CP magazine_vol 6

2023 SEES SPIKE IN ATTACKS ON U.S. CHURCHES

MessianicrabbipointsJews toChristintheheartofthe BibleBelt

SouthernBaptist Conventionaddresses thedangersofAI

DavidJeremiahsays apostasyamongpastorsisa signofthe‘greatfallingaway’

FROM THE EDITORS

2023 is quickly passing us by and amid the triumphs and tragedies that have made headlines in The Christian Post this year, we are delighted to share news worth celebrating — the mass baptism hosted by Pastor Greg Laurie and Harvest Christian Fellowship church leaders at Pirates Cove in Southern California (p. 4). There have been many stories of mass baptisms in the pages of CP this year, which bring cheers of celebration in our Dallas and Washington bureaus. As Luke 15:10 says, “ … there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Juxtaposed with the good news of salvation, the United States is also seeing rising hatred toward Christians and attacks on churches. In the first quarter of this year, sixty-nine acts of vandalism against churches were reported. This is a significant uptick compared to years past (p. 16).

This year is also a time of celebration for CP as we mark the first anniversary of the opening of our Dallas bureau. This has given us an opportunity to share news about area churches and ministries in the belt buckle of the Bible Belt. One such story is about Messianic Rabbi Ari Waldman and his synagogue Baruch Hashem and how its members are reaching out to Christians and Jews in the Metroplex. The article begins with an unexpected account of the congregation being denied entry into a religious chili cook-off (p. 6).

Enjoy these stories and many others in this edition of CP’s quarterly magazine.

— CP Editors

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August 2023, Volume 6

EDITORIAL

Executive Editor: Richard Land

Senior Managing Editor: John Grano

Managing Editor: Melissa Barnhart

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CHURCH & MINISTRIES:

‘A beautiful thing’: 4,500 people baptized at California beach days after SoCal Harvest

Messianic rabbi points Jews, Gentiles to Christ in the heart of the Bible Belt

OPINION:

Southern Baptist Convention makes official statement on dangers of AI

Why Christians should be prepared for persecution

US:

Christian astronaut will pilot NASA's first crewed moon mission in over 50 years

Cover story: 69 churches attacked in the first 3 months of 2023: report

WORLD:

4 shocking findings from State Department's religious freedom report

A taste of Turkey 'In the footsteps of St. Paul' could change the way you see the Bible

ENTERTAINMENT:

‘Sound of Freedom’ filmmaker vows to save kids from trafficking: ‘It's more dangerous not to do it’

‘Nefarious’: From strange ailments to car accidents, the spiritual warfare that occurred while filming

BOOKS:

David Jeremiah says apostasy among pastors a sign of ‘great falling away’ ahead of End Times

Former Yankees pitcher says failed suicide attempt led him to a true relationship with Jesus

TRAVEL:

Travel: 3 places to visit right now

‘A beautiful thing’: 4,500 people baptized at California beach days after SoCal Harvest

Yankees pitcher says failed suicide attempt led him to a true relationship with Jesus

‘A BEAUTIFUL THING’: 4,500 PEOPLE BAPTIZED AT CALIFORNIA BEACH DAYS AFTER SOCAL HARVEST

BY MICHAEL GRYBOSKI

Over, 4,500 people were baptized on a Southern California beach during an outreach event overseen by Pastor Greg Laurie and Harvest Christian Fellowship in what the evangelist believes could be one of the largest mass baptisms ever.

Known as the Jesus Revolution Pirate's Cove Beach Baptism, the event took place at Pirate's Cove Beach Saturday and drew an estimated 20,000 attendees. Of the thousands baptized, one of them was Laurie's granddaughter, Stella.

In comments emailed to The Christian Post, Laurie attributed the large number of baptisms to "a number of things," among them the success of the recently released film "Jesus Revolution." "I would say the Jesus Revolution movie really impacted people and

so many have come to Christ after seeing it," Laurie said. "They were so moved by the baptism scenes in the film and wanted to take the same step in life. It was life imitating art, and that art was based on my real life story and the story of many others as well."

Laurie also attributed the turnout to the SoCal Harvest at the Honda Center the weekend before, where over 3,000 people made a profession of faith to follow Christ.

"We invited them all to this baptism," Laurie said. Laurie considers the mass

baptism event "a powerful work of the Holy Spirit," referencing the large baptism events at Pirate's Cove in the 1970s.

"I was there and I was baptized myself at one of them," he said. "But this is different. First, it is much larger than anything we ever did. The line of people to be baptized was half a mile long and people waited patiently for 2 hours or more and they did not seem to mind one bit."

"We have held baptisms at Pirate's Cove but nothing we have done comes close to this event we just did. It may be the largest baptism in history."

Laurie said the atmosphere at Pirate's Cove was "overwhelming and a beautiful thing to see and be a part of," adding that there were "so many amazing stories."

""An 85-year-old man saw the 'Jesus Revolution' film and

▲ Thousands attend a mass baptism at Pirates Cove Beach, California, on July 8, 2023. Known as the Jesus Revolution Baptism at Pirate’s Cove, the event was overseen by Harvest Christian Fellowship, Pastor Greg Laurie, and others who baptized around 4,500 believers in Christ. | Harvest

received Christ into his life and he wanted to be baptized at the same place where the movie was filmed," Laurie continued.

"His family could not believe it. One of them said, he is literally the last person they ever expected would come to Christ."

According to Laurie, Harvest will follow up with those baptized on Saturday to "make sure they are plugged into a local church" and discipled.

This is not the first major baptism event held at Pirate's Cove this year, as a few

hundred churches came together to baptize around 4,100 people in May on

Pentecost Sunday.

"We have never seen a crowd like that for baptisms," said Pastor Mark Francey, one of the people behind the Pentecost gathering, in an earlier interview with CP.

"As believers, we always want to be obedient to what Jesus asks us to do. My mentors taught me it's as simple as praying, obeying, then acting."

▲ Pastor Greg Laurie baptizes a believer in Christ during a mass baptism at Pirate's Cove Beach in Newport Beach, California, on July 8, 2023. | Harvest

▲ Pastor Greg Laurie baptizes his granddaughter, Stella, at Pirates Cove, California, on July 8, 2023. | Harvest

MESSIANIC RABBI POINTS JEWS, GENTILES TO CHRIST IN THE HEART OF THE BIBLE BELT

BY IAN M. GIATTI

DALLAS, Texas — "Your application to be in the chili cook-off has been denied."

In a million years, Messianic Rabbi Ari Waldman never would have expected his congregation would not be allowed to compete in a Jewish-run Texas chili cookoff.

And yet, when the senior rabbi of Dallas-based Baruch Hashem politely asked why, he said he was simply told,

"You're not a Jewish organization."

"[They] never outright said it's because we believe in Jesus," said Waldman. "But that was the implication."

Waldman, a North Texas native who has served as senior rabbi of Baruch HaShem since 2017, is no stranger to sideways glances and puzzled expressions when he tells people he's a Messianic Rabbi.

Sitting in his office against a backdrop of books on theology and history,

Waldman recalled a conversation he had while attending seminary at The King's University in nearby Southlake, one he says is symbolic of his ministry.

One day, while having lunch with a friend, Waldman recalled being introduced to another classmate as a Messianic Jew. "He looks at me and goes, 'So what's so important about you guys?' And I said, 'Not a lot, really,'" he said. "And he goes, 'Why is it important for you to have a Messianic congregation?'"

▲ Rabbi Ari Waldman speaks during a service at Baruch Hashem in Dallas, Texas, on June 17, 2023.| Baruch HaShem Dallas

Waldman then pointed him to Jesus' promise in Matthew 23:39, when Jesus says to the Jewish leaders, "For I tell you that you will not see Me again until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.'" Waldman then explained that the original Hebrew of the verse would read something like, "We welcome you into this place."

"I said, 'That means He's not gonna come back until the Jewish city of Jerusalem welcomes Him back, and it's the capital of the Jewish state,'" said Waldman.

"And he looks at me and goes, 'That's the first time that anybody's ever explained that to me from the New Testament.'"

Waldman said he's not bothered by such reactions since he recognizes that many Christians tend to think theologically only in terms of the New Testament. And while some may think a Messianic congregation would focus exclusively on the Torah — Genesis through Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible — they would be mistaken, he added.

"For me, Romans 11 is where it starts, where Paul says there's a particular role for Jewish people and a particular role for Gentiles," said Waldman. "The Gentiles are to provoke the Jewish people to jealousy for their own God … and the role of Jewish people is to be a light to the nations."

If both parties are doing their job, he explained, then "that brings more nations to the God of Israel, then those 'more nations' provoke more Jewish people, so it's what I call a symbiotic relationship that only gets bigger."

The problem comes, Waldman said, when one of those two parties fails to fulfill their role — a failure of which, he added, both groups are guilty.

