Turkey Moves to Join Gaza Stabilization Force; Israel Points to Hamas Ties

JERUSALEM, Israel – Turkey is pressing to join the international stabilization force in Gaza as the ceasefire teeters and accusations emerge from Hamas. In the U.S., a different kind of battle confronts the one thousand pastors and Christian leaders returning from Israel who say they’re the targets of online attacks.

The Erdogan government in Turkey claims it’s ready to join the force tasked with stabilizing Gaza, directly challenging Israel’s opposition. Ankara insists its participation is critical to upholding the ceasefire. Israel believes Turkey supports Hamas.

The latest development comes as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz makes his first visit to Israel, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to advance Trump’s Gaza peace plan.

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However, Hamas now says that plans cannot move into the second phase as the terror group accuses Israel of “violations.” That phase calls for an international troop deployment and the disarmament of Hamas, which the terror group is resisting.

Israel accuses Hamas of being the violators of the ceasefire due to continued attacks on troops and failure to deliver al the remaining hostages as agreed. Hamas still claims it cannot locate the body of the last remaining hostage.

Netanyahu expects the second and third phases of negotiations to be equally challenging, as he plans to visit New York City later this month, despite threats from the incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani that he will arrest Netanyahu.

“There’s a third phase, and that is to deradicalize Gaza, something that also people believed was impossible. But it was done in Germany, it was done in Japan, it was done in the Gulf states, it can be done in Gaza too, but of course Hamas has to be dismantled.”

And in Jerusalem, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson are launching efforts to nominate President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Christian Teacher Enoch Burke Held in Jail Through Christmas in Student Pronoun Battle

A teacher in Ireland is back in court fighting for his right to follow his religious beliefs, and a judge is now vowing to keep him in jail through Christmas.

Enoch Burke says he was fired from his position at Wilson’s Hospital School in 2022 after Principal Niamh McShane demanded he use the “they/them” pronoun for a male student. Burke says he refused, was subsequently suspended, and later dismissed.

Burke has fought the decision not only in court, citing that it violated his constitutional rights and religious beliefs, but he has, on several occasions, attempted to return to the school grounds to teach.

“I have a right to work. I’m on the payroll. I’m a teacher of German history,” he recently told the Irish Mirror in August. “Teachers are being instructed to teach this and to tell children something that they believe is wrong and that they know is wrong. This isn’t just about me. It’s happening all around the country and it’s wrong. And it’s my responsibility to do what’s right.”

According to several reports, the school obtained a court injunction prohibiting Burke from attending the school in the days following his dismissal.

So far, Burke has spent 500 days in prison for repeatedly “breach(ing) court orders directing him not to trespass on school property,” a November 18 ruling by Ireland’s High Court cited.

Burke was first jailed in 2022 and told that he would face a fine of 700 euros or $800 a day for each time he defied the order and turned up at the school. That amount later increased to 2,000 euros or $2,300. He currently owes the Courts Service of Ireland more than 225,000 euros, Reuters reports.

Burke has fought the charges tooth and nail saying he has every right to still show up to the school as he is being paid a teacher’s salary from the Department of Education and Youth, pending an appeal before the Disciplinary Appeals Panel.

He contends he is being punished for his faith-based belief that there are only two genders: male and female.

In a timeline posted to his X account, Burke shares that in 2023, when he first appealed his case, the court ruled “‘there is no evidence whatsoever’ that Enoch Burke was disciplined because of his views on transgenderism or because he objected to the Principal’s instruction to call a child by a new name and the ‘they’ pronoun.”

BREAKING: Jailed Teacher Enoch Burke lodges Supreme Court Appeal

Prison guards escorted Enoch Burke to the Supreme Court in Dublin on Friday.

It is now over 3 years since Principal Niamh McShane demanded that teacher Enoch Burke use the “they/them” pronoun for a male student.…

— Enoch Burke (@EnochBurke) December 6, 2025

Burke contends that the claim is “blatantly false” because the principal’s disciplinary report shows it was the basis of his suspension. In 2025, a second court of appeals acknowledged the fact that “Enoch Burke’s views on transgenderism and his objection to the Principal’s instruction were central to why he was suspended and dismissed.” However, the second court of appeals refused to “acknowledge that the findings of the first Court of Appeal were wrong.”

