Diverging Government Responses to Christians

0:00Welcome to the Carey Abbott Show, your place for news, views and values you can trust, and relationship insights you need. Now here's Carey Abbott. So good to be with your friends. Welcome to the Carey Abbott Show. It's been great to have you with us this week. If you weren't able to hear the shows, go back and listen. You will be blessed. Share them with your friends. We want to get truth out there so that people understand how to recognize the lies when they hear them. I'm surprised. In fact, recently I was watching a reputable channel and one that I go to for some detail and they had a guest on who was not telling the truth about the deportations. I was very surprised to hear that and thought, you know, if I did not know the number was correct, a 50,000 for July, this person said numbers had gone down because the president is hearing from the wrong people and listening to the wrong people.

1:03Well he was fired from his job and so he apparently is disgruntled. But all that to say, it's really important that you pay attention to the details we bring to you because we're trying to give you the truth and then help spread the truth because our culture needs more truth. Amen. So I want to talk to you about what's going on in Iran. Not that I have insight that you don't have on this because, well, I could say to you, they bombed something and then we hit them back and that's been going on a little bit. But the president and his cabinet have an aversion to killing people. I think you know that, right? He's not interested in taking out the lives of the amazing Iranian people. He's interested in controlling their leadership in the sense that he doesn't want them to have nuclear weapons. But also he wants to see Iran actually have a chance at becoming a prosperous nation. That's in the back of his mind. Well, they have crazy people running their country and ideologically crazy and in some

2:06would even say wicked and demonic, regardless of that, you can't reason with them. And so each of the moves that they've made are trying to control them in a sense. And of course, now the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned them and is pulling the levers on what he calls an economic exposition as fixation tough word there, vowing to cut off any entity doing business with them and sanctioning them in ways that are going to be really challenging for the people there. And he's also publicly said, we know where your money is. We know where the offshore accounts are. We know who you're working with. And he's even saying this to people in the UK and banks that have been working with them. And basically telling everybody, stop working with them. And if you have ties to them, a bank in the UAE, for instance, has ties to Iran. He's also talking about their assets and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of homes around

3:07the world. Basically saying we're going after it, we're going to block you from getting it. And we're going to give it to your people at some point. So that's taking place right now. And we'll see how that works. As a backdrop, though, I was looking into this thinking, OK, I want to know a little bit more detail of what's going on in the church and ran across this article in the Washington stand. Thankfully, they stay on top of these issues as well. This one just came out. Apparently, Iran has killed. And when I say Iran, I mean their wicked leadership, right? They've killed at least 33 Christian ministers and detained more than 130 others tied to an underground church movement in recent months. And this has been going on as the government intensifies its persecution of Christians. This, according to a Texas ministry that supports house churches in the country. Iran, alive ministries is called disclosed the deaths and the detentions.

4:10At least 33 Christian ministers connected to the ministry have been killed in recent months. And this, according to the founder, Hormaz Sherriot told the Baptist press the ministry gave Baptist press the names of 20 people. It says have been persecuted for whom died, but it said it could not identify 156 others of 131 members. It says were arrested. 14 remain imprisoned and some are on death row. And Sherriot said 114 of those arrested are unaccounted for for face prosecution, but have evaded arrest. And two were released under surveillance and the story goes on. So the deaths and arrests follow civilian protests in January, which you're very familiar with. Iran alive said the government killed. Now, this is this agency, this group. They say that the government killed roughly 40,000 to 50,000 people in the crack down.

5:12We've heard those numbers. We've heard some say even more. And I don't want to forget that that happened. I don't want to think about it, but we cannot forget that this government, this regime, these ideologically unhinged people who have a death wish and want to bring death to everybody else, they're killing their own people for writing up in protest. And a lot of it had been because of the economic uncertainties happening in the nation. Going back to this particular article, published estimates of the toll very widely from 3,000 by Iran's government to more than 36,000 documented by Iran international. So this organization says 40 to 50,000 Iran itself, the government says 3000. And then I ran it in national again, said 36,000 were killed. If it was one, it would be bad. But the fact that this is the numbers are so high is just awful.

