China: Authorities detain Christians in secret ‘transformation’ facilities to make them renounce their faith

While about 30 percent of the world’s population identifies as Christian, 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination are directed at Christians. 
Int'l Society for Human Rights 

The Persecution of Christians
News

Persecution of Christians in China: the Chinese government’s use of torture techniques as detailed in this article is part of its ongoing efforts to destroy Christianity and fashion a new religion that is superficially Christian but is actually a pliant tool of the Communist Party. This threatens all the Christians of the country, including the tiny community of Orthodox Christians in China.

China offers yet another instance of the persecution of Christians by governing officials that is unfortunately on the increase not only in China, but in all too many other nations around the world.

For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in China, see here.

“Chinese Christians Held in Secretive Brainwashing Camps: Sources,” Radio Free Asia, April 1, 2021:

Authorities in China are detaining Christians in secretive, mobile “transformation” facilities to make them renounce their faith, RFA has learned.

A member of a Christian “house church” in the southwestern province of Sichuan who asked to be identified by a pseudonym Li Yuese said he was held in a facility run by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s United Front Work Department, working in tandem with the state security police, for 10 months after a raid on his church in 2018.

“It was a mobile facility, that could just set up in some basement somewhere,” Li said. “It was staffed by people from several different government departments.”

“It had its own (CCP) political and legal affairs committee working group, and they mainly target Christians who are members of house churches,” he said.

The Chinese Communist Party, which embraces atheism, exercises tight controls over any form of religious practice among its citizens. State security police and religious affairs bureau officials frequently raid unofficial “house churches” that aren’t members of the CCP-backed Three-Self Patriotic Association, although member churches have also been targeted at times.

The CCP under Xi Jinping regards Christianity as a dangerous foreign import, with party documents warning against the “infiltration of Western hostile forces” in the form of religion.

Li said he was held in a windowless room for nearly 10 months, during which time he was beaten, verbally abused and “mentally tortured” by staff, eventually resorting to self-harm by throwing himself against a wall. His account is chillingly similar to those of former inmates of “transformation” camps in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

“They use really underhand methods,” Li said. “They threaten, insult and intimidate you. These were United Front officials, men, women, sometimes unidentified, usually in plain clothes. The police turn a blind eye to this,” he said.

“You have to accept the statement they prepare for you,” he said. “If you refuse, you will be seen as having a bad attitude and they will keep you in detention and keep on beating you.”

Basement Brainwashing Sessions

Li said most of his fellow inmates were also people who had been released on bail during criminal detention for taking part in church-related activities. Most hadn’t done anything that could trigger any criminal prosecution, so police sent them to the “transformation” facilities instead, Li said.

“They were using brainwashing methods on those of us who were on bail from the detention center,” he said. “It was in a secret location, in a basement.”

Christian Persecution report continues

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Illinois Church with Drag Queen Leader has Reached 'Doctrinal Annihilation': Al Mohler

“By the time any kind of church or church body reaches this point, it has already basically embraced doctrinal annihilation. There is virtually nothing left of the historic Christian tradition.”

Isaac Simmons, an openly gay clergy candidate in the United Methodist Church, doing a

video in April 2021 as his drag queen alter ego Ms. Penny Cost. YouTube/Woke Preacher Clips

By Michael Gryboski
Christian Post Reporter

Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler has denounced an Illinois church’s consideration of having a drag queen as their pastor, calling it “doctrinal annihilation.”

Hope United Methodist Church in Bloomington garnered headlines for having an openly gay man who is also a drag queen serve as a leader at their congregation, with a local UMC body advancing him as a candidate for ministry.

In a Wednesday episode of his podcast “The Briefing,” Mohler blasted the church's advancement of Isaac Simmons as “an intentional refutation and revolt against the very order of creation that God has given us, and a direct violation of the clear teachings of Scripture concerning the fact that those whom God has made as men should identify as men.”

“This is open revolt, and of course, you're going to see a division between those who are appalled by it, deeply troubled by it, deeply concerned by it and opposed to it on the one hand, and those who celebrate it and say that it's arrived far too late on the other hand,” said Mohler.

