William Kilkpatrick: 'See No Islam, Hear No Islam'

New Catholic title on Apologetics omits any consideration of Christian witness to Muslims, or the impact of Islam on Christians.

See No Islam, Hear No Islam

by William Kilkpatrick, Turning Point Project, November 15, 2022

A significant omission in an otherwise good book.

The New Apologetics is a collection of 41 essays by noted Catholic apologists.

It’s a valuable book for those who are interested in spreading the Christian faith in a time of secularism and relativism, as well as for those who merely wish to deepen their own faith.

However, I do have one large caveat. None of the 41 essays deals with Islam. And that, to my mind, is a major omission. Although, The New Apologetics begins with a discussion of threats to Christianity—such as atheism, moral relativism, and scientific materialism—one of the biggest threats is ignored.

For example, the first essay discusses the “nones”—those who claim no religious affiliation. This group is expanding rapidly and it is pulling most of its membership away from Christian Churches. As their numbers increase, the number of those who identify as Christians declines.

I agree that the problem of the “nones” needs to be urgently addressed, but there is another category of “nones” that is equally important, but is absent from the pages of The New Apologetics. I am referring to all those Christians who are “nones” in the sense that none of them is any longer among the living because they have been killed by Muslims in the name of Allah. For example, in Nigeria alone, 18,000 people have been killed by Islamic terrorists in just the last two years (2020-2022). If the rest of Africa is added on, it’s now possible to speak of a Christian genocide in that continent.

Presumably, [Catholic apologists] don’t want to be put in a position where they might have to contradict the notion that Islam is a fellow Abrahamic religion that reveres Jesus and embraces the same values that Christians do.

The spread of Islam is not just a threat to Africans. Many other parts of the world are under the same threat. Because of the rapid increase in the Muslim population, even Europeans are now at risk of violence.

The essay on the “nones” makes much of the fact that in the U.S. between 1970 and the present, the number of “nones” has increased from three percent to twenty-five percent. But during an even shorter time frame, the percentage of Muslims in numerous European cities has increased by approximately the same amount. In Marseille, the second largest city in France, the percentage of Muslims is closer to 40 percent.

The essay points out that almost 40 percent of those under thirty in the U.S. are “nones”. But the same holds true in many of Europe’s major cities in regard to the Muslim population. According to Giulio Meotti, Islam is now the dominant religion among children in Birmingham, Leicester, Bradford, Luton, Slough and the London boroughs of Newham, Redbridge and Tower Hamlets.

Meanwhile, “Mohamed” has been one of the most popular names for baby boys in Europe for many years. Due to the high birth rate, there are now more Muslims at Friday services than Catholics at Sunday Mass in many cities in France and England.

If Islam really were the religion of peace that Catholic prelates and professors make it out to be, then the discrepancy in birth rates between Muslims and Christians might be no great cause for alarm. But rising crime rates among Muslims in Europe suggest that Islam is not a religion of peace but of aggression.

Raymond Ibrahim: 'Christmas Time: When the West Appeases and Islam Slaughters'

For the Christmas Season, and as we turn towards the New Year, it is time to review some recent posts to remind ourselves of 'inalienable truths' about Islam. First up, this sobering piece by Raymond Ibrahim:

Decapitated Santa — typical image disseminated by “extremists” around the Christmas season

Christmas Time: When the West Appeases and Islam Slaughters

by Raymond Ibrahim, 12/20/22, originally posted at The Stream

One of the most odious aspects of the so-called War on Christmas is Western appeasement of Muslim sensibilities.

Consider recent events in Sweden, where St. Lucia’s Day has been celebrated for centuries. According to Britannica: 

St. Lucia’s Day [is a] festival of lights celebrated in Sweden, Norway, and the Swedish-speaking areas of Finland on December 13 in honour of St. Lucia (St. Lucy). …The festival begins with a procession led by the St. Lucia designee, who is followed by young girls dressed in white and wearing lighted wreaths on their heads and boys dressed in white pajama-like costume singing traditional songs. The festival marks the beginning of the Christmas season in Scandinavia, and it is meant to bring hope and light during the darkest time of the year.

