Commentary: The Left’s ‘Christian Nationalism’ Fearmongering Is Untethered to Reality

Church Sign

Is America on the verge of establishing a theocracy? The Left’s recent warnings about the rise of “Christian nationalism” suggest that a powerful, conservative Christian cabal is pulling the strings behind the scenes to forcibly convert the entire nation, or something.

In the past week, Politico’s Heidi Przybyla has been hammering the drum on this issue, first claiming—apparently without concrete evidence—that former Trump administration official Russell Vought has prioritized “Christian nationalism” by name in documents for a potential Trump second term, and then defining Christian nationalism as the doctrine that rights come from God, not government.

Read the full story

Goldwater Institute Sues Department of Education over ‘Unprecedented’ $37 Million Fine Assessed Against Arizona’s Christian Grand Canyon University

Grand Canyon University

The Goldwater Institute (GI) sued the U.S. Department of Education last week over fining Grand Canyon University (GCU) almost $40 million.

The fine was purportedly for “insufficiently inform[ing] PhD students that they may have to take continuing courses while completing their doctoral dissertations,” GI said in a press release. GI noted that the $37 million fine against the Christian university “is 10 times bigger than penalties the Education Department assessed against Penn State and Michigan State for covering up the sexual crimes of Jerry Sandusky and Larry Nassar.”

Read the full story

School District Allows LGBTQ Lesson Opt-Outs After Legal Threat by Muslim Parents

Christian, Jewish and Muslim families in suburban D.C. are waiting for a federal appeals court to determine whether their school district can continue requiring their children to read LGBTQ “storybooks” without parental knowledge or consent.

Eleven hundred miles away in a similarly blue jurisdiction led by the United States’ first known Somali-American mayor, Muslim immigrant families who escaped a war-torn country didn’t have to go to court to have their parental rights honored.

Read the full story

Commentary: Terrorist Attack Heightens Fears for the Future of Turkish Christians

Santa Maria Catholic Church

On Jan. 28, two terrorists wearing black balaclavas attacked Santa Maria Catholic Church in Istanbul, Turkey. The assailants entered the church as approximately 40 people were attending Mass. During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the gunmen began firing. Tragically, Tuncer Cihan was killed. He was about to become a Christian, attended church regularly, and was described as “a good person.”

Thankfully, no one else was injured, as the terrorists fled due to one of the guns miraculously jamming.

Read the full story

Commentary: The Loss of the Sacred in American Culture

Catholic Church

There’s a grim scene near the end of The Iliad in which the Greek hero Achilles, because of his rage and grief over the death of his comrade Patroclus at the hands of the Trojan prince Hector, slays Hector in battle and drags his corpse behind his chariot, day after day, desecrating the body in a manner unthinkable to the ancient Greeks. In fact, the affront to the dignity of this hero and prince, as well as the violation of the sacred customs of Greek society, eventually compels the gods to intervene. They tell Priam, the elderly king of Troy, to go to Achilles and plead for the body of Hector so that it may be properly honored and buried. The gods will not allow such a desecration to continue.

In these final lines of this epic poem—which, along with The Odyssey forms the bedrock of Western literature and arguably Western Civilization as a whole—Homer reaffirms a notion that all Greeks would have agreed with: There are certain lines that must not be crossed, certain sacred realities that cannot be defied, even by the semidivine hero Achilles.

Read the full story

Biden Admin Targets Largest Christian University in U.S.

Grand Canyon University campus

The Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is taking aim at the largest Christian university in the U.S. in a new lawsuit.

Grand Canyon University (GCU) is the largest Christian university in the U.S. with over 100,000 students enrolled and over 85,000 online students as of fall 2022, according to their website. The FTC alleges that GCU engaged in deceptive business practices with its doctoral programs and that it also engaged in illegal telemarketing practices, according to the federal complaint filed in the District of Arizona.

Read the full story

U.S. Supreme Court Again Vacates Judgement Against Oregon Bakers

Aaron and Melissa Klein

For the second time, the U.S. Supreme Court has vacated a lower court decision against a Christian couple in Oregon who were punished for not making a cake for a same-sex wedding.

In an orders list release Friday, the nation’s highest court vacated the decision against Aaron and Melissa Klein in their ongoing litigation with the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries.

