Your gift counts double until 5/31: $27,585 to go in our Easter Campaign. Please help now!

Palestinian Authority: Baptist church is illegitimate

CWN - March 15, 2012

The Palestinian Authority has declared the First Baptist Church in Bethlehem to be illegitimate.

“They said that our legitimacy as a church from a governmental point of view is not approved,” explained an assistant pastor. “They said they will not recognize any legal paper work from our church. That includes birth certificates, wedding certificates and death certificates. Children are not even considered to be legitimate if they don’t have recognized paperwork.”

“People are always telling [Christians], ‘Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam. It’s the true and right religion,’” the church’s pastor added. “We’re not going to go quietly on this. Our church deserves the right to be equally recognized amongst all the other recognized denominations.”

Additional sources for this story
Some links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

An appeal from our founder, Dr. Jeffrey Mirus:

Dear reader: If you found the information on this page helpful in your pursuit of a better Catholic life, please support our work with a donation. Your donation will help us reach five million Truth-seeking readers worldwide this year. Thank you!

Easter Campaign:
Progress toward our Spring 2013 goal ($27,585 to go):
$80,000.00 $52,414.70
34% 66%
Sound Off! CatholicCulture.org supporters weigh in.

All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!

There are no comments yet for this item.

Catholic World News Email Newsletter
Donate to Support this Site: Your contribution will be put to good work.
Tour the CatholicCulture.org Site
Shop Amazon to Raise Money for Catholic Culture

Recent Catholic Commentary

The Mystery of the Spirit 2 hours ago
Against a Facile Assurance of Salvation, the Need for Mystery 3 hours ago
Making Sense of Society: The Ebook 8 hours ago
An exorcism? No, a blessing. You'd think reporters would know the difference. 11 hours ago
Learning from the sick, and from the death of a child May 17

Top Catholic News

Most Important Stories of the Last 30 Days
Pope strongly supports call for reform in religious life CWN - May 8