tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50067441697003211032024-03-13T03:23:24.895-04:00Facing Islam BlogAn Orthodox Christian Confronts the Religion of MuhammadZosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comBlogger2174125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-20224272548523372682023-11-21T15:10:00.003-05:002023-11-21T15:12:48.244-05:00Timothy R. Furnish: On Osama Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’<div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhYZ5pKiKSddhMeVq0fspyYHrHma6EUi6ZxkEBA5JRhnO9MOsmQEru_FoDvonAn4FQfAq3bwvv5KhbU79f8rLV01OkYGpLt48xivQk6oQ1Lcy7uCcaIYDjyhTQ4CzVlSz-7fLAB-aiXbo0iWHD1b6K6Thp_njsFjSH_cU5XrMeoOIs7pqORQL7MHEhnCGH/s380/face3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhYZ5pKiKSddhMeVq0fspyYHrHma6EUi6ZxkEBA5JRhnO9MOsmQEru_FoDvonAn4FQfAq3bwvv5KhbU79f8rLV01OkYGpLt48xivQk6oQ1Lcy7uCcaIYDjyhTQ4CzVlSz-7fLAB-aiXbo0iWHD1b6K6Thp_njsFjSH_cU5XrMeoOIs7pqORQL7MHEhnCGH/s16000/face3.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b>Tim Furnish pens a sober critique of Osama bin Laden's 'Letter to America', and reveals how OBL's western supporters don't realize what they're cheering for. </b></div><br /><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">A Letter to My Sons And Their College Classmates on Osama Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’<br /></span></b><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>Or, Why My Sons Won't Buy TikTok's Bin Laden Worship<br /></i></b></span><br />By <a href="https://stream.org/author/timothy-furnish/">TIMOTHY FURNISH</a> , <a href="https://stream.org/why-my-sons-wont-buy-tiktoks-bin-laden-worship/" target="_blank">The Stream</a><div>Published on November 21, 2023<br /><a href="https://stream.org/author/timothy-furnish/"></a><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">To my sons (and their fellow college students):<br /></span></b><br />By now you’ll have seen <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/osama-bin-laden-s-letter-to-america-transcript-in-full/ar-AA1k5Cx3">Osama Bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America</a>” being <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/11/17/useful-idiots-resurrect-bin-ladens-anti-american-propaganda-tiktok/">promoted on TikTok</a>. I don’t use that platform, so I learned of it from news stories. This morning I watched some TikTokers’ responses. Then I re-read OBL’s dispatch. Allow me to share my reactions to both.</div><div><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">TikTokers’ Takes<br /></span></b><br />The clips I saw were the ones posted on X by Yashar Ali on November 15, 7:08 PM. A blonde woman led off, saying she was “ashamed” she’d never known of or read UBL’s letter before now. It left her “disillusioned,” feeling the same way she did when “deconstructing Christianity.” Like all the other TikTokers, she recommended everyone read it.<br /><br />Next up was a black woman who said UBL’s words caused her an “existential crisis.” And that after reading it she “would never look at life the same way again.” Her entire worldview “changed in the last 20 minutes.”<br /><br />Another black woman followed, expressing much the same sentiments. Then a wild-haired white man raged against “settler colonialism.” And how anyone resisting it was deemed a terrorist. The next TikTokker was another black woman. She dropped numerous f-bombs, then ended with blaming the mass murders of 9/11 on “our nation” having “failed other nations.” And said that UBL showed her how “deeply propaganda is embedded in our DNA.”<br /><br />Another black woman simply recommended, between deep sighs, that everyone “go read it.” A pensive white woman was then shown, with the label “mood since reading Osama’s ‘Letter to America:’ rethinking things I grew up learning.” A black man then declaimed, simply, “I read Osama bin Laden’s letter to America.”<br /><br />Then a Muslim woman appeared. “The way this letter is going viral right now is giving me the greatest sense of relief.” Also, “if you’re Muslim and you’ve lived in the US since 9/11, you know more truth than the typical citizen.” The last clip was of another white woman, under the heading “you just read Bin Laden’s letter to America and notice the media is trying to bury it.”