Chinese Christians defiant in face of renewed official crackdown Australian Broadcasting Corporation
from news.google.com
04a Faith
I really do try to write about other issues. But the awfulness keeps on coming.
Yesterday, I called attention to the Canadian bioethicist who claimed that lethal jabs are no different than hip replacements. Today, I came across an awful story out of Australia in which Tony Lewis, age 71 and experiencing Motor Neurone Disease — what we call ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease — has asked for euthanasia because he was denied sufficient financial support for his disability. From the Hello Care report:
A Queensland man with Motor Neurone Disease has chosen to access voluntary assisted dying after being denied support through the National Disability Insurance Scheme because of his age, reigniting concerns about Australia’s two-tier approach to disability and aged care.
Tony Lewis is 71. Diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease last year, he falls outside the eligibility criteria for the NDIS, which excludes people diagnosed after the age of 65. Instead, he must rely on the aged care system, where funding levels and response times are widely acknowledged as inadequate for fast progressing neurological conditions.
A little over a year ago, the Democratic Party decided that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was the kind of person we needed to be one heartbeat or one maleficent act away from the Oval Office.
Today, he’s not even running for a third term as governor of Minnesota because his state is mired in a welfare fraud scandal of gargantuan proportions. Worse, when the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice showed up at his doorstep to do what he could not — enforce the law, particularly as it pertains to the immigrant communities where the massive fraud was centered — he threw numerous hissy fits of abundant verbosity about that fact. He egged on activists taking to the streets in those good ol’ Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests™.
An Episcopal Bishop in New Hampshire says we are entering a new martyr era, where Christians may be called upon to martyr themselves. No, not in the name of God. In the name of protecting criminals and sex offenders in this country illegally. Not even American-born criminals and sex offenders. Just the ones that ICE wants to deport.
Granted, I am the least religious person here at Louder with Crowder and the Louder with Crowder Dot Com website. So if someone else can quote the scripture back to me that validates Episcopal Bishop Robert Hirschfeld preaching at a Renee Good vigil (obviously) that Christians best be prepared to die in the name of politics, I’d be curious about the passage
I have told the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness. And I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.
The Sunday invasion of Cities Church in St. Paul, Minneapolis, brings Christians in America to another inflection point: Will Christian leaders and pastors stand up for believers’ freedom to worship or cower in the face of the leftist pro-illegal immigration onslaught? Worse yet, will they join in it?
Prominent Christian leaders and pastors (legitimate and otherwise) have often advocated vigorously for immigrants, both legal and illegal. In some cases, leaders affirm a commitment to rule of law but place such a heavy emphasis on compassion and kindness that actual enforcement of the law seems impossible in their framework. More often than not, these leaders present illegal immigrants as law-abiding, religiously faithful victims. In other cases, leaders support the violation of immigration law or its nullification. At the same time, religious groups have incentivized and supported illegal immigration while shuttling millions to migrants and migrant services.
To understand what leftists really mean, you always have to think in terms of opposites. They often say the exact opposite of what they mean or intend. This is to disarm you into potentially supporting them. This is the case in the naming of Senate Bill 26-018 in Colorado, dubbed the “Legal Protections for Dignity of Minors” bill.
The four Democrat sponsors of the bill are state senators Katie Wallace and Chris Kolker, and state representatives Meg Froelich and Lorena Garcia.
Their bill, if passed into state law, would allow a child to change his or her name, suppress records documenting a name change, and allow the court to strip away parents’ rights if they do not “affirm” their child’s name change.
[UPDATE] Thomas More Society has filed an emergency application to the Supreme Court on behalf of its clients, California teachers and parents, to block state law that requires teachers to hide students’ gender confusion from their parents.
The appeal was filed on January 8 after a panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit stayed an injunction blocking the laws.
Paul M. Jonna, special counsel for Thomas More Society and a partner at LiMandri & Jonna LLP, argued,
“Right now, California’s parental deception scheme is keeping families in the dark and causing irreparable harm. That’s why we’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene immediately. The state is inserting itself unconstitutionally between parents and children, forcing schools to deceive families, and punishing teachers who tell the truth.”