'A VISIBLE IMAGE OF YESHUA'

At Baruch Hashem, they use

Yeshua — the Hebrew name of Jesus — and the congregation is comprised of both "Jews and Gentiles, both distinct but also one body that is worshiping the God of Israel and glorifying the name of Yeshua."

According to the synagogue's statement of faith, Baruch HaShem — Hebrew for "Blessed is the Name" — believes the "Gentile Christian Church becomes part of an enlarged multinational Israel through union with Yeshua, one-man Israel, and through union with the Messianic Jewish Synagogue."

The statement adds:

The Gentile Christian Church is now part of a holy, priestly people, a renewed eschatological Israel founded on Yeshua’s twelve chosen Emissaries, and participates in the fulfillment of Israel’s mission to be a light to the nations. At the same time, neither the Gentile Christian Church nor the Body of Messiah as a whole is a replacement for national Israel (the Jewish people), nor does the Gentile Christian Church inherit fully the promises given to national Israel.

"There's this idea of working together, the remnant of Israel and the remnant of the nations, working together for the purposes of bringing all of Israel and all of the nations to the God of Israel," Waldman explained.

With Saturday services in the morning, afternoon and evening, services at Baruch Hashem typically begin with prayers from a Siddur, a Jewish prayer book, before moving to liturgical pieces, a Psalm reading, and a song set, what most Christians refer to as a time for corporate worship — in its fullest sense.

"In the Jewish world, all prayers and petitions are presented in first-person plural, so it's never about 'me' the individual, but it's about our community, and it's about 'Lord, remember us, forgive us,'" he explained. "Each one of us is an individual, but we recognize that we are part of a more collective body."

After worship comes the reading of the Torah, which is a part of every Saturday service, as the rest of the Jewish world operates on the same reading schedule.

"If you're a synagogue [in Dallas], or a synagogue in Shanghai, or a synagogue in Buenos Aires, you're all reading the same passage of Scripture that week," he said, adding that there is some variation for assemblies inside the land of Israel.

Before the reading begins, however, the Torah scrolls are walked around the synagogue, and the congregation is given the opportunity to touch or even kiss the scrolls, a practice Waldman says can be traced back to Psalm 2, which reads, "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry with You." "It's very interesting when you look at the Torah scroll; it's actually not paper, it's lambskin, it's actually flesh, and the writing that's on it is the Word of God written on flesh," he said.

The scroll is attached to two pieces of wood, collectively called the etz chaim, which means in Hebrew "Tree of Life," a clear allusion, Waldman added, to Christ.

"As followers of Yeshua, we recognize John 1, which talks about the Word of God who became flesh, and what we read eventually is. He hung on a tree of death for the

▲ Baruch HaShem Messianic Synagogue in Dallas, Texas. | The Christian Post

purpose of bringing life," he said. "So we see the Torah scroll as a visible image of Yeshua walking through our community today."

After the Torah reading, Waldman typically delivers a message from either the Old or New Testament. Right now, they're reading Luke and Acts.

'GOD MAKING AN APPOINTMENT WITH HIS PEOPLE'

For so many Christians, the feast and festivals detailed in Leviticus 23 may as well be alien rites of passage, which is one of the reasons Baruch HaShem teaches a membership class in which all the feasts and festivals are covered — including the Sabbath, which is one of the Ten Commandments.

The feast days, Waldman says, are appointments, in Hebrew meaning "appointed time."

"It's God making an appointment with His people," he said. "Appointed time means, 'Here you go, it's on the calendar, we're going to meet.'"

In Leviticus 23, those appointed times start with the Sabbath (or Shabbat), which Waldman says can be a blessing to both Jews and Gentiles.

"What happens is the Shabbat establishes in our lives a weekly rhythm," he said. "It's a break in time, and what it forces us to do on a weekly basis is to be reliant on God for one out of every seven days. Because in an agrarian society, if you could just work all the time, you're going to improve your harvest.

"It forced us as people to put ourselves second because as people, certainly as guys, we're like, 'Well, if I can work a little more, I can make a little more money. But it forces us to be like, 'OK, today I can't work. Now what am I going to do?'"

Waldman said there are multiple elements to Sabbath beyond merely not working — rest, spending time with family, and most importantly, spending time with the Lord.

Some Christians, he said, might misunderstand the purpose of feasts,

such as when one pastor asked Waldman's father whether he thought it was only necessary to repent on Yom Kippur.

"No," he recalled his dad replying, "Yom Kippur just serves as a reminder that if I forgot to repent all year long, this is my moment. I'm going to have to repent!"

From a Christian standpoint, Waldman pointed to Zechariah 14:17, which says that the nations which do not come up to Jerusalem during the reign of the Messiah will not receive any rain.

"So rain is the blessing; rain is what actually makes crops grow," he said. "So just from that standpoint, it seems that what I would call Gentiles will celebrate at least Sukkot at some point. Maybe not now, but at some point in the future.

"And so, if you're going to celebrate it in the future, you can look into it now."

STRUGGLES WITH THE CROSS

Started by Waldman's father and mother in 1984, Baruch HaShem was always a part of Waldman's life growing up. But he decided to pursue a career as a pilot for several years before ultimately coming on staff at Baruch HaShem in 2012.

Waldman said his parents sought to raise their children "in an environment where it was OK to be Jewish and it was OK to believe that Jesus is the Messiah."

His father, Marty, continues to serve as an elder and founding rabbi at Baruch HaShem, where Waldman says they've made every effort to minister to Jews who do not yet know Jesus.

The ministry, he said, receives its fair share of negative feedback, usually on social media. Noting that the acceptance from the Jewish community is "at a variety of levels," Waldman said they're often criticized for not "being Jewish enough."

For Waldman, though, that's not enough to change his approach.

"My heart is to engage the Jewish community, but I'm not going to go in there and take a Bible and hit you in the

face and say, 'You need to believe Jesus is the Messiah' because I don't necessarily think that's an effective way to do it," he said.

One of the ways Waldman tries to engage Jews is through the congregation's physical presentation. While there are Psalm quotations, prayers and other biblical items strewn along the walls and throughout the office, you won't find any crosses or other Christian symbols at Baruch HaShem.

According to Waldman, that's a deliberate decision, one that can be traced back to the Crusades and even Constantine with his vision of the cross.

"The Jewish world has real difficulties with the cross, partially because in the Christian world the cross is viewed as, like, this lovable thing. And it's actually interesting when you really begin to think about it; the cross would be kind of like the guillotine of 1800s France," he said. "It was an instrument of death.

"The crosses in the first century were used by Romans as torture and gruesome deaths. Roads were lined with crosses of people crucified … and yet most Christians wear a cross."

Waldman added that while he recognizes that Jesus' atoning death for the sin of the world came on a Roman cross, he said it's "a little bit difficult for most Jewish people to recognize."

"There are certain things about Christianity, that just the appearance of it, immediately the wall goes up and Jews disengage and are unwilling to proceed beyond that," he said. "Our goal is that we remove whatever those obstacles are."

At the end of the day, said Waldman, it's a "perception thing."

"My heart and my father's heart when he founded Baruch Hashem is that when a Jewish person comes here, that they struggle with Yeshua as the Messiah. They don't need to struggle with me, they don't need to struggle with anybody else in the congregation," he said.

"They have to face the fact of whether or not Yeshua is the Messiah. And that's what we want to be right at the very front."

SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION MAKES OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON DANGERS OF AI

BY RICHARD D. LAND

The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, with a membership of 49,842 churches and missions and a total church membership of 13.23 million church members.

The SBC held its annual meeting this past week in New Orleans where

approximately 12,800 messengers (representatives) elected by those local congregations across America came together to conduct the denomination’s business in the largest meeting run by Roberts Rules of Order, including approving an annual budget of $195.2 million dollars.

The national headlines focused on

whether the Evangelical denomination would reinforce its conviction that pastors should be men by upholding the exclusion of several churches, including a nationally prominent one (Saddleback in California which had ordained several women as pastors). The SBC did uphold the exclusion of the churches by an approximately 88% vote.

► Messengers hold up ballot cards as they vote during the Southern Baptist Convention's Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 11-14, 2023.

However, the SBC made other headline-worthy news through actions taken by its Resolutions Committee. Each year, the SBC's Resolutions Committee (made up of men and women appointed by the convention to serve) is tasked with meeting together in the months preceding the convention and interacting with resolutions submitted by various individuals or groups of Southern Baptists concerning issues of importance to the denomination’s membership.

It was my privilege to be intimately involved with this often intense process for a quarter century (1988-2013). When resolutions are eventually approved by a vote of the convention messengers, they are not binding on the conscience of any Southern Baptist individual or entity. However, they are instructive, being a serious indicator of where Southern Baptists' consensus is on a particular issue at a particular time and place in SBC history.

