Separation of Church & State!

I swear, I almost threw up when I read this!  This is a perfect example of why we need separation of church and state!  So people and I use that term loosely here can't even think about doing this!

I found this article on Yahoo News.  Apparently, a satanic group has petitioned the Oklahoma legislature to have a 7 foot tall statue of satan placed at the Oklahoma State Capitol.  Back in 2012, a Ten Commandments monument was placed there.  While I love to see the Ten Commandments publicized and placed where everyone can see them because I am Christian, I do not like the door that it is opening.  I won't post the picture of the statue on my blog for obvious reasons.  But, if you want to see the planned statue and read the article, here is the link.
http://news.yahoo.com/group-unveils-satan-statue-design-oklahoma-224102124.html

It will be interesting to see what the Oklahoma legislature decides to do about this.  I guess legally, you can't include the Ten Commandments and leave out other religions.  If it comes down to that, I would rather see them remove the Ten Commandments than add the statue of Satan.

They need to get creative.  The Ten Commandments can be displayed without calling them the Ten Commandments, well most of them anyway.  :( But, at least we could get the jist of them on a statue and not make it religious.  It could look something like this:

Guide To Life
Be Good to Your Parents
Do Not Kill or Hurt Other Things
Be Faithful to Your Spouse
Do Not Steal
Do Not Lie
Be Happy with What You Have

These are the last 6 commandments and I believe they can be adhered to by anyone regardless of your religion.  So, I really do hope that Oklahoma or any other state for that matter, does not allow this proposed statue to be placed anywhere that the public would have to be subjected to it.

So, I almost closed this blog.  But, then, I realized this is my opportunity to share the Ten Commandments with my readers.

Thank God we still have our Religious Freedom!

We are all complaining lately about how screwed up our country is right now.  Being one of the complainers, I would like to take a moment to appreciate and Thank God that we still have our Religious Freedom!

Reading an article this afternoon, I realized that there are so many people in the world who don't have this freedom.  Maybe I'm naive, but I really thought that except for a few countries, this was a thing of the past. But, it seems that Christian persecution is still wide spread even in this day and age.

The article I read was about 4 men in Iran being sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking alcohol at a communion. You can read the full article here.

http://news.yahoo.com/christians-iran-reportedly-sentenced-80-lashes-drinking-wine-122213900.html

The article goes on to say that it is against the law to drink alcohol in Iran.  Maybe if Iranians DID drink alcohol they'd be a little less "hostile".  But, I think that's a blog for another day.  On this point, I just think that if the men know it's against Iranian law to drink alcohol, they should have drank grape juice or something else like we do at our church services.  They can follow the law and still perform the service.  Although, I have a strong suspicion that they would have been arrested for something else.

The main reason I felt the need to blog about this is because of the little paragraph at the end of the article. Stuck in at the end and almost glossed over.  This paragraph has me truly upset!

"Protestant Pastor Saeed Abedini, a U.S. citizen, has been in Iran's notorious Evin Prison for more than a year on charges of threatening national security by evangelizing in the Islamic country. His wife said in September that the pastor has been told he would be freed if he denies his Christian faith."

Why have we not heard about this?  We can hear about who the latest Kardashian is dating or what the 1st lady is wearing to dinner.  But, we don't hear about how there is a US Citizen trapped in a prison in Iran because he won't deny his Christian faith??!!  Why is our government not doing anything about this!  Why are we not demanding that he be deported back to the US? How can WE do anything about this?  I think I am most upset about this because I don't believe the government is doing anything to help a US Citizen in a foreign country and also because I know about it and I don't know what I can do to help!

If you have heard about this Pastor or know how I can help him, please share the information here!