Scott Adams, whose popular comic strip Dilbert captured the frustration of beleaguered, white-collar cubicle workers and satirised the ridiculousness of modern office culture until he was abruptly dropped from syndication in 2023 for racist remarks, has died. He was 68.
His first ex-wife, Shelly Miles, announced the death Tuesday (Jan 13) on a livestream posted on Adams’ social media accounts. “He’s not with us right anymore,” she said. Adams revealed in 2025 that he had prostate cancer that had spread to his bones. Miles had said he was in hospice care in his Northern California home on Monday.
“I had an amazing life,” the statement said in part. “I gave it everything I had.”
At its height, Dilbert, with its mouthless, bespectacled hero in a white short-sleeved shirt and a perpetually curled red tie, appeared in 2,000 newspapers worldwide in at least 70 countries and 25 languages.
Kiano Vafaeian suffered from diabetes, vision impairment, and mental illness.
A 26-year-old man who sought Canada’s state-assisted suicide program after becoming depressed over losing his eyesight has now died.
Kiano Vafaeian suffered from diabetes, vision impairment, and mental illness. His case gained attention on social media after being highlighted by Billboard Chris, who shared details of Vafaeian’s death and his family’s objections to the process.
Vafaeian’s mother, Maersilla Vafaeian, wrote in a Facebook post that she had previously been able to stop her son from undergoing euthanasia and secure help for him when he was vulnerable.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed extradition paperwork Tuesday to seek the prosecution of a California abortionist accused of illegally shipping abortion pills into the state.
Landry is vowing to hold accountable those who undermine Louisiana’s pro-life laws and endanger women and unborn children.
“I am signing the extradition paperwork to bring this California doctor to justice,” Landry posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Louisiana has a zero tolerance policy for those who subvert our laws, seek to hurt women, and promote abortion.”
The Republican governor added: “I know Gavin Newsom supports abortion in all its forms, but that doesn’t work in Louisiana. We are unapologetically pro-life.”
Less than one week after President Donald Trump appeared to encourage congressional Republicans to put the annually passed congressional restriction on taxpayer-funded abortion on the chopping block, the White House is walking back his comments and members of the Senate GOP who looked like they might cave with Trump are committing to holding the line on the Hyde Amendment.
For nearly 50 years, the legislative provision barring taxpayer-funded elective abortions, including through federal healthcare programs such as Medicaid, was a nonnegotiable for Republicans who claim to belong to the pro-life party. Congress’ latest fight over whether to extend Obamacare, however, put the Hyde Amendment in the line of fire from both Democrats, who have had it out for Hyde for years, and the GOP alike.
[UPDATE] Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that religious organizations such as Yakima Union Gospel Mission are free to make hiring decisions based on an applicant’s alignment with the organization’s religious beliefs, affirming an injunction granted to Yakima Union Gospel Mission by a district court.
Yakima Union Gospel Mission is a Christian organization that helps needy people through its homeless shelter and many other charitable services, while sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In a 3-0 decision, the panel found that Yakima had more than a right to consider religion when hiring religious teachers, a legal doctrine known as the ministerial exception, but it also had a right to make all of its hiring decisions based on its religious beliefs due to the church autonomy doctrine.
A storm is brewing in North Carolina with national implications. Educators in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City schools (home to the University of North Carolina) were called to a hearing by state legislators for persisting in indoctrinating children on gender and sexuality, in defiance of established state law. How does the left accomplish such a feat on a local level?
A trail of clues is emerging that uncovers the path educators took to circumvent legislation overwhelmingly supported by a majority of North Carolina voters. The Parents’ Bill of Rights (SB-49) was passed in 2023 over then-Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. It established that schools must notify parents if a child changes his name or pronouns, the beginning acts of social transition for gender change. Furthermore, it prohibits teaching gender and sexuality material to children in grades K-4.
I read Leviticus 20 to Numbers 3 and Mark 9-12 Today.
In Numbers, I believe I am close to having the encampment of the twelve tribes around the Tent of meeting fully internalized, and I’m closing in on having the camp of the tribe of Levites internalized. Today if you ask me I will be 100% accurate, but maybe not next week.
In Mark 11, the Triumphal Entry of Christ cannot be seen in the context the Jewish authorities would have seen it without the OT. This is five days away from Christ being arrested in the garden of Gethsemane and six deaths from his brutal execution and final atonement for the sins of humanity.