During the time I was leading the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013), we worked very closely with the Resolutions Committee every year and we kept a book of previous resolutions organized by subject matter close at hand for ready reference as we dealt with the plethora of issues the ERLC was tasked with addressing on a regular basis.

In the convention this year, the 2023 Resolutions Committee produced a very important resolution “On Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies,” which was approved overwhelmingly by the voting messengers in attendance.

Furthermore, it appears this resolution makes Southern Baptists the first religious denomination to make an official statement on the challenges of AI and present a theological and ethical grid for dealing with this complex issue. The Vatican is reportedly hard at work on the issue and plans to have a statement by autumn of this year.

The AI Resolution starts from the foundational premise “that our intrinsic value” as human beings as divine “image bearers — not rooted in what we do or contribute to society — and that human dignity must be central to any ethical principles, guidelines, or regulations for

any and all uses of these powerful emerging technologies.”

The resolution emphasizes that Christians “must proactively engage and shape these emerging technologies rather than simply respond to the challenges of AI.”

The AI Resolution quite soberly acknowledges that “The Fall has adversely affected every aspect of creation, including the development and use of these powerful innovations” and may produce “dangerous and dehumanizing outcomes if not utilized with godly wisdom and discernment.”

The resolution emphasizes that Christians “must proactively engage and shape these emerging technologies rather than simply respond to the challenges of AI.”

The AI Resolution quite soberly acknowledges that “The Fall has adversely affected every aspect of creation, including the development and use of these powerful innovations” and may produce “dangerous and dehumanizing outcomes if not utilized with godly wisdom and discernment.”

Thus, the AI Resolution calls “upon civic, industry, and government leaders to develop, maintain, regulate, and use these technologies with the utmost care and discernment, upholding the unique nature of humanity, as the crowning achievement of God’s creation.”

The Southern Baptist scholars who labored and prayed over the AI Resolution have been used by the Holy Spirit to produce a most helpful “plumb line” to guide Christians and others as we navigate this new and unique scientific domain which is fraught with so much profound promise and so much lethal danger.

I commend the reading and study of the SBC resolution “On Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies” to every serious human inhabitant of the planet. These technologies will impact you and your progeny. The question is, will the impact be a curse or a blessing? That remains to be determined. We must all get in the discussion if it is to be the latter rather than the former.

Read the full text of the resolution: On artificial intelligence and emerging

technology

In what is believed to be the first denominational statement on the ethics of artificial intelligence, Southern Baptists acknowledged the powerful potential of AI and other emerging technologies. They also expressed a desire “to engage them from a place of eschatological hope rather than uncritical embrace or fearful rejection.” The resolution also affirmed the Bible’s ability to answer any “ethical challenges, questions, and opportunities” that may emerge from these technologies. In addition, messengers also declared human dignity to be “central to any ethical principles, guidelines, or regulations for any and all uses” of these technologies. Messengers called on civic, industrial, and government leaders to “develop, maintain, regulate, and use” these technologies with care. Confessing that God alone has the ability to create life, messengers overwhelmingly declared that technology will never be able to “usurp the sovereignty and power of God.” “Our Resolutions Committee deserves all the appreciation we can muster for crafting this first-of-itskind resolution for any denomination or network of churches. Artificial Intelligence has been a hot topic, both in Washington and on the international stage,” said Brent Leatherwood, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission president. “This resolution comes at an opportune time and proves once again that even when it comes to the leading edge of emerging technologies, the Bible, as always, gives us principles to guide us in uncharted waters,” Leatherwood told Baptist Press in written comments.

WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR PERSECUTION

BY OSCAR AMAECHINA

Not a day passes without reports of persecution against Christians happening on a global scale. In my country Nigeria, Christians are killed on a daily basis. The government is actively aiding and abetting the persecutors. Sadly, this is a global phenomenon and it looks like there is nothing anyone can do to avert it.

Jesus warned us that persecution is inevitable, but we have decided to ignore

this warning at our own perils. “Remember what I told you: A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also” (John 15:20). Many of us do not want to embrace the reality of the Christian faith. Many have decided to pick Jesus' words of blessings, miracles, signs and wonders, and throw away His hard sayings.

I strongly believe that persecution is an

integral part of Christianity and there is nothing anyone can do to remove it. It is obvious that many preachers and Christians who want to escape persecution have developed another Gospel and faith that promotes bodily comforts and discard the doctrine of Christian suffering completely. This is not the Christianity that Christ handed over to His disciples.

Lack of preparedness for persecution on the side of Christians is responsible

▲ Christians at a religious ceremony in Nigeria | iStock/agafapaperiapunta

for our inability to reach the world with the Gospel and the love of Christ. We are now selecting where to go and where not to go even when the command of Christ is that we go into all the world and spread the good news about His kingdom. The Gospel of comfort and prosperity that are preached in our churches today does not allow us to embrace risk and face persecution. This is unacceptable!.

We must as a matter of necessity be prepared to be persecuted because Christ did not in any way tell us to avoid it. Neither did He promise to deliver us when we are being persecuted. “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for 10 days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown” (Revelation

2:10). There was no escape promised by Christ in this admonition because persecution is packaged by God to separate the chosen from the called.

The biblical disciples who handed down Christianity to us understood and embraced the doctrine of Christian persecution. When they were persecuted they never prayed that God should deliver them; rather they prayed for the boldness to continue to preach the Gospel (Acts 4:29). Many governments around the world are threatening to put us in prison if we preach Christ. Should we quit or should we ask God to give us the boldness to go to all countries, cities, towns and villages with the Gospel regardless of the consequences?

The early missionaries were never afraid to die. Many of them were killed for the sake of the Gospel and all of us in Africa got the Gospel because someone

jeopardized their life to reach us. When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.” To that, Calvert replied, “We died before we came here.”

How I wish all of us will emulate James Calvert and his team members. It is either that we “die” before the persecution comes or we outrightly disobey Christ's command that we go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. Remaining in our comfort zones to avoid persecution is not the right thing to do.

CHRISTIAN ASTRONAUT WILL PILOT NASA'S FIRST CREWED MOON MISSION IN OVER 50 YEARS

BY NICOLE ALCINDOR

▲ (L-R) Astronauts Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Hammock Koch stand onstage after being selected for the Artemis II mission around the moon during a news conference held by NASA and CSA at Ellington Airport in Houston, Texas, on April 3, 2023. Traveling aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft during Artemis II, the mission is the first crewed flight test on the agency's path to establishing a long-term scientific and human presence on the lunar surface. | Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images

Adevout Christian astronaut will pilot NASA's first crewed trip around the moon in over 50 years as one of four people from two countries slated to make the trip in November 2024.

In an announcement, NASA named the crew for the Artemis II mission, which will include NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The mission is a 10-day-long flight test of NASA's Orion spacecraft. Glover, who will be the pilot for the mission, was a former U.S. Navy commander who flew combat missions in Iraq and served as a legislative fellow to the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., before he joined NASA in 2013.

At the NASA event in Houston announcing the Artemis mission earlier this month, Glover said that he wanted "to thank God for this amazing opportunity,"

Glover believes the celebration is about "so much more than the four names that have been announced."

"We need to celebrate this moment in human history," he said, adding the mission is meant to be "the next step on the journey that gets humanity to Mars."

"I pray that God will bless this mission, but I also pray that we can continue to serve as a source of inspiration, for cooperation and peace — not just between nations, but in our own nation," he added.

Glover is a member of the Churches of Christ in the Houston area, having been profiled in The Christian Chronicle in 2020 when the astronaut was training for a six-month mission to the International Space Station.

"I want to use the abilities that God has given me to do my job well and support my crewmates and mission and NASA," he told The Chronicle in 2020. "That's really the thing I think the most about."

Glover brought a Bible and communion cups to the station, saying he planned to engage in "virtual service, virtual giving, reading my Bible and praying."

In addition to Glover being the first African American to fly to the moon, Koch will be the first woman to do a lunar

mission, while Hansen will be the first Canadian.

The minister responsible for the Canadian Space Agency, FrançoisPhilippe Champagne, said in a statement he is happy that "Canada is at the center of this exciting journey."

"On behalf of all Canadians, I want to congratulate Jeremy for being at the forefront of one of the most ambitious human endeavors ever undertaken," Champagne stated.

"Canada's participation in the Artemis program is not only a defining chapter of our history in space, but also a testament to the friendship and close partnership between our two nations."

The first NASA moon landing ocurred in July 1969 through the Apollo 11 mission. The last crewed mission to the moon was Apollo 17, which was in December 1972.

The crew of four scheduled to lift off next November will collaborate on work during the trip to execute a set of demonstrations for the flight test.

