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Political Activism Causes Obama’s Spiritual Adviser to Lose 10 Percent of His Congregation

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Photo Credit: APPresident Barack Obama’s spiritual adviser, Joel Hunter, may be losing his footing in conservative evangelical circles where he was once supported. His continued connection to the commander in chief, despite major social and political rifts, may be a driving reason for the loss of support that Hunter, 65, is experiencing.

Most recently, it was reported that the preacher has paid the price for his move away from conservative politics: His house of worship, Northland Church in Longwood, Fla., has lost an estimated 10 percent of its congregants.

Looking back at Hunter’s history, it may be understandable why his more moderate stances and his work with Obama would create some angst among more conservative church members.

…Christianity Today reported about his overt and official severance from the GOP. The reason, Hunter claimed, was an uneasiness he felt about identifying with any particular political Party, which often leads to partisanship and fosters division. After four decades as a Republican, he decidedly left the party; interestingly, this unfolded after he began advising Obama.

Since his decision to become one of the primary religious voices for the Obama White House, Hunter has been listed as one of Orlando Magazine’s “50 Most Powerful” citizens for three consecutive years (2009 to 2011). His escalating public influence has landed him appearances on shows like CBS’ “The Early Show,” PBS’ “Religion & Ethics” and CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.” And parishioners have taken notice…His shift from right to center-right has led some to believe that Hunter is too willing to compromise his beliefs and succumb to a spirit of tolerance and passivism.

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Is the Obama Admin. Imposing Anti-Religious Culture in Military?

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Photo Credit: JTF GuantanamoThere is a clear and present danger to religious liberty within the military, says a coalition of groups who believe the Obama Administration is pushing a secular, anti-religious culture on the nation’s armed forces.

“Christians who choose to live out their faith find themselves incompatible with the secular view of this administration,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. “We’re establishing a beach head for religious liberty and the evidence points to a very deliberate attack.”

Representatives of 14 groups concerned about religious liberty joined Reps. John Fleming R-La., Jim Bridenstine R-Okla., and Louie Gohmert R-Tex. on Capitol Hill to urge support for Fleming’s military religious freedom amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

The amendment protects the rights of servicemembers to not only hold religious beliefs but to act on them and speak about them. Fleming’s amendment has bipartisan support but the Obama Administration issued a statement “strongly objecting” to the legislation.

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University Tells Student to Remove Cross Necklace Because it Might Be “Offensive” to Other Students

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

A Sonoma State University student was ordered to remove a cross necklace by a supervisor who thought other students might find it offensive, in a case that prompted even one campus official to speculate that “political correctness got out of hand.”

Audrey Jarvis, 19, a liberal arts major at the northern California university, said she had no choice but to seek a “religious accommodation” in order to wear the cross. Her lawyer said she deserves an apology, and the school seems ready to oblige.

“It’s amazing in this day of diversity and tolerance on university campuses that a university official would engage in this type of obvious religious discrimination,” said Hiram Sasser, an attorney with Liberty Institute, which is representing Jarvis.

Jarvis was working for the university’s Associated Students Productions at a June 27 student orientation fair for incoming freshmen when her supervisor told her to remove the two-inch-long cross necklace, according to Sasser.

Sasser said the supervisor told her that the chancellor had a policy against wearing religious items and further explained “that she could not wear her cross necklace because it might offend others, it might make incoming students feel unwelcome, or it might cause incoming students to feel that ASP was not an organization they should join.”

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Jimmy Carter Compares Catholic Church to Islam on Women’s Rights

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says religious leaders, including those in Christianity and Islam, share the blame for mistreatment of women across the world.

The human rights activist said Friday religious authorities perpetuate misguided doctrines of male superiority, from the Catholic Church forbidding women from becoming priests to some African cultures mutilating the genitals of young girls.

Carter said the doctrines, which he described as theologically indefensible, contribute to a political, social and economic structure where political leaders passively accept violence against women, a worldwide sex slave trade and inequality in the workplace and classroom.