<br /><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Why Race Matters Here<br /></span></b><br />Why did I note the races of these OBL enthusiasts? Remember, one of you asked me recently why college professors obsess about race. I told you that it’s because so many of them are so far left. And such Marxists have replaced class struggle with race conflict. Which they have turned into a global issue, not just an American one.<br /><br />And the biggest component of that is their “<a href="https://www.reutgroup.org/_files/ugd/7c17af_60dcdb09b8a14f488920795a3d370e42.pdf">Red-Green Alliance,</a>” Marxists allying with Muslims, both here (mainly in universities) and abroad. Although the former would be promptly dispatched, legally and probably literally, if the latter took power. So the professors pretend that isn’t true. And their students never learn any different. But trotting out a diverse cast of sympathetic TikTokers is part of the “progressive” plan in this regard. Differing skin hues cover over a multitude of Marxist-Muslim cognitive dissonance.<br /><br />So are these al-Qaeda admirers on to something? Has the West really been ignoring OBL’s pearls of wisdom for two decades? Let’s take a look.<br /><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Leading, and Closing, With the Quran<br /></span></b><br />First, note that OBL opens and closes with Quranic passages. Five of them mandate fighting against “disbelievers.” The other three predict the victory of Islam over all other religions, via “martyrdom.” Which actually means dying to kill others, not the Christian idea of accepting death in the name of Christ. I wonder why TikToker #1 can’t deconstruct Islam, as she says she did Christianity. OBL then gives his version of why “we are fighting and opposing you.” Followed by “what do we want from you?”<br /><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Muslims Are the New Jews?<br /></span></b><br />According to him, Palestine was given to the Jews by Britain. And “the creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased.” The Jews’ “historical right to Palestine” is based on “fabricated lies.” (Even though the <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-occupation-of-canaan-1250-1050-bce">Israelites were there by the late second millennium B.C</a>.) In fact, Muslims as “the inheritors of Moses” and of “the real Torah” have the right to Palestine — especially since they conquered it from the Romans (the Byzantine Empire, that is). Might thus makes right, in this view. Not very progressive, is it, TikTokers?<div><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Muslims as Global Victims<br /></span></b><br />OBL then lists the places where, 21 years ago, Muslims were being “attacked.” Somalia, Chechnya, Kashmir, Lebanon. I doubt TikTokers could find any of those places on a map. Nor Israel. Much less the Gaza Strip. I’ve taught college world history, Middle East history, and geography. Most of my students knew nothing of Middle East geography or history before taking my classes.<br /><br />How much less would students know if they were stuck with professors who sacrifice actual regional knowledge on the process altar of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion?” Both of you, my sons, have been inoculated against the DEI virus, by your mother and me. But not everyone has.</div><div><br /><b><span style="font-size: medium;">About Islamic Law…<br /></span></b><br />“The governments of our countries which act as your agents … prevent our people from establishing the Islamic Shariah.” One major aspect of “the Islamic Sharia” is the death penalty for homosexuality. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/14/countries-where-being-gay-is-legally-punishable-by-death/39574685/">Thirteen Islamic countries currently mandate death for being gay or lesbian</a>. Maybe that “settler colonialism” isn’t as bad as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/what-hamas-wants-israel/675648/">what Hamas wants</a> — which is to kill all Israelis, gay or straight. And to kill any Palestinian homosexuals. (The Conquistadors practiced “settler colonialism,” which did stop the Aztecs’ mass human sacrifice.)