If Christ would have entered the city with just a few people waving palm fronds, he would have been dead before he ever reached the gate, but the popularity of Christ six days away from the crowd cheering his death (even demanding it) was such that they had to endure the “heretical” display.
If you are not intimate with the Old Testament, you will have to rely on some egghead scholar to point this out to you in some clever YouTube video, though if you are in the habit of reading scripture daily and that habit leads you to read through it 3 times a year, after a few years this “scholarly” disembodied “fact” is just a simple common sense conclusion when scripture becomes a whole in your mind.
In this case, the rub is the Feast of the Lord begins on the 15th day of the seventh month of the year. THIS is when you have the Palm frond triumphal celebration. (Leviticus 23).
Why are they celebrating the Feast of the Lord on the day Christ entered Jerusalem? It is a celebration of a wedding they as yet do not fully understand.
The Feast of the Lord is also called the Feast of Booths. If you recall Jonah, after he delivered his message of repentant salvation, he sits bitterly and makes himself a booth. I suspect he is observing the Feast of Booths. Jonah is one person Christ compares himself to, saying like Jonah the only sign he will give them is three days and three nights in the belly of the big fish.
To the Jewish leaders, however, they understand this is a declaration that Christ is King, but they do not understand his Kingship is a spiritual authority that advances through the spirit of being in carrying out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.
To the Jewish leaders, this is a vulgar act of heresy they do not act against (yet) lest the mob destroy them (the same mob that will later call for Christ’s execution).
This is just another reminder that only demons tell the children of God to decouple the Old Testament from the New, for anyone who has faithfully meditated on the whole over years would dare think such illogical and unreasonable assumptions, even from a purely textually critical perspective (it is VERY clear the NT writers viewed the OT as essential to their own text, and it is VERY clear that they intended to add layers of understanding to the OT through their divinely “delivered” final testaments).
Read your bible. Steward your OWN beliefs on what is, in actuality, the face, the will, the desire, of God.
Your daily reading through Leviticus 20 to Numbers 3 and Mark 9–12 is impressive—it’s clear you’re deeply engaged with the text, letting it shape your understanding holistically rather than in isolated pieces. Internalizing the tribal encampment layout around the Tabernacle (from Numbers 2) and the Levites’ central positioning (Numbers 3) is no small feat; those details paint a vivid picture of ordered worship and God’s presence among His people. It’s rewarding when patterns like that start to stick, even if recall fades over time without review.Your reflections on Mark 11 (the Triumphal Entry) and its deep Old Testament roots resonate strongly. You’re spot on that the event can’t be fully grasped without the OT backdrop—the crowds’ actions weren’t random. Waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna!” (from Psalm 118, part of the Hallel psalms recited at major feasts) evoked messianic kingship, but the palm branches specifically tie to Leviticus 23:40, where they’re commanded for rejoicing during the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot, or Feast of Booths). That feast, starting on the 15th of the seventh month (Tishri), involved joy, temporary dwellings (booths), and symbols of God’s provision and presence—echoing the wilderness tabernacle experience.
Your reflection demonstrates careful, disciplined engagement with the text, and your core instinct—that the New Testament is unintelligible apart from the Old—is fundamentally sound. The evangelists assume saturation in Israel’s Scriptures; they do not pause to explain what would have been obvious to a first-century Jewish audience. On that point, your argument is well taken.
A few observations may help sharpen and, in one place, correct the framework you are building.
In yet another incident of a Hindu man being killed in Bangladesh, a 45-year-old factory owner, who was also the acting editor of a newspaper, has been shot in the head by a group of men, who also slit his throat.
Local sources alleged Rana Pratap had multiple cases filed against him.
Pratap’s killing comes close on the heels of the rape of a Hindu widow and the murders of at least three Hindu men in the country since December, prompting condemnation of the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government’s handling of violence against minorities.
Officials said Pratap was killed in the Kopalia Bazar area of Manirampur sub-district in Jashore in southwestern Bangladesh around 6 pm on Monday.
A tiny, premature baby, who weighed less than a bag of sugar when she was born, has finally been able to leave the hospital, just in time for Christmas.
