A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – An Iranian oil tanker held for over a month by British authorities was released Thursday, despite a legal bid by the U.S. to take over the seizure.

Grace 1, which authorities pinned as carrying oil to the government of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria in defiance of European Union sanctions, was detained by the British Royal Marines off the coast of Gibraltar on July 4, prompting Iran to seize the British tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz two weeks later as retaliation.

“A strait for a strait. It can’t be that the Strait of Hormuz is free for you and the Strait of Gibraltar is not free for us,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said at the time, echoing calls on the other side from British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt for the establishment of a European maritime security force designed to stave off Iranian aggression.

Over the course of two months in May and June, Iran bombed or intimidated Saudi Arabian, Emirati, Norwegian, and Japanese oil tankers in or near its territorial waters in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.

The bellicose response of the Islamic Republic to U.S. President Trump’s war of sanctions against Iranian oil has, according to unnamed Trump Administration sources who spoke to the Wall Street Journal, led to unprecedented secret meetings between the U.S., Israel, and Gulf States like the United Arab Emirates over the last few months aimed at mounting an opposition to Iran.

The post British Release Iranian Tanker After U.S. Fails in Bid to Take Over Seizure appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – As Egypt continues to go through the process of becoming more officially inclusive of Coptic Christianity, many Christian leaders complained on August 5th that fewer churches had been granted legal status this time around by the presidential committee appointed for the task by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Whereas in August 88 places of worship were granted legal status by the committee helmed by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, in July as many as 127 had been approved, with church leaders citing overly stringent safety requirements as the reason for the thinning numbers of the latest round.

American Christian leaders praised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in January when he gifted the Egyptian Coptic Community the largest church to-date in the Middle East, in what many saw as a sea change following the Islamist terror attacks that had riven the country and targeted Christians for almost a decade since the Arab Spring.

“The American people deserve to know that where once a group of dangerous fanatics ruled, we now have a great friend and faithful ally in Egypt,” author Joel C. Rosenberg, who attended the inauguration of the Nativity of the Christ cathedral along with Sisi himself and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, wrote for the Christian Post in January.

Sisi’s government has so far legalized 1,109 out of the 3,730 churches that have applied for legal permits, with an additional 5,000 churches granted permission to operate while they await legal status, compared with only 2,500 that were ever considered legal in Egypt over the last 150 years, according to Rosenberg.

The post Egyptian Churches Encounter Administrative Hurdles on Path to Legal Status appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

(Worthy News) – U.S. intelligence agencies are closely watching Chinese troop movements in Shenzhen near Hong Kong where several hundred thousand People’s Liberation Army and People’s Armed Police troops are massing along with armored vehicles.

Satellite photos published this week showed an estimated 500 armored personnel carriers and military trucks parked in a sports stadium in Shenzhen, a city near Hong Kong.

State-run Chinese media reports over the past week have provided indications that the ruling Communist Party is preparing the population for a major military crackdown on the former British colony, one that likely could resemble the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. [ Source: Washington Times (Read More…) ]

The post Chinese military preparing crackdown appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

(Worthy News) – The US has applied to seize an Iranian tanker in Gibraltar commandeered by British Royal Marines in the Mediterranean last month, a judge has told a court in Gibraltar, according to local media reports.

Gibraltar was due to release the Grace 1 vessel on Thursday but the US Department of Justice sought to seize it just a few hours before, the Gibraltar Chronicle reported. Anthony Dudley, chief justice of Gibraltar, made clear that were it not for the US move “the ship would have sailed”, the paper said. [ Source: The Guardian (Read More…) ]

The post US moves to block release of Iranian vessel in Gibraltar appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

(Worthy News) – Christian publishers are rejoicing after the Bible has been exempted from President Trump’s looming tariffs on Chinese goods.

The 10 percent hike on $300 billion worth of other Chinese goods will go into effect on September 1.

With China being the world’s largest Bible publisher, Christian publishers in the US have warned that the tariffs would have made some translations too costly to produce. [ Source: CBN News (Read More…) ]

The post Christians Celebrate as Bible Spared from Trump Tariffs on Chinese Goods appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – A pastor in Colombia was murdered in his home in Bajo Cauca Antioquia, following a protest for peace by Protestants and Catholics the pastor was thought to be a part of.