"I could not be prouder that these brave four will kickstart our journeys to the Moon and beyond," Director of Flight Operations Norm Knight of NASA Johnson Space Center said.

"They represent exactly what an astronaut corps should be: a mix of highly capable and accomplished individuals with the skills and determination to take on any trial as a team. The Artemis II mission will be challenging, and we'll test our limits as we prepare to put future astronauts on the Moon. With Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy at the controls, I have no doubt we're ready to face every challenge that comes our way."

EXPOSING

THE GENDER LIE

HOW TO PROTECT CHILDREN AND TEENS FROM THE TRANSGENDER

INDUSTRY'S FALSE IDEOLOGY

69 CHURCHES ATTACKED IN THE FIRST 3 MONTHS OF 2023: REPORT

BY RYAN FOLEY

Sixty-nine acts of vandalism against churches occurred in the first quarter of the year, constituting a significant increase in the number of attacks compared to previous years.

The Family Research Council, a socially conservative think-tank based in Washington, D.C., released a supplemental report outlining “Hostility Against Churches” in the first quarter of 2023. The data builds on an earlier report

published in December, which documented attacks on churches between January 2018 and December 2022.

January saw the highest number of church attacks, totaling 43 documented

incidents. Fourteen acts of vandalism occurred in February, while 12 occurred in March.

The number of attacks against churches during the first three months of 2023 represents a marked increase in the number of incidents that occurred in the first three months of the previous five years. The Family Research Council recorded 15 attacks against churches in the first three months of 2018, 12 in the

same period in 2019, 14 in the first quarter of 2021, and 22 in the first four months of 2022. 2020 saw no attacks on churches in its first three months.

The report documents the damage done in the attacks on churches by organizing them into five categories: vandalism, arson and/or fire, gun-related incidents, bomb threats and an “other” category. It categorized 53 of the attacks on churches as an example of vandalism, 10 as arson and three as gun-related incidents. The report measured three bomb threats and two incidents that fell into the “other” category. Two instances of vandalism fell into more than one category.

The attacks cited in the report span 29 states. North Carolina experienced the highest number of incidents at seven, followed by Ohio and Tennessee with five each and Florida, Missouri and Pennsylvania experienced four each.

California, Montana, New Jersey, New York and Oregon each saw three attacks, while Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington each had at least one. The remaining states did not have any attacks cited in the report.

Examples of vandalism listed in the report include the smashing of the sanctuary and the theft of audio-visual equipment at Holy Nation Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and the spraying of a fire extinguisher throughout Dellabrook Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

At Jesus Is Alive World Reading Center in Reading, Pennsylvania, vandals destroyed sound equipment, a podium, stained-glass windows and a piano. They also threw chairs around the building and destroyed the carpet by spraying it with a fire extinguisher.

Instances of arson cited in the report include a fire at the vacant Portland Korean Church in Portland, Oregon, and the targeting of a historically black church in Austin, Texas, that caused $200,000 in damage.

The document listed the mass shooting that occurred at The Covenant

School, a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, two weeks ago as a “gunrelated incident,” along with the firing of 50 rounds at a Mennonite church building in Versailles, Missouri, and a latenight shooting at Praise Temple Baptist Church in Shreveport, Louisiana, that sent four to the hospital.

Bomb threats documented in the report included the discovery of a pipe bomb outside St. Dominic Catholic Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a threat directed at Gracelife Chapel near Peverly, Ohio, and a false bomb threat at a church in Nashville. One of the incidents classified as “other” was a stabbing at Crossfire Church in Springfield, Oregon.

Two of the acts of vandalism highlighted in the report appeared to have an explicitly political message. At St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Missouri, a vandal spray-painted the phrase “TRANS PWR” on the building's exterior, expressing support for the LGBT agenda. At a church in Riverview, Florida, a vandal defaced the property with a phrase reading “Womens body womens choice,” suggesting sympathy with the pro-choice point of view on abortion.

The Christian Post has been keeping multiple lists of all of the instances of vandalism against both churches and pro-life pregnancy centers following the May 2, 2022, publication of a leaked draft U.S. Supreme Court decision where a majority of justices appeared poised to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

The first list contains information about attacks that occurred in the weeks following the publication of the leaked draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that determined that the U.S. Constitution did not contain a right to abortion. The second article about pro-abortion vandalism lists the attacks that took place after the Supreme Court published the official Dobbs decision on June 24. The third list documents attacks against churches that have taken place in the past six months.

▲ Getty Images

4 SHOCKING FINDINGS FROM STATE DEPARTMENT'S RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT

BY SAMANTHA KAMMAN

The U.S. State Department's recent report highlighting religious freedom conditions abroad relayed several shocking realities about the scale of violence and persecution being faced by Christians and other religious minorities around the world.

The report, released by the State Department Office of International Religious Freedom on May 15, is submitted to Congress under the order of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to document human rights abuses and areas of concern regarding religious freedom.

"U.S. embassies prepare the initial drafts of country chapters based on information from government officials, religious groups, nongovernmental organizations, journalists, human rights monitors, academics, media, and others," the report notes.

"The Office of International Religious Freedom, based in Washington, collaborates in collecting and analyzing additional information, drawing on its consultations with foreign government officials, domestic and foreign religious groups, domestic and foreign nongovernmental organizations, multilateral and other international and

regional organizations, journalists, academic experts, community leaders, and other relevant U.S. government institutions.”

2-YEAR-OLD SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON CAMP

The U.S. State Department’s 2022 report on North Korea suggests that Christians in the Asian country who possess a Bible could face the death penalty, and family members, even children, are sentenced to life imprisonment.

While North Korea’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, and there are churches in Pyongyang, the State Department believes these are “showpieces for foreigners." The persecution watchdog group Open Doors estimates that 50,000 to 70,000 Christians are incarcerated in North Korea, where Prisoners face harsh conditions and physical mistreatment.

The State Department cited an October 2021 report from Korea Future titled Persecuting Faith: Documenting

Religious Freedom Violations in North Korea, Volume 2 to state that an entire Christian family was arrested in 2009 for their religious beliefs and possessing a Bible.

"The entire family, including a twoyear-old child, were given life sentences in political prison camps," the State Department report states. "Christians also described dire conditions in prison camps and various forms of physical mistreatment."

According to Korea Future, the arrest occurred at night, and three generations of the same family were given life sentences.

The country’s Ministry of State Security is responsible for 90% of documented human rights abuses against both Christians and adherents of Shamanism, according to the report. Followers of Shamanism also face six months to several years in a forced labor camp or reeducation facility.

Christians are subjected to the most severe sentences, according to the report, ranging from 15 years to life in prison.

"The other system is a secret prosecution handled by the Ministry of State Security, exclusively for cases involving Christians, with typical

sentences ranging from 15 years to life in a prison camp, imposed on up to three generations of the immediate family of the person found guilty," the State Department report states, citing Korea Future.

Open Doors' World Watch List has consistently ranked North Korea as one of the worst offenders of Christian persecution worldwide.

AROUND 4,000

CIVILIAN DEATHS FROM VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA

Citing data from multiple sources, including the NGO Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), the State Department noted that a spike

in deadly violence continued in 2022, impacting both Christians and Muslims.

ACLED reported 3,953 civilian deaths from violence across the country for the year, with violence targeting Christians accounting for 5% of all violence. In 2021, the group tallied 3,699 deaths.

"There continued to be frequent violent incidents, particularly in the northern part of the country, affecting both Muslims and Christians, resulting in numerous deaths," the State Department's report on Nigeria states. "Kidnappings and armed robbery by criminal gangs increased in the South as well as the North West, the South South, and the South East. The international Christian organization Open Doors stated that terrorist groups, militant herdsmen, and criminal gangs were responsible for large numbers of fatalities, and Christians were particularly vulnerable."

As Christian activists and watchdog

organizations have claimed for years that Christians are being targeted for violence by radicalized herdsmen and Islamic extremist groups, some advocates internationally have questioned whether violence against Christians has reached the standard for a genocide declaration. However, the State Department reports that the NGO Muslim Rights Concern estimates that 32,000 Muslims were killed in the previous three years because of terror attacks in the country's north.

LARGEST KNOWN MASS EXECUTION IN SAUDI ARABIA'S HISTORY

Saudi Arabia's legal system is largely

▲ U.S. State Department | iStock/Kiyoshi Tanno

based on sharia law as interpreted by the Hanbali school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence. As the U.S. State Department's report on Saudi Arabia notes, “Freedom of religion is not provided for under the law.”

The law criminalizes “anyone who challenges, either directly or indirectly, the religion or justice of the King or Crown Prince," the report notes.

On March 12, 2022, Saudi Arabia executed 81 men, including 41 Saudi Shia, seven Yemenis and one Syrian. The State Department states that the execution was the largest known mass execution in the country’s history. Shia Muslims account for a minority of the country’s population and are often subject to discrimination.