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As China Rounds up Christian Leaders, Jailed Pastor’s Family Launches US Christmas Campaign

Christians in China are committed to spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the country. As the Good News spreads via underground house churches, many pastors and leaders are coming under attack. Recently, a group of pastors was jailed for expressing their faith in Jesus Christ.

This crackdown includes Pastor Ezra Jin, leader of Zion Church, who was arrested in October. Here in America, Jin’s wife and daughter are seeking help from the United States to secure his release and that of other Christians.

Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri founded the Zion Church network, one of China’s largest independent Protestant house churches. Its remarkable growth caught the attention of the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a crackdown on the church and Pastor Ezra Jin’s arrest.

Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, describes how her father was detained. “Thirty different police officers, many of them in plain clothes, came rushing into the house. They handcuffed my dad and dragged him out,” she says.

For Jin’s wife, Anna Liu, the arrest is disheartening. “It’s still hard because, you know, China opened the door for Western society and then grew their economy. So I thought we weren’t going to be put in jail because of our Christianity or our faith.”

Jin and 17 other pastors are charged with illegally using information networks, which could lead to three years in prison.

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Expert Sounds Alarm on ‘Gruesome’ Christian Persecution in Syria

Christian leaders recently came together to send a letter to President Donald Trump, warning the commander-in-chief about the dire situation for Christians and other minority groups inside Syria.

The letter, written by Dede Laugesen, president of Save the Persecuted Christians, was delivered before Trump held a meeting last month with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, with its contents imploring the president and other U.S. leaders to act on behalf of minority factions.

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Individuals like Dr. Ben Carson, author Eric Metaxas, Pastor Jack Hibbs, and many others implored Trump to press al-Sharaa on the matter. Matthew Faraci, religious freedom advisor to the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, spoke to CBN News about the effort.

Faraci, who decried the “gruesome” events unfolding inside Syria, said Trump is committed “not only to protecting Christians in Syria, but around the world.”

“What [Trump is] saying is … that ‘America First’ means that we protect Christians and we protect against Christian persecution,” he said, noting leaders want to be sure Trump extends this to Syria and the Christians under assault there.

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Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse Puts Hurricane Helene Victim in New Home in Time for Christmas

For a North Carolina Vietnam veteran, being home for the holidays holds a new meaning.

When Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina last year, Bob and Edwina Tatum watched everything they loved and owned, including their home of 46 years, swept away in floodwaters down the Toe River in the mountains of the western part of the state.

The Minneapolis, NC couple watched as their home was smashed under a bridge, and both of their horses drowned.

When Bob saw the pieces of their home in the water, his brokenhearted request to the world was: “Don’t forget about us.”

Yet nine months after the storm hit, the Tatums did not know where to turn for help. They said they had not received the help that they needed from their insurance company or FEMA.

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Their story caught the attention of Evangelist Franklin Graham, President and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse.

“I saw a news interview Bob had done, and he said they felt like they had been forgotten, as they had fallen through the cracks. They had given up hope. After paying insurance premiums for 30+ years with no claims, the damage wasn’t covered because they didn’t have flood insurance. I knew then that Samaritan’s Purse could help by building them a new home,” Graham wrote in a Facebook post.

The next day, Samaritan’s Purse showed up to help the family, the vet, and his wife.

And in five months’ time, volunteers from across the country worked to build a new three-bedroom home for the Tatums.

On December 1st, Graham, Samaritan’s Purse volunteers, Bob, and Edwina stood on the porch of the newly finished home and dedicated it to God.

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Man Dies on Operating Table, Meets Jesus in Heaven

Nobody expects to die in the middle of their son’s wedding weekend.

You don’t expect to stagger through a rehearsal dinner with a 104° fever. You don’t think a backyard baseball game with your boys is going to rip your insides apart. And you definitely don’t expect a freezing operating room to be the place where a five-year-old’s prayer gets answered.

But that’s exactly what happened to Mike McKinsey.

He spent three miserable days just trying to hold it together so he wouldn’t miss his son’s wedding—smiling in pictures, pretending he was okay, even though he clearly wasn’t. Everyone figured it was just the flu. It wasn’t until the wedding was over that he finally said, “Alright, I need to get checked out,” and went to the ER.

