TULSA, Oklahoma -

A Tulsa County man is suing First Presbyterian Church of Tulsa and its pastor, blaming them for publicizing his conversion from Islam to Christianity which he claims led to him being tortured when he visited Syria.

The man is referred to as John Doe in court documents because his attorneyssay using his real name would expose him to physical harm or even death.

According to the suit, which was filed on June 9, 2014, the plaintiff moved to the United Statesat about the time he became an adult. Hehas completed all the requirements to become a United Statecitizen except for taking the oath of citizenship, which he will do as soon as his adopted country schedules it,the suit says.

10/21/2014: Related Story: Tulsa's First Presbyterian Church Begins $33 Million Construction Project

The plaintiff says hebecame involved in the Christianfaith at First Presbyterian Church which led to his decision toconvert to Christianity. The suit claims he discussed his decision with the leadership of the church, including pastor Dr. Jim Miller. It also claims they discussed at length the need for his conversion to remain confidential, becauseSharia law calls for the death of anyone who converts to another religion from Islam.

The plaintiff says he agreed to be baptized on December 30, 2012 only after being assured by the defendants that his baptism would be kept private. He was scheduled to fly to Syria that same day and claims in his lawsuit that the defendants knew that.

First Presbyterian Church published the news of his baptism on January 6, 2013, according to the suit. The suit claims two church leaders told him they were "horrified" that the church had published the announcement and promised to remove it, but the plaintiff says they did not do so until April of 2014.

The plaintiff says he was in Damascus, Syria in mid-January of 2013 when he was confronted by radical Muslims who told him they'd read about his conversion to Christianity on the internet. Even though he denied it, the accusers tiedand blindfolded him and told him they were going to carry out the death sentence.

He was bound, beaten and forced to spend up to 18 hours a day in a 55-gallon "electrified drum," he claims in the suit. He says he was periodically taken out andtortured and his captors told him he was going to be beheaded.

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Muslim Who Converted To Christianity Sues Tulsa Church After Torture In Syria

By KATY DAIGLE Associated Press

NEW DELHI (AP) - Forty Indian citizens working for a Turkish construction company near the Iraqi town of Mosul have been kidnapped, India's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said there had been no contact with the kidnappers, and no ransom demand had been received. Over the past week, militants have overrun Mosul and seized wide swathes of territory as they stormed toward the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

It was not immediately clear when the Indian workers were abducted. Akbaruddin said they were mostly from northern Indian states including Punjab, and had been working for the Tariq Noor al-Huda construction company in Iraq.

Relatives in the Punjabi city of Amritsar said they had received phone calls from some of the Indian workers on Sunday, five days after Mosul was captured.

Gurprender Kaur said her brother called and told her the workers were alone, in trouble and needed help. She did not give any further details about that call on Sunday, or say when she had last heard from him.

Another woman cried and clutched a family photograph as she spoke with Indian journalists in Amritsar about her missing son.

"Our children are in trouble. We want them back safe and sound," Ranjeet Kaur told Indian TV news agency NNIS. "We want the government to help us."

There are about 10,000 Indian citizens working and living in Iraq, but only about 100 are in violent, insecure areas, Foreign Ministry spokesman Akbaruddin said.

That includes 46 Indian nurses working in a hospital in the Iraqi town of Tikrit, but Akbaruddin said humanitarian organizations had been in touch with them and they were all safe.

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40 Indian construction workers kidnapped in Iraq

ENID, Okla. There was no music, no sermon and no one at Enid First Church of the Nazarene on Sunday morning.

We didnt go to church this morning, Pastor Bruce Johnson said. Ive been preaching to my people about being the church and loving on people, doing acts of kindness. So thats what we did today, instead of going to church and sitting in a building.

The whole emphasis was dont go to church, go put your faith into action.

Approximately 130 church attendees headed to a neighborhood in east Enid to clean up debris from yards, mow eight lawns, clean out a window air conditioning unit and scrape, prime and paint a house.

Johnson said the church also served a free lunch and held a church service for the community at Garfield Elementary School.

Some church members went to a local nursing home, where they held a church service and served communion.

The church started the Garfield Neighborhood Initiative almost four years ago, after the construction of Garfield Elementary School was announced, Johnson said.

We went into the neighborhood and helped them start to clean up their neighborhood and prepare for that new school, he said.

While the church had been working in the neighborhood for nearly four years, the initiative had kind of died down in the past year, Johnson said.

Sunday was a kick-off day to get the initiative going again, he said.

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Church helps residents in east Enid

WASHINGTON The U.S. Presbyterian Church has voted to divest its financial holdings from three American companies doing business in parts of Israel considered by Palestinians to be occupied territory.

The governing General Assembly voted Friday 310-303 to remove holdings in Caterpillar Inc., Hewlett-Packard and Motorola from the churchs portfolio of investments, according to a statement posted on its Web site.