“There is a great aversion among men leaders and some women leaders to admit that this is something that exists, that it’s serious and that it’s it troubling and should be addressed courageously,” Carter said at an international conference on women and religion.

The 39th president is hosting representatives from 15 countries at The Carter Center, the human rights organization he launched in 1982 after leaving the White House.

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DOJ Defunds Youth Programs that Reference God

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A Louisiana lawman is livid over the federal government’s decision to cut off funds for two programs to help troubled young people, all, he says, because he refused to sign a pledge to bar prayer or any mention of God at their meetings.

Julian Whittington, the sheriff of Bossier Parish, La., told Fox News the Department of Justice Office of Civil Rights defunded $30,000 for their Young Marines chapter as well as a youth diversion program. Federal officials objected to a voluntary student-led prayer in the department’s youth diversion program and an oath recited by the Young Marines that mentions God, according to Whittington, who blasted what he considers the government’s “aggression and infringement of our religious freedoms.”

“We were informed that these are unacceptable, inherently religious activities and the Department of Justice would not be able to fund the programs if it continued,” Whittington told Fox News. “They wanted a letter from me stating that I would no longer have voluntary prayer and I would also have to remove ‘God’ from the Young Marine’s oath.”

The DOJ and the Office of Civil Rights are aware of the controversy but did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Fox News obtained an email written by an attorney for the DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights raised questions about references to God and church along with the phrase “love of God.” The attorney also raised questions about one of the five elements of the Young Marines Creed – “Keep myself clean in mind by attending the church of my faith.”

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Army Reprimands Soldier Under Fire for Religious Beliefs

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Photo Credit: Ryk Neethling

Photo Credit: Ryk Neethling

A member of the U.S. Army Band who said he was reprimanded for having anti-Obama bumper stickers on his personal car, serving Chick-fil-A sandwiches at a party and reading books written by conservative authors like Sean Hannity was found guilty of three Article 15 charges.

Master Sgt. Nathan Sommers, a decorated soloist with the Army Band, was found guilty Thursday of failing to go to an appointed place of duty, disobedience of an order and making a false official statement, his attorney said.

The charges were handed down June 9, one day after Sommers told Fox News that he was facing discrimination and persecution because of his conservative political and religious beliefs.

Retired Navy Commander John Bennett Wells told Fox News the charges were stemmed from giving a superior officer the wrong date for a doctor’s appointment. He’s also accused of failing to carry out an order. In order to comply with that order, Sommers would have had to disclose private information about his autistic son’s medical records.

“The timing does seem strange,” Wells told Fox News. “It’s suspicious. It looks like a graduated attempt to build a case against him on some really ridiculous charges.

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Battle Raging Within US Military Over Religious Rights of Soldiers

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

A battle is raging in the U.S. military – over religious rights of the soldiers who defend American lives and values.

An amendment in the recently passed military budget bill actually strengthens religious freedom rights for service members, and was placed there after Barack Obama essentially ignored a similar provision last year.

“We are very concerned about his disdain not just for the members of faith in the military but the legislative branch as well,” said Brig. Gen. Doug Lee, retired, chairman of the executive committee for the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.

In last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp successfully sponsored an amendment that was intended to protect the religious freedom rights of service members.

Huelskamp proposed the amendment following reports of service members facing retaliation for expressing their religious beliefs following Congress’ repeal of the Revolutionary War ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military.

[Click HERE for a listing of fifteen recent anti-Christian actions taken against soldiers; the listing appears at the end of the article]

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Congress Now Investigating Obama Admin.’s Hostility to Religion in the Military

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Photo Credit: APFollowing 59 Members of Congress sending a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel regarding Pentagon officials meeting with an anti-Christian extremist, another group of 56 House Members has sent a second wide-ranging letter, exploring whether these infringements on religious liberty violate both federal law and the Constitution.