“By the time any kind of church or church body reaches this point, it has already basically embraced doctrinal annihilation. There is virtually nothing left of the historic Christian tradition.”

Mohler went on to explain that “you're looking not only at two different positions” when it came to whether Simmons should be a church leader, but rather “you're looking at two different religions.”

“Those two different religions cannot possibly continue to exist in one church or in one denomination,” he added. “Once conservatives are out of the picture in the United Methodist Church, this is only the start of where things will go in the future.”

A student at Illinois Wesleyan, Simmons has been known to be involved in online worship as his drag persona, Ms. Penny Cost, including on April 11, known as “Drag Sunday.”

In an interview with CBS News affiliate WMBD in Illinois, Simmons explained that he wasn't expecting to be approved for clergy candidacy, given the UMC’s official stance against homosexuality, noncelibate homosexual ordination and same-sex marriage.

Christian Post continues

Suspected Fulani Gunmen Raid Baptist Church Service in Nigeria, Abduct 4 Worshipers; 1 Killed

In its 2021 report, the U.S. Commission on International and Religious Freedom warned Nigeria “will move relentlessly toward a Chrisitan genocide” if action is not taken.

                         Christians in Nigeria worship at a church in this undated file photo. Open Doors

By Emily Wood
Christian Post Reporter

Armed Fulani radicals raided a Baptist church’s Sunday service in Nigeria, killing one person, injuring another and abducting four women as violence accelerates in the Kaduna state.

Charity Musa, Rose Zacharia, Alheri Bala and Liatu Zakka, a widow whose husband was murdered in an earlier attack, were the four women kidnapped from the church service at Haske Baptist Church in Manini village of the Chikun Local Government Area, according to the United Kingdom-based human rights organization Chrisitan Solidarity Worldwide.

Sources claim heavily armed men killed health worker Zacharia Dogon Yaro and injured Shehu Haruna.

Government officials confirmed the attacks.

“Preliminary investigation conducted so far revealed that, four persons are missing which arouse a suspicion that they might have been kidnapped by the hoodlums," police command spokesperson Mohammed Jalige told Nigerian media.

“Two others sustained gunshot wounds, namely; Dr. Zakariya Doga Yaro, a staff of Kaduna State Ministry of Health attached to the Primary Healthcare Center in Rimi village, Udawa, Chikun LGA and Shehu Haruna."

Khataza Gondwe, CSW’s head of advocacy in the organization’s office in Nigeria, told The Christian Post in a Tuesday interview that the danger of attacks and kidnappings has become widespread in Nigeria.

“Kidnappers have expanded their operations to the extent that everybody, every civilian right now feels like prisoners because they’re afraid when driving outside of towns and cities,” Gondwe said. “Once on an open road, they are subject to being abducted. … Armed men can emerge [from] the bush and take people away, leave cars behind. At the moment, that kind of kidnapping is coming closer and closer to the cities.”

The militant groups threaten everyone, Gondwe said, but Christians face “particularly bad treatment” depending on who the abductors are.

“If Christians fall into the hands of armed groups that have an extremist religious ideology, then the danger is definitely heightened,” Gondwe explained.

A source told CSW the kidnappers are expanding their activities, especially in rural areas.

“We are like prisoners. We can hardly step out of the city. Once you’re on the road, your heart is in your mouth until you reach your destination,” the source told CSW.

The abductors often kidnap to demand ransom money, which has become a lucrative industry in Nigeria.

After years of not being addressed effectively by authorities, the danger is now widespread. Gondwe said the attacks began around 2011 and became worse in 2015 when the current administration took control.

Christian Post continues

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Christian Nurses Attacked, Arrested under Blasphemy Law in Pakistan

Church leaders and rights activists have appealed to the government to ensure fair investigation as panic spread among Christian medical workers in Faisalabad

Morning Star News
Pakistan Correspondent

LAHORE, Pakistan, April 12, 2021 (Morning Star News) – Two Christian nurses complying with a supervisor’s orders to remove stickers at a government hospital were arrested in Faisalabad, Pakistan on Friday (April 9) after a Muslim employee attacked one of them with a knife for the removal of a sticker bearing Koranic verses, sources said.