6:15And I wanted to bring to your attention that Christians were being persecuted because we know the church has been growing there. And the government apparently has also banned religious broadcasts and starting in July, they made listening to them a crime. Mm-hmm, a crime. According to several groups that tracked persecution of Christians among them, open doors, US, which we've had on our show many times, open doors lists Iran at number 10 on its 2026 world watch list. That's their annual ranking of countries where Christians faced the most persecution. And they cite Islamic oppression and what it calls dictatorial paranoia. So despite the crackdown in Iran, many Muslims in Iran keep converting to Christianity. Or I would say that's an interesting way to say it. You only have to convert once. So that means many Muslims are converting.

7:15Marriott shared this gentleman from this organization, Iran Alive Ministries. He shared that 5,849 conversions were recorded by Iran alive this year alone, noting that the true number is likely far higher. Right. Because if you convert, that is going to cost you dearly, possibly your life, right? Marriott called the government's criminalization of Christianity a blessing. A blessing. Siding a Bible passage about people persecuted for righteousness and said being declared a criminal under Iranian law is an honor. Wow. Many Christians in Iran had hoped that President Donald Trump would help topple the government after the US went in, went to war against the country earlier this year. Before they believed in new government, right, might rise on its own. Every man who promised them to do something, they have let down, but Jesus hasn't.

8:19He emphasized. I don't remember the President promising that he would topple their government. In fact, I remember him saying, that's what you need to do to the people. And I think many of you know there was an attempt to get some weapons to the people and that fell through. I don't know what else is going on behind the scenes. But the people there do not want the leadership that they have. Going back to the Christians, apparently imprisoned Christians keep trying to convert other prisoners. Good for them. And I ran alive. Keeps broadcasting religious programming that people still hear this, according to this person, Sheriott. Christian prisoners consider prison as their place of ministry, he said. And they are leading many people to Christ, he said, adding that he has urged people to pray for the prisoners. Wow. The persecution reports came as the US announced a fresh round of sanctions on August 24th,

9:19which I mentioned Secretary Besant and the president has threatened an economic D day for the country. Again, why is that? Because they want to bring them to the table to finish this. And Iran is not playing ball. As you know, they keep violating their agreements. I ran alive, said inflation and Iran has reached at least 65%. I've actually read higher than that. And that two, let's see, two, three, three, okay, 233,000 jobs held by women have disappeared from the labor market. Huh? That's interesting. Only the jobs held by women. The industry has launched a trauma care program for the quarter of the population. It says suffrage from anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder. I bet. And the January protests have also led to a separate wave of executions unrelated to religion.

10:23And that was reported by Iran International earlier this month. At least 56 people have been executed in Iran on national security charges, which we know probably aren't legitimate. We've seen some of those stories and some of them are young people. It's so disturbing. And apparently 27 were linked to the unrest. And let's see more than 100 others face similar charges. So this, I will link you at the end. Well, actually you'll get this today with our little links that come out later. But this is disturbing. I want to remind you what I said at the beginning. I ran this killed at least 33 Christian ministers. So our fellow brothers and sisters are being persecuted there. Passers are being killed. And please keep that on your list of things to be praying about. We obviously want resolution to this.

11:23And it's not for me. It's not about just, let's just end the conflict. The conflict's been going on for 47 years. We know that going way back, unfortunately, the wrong people took over the nation and the Iranian people deserve a chance to have a real life. That's what I'm hoping for. And I don't know how this is going to happen. And I appreciate our administration trying to lean into economic sanctions and people, in other countries, putting pressure on other countries to stop trading with Iran and blocking, of course, their own sale of their oil. And all of that is being tried. It's very possible the U.S. could easily go in and wipe out the nation. That's not what the president wants. That's not what his cabinet wants. That's not what the people here want. We want their people to have a chance. So I really don't know how this is going to end. So having the back of my mind, the thought that while all this is taking place, Israel is behind the scenes trying to figure out a way to get rid of the leadership there.

