly transforming before our eyes into societies of violence and mistrust”, stating that “the main basis of trust between citizens is cultural homogeneity”, which is now fast eroding.

She warned Europe is already under a great strain of “diffuse guerrilla activity”, which takes various forms, including “riots, looting, random attacks, anti-white racism, and terrorist attacks”.

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