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| President Obama advocates for Islam at terror-linked mosque, Feb. 2016. |
Three years ago, Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in for his second term as President of the United States. That same year — 2013 A.D. — marked the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., the historic guarantee of religious liberty to Christians by the Roman Empire.
Prior to the Emperor Constantine’s key role in forming the Edict’s stance of tolerance towards Christians, they had been persecuted for centuries for not honoring the Roman gods.
The Edict was of explicitly universal significance in the Empire, as it was agreed upon by both Constantine (who controlled the West) and Licinius (in the East) upon their meeting in Milan in February, 313A.D. Constantine was already more than favorably disposed towards the Christian Faith; the Edict therefore was a key step in his role as advocate and protector of the Church. Less than seventy years later, in 380 A.D., Christianity had become the official state religion of the Roman Empire under Theodosius I.
(Keep that in mind, you young folk, when by 2050 you start hearing talk of making Islam the state religion of the United States, following after Europe's lead in 2025.)
(Keep that in mind, you young folk, when by 2050 you start hearing talk of making Islam the state religion of the United States, following after Europe's lead in 2025.)
The Edict protected Christians’ rights to worship freely, organize, and to build churches, and it provided for the return of confiscated property to Christians. If the wording of these rights sounds familiar somehow, it may be because we see their explicit reversal under Islam, via the harsh and demeaning terms of the Conditions of Omar and the dhimma contract of ‘protection’, which forbids Christians from publicly displaying signs of their faith or worshipping openly, from building new churches or repairing existing ones, and requires payment of the crippling jizya tax, together with an assortment of other demeaning restrictions designed to sap the will and vibrancy of the Christian populace under Islamic rule.
Islam, beginning with Muhammad and the Koran, and further codified by the caliph Omar, offers three choices to conquered Christians: reject Christ and convert to Islam; if not that, accept second class status under Islamic rule and pay the jizya tax; if they refuse even that then it is death. Per the Koran and key hadiths about Muhammad:
Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth [i.e. Islam] among the people of the Book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. (Koran 9:29)
Muhammad said, “I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah.” (Bukhari, 1:2:25, also Sahih Muslim, Book of Faith, 1:10:29-35)
Islam’s demeaning treatment of conquered Christians thus abrogates the Edict of Milan, and specifically reverses and denies the rights conferred by that landmark Roman ruling.
Wherever Islam conquered by the sword — from the Christianized Levant, North Africa and the Iberian peninsula in the seventh century, to Constantinople, the Balkans, and Central Asia in the Ottoman period — this repeal of the Edict of Milan was forcefully applied. It was only in the nineteenth century with the rise of the Great European Powers that Islam’s dominance was blunted and eventually dismantled. The Ottoman Empire was eventually forced by Britain, France and Russia to legally grant equal rights to Christians in the Balkans (though this was applied inconsistently at best, and did nothing to prevent Muslim Turks from committing genocide against 4 million Christians from 1894 to 1923).
In his book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War Against Christians, Raymond Ibrahim details how, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and extending for over a hundred years, Western dominance had succeeded in restoring some measure of rights to Christians in Islamic territories. Now, with the violent rise of Islamist movements like the Islamic State Caliphate (ISIS, ISIL), the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabism, Salafism, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and the rest of their grisly gamut, we are seeing played out before our eyes the very extermination of Christians from their ancestral homelands.
While U.S. administrations have, for decades now, wrongheadedly sided with Muslim extremists to achieve various foreign policy goals, it is only under President Barack Hussein Obama that an explicitly pro-Islamist policy has been enacted.
From Obama’s open support of the Muslim Brotherhood early in his first term and during its brutal ascent to power in Egypt, to his inclusion in his administration of Brotherhood-linked officials, to his direct support of Al Qaeda-linked factions in Libya and Syria (which directly enabled the rise of ISIS), he has accomplished a polar shift in American foreign policy away from forces which embrace human rights, pluralism, and religious liberty for all people — liberal Western concepts which derive straight from Christian principles of tolerance, love of neighbor, and care for the downtrodden — and towards what can only be described as forces of evil, persecution and bloodlust.
From Obama’s open support of the Muslim Brotherhood early in his first term and during its brutal ascent to power in Egypt, to his inclusion in his administration of Brotherhood-linked officials, to his direct support of Al Qaeda-linked factions in Libya and Syria (which directly enabled the rise of ISIS), he has accomplished a polar shift in American foreign policy away from forces which embrace human rights, pluralism, and religious liberty for all people — liberal Western concepts which derive straight from Christian principles of tolerance, love of neighbor, and care for the downtrodden — and towards what can only be described as forces of evil, persecution and bloodlust.