12:27I know that sounds strange to say, but they are really good at precision assault as we have learned because they've already taken out layers and layers and layers of these wicked people. And that, if you can't talk to somebody, you can't change their thinking. If they're going to kill you, what do you do with them? It's just confusing, isn't it? And so I want the best biblical outcome. And I don't know what that is in God's plans, but I know that he cares about these people. And we need to be praying. You know, it's really exciting. There are some really vast prayer movements taking place on this very issue that I've been reading about. I'm very encouraged by the sheer numbers of people who are willing to pray for God's intervention and pray against really the strong man. And the prince of Persia and all the other things you hear, there's a lot of prayer going on. So that's really encouraging to me. So another story I wanted to bring to your attention, because this is not really related,

13:30but Christians around the globe have a very strong influence. And I was encouraged to see this. I'll just say this. I was encouraged to see this next story. And also questioning, how is this going to work? And basically, you remember USAID and the cuts that happened there, right? And after those cuts and after looking into a lot of fraud, a lot of craziness, in fact, I'll remind you in just a moment, apparently the Trump administration is now giving two billion dollars to Christian groups for global aid. And so the question wasn't, do we want to help people? The question was a lot of the money that supposedly is helping people is not actually getting to those people. Who do we trust to actually hand this money over and who has proven themselves to work with the US government on behalf of these other countries? Because there are a lot of people around the world who count on our health. So before I go into the details on where that money is going, I wanted to remind you,

14:36and you can find this at whitehouse.gov. This is where I go to get direct information because so much of it can be skewed. For decades, this is at USAID, Waste and Abuse runs deep. And this came out in February of 2025 when this conversation started. And here's just a short version of this. For decades, the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous and in many cases malicious pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats with next to no oversight. This is actually at the official site saying this. Here are a few examples of the Waste and Abuse. 1.5 million to advanced diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities. 70,000 for a production of a DEI musical in Ireland. That's a favorite. 2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam.

15:3947,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia. Now that's not the whole list. In fact, I'm going to come back to this list. I want to remind you that there were a lot of Democrats, and I'm not saying it's just them, but there were a lot of Democrats who were very involved in NGOs, quote unquote, where a lot of this money was funneled, and there were a lot of kickbacks. So you notice there was a lot of squealing when USAID started to be defunded. And there were reasons for the defunding because there was no accountability. So there's no accountability. The new money going out is going into the hands of Christian organizations that I will refer to in just a moment. I'm going to take a quick break when we come back. We'll give you more details. We'll be right back. Friends culture may change, but truth does not. Alliance defending freedom stands ready to protect every person's right to live and

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18:44for International Development, and is going to be handed to Christian organizations that have proven themselves for many years in helping other nations in healthcare and other situations. I wanted to remind you about the waste in the abuse. There was, oh, 32,000 that went to a transgender comic book in Peru. Wow. Two million for sex changes in LGBT activism in Guatemala. Six million to fund tourism in Egypt, seriously. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for nonprofits linked to designated terrorist organizations, even after an inspector general launched an investigation, by the way, millions went to check this out, eco-health alliance. Remember them? They were involved in research at the Wuhan lab. Hundreds of thousands of meals went to an al-Qaeda-affiliated fighter in Syria, funding to personalize contraceptive to birth control devices in developing countries. Wow.

19:45And a final, hundreds of millions of dollars to fund irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan. And all of that would benefit the Taliban. And do you wonder why the list goes on and on and on? Why they took the money away? Yeah, that's really not difficult, right? So this is what's interesting to me. The largest portion of the funding to 2 billion is expected to support about 2,500 faith-based hospitals and clinics and to train and pay tens of thousands of community health workers to provide health care services. Now that sounds promising. So they announced these plans to give close to 2 billion to faith-based and community groups for health and humanitarian assistance in more than a dozen countries. And this drew praise, as you can imagine, from groups receiving the funding and maybe

20:46some criticism from others who didn't receive the funding, I suppose. But the assistance, which comes after the administration's massive cuts to global support once offered by USAID, is part of the commitment's detailed in America's first global health strategy that was released by the State Department last September. It focuses on prioritizing American interests while promoting assistance in saving lives according to the administration, which is fantastic, right? How nice of us to do any of this. The largest portion of the funding, 1.4 billion, and I already mentioned it's going to those hospitals. The groups involved, some of them include World Vision, a very large Christian humanitarian organization, and a consortium of local faith-based groups there to receive an award for a faith and community initiative to provide health care services, totally up to about 850 million over five years.