A nurse tapped his foot, and pain exploded in his stomach. The surgeon counted backward three days since his appendix likely ruptured. They needed to act fast. Mike kissed his wife and was rushed into surgery. The table was freezing and so narrow that he crossed his hands over his chest. Mike felt awful. This was the first time he was concerned that he may not ever see his wife and kids again.

He simply turned his head to the right.

And Jesus walked into the room.

Not a floating spirit. Not a vision above the body. A physical man like a surgeon entering his own operating room, dark brown hair to His shoulders, short beard, white robe, Middle Eastern features. Not the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus that Mike had seen growing up.

Their eyes met, and he knew instantly who it was.

Jesus held out His hand and said, “I want to answer your prayer.”

A Prayer That Never Let Go

The first time Mike asked to see heaven, he was five years old at his grandfather’s funeral. Sitting in a big church, mesmerized by smoke rising from a priest’s censer.

The priest kept describing heaven: no pain, no tears, no sadness. To a five-year-old, it sounded beautiful and strangely real. That night, Mike added a new line to his bedtime prayers.

“Show me heaven. I want to see it.”

Night after night, for years, he repeated it.

“You didn’t show me yet.”

He didn’t know a prayer can wait decades for its answer.

The Hill, the City, and the Glory of the Lord

Back in Ventura, when Jesus said, “I want to answer your prayer,” Mike assumed He meant the surgery would go well. He wasn’t thinking about that five-year-old boy in a pew.

Then he took Jesus’ hand.

In an instant, the operating room disappeared.

Mike was standing barefoot on a hill, feeling cool green grass beneath him with impossible clarity, like he could count every blade touching his skin. Everything around him was blinding white, like dense fog pressed close.

Out of the white appeared a glowing, pearl-like sphere the size of a basketball. From it, beams of light began shooting outward smooth, tube-like rays moving through the mist. One flew straight at him and hit him in the forehead before he could react. It passed through him with a gentle buzzing sound and filled his body with warmth.

Then, like a curtain pulling to the side, the white parted.

Below him was a massive city, domes, rooftops, and tall white structures rising through a low blanket of fog. Golden domes reflected light. Some buildings resembled church steeples, but one detail stunned him:

There were no crosses anywhere.

Behind the city rose a mountain covered in perfectly shaped trees with delicate, lace-like branches. Above it stretched a sky exploding with colors he had never seen—like the most vivid sunset imagined, except without a visible sun.

The beams of light kept firing from the sphere, traveling across the valley and striking the treetops. Each time they hit, they burst into countless tiny rays, like silent fireworks against that radiant sky.
Overwhelmed, Mike looked toward the source.

Jesus said, “It’s the glory of the Lord.”

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Jerusalem Hosts 1,000 Pastors to Support Jewish State, Combat Antisemitism

More than 1,000 pastors and Christian influencers are in the Holy Land this week. Organizers call it the largest gathering of its kind since Israel’s founding.

A partnership between Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Friends of Zion Museum led to the unprecedented visit.

Friends of Zion founder Mike Evans told CBN News, “It’s the first time in history the State of Israel has officially partnered with 1,000 strategic pastors to commission them as ambassadors to combat antisemitism and reach the youth of their generation.”

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Evans believes Israel’s fight is not just on the battlefield.

“Right now, there’s an ideological war that Israel is losing,” he stated. “So, they need the Evangelicals, they need the Zionists, to fight an ideological war. Demons don’t clear customs, and this ideological war’s massive. And it’s being funded by countries like Qatar and others through an antichrist-type AI, and to pound away with bots and to marginalize people and silence them.”

One of the goals of the gathering is to strengthen Christian support during a time of rising global antisemitism. They say the pulpit must speak louder than the propaganda.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told us, “So it’s just, I think an extraordinary time for pastors to go to their pulpits and to speak with clarity and with boldness and to push back on the antisemitism, the bigotry that is being pushed toward Jewish people and toward the people of Israel.”

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Christian Filmmaker Banned From Filming at Historic Site Over His ‘Religious Affiliation’

It seems decidedly true that a historical Christian site would be of the utmost significance to Christians. And yet, it was a Christian — a Catholic documentarian — banned from filming one in England.