Though largely symbolic, the decision comes amid building pressure on other churches, companies, organizations, universities and others by the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement, known as BDS.

The statement said the Assembly members included a preface to its resolution saying the church was committed to peace in Israel and Palestine."

We recognize the complexity of the issues, the decades-long struggle, the pain suffered and inflicted by policies and practices of both the Israeli government and Palestinian entities. We further acknowledge and confess our own complicity in both the historic and current suffering of Israeli and Palestinian yearning for justice and reconciliation, the resolution stated.

The resolution explicitly noted that the vote does not mean an alignment with the overall strategy of the global BDS movement.

That movement, started by Palestinian groups almost a decade ago, seeks to put financial pressure on Israel to reach accommodation with Palestinians on the status of refugees, territories in the West Bank and a comprehensive peace deal.

The church, which reportedly holds about $21 million in investments in the three companies, held a similar vote two years ago that failed. In addition to supporters of the divestment, this years vote had attracted intense lobbying from Jewish groups.

Israel's reaction

In a statement posted Friday night on its Facebook page, the Israeli Embassy in Washington called the resolution "shameful."

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US Presbyterian Church to Divest from Israeli-Linked Investments

Ceremonial ground-breaking at First Presbyterian scheduled for June 29

On Sunday, June 29 at 12:15 p.m. First Presbyterian Church, 725 Steubenville Ave., will hold a ceremonial ground breaking on the steps of the church, which was destroyed by the big wind on June 29, 2012.

Everyone is invited to share this step forward with our congregation.

Please keep us in your prayers as we move on toward construction.

Revival service at North Salem Community Church begins Sunday

Kingdom Partners Revival Service will be at North Salem Community Church at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, June 22. Everyone welcome.

Bishop Monforton to visit church and Open Arms Pregnancy Center

Bishop Jeffrey Monforton of the Steubenville Catholic Diocese will visit the newly re-opened Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Lore City at the 12:15 p.m. Sunday Mass, and the Open Arms Pregnancy Center, 141 S. 11th St., in Cambridge, at 6:30 p.m. June 26, to bless the church and the new ultrasound machine at the Center.

Everyone is welcome.

VBS 'Journey to India' begins Monday at First Christian Church

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Church events and news in the Cambridge area

With a joyful cry, Plainviews Sacred Heart Catholic Church will celebrate a historic milestone as the parish marks its 50th Anniversary on June 22.

The jubilee will start with an 11a.m. mass celebrated by Bishop Plcido Rodrguez, CMF, Father Arsenio Redulla, pastor of Sacred Heart, and visiting priests.

Following the monumental mass, parishioners will gather under tents for a banquet meal and fellowship at Sacred Heart located at the corner of 29th and Columbia streets.

The growth of the Plainview parish was guided by the long pastorate of Monsignor Fred Hyland, who founded the parish together with energetic and dedicated laity a half century ago.

From the small seed they planted, grew a great tree. This tree has many branches, which extended in various organizations branching out within our Parish, said Father Redulla.

The feeling was shared across the local catholic hierarchy.

This Golden Jubilee allows the chance to appreciate the past and to create another foundation for the future of the catholic community of Plainview, said Bishop Rodriquez of the Lubbock Dioceses.

Plainviews parish church stands as a testament to the hard work of a small congregation and its ability to endure the many challenges that have faced it over its history.

Cooperation meant collaboration at the beginning of Sacred Heart Churchs history when excessive rains in 1959 caused a flash flood that inundated Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, located in Plainviews Barrio neighborhood.

The areas of society affected by segregation included the residential areas in the Barrio, said 86-year-old Davis Horne, a local farmer and Catholic convert, who helped with the cleanup after the flood.

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Plainview Sacred Heart Church celebrates 50 years

The family-owned church that stands in the way of the new soccer stadium has hired a law firm specializing in property rights to fight the city's attempt to take its land. (Video by FOX35)

The tiny family-owned church that stands in the way of Orlando's Major League Soccer stadium has hired a Jacksonville law firm specializing in property rights to fight the city's attempt to take its land.

City Hall filed an eminent domain action in court in 2013, after a year of failed negotiations to buy Faith Deliverance Temple. But news releases from the church's new attorney make it clear the city's attempt to take the property won't go unchallenged.

Attorney Andrew Prince Brigham said the city's action violates Florida's Constitution and state law because the land wouldn't be used for a legitimate public purpose.

"The City's proposed taking is not for a public purpose," Brigham said in a news release. "The City is simply a conduit for eminent domain to take from one private entity, a church, and transfer the use of the property to another private entity, a soccer franchise."

The announcement comes a day after Orlando City Soccer Club executives joined Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs to unveil details and renderings of the $110-million stadium. It's supposed to be built on two square blocks along West Church Street, but the church's property sits smack in the middle.

The city initially offered $1.5 million for the property more than twice the appraised value but church leaders said that wouldn't be enough to rebuild elsewhere, and countered with a selling price of $35 million. The city eventually raised its offer as high as $4 million and the church dropped its price as low $15 million, but the parties never came any closer to a deal.

