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wo women defied a centuries-old ban on entering a Hindu temple in the Indian state of Kerala on Wednesday, sparking protests and calls for a strike by conservative Hindu groups outraged by their visit. Police fired teargas and used water cannons to disperse a large crowd of protesters in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram, television news channels showed. There were protests in several other cities in the state, media reported. India's Supreme Court in September ordered the lifting of the ban on women or girls of menstruating age from entering the Sabarimala temple, which draws millions of worshippers a year.

Mahmudul Haque Munshi's name was on a hit list in Bangladesh. After five of his friends and associates were murdered, the authorities warned the blogger: "There's nothing more we can do for you." Munshi had to leave the country in 2015. First, he fled to Nepal, then to Sri Lanka and finally to Germany. When he reached an arrival center in the western German city of Detmold, he was shocked. There were other Bangladeshis in the center, but they were anything but kind to their fellow countryman. "The problem is, I get threats every day on Facebook. You know, one...

Ryan Bomberger, a prolife speaker and the founder of a nonprofit group called The Radiance Foundation, travels across the country advocating for the unborn and telling his own personal story, which began when his biological mother was raped. She gave him life, and Ryan was adopted into a Christian multiracial family of fifteen (ten of the thirteen children were adopted). He and his wife Bethany have four children of their own, two of whom were adopted. He says “his life defies the myth of the ‘unwanted’ child as he was adopted, loved and has flourished.” Black Lives Matter In &...

The creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) on December 15, at a Unification Council in Kyiv attended by representatives of three previously divided Orthodox jurisdictions in Ukraine, is a seismic event in world Christian history that could also have significant geopolitical repercussions. For centuries, Orthodoxy in Ukraine was subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, as Ukraine itself was subjected to Russian suzerainty (sometimes under the guise of Soviet “republicanism”). The first phase of Vladimir Putin’s attempt to re-create some form of the old Soviet empire in the Russian “near abroad” has unfolded under the...

Many secular scientists consider so-called “feathered dinosaurs” to be evidence of dinosaurs evolving into birds. Clearly defined anatomy-based categories exist for both “bird” and “dinosaur,” but evolution requires a bird-to-dinosaur transition.1 In living creatures, only birds—not mammals or reptiles—have feathers. Furthermore, with a few controversial exceptions,2 all extinct feathered animals are acknowledged as birds. Even bird-feather proteins called keratins are unique.3The use of feathers to fly “affects virtually every aspect of feather design and construction.”4 A flight feather has a long, slender central shaft called a rachis. From this extend the barbs, and from these extend the even smaller barbules....

Hindsight is seeing what was. Prophecy is seeing what shall be. That means Hindsight is right after Prophecy. Since Hindsight is 2020 that means 2019 must be the year of prophecy .

I hired Bre Payton right out of college. She was green. She was unknown. She had never done TV. But she had worked through her last year of college, and I respected that. I interviewed a half-dozen people for the position. We met in the coffee shop I liked that had no seats, so we were by ourselves in crappy plastic chairs in the back. From the moment we started talking I realized she was a potential star. She was raw, yes, but that could be honed. She was eager to learn, to write, and to go places—not because of...

The National Maternity Hospital will begin accepting referrals for abortion services from Monday, 7 January. In a new section on its website, titled “Unplanned Pregnancy Support Services”, the hospital said it would take women from its catchment area of South Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare. Referrals will only be accepted from GPs or community-based services such as the Irish Family Planning Association and the Well Woman Clinic. Regulated abortion services have been legal in Ireland since President Michael D. Higgins signed the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill into law on 20 December. Hospitals and GPs have been working with...

Hearts around the world were warmed earlier this year when Sony Pictures released its first image of Tom Hanks suited up for his role as Fred Rogers in the upcoming movie about Rogers’ incredible life of gentle love for children. Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers is an equation hardwired to explode hearts around the world with delight, so this movie jumped to the top of a lot of people’s Most Anticipated Movies of 2019 lists. And now, it has a title. > Yep, the movie will be called It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. That makes a lot of...

In Canada, the government, in its eternal wisdom, recently passed two laws. They are: 1. Legalized gay marriage 2. Legalized marijuana Legalizing gay marriage and marijuana at the same time now makes perfect Biblical sense. Leviticus 20:13 says: "If a man lies with another man they should be stoned.” Apparently we just hadn't interpreted it correctly before!