Not anymore. At least one school in Sweden has compromised the celebration in order to appease its Muslim students. According to a Dec. 10, 2022 Swedish report (English translation here),

Do you expect Santas, caroler and gingerbread men in the Lucia parade? Not at St Mary’s School (Mariehemsskolan) in Umeå. There it has been decided that the 40 or so children aged 7 to 10 who will take part in the Lucia procession will do so without the traditional elements of a Lucia celebration. The reason for this is Muslim children who dropped out of last year’s celebration because their parents were uncomfortable with the connection between the celebration and Christmas….  The children will also not sing the traditional Lucia songs. The choir director says that many children have been excluded over the years because Swedish schools focused so much on the Lucia festival and it was “so incredibly traditionally Christian.”

Note how the choir director makes it seem that Muslim children were “excluded,” when in fact they, or rather their parents, were the ones who chose exclusion.

Now rid of any distinctly Christmas/Christian trappings, St. Mary’s school posted a picture of one of its recent and highly “watered-down” Lucia rehearsals—boasting a very young Muslim girl dressed in full black hijab.

Such is Islam’s ongoing “contribution” to Sweden.  Since that Scandinavian nation opened its door to multiculturalism and migration—the overwhelming majority of which has been Muslim—violent crimes have increased by 300% and rapes by 1,472%.  (These figures are based on a 2015 report; as Muslim migration has continued to soar over the last nearly eight years, these stats have likely gotten worse.)

Aside from bringing an exponential rise in mayhem, the growing Muslim population is, as this recent development attests, also slowly but surely erasing—“canceling”—Sweden’s indigenous culture and former Christian heritage.  In this case, however, their success is entirely predicated on Sweden’s willing cooperation.

Sweden, of course, is symbolic of the West in general. Expressions of Christmas, particularly the Nativity scene, are being suppressed all throughout the West to appease Muslims. A few examples come from the UK (here and here), Italy (here and here), Germany (here and here), and Belgium (here and here).

In New York City, beginning as far back as 2002, public schools were allowed to display the religious symbols of all religions—including the star and crescent of Islam—except for Christianity, with a particular emphasis on banning the Nativity scene.

New Blog & Website on the Veneration of Fr. Seraphim Rose

At Blessed Father Seraphim's monastic cell, 2018.

For many years I have been maintaining here on the Facing Islam blog a resource page on Father Seraphim Rose of blessed memory. 

Growing out of that longstanding labor of love, for the past few years it has been my desire to create a new platform solely dedicated to advancing The Veneration of Blessed Father Seraphim, and gathering materials on his life, teachings, legacy, and significance for us today. This year being the 40th anniversary of his repose in the Lord on September 2, 1982, it seemed like the perfect time to launch this new website.

To begin with, I have posted an original article of mine titled, 'The Veneration of Father Seraphim Rose', which I originally wrote several years ago and updated recently, which tracks the global veneration of Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim from his death up to the present day.

In addition, there are three main pages on this new site:

• Akathist - which presents info on and link to order in booklet form an Akathist to Blessed Father Seraphim. This Akathist was retrieved online in 2006, but the site was subsequently taken down, and rather than just repost the Akathist, I took it upon myself to edit the text for spelling, grammar, and consistent use of pronouns, and offer it in booklet form. This is the 3rd edition, newly updated for 2022.

• Videos - A growing list of links to online videos about Father Seraphim, or presenting his writings and teachings. Many of these are recordings of him delivering his talks.

• Resources & Links - A growing list of resources which I intend to update regularly.

I invite you to explore this new site, and to share it widely. 

It is my strongly held opinion that Father Seraphim Rose is a true saint for our age. His battle against the passions (including sexual passions, and even same-sex desires), his deep repentance and strict asceticism, his warnings against lukewarm Christianity, relativism, ecumenism, and what he called "the religion of the future, the religion of Antichrist," makes him a prophetic voice and a towering figure for our time. His emphasis on learning about and entering into the mystery of "suffering Orthodoxy," acquiring the warmth of "Orthodoxy of the Heart," on preserving the true "savor of Orthodoxy," and his example as a dedicated and self-sacrificing monastic of these last days, always interceding for and helping others with "pain of heart," reveal him as a true and trustworthy witness of authentic, kenotic Orthodoxy, one who followed Christ by picking up and carrying his own cross, and by loving Christ and his neighbor unto the very end.