Nurse Mariam Lal and student nurse Navish Arooj were charged under Section 295-B of Pakistan’s blasphemy statutes against “defiling the Koran” after an Islamist mob demanded “death to blasphemers” inside Civil Hospital, their attorney said. Conviction under Section 295-B is punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment and/or a fine.

The two Roman Catholic nurses were sent to jail in judicial custody on Friday night (April 9) for their security, according to police. Their families have gone into hiding out of fear of Islamist mobs.

A Muslim co-worker attacked Lal, according to cell phone video recorded by an unidentified hospital employee showing the co-worker, identified only as Waqas, telling a group he attacked her with a knife. He is shown saying he saw Lal ask Arooj to tear off a sticker inscribed with the Durood Sharif, an exaltation prayer used for Prophet Muhammad, from a wall cabinet.

“I could not remain silent over blasphemy of our holy prophet, so I attacked Mariam,” Waqas tells the group, who during the recording shout slogans praising Muhammad and call for the hanging of the two women. “The prophet’s respect is more precious than my life or yours.”

Attorney Akmal Bhatti, chairman of the Minorities Alliance of Pakistan, said from Faisalabad that Lal, a single parent to a teenage daughter, and Arooj, engaged to be married in two weeks, work in the psychiatric ward of the hospital.

“According to Mariam’s statement, a senior nurse had directed her on Thursday evening to remove all old wall hangings and stickers, some of them inscribed with Koranic verses. She said a sticker on a cabinet was already half torn off by some patient when Navish removed it,” Bhatti told Morning Star News. “Mariam said she and Navish were simply following the directives when a nurse made an issue over the torn sticker, reportedly over a personal grudge.”

The matter was seemingly settled after the two Christians assured co-workers that they had no ill intentions and left the hospital after ending their duty, he said.

“On Friday morning, someone again instigated the staff, and they attacked the two women,” Bhatti said, adding that it was clear that both women had been framed in a false case. Sources said a Muslim nurse with help from Waqas instigated staff members against the two women.

News article continues here

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Church Forced to Cancel Event with Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk after Receiving Threats of Violence

 

Charlie Kirk,Turning Point Founder

By Amanda Casanova
Christian Headlines

According to The Washington Times, Roger Archer, senior pastor of Motion Church in Puyallup, Washington, said, "radical terrorist mobs" threatened the church with violence in response to Kirk's scheduled appearance.

"Upon hearing that Mr. Kirk was coming to our church, radical terrorist mobs like the ones that rallied on Capitol Hill in Seattle, they sprung into action," Archer said in a video posted online Friday.

"They sprung with threatening declarations," he added. "They vowed to not only burn our properties to the ground, but also brought threats of physical violence against our church leadership, our neighbors, their properties, and basically wreak havoc in our community, this precious community that we love."

Kirk is the founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, a right-wing organization that advocates for conservatism on high school and college campuses.

In 2016, Kirk addressed the Republican National Convention and supported President Donald Trump.

Archer did not name the group that made the threats, but conservative radio host Jason Rantz tweeted that the cancellation was due to "Antifa radicals."

The group Indivisible Puyallup, which says they aim to protect "our nation's values & principles through grassroots political action to resist Trump," tweeted their thanks to activists.

Indivisible Puyallup

@PuyallupIndivis

"Congrats are in order for local activists in The Puyallup/South Hill area that put enough pressure on Motion Church to cancel the Charlie Kirk event,"The event, which the church website said was sold out, was billed as "An afternoon with Charlie Kirk" and was scheduled for May 2.

