Are you willing to embrace this kind of culture within your cities?

... then think and reflect what's more important to you now! Pray it won't happen in your cities today!

Iran 'annuls death term' for Christian pastor

Christian Armenian Iranian women select a Christmas tree in Tehran in 2001. Iran's supreme court has overturned a death sentence handed down to Yusef Nadarkhani, a Christian pastor accused of apostasy for having converted from Islam, his lawyer told AFP on Sunday.(AFP/File/Henghameh Fahimi)

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's supreme court has overturned a death sentence handed down to Yusef Nadarkhani, a Christian pastor accused of apostasy for having converted from Islam, his lawyer told AFP on Sunday.

"The supreme court has annuled the death sentence and sent the case back to the court in Rasht (his hometown), asking the accused to repent," Mohammad Ali Dadkhah said.

Nadarkhani, now 32, converted from Islam to Christianity at the age of 19 and became a pastor of a small evangelical community called the Church of Iran.

US Commission Names 14 Worst Violators Of Religious Freedom

EWTN - For the first time, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has listed Egypt among the world’s worst violators of religious freedom.

In its 2011 annual report, the commission recommended that the State Department designate 14 nations--Burma, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam--as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs).

The persecution of Christians in the ‘Muslim world’

ChristiansOfIraq and WorldMag

Dec. 15, 2010

The New York Times this week ran a front-page article on Christian persecution in Iraq, noting, “A new wave of Iraqi Christians has fled to northern Iraq or abroad amid a campaign of violence against them and growing fear that the country’s security forces are unable or, more ominously, unwilling to protect them.” The Times goes on to inform us that “more than half of Iraq’s Christian community, estimated to number 800,000 to 1.4 million before the American-led invasion in 2003, have already left the country.”

What is the Obama administration doing to put pressure on the al-Maliki government in Baghdad to stop these murders of Christians? We have heard endlessly of this administration’s “outreach to the Muslim world.” That term—“Muslim world”—may itself be part of the problem. By telling Shia and Sunni Muslims that the Middle East is their world, are we not saying that Middle Eastern Christians and Jews don’t belong there?

The Christian community in Iraq has been there since the beginnings of the Church. Bible readers will recognize Nineveh Province, one of the regions in modern-day Iraq. Didn’t some biblical character named Jonah have a rendezvous with destiny there? The Chaldean Assyrian Christians—note their Bible name—speak Aramaic, which is the language scholars tell us Jesus spoke. Yet these people, too, are being driven away.

In Iran, a Christian pastor faces death sentence

Comments from Zolardrew: Iran is waging a war against Christians. This is not good. The Middle Ages are coming back. Bring back the Crusaders!

Photo Source: allvoices.com

(CNN) -- A Christan pastor in Iran has been sentenced to death for allegedly renouncing his Muslim religion and another faces a possible indictment on the same charge of apostasy, according to a prominent activist group working for human rights in Iran.

Youcef Nadarkhani, a 32-year-old member of the Church of Iran ministry and pastor of an approximately 400-person congregation in the northern city of Rasht, faces death, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

In the southern city of Shiraz, another Christian pastor, Behrouz Sadegh-Khanjani, 35, is facing a possible indictment for apostasy.

"This is part of a greater trend of persecution against Christians," said Firouz Sadegh-Khanjani, brother of Behrouz and member of the Church of Iran's Executive Council.

Christians are feeling the heat in other parts of the Muslim world as well.

CONCLUSIONS OF INTER-RELIGIOUS MEETING IN TEHRAN

(Photo Source: hurriyetdailynews.com)

VATICAN CITY, 16 NOV 2010 (VIS) - The Centre for Inter-Religious Dialogue of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organisation (Tehran, Iran) and the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue held their seventh colloquium in Tehran from 9 to 11 November under the joint presidency of Mohammad Baqer Khorramshad, president of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organisation, and of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue.

At the end of the meeting the participants (seven in the delegation led by Mohammad Baqer Khorramshad and six in the delegation led by Cardinal Tauran), agreed upon the following:

(1) Believers and religious communities, based on their faith in God, have a specific role to play in society, on an equal footing with other citizens.

To Our Arab Christian Citizens by Mshari Al-Zaydi

Thanks to Mr. Mshari for this wonderful and very balance opinion from an Arab journalist who sympathizes with the growing plight of Iraqi Christians who were terrorized in Baghdad in October 31, 2010 while peacefully praying in a Catholic Church. While he sympathize with Arab Christians, he also hopes for a better way of supporting and bringing the issue of Arab Christians into the consciousness of every Arab by usign the media within the Arab world. God bless you Mr. Mshari Al-Zaydi.

By Mshari Al-Zaydi
Source: aawsat.com

The bloody assault on Baghdad's Church of Our Lady of Salvation has opened the door to a bigger question about the fate of Christian citizens in Middle Eastern countries, and the future of their presence there. Furthermore, it has exposed an Arab and Islamic wound, and we must get to the source of this crisis.

It would be a shame to see the land that witnessed the birth and life of Jesus Christ, and the spreading of his teachings, became devoid of followers of the Christian faith.



Mshari Al-Zaydi



For many centuries Christians lived in the Middle East without fearing for their lives, and it is a shame that they feel under threat today and that the Christian exodus from the Middle East has become such a serious issue.

It is distressing for the people of this region to acknowledge the words of Jesuit scholar Father Samir Khalil Samir, who is an Egyptian Catholic based in Beirut who recently presented a paper to the Vatican's Synod for the Middle East. Regarding the current crisis that Christians in the Middle East are facing, Father Samir Khalil Samir said "If this phenomenon continues, Christianity in the Middle East will disappear" according to Reuters and other news agencies. He added "the emigration of Christians from Iraq since 2003 may ultimately lead to their complete disappearance from the country."