21:46And of course, it's always subject to the availability of the funds. Quote unquote. In addition, 570 million is a year mark for community and faith-based hospitals. A chart in the 40-page strategy, excuse me, strategy report cited the influence on faith reach to Christian and Muslims by faith-based clinics and hospitals and 10 African nations. For example, faith-based providers represent over 50% of the delivery capacity in certain places, including Uganda, and about 40% in other countries. But apparently, funding for humanitarian assistance abroad does not appear to include any U.S.-based non-Christian groups. And even the American Jewish World Service organization apparently was a little bit bothered by that. I don't know what to say to that. But I would say if you're a Christian organization and you've proven yourself and you know what to do with money and you don't cheat, you don't give it away for some of those other woke initiatives, I guess you've proven that you can handle it, right?

22:51And of course, the administration has, they want to give money to reach the people in greatest need, including those who are invisible to conservative faith-based providers. And apparently, some people say that's not possible unless you include everybody. I'm just going to say if they have a good reputation, I suppose, that it works fine. Now, what's interesting here is this story changed a little bit because initially among the recipients, 538 million for humanitarian crisis assistance was going to go to Samaritans Purse. But as I was checking out the story, I actually investigated and apparently they have decided not to take the money. All right. So Samaritans Purse is apparently turning down 300 million from the State Department for humanitarian relief. Franklin Grant, one of President Trump's most stalwart evangelical allies, by the way, he didn't really offer any reasons for rejecting the federal funds, except that he did describe

23:55that they decided not to take it. I'm going to go into this article here just a little bit. So the US Department announced it planned to give them the money and it's funny how some articles read, but now those plans have hit a snake. Okay. Well, late last week Samaritans Purse, the Christian humanitarian relief organization that was supposed to receive 300 million, turned down the money and here's the reason. So this article says they didn't give a reason, but here's what they say then after that. They turned down the money saying it will rely on God and its private donors instead. Okay. That was the reason then. And then they go on. While we deeply appreciate the competence that the State Department is placed in Samaritans Purse, after prayer and discussion, we have withdrawn from being a recipient of these funds. Franklin Grant, President and CEO of Samaritans Purse, said in a statement on August 28th. So this just happened. Grant, one of President Trump's allies, as I mentioned, didn't offer any other reasons

24:59and noticed the language for rejecting the federal funds. It's kind of a negative twist here. I find that interesting. I think that for them, that was very wise. And they are used to getting the majority of their funds from, as he said, the church. And if you look at the budgets and how much of a percentage of a humanitarian money that they've received actually from the government, usually it's for a very specific incidence. Right. So if there's flooding or something that'll go immediately to that, but it's a very small percentage of their budget. And apparently they decided, no, we actually don't want to. Looking at from 20 to 24, I'm looking at their financial disclosures. The nonprofit received 296 million in government funding grants. And that's those four years. That's less than 5% of its budget, which averages more than a billion dollars a year, which probably you did not know. But think about what they do.

26:00They put a lot of supplies on planes and fly over the world and work with nationals that are on the ground in every major situation, every situation that happens. They are there and they do incredible work. So you know what? It's interesting. I know a lot of people say, well, if the money's there and the government has it, one of they give it to you. But you know, there are strings attached when the money comes from the government. People have asked me, why don't you take government money? And I just had someone tell me, hey, there's these grants available. You might want to consider it. And I know one of the reasons they don't. They don't want anyone to be able to tell them you can't share about Jesus. And so if that was the only reason, that would be enough for Samaritans purse. And I think that's good. They do incredible work. And so did these other organizations, by the way. So I think what's good is that they're putting the funds they need to use in the hands of people that they can trust. And I think that's a really good outcome and good for all these organizations that have proven themselves and good for Samaritans purse that made the decision not to take the money. That's how these things work.

27:01And we trust that God has blessed their leaders with insight in all situations to do the right thing for their organizations. Amen. Amen. Hey, be praying for Samaritans purse, by the way, because they're still very active in so much of what's going on in all around the world. And it looks like our time has come to a close. It's great to be with you. I trust you've had a great week looking at the weekend. It looks wonderful. So I hope and pray and trust that you will lean into God's design. And we'll see you next time. You've been listening to the Carriabit Show. If you'd like to listen again to today's episode or share it with a friend, simply go to the Legacy Institute.com. And remember, the Carriabit Show is made possible by donations from friends like you. And of course, our text is deductible. If you'd like to donate today, go to thelegacyinstitute.com or call 425-354-8517. That's thelegacyinstitute.com.