Christian Holden, a filmmaker, was commissioned earlier this year to lead a documentary project about Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, a 7th-century, Anglo-Saxon monk and bishop. The film was to depict the so-called St. Cuthbert’s Way, a 62-mile trek from Melrose Abbey to Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, England.

St. Cuthbert’s Cave is believed to be the initial resting place of St. Cuthbert’s body in 687 A.D., where monks allegedly hid the bishop’s body during Viking raids.

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Before filming “The Way of St. Cuthbert,” Holden sought permission from the National Trust, the nonprofit body responsible for protecting and caring for historical sites and natural landscapes across the United Kingdom.

The National Trust ultimately refused his request, citing its policy against “religious affiliation.” However, it’s not clear whether the decision was based on the religious nature of the project or Holden’s personal religious convictions.

Voice for Justice UK, a Christian human rights organization, is representing Holden. While the National Trust didn’t clarify why exactly it refused the documentarian, the religious freedom group believes the decision amounts to discrimination under the Equality Act of 2010, which names religion as a protected characteristic.

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Bible Reading Surges Among Young Men, Church Leaders Aim to Convert Curiosity to Lasting Faith

Recent data is telling a story of two trends. On one hand, Bible engagement is climbing after years of decline, driven by a surge among young adult men. On the other, belief in what the Bible says is fading amid a broader decline in religious identification in the U.S.

David Copeland, vice president of research at the Barna Group, said, “This year there’s been this encouraging, surprising increase in Bible readership—specifically among young people, and even more specifically among young men.”

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This new data from Barna, a Christian research organization, and Gloo, a faith-based technology platform, shows nearly half of Millennials and Gen Z now engage with Scripture weekly. Still, Copeland found that openness doesn’t always mean faith.

“The other thing we wrote about in this article is that although readership has spiked, the affirmation of biblical teachings has not,” he said.

This drop in biblical conviction mirrors a broader story. Gallup’s latest findings show a 17-point decline in Americans identifying as religious since 2015—the lowest faith levels ever recorded in the U.S., and there’s a major shift in who is engaging.

“Women, for a long time, have tended to go to church more often or engage with Scripture more often. What we’re seeing in some of these socio-political changes in the last 10 years, especially among young women, is a bit of a leaning away,” Copeland said.

He continued, “My interpretation is that men are starting to find relationship in these church settings at almost the same rate women are starting to back away and say, ‘I don’t see myself here anymore. I don’t see myself represented here anymore.'”

Researchers say this spiritual pattern of engagement without conviction mirrors a broader collapse in trust across other American institutions.

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Fraternity, Sorority Members Transformed in Bible Study Spike at Clemson

The sights and sounds of campus life at Clemson University are familiar from students rushing to and from class to what’s becoming a new scene on many college campuses. Frat houses, long known for alcohol-fueled parties, are seeing a surge in interest from fraternity and sorority members wanting to explore their faith.

“My eyes being open to my faith have driven me to the point where I’ve found purpose in Jesus Christ,” said Alex Osburn, member of Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.

Bo Morris of Kappa Sigma and Greek InterVarsity President at Clemson said, “We’re here every week learning scripture and having life conversations about what Christ is doing in our lives.”

“We’ve had everything from helping a girl get her first Bible to talking to girls about leading in the future,” explained Mallory Sickles of Pi Beta Phi sorority.

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“Being able to walk through scripture and also open discussion for similar struggles and issues and sins and things we’re all dealing with has been unbelievable,” said Jones DesChamps of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Greek InterVarsity, a campus ministry that aims to see Greek students transformed by the gospel, has seen a 43 percent increase in participation over the last school year.

“Really in the past year or two, we’re seeing the spiritual hunger increase of students who are showing up,” said Dusty Harrison, Associate Director of Discipleship for Greek InterVarsity. “I mean, we’re seeing pictures and stories of fraternity houses that are just being packed and overflowing with students who are coming to Bible studies.”

With nearly 8,000 students making up Clemson’s fraternities and sororities, Harrison believes it is essential to reach them on their turf.

“The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood, dwelt among us. That’s what we’re encouraging students to do with our ministry, is to go right where their brothers and sisters are, and to live and lead incarnation, Greek and Christian,” Harrison said.

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