"Therefore, it is for the safety of my precious city and our precious church people that I have heartbreakingly cancelled our event with Mr. Kirk," Archer said. "Our deepest apologies go out to Mr. Kirk and his organization. He deserves much better from our state leadership, but, unfortunately, this is where we are. I will not put soft targets in harm's way. I will not subject our community to destruction. And since our governor will not protect us, we must take this course of action."

Christian Headlines blog

Christians Confined to Home by Police, Tribal Threats in India

“What mistake have we done that they were beating my small children?”

Southern India Correspondent
Morning Star News

HYDERABAD, India, April 15, 2021, A Christian family in eastern India has been confined to their home for months amid police threats to jail them for “breach of peace” after tribal mob assaults for leaving their native religion, sources said.

The mob of tribal followers of native religion gathered police and news media to accompany them when they beat Christians in Jharkhand state’s Khala village, Garhwa District, earlier this year, said one of the attacked Christians, Asha Korwa, a mother of two young children.

“The mob brought with them the village president, media and police officers,” said Korwa, whose children, ages 3 and 6, were beaten on Jan. 31 along with her and her husband. “As the media clicked our pictures and videotaped the attack, the police watched as mere spectators. They did not stop the assailants or the media.”

After the midnight attack by a large mob of tribal animists, Garhwa police ordered the Christian family not to leave the village, she said.

“Police officers at Garhwa police station summoned my husband to the police station and told him that he has been held responsible for the breach of peace and public tranquillity under Section 107 of the Criminal Procedure Code,” Korwa told Morning Star News. “They told him that nobody from my family will step out of the village and that, if necessary, they would take our entire family into custody.”

Police harassed them the following days, she added.

“The first 10 days of February, we could not breathe in our own home,” Korwa said. “The police officers were stopping by to enquire if we have committed a breach of peace. They would go to our neighbors to take their report as to whether we behaved well.”

The tribal animists first attacked on Jan. 22, holding her husband, Sukender Korwa, by his shirt and striking his back as they ordered them to stop Christian worship in their home, she said.

“Our house is very close to the main road, and they get annoyed by even the slightest of the noises that can be heard when we praise and worship,” she said. “On the day of the first attack on Jan. 22, a batch of strongmen from the community stormed into our home and started badgering us, ‘Why are you shouting hallelujah? How dare you worship a foreign god!'”

After beating Sukender Korwa, the assailants left after threatening that they would chase down and kill the family if they ever heard Christian worship from their home again, she said.

When a larger mob arrived the following week and began beating all family members, Asha Korwa asked them why they had returned.

“I asked them that they have warned us and gone away just few days ago, so why did they return to attack us again?” she said. “What mistake have we done that they were beating my

 small children?”

Christian Headlines report continues

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Protesters Urge Biden Admin. to take Action against Ethiopia for Genocide of Amhara, Orthodox Christians

The letter included a short list of “gross human rights violations,” including the ethnic cleansing of about 1 million people in southern Ethiopia, the murder of “scores of Orthodox Christians” and the subsequent burning of their churches and the “ongoing genocide against members of the Amhara ethnic group.”

Protesters gather outside the U.S. State Department to demand a stronger response
 for acts of genocide committed in Ethiopia, April 20, 2021. The Christin Post
 

By Ryan Foley
Christian Post Reporter

A new civic engagement group based primarily in the Washington, D.C. area, called Voice for the Voiceless Ethiopians, held a protest in front of the U.S. State Department Tuesday, where several dozen gathered to urge the Biden administration to take action against the Ethiopian government for its indifference to and perpetration of acts of genocide against ethnic and religious groups.

Through their efforts, the group hopes to create “public awareness about the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Amhara and Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia.”

They also called for an end to “the illegal imprisonment without bail of leaders of Balderas for True Democracy in Ethiopia: Eskinder Nega, Sentayehu Chekol, Aster (Qeleb) Seyoum and Askale Demele who opposed (the ruling) OPDO-Prosperity Party’s acts of human rights abuses in Ethiopia and its policy of complete marginalization of residents of the metropolitan Addis Ababa,” the country’s capital and largest city. Balderas for True Democracy in Ethiopia is a registered political party in the country.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Yohannes Gethaun, the public relations officer for Voice for the Voiceless Ethiopians, elaborated on why his organization decided to hold the protest event. “We demand that Ethiopians shall be governed through a transient period led by technocrats, no politicians. They’ve failed us for the last 47 years so we prefer a government run by technocrats, which will have a term limit, those people, the technocrats, will arrange an election process, lead the transition period through a peaceful process.”