Cui Haoxin is too young to remember the days of his people’s oppression under Mao Zedong. The 39-year-old poet was born after the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, when the Hui — China’s second-largest Muslim ethnic group — were among the masses tormented by the Red Guard. In the years since, the Hui (pronounced HWAY) generally have been supportive of the government and mostly spared the kind of persecution endured by China’s largest Muslim group, the Uighur. There are signs, though, that that is changing. Cui fears both that history may be repeating itself and for his own safety as he...

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D.-Texas) took to the House floor on Dec. 12 to explain why, especially in the Christmas season, a shutdown of the federal government should be avoided. “This is a season where many in our Nation draw together with families and worship and celebrate,” Jackson Lee said. “It is a very honored time,” she said. “People of the Christian faith are engaged in the recognition and acknowledgment of the birth of baby Jesus. It is a holy time. It is a time when families need resources. Government workers need to ensure that their families are provided for,...

In the article, it is argued that the origin of Watchers derives from the Mesopotamian mythology of the antediluvian sages (apkallus). More precisely, it is proposed that the mythology of Watchers and their sons the giants derived from inverted versions of various Mesopotamian myths and beliefs about apkallus. On some layers of Mesopotamian mythology and ritual practices, the sages were already regarded as dangerous and potentially malicious creatures, upon which the Jewish authors could build their parody. Among other associations, the apkallus had strong ties to Mesopotamian demonology, and they were occasionally counted as evil beings, capable of witch-craft. This...

NORFOLK Old Dominion quarterback Blake LaRussa, a former walk-on who will forever hold a place in Monarchs lore for leading a historic upset of Virginia Tech, is walking away, at the height of his career. The redshirt junior from Bishop Sullivan Catholic announced Wednesday that he will forgo his final season of eligibility and enroll in seminary school. "It has been an incredible journey with Old Dominion football, but I would like to announce that I will be moving on from football after I graduate this spring and will be going into full-time ministry," LaRussa said in a statement released...

Christmas Day celebrations are well underway across the world, as roughly 2.3 billion Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25. In Sydney, where December is one of the hottest months of the year, Christmas revellers traditionally head down to the beach, cook barbecues and spend most of the day outdoors. In Britain, those opting for a Christmas morning swim had to endure freezing temperatures as they braved icy waters in up and down the country. There was a double cause for celebration in Iraq as the government announced it would make December 25 a nationwide holiday for...

Studio One broadcast of their "Live Nativity" program from 1952. Subject: Well done...and moody The use of moody lighting here is well done and hides the low budget of the production. It's well-performed, especially with the tricky rhyming dialogue. The Westinghouse ads are also worth a watch.

Father Frost didn’t drop presents off for Russian children on Dec. 25. And he won’t on Orthodox Christmas (Jan. 7), either. Rather, Ded Moroz and his lovely snow maiden assistant, Snegurochka, are attached to New Year’s Eve, which in Russia is the new year and the secular bits of Christmas like trees and presents all rolled into one. Initially, the Soviets tried to replace Christmas with a more appropriate komsomol (youth communist league) related holiday, but, shockingly, this did not take. And by 1928 they had banned Christmas entirely, and Dec. 25 was a normal working day. Then, in 1935,...

In honor of the season I've made my Christmas novel A Fantasía for Two Lutes available as a free Kindle download. It's a story of ghosts and visions, and an allegory of Western society, as personified by its protagonist, Aaron Westwode, a good man suffering guilt for something which he can neither identify, nor define. Driven to despair and suicide, he is saved on Christmas eve by Margaret, the ghost of a woman murdered by his evil brother, a domestic terrorist. She wafts him to the other world, where visions of his past precede a trip to Hell, and confrontation...

In this deeply partisan political climate, it may come as a surprise to many that a group of Senate Democrats and Republicans come together each week to pray. "It is literally the most liberal Democrats and the most conservative Republicans," Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) tells CBN News. "It's not just the centrist group." Coons, who co-chairs the group with Republican Sen. James Lankford, describes it as the best hour of his week. "We do two things we don't otherwise do, we listen to each other and we trust each other," continued Coons. The only non-senator present is Senate Chaplain Barry...

The closing of the Christmas Eve broadcast from lunar orbit by the crew of Apollo 8. Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman taking turns reading from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis.