{"id":52696,"date":"2015-12-24T02:40:11","date_gmt":"2015-12-24T02:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/london_times_front_page-faith_leaders_unite_against_persecution_of_christi\/"},"modified":"2015-12-24T02:40:11","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T02:40:11","slug":"london_times_front_page-faith_leaders_unite_against_persecution_of_christi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=52696","title":{"rendered":"([London Times) Front Page&#8211;&#34;Faith leaders unite against persecution of Christians&#34;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> Faith leaders from across Britain have condemned a growing crackdown on Christmas in Muslim countries.<\/p>\n<p>Brunei threatened yesterday to imprison for up to five years anyone who celebrates the Christian festival in public. The former British colony\u2019s new penal code could also hand out $20,000 fines for any ceremony contrary to Sharia, including singing religious songs, sending festive greetings or putting up Christmas trees, crosses or candles.<\/p>\n<p>Somalia\u2019s leading clerics issued a similar edict in 2013, which they reiterated yesterday. Sheikh Mohamed Khayrow, the religious affairs minister, said that \u201call events related to Christmas and new year celebrations are contrary to Islamic culture\u201d\u009d. They could \u201cdamage the faith of the Muslim community\u201d\u009d and risk attracting terrorist attacks from Al Shabaab, he added.<\/p>\n<p>In China, which has 70 million Christians and is set to overtake America as the world\u2019s largest Christian country within a decade, large outdoor crosses on hundreds of churches have been dismantled by officials from the atheist Communist party. Some churches have been demolished in the eastern city of Wenzhou, dubbed the \u201cJerusalem of China\u201d\u009d.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/tto\/faith\/article4649290.ece\">Read it all<\/a> (requires subscription).<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">TIMES FRONT PAGE &quot;Faith leaders unite against persecution of Christians&quot; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/skypapers?src=hash\">#skypapers<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/5w6hrMwgD4\">pic.twitter.com\/5w6hrMwgD4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Sky News (@SkyNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SkyNews\/status\/679793695873318912\">December 23, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Faith leaders from across Britain have condemned a growing crackdown on Christmas in Muslim countries. Brunei threatened yesterday to imprison for up to five years anyone who celebrates the Christian festival in public. The former British colony\u2019s new penal code<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=52696\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,40,50,42,411,143,144,426,203,659,418,154,155,151,108,364,148,124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-economics-politics","category-international-news-commentary","category-religion-news-commentary","category-coptic-church","category-defense-national-security-military","category-foreign-relations","category-islam","category-middle-east","category-muslim-christian-relations","category-orthodox-church","category-other-churches","category-other-faiths","category-politics-in-general","category-religion-culture","category-roman-catholic","category-terrorism","category-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}