Gethaun slammed Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, a member of the Oromo Peoples Democratic Organization, who has held that position since 2018, for his lack of action as churches have been destroyed along with entire towns. “He doesn’t care,” he maintained. Another person who attended the event, also named Abiy, alleged that “he acts like he doesn't care, but he’s behind the whole thing.”

“As long as he’s in power, for the next 10 years or 20 years, that is his plan,” Abiy continued. Contending that “the election is already rigged,” he explained that “it’s just another dictatorship we’re going through again.” Abiy contended that Ethiopia has never operated as a true democracy since the first Tigray People’s Liberation Front took power in 1991.

Another attendee, Waussihan, told CP that he was attending the event to raise awareness for a “very serious situation in Ethiopia” where Abiy Ahmed is just waging war against Amhara people.” He asserted that “Abiy Ahmed organizes his own militias and sends these militias to the farmers to kill children … mothers and they even just cut the abdomen of the mother and to just give her the baby because the baby was Amhara.” He also expressed disappointment that “the international media is denying this fact.”

“Abiy Ahmed is waging war against Tigrays and he’s allowing ... other external forces to just rape children,” Waussihan insisted. “He’s killing people because of their identity, because they are ethnic Amharas.”

“What we want is the international community to know what is really happening in Ethiopia,” he said. “That is the only thing we need. We don’t need any help, we need the international community to learn what is … happening in Ethiopia.”

“It is high time that Abiy Ahmed Ali be removed from power,” Voice for the Voiceless Ethiopians Task Force Chairman Shimelis Legesse wrote in a press release announcing Tuesday’s protest, which was obtained by CP. “The fate of Ethiopia’s 116 million people should never be left at the hands of this narcissist person. Politically independent Ethiopian technocrats shall be given the opportunity to form a transitional government with a legally binding term limit.”

Christian Post report continues here

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Chants and Incantations to Aztec Gods of Human Sacrifice in California’s Public Schools?

Thank God for Christopher Rufo and Rod Dreher for having the courage to warn Americans about this looming, highly flammable fuel for a cultural apocalypse.

Richard Land

By Richard Land
Christian Post Executive Editor

I have told my seminary students for years that a society or culture is never in a state of stasis. It is just the nature of human societies — they are constantly in flux, heading in one direction or the other, getting worse or getting better, depending on your perspective.

I have never been more depressed to have been proven right about American society’s increasing volatility. Current news stories contain harrowing reports of ever more radical “woke” philosophies being imprinted on the impressionable minds of our nation’s youth — in this case, the 6 million primary and secondary students attending California’s public schools.

If you were concerned about the cultural divisiveness of the centrifugal forces generated by critical race theory, intersectionality and Black Lives Matter, wait until you see what the formerly “Golden” state of California is contemplating inflicting on the unsuspecting youth of their state.

Christopher Rufo reports that next week the California Department of Education will decide whether to approve a statewide “ethnic studies” curriculum with the goal of “decolonizing” American society of its biased “Eurocentric” white “hegemony” over the indigenous peoples which allowed white settlers to establish a “regime of coloniality, dehumanization, and genocide.”

As Rod Dreher reports on Rufo’s research: “the ultimate goal is to 'decolonize' America and replace it with a new social order of 'countergenocide' and 'counterhegemony,' which will overthrow the dominant Christian culture and result in the 'regeneration of indigenous songs, chants and affirmations' culminating in teachers leading students in chants to Aztec gods, seeking empowerment to be 'warriors' for 'social justice' and importuning the Aztec God of war and human sacrifice, Xipe Totec known as 'Our Lord the Flayed One' because typically victims of human sacrifice, before they were disemboweled, dismembered and eaten, were skinned alive (Wikepedia, 'Human sacrifice in Aztec culture')."

