Seizing Bibles but Affirming Religious Tolerance

Patrick Goodeneough of CNSNEWS.COM reports the inconsistency between Iran’s claim to religious tolerance and its actual campaign against Christianity. The Iranian government is alarmed about the growth of Christianity especially among its youth. The most obvious manifestation of hostility to Christianity is demonstrated by the government through its seizure of the Bibles. Repeated occurrences of confiscating were reported.  Examples of report are as follows:

Last week, Mohabat reported that authorities had seized 6,500 pocket-sized Bibles in northwestern Iran.

Mohabat recalled previous incidents of Bibles being seized, including one last February, when Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and security officials in a routine inspection of a bus near the Iran-Turkey border found 600 New Testaments, which they destroyed along with confiscated alcohol in a public burning.

A similar incident in the same area last October also saw officials seize and burn Bibles…

The Iranian Bible Society’s offices have been shut for decades, and authorities do not allow publishing or reprinting of Bibles in Iran.

You can read the entire story about this Iranian campaign in confiscating the Bible at CNSNEWS.COM.

A coach who inspires many murdered by his former player

Charlie Butts of onenews.com reports about the story of Ed Thomas, a high school football coach in Parkersburg, Iowa. Thomas is a man of faith, hope, and inspiration to many. People are shocked to hear news about his murder by his former player, Mark Becker. For Thomas family, the tragedy is difficult to handle apart from faith. Aaron, the coach son said:

Without faith, I don’t know how anybody handles those types of situations and gets through them because we know in the end for eternity, he’s where he wants to be.

The story of the coach is now being told in a book, The Sacred Acre: The Ed Thomas Story.

Write what is in your heart: Giving Psychiatric patients grace and hope

Samuel G. Freedman of The New York Times reports about the ministry of Rev. Bonnie McDougall Olson. Rev. Olson is one among the six chaplains serving Creedmor Psychiatric Center in Queens, a state hospital with more than 10, 000 patients. Majority of those patients have received diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Ms. Olson uses narrative approach for the patients to express what is in their hearts. She voiced out her surprise about her patients:

The thing that strikes me about psychiatric patients…is that so many people tell their story for them. When do they get to tell it for themselves? The act of writing is that your story is not only worth being told, but being heard. And this is all based on their story being sacred. Their experience, heartbreaking as it is, is held by God.