By Message Staff Christian leaders celebrated the release of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor who returned to the U.S. Oct. 13 after being held captive in Turkey for the past two years. Brunson, who had pastored a church in Turkey, was imprisoned in October 2016 and transferred to house arrest in July as he awaited a hearing. Domestic and international pressure mounted on Turkish officials as the Christian community claimed Brunson was wrongly imprisoned. A court in Turkey had charged him with espionage and undermining constitutional order of the state before finding him guilty of “terror.” Brunson was released for time served Oct. 12 and hours later boarded a plane for the US. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a former interim pastor of Greenwell Springs Baptist Church near Baton Rouge, a Louisiana representative and a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, was one of the key figures in securing Brunson’s release. “The prayers of thousands were answered today when Pastor Brunson was released by the Turkish government and told he could go home to the United States,” Perkins said in a Family Research Council’s news release. “Those prayers combined with the unwavering … [Read more...]