Read the full story

Library Group’s ‘Intellectual Freedom’ Director Tells Libraries How to Censor Christian Story Hours

The American Library Association is offering guidance to public libraries on how to prevent events like an upcoming one by leading Christian children’s book publisher and marquee author Kirk Cameron, arguing they’re an attempt to “censor” or “silence” LGBTQIA library-users and their materials.

The guidance came from Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the association’s director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, during a virtual library conference earlier this month.

Read the full story

Virginia Hair Salon Fires Christian Stylist for ‘Homophobic’ Post Criticizing Disney Plus on Facebook

A Virginia hair salon fired a Christian stylist over a Facebook post criticizing the streaming movie service Disney+.

“My Facebook is my page,” Sidney York, the fired stylist, told The Daily Signal in an interview Wednesday. “I understand it’s a touchy subject and people may be offended over it, but it had nothing to do with my job.”

Read the full story

Commentary: The Long Road to Confronting China’s War on Religion Part One

In 2016, when President Xi Jinping delivered a speech calling for the “Sinicization of religion” in a nation of one billion, he was espousing a century-old impulse among his people while also inadvertently underscoring a persistent paradox that Chinese Communists brought with them when they took over the country in 1949 – and have never shaken.

The impulse is that the major faiths observed in China are not indigenous to the world’s oldest civilization. Buddhism was imported from India and Tibet. Islam arrived in overland trading routes and human migration from the Middle East, while Christianity, another Abrahamic faith, came across the ocean from Europe and America. To Communist leaders, and many Han Chinese civilians, these traditions represent potentially destabilizing foreign influence. 

Read the full story

Commentary: Cake Maker Jack Phillips Is STILL in Court

Jack Phillips

The endless travails of the Colorado Christian baker Jack Phillips are a measure of America’s pathetic descent into coercive secularism. Phillips has spent at least a decade in court, beating back the ludicrous claims of ACLU-style militants who can’t rest until everyone has been dragooned into the LGBTQ revolution. Phillips was at first persecuted for declining trolling customer demands that he design cakes for gay nuptials. He survived that assault, but now faces fallout from the transgender lobby’s mau-mauing of his business. In 2017, a man pretending to be a woman sued him for not designing birthday cakes in honor of “gender transitions” — an obvious nuisance suit that the state of Colorado and activist judges have humored. Phillips is back in court fighting it.

Read the full story

Commentary: The Rise of Conservative Christian Right-Wing Latinos

My father taught me that we came to this country to work. I refuse anything that is free, and I don’t leech from anyone. 

I remember him with pride in his eyes, his head held high, and determination in his soul. When he would drive me to school in his 1979 Super Sport El Camino—loaded down, as it was, with two lawnmowers, one Weed Eater, and the other essentials of a small mowing business—those quick 10-minute drives were often filled with gems of wisdom. 

Read the full story

Christian Student Silenced by School Receives Settlement

A college student will receive a massive settlement from his school after it tried to silence him from speaking about his faith, according to a Wednesday press release from Alliance Defending Freedom.

Georgia Gwinnett College settled with Chike Uzuegbunam for $80,000 six years after the lawsuit was first filed, which alleged that the school repeatedly denied him the right to speak about his Christian faith to other students, the press release said.

Read the full story

REPORT: More than 18 Christian Universities Actively Promote Abortion Providers

Person sitting down. Praying hands on a Bible

Students for Life of America’s (SFLA) recently documented dozens of Christian-affiliated schools that maintain ties with or reference to Planned Parenthood.

Campus Reform found many of these schools are also tied to abortion in other ways. Below is a sampling of Christian-affiliated universities and colleges that promote abortion advocacy and providers. 

Texas Christian University

Affiliation: Disciples of Christ

Read the full story

Washington Florist Who Declined to Arrange Flowers for Same-Sex Wedding Settles Lengthy Lawsuit

Barronelle Stutzman

A Christian florist in Washington settled a legal case Thursday centering around her refusal to provide custom floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding.

“I have put to rest the last legal considerations for a decision my husband, Darold, and I made nearly a decade ago,” Barronelle Stutzman said in a release from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

The public-interest law firm that represented Stutzman stated that the legal battle that started in 2012 will end with a $5,000 payment to Robert Ingersoll, the customer she turned down.