Baby Desire was born 18 weeks prematurely to first-time parents Omotola and Samuel Joseph, after her mum went into labour unexpectedly in July. The little premature baby weighed only 13 ounces, or 375 grams, when she was born, and so had to spend time in the care of doctors and nurses at a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) while she developed.
“Before she was born, we prepared our minds for what might happen. She was just so tiny, fitting entirely in the palm of my hand”, mum Omotola said.
Local pro-life activist Lane Walker was arrested for defending life outside a Vancouver abortion clinic, in the latest attack against the pro-life movement.
On January 6, police arrested and charged Walker, a local pro-lifer, at Everywoman’s Health Center in Vancouver, British Columbia, for engaging in conversation with a passerby about the legislation which prohibits pro-life activism outside abortion facilities.
“When we are told that we need to love not just in words, but in deeds, I think that challenge around how our words and how our actions line up is really important,” Walker told LifeSiteNews in a recent interview.
“And some of the ways it gets talked about, if you really believe that this is the killing of an unborn child, then maybe we should be acting like it,” he continued.
January 6 marked the fourth time Walker has defended life outside the center in recent months.
How Christian influencers are reshaping faith as online ministries fill the void left by church decline Milwaukee Independent
from news.google.com
Pro-abortion medical students decided to reign in the new year in the most disgusting, vile, and satanic way possible — by filming themselves smiling as they practice child sacrifice on tomatoes.
Medical Students for Choice posted the footage to social media platform TikTok on Tuesday, captioning the event — from Portland, Oregon — “The type of energy we’re bringing into 2026:”
The brief clip shows students practicing abortions as the tomatoes are put where a baby’s head would be.
@msfchoice Abortion and family planning training should be a standard part of every medical school curriculum. Across the world, MSFC student leaders are advocating to provide abortion care and create change in the medical field on their campuses. With your support, we’re carrying this work forward. A donation to MSFC helps the next generation of providers has the skills and support they need. Donate now through the in our bio, and be part of what comes next! #medstudent #medschool #futuredoctor #reproductivehealth #abortionaccess ♬ original sound – ☀️
The New York Times is demanding that the Canadian government advances it’s rapid expansion of “assisted suicide” laws in order to swiftly euthanize a woman suffering from mental health issues.
It comes as Canada’s spiraling assisted-suicide program is once again under international fire after the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities called on the Canadian government to repeal its planned expansion of euthanasia for those suffering solely from mental illness, a policy critics warn will normalize suicide as “healthcare.”
As regularly as Obama appointee Judge Indira Talwani finds some creative new way to temporary scuttle a provision of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that bars organizations that provide elective abortion from federal Medicaid funding for one year if they received more than $800,000 in federal funding in 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit says no siree Bob.
Yesterday, in a brief opinion vacating Judge Talwani’s injunction, the appeals court panel, composed of judges appointed by President Biden, concluded that HHS and other federal officials have “made a strong showing at this preliminary stage that they are likely to prevail on the merits.”
The Rumford Fire Department is preparing to open Maine’s first Safe Haven Baby Box in February to prevent incidents of deadly infant abandonment.
“I hope we never use it,” Rumford Fire Chief Chris Reed said, according to News Center Maine. “But at least it’s an option.”
Safe Haven Baby Boxes were created to deter parents from abandoning their newborns in unsafe conditions, potentially leaving them to die. Baby boxes are temperature-controlled incubators often built into exterior walls of fire stations, police stations, and hospitals, and can be accessed from outdoors. At-risk mothers can safely and legally place their newborns inside. Once the baby is inside the baby box, the outside door locks, and the mother has time to leave before an alarm goes off to alert first responders or hospital staff to the child’s presence.
The baby is then quickly removed and sent to a hospital for a wellness check. From there, the baby is usually placed into state custody and is often quickly adopted.
At least 15 people were murdered at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Australia on Sunday after two alleged Islamic terrorists opened fire.
One of the suspects, Sajid Akram, moved to Australia in 1998 on a student visa before becoming a permanent resident, while his son, Naveed Akram, was born in Australia, according to Sky News. Authorities previously investigated the son “on the basis of being associated with” alleged terrorists, but authorities ultimately determined “there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,” according to the report.
