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A Christian bookstore owner in China faces up to seven years in prison and a $ 30,000 fine
A Chinese Christian online bookstore owner has been sentenced to seven years in prison and fined nearly $30,000 for engaging in what the regime deems as “illegal business operations.”
Persecution watchdog International Christian Concern reports that in September 2019, Chen Yu, who operated his online bookstore in Zhejiang province’s Taizhou city, was detained for selling unapproved religious publications imported from Taiwan, the U.S., and other countries.
Last week, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined 200,000 RMB ($29,450), according to a document from the People’s Court of Linhai City, shared by Father Francis Liu from the Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness.
Additionally, Chen will also have his iPhone confiscated, while the 12,864 Christian books from his bookstore will be destroyed by the Linhai City Public Security Bureau.
ICC reports that police also launched a nationwide investigation to track down the bookstore’s customers through sale records and will confiscate their purchased books.
Gina Goh, ICC’s Regional Manager for Southeast Asia, said Chen’s sentencing reveals China’s Communist Party is “increasingly frightened by all things religious.”
“From religious symbols, Chinese couplets, to Christian books, anything that features religious elements is no longer tolerated by the Chinese Communist Party,” she said.
Goh warned that the “disproportionate sentencing of Christians” such as Early Rain Covenant Church Pastor Wang Yi — who was sentenced to nine years in prison under the same charge as Chen Yu — “implies that the crackdown against Christianity will only intensify.”
“The U.S. government and international community should continue to stand up to the tyranny in Beijing,” she stressed.
As the Chinese Communist Party seeks to limit the influence of Christianity in China, authorities have increasingly cracked down on Christian booksellers and their customers.
Last year, the owner of Wheat Bookstore, Zhang Xiaomai, was detained on suspicion of “illegal business operations.” A government-issued document accused her of buying religious publications from overseas and illegally selling them.
Police subsequently launched a nationwide investigation to track down the bookstore’s customers through sales orders and confiscated their books.
A house church pastor from Shenzhen city in the southern province of Guangdong who was summoned for purchasing from Wheat Bookstore, told Bitter Winter, “People who buy Christian books are practicing believers, so the government looks into them to determine how dangerous they are to the stability of their regime.”
“The Communist Party has done too many shameful deeds and continues to suppress people. Our government has a guilty conscience,” the pastor added.
A house church preacher from Shandong also told Bitter Winter that the police investigated him after discovering that he had purchased religious materials on Taobao.com, a Chinese online shopping website.
“It seems to me that the government can access anything; I feel like I am running naked,” the preacher said.
In April 2018, the Chinese government banned online retailers from selling the Bible. Legally, the Bible can only be distributed by government-approved agencies that supervise the Christian churches in China.
The CCP has also amped up measures to destroy religious symbols. In the first half of 2020 alone, over 900 crosses were removed from state-run churches across China.
In several provinces across the country, authorities have ordered residents to replace pictures of Jesus with those of Chairman Mao and those of General Secretary Xi Jinping.
China is ranked as one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to the persecution of Christians, according to Open Doors USA’s World Watch List.
The communist regime’s crackdown on religious freedom has also led the U.S. State Department to label it as a “country of particular concern” for “continuing to engage in particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
This week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stressed that “nowhere is religious freedom under assault more than in China,” warning that the CCP is trying to “snuff out the lamp of freedom, especially religious freedom, on a horrifying scale.”
Sources: Christian Post
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ഇന്ത്യൻ ക്രിസ്റ്റ്യൻ ഡേ സമ്മേളനം സെപ്റ്റംബർ 19 വൈകിട്ട് 5 മണിക്ക് ഇർവിംഗ് സിറ്റിയിൽ
ഡാളസ് : ഇന്ത്യൻ ക്രിസ്റ്റ്യൻ ഡേ സമ്മേളനം ഇർവിംഗ് സിറ്റിയിൽ സെപ്റ്റംബർ19 ശനിയാഴ്വ വൈകുന്നേരം 5 മണിക്ക് ബെഥനി ഫുൾ ഗോസ്പൽ അസംബ്ളി ഹാളിലാണ് ആരംഭിയ്ക്കുന്നത്. സമ്മേളനത്തിൽ ഇർവിംഗ് മേയർ (A I Zapanta ), ഷെർവിൻ ഡേസ്സ് , ഡോ. സിസിൽ അനിയൻ തുടങ്ങിവരാണ് മുഖ്യ പ്രസംഗകർ. ഇവരെ കൂടാതെ ഇന്ത്യൻ പ്രവാസികളായ ക്രൈസ്തവ ജനതയെ പ്രതിനിഥീകരിച്ച് വിവിധ സഭാ മേലദ്ധ്യഷന്മാരും, പ്രതിനിധികളും, സംഘടനാ ലീഡേഴ്സും, പൊതു ജനത്തെ അതിസം ബോധന ചെയ്ത് സംസാരിക്കുന്നതാണ്.
ക്രൈസ്തവരായ ഇന്ത്യൻ ജനതയുടെ പൈതൃകം, സംസ്കാരം, സാഹോദരിയത്വം , ഐക്യത തുടങ്ങിയ മൂല്യങ്ങളെ ഉയർത്തി കാട്ടുന്നതിനും, ക്രിസ്തുവിൻ്റെ സ്നേഹം മറ്റുള്ളവരിലേക്ക് പകരപ്പെടേണമെന്നതാണ് ഈ സമ്മേളനം ലക്ഷ്യമാക്കുന്നത്. പാസ്റ്റർ മാതൃൂ ശാമുവേൽ, പാസ്റ്റർ ജോൺ യല്ലംമ്പള്ളി, പാസ്റ്റർ പോൾ ഗോരപ്പ തുടങ്ങിയവരാണ് ടെക്സസിലെ ഇന്ത്യൻ ക്രിസ്റ്റ്യൻ ഡേയുടെ മുഖ്യ സംഘാടകർ.
