(Human Events) In January, an American Christian was sentenced to an eight-year prison sentence on charges of “endangering national security” in Iran. A 32-year-old married father of two from Boise, Idaho, Pastor Saeed Abedini traveled to his country of origin last year to visit family and help build an orphanage, only to be arrested and sent to Tehran’s brutal Evin prison.
According to Fox News, Abedini, a Muslim convert to Christianity—also known as an apostate deserving of death under Islamic Sharia law—is “facing physical and psychological torture at the hands of captors demanding he renounce his beliefs.” Indeed, the authorities’ words are “Deny your faith in Jesus Christ and return to Islam or else you will not be released from prison. We will make sure you are kept here even after your 8 year sentence is finished.”
(TheBlaze.com) Mark Burnett and Roma Downey have made headlines numerous times over the past few months with their epic series “The Bible” on the History Channel. TheBlaze has covered the show in detail, most recently providing an look inside a fascinating Bible exhibit that accompanies it. Tonight, the five-part series comes to a close, appropriately concluding with Jesus’ death and resurrection.
While the series has been monumentally successful, some critics have pointed to historical inaccuracies they believe are present. Now, before critics of the show get too excited over these claims, there’s much to consider. The exclusions and changes, it appears, were intentional — and were employed mainly to assist in understanding of complex story lines and to help guide comprehension of the overall narrative.
(FoxNews) Pope Francis used his first Easter Sunday Mass as pontiff to make a world peace plea, saying that conflicts have lasted too long in Syria, in addition to urging unity in Africa and the Korean peninsula.
Before a crowd of 250,000 in St. Peter’s Square, he also denounced warfare and terrorism across the world, and decried a greedy affluent world looking for `’easy gain.”
“And so we ask the risen Jesus, who turns death into life, to change hatred into love, vengeance into forgiveness, war into peace,” Pope Francis said. “Peace for the Middle East, and particularly between Israelis and Palestinians, who struggle to find the road of agreement, that they may willingly and courageously resume negotiations to end a conflict that has lasted all too long. Peace in Iraq, that every act of violence may end, and above all for dear Syria, for its people torn by conflict and for the many refugees who await help and comfort. How much blood has been shed! And how much suffering must there still be before a political solution to the crisis will be found?”
(UK DailyMail) After a hectic first two weeks in charge of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis could be forgiven for wanting to rest and go for a lie down.
The pontiff did just that today, but his horizontal position was adopted during a Good Friday service in the Vatican.
Presiding over his first Easter week as pope, the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires lay prostrate, praying to God before the famous church’s alter atop a rug with his arms resting on a pillow.
(WND.com) JERUSALEM – In his address in Jerusalem today, President Obama channeled Saul Alinsky, citing the radical community organizer’s defining mantra as he urged young Israelis to “create change” to nudge their leadership to act.
Obama told a crowd of college students at Jerusalem’s main convention center that Israel “has the wisdom to see the world as it is, but also the courage to see the world as it should be.” — One of Alinsky’s major themes was working with the world as it “is” to turn it into the world as “it should be.”
In his defining work, “Rules for Radicals,” which he dedicated to “the first rebel,” Lucifer, Alinsky used those words to lay out his main agenda. He asserted radical change must be brought about by working within a system instead of attacking it from the outside.