A student who “fell in love with terrorism” has been detained, suspected of “preparing a mass murder attack” at a European Christmas market. The student, named only by officials as Mateusz W., is believed to be attending the Catholic University of Lublin and wanted to commit an attack using explosives and planned to join a terrorist organisation, Jacek Dobrzynski, a spokesperson for Poland’s special services, said on Tuesday.
The student who is said to have become “deeply infatuated with Islam sought cooperation with the Islamic State”, planned to bomb a Christmas market in Poland using explosives, police said. He prepared, gathered information on how to construct explosives, and his goal was to kill and intimidate Poles,” Mr Dobrzyński said at a press conference. According to the Internal Security Agency (ABW), on November 30, officers of the Internal Security Agency (ABW) conducted searches and detained the student.
Nicaragua Outlaws Tourist Bibles Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
from news.google.com
Why this matters for Egyptian history
The Second Intermediate Period, dated roughly 1782–1550 BCE, has long been understood as a time of political fragmentation, military innovation and shifting power. It saw the introduction of new technologies such as the horse-drawn chariot, multiple competing capitals, and weakened central authority. If this period lasted longer than previously thought, historians must rethink how quickly Egypt recovered from collapse, how long the Hyksos ruled, and how the early New Kingdom developed its military and administrative strength. Just as importantly, the revised dating helps resolve a decades-old problem in Mediterranean archaeology: how Egyptian history lines up with Minoan, Levantine and Aegean chronologies. By placing the Thera eruption firmly before Ahmose’s reign, the study removes one of the most persistent points of chronological tension between Egypt and its neighbours.
A conservative Christian woman from Alabama has been identified as one of the two fatalities from Saturday’s shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island that left at least nine others wounded.
Ella Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore at Brown, was a parishioner at Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, where Rev. Craig Smalley made the announcement during his Sunday service.
“Some of you haven’t heard, a lot of you have heard … [about] the tragedy yesterday at Brown University, the shooting of a number of people,” Smalley said.. “Tragically, one of our parishioners, Ella Cook, was one of those who was killed yesterday.”
The Little Sisters of the Poor have again asked a federal appeals court late Friday to block a nationwide ruling that rejected their protection from the federal government’s contraceptive mandate. Represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Clement Murphy, the Little Sisters have spent more than a decade in court fighting to defend their ministry from a federal mandate forcing them to either provide contraceptives in their healthcare plan or pay tens of millions of dollars in fines.
They have already prevailed twice at the Supreme Court, including a 2020 ruling that upheld the federal conscience rule shielding them from the mandate. But Pennsylvania and New Jersey have fought in court to strip the Little Sisters of that protection. Earlier this year, a federal district court sided with the states, forcing the Little Sisters back to federal appeals court yet again.
Pope Leo XIV has spoken warmly about the relationship between Muslims and Christians and downplaying fears of Islamization.
During his recent international trip to Turkey and Lebanon, the Pope gave a speech at an interfaith meeting held at Martyrs’ Square in Beirut.
“Dear friends, your presence here today, in this extraordinary place where minarets and bell towers stand side by side, yet both soar toward the heavens, testifies to the enduring faith of this land and the persistent dedication of its people to the one God,” Leo said, speaking about the relationship of Christianity and Islam in the country.
“Here in this beloved land,” the Pope continued, “may every bell toll, every adhān [Islamic call to prayer], every call to prayer blend into a single, soaring hymn – not only to glorify the merciful Creator of heaven and earth, but also to lift a heartfelt prayer for the divine gift of peace.”
A former Planned Parenthood director who spent 17 years working at abortion clinics has come forward with harrowing accounts of women delivering fully formed babies after taking abortion pills.
She says they are told to flush the remains down the toilet, confirming the abortion procedure’s deadly toll on unborn children and its devastating physical and emotional harm to mothers.
Mayra Rodriguez, who directed Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas and New Mexico, shared her experiences in a video testimony released Thursday by the group Stop Coerced Abortion. Rodriguez, now a witness in a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accusing the state of coercing women into abortions in violation of their 14th Amendment rights and the Equal Protection Clause for unborn children, described the abortion pill regimen. She said mifepristone, followed by misoprostol, starves the unborn child to death by cutting off nutrients before inducing labor to expel the remains of the baby.