The curriculum asserts that “white Christians committed ‘theocide’ against indigenous tribes, killing their gods and replacing them with Christianity.” This all culminates, according to Dreher and Rufo, with students shouting “Panche beh! Panche beh!” seeking ultimate “critical consciousness.”

This is all so comprehensively evil and destructive it is hard to know where to begin criticism of this dangerous, divisive, retrograde cultural vandalism. The idea that a tax-supported public school system would, or could, be used to unleash this vicious cultural and spiritual poison into our young people’s consciousness is both extremely offensive and quite possibly illegal.

How does this curriculum not violate the First Amendment’s "establishment clause?” If public schools are not allowed to sponsor Christian prayers, why would they be allowed to sponsor prayers to an Aztec pagan idol to whom human sacrifices were offered routinely?

If California’s authorities approve this curriculum, they should be challenged in court. Approval of this curriculum would also reveal that California is indeed a state surrounded on all sides by reality.

Christian Post continues here

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CHILLING: California Police Reform Bill May Ban Christians From Law Enforcement

A.B. 655 does threaten to make it impossible for many conservative Christians to join California police departments...

New York City Police Academy graduates salute during the national anthem at their graduation ceremony,
 adding 457 new members of the NYPD, Thursday April 18, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

By Tyler O'Neil 

PJ Media

Police officers have a duty to protect all citizens, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other identity. Governments have an interest in preventing violent criminals and members of the Ku Klux Klan from joining police forces. Yet a new bill supposedly aimed at preventing gang members from joining law enforcement could prevent conservative Christians from taking the blue or result in their firing.

California Assembly Bill 655 would require police departments to investigate whether not potential cops had “engaged in membership in a hate group, participation in hate group activities, or public expressions of hate.” It would make such activities “grounds for termination.”

When Americans think of a “hate group,” many minds would conjure up a domestic terrorist group motivated by racial animus like the Ku Klux Klan. Yet some transgender activists and organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) use the term “hate group” as an epithet to demonize their political and ideological opposition. The SPLC has become notorious for branding mainstream conservative and Christian groups as “hate groups” because they advocate against same-sex marriage or transgender activism.

Assembly Member Ash Kalra, the author of A.B. 655, told PJ Media that he does not intend his bill to “curtail freedom of religious views or political affiliations — conservative or otherwise.” He acknowledged that the bill’s “definitions are a work in progress.” If so, he should seriously reconsider the definition of “hate group.”

A.B. 655 defines a “hate group” as “an organization that, based upon its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities, supports, advocates for, or practices the denial of constitutional rights of, the genocide of, or violence towards, any group of persons based upon race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.”

That definition seems reasonable, but it can easily encompass mainstream conservative Christian organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). ADF opposes the Orwellian redefinition of civil rights laws to kowtow to transgender activism. In Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), the Supreme Court ruled that when Congress outlawed “discrimination on the basis of sex” in the 1960s, that law also applies to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity today.

As Justice Samuel Alito warned in his dissent, the Bostock ruling creates serious threats to religious freedom, free speech, fair play in women’s sports, women’s privacy, and women’s safety, among other things. There are serious problems with the logic Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch used to reach his decision in Bostock, and the decision arguably should be overruled.

According to Bostock, organizations like ADF that advocate against transgender activism may fit A.B. 655’s definition of a “hate group.”

Furthermore, pro-life organizations arguably fit the definition, as they seek to deny women the “constitutional right” to abortion established in Roe v. Wade (1973).

Matthew McReynolds, senior staff attorney at the Pacific Justice Institute (a conservative legal organization the SPLC falsely brands a “hate group”), warned that the overbroad definition of “hate group” in A.B. 655 raises important questions.