"On March 18, following the March 12 execution of 81 individuals, Sheikh Saleh bin Humaid, a member of the [Council of Senior Scholars], delivered a Friday sermon at the Grand Mosque in Mecca praising the government’s decision to execute those who 'violated sharia by attacking their own country, killing their compatriots, undertaking terrorist crimes,'" the State Department report states.

"He described those executed as 'traitors who broke their vows of allegiance, betrayed their leadership, their country and their religion, and threatened the security of this country and its holy sites.'"

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern at the time that the crimes did not meet the 'most serious crimes' threshold for capital punishment in international law and felt that some of the trials did not meet fair trial and due process guarantees.

On March 14, the government refused to surrender the bodies of the 41 Shia men to their families and banned funerals for them. Later, the government sought the death penalty for other Shia defendants, with some on trial for engaging in demonstrations and others for terrorism.

The U.S. government estimates that Shia Muslims account for 10% to 12% of Saudi Arabia’s citizen population, while between 85% and 90% of the country’s 21 million citizens are Sunni Muslims.

Saudi law also bans “the promotion of atheistic ideologies in any form” and “any attempt to cast doubt on the fundamentals of Islam.” Other acts banned under the law include converting a Muslim to another religion and the public worship of any religion that is not Islam.

“The Basic Law of Governance establishes the country as a sovereign Arab Islamic state, the religion of which is Islam,” the report reads. “The Basic Law defines the country’s constitution as the Quran and the Sunna and states the ‘decisions of judges shall not be subject to any authority other than the authority of the Islamic sharia.’”

While the law permits death as a punishment for blasphemy against Islam, a court has not sentenced an individual to death for blasphemy since 1992. Another punishment for blasphemy may include a lengthy prison sentence.

“The government requires noncitizen legal residents to carry an identity card containing a religious designation of ‘Muslim’ or ‘non-Muslim,’” the report continued. “Some residency cards, including some issued during the year, indicate other religious designations, such as ‘Christian.’”

The Muslim minority faces lengthy prison sentences if they engage in political expressions or peaceful demonstrations.

IRAN KILLED 500 PROTESTERS, ARRESTED 19,000

The State Department’s report on Iran highlights the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman arrested by the Islamic Republic's "morality police" for wearing her hijab improperly, violating Iran’s strict Islamic dress code.

Amini’s death on Sept. 16, 2022, sparked nationwide protests that resulted in security forces killing several protestors. The U.S. State Department report cited the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which reported that by the year’s end, 512 protestors, including 69 children, had been killed by

security forces. In addition, over 19,000 individuals were arrested or detained since the protests started in September 2022.

The country's constitution defines Twelver Ja’afari Shia Islam as the official state religion, promising citizens certain rights “in conformity with Islamic criteria.”

In 2021, parliament amended Iran’s penal code to criminalize insulting “divine religions or Islamic schools of thought” and committing “any deviant educational or proselytizing activity that contradicts or interferes with the sacred law of Islam.”

The U.S. government estimates that Christians constitute less than 1% of Iran’s population, and Iran forbids non-Muslims from engaging in public persuasion or attempting to convert Muslims to their faith.

“The penal code specifies the death sentence for moharebeh ('enmity against God,' which, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Islam, means in Quranic usage 'corrupt conditions caused by unbelievers or unjust people that threaten social and political wellbeing'), fisad fil-arz ('corruption on earth,' which includes apostasy or heresy), and sabb al-nabi,” the report reads.

Last month, Iran hanged two men arrested in 2020 for allegedly disrespecting the Islamic religion. Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli-Zare reportedly ran a Telegram channel called "Criticism of Superstition and Religion” and operated dozens of social media accounts "dedicated to atheism and desecration of the sanctities.”

According to the BBC, the men were executed at the Arak Prison in central Iran. Mehrad and Fazeli-Zare were held in solitary confinement for the first two months following their arrests and were initially denied access to a lawyer.

A 2022 report drafted by Iran Human Rights with the support of ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty) found that Iran carried out 582 executions in 2022, a 75% increase from the previous year.

A TASTE OF TURKEY 'IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL' COULD CHANGE THE WAY YOU SEE THE BIBLE

BY LEONARDO BLAIR

ISPARTA, Turkey — It’s the beginning of May in Eğirdir and two weeks before Turkey’s general elections. A campaign bus blares upbeat local music in the air as it rolls slowly up Ankara-Isparta Road. The driver waves as onlookers are distracted from the bustling commerce at a farmer’s market along the street.

A friendly cat charms a group of journalists who stopped for lunch at the Arzava Restaurant on the shore of Lake Eğirdir. It's attracted by the savory servings of meatballs, fish, lamb and okra soup on their table served with drinks like Şalgam Suyu. The sometimes spicy, fullbodied drink made of fermented red carrots and turnips is popular among locals in southern Turkey.

The cat soon charms its way into an offering of meatballs from the table before setting its attention on one journalist eating fish from a platter.

The view of the lake in the lap of the mountains around the town under an overcast sky is hauntingly calming.

“People come here for nature and the beauty of the town,” Eğirdir Mayor Veli Gok explains to the journalists through tourism guide Damla Arslan who interprets the mayor's Turkish for the group. “[They] also come here to visit the ancient cities around.”

In Eğirdir, the pace of life is intentionally protected as one of 22 cities in Turkey with a cittaslow designation.

Inspired by the Slow Food philosophy,

the cittaslow movement seeks to make life better for city dwellers by applying some 50 "goals and principles" challenging, among other things, the homogenization and globalization of towns around the world.

And the preservation efforts in Eğirdir are palpable.

Eğirdir is a town in Isparta Province surrounded by peach and apple orchards. It is known for clear beaches that change color with the seasons and is the capital of the Turkish Lake Region where adventurers come for hiking, water sports, camping and other outdoor activities.

It feels like an oasis.

Mayor Gok did not have to say too much to sell it. The mountains, the lake, the food, and the slowed down rhythm of life here seem in tune with nature.

UNEARTHING CHRISTIAN HISTORY

What brought the group of journalists to the town at the invitation of Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism this spring, however, was more than nature’s beauty. It was an invitation to see a significant trove of Christian history — layers and layers of it — that had been buried for centuries.

For years now, the Turkish government has been busy excavating and preserving

it. Last year, The Christian Post reviewed some of this history in a tour of the Seven Churches of Asia referenced in the New Testament book of Revelation.

This spring, Arslan, who is an experienced historian and archaeologist, chaperoned journalists on a tour called “In the Footsteps of St. Paul.” It follows the route St. Paul took as he evangelized the region in the days of the early Church and wrote about half of the 27 books that form the New Testament.

The good thing about this tour, though, is while St. Paul faced significant challenges on his missionary travels across Asia Minor, now known as Turkey, adventurous Christians looking to follow his footsteps and see the ruins of the early Church there can do so now in relative comfort, using modern transportation on well-kept highways as they experience a dizzying array of food and cultural offerings with signature Turkish hospitality.

Officials say Paul’s complete missionary route, which starts at sea level and then increases to altitudes above 6,500 feet in some places, spanned approximately 310 miles. Travelers interested in going on this pilgrimage generally take about a month to do it in the spring or autumn, when it is cooler.

The tour normally starts at the ancient city of Perge, about 6 miles east of Antalya, and ends in Yalvaç, a district of Isparta, in the north of Lake Eğirdir. Another route of St. Paul’s travels begins

in the Köprülü Canyon National Park in the northeast of Antalya, then merges with the general track in the Sütçüler district of Isparta.

On this trip, journalists spent five days sampling the offerings of St. Paul’s Way from Mersin to the ruins of Perge in Antalya, the nation’s tourism capital, under the guidance of Arslan and Turkish tourism official Ozlem Bozkurt.

Arslan prefaced the visit to each site St. Paul traveled with her extensive background in history and archaeology, which helped to simulate St. Paul’s evangelizing across biblical Asia Minor in a way that inspired a deeper connection with Scripture.

Learning about the evolution of faith in Turkey — from the mother goddess, known for being depicted with "large breasts, an ample belly and wide hips," to the paganism of the Greeks and Romans who ruled the land in different periods, to

the explosion of Christianity with the arrival of St. Paul and his followers, then the rise of Islam under the Ottoman empire, and how followers of each faith coexisted at various points and divided in others — inspired both humility and wonder.

TARSUS

In Tarsus, a district of the beautiful port city of Mersin where St. Paul was born, and described as “one of Anatolia’s most important faith centers,” travelers can see monuments from the multiple empires that ruled over Turkey which spans seven distinct geographic regions

The district features sites such as the St. Paul Memorial Museum, which was once a church, a tomb believed to be that of the Prophet Daniel, the Ulu Mosque, a

sixth century Justinian Bridge and historical Tarsus houses. There is also a well believed to be located on a site where St. Paul’s family lived called the “St. Paul’s Well.” It still springs water today and travelers can drink it or simply bottle it for good luck.