The first letter demanded that Hagel explain why Pentagon brass met with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein. It highlighted various disturbing statements Weinstein has made—most of which were first reported by Breitbart News—such as calling Christians “monsters,” and claiming sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ an act of “treason” and equating it with “rape.”

Now a second letter has gone to Hagel, co-sponsored by Congressmen Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Doug Lamborn (R-CO). The letter reminds Hagel that—as Breitbart News previously reported—Congress enacted Section 533 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to protect freedom of religious belief and conscience for all men and women serving in uniform, with a special focus on military chaplains:

Upon signing the NDAA into law, President Obama said the conscience protections were “unnecessary and ill-advised.” This statement, coupled with recent events, raises concerns that the military is developing a culture that is hostile to religion. A recently revealed power point presentation used in equal opportunity training in an Army reserve unit in Pennsylvania included evangelical Christians, Catholics, Mormons, Sunni Muslims, and some Jews on a list of religious extremist groups alongside groups like Al Qaeda and Hamas. A memo regarding visitation policies at Walter Reed issued in December 2011 prohibited visitors from bringing Bibles and other religious materials on the premises. A particularly concerning memorandum issued on September 1, 2011, General Norton A. Schwartz prohibited commanders from notifying Airmen about Chaplain Corps programs, stating that only Air Force chaplains are trained to provide leadership on religious matters.

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Syria: Two Prominent Christian Leaders Kidnapped by Rebels

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Photo Credit: FreedomHouseTwo prominent Syrian bishops, who had warned of the threat to religious tolerance and diversity from the two-year conflict in their country, were kidnapped on Monday by armed rebels in the northern province of Aleppo, state media said.

SANA news agency said the Syriac Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Archbishops of Aleppo, Yohanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazigi, were seized by “a terrorist group” in the village of Kfar Dael as they were “carrying out humanitarian work.”

A Syriac member of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, Abdulahad Steifo, said the men had been kidnapped on the road to Aleppo from the rebel-held Bab al Hawa crossing with Turkey.

Several prominent Muslim clerics have been killed in Syria’s uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, but the two bishops are the most senior church leaders caught up in the conflict which has killed more than 70,000 people across Syria.

Christians make up less than 10 percent of the country’s 23 million people and, like other religious minorities, many have been wary of the mainly Sunni Muslim uprising against Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

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Why Do So Many Muslims Embrace Religious and Ideological Warfare?

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Photo Credit: Holding Steady

Mahatma Gandhi is quoted in his book, Gandhi: The Power of Pacifism, by Catherine Clement, as follows:

While Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsees and Jews, along with several million adherents of an animistic religion, all coexisted in relative harmony, one religion that would not accept compromise stood out from the rest: Islam.

Gandhi was referring to the experience during his lifetime in the Indian sub-continent, but the growth of Wahhabism and the current resurgence in Islamic triumphalism since Gandhi’s death in January 1948 now poses an increasingly existential threat to the West, to Judeo-Christian civilization, as well as to Hindus, Buddhists, and members other faiths.

The question repeatedly posed by the talking heads on the TV networks and cable television is how and why so many Muslims, young and old, are living in the West and enjoying all the material and educational benefits bestowed upon them — and also committing hideous acts of terror and perpetrating atrocities upon innocent civilians, even against their very own neighbors.

The Times Square bombing attempt on May 1, 2010 by Pakistan-born Faisal Shahzad and the 2009 Fort Hood massacre of unarmed members of the military by Major Nidal Hasan (still described by the problematic U.S. administration as “workplace violence”) are well-known. So too is the attempt at terrorism by a Somali immigrant, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who had come to America at the age of five with his family as a refugee from the hell that is Somalia, and who attempted to kill thousands during a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. But until the Chechen Muslim brothers succeeded in their massacre at the Boston Marathon, most terror attacks had been thwarted since the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Towers and part of the Pentagon by the 19 Saudi Arabian hijackers, in which 3,000 people were murdered. This time, however, the Muslim miscreants succeeded.

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