Read the full story

Let’s Go Brandon Freedom Rally and Mask Burning Features Christian Conservative Rapper Bryson Gray

HARTSVILLE, Tennessee – The Let’s Go Brandon Freedom Rally and Mask Burning, held at Trey Park in Hartsville Saturday with a very diverse group of a couple hundred people in attendance, featured godfather of conservative rap Bryson Gray.

Gray is a Christian conservative MAGA – Make America Godly Again – rapper who moved from liberal North Carolina to Tennessee, and is probably best known for his ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ song. The song was banned by YouTube for “medical misinformation,” even though it contains none. Gray’s song went to number one on iTunes following the ban, so Gray released a new song, ‘Thanks, YouTube.”

Read the full story

Commentary: Descendants of Enslaved People Are Owed Compensation, Kendi Argues

Recently, Ibram X. Kendi was chosen as a recipient for the 2021 MacArthur Genius Fellowship. This event has been met with resounding applause on the Left as it is presumed to be both a well-justified instance of reparative justice and a logical continuation of the 1960s Civil Rights movement. In truth, this event constitutes neither of these things. 

In recent years, we have seen increasing instances of anti-white rhetoric within America, exemplified in the rise of critical race theory, Black Lives Matter, and the writings of folks like Kendi.

Read the full story

Commentary: Christian Schools Vastly Outperforming Public Schools During COVID-19, According to New Survey of Parents

Among last year’s other lessons, none may be more important than this: Our taxpayer-funded education establishment cares more about adults than children.

Consider the evidence: public school union bosses pressured officials to close schools and keep them shuttered beyond what medical authorities recommended. In spite of the obvious harm to children of school closures, unions throughout the country lobbed threats and issued demands. In Chicago, the union went so far as to sue the Mayor to keep schools closed; in San Francisco, the city had to sue its school board.

A public education system that failed to do right by our children has kept union bosses empowered and politicians cowed. Thankfully, our country offers an alternative—one that proved its mettle this past year. In a recent survey of public school and Christian school parents, the Herzog Foundation found that parents of children who attended a Christian school were vastly more satisfied with their school experience.

Read the full story

Student Government Nominee ‘Canceled’ over Social Media Posts Expressing Conservative Values

A junior nominated for a position on Auburn University’s student government was successfully shot down because he expressed Christian and conservative beliefs on social media.

Stephen Morris was nominated for the position of chief justice of Auburn University’s Student Government Association. To his surprise, at the session where his nomination was to be taken up, held remotely over video, several members of the student senate strongly opposed his nomination.

Read the full story

‘The Time Has Come for ‘Gaytheism’:’ Library Promotes Radical, Anti-Christian Books

Rider University

Rider University is promoting a book in their online library that, according to the publication description, “Argues that homophobia will not be eradicated in the United States until religion is ended.”

“Slouching Towards Gaytheism: Christianity and Queer Survival in America,” written by W.C. Harris, a professor at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, can be found in Rider’s library research guide for “Christian and Religious Privilege.”

The “Christian and Religious Privilege” guide is a subcategory of Rider’s “Privilege and Intersectionality” web page.

Read the full story

Legal Group Intervenes After University Bars Christian Student from Classes over Refusal to Take Vaccines

Girl with mask on

A Christian nonprofit legal group has sent a letter to the University of Alabama-Birmingham after the public university blocked a student from registering for classes because she would not take vaccines.

The letter from First Liberty Institute asks university officials to follow the religious exemption it granted Jackie Gale for her first year at school. The university does not currently mandate the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Due to Ms. Gale’s religious beliefs, she cannot receive the childhood immunizations UAB requires under its immunization policy,” Christine Pratt, counsel for First Liberty, wrote in a May 13 demand letter.

Read the full story

Students at Christian University Call on School to Turn Away from ‘Falsehood’ That Is Critical Race Theory

University of Northwestern - St. Paul

Two students for the University of Northwestern – St. Paul have launched a petition calling on the school to turn away from Critical Race Theory and other progressive ideologies, arguing that such theories run counter to the school’s Christian foundation.

Students at Northwestern St. Paul University Hayley Tschetter and Joshua Feland created a change.org petition warning the community about “destructive” concepts that are becoming commonplace in higher-education.

“Intentional or not, exchanging the biblical worldview and faithful Christian teaching for those worldviews rooted in anti-biblical ideologies such as Marxism, Postmodernism, Social Justice Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Intersectionality leads down a destructive one-way road from which you cannot return.”