PISIDIAN ANTIOCH

Turkey’s rich Christian history is also reflected in the ruins of the ancient city of Antioch of Pisidia where St. Paul preached his first documented sermon in a Jewish synagogue as recorded in Acts 13:13-52. The ruins located just north of Yalvaç district show the influence of Roman and Byzantine civilizations on a city that was established during the Hellenistic period

Pisidian Antioch is sprawling and

▲ The ancient settlement of Kilistra near the village of Gökyurt in Konya, Turkey features rock-carved houses and churches.| The Christian Post/Leonardo Blair

breathtaking. Along with church ruins, it features partial remains of the Temple of Augustus, a theater, the Roman Bath, Tiberius Square, the Propylon, the Monumental Fountain, Pillar Street and aqueducts.

READING BEFORE YOU VISIT

In the foreword of his 2022 book Antiokheia: The Capital of Pisidia, Pilgrimage Center of Paganism and Christianity, which can be bought at the gift shop in Pisidian Antioch, Mehmet Özhanlı, an archeology professor at Isparta's Süleyman Demirel University, begins, “The correct answer to the ‘which one knows better: a reader or a traveler?’ question asked all over the world must be: the one who reads first and travel later."

“Traveling without reading and learning anything about the place you visit means that you will only see it. Visiting a city like

Pisidia Antioch, which has been destroyed [over] centuries and has been left with no standing stone on earth, traveling without reading any kind of information about it would make you gain nothing,” he writes.

If you decide to travel to Turkey to follow “In the footsteps of St. Paul,” you are much more likely to benefit from having a good grasp of the New Testament. You are more likely to experience a stronger connection with the narrative and understand why, for example, St. Paul was mistaken for the Greek god Hermes in Acts 14, when he healed a man during his visit to the ancient city of Lystra. And why Jews from Antioch and Iconium, now present-day Konya, would turn the people against Paul and Barnabas, who was mistaken for Zeus, and why Paul went from being treated like a god to being beaten in that city and left for dead.

The unexcavated remains of Lystra are now buried under a hill located about 19 miles outside of Konya in a rural community where locals like Narman

Memis, 70, and his wife, Nurten Memis, 68, live quiet lives with their farm animals and plant crops like corn, onion and potatoes.

Narman and Nurtem have four adult children and 12 grandchildren and say they are used to tourists coming to see the hill under which Lystra is buried and are happy to share their knowledge of the land on which they have lived for 17 years.

KILISTRA

Not far from the site of the ancient city of Lystra is a stunning ancient settlement located near the village of Gökyurt called Kilistra that features rock-carved houses and churches, similar to structures in the impressive cave city of Cappadocia

There is no definite evidence that St. Paul stopped here, but the evidence of his ministry on the residents of the cave community of Kilistra was quite clear from the churches carved in the rocks.

▲ Remnants of St. Paul's Church in Pisidian Antioch, Turkey. | The Christian Post

ADADA

Among the newest sites on the tour is the ancient city of Adada in Sütçüler Village in Isparta Province, where the ruins of pagan temples, a theater, a church and other buildings still stand today.

“This town of Adada is another Pisidian City but it is on the main Roman route, and it is one of the places St. Paul may have passed. We don’t have written information about it, but it’s highly possible, because of the traces of the Roman road in the city,” Arslan says.

Ahmet Morel, an associate archeology professor who has been working on the Adada site for some 20 years, helped guide a tour of the ruins and highlighted the remains of what he believes was a cathedral.

“We know Adada is a part of [the ecumenical Church] Councils in the ancient times, at least the 12th century AD. They always sent bishops to Constantinople to represent Adada in the councils. At least there was a very strong

Christian community [here],” Morel says. The site, which is precariously hilly in parts, also opens into a plain featuring pagan temples and other buildings, around which horses roam.

YAZILI CANYON

If you are a lover of the outdoors, you will love the Yazili Canyon Nature Park through which St. Paul passed while traveling from Perge to Antioch of Pisidia. The park, which is surrounded by the Taurus Mountains, has many rock inscriptions and a part of the expansive Roman “Imperial Road” network also passes through it.

PERGE, ANTALYA

For Christians, no trip to Turkey would be complete without a visit to the ancient city of Perge, located just over 7 miles east of the Antalya city center. It’s a site

that is both sprawling and imposing with a watchtower, aqueduct, agoras with double-door shops, and a 12,000-seat outdoor theater and stadium. It also features the remains of an elaborately designed Roman bath.

PLACES TO STAY

While touring these sites throughout the day, there are multiple hotels along the route where you can find excellent accommodation such as the Mersin Divan Hotel, Novotel Konya, Hilton Garden Isparta, and The Marmara Antalya

FLIGHTS

There are several airlines that travel to Turkey but if you are traveling there for the first time, flying with Turkish Airlines could be a perfect introduction to signature Turkish food and hospitality. For more information visit goturkiye.com

▲ The town center in Tarsus, Turkey, where St. Paul was born. | The Christian Post/Leonardo Blair

‘SOUND OF FREEDOM’ FILMMAKER VOWS TO SAVE KIDS FROM TRAFFICKING: ‘IT'S MORE DANGEROUS NOT TO DO IT’

BY JEANNIE ORTEGA LAW

ORLANDO, Florida —

Filmmaker and actor Eduardo Verástegui is dedicating his "entire life" to saving kids, and one of the ways he is using his influence is by sounding the alarm in Hollywood with the new movie

"Sound of Freedom."

Scheduled for release on July 4, the film tells the true story of one man's journey to combat child sex trafficking. The Angel Studios film is based on the life of Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent

who lost his job because he took it upon himself to rescue children from the horrific form of modern-day slavery.

Starring Jim Caviezel ("Passion of The Christ"), "Sound of Freedom" also features Oscar winner Mira Sorvino ("The Final Cut"), Bill Camp ("12 Years a Slave")

▲ Tim Ballard (L) and Eduardo Verástegui (R) | The Christian Post

and José Zúñiga ("Twilight"). Along with acting in the film, Verástegui ("Unplanned") is the film's producer, and Alejandro Monteverde ("Bella," "Little Boy") is the film's writer and director.

During a sit-down interview with The Christian Post at the National Religious Broadcasters convention last month, Ballard and Verástegui spoke of their strong desire to get the film in front of as many people as possible to encourage them to take a stand against trafficking.

"I love this line that Jim Caviezel says in the film. I didn't say it in real life, but it definitely sums up my feelings. When he says to his boss at the U.S. government: 'This job tears you to pieces, and this is my one way to put those pieces back together,'" Ballard said.

After working for a decade as a DHS special agent, Ballard founded Operation Underground Railroad, which rescues children from sex trafficking rings around the world.

He said his passion for rescue work began when he realized that many trafficked children live in a place where their governments do not have the resources to get them out. The film highlights some of Ballard's inner struggles about that and what he does about it.

"It's impossible not to want to be involved in a project like this. When I met Tim and I just heard [what he went through], I was in shock," Verástegui said.

"What really hurts me the most is that the people who are doing this to these kids are human beings like you and me, made of the same. This is not people who are coming from other planets that are our enemies. This is people like us. So in what moment, what happened to these guys?" he continued.

"They were kids at some point full of dreams. So what happened in what moment they decided to, 'You know what? I'm going to use my life to hurt kids.'"

The "Sound of Freedom" trailer boldly declares, "God's children are not for sale."

The studio, filmmakers and actors hope that at least 2 million people will go to theaters on July 4 to represent the 2 million children currently victimized by human trafficking.

Verástegui, who has considered running for office in the Mexican government, said he is committing his life to fight trafficking.

"It dangerous? Yes! [but] it's more dangerous not to do it. So at the end of the day, we're going to die, and we're going to answer to God, and every day I think about this. How am I using my life?" he continued.

"When Tim told me, 'You know, it's very sad. What I'm telling you, of course, it's horrible, but it's more sad that now that you know it, if you do nothing. That penetrates the heart."

Verástegui said they want to create a movement to "put pressure on the government so these things become a prime priority, not just for the government, for everyone."

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime defines human trafficking as any situation in which someone experiences "force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or giving payments or benefits to a person in control."

The International Labour Organization reports that human trafficking is a $150 billion per year industry worldwide and that around 21 million people in the modern world are enslaved. Verástegui said many people are unaware that the problem exists, so combating it is not a priority. He wants "Sound of Freedom" to motivate people to act.

"[The movie] goes through the eyes. It

moves the heart and the emotions, and then the feet move forward. That's movement! So we move, movie to movement," he declared.

