Come on. Spell out Palestinian Authority for these pieces. Here I stopped in to read thinking that this had information on Pennsylvania outlawing a church in near by Bethlehem. PA means Pennsylvania in the United States.
Posted on 03/14/2012 3:44:46 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The Palestinian Authority declared a Baptist Church in Bethlehem to be unlawful and said that it will no longer receive rights as a religious institution, Algemeiner reported.
This decision comes a week after Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told an audience of Evangelical Protestants that his government respected the rights of its Christian minorities.
“They said that our legitimacy as a church from a governmental point of view is not approved,” said an assistant pastor at the First Baptist Church. “They said they will not recognize any legal paper work from our church. That includes birth certificates, wedding certificates and death certificates. Children are not even considered to be legitimate if they don’t have recognized paperwork.”
The messianic church was subjected to an ongoing onslaught of attacks by Arabs during the height of the First Intifada.
At a recent gathering of Evangelical Protestants, Prime Minister Fayyad said that ensuring the rights of the Christian minority to access their holy sites is, in part, what it “means to be a Palestinian.”
Pastor Reverend Naim Khoury noted, however, that animosity towards the Christian minority in areas controlled by the PA continues to get increasingly worse.
“People are always telling [Christians], ‘Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam. It’s the true and right religion,’” Khoury said. …
(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
The church needs to hire some Christian armed guards and double fast.
This doesn't seem to be a problem for Obama.
ML/NJ
Those moslems need Baptism by firearms really bad.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
True and right 500 years after the death, burial, and ressurection of the Lord? I'll pass.
Come on. Spell out Palestinian Authority for these pieces. Here I stopped in to read thinking that this had information on Pennsylvania outlawing a church in near by Bethlehem. PA means Pennsylvania in the United States.
Not from an Israeli newspaper. Philly Inquirer or Allentown Morning Call would be a different story . . .
INN is a local paper here. It is the Amish weekly written solely Pennsylvania Dutch.
We received an email today from Pastor Steven Khoury explaining about this (below). Please pray for them.
MARCH 13, 2012
The purpose of this update is to clarify the recent online rumors of my fathers church in Bethlehem shutting down due to pressure from the Palestinian Authority (PA). Please note that this rumor is false. The origin of the rumor stemmed from a misunderstanding of a fellow brother in understanding our situation in seeking official recognition from the local city government that we are a representative church for Christians.
IT IS TRUE THAT A GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE FROM THE PLO DID COME TO THE OFFICE OF PASTOR DR. KHOURY IN BETHLEHEM ON MARCH 10, 2012 AND ONCE AGAIN DID REITERATE THAT AS OF 2010 NONE OF OUR ACTIVITIES AND PAPER WORK FROM A GOVERNMENT POINT OF VIEW IS ACCEPTED. No reason was given for the rejection of our paperwork except to an allusion that there are external pressures from outside third parties preventing any official recognition. NO THREATS FROM THE PA WERE MADE TO PASTOR DR. KHOURY OR THE CHURCH.
As of today, the person who began the rumor of our church being shut down by the PA has since retracted the statement. WE HAVE ATTACHED THE RETRACTION STATEMENT BELOW. We ask you to continually pray for our church members’ safety as well as opening the hearts of those who wish to hinder our efforts toward official recognition by the PA government. We know that our God is above bureaucracy as it says in Psalms 33:10.
God bless
THE KHOURYS AND FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
RETRACTION: http://rebrez.wordpress.com/
My statement that the Palestinian Authority told Pastor Naim Khoury
“to shut the doors–they were closing down the church” in Bethlehem is
not accurate. After a further conversation with Pastor Steven Khoury,
I realize that the church was told that the Palestinian Authority no
longer considers them legitimate and will no longer accept any paper
work from them, such as baptismal or wedding certificates. Obviously,
this appears to be a serious infringement of religious freedom and
remains a matter of grave concern. I apologize for creating confusion
by my earlier statement that the church is being shut down. Thank you.
Sincerely,
(I deleted his name for this post)
Mucking Fuslims.
Thanks Olog-hai.
I don’t understand this at all. How does a Baptist Church come under the authority of Palestinians? Is this wihtin a group of people from Palestine - some are muslim and some ANY other religion? Who or what does not know that any church, organization or person that believes in Jesus Christ, is not looked upon favorably by muslims? I can live peaceably beside any brother of mine and obviously this cannot be reversed. I live in The United States of America. Last I heard, Pennsylvania is a state of the USA and this is not condoned. I know this would not happen where I live. Which is, by the way, 20 minutes from Ground Zero. I was THERE when it happened - we couldnnn’t breathe. As a reply to this article, I would like to know what your PA oppressors think of me?
Palestinian decides a Baptist Church is unlawful in The United State of America; the state of Pennsylvania. What else is new about the Palestinians? I wish the Palestinians would try to do that in NYC, where I live. Or else I am GRAVELY misinformed by this article.
Dang Pennsylstinians.
Try the original Bethlehem . . .
The Palestinian Authority is running Bethlehem, Pennsylvania? LOL
“Don’t tell me they aren’t trying to provoke a new Crusade.”
Don’t any Christians hold back on our account. If you can boot the PA out of Ramallah, you won’t hear me conplain. The international community bugger-s@#$s will make too much noise if we do it.
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