Read the full story

Conservative Clergy of Color Offers Corporate Training Program As Alternative to Racist Narrative Pushed by Black Lives Matter

The Conservative Clergy of Color wants businesses to know they have an alternative to the racist rhetoric being thrown around for diversity training.

The organization this week announced the “Getting to All Lives Matter,” a fact-based, six-step training program that operates on the assumption all Americans want to build a better society. This is an alternative to the rhetoric pushed by Black Lives Matter, which attempts to scare businesses, they said.

Read the full story

Commentary: It’s Time for the Samuel Adams Option

In 2018, Rod Dreher published The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians Living in a Post-Christian World. In it, he argued that Christians needed to recognize that this is a post-Christian society, and that they should withdraw as much as possible from it and build up private Christian communities. His inspiration for this concept is Saint Benedict of Nursia, who founded 12 different communities for monks, which became repositories of learning and civilization during the barbarism that ensued after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Read the full story

Herman Cain Is Mourned, Celebrated at His Funeral in Atlanta

Herman Cain, the former Republican presidential candidate, businessman and close ally of President Donald Trump, was guided by his Christian faith in politics, business and his personal life, his pastor said at his funeral Friday.

Cain “made his mark on this world” and his life will be celebrated for years to come, the Rev. Kenneth Lamont Alexander of Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta said.

Read the full story

Citizens for Community Values Pushes Back Against Hit Piece in The Columbus Dispatch

Citizens for Community Values is pushing back against a “blatantly biased” story in The Columbus Dispatch newspaper attacking them for working with the state to help people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

CCV says it is “Ohio’s Family Policy Council” and “We endeavor to create an Ohio where God’s blessings of life, family, and religious freedom are treasured, respected, and protected.”

Read the full story

Report: Northeast Cities the Most ‘Post-Christian’ in the Country While Tennessee’s Knoxville Appears in Top 100, Barely

  Cities in eight states from Maine to Massachusetts topped a list of the “Most Post-Christian Cities in America,” a new study released this month found. The Northeast region stands in stark contrast to the sole Tennessee city of Knoxville who barely cracked the top 100 – coming in at #99. The study, conducted by Barna research, is part of an ongoing survey of Americans based on a random sample of 21,378 adults conducted over a ten-year period. To be identified as post-Christian, an individual had to meet nine or more of the following factors: – Do not believe in God – Identify as atheist or agnostic – Disagree that faith is important in their lives – Have not prayed to God (in the last week) – Have never made a commitment to Jesus – Disagree the Bible is accurate – Have not donated money to a church (in the last year) – Have not attended a Christian church (in the last 6 months) – Agree that Jesus committed sins – Do not feel a responsibility to “share their faith” – Have not read the Bible (in the last week) – Have not volunteered at church (in the last week)…

Read the full story

Commentary: Yes, Christians Can Support Trump Without Risk to Their Witness

by Chris Buskirk   Can an adulterer be a great surgeon? If your child needed care and the best surgeon had cheated on his wife, maybe more than once, would you let him operate? What if you are a Christian and he is not? Does that matter? Should it? In the secular realm of everyday life—the life that takes place outside the church in which believers and unbelievers interact, mostly happily, mostly without even noticing (or often having any way of knowing) the difference—those questions should answer themselves. Of course, an adulterer can be a great surgeon. And a superbly ethical, thoroughly decent person may be a professional mediocrity—or worse. That’s life. There are innumerable examples of people who are wonderful but unaccomplished just as there are many notable examples of people with serious personal failings who nonetheless have excelled in other parts of their lives: artists, scientists, parents, and even politicians. And yes, I’m not so subtly making a point about President Trump. His private failings have been made very public prompting some Christian pundits to say that not only do those failings disqualify Trump from office, but they are so egregious as to make supporting him sinful for…

Read the full story

Christian Employers Alliance to Launch First State Chapter in Ohio

  The Christian Employers Alliance (CEA) announced Saturday that it will launch its first state-level chapter in Ohio after a kick-off event scheduled for May 6. The organization was founded when the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious organizations were forced to defend their freedom of faith and conscience against the Obama-era Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). In the wake of the years-long court battle, a national network of business owners launched the Christian Employers Alliance, a national network of “Christian business owners who are committed to running their businesses in line with their faith, serving their hopeful worldview in word and deed.” On Saturday, the organization announced that it would be starting a state chapter in Ohio and holding a kick-off event on May 6, which will feature several prominent speakers, including Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH-08) and Citizens for Community Values President Aaron Baer. “Christian business owners face unique and increasing challenges in America today,” the group said in a press release. “Christian business owners in Ohio are coming together to launch CEA’s first state chapter.” According to the press release, the organization will help business owners “connect with other Christian business owners throughout…

Read the full story

Chinese Police Raid Children’s Bible Study, Shut Down Third Prominent Underground Church This Winter

by Joshua Gill   Chinese police shut down a third prominent underground church this winter Saturday after raiding a children’s bible study and confiscating over 4,000 Christian books. Authorities in Guangzhou raided the Rongguili Church at 10 a.m., announcing to parents and children at the Bible study that all activities at the church were suspended and declaring that the unregistered church had violated China’s Religious Affairs Regulation. Police recorded the identities of all attendees, children included, and dismissed them from the church, warning them not to return. “Halfway through the children’s Bible class, we heard the footsteps of dozens of police and officials stomping up the stairs,” an attendee of the Bible Study said, according to South China Morning Post. “They read out law enforcement notices declaring our venue was an illegal gathering that had engaged in illegal publishing and illegal fundraising and confiscated all Bibles.” “They then verified our identities again and warned us not to return to the church before letting us go,” the church member added. Authorities also arrested one parent who reportedly tried to photograph the incident. La #Chine ferme Rongguili, alias le phare de la foi dans le sud de la Chine, fondé par le…

Read the full story

Fire Chief Who Was Fired for Marriage Views Wins Major First Amendment Victory

by Monica Burke   In a major victory for free speech, the city of Atlanta has awarded former Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran with $1.2 million after violating his First Amendment rights.Cochran was a highly decorated firefighter who served as the U.S. fire administrator after President Barack Obama hand-picked him for the job. In 2010, he agreed to return to his former position as fire chief of Atlanta at the invitation of Mayor Kasim Reed.In 2012, he received the “Fire Chief of the Year” award for “pioneering efforts to improve performance and service within the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department.” But his career came to an abrupt halt in 2015 when Reed suspended him without pay for 30 days and ultimately fired him. The reason? Cochran’s beliefs about marriage. Cochran had written and self-published a 162-page Christian devotional—on his own time—that included a few paragraphs on the biblical view on sex and marriage. He shared the book with a few colleagues, which was when activists complained. The mayor then construed Cochran’s belief that marriage is between one man and one woman as discriminatory and ordered him to attend “sensitivity training.” The mayor also launched an investigation into whether Cochran had ever discriminated…

Read the full story

Commentary: Christian Cake Baker Turns the Tables, Sues Colorado for Anti-Religious Bias

Jack Phillips

by Thomas Jipping   Jack Phillips owns Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, and is himself a master baker. He’s in trouble with the state of Colorado for declining to create a custom cake for an event because doing so would violate his religious beliefs. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Phillips has already taken a similar case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor on June 4. Here’s the background. In 2012, Phillips declined the request by a same-sex couple marrying in Massachusetts that he create a custom cake for their reception in Colorado. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in a ruling affirmed by the state courts, concluded that Phillips violated a state law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in businesses and other places of public accommodation. The case, as the Supreme Court would describe it, presented a conflict between the government’s authority to protect individuals against discrimination and “the right of all persons to exercise fundamental freedoms under the First Amendment.” This conflict is recurring, in different settings, more and more often. To understand this conflict properly requires focusing on the reason that Phillips declined to make this particular cake. He…

Read the full story

VP Pence Visit to Conservative Lee University Triggers Left Wing Lunacy

Mike Pence

Conservative political commentator and Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill of The Gill Report, broadcast live on WETR 92.3 FM in Knoxville, stated in disbelief the left’s infiltration into Lee University, one of Tennessee’s top Christian schools – and in particular one Lee University student’s petition to cancel a Vice President Pence visit to one of the most conservative cities in the country. “If you need any further evidence – which you shouldn’t need much – that the left is truly deranged and hurting themselves in their interest to overcome any question about how anti-Trump and anti-Pence they may be,” Gill said; adding, “We just need to look down at the Chattanooga area as students at supposedly conservative Lee University are running a petition to block Vice President Mike Pence from visiting the university in Cleveland on Saturday.” He continued: I don’t know how many presidents or vice presidents that have actually visited little Lee University down in Cleveland, I don’t think it’s many you would think that having a president and vice president visit your campus might be a big deal that would be celebrated by virtually everybody, but no, the left-wing loonies are off to the races. They…