<br /><br />Shariah also has other appalling aspects. Corporal punishment (whipping, amputation) for theft. Stoning for adultery. Death penalty for “leaving Islam.” And large majorities in many Muslim countries <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/">support these laws</a>. I doubt history or religion professors at either of your universities even mention any of that.<br /><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">America Actually Helps the Muslim World<br /></span></b><br />OBL claims that the U.S. does nothing but oppress Muslim countries. Really?</div><div><br />Since WWII America has sent <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46344">close to $400 billion in aid to MENA</a> (Middle East & North Africa) countries. That doesn’t include the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/8/16/the-us-spent-2-trillion-in-afghanistan-and-for-what">$2.2 TRILLION expended in Afghanistan</a> to free it from the Taliban and build infrastructure. (Fruitlessly, as it turned out.) Seven of America’s <a href="https://concernusa.org/news/foreign-aid-by-country/">top foreign aid recipients in 2022</a> were Muslim countries (including Nigeria, its northern half being almost all Muslim). In his calls for Allah-sanctioned revenge, UBL leaves out these inconvenient truths. Which of course get skipped over in college victimology, er, history classes.<br /><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Convert … or Die<br /></span></b><br />Al-Qaeda’s founder then moves on to what he and his acolytes want from us. “The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.” This is part-and-parcel of declaring jihad. Islamic tradition says before doing so <a href="https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Invitation_to_Islam_Prior_to_Jihad">you must give your enemy a chance to convert</a>. (Maybe Osama should have sent this before 9/11, then.) Notice none of these TikToking tools recited the shahadah. (The Musim profession of faith: “there is no deity but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.”) <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12766887/Millennials-Gen-Z-women-convert-ISLAM-Israel-Hamas.html">Others supposedly are</a>. Although I advise the “leftist queer gremlin” who did so to avoid visiting any of the 13 countries I mentioned earlier. Or Gaza. We raised you as Christians, boys. So I’m not too worried about your heeding OBL in this regard.<br /><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The West: Immoral and Atheist <br /></span></b><br />OBL also decries “the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling” practiced in the West. I hate to agree with him on anything, but I also hope you avoid those vices. (Although as a former undergrad fraternity president, I can’t come down too hard on the responsible use of alcohol.) But, again, why would progressives, professors or students, celebrate Muslim puritanism? It’s not exactly hip to be that square. Because they’re blinded by their Red-Green glasses.<br /><br />You know what should be even more problematic for Bin Laden’s newly-minted social media supporters? He condemns our secular constitution, that we separate religion and state, and we aren’t ruled by the “Shariah of Allah.” No doubt many of them deem “<a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/christian-nationalism-is-single-biggest-threat-to-americas-religious-freedom/">Christian Nationalism</a>” the greatest threat to the Republic. Yet they give Islamic Nationalism, a key plank in the platform of OBL, Hamas, and every other Islamic fundamentalist group, a pass.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i><a href="https://stream.org/why-my-sons-wont-buy-tiktoks-bin-laden-worship/" target="_blank">Read the full article at The Stream...</a></i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-30745779731719470642023-10-17T20:25:00.004-04:002023-10-17T20:25:48.632-04:00The Christian Response to Hamas' Jihad Terror: Jerusalem Patriarch offers to be exchanged for Gaza hostages<p><i><b>"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." </b></i>(JN 15:13)</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Jerusalem Catholic Patriarch offers to be exchanged for Gaza hostages</b></span></p><p><b>Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa made his comment in response to a question during a video conference with journalists in Italy.