A Turkish court freed several foreign prisoners Wednesday but rejected the latest appeal from Pastor Andrew Brunson to be released from house arrest. The court released two Greek soldiers who had been held since earlier this year and an Amnesty International official who had been jailed for over a year. 

Brunson finds himself at the center of an escalating controversy between Ankara and Washington. In late July, a Turkish court released Brunson from his 21-month imprisonment but kept him under house arrest as he faces charges related to the failed 2016 coup attempt. 

President Trump threatened sanctions against Turkey, a NATO ally, if they did not release the North Carolina native. In the following days, the Treasury Department sanctioned two Turkish officials and the President doubled tariff rates on steel imports from Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan retaliated by announcing raised tariffs on several imported U.S. goods, including cars, tobacco, and alcohol. 

The escalating tariff wars between the two allies made investors worry about runaway inflation. Their concerns caused the value of the lira to fall to historic lows.

Pastor Brunson served as the pastor of an Evangelical Presbyterian church called the Church of the Resurrection. He pastored the small congregation for over 20 years before his 2016 arrest.

President Trump had kind words for…

August 17, 2018 (Morning Star News) – A convert from Islam in Iran said he and 11 other Christians were sentenced to a year in prison for “inclination to the land of Christianity” among other charges, according to Mohabat News.

 

“Interrogations were obviously indicating that they were looking for confession to communications with [those] abroad, especially America, Britain and Israel,” the Christian, identified as Payam Kharaman, told Mohabat, which focuses on human rights abuses in Iran.

 

Mohabat reported last week that Kharaman and 11 other members of a church in Bushehr, a port city in southwestern Iran, were sentenced to one year in prison on charges of “propaganda activities against the system and in favor of Zionist Christianity through holding house meetings, evangelism, and invitation to Christianity and inclination to the land of Christianity.”

 

Kharaman and the other Christians were jailed for three years following their arrest on April 7, 2015, obtaining bail only last April, according to Mohabat.

 

Judge Abbas Asgari of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Bushehr issued the sentence earlier this year, saying the accused would be informed last June 20, according to the verdict.

 

Kharaman told Mohabat News that authorities began pressuring him in early 2012.

 

“I was repeatedly summoned by the Office of Police Monitor…

The popular Hallmark channel television show, “When Calls the Heart,” is releasing an accompanying devotional in September.

The show released its first devotional back in February, but is releasing two more, one next month and another sometime in 2019. The devotional that is being released in September will be coming out just before the holiday season and will be Christmas themed. 

The Christian Post had a chance to sit down with one of the show’s writers, Brian Bird, and ask him about how these devotionals came to be.

According to The Christian Post, Bird said, “I am a Christian. I was raised in the church. My grandfather was a pastor. My father was a pastor, for a time, and I pledged really early on in my writing career that I was going to find a way not to have an agenda or not to browbeat people over the head with my worldview. But my prayer has always been that my words would move men closer to God in some way or another.”

The Christian Post reportsthat Bird feels like the show has a lot to offer, and that TV and film can stir up cravings of the soul. Bird said, “I heard from enough people that if we were to do a devotional, we could take that conversation a little deeper.”

He continued saying, “We could use the episodes as a jumping off point for that conversation, a little summation of the episode and then spin that into a deeper…

Elders of the multicampus Crossroads Christian Church in Indiana have reportedly fired two pastors in a dispute over “philosophical differences.”

“The elders of Crossroads Christian Church have announced that a search will begin immediately for a new lead/senior pastor. This is not a result of any moral failure on the part of the most recent Lead Pastor, Patrick Garcia. This decision was due primarily to philosophical differences in church leadership,” the church headquartered in Newburgh said in a statement on Facebook, announcing the firings of Pastors Garcia and Rick Kyle.

“Teaching Pastor, Rick Kyle, will also be leaving the church. We wish nothing but the best for these leaders who will be pursuing new ministry roles. We affirm our remaining Crossroads pastors and staff, knowing that they will continue to minister with excellence in the communities we serve. Our vision remains steadfast ‘To connect everyone, everywhere to Jesus by multiplying leaders, campuses, and churches,'” the elders added.

Information on both Garcia and Kyle has already been removed from the church’s website.

The announcement of their departures has garnered more than 500 comments on the church’s…

Teachers and staff at a Florida school have donated some 100 sick days to a fellow history teacher who is undergoing chemotherapy treatment.

Robert Goodman, 56, used his own sick leave until he ran out in July, but he still needs chemotherapy for colon cancer until October. For this reason, Goodman was faced with the daunting decision to either return to school or take unpaid leave.

“It truly frightened me,” he told the BBC. “Chemo really messes with you. I was wondering how I could handle getting up at 5am every day.

“How could I handle all the different side-effects around the kids? How could I handle kids bringing the flu and colds to school?”

The Florida school system allows teachers to exchange sick leave with each other or donate it.

Goodman reached out to his coworkers on Facebook.

“I asked for help. I just didn’t expect to get the help in four days,” he said.

Some 60 teachers and employees responded to his message. In total, about 100 sick days were donated to Goodman— enough for him to finish his chemotherapy.

“It surprised me how fast it happened,” he said. “But it didn’t surprise me that teachers gave.

“Teachers always give – it’s a profession of giving, but it was extraordinary that so many people were willing to donate those days to me.

With the donation, Goodman does not have to return to school until January 2019.

“They could have…

The Satanic Temple held a protested the presence of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol Thursday. At the event, cosponsored by Satanic Arkansas, protestors unveiled a 8 ½ foot Baphomet statue that they would like to see erected at the Capitol. 

The protests stem from a 2017 law passed in the state legislature requiring a legislative sponsor for the installation of a monument. Senator Jason Rapert sponsored the Ten Commandments monument last year and it was erected quickly and with little fanfare.

Less than 24 hours after the monument’s installation, Michael Tate Reed slammed into it with his car and knocked it over. He was arrested at the scene and was found mentally unfit to stand trial. Reed also rammed his car into a Ten Commandments monument in Oklahoma in 2014. 

The Satanic Temple protest featured both Atheist and Christian speakers who called for either the removal of the Ten Commandments or the installation of the Baphomet statue. They argued that the Ten Commandments monument represents a state endorsement of religion and that if one religion can have a statue, then so can another.

Lucien Greaves, co-founder and spokesman of the Satanic Temple, released a statement explaining the rationale behind the event. In it, he said, ““The event is intended to be an inclusive gathering where The Satanic Temple will…

A Massachusetts Republican found a unique way to defeat a bill that would have added a third gender to the state’s driver’s licenses: He forced Democrats to hold an individual vote on 73 specific genders. 

The ploy by state Rep. Jim Lyons took place on the final day of the legislative session (July 31), with House Democrats needing to pass bills prior to midnight. One of those bills would have placed a “Gender X” on driver’s licenses alongside “male” and “female.” 

Knowing that Democrats had the numbers to pass the bill on a straight vote, Lyons decided to make them take a stand on 73 specific genders. Why 73? That’s the number he found on Facebook, according to Boston Herald radio host and columnist Howie Carr, who applauded Lyons’ tactic. The Democrats couldn’t vote against any of the amendments, Carr wrote, because they otherwise would be admitting that the bill “was preposterous on its face.”

“We can’t discriminate, he archly informed them,” Carr wrote. “This is Massachusetts. Gender is an evolving paradigm, to coin a phrase. All genders must be protected. Equal protection under the law.”

Amendment 7 would have added a gender “cis” to the driver’s license, amendment 9 a “cis female,” amendment 13 a “cis woman,” amendment 14 a “cisgender female” and amendment 18 a “cisgender woman.” It…