In one of the most damning examples of this new American alliance with darkness, Secretary of State John Kerry once warned Nigeria’s government against infringing on the human rights of the murderous Boko Haram Islamist group, which has since allied itself with the Islamic State, and continues to slaughter Christians, destroying their homes, churches and villages. Similarly, the Obama administration gives preferential consideration to Muslim refugees, while slamming the door on Christians trying to flee the genocidal persecution of the Islamic State.
Moving far beyond the opportunistic, temporary alliances of past U.S. administrations with Muslim extremists, Obama grounds his support of the Islamists on appeals to their fundamental rights. But unlike the liberal Western notion of human rights (“my rights end where another’s begins”), the Islamists’ rights always supersede the rights of non-Muslims everywhere, and that is indeed their stated objective. Whether violent or stealthy, whether ISIS, Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi, Salafi, or Al Qaeda, their goal is always the institution of an Islamic state or caliphate, under which the sharia would rule, the Conditions of Omar would be applied to Christians, and the last vestiges of the Edict of Milan would finally be swept away. Obama’s support for these groups — whether secret or overt — is support for their objectives.
To those with eyes to see, Obama’s advocacy for Islam and advancing of preferred status for Muslims at the expense of persecuted Christians is a tectonic shift unlike any in the West in 1700 years.
Indeed, as Todd Starnes recently noted, "These past eight years, this president has been more an 'Apologist-in-Chief' for Islam than he has been a Commander-in-Chief' for the United States."
The aphorism of George Santayana comes to mind: "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." In today's geopolitical realm, there should be an ominous realization dawning upon all observers with a long view of history:
Indeed, as Todd Starnes recently noted, "These past eight years, this president has been more an 'Apologist-in-Chief' for Islam than he has been a Commander-in-Chief' for the United States."
The aphorism of George Santayana comes to mind: "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." In today's geopolitical realm, there should be an ominous realization dawning upon all observers with a long view of history:
As Constantine's growing affinity for and protection of Christianity in the early 4th century led to the Edict of Milan and the eventual elevation of Christianity as the state religion of Rome, so Obama's cherished affinity (since childhood) for Islam cannot but lead one to conclude that his chief goal seems to be the final and complete repudiation and abrogation of the Edict of Milan — the condemnation and dismantling of all things Christian — and the exaltation of Muslims and all things Islamic.
Put another way, Christian tradition holds that Constantine saw a vision of the Cross in the sky, with the words, “In this sign conquer.” (Christians today would likely take that message in a spiritual sense.) Obama, on the other hand, looks at the Cross and hears a command: “Conquer this sign.”
Of course, Obama's anti-Christian initiatives go way beyond his advocacy for Islam and Muslims. Given his advancement of all manner of perversions such as transgenderism, same-sex marriage and abortion on demand, plus his lawfare and legislative assault on Christian churches, organizations, businesses, and individuals to force us to accept and endorse these abominations, coupled with the cult of personality which surrounds him like an aura (children do pray to him, after all), it is difficult not to see Obama as an antichrist figure. (Still we are called to pray for him, with tears, I might add.)
Of course, Obama's anti-Christian initiatives go way beyond his advocacy for Islam and Muslims. Given his advancement of all manner of perversions such as transgenderism, same-sex marriage and abortion on demand, plus his lawfare and legislative assault on Christian churches, organizations, businesses, and individuals to force us to accept and endorse these abominations, coupled with the cult of personality which surrounds him like an aura (children do pray to him, after all), it is difficult not to see Obama as an antichrist figure. (Still we are called to pray for him, with tears, I might add.)
Not convinced? In April 2009, the White House had Georgetown University, a Roman Catholic institution, cover the Cross and the ‘IHS’ monogram of Jesus Christ before Obama’s speech there. But at his first visit as president to a mosque (terror-linked, with a homophobic imam) in Baltimore earlier this year, Obama spoke surrounded by arabic calligraphy from the Koran. By his words and policies and through such highly symbolic events, Obama has proven that he seeks to do far more than merely cover up the Cross. He seeks to conquer it, and replace it with the calligraphy of Allah.
By refusing to name the enemy — Islamic jihad — Obama reveals where his ultimate sympathies lie.