Let us turn to him even and especially now in this late hour, and ask his intercessions for us. And let us strive with whatever strength, mercy and grace the good Lord gives us to persevere through these trials which are coming upon the entire world.

O Holy Father Seraphim, pray to God for us!

Amen!

NEW BOOK BY RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam

New title by scholar and historian Raymond Ibrahim presents "vivid and dramatic profiles of eight extraordinary warriors—some saints, some sinners—who defended the Christian West against Islamic invasions."

"Discover the real Count Dracula, Spain’s El Cid, England’s Richard Lionheart, and many other historical figures, whose true and original claim to fame revolved around their defiant stance against jihadist aggression. An instructive and inspiring read; whereas Sword and Scimitar revolved around decisive battles, Defenders of the West revolves around decisive men." (From the publisher's description.)

I saw the announcement of this title (just published in late July) while traveling earlier this year, and have just now purchased the Kindle edition and begun to read it. The publisher's blurb and the solid but reserved Foreword by Victor Davis Hanson don't even begin to do it justice. 

Ibrahim's Introduction positively crackles with intelligence and energy, and advances with a certain intensity — even ferocity — his warnings about Islam, as well as his warnings concerning the ever weakening postmodern, post-Christian West, which in spite of its superiority in force over the Islamic world, nevertheless is feeble in its belief in and defense of its own heritage, purpose and future. This is a major book with many lessons for us, won at great cost by valiant figures of our culture's past.

The below review by Mark Tapson frames this important new work in vigorous and appropriate terms.

Order Raymond Ibrahim’s Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam HERE.

Learn more about Raymond Ibrahim's writing and sign up for his regular posts HERE.

Defenders of the West

Raymond Ibrahim profiles eight heroes in the clash of civilizations.

by Mark Tapson, FrontPage Mag, July 28, 2022

Historiography has been dominated in recent decades almost exclusively by leftists determined to take a wrecking ball to the glorious edifice of Western civilization in the name of social justice and multiculturalism. New York Times propagandist Nikole Hannah-Jones of the widely-debunked but nonetheless influential 1619 Project comes to mind. The coordinated mission of such activists has been to pervert and subvert the grand narrative of our culture into a sordid tale of oppression, exploitation, and white supremacy, and to brand all our flawed heroes as racists and knock them off their pedestals, both figuratively and literally.

This is one reason why the new book Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam, by historian Raymond Ibrahim... is such a refreshing, even thrilling read. As if the title alone weren’t guaranteed to inflame Progressive sensibilities, the book is unabashedly dedicated to “all the Past, Present, and Future Defenders of that which is Good, Right, and True.” Standing up for the Good, the Right, and the True (capitalized, no less) in our postmodern, post-Christian era? That’s a bold, increasingly rare position for any historian and publisher (Bombardier Books, in this case) to take today.

Defenders is a sort of follow-up to Ibrahim’s essential 2018 book Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. That book centered on decisive battles in the clash of civilizations, while the newer one zeroes in on the profiles of eight decisive men in that ongoing conflict, between the 11^th and 15^th centuries, from Spain’s El Cid and England’s Richard Lionheart to lesser-known but no less heroic figures such as France’s Saint Louis and the “Albanian Braveheart” Skanderbeg.

Announcing a New Book from Robert Spencer

 

NEW! From Uncut Mountain Press

Available in paperback and eBook formats

The Church and the Pope

The Case for Orthodoxy

by Robert Spencer

OVERVIEW

Today, the place and authority of the bishop of Rome in the first millennium has become a matter of great interest and importance not only for the official dialogue but for all serious seekers of the true Church. One such seeker is the prolific New York Times Bestselling Author Robert Spencer, who applied his analytical acumen to a thorough examination of The Church & The Pope.

From the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers through the Oecumenical Councils and the filioque controversy in the time of St. Photios the Great, on up to the Great Schism, all of the “flash points” of church history indicate the same conciliar nature of the Church as witnessed in Acts: “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.”

The whole “cloud of witnesses” give testimony to the truth of the Church vis-a-vis the post-schism papal claims: the Apostle Peter himself and the choir of the Apostles, St. Clement of Rome, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp of Smyrna, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Athanasius the Great, St. John Chrysostom, Blessed Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Photios the Great and others.