PJ Media continues here

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9th Circuit Again Denies High School Football Coach Right to Pray on Football Field after Game

Banning coaches from praying just because they can be seen is wrong and contradicts the Constitution

Coach Joe Kennedy filing his complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in
 December 2015 against Bremerton School District. | Courtesy Liberty Institute

By Michael Gryboski, Christian Post Reporter

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled against a high school football coach who was fired from his job for praying on the field after games.

For years, high school football coach Joseph Kennedy has pursued legal action against Bremerton School District in Washington state for suspending him due to his prayer practices.

Namely, this involved him praying at the 50-yard line after games, often being joined by players and sometimes giving a motivational speech.

In a unanimous opinion released Thursday, the panel said Kennedy’s practice of praying on the 50-yard line after games was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“BSD’s efforts to prevent the conduct did not violate Kennedy’s constitutional rights, nor his rights under Title VII,” wrote Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. in the panel's opinion.

“In sum, there is no doubt that an objective observer, familiar with the history of Kennedy’s practice, would view his demonstrations as BSD’s endorsement of a particular faith. For that reason, BSD had adequate justification for its treatment of Kennedy …”

The First Liberty Institute, a law firm based in Plano, Texas, which is helping to represent Kennedy, denounced the panel's opinion and vowed to appeal the decision.

“Banning coaches from praying just because they can be seen is wrong and contradicts the Constitution,” stated Mike Berry, First Liberty’s general counsel.

“Today’s opinion threatens the rights of millions of Americans who simply want to be able to freely exercise their faith without fear of losing their job. We plan to appeal, and we hope the Supreme Court will right this wrong. This fight is far from over.”

Americans United for Separation of Church & State, a Washington, D.C.-based group that participated in oral arguments on behalf of the school district, supported the panel's opinion.

“Public schools must provide an inclusive and welcoming environment for all students, regardless of their religious beliefs. That includes ensuring that student athletes don’t feel compelled to pray or participate in religious activities to secure their place on a team,” stated Americans United Legal Director Richard B. Katskee.

“Bremerton School District did the right thing: It protected the religious freedom of all the students and their families. Americans United was proud to support the district’s efforts.”

In 2016, Kennedy sued the school district after being suspended in 2015 for his practice of praying on the football field after games, accusing officials of violating his religious freedom.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit had previously ruled against Kennedy in 2017, with Smith also authoring that unanimous opinion.

Christian Post continues here

Chinese Christian Woman Persecuted for Faith Reveals Why Time in Prison was 'Wonderful'

Sister Tong shared how, during her time in prison, God was right there with her, every step of the way. "He felt so near to me during that time," she said.

                    Chinese Christians pray at an underground church

By Leah Marie Ann Klett, Christian Post Reporter

When Voice of the Martyrs’ Todd Nettleton traveled to China in 2002 to interview Sister Tong, a Chinese Christian who was sentenced to six months in one of the country’s notorious prisons because of her faith, he wasn’t prepared for her response.

“Oh yes, that was a wonderful time,” she told him.

Baffled, Nettleton asked Sister Tong to explain. Was she not imprisoned for six months because she hosted a church — an “illegal religious gathering” under Chinese law — in her home? Were government officials not trying to “re-educate” her, forcing her to become less Christian and more Chinese?

“I'm thinking she’s going to paint a picture for us of how miserable her life was in prison. How hard the bed was, how cold the cell was, how big the rats were,” Nettleton told The Christian Post. “But instead, she looked at me with this heavenly smile."

Sister Tong shared how, during her time in prison, God was right there with her, every step of the way.

"He felt so near to me during that time," she said.

She was also able to start a women’s ministry in prison, sharing Christ with those who had never heard His name.

“So, yes, it was an absolutely wonderful time,” Sister Tong said.

As a relatively new member of the VOM team, Nettleton said he was “blown away.”

“I couldn’t imagine myself being in prison and thinking it was a wonderful time,” he said. “Sister Tong changed my perspective on how I view persecution. What if we all had the attitude, when we faced difficulties like unemployment or sickness, that Jesus was giving us an opportunity to minister and witness to others?”

Christian Post continues here

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