"I promise to God, I want to dedicate my entire life to save children," Verástegui added. "I am pro-life, but pro-life means not just to defend just the babies in the womb; of course, that's the most fundamental and most important right because if you don't have the right to be born, you cannot enjoy any other right. But we don't stop there! What about the kids who are living in the streets? What about the children that are victims of child trafficking? What about those teenagers who are suffering from addictions? We need to be there too."

"If you are pro-life, you care about life in every stage of that person. That's why we decided to put all our energy, all our lives, our minds and our faith into this project. It's been eight years of work for two hours of your time, and I hope this movie will touch many hearts. I hope this movie will raise awareness."

Verástegui declared: "We're coming to save the children and we coming after the traffickers too."

Multiple Hollywood studios rejected the film, but Angel Studios acquired worldwide distribution rights earlier this year.

Angel Studios is a platform for filmmakers to collaborate with the audience and bring projects to life by crowdfunding. It creates and distributes films and TV series worldwide and is known as the studio behind "The Chosen" and "Dry Bar Comedy."

To spread the word, Angel Studios set up a pay-it-forward program where someone could pay for someone else's ticket who might not otherwise see "Sound of Freedom."

Additional information can be found on the website

▲ Sound of Freedom | Angel Studios

‘NEFARIOUS’: FROM STRANGE AILMENTS TO CAR ACCIDENTS, THE SPIRITUAL WARFARE THAT OCCURRED WHILE FILMING

BY LEAH MARIEANN KLETT

When “Nefarious” directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman first conceived of bringing the spiritual thriller to the big screen, they knew they would face unseen opposition. But the duo didn’t know just how much, in their words, “the devil didn’t want this movie to be made.”

“We had a friend tell us a long time ago, ‘For those people that don't believe in the devil, declare war against him and see what happens,’” Solomon said. “Well, we declared war against the devil for the Lord, and I will say that honestly, from the first moment we wrote the script, weird, crazy things began to happen.”

Inspired by the book A Nefarious Plot by New York Times bestselling author Steve Deace, the filmmakers, who are also behind the pro-life film “Unplanned,” described “Nefarious” as a cross between C.S. Lewis’ novel The Screwtape Letters and the film “Silence of the Lambs.”

The horror-thriller film follows a convicted serial killer (Sean Patrick Flannery) who, on the day of his scheduled execution, must be certified as mentally competent by a court-ordered psychiatrist, Dr. James Martin (Jordan Belfi). But Martin is surprised to discover that the killer is possessed by a demon, Nefarious, who tells him that before the day is over, the psychiatrist will have committed three murders of his own.

“As a storm gathers outside the prison, Nefarious chips away at Dr. Martin’s resolve and conviction, confounding and unsettling him so much that he begins to doubt his own sanity and fears for his life,” reads the film description. “As the two face off, they deliver crackling energy and a series of disturbing preternatural revelations propelling them to an inexorable, astounding conclusion.”

And from petty inconveniences, like a squirrel breaking into their Airbnb and destroying a Nativity set to larger issues, like the roof blowing off their

office and strange ailments afflicting the cast and crew during filming, the creators said the spiritual warfare taking place throughout the making of “Nefarious” was undeniable.

“The first day Steve Deace visited the set, he got very sick with a cyst under his arm. Suddenly, it disappears,” Konzelman said. “Literally, the morning before the theatrical premiere, it comes back. By nightfall, he’s in the ER, mumbling and muttering incoherently. He was near death and had a live infection, MRSA in his bloodstream — it was everywhere, and he had to undergo surgery. He almost died.”

In another instance, a Catholic priest trained in exorcisms and spiritual battles hired to be on set with the crew had to undergo an emergency appendectomy during shooting: “His appendix burst during filming and he almost died,” the filmmakers recalled. “The surgeon told him, ‘If you got here an hour later you would not be here.’”

And in the first 11 days of shooting, eight crew members got in severe car accidents — “and we didn’t have a big crew,” Solomon said — yet not a single person was injured.

“And these stories are just the tip of the iceberg,” the filmmaker said. “The adversary does what he does, but the Lord does what He does. In other words, ‘You want to stop the movie, but I'm going to protect the people doing the movie and make sure they keep going on.’”

The duo reflected on some of the strange goings-on that continued to take place in theaters once the film opened: “It was a constant struggle in the theaters,” Solomon said. “The fire alarm goes off in multiple theaters across the nation, computers would malfunction so people couldn’t buy tickets, it would show a theater was sold out, but it wasn’t.”

Most unnervingly, there were numerous reports of “people growling and vomiting in the theater and not remembering any of it when they woke up,” Kozelman added.

“The devil literally didn't

want us to do it from page one," he said. "But we pushed through; the Lord said, ‘Keep pushing.’ The reason we did it, honestly, was the Holy Spirit basically called us to do it. We prayed on it — we prayed on everything — and just kept on moving forward. … when you go through an experience like this, your faith in God goes up, and so does your understanding that the devil is real.”

Despite ongoing spiritual opposition, “Nefarious” has seen astounding success: The film has received a 97% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and grossed a whopping $1.3 million in its opening weekend despite being shown in only 933 theaters and opening against two other horror films.

“The movie is surviving and growing,” Konzelman said. “It's anointed. It’s God bringing the truth like a lion; unchain the lion, let him out of the cage and the truth — you don't need to defend it. It will defend itself.”

“I don't know how the Spirit works, but I know it's working on this film,” he added.

The film received an R rating, although it does not feature any explicit language or sexual content. Solomon said the rating was “political,” adding: “They gave us an ‘R’ rating for the breaking of a finger. Disney cartoons have more stuff than that. But they knew Christians wouldn’t go see the movie if it had an ‘R’ rating.”

Even the film’s poster — which depicts a demonic face — and its listing as a “horror-thriller film” were something of a “Trojan’s horse” in the hope of attracting nonbelievers and “those who are in trouble with the devil.”

“It was a gutsy call on our part,” the filmmakers said.

Already, Solomon and Konzelman have heard numerous stories of people being saved, forgiving abusers or healing from trauma after watching “Nefarious” — stories that have brought them to tears. The pair said they believe the film is resonating with audiences due to the “darkness” increasingly permeating society.

“I defy anyone to walk out their front door and say that they don't feel that something is wrong,” Solomon said. “I think a lot of people are seeing the reflection of evil, and they're realizing, ‘This makes perfect sense. God loves me, the devil hates me. The hater is going to try and hurt me. God is going to try and help me,’ and so they shift to God’s side. And I think it is powerful.”

“I think it's a sign of our times that literally, we had to use a demon to preach the Gospel. If we used a priest in that role, or a pastor in that role, no one would be interested. But because the world has fallen into a dark place, the demon is preaching the Gospel. … We don’t use the demon in a malicious way against God, his anger and his malice validate the fact that [God is real].”

Looking ahead, the filmmakers said they want to use their talents to continue telling stories that highlight God’s goodness and expose the reality of the devil, even if it means going through spiritual warfare.

“Everyone says, ‘I'm willing to suffer,’ until it’s really rough and it’s terrible,” Konzelman reflected. “And you think, what am I doing? Why am I going through this? But then you eventually settle down and you think, ‘I'm going through this because this is the battle. It's a battle between good and evil, and the Lord has called us.

DAVID JEREMIAH SAYS APOSTASY AMONG PASTORS A SIGN OF ‘GREAT FALLING AWAY’ AHEAD OF END TIMES

BY LEAH MARIEANN KLETT

▲ Pastor David Jeremiah of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California. | The Christian Post

Influential Pastor David Jeremiah has voiced his concerns about the seemingly increasing number of pastors and churches straying from biblical truth, warning that this trend indicates the "falling away" Scripture prophesies ahead of the End Times.

In an interview with The Christian Post, the 82-year-old founder of Turning Point Radio and Television ministries said that "one of the things the Bible says is that during the time when we're anticipating the rapture, there will be what they call the falling away, the apostasy, is what theologians call it."

"And if you study that, what it teaches is that there will be a time when people who once embraced the truth will fall away from the truth, and it will be an epidemic of this," said Jeremiah.

Jeremiah, who also serves as the senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California, cited examples of pastors renouncing their beliefs, deconstructing or facing moral failures that disqualify them from ministry, indicating a trend of spiritual decline.

"Hardly a month goes by where you don't hear somebody that you thought was straight and going in the right way and doing the right things and teaching the right truth, and now they don't believe this anymore, or they've gotten in trouble, and they're no longer in the ministry anymore," he said.

"The enemy is at work. The Bible says Satan goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And he doesn't devour our bodies. Obviously, he devours our influence. And he's been really busy doing that. He's devouring the influence of many people who said that they were Christians. A lot of young guys who I know are saying, 'I don't believe in there's anything wrong with abortion,' or 'I don't believe there's anything wrong with homosexuality' or all of these other issues. They once did, but now they don't. That's the falling away. That's what the Bible says is going to happen, and it's happening."