Viewing the life and nature of the Church throughout the first millennium through the spiritual vision of these great saints, Spencer first walked, and now walks us, out of the weeds of innovation and division and back into the garden of the Church Fathers where unity and continuity shine.

Full info and online ordering...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-three books including two New York Times bestsellers. Spencer is a regular columnist for PJ Media and FrontPage Magazine and has written hundreds of articles about Islam and other issues. He is also a regular on major news media outlets and speaker at universities across America.

DETAILS

First published: July 2022

Length (softcover): 112 pages

Size (softcover): 6 x 9 inches

ISBN (softcover): 978-1-63941-005-7

Fr. Alexey Young - On the New Martyrs under the Turkish Muslim Yoke

On the third Sunday after Pentecost, the Church honors the memory of the Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke. The following article is condensed from a lecture delivered at the St. Herman Summer Pilgrimage, Platina CA, August, 1982, and first printed in Orthodox America.

'Where are the Mighty of the Earth?' - Sunday of the New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke

by Fr Alexey Young

OrthoChristian.com

On May 29, 1453, the troops of the Moslem leader, Mohammed II took the great city of Constantinople. For more than 1000 years Orthodox Christians had assumed that the Byzantine Christian Empire would stand until the Second Coming of Christ. They had always called their city the “God-protected City,” and indeed, until now it had been protected by Heaven. But when their Emperor, Constantine XI, fell in battle, the holy city of Byzantium became the capital of a new empire, the Ottoman Empire, ruled by a pagan people, enemies of Christ and Christianity, the Moslems. It was a dark, dark time for Orthodox Christians in that part of the world.

In their violent hatred of Christianity, the Moslem Turks embarked on a course of persecution designed to effectively muzzle the flock of Christ. Their strategy was no less cruel than that of atheist communists in the Soviet Union; the parallels are striking. Most of the churches of Constantinople (whose name was changed to Istanbul, just as years later Petersburg was changed to Leningrad) were converted to mosques. Their movable icons were destroyed and whole walls of inspiring and radiantly beautiful mosaics were covered with paint or plaster. Crosses were torn off domes and broken off the roofs of churches. The Moslems guaranteed Christians a definite place in Turkish society; but it was a place of guaranteed inferiority. Orthodox Christians were required to pay an annual head tax, like cattle. To the Turks they were unbelievers, and they had absolutely no rights of citizenship. They even had to wear distinctive dress. They could not marry Moslems, nor could they engage in missionary work of any kind; in fact, it was a crime, usually punishable by death, to convert a Moslem to the Christian Faith.

As if these measures were not enough, the Moslems actively undertook to control the Church itself. The Sultan ironically considered himself the “protector” of Orthodoxy, supposedly guaranteeing the existence of the Church, but actually keeping it in the vise of a terrible stranglehold. Under this system each Patriarch had to pay a stiff fee to the Sultan before he could be enthroned. Unable to raise the funds himself, the Patriarch was forced to exact a fee from each new bishop before installing him in his diocese, and this burden was eventually placed on the flocks. Taking advantage of this financially lucrative situation, the Turks forced re-elections of the Patriarch with undue rapidity. The majority of the Sultans themselves were sick, demon-ridden men, whose irrational rule and unbridled power only heightened the already demoralizing effect of Turkish rule on the Church. It is not without reason that an Englishman living in Istanbul in the seventeenth century wrote these words: “Every good Christian ought with sadness to consider and with compassion to behold this once glorious Church tearing and rending out her bowels and giving them as food to vultures and ravens."

The aim of Orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire became, simply, one of survival. Little could they know, in 1453, that the heavy sword of Islam would weigh upon them not for a generation or two, but for five hundred years, five long centuries of darkness and difficulty. But even under such ruinous circumstances, God did not allow the light of Christianity to be extinguished. It was kept alive through the courageous confession of the New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke.

Raymond Ibrahim: 'The Black Lives that Don’t Matter: 50 Christians Murdered in Their Church'

Muslims persecute Christians globally and commit genocide in Nigeria, but the West, including western Christians, are silent.


The Black Lives that Don’t Matter: 50 Christians Murdered in Their Church

by Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone Institute, June 12, 2022





Last Sunday, June 5, 2022, Islamic terrorists stormed the St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo, Nigeria, and massacred more than 50 Christians who were otherwise peacefully worshipping their God. Videos, according to one report, “showed church worshippers lying in pools of blood while people around them wailed.”