The city's failure to acquire the property already has delayed the stadium's construction. The team initially planned to begin playing in the new facility during the 2015 MLS season, but uncertainty about the land prompted the decision to play the entire 2015 season in the Citrus Bowl.

The current plan is for the Orlando City Lions to start playing in the new stadium with its home-opener of the 2016 season, in March of that year. It's expected to take 14 to 15 months to build the stadium, so construction, ideally, would have to start before January 2015, Lions Chief Operating Officer Brett Lashbrook said.

Orlando officials say the soccer stadium would serve a public purpose.

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Attorney: Church will fight Orlando's attempt to take its land for stadium

DANVILLE The congregation of Living Faith Church of Danville wants to show their love for Hendricks County by serving the people here.

A mission team made up mostly of students will be available June 16 through 20 and they want to know how they can serve area residents.

The church is taking requests from anyone who may need help with yard work, light construction, painting, cleaning, manual labor or similar projects and just doesnt have the hands to do it themselves.

A church near Houston, Texas, is sending its youth group about 25 people on a 16-hour drive to Danville to help Living Faith Church serve the community. They are hoping to fill their mission week with service projects for people in the Danville community and surrounding area.

We want to make ourselves available that week to serve those in need in Danville, Jon Hearing, pastor at Living Faith Church of Danville said. We dont have anything specific in mind. Were expecting requests for help with things like yard work, painting, light construction, manual labor, etc. We will consider all requests. Once we receive the requests, we will decide what we are able to do, contact those people, and schedule a workday at that persons home or business. Then well bring the group of students, as well as some from our own church, and serve in that capacity during that week.

Living Faith Church of Danville is a new church meeting in an old church building. It sits on the hill at the corner of Sycamore and Money Lane and has been active and growing again for just over a year now.

Pastors Jon Hearing and Kevin Carpenter have set out to grow a church that values truth, relevance, family, and community.

Because were young and have newly (re)opened, we are considered a church plant and with that comes the benefit of having mission teams come and serve our church, Hearing said. Over the last year weve had three different mission teams from Kentucky and South Carolina come to Danville and serve alongside our church. Weve volunteered at Ellis Park, weve served at the many Danville festivals, and weve worked with organizations like Sycamore Services and Sheltering Wings.

We know that community is important in Danville and so community is important to us. We want to serve our community in as many ways as possible and were thrilled to see how we can serve them during our mission week.

All requests will be considered, but Danville residents will be given priority. To make a request, e-mail to jon@faith2live.com.

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Danville church to serve Hendricks County residents

Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Creston is planning construction of a new $400,000 rectory rerun rummage shop to be located directly north of St. Malachy School.

The Rev. Ken Halbur said $250,000 has been raised for the project, thusfar, including a $100,000 grant from a foundation remaining anonymous at this time. This new rerun will be 7,000 square feet with 4,000 feet of retail space for gently used clothing and household items.

The current rerun shop has been a wonderful benefit to the community for more than 25 years, Halbur said, and we plan to continue providing that benefit, but we need something thats more handicap accessible and more inviting to the Creston community. Its time.

The current rerun is located at 107 W. Howard St., directly east of Holy Spirit Catholic Church.

Halbur said the building was constructed more than 100 years ago as housing and eventually office space for Catholic priests. However, priests moved out in the 1980s, leaving the building vacant.

So, a group of volunteers from the Catholic church decided to start a rerun shop inside the house, selling various discounted items that would provide financial assistance to St. Malachy School.

Today, though, Halbur said the building has poor accessibility and needs several thousands of dollars in repairs.

Plus, its a house. Its just not designed to be a store, Halbur said.

Halbur added no decisions have been made regarding the fate of the current rectory rerun building, but its likely to be demolished and used for handicap accessible parking a strong need for the Catholic church.

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Catholic church to build $400K rerun shop

Mt. Ephraim Baptist Church has survived Charley, economic change

Owens Community, three miles southwest of Arcadia, was named for Owen Huggins Dishong, DeSoto Countys first sheriff and one of Mt. Ephraims charter members. He gave three acres of land for the construction of the church and the cemetery, where he is now buried.

The church was established in 1884the same year the Florida Baptist Witness published its first edition.

Circuit-rider Alderman Wilson conducted the first meeting on August 9, 1884, when charter members organized and selected a name for the church. The church first met in a log building called the Hayman School, and J.H. Hayman served as the first pastor. The churchs first building, constructed in 1888, was located across the street from the present sanctuary.

Kerosene lamps suspended from the ceiling replaced candles that were used for lighting in 1888. Before electricity came to the community, a gasoline-powered generator was installed that sometimes left the preacher preaching in twilight to total darkness, according to a church history written in 2010 by former member Bob Tuttle.

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Mt. Ephraim Baptist Church has survived Charley, economic change