The pastor considered the modern day to be "a time of great discouragement and despair," believing that "we're

actually watching the disintegration of our nation right in front of us" and that it was "happening, not in a century, it's happening within a decade."

"Law and Order is gone. Truth is gone. Gender is gone. Schools are dissipating," Jeremiah said. "We have a Christian school at our ministry, and when we started COVID, we had 1,200 students. We now have 1,700 students because people are in despair in California. … they want to put their children where they won't be told that they're not who God created them to be."

Jeremiah emphasized the need for Christians to remain rooted in Scripture and not drift away from the truth, especially in the current spiritually precarious climate.

According to the American Bible Society's 2022 State of the Bible report, the number of United States adults who read the Bible at least "at least 3-4 times each year on their own, outside of a church setting" has dropped from 50% in 2021 to 39% last year.

Jeremiah lamented the reality that many churches have adopted a "feelgood mentality" instead of preaching the Word of God, adding that "we're in a very desperate place."

"Don't tell me that we're not in a bad place; tell me how to live while I'm in that place," he said. "How did you get through it?"

"I think one of the things that encourages me greatly is every time I think that we're in the worst place possible, I realize that the world in which the Bible was written, and to whom it was written initially, was way worse than anything we're experiencing right now. And they understood the power of the Scripture."

The pastor voiced his commitment to teaching the Bible and helping people understand its truths, something he seeks to do in his forthcoming book The Great Disappearance: 31 Ways to be Ready for the Rapture.

"I have nothing to give to my church if it's not from the Bible," Jeremiah said. "I'm just a person; I'm just an individual."

"I'm always working on a project that integrates the Scripture into what's going on in our world. I believe that's what we

should do. That's what we're called to do. And we've kind of gotten away from that."

To help ordinary believers discern the signs of unbiblical principles infiltrating churches, Jeremiah advised observing whether the Word of God is taught and valued. He encouraged finding churches where people carry Bibles and where Scripture is central to the teachings instead of motivational messages.

"If you hear [a church leader] marginalizing the Scripture, or saying things like, 'This was true, then but it's not true,' you're probably in a place where you better be careful," he said. 'The Word of God is the true test," Jeremiah added. "You can go to a lot of Christian churches … where they hardly ever mention the Bible. Or if they do, they give you two little minutes of Scripture, and then they talk about what they want to talk about. That's a real danger sign."

Jeremiah acknowledged the discouragement and despair prevalent in society and stressed the importance of studying, praying and standing together as believers. He offered the encouragement that faithful teaching of the Scripture still exists, although perhaps not as prevalent as before, and encouraged the next generation of believers to stand firm on the Gospel.

"We live in a time when we have to study, we have to pray, we have to hang together as believers," he said. "We have to work hard. We have to do the best we can in the situation we're in."

"And above all, we have to preach the Gospel and get people saved. Because that's the only ultimate hope: that people know Jesus Christ and they're going to go to Heaven."

► Pitcher Jason Grimsley #38 of the New York Yankees winds up for the pitch during the game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York. | Greg Fiume/Allsport via Getty Images

FORMER YANKEES PITCHER SAYS FAILED SUICIDE ATTEMPT LED HIM TO A TRUE RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS

BY JEANNIE ORTEGA LAW

Former Major League Baseball relief pitcher

Jason Grimsley says a failed suicide attempt led to him dedicating his life to Jesus Christ.

Grimsley, 55, who pitched for six major league teams from 1989 to 2006, released his debut memoir Cross Stitched: One Man's Journey From Ruin to Restoration, which provides a glimpse of his early life, his 15year career as a pro baseball player and his full redemption in God.

"I was saved in 1999, the first year I joined the New York Yankees, and one the best years of my life," Grimsley shared in a video interview with The Christian Post. "I was really on fire. In fact, my wife even said, 'Honey, you're spending too much time with God and not enough time with me.' I was just reading; I was into it. I was living it."

The athlete said he was so full of faith at the time that "it was an explosion of fire" inside of him. That year, he also had an incredible season with the Yankees as they won the World Series.

"All of a sudden, it started being, 'Oh look what I did,' It became me," he recalled.

"Pride ego started creeping back into my life, and that began the slow fall away, getting back into being selfish, being about me," Grimsley continued.

He fell back into the dangerous lifestyle habits that came with fame and success until it all came to a head in 2015.

"It all culminated in 2015," Grimsley explained. "l ended up out in the woods with a gun to my head, pulling the trigger,

and it not going off."

The story of his life up until that point and how his career ended up was not what he envisioned. Hopelessness led him to want to die. "Basically walking away from something that I dearly love added to the demons that I was battling," Grimsley revealed. "In the book, I describe it as being both the prodigal son, and I was the son that felt like he had earned everything and he had done everything right."

"2015/2016 Instead of being on fire for God, I feel God took me by the hand and said, 'OK, I'm going to walk you through this at my pace. And I'm going to show you there's nothing you can do to earn my love. I love you. And this is a relationship, and we're just going to walk this together.'"

The Texas native said the grace his wife showed him through it all displayed God's love for him.

"My wife, the grace, she showed me in coming to me and said, 'Hey, I love you. I forgive you. God forgives you, now you got to forgive yourself, and that grace opened up the grace that the Lord has for me," he testified.

That is what inspired him to dedicate his life fully to Christ. Cross Stitched shares Grimsley's entire journey and is available everywhere books are sold.

Proceeds from the book will benefit Emerging Grace Ministries in their ongoing efforts to help eradicate adolescent sex trafficking.

TRAVEL: 3 PLACES TO VISIT RIGHT NOW

BY DENNIS LENNOX

With peak summer travel just around the corner, now is the time to book a getaway.

Don’t worry if you have no idea where to go. The following three destinations are great places to take a summer vacation. They’re listed in no particular order.

BOZEMAN, MONTANA

Bozeman has become the place to be in the American West.

It’s easy to see why this one-time cowboy town is so popular — not least since remote work became a thing during the pandemic.

Besides seemingly endless trails and outdoor recreation opportunities, there’s also the lively downtown along Main Street. Another dynamic comes in late summer and fall, when Montana State University has its home football games.

In addition to everything in and around Bozeman, do a day trip to Virginia City This quaint old mining town, located about 65 miles away, isn’t quite a ghost

▲ St. Boniface Cathedral in Winnipeg, Manitoba. | Dennis Lennox

town as real people still call it home. A little closer is the small town of Three Forks, which sits near the headwaters of the Missouri River in the Gallatin Valley. This area was first explored by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark(Lewis and Clark).

Consider staying in Three Forks at the Sacajawea Hotel — a spectacular oldschool railroad hotel. Alternatively, the Kimpton Armory Hotel in downtown Bozeman is the discerning traveler’s best option.

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA

Canada’s seventh-largest city and the provincial capital of Manitoba is one of those places that punches above its weight — especially in the summer.

The Forks was once a dilapidated railyard. Now, it’s a popular year-round gathering spot with shops and eateries overlooking the spot where the Red and Assiniboine rivers meet. In winter the frozen rivers become the world’s longest skating rink.

Anchoring one of Canada’s largest Francophone communities outside Quebec is the Roman Catholic cathedral. As one might expect, the cathedral is dedicated to Boniface. The English monk

and missionary, known as the apostle to the Germans, was martyred in the late eighth century. The present cathedral — a modern edifice not dissimilar from other architecturally hideous post-Vatican II churches — stands behind the imposing ruins of an earlier cathedral that was destroyed by fire in 1968. Nearby is the must-visit St. Boniface Museum Book a room at the Fairmont.

ROCHESTER,

NEW YORK

As with elsewhere in the Rust Belt, this city in upstate New York has unquestionably seen better days. That aside, Rochester offers an experience for every kind of visitor.

Some come for the architecturally significant old churches. Others enjoy Lake Ontario or the beauty of the nearby Finger Lakes. This columnist prefers the museums. Among the most notable are the George Eastman Museum and Memorial Art Gallery

Named after George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, the Eastman isn’t a company museum. Instead, it includes one of the best collections of photography and cinematography. Also part of the museum is Eastman’s stately house, which has been restored to its period grandeur.

The University of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery has the kind of collection you expect to find in a famous big-city museum. Think works by Rubens, Monet, Rembrandt, van Dyck, Gainsborough, Romney and others.

The Del Monte Lodge, which is flagged under Marriott’s Renaissance brand, is recommended. The hotel is located about 15 minutes from downtown in Pittsford, a quaint village on the banks of the storied Erie Canal.

▲ Downtown Bozeman, Montana | Dennis Lennox

▲ The old mining town of Virginia City, Montana. | Dennis Lennox

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