Elderly Orthodox Christian Nun Describes ISIS Atrocities as a Repeat of Early 1900's Armenian Slaughter

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Sister DoganBy Leo Hohmann. Today’s political climate draws [this Orthodox nun] back to 1915 and her native Turkey, when her family experienced the cruelty of the Ottoman caliphate, which slaughtered 3 million Christians and reduced others to second-class status under subjugation, or “dhimmitude.”

ISIS is nothing new, [Sister Hatune Dogan] said, just the re-emergence of Islam’s dark side.

“ISIS is not fanatic. ISIS is not more terrible. ISIS is real Muslim believers who like to follow the Quran and Muhammad,” said the founder of Warburg, Germany-based Sister Hatune Foundation, a worldwide relief organization that has been honored by the German government for its dedication to human rights. “Others say they are Muslim. They say they believe Quran, but they don’t follow it.”

Armenian Christians accounted for about half of the 3 million victims in Turkey, but the other half were Christians of various ethnic backgrounds – Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox and Protestants. All felt the boot of jihad against their heads. . .

She believes Christians in the West should learn what is written in the Muslim holy book. If they did, they would realize that the Islamic State, also called ISIS, is not doing anything that hasn’t been done in the past by devout Muslims who have conquered a people they see as “infidels.” Read more from this story HERE.
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Multiple Terrorist Attacks Reported Across Europe

By Oliver Lane. French authorities have ruled out terrorism as a motive for [yesterday’s] van attack, despite reports the driver shouted “Allahu akbar” as he piloted the white Fiat van into crowds of people doing last minute Christmas shopping. Hours later police arrested a man reportedly “armed to the teeth” on Tuesday morning.

Despite the similarities to an almost identical motor-attack that occurred less than 24-hours before in the French city of Dijon, the local prosecutor speaking in the wake of this latest event said “We cannot speak of a terrorist act”, saying evidence suggests it was an “isolated case”.

British newspaper The Times reports a number of reliable sources, including a police officer, witnessed the driver of the white van attack in Nantes shouting “Allahu akbar” as he drove into people. The phrase is Arabic and translates as ‘God is Great’.

It is reported the ram-attack specifically targeted a chalet serving mulled wine. After his vehicle came to a rest and he had injured eleven bystanders, five seriously, the driver began to stab himself repeatedly in an apparent, unsuccessful, suicide bid. He is now in police custody.

The two motor attacks followed a knife attack in a French police station, which left one officer fighting for his life. A French-Burundian Muslim convert reportedly walked into the station on Saturday and shouted the now familiar phrase “Allahu akbar” as he started his attack. He was shot dead after injuring three. Read more from this story HERE.

UNBROKEN Film Gets My Dad’s Faith Right

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Townhall.com

Townhall.com

By Luke Zamperini

It’s not uncommon to hear someone say, “I’ve been waiting my whole life for this or that story to be made into a movie.”I can’t say that about UNBROKEN, though. I’ve only been waiting 57 years.

I was 4 when the movie rights to my father’s life story were acquired by Hollywood –and finally, on Christmas Day, it will reach the big screen in the new movie directed by Angelina Jolie and starring Jack O’Connell as my Dad, Louis Zamperini.

To say I’m thrilled is an understatement. To say Dad, who passed away over the summer at 97, was thrilled is a bigger understatement.

He got to see the film before he died –Angelina showed it to him on her laptop in his hospital bed –and he was ecstatic at how it portrays his triumphs and tragedies, up till now most famously told in Laura Hillenbrand’s New York Times best-seller also titled UNBROKEN. The remarkable beats of his life are all there: the troubled and troublesome kid who turned to running for a sense of purpose and wound up representing the U.S. in the 1936 Olympics. The World War II bombardier whose plane crashed in the Pacific Ocean in 1943 and who survived for an excruciating 47 days adrift in a life raft with two fellow servicemen; and the prisoner of war who endured unspeakable psychological and physical abuse at the hands of his unusually cruel Japanese captors.

Read more from this story HERE.

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‘Unbroken’ Hero Found Christ at Billy Graham Crusade

By Fox News

The much-anticipated movie “Unbroken” tells the story Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who became a World War II hero after his plane was shot down over the Pacific Ocean.