As terrible as this massacre might seem, it is just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg”: over the years, Muslims have assaulted, shot up, or torched countless churches in Nigeria. Below are just three other examples:

• Easter Sunday, Apr. 20, 2014: Islamic terrorists torched a packed church; 150 Christians were killed and countless injured.

• Easter Sunday, Apr. 8, 2012: explosives planted by Muslims detonated near two packed churches; more than 50 Christians were killed and unknown numbers injured.

• Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2011: Muslim terrorists shot up and bombed three churches; 37 Christians were killed, 57 injured.

The Christians of Nigeria are, in fact, being purged in a genocide, according to several NGOs (here and here, for instance). One Christian is killed every two hours in Nigeria. According to an August 2021 report, since the Islamic insurgency began in earnest in July 2009— first at the hands of the Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram, and later by Fulani, Muslim herdsmen, also motivated by jihadist ideology to seize Christian (“infidel”) land—more than 60,000 Christians have either been murdered during raids, or abducted, never to be seen again. During this same timeframe, approximately 20,000 churches and Christian schools were torched and destroyed by “Allahu Akbar” screaming Muslims.

Remembering New-Martyr Fr. Ragheed Ganni of Iraq

Here is a much needed reflection on one of the new 21st century Christian martyrs under the sword of Islam. Providing such contextual insight as the below paragraph, this article is very helpful in understanding how America's Middle East policy sometimes bears direct responsibility for Muslim persecution of Christians:

 

Father Ragheed knew very well what most Americans, even policymakers, did not: that Christians in the Muslim-majority Middle East are often seen as sympathetic to the West, and therefore untrustworthy; in a war, they might be regarded as fellow travelers or spies. The American invasion immediately imperiled Iraq’s Christians, who numbered over a million people in 2003. In the years that followed, many Iraqi Christians and other minorities sought asylum in the United States, the country whose invasion had given rise to their persecution. The Bush administration, however, denied Christian claims of persecution as unfounded. Many were turned away as a result. Thus it is to incur at once the enmity of one’s neighbors and the indifference of one’s liberators.

For more on this heroic confessor and witness for Christ, see my previous post here.

A Martyr In Iraq

Remembering Father Ragheed Ganni, who was murdered 15 years ago today in Iraq.

by Andrew Doran, The American Conservative

June 3, 2022

“A martyr, a saint, is always made by the design of God, for His love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to His ways. A martyrdom is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, not lost it but found it, for he has found freedom in submission to God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of martyrdom.” – T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

On an evening in March 2003, a dinner of Catholic priests, seminarians, and graduate theology students at the Irish College in Rome was interrupted with the announcement that the U.S. ground invasion of Iraq had begun. The few non-Irish present included Shena, an American woman, and Father Ragheed Ganni, a Chaldean priest from Mosul, ancient Nineveh. Both were students at the Angelicum, a Dominican institute founded in the thirteenth century. All eyes turned to the stunned Fr. Ragheed, who said simply, “I have to return home.”

“It was my country at war with his,” says Shena, “which was awful.” Now a mother of six in America, she recalls Father Ragheed as “a lovely, peaceful man.” He would explain with care and patience the complexity of the region to outsiders, especially Americans. “It would have been easy, and perhaps good politics, for him to have remained silent about the Iraq War,” she says nearly two decades later. She recalls how he gently defended the traditional culture of the Muslim-majority Middle East, of which Westerners were frequently critical. It wasn’t his way to debate with brusqueness but to simply hold the ground he had staked out on behalf of his beliefs.

It would also have been easy for him to remain in Rome or to join the exodus of his people from Iraq. Instead, Father Ragheed chose to return to his home, Mosul, which would soon become one of the most perilous places in the world to be a Christian.

New Martyr Evgeny of Chechnya (+1996) commemorated on May 23

Hieromonk Joshua shared the following on his Facebook feed today, reminding us of this valiant Confessor of Christ, who refused to remove his Cross which he wore, and refused to deny Christ, preferring to die as a Witness (Martyr) for Jesus Christ, and thus inherit eternal life and a crown of glory.

For more on New Martyr Evgeny, see my earlier post here.