Read the full story

The Supreme Court Rules 7-2 for Baker Jack Phillips in Gay Wedding Cake Lawsuit

Jack Phillips

In a closely watched decision Monday, the Supreme Court found the Colorado owner and master baker of Masterpiece Cakeshop was within his rights when he refused to make a custom wedding for a same-sex wedding, saying that to do otherwise was against his moral and religious convictions. (Full decision embedded below.) Jack Phillips, a Christian, was sued by David Mullins and Charlie Craig, a gay couple, when Phillips said he would not participate in their wedding by designing a custom cake (although he would sell them any non-custom item they wished). The Daily Caller News Foundation reported: After a short discussion with the prospective patrons, Phillips said he would not sell them a custom wedding cake due to his deeply-held religious beliefs. Mullins and Craig filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, prompting a lengthy legal battle culminating in an appeal to the high court. Kennedy explained that the Colorado law can validly protect LGBT patrons, must found the state agency applied the law in a manner hostile towards Phillips’ evangelical beliefs. “That consideration was compromised, however, by the commission’s treatment of Phillips’ case, which showed elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward the sincere religious beliefs motivating his objection,”…

Read the full story

‘Trumpvangelicals’ Are Number One of 10 Most Important Faith Stories of 2017

For the second year in a row, President Donald Trump and his conservative evangelical supporters topped the list of the 10 most important religion news stories of the year as compiled by the country’s largest organization of religion journalists. These so-called Trumpvangelicals are enjoying unprecedented access to the Oval Office both through Vice President Mike Pence, a conservative Christian, and an informal presidential advisory panel consisting almost entirely of conservative evangelical Christian leaders.

Read the full story

Christian Agencies Use Know-How to Help Hurricane Victims

Tennessee Star

The Daily Caller reports that Christian non-profits do more than any government agency to support victims of disasters like hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The story says that faith-based organizations provide the bulk of relief, even when compared to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, quoting a national media story. The National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD) works with FEMA to distribute resources in disaster areas and help victims find the help they need. Seventy-five percent of NVOAD’s membership is comprised of faith-based organizations, The Daily Caller reports. The disaster coordination agency’s membership, includes notables like the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team and Convoy of Hope, plus many denominational response organizations including those for the Adventists, Disciples of Christ and Episcopalians. There are non-Christian and secular groups as well. Such organizations have the experience and logistical infrastructure to effectively respond to disasters and work with devastated communities in the long-term. Jake Raabe, in the Baptist Standard, speaks out against the “second disaster” created when well-intentioned people send useless items like teddy bears that overwhelm meaningful relief operations. Supply planes could not land in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch ravaged that nation in 1998 because Americans had donated so much used clothing that boxes of…

Read the full story

Christian Governor of Jakarta, Indonesia Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison ‘For Blaspheming the Quran’

“An Indonesian court sentenced the minority Christian governor of Jakarta to two years in prison on Tuesday for blaspheming the Quran, a jarring ruling that undermines the reputation of the world’s largest Muslim nation for practicing a moderate form of Islam,” the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. In announcing its decision, the five-judge panel said Gov. Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama was “convincingly proven guilty of blasphemy” and ordered his arrest. He was taken to Cipinang Prison in east Jakarta. At the court, supporters of the governor wept and hugged each other amid shouts of jubilation from members of conservative Islamic groups. Photos quickly appeared online of Ahok, who still commands immense popularity in Jakarta, the capital, being warmly greeted by prison staff. Ahok said he would appeal, but it was unclear if he would be released once that process is underway. By early evening, hundreds of angry supporters had gathered at the high-security prison, some pushing hard against a tall metal gate and others setting a tire alight. “Brothers and sisters, justice has died in this country,” said a man addressing the crowd with a megaphone.   The stunning sentence flies in the face of recent claims by some Indonesian…

Read the full story