The film covers Zamperini’s brutal internment in a Japanese POW camp, but it doesn’t chronicle the years after the war, when Zamperini found Christianity after attending a Billy Graham crusade.

In fact, there is a only brief mention of Zamperini’s Christian faith at the very end of the film.

Billy Graham’s son, Franklin Graham, the president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, appeared on “America’s Newsroom” today to react to the decision not to feature Zamperini’s faith more prominently in the film.

Graham said director Angelina Jolie did an amazing job adapting the book, but she only covered 33 chapters out of 39.

Read more from this story HERE.

High School: Islamic Vocabulary Lesson Part Of Common Core Standards

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Parents in Farmville, North Carolina want to know why their children were given a Common Core vocabulary assignment in an English class that promoted the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic faith.

“It really caught me off guard,” a Farmville Central High School student who was in the class told me. “If we are not allowed to talk about any other religions in school – how is this appropriate?”

The Islamic vocabulary worksheet was assigned to seniors.

“I was reading it and it caught me off guard,” the student told me. “I just looked at it and knew something was not right – so I emailed the pages to my mom.”

I asked the school district to provide me with a copy of vocabulary worksheets that promoted the Jewish, Hindu and Christian faiths. The school district did not reply.

Read more from this story HERE.

How 'Grey's Anatomy' Just Elevated the Value of Life

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Photo: Bob D’Amico/ABC

Photo: Bob D’Amico/ABC

It’s one of the longest-running, popular dramatic televisions shows of all time.

“Grey’s Anatomy” has been a cultural staple in the lives of millennials for the past 10 years. Many of us feel like we’ve grown up with Meredith Grey, McDreamy and friends—and the show has had some truly unbelievable story lines over the years.

And now, the show’s writers took on a real-life emerging medical procedure—fetal surgery.

It’s a rare but increasing practice that is saving the lives of babies with birth defects such as spina bifida and brain tumors—while still inside their mother’s womb.

There is an underlying message in any conversation about human life before birth. That is the intrinsic value of life at all stages, including the tiniest of humans just trying to make it through pregnancy.

In a country where it’s legal to end that life without consequence, fetal surgery raises an uncomfortable reality for supporters of abortion.

Read more from this story HERE.

Divorce Rates Declining?

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Credit: LOREY SEBASTIAN/KRT/Newscom

Credit: LOREY SEBASTIAN/KRT/Newscom

”Divorce is on the rise.” At least, that’s the story Americans often hear, as New York Times reporter Claire Cain Miller explained earlier this month. But what does the data say?

Divorce rate data is far from perfect, but the general consensus among researchers is that divorce actually has declined since the 1980s, as this chart from Heritage’s 2014 Index of Culture and Opportunity shows. Divorce rates peaked in the early 1980s, after which they began trending downward. And researchers suggest that the lifetime probability of divorce is somewhere between 40 percent and 50 percent.

It’s also important to remember that many factors decrease the likelihood of divorce significantly. For example, couples who attended religious services frequently were about 2.5 times less likely to divorce compared to couples who never attended church. Having a college education decreases the likelihood of divorce by 25 percent, and waiting to have children until after marriage drops the likelihood of divorce by about the same amount.

Read more from this story HERE.

Heritage: 17 Political Books and Movies That Would Make Great Christmas Gifts

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Credit - Newscom

Credit – Newscom

Christmas is just around the corner. If you’re still searching for the perfect gift, take a look at what’s on our Christmas list:

1. “America: Imagine the World Without Her”

Dinesh D’Souza’s latest film, based on his New York Times bestselling book, refutes several attempts to portray America as the great purveyor of injustice—a perfect gift for high-schoolers studying U.S. history.

2. “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”

In this classic 1939 film, Jimmy Stewart portrays Jefferson Smith, a patriotic leader of the Boy Rangers who is suddenly appointed a senator. The naïve Smith must confront the corruption he finds in Washington and in his childhood hero. “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is a great gift for patriots and movie buffs alike.

3. “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers

William F. Buckley once described Chambers as “the most important American defector from communism.” This compelling autobiography by the former Soviet spy makes a great gift for Cold War junkies.