</b></p><p>By <a href="https://www.jpost.com/christianworld/article-768616" target="_blank">The Jerusalem Post</a> via REUTERS | OCTOBER 16, 2023</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2j2oDZVbebDX2US7dBhN-ENp6y5JaizDrZs95Kz-cb-ClBK_qFg5y4lgLdKPLSqUYFND8YIf_feRw6SMP2nhmd_J0_mMGTgzPYZcDhGs491P8uebECJKCFc4EJ4LR1z1EJCJqU2q-9jYaaXARefujW5GpgEMbKbp1KX9XB84V6Ehjtdy1fQ2IS0UM59ZM/s611/Mons._Pierbattista_Pizzaballa.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="368" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2j2oDZVbebDX2US7dBhN-ENp6y5JaizDrZs95Kz-cb-ClBK_qFg5y4lgLdKPLSqUYFND8YIf_feRw6SMP2nhmd_J0_mMGTgzPYZcDhGs491P8uebECJKCFc4EJ4LR1z1EJCJqU2q-9jYaaXARefujW5GpgEMbKbp1KX9XB84V6Ehjtdy1fQ2IS0UM59ZM/s320/Mons._Pierbattista_Pizzaballa.jpg" width="193" /></a></div><br />Pope Francis' representative in the Holy Land said on Monday he was willing to exchange himself for Israeli children taken hostage by Hamas and held in Gaza.<p></p><p>Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, made his comment in response to a question during a video conference with journalists in Italy.</p><p>"I am ready for an exchange, anything, if this can lead to freedom, to bring the children home. No problem. There is total willingness on my part," he said.</p><p>"The first thing to do is to try to win the release of the hostages, otherwise there will be no way of stopping (an escalation). We are willing to help, even me personally," he said.</p><p>He stressed, however, that he and his office had not yet had any direct contact with Hamas, the terrorist group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,300 people.</p><p>"You can't talk to Hamas. It is very difficult," he said.</p><p>About 200 people were taken hostage and about a dozen of them are believed to be children.</p><p>Pizzaballa oversees Roman Catholic activities in Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as Jordan and Cyprus, a region which is home to an estimated 300,000 Roman Catholics.</p><p><a href="https://www.jpost.com/christianworld/article-768616" target="_blank">Read the full article... </a></p><p><br /></p><p><b>PHOTO CREDIT:</b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Msgr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa the day of his episcopal consecration</li><li><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mons._Pierbattista_Pizzaballa.jpg">Giovanni Zennaro</a>, via Wikimedia Commons</li></ul><p></p><p><br /></p>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-59275219805606776452023-10-16T23:44:00.000-04:002023-10-16T23:44:38.997-04:00NEVER FORGET? The Holocaust yearns to return, by Hamas and its Jew-hating Western allies<p>The world has been shocked and ripped raw in grief and horror as Hamas Muslim jihadists attacked and killed, raped, and kidnapped Israelis, targeting women and children. The beheading of many of them, a central fixture in Islamic terrorism, has been confirmed. Islam is revealed once again in its full depravity, the spawn of Muhammad, the deviant false prophet and warlord.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVXuvxj_W8AfO_2TqrJPaQb9OOXiIPh0788vB5wIjGs9qK-r_3QYt-PXHwm27F65FkV5_OTGwoMc83gbMgFiCJblZll4C5FTEJBaCSw4ZIbkk8-4XuustXp4Szu9QcIb86eJ1NOuBzBhi3totDSnHgYVLDTiPnOMauUh5h5R2IfdkIAgTF9Jy4VC90azl/s390/face_of_muhammed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="390" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVXuvxj_W8AfO_2TqrJPaQb9OOXiIPh0788vB5wIjGs9qK-r_3QYt-PXHwm27F65FkV5_OTGwoMc83gbMgFiCJblZll4C5FTEJBaCSw4ZIbkk8-4XuustXp4Szu9QcIb86eJ1NOuBzBhi3totDSnHgYVLDTiPnOMauUh5h5R2IfdkIAgTF9Jy4VC90azl/s320/face_of_muhammed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">By their own words: Muslim groups and Leftists support Hamas and Jihad Terrorism against Israel and Jews</span></b></p><p><a href="https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/10/hamas-top-dog-quotes-quran-tells-muslims-to-kill-them-wherever-you-find-them" target="_blank">Hamas