സമ്മേളന സ്ഥലം : Bethany Full Gospel Assembly, 2901 N MacArthur Blvd.Irving,.Tx.75062
വിശദ വിവരങ്ങൾക്ക് ബന്ധപ്പെടുക: 469 212 3216.
Sources:globalindiannews
us news
കോർക്ക് ഏബേനസർ ദൈവസഭയിൽ സെപ്റ്റംബർ 19 ശനിയാഴ്ച ഏകദിന യുവജന ക്യാമ്പ്
അയർലൻഡ്: ഏകദിന യുവജന ക്യാമ്പ്: കോർക്ക് ഏബേനസർ ദൈവസഭയുടെ ആഭിമുഖ്യത്തിൽ എറൈസ് & ഇഗ്നൈറ്റ്’ എന്ന വിഷയത്തെ ആസ്പതമാക്കി ഏകദിന യുവജന ക്യാമ്പ്, 2026 സെപ്റ്റംബർ 19 ശനിയാഴ്ച രാവിലെ 10:00 മുതൽ കോർക്കിലെ ഏബേനസർ ദൈവസഭ ഹാളിൽ വച്ചു നടത്തപ്പെടും.
പ്രശസ്ത ദൈവവചന പ്രാസംഗികനും ഗായകനുമായ പാസ്റ്റർ കാലെബ് ജീ ജോർജ് ക്യാമ്പിൽ മുഖ്യസന്ദേശം നൽകും. യുവാക്കളിൽ ആത്മീയ ഉണർവും ദൈവീക അനുഗ്രഹവും ലക്ഷ്യമിട്ട് ക്രമീകരിച്ചിരിക്കുന്ന ഈ ക്യാമ്പ്, ആത്മനിറവിനായുള്ള മികച്ചൊരു അവസരമായിരിക്കും
കൂടുതൽ വിവരങ്ങൾക്കും സൗജന്യ രജിസ്ട്രേഷനും പാസ്റ്റർ എം. എം. തോമസ്, പാസ്റ്റർ കെ. പി. ബിജുമോൻ എന്നിവരുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെടാവുന്നതാണ്
ഏവരുടെയും പ്രാർത്ഥനാപൂർവ്വമായ പങ്കാളിത്തം പ്രതീക്ഷിക്കുന്നതോടൊപ്പം, എല്ലാ യൗവനക്കാരെയും പരിപാടിയിലേക്ക് സ്വാഗതം ചെയ്യുന്നതായി ഭാരവാഹികൾ അറിയിച്ചു.
Sources:cchintha.in
us news
Theologian Uncovers Dangerous ‘Common Sense’ Hidden in Kids’ Movies Today
Very often, the truth is hiding in plain sight. That’s certainly the case with much of children’s entertainment.
The underlying message affixed to any number of movies geared toward kids seems to be some version of following one’s own heart, listening to his desires, chasing after her feelings. But that message, according to Trevin Wax, is a direct contradiction to the Gospel.
Wax, an author and visiting professor at Cedarville University, recently appeared on CBN’s “Faith in Culture,” were he eschewed such ideologies. While the world calls those ideas “common sense,” he said they are incongruous with Christianity.
“You think of these slogans that are out there, like, ‘Be true to yourself,’ ‘You do you,’ ‘Live your truth,’ ‘You are enough,’ ‘Follow your heart,’ ‘Chase your dreams,’” he said. “Sociologists call that ‘expressive individualism.’ … That’s the plot line in so many movies, even, like, good wholesome movies, in Disney movies. … It kind of passes for common sense in our day and age.”
The secular understanding of “freedom” is a far cry from true freedom as explained in Scripture, Wax said.
“It’s just so easy to define freedom in our day as a freedom from constraints, from limitations,” he explained. “[The world says] freedom is me doing whatever I want to do, when the Bible actually teaches that, ‘No, you doing just whatever you want to do, especially in our flesh, is a kind of slavery.’”
Throughout the New Testament, the Apostle Paul explains human beings will always be slaves to something — either to sin and our own desires or to a just and merciful God whose ways are higher and better than our own.
In Romans 6:16, Paul wrote, “Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living” (NLT).
“True freedom is submission to God, and it’s freedom for something,” said Wax. “It’s not doing whatever we want; it’s aligning our wants with God’s will, recognizing that that’s when we’re truly freest.”
Wax is the author of the new book, “The Gospel Way Catechism for Kids,” a children’s edition of his book by the same title.
In it, he and his co-author, Thomas West, outline 50 faith-centered questions and answers for children to read, study, and talk about with their families. He explained that these catechisms should serve as conversation starters in the home.
“A catechism isn’t supposed to be everything,” he said. “It’s supposed to be something. It’s meant to give you the structure or the scaffolding that you can then come in later and begin to fill in.”
While the world teaches a “meditation” that empties the mind of everything, Wax emphasized a godly mindfulness that calls believers to fill their minds with the commands and promises of Scripture.
“We’ve got to distinguish the Christian understanding of prayer from just mindfulness routines or just Eastern meditation that leads us to sort of empty our minds,” he explained. “[B]iblical meditation … is a filling of the mind with Scripture and God’s Word.”
Sources:faithwire
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