Photo: Amazon Product Image, ‘Saving Private Ryan’

4. “Saving Private Ryan”

Based on the devastating invasion of Normandy during World War II, this film was named the “best war film of all time” in a 2009 poll of movie fans.

5. “America’s Way Back” by Donald Devine

This book reveals the insight of President Reagan’s former director of the Office of Personnel Management who the New York Times once referred to as “the Grinch.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Angelina Jolie Prays for and Receives Miracle on Set of 'Unbroken'

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Newsbuster

Newsbuster

The media are covering Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken” – but will they admit the film’s influence on her faith?

Opening in theaters on Christmas, “Unbroken” tells the story of Olympic runner and World War II prisoner of war Louis Zamperini. His story – and Christian faith – inspired Jolie to kneel and “pray for a miracle” as she ran into problems directing the war drama.

During a Dec. 5 press conference in New York, Zamperini’s daughter Cynthia Garris told the story of Jolie’s turn to prayer. While Jolie directed filming in New South Wales, Australia, she encountered severe weather. Garris explained:

She was not a person of faith and had never prayed before but she found herself at the very last scene of the movie … they needed sunlight to shoot this very important scene and there had been a storm that had been going for a while.

In response, Jolie begged God for help:

Angelina] said ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do so I’ll do what Louie would do.’ She got on her knees and she prayed for a miracle … everybody saw it … It stopped raining. The sun came out, a rainbow came out, she said, ‘let’s get this take’ [and] they shot the take. When she said ‘cut,’ it started to rain again.

Read more from this story HERE.

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No Thanks Michelle Obama: Seven School Districts Drop Lunch Rules

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Photo Credit: EAG News

Photo Credit: EAG News

You know it’s bad when the school employees admit even they wouldn’t eat the food they’re serving to students.

Wyoming’s Sheridan County District One business manager Jeremy Smith says his district dropped out of the National School Lunch Program “because there were just too many complaints,” according to Wyoming Public Media.

“Universally, it was, ‘We are starving. We are hungry. This isn’t enough food for us.’ But we couldn’t blame them, because I looked at that school lunch and said, ‘I wouldn’t eat it either,’” Smith says.

The district saw a 20 percent spike in sales this school year after it dropped the federal rules championed by First Lady Michelle Obama.

The district increased participation, but increased prices, too, to offer bigger portions to growing students.

Read more from this story HERE.

Thanks Michelle Obama: GOP Pushes For School Lunch Exemptions

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Michelle Obama has been a champion of increased health standards for school lunches in her time as First Lady. As part of her Let’s Move! program and the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, there have been new nutrition standards for public schools. Republicans say that the standards are unnecessary, intrusive, trample on local school perogatives, and is too expensive. Congress is making moves to relax these new guidelines:

Some school nutrition directors have lobbied for a break, saying the rules have proven to be costly and restrictive. House Republicans have said they are an overreach, and have pushed a one-year waiver that would allow schools to opt out of the standards for the next school year if they lost money on meal programs over a six-month period.

Read more from this story HERE.

Woman Delivers Newborn, Leaves Hospital and Jumps Off Cliff Killing Herself and Her Baby

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charlottebevanAccording to the American Psychological Organization, 41% of women struggle with post-partum depression. The condition is characterized by intense feelings of sadness, despair, anxiety and irritability after giving birth; and the symptoms are long lasting and may occur anytime within the first year.

It sometimes even affects a woman’s ability to function, and without medical attention, the symptoms may be sever. However, in the case of a 30-year-old British mother, her depression may have caused her to kill herself and her baby.

Charlotte Tiana vanished from the Bristol Maternity Hospital in the United Kingdom after giving birth to her daughter, Zaani. Authorities later found Charlotte’s body at the bottom of a cliff and her newborn’s body was discovered nearby. Although there is speculation that Charlotte had issues with depression in the past, her boyfriend mentioned that she had been treated for schizophrenia and was severely sleep deprived. When Charlotte exited the hospital she was only wearing slippers and no coat.

“A member of the public was walking along the cliff edge along the cliff path and noticed those distinctive white slippers, similar to the ones Charlotte was wearing, and the multi coloured blanket, which was also distinctive.

‘Unfortunately that led us to finding the body of a woman which has since been formally identified as Charlotte Bevan.

Read more from this story HERE.