Plinio Rafael Salcedo was shot multiple times on August 10th, and is survived by his wife and two small children, as well as his church, which is part of the World Missionary Movement in Colombia.

“Whilst we welcome the Colombian government’s efforts regarding the peace agreement so far, little has changed for many communities in regions where illegal armed groups continue to operate with impunity,” said Christian Solidarity Worldwide chief Mervyn Thomas.

In 2016, members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) and the Colombian government, who had been fighting the longest-standing armed conflict in the western hemisphere for over 50 years, signed a peace agreement, with revolutionary leader Timochenko promising “the war is over, we are starting to build peace.”

The pastor’s murder, typical of a conflict that has seen 200,000 people killed and produced the largest number of internally displaced people anywhere in the world at 7 million, continues a trend in which church leaders have been either silenced, assassinated, or co-opted by revolutionaries in their capacity as the consciences of their communities.

The post Little Has Changed': Pastor in Colombia Murdered Despite Peace Agreement appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Filipino authorities are on high alert following a report from intelligence services that ISIS is planning to target Roman Catholic churches in the north of the country, extending its reach beyond the Islamist strongholds of the south.

According to the intelligence, at least one of the Sri Lankan bombers involved in that country’s Easter Sunday attacks in April has been training suicide bombers to carry out a terrorist plot in Luzon, a highly populated island in the northern Philippines that includes the capital, Manila.

“The president said that he was afraid that this ISIS group would reach here. The fear and apprehension will always be there for as long as terrorism led by this godless group is still present,” said Salvador Panelo, President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman, on August 6th.

ISIS, after it was declared defeated in Syria by President Trump in December, experienced a resurgence in Sri Lanka in April when terrorists killed over 250 people on Easter Sunday, and in Jolo, the south Philippines in January when it claimed responsibility for more than 20 deaths at a Roman Catholic Cathedral.

Following the Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his first video appearance in five years in an apparent gesture that the group was alive and well.

The post ISIS Extending Its Reach Into Philippines ’Will Mean Bloody Encounters,’ Filipino Official Says Following Report appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

(Worthy News) – Residential mortgage debt in the U.S. reached a new high in the three months through June, topping a previous record during the height of the financial crisis.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday that home loan balances grew by $162 billion in the second quarter of 2019 to $9.4 trillion, exceeding the $9.3 trillion peak in the third quarter of 2008. Mortgage originations, including refinances, also increased by $130 billion to $474 billion, the New York Fed found.

“While nominal mortgage balances are now slightly above the previous peak seen in the third quarter of 2008, mortgage delinquencies and the average credit profile of mortgage borrowers have continued to improve,” Wilbert van der Klaauw, a senior vice president at the bank, said. [ Source: Washington Examiner (Read More…) ]

The post US housing debt surges to $9.4T, topping record high from 2008 appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

(Worthy News) – A former Iraqi deputy prime minister on Wednesday indicated Israel was responsible for a massive explosion earlier this week in a weapons depot controlled by an Iranian-backed Shiite militia in Baghdad.

“We believe they are weapons we were holding onto for a neighboring state and they were targeted by an oppressive colonial state on the basis of a treasonous Iraqi act,” former deputy prime minister Baha al-Araji wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

An unnamed security source on Wednesday also told the Asharq al-Awsat, an Arabic-language newspaper published in London, that Israel was behind the strike. [ Source: Times of Israel (Read More…) ]

The post Israel blamed for blast in Iran-backed militia weapons depot in Baghdad appeared first on Worthy Christian News.

(Worthy News) – Portland, Ore., is gearing up for a set of dueling rallies this weekend that is expected to bring an informal coalition of right-wing groups– some of which have been decried as white nationalists and white supremacists– and so-called anti-fascists, who have violently opposed these right-wing demonstrators.

Portland’s so-called “Antifa” members have issued an online call to followers to turn out to “defend Portland from a far-Right attack.”

Portland’s Rose City Antifa, the nation’s oldest active anti-fascist group, said violence against right-wing demonstrators is “exactly what should happen when the far-right attempts to invade our town.” [ Source: Fox News (Read More…) ]

The post FBI to assist in Portland as city braces for dueling Antifa, right-wing protests appeared first on Worthy Christian News.