top dog quotes Qur’an, tells Muslims to ‘kill them wherever you find them’</a></p><p><a href="https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/10/fatah-quotes-quran-as-it-calls-on-palestinians-to-slaughter-everyone-who-is-israeli-by-allah-this-is-jihad" target="_blank">Fatah quotes Qur’an as it calls on ‘Palestinians’ to ‘slaughter everyone who is Israeli, by Allah, this is jihad’</a></p><p><a href="https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/10/leftists-come-out-in-support-of-hamas-massacres-send-money-to-palestinians" target="_blank">Leftists Come Out in Support of Hamas Massacres, Send Money to Palestinians</a></p><p><a href="https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2023/10/10/cnns-tapper-last-few-days-really-eye-opening-to-antisemitism-on-the-left/" target="_blank">CNN’s Tapper: Last Few Days Really Eye-Opening to ‘Antisemitism on the Left’</a></p><p><a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/10/10/black-lives-matter-organization-shows-support-for-hamas-amid-terror-attack-on-israel/" target="_blank">Black Lives Matter Organization Shows Support for Hamas Amid Terror Attack on Israel</a></p><p><a href="https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/10/11/watch-free-palestine-rally-in-dearborn-michigan-cheers-hamas/" target="_blank">‘Free Palestine’ Rally in Dearborn, Michigan, Cheers Hamas</a></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Rod Dreher, from his <a href="https://roddreher.substack.com/p/is-this-the-end-of-woke" target="_blank">Substack</a>:</b></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">The mindless and simplistic Oppressor/Oppressed binary has led so many of that generation [Gen Z], steeped in wokeness, <a href="https://time.com/6323730/hamas-attack-left-response/" target="_blank">to lose their moral compass</a>. The same people who took to the streets to protest the police killing of a drug addict named George Floyd have no problem with people taking to the streets to cheer on the terrorist killing of 1,300 Jewish civilians in the highest one-day Jewish death toll since the closing of the Nazi death camps. </blockquote><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Think about that.</blockquote><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a> <p></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Dreher also posted this video of Douglas Murray's recent address:</span></b></p><p><br /></p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QCUfNLENLZg?si=wJhyNza4wuJU-D8S" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>'Here Is the List of Jews You Required'</b></span></p><p><b>The Orthodox Bishop and Greek Mayor who refused to turn in their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis</b></p><p><i>Douglas Murray's remarks brought to mind this WWII story I remember first hearing years ago, about the Greek Orthodox bishop who stood up to the Nazi invaders and refused to provide them a list of Jews living in his island diocese. Instead he took a sheet of paper and wrote down his own name, and handed that to the Nazi commander, saying, “Here is the list of Jews you required.”</i></p><p><a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/chrysostomos-karreri.html" target="_blank">Yad Vashem Website</a></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI71R2DWkXqdYLc4sIc5w2sWegLsatYjEY3SGOAhtJs4oVBNxYRigxqoQJZosMGttMTmt_hTSyD1Hi8lASWtMzdchrrGhvvGO8lZsSge7NvEico_8n9LCC8n2pgjoI0sYaH5L6FPNMDJ2-ofJjZ_vfLm5mu69if1aag84z4PW1DbbbQIgzjWGPM1vEECOr/s650/Metropolitan%20Chrysostomos%20of%20Zakynthos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="443" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI71R2DWkXqdYLc4sIc5w2sWegLsatYjEY3SGOAhtJs4oVBNxYRigxqoQJZosMGttMTmt_hTSyD1Hi8lASWtMzdchrrGhvvGO8lZsSge7NvEico_8n9LCC8n2pgjoI0sYaH5L6FPNMDJ2-ofJjZ_vfLm5mu69if1aag84z4PW1DbbbQIgzjWGPM1vEECOr/s320/Metropolitan%20Chrysostomos%20of%20Zakynthos.jpg" width="218" /></a></div><br />When the Second World War broke out, there were about 275 Jews living on the Greek island of Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea. Until 1943 the island was under Italian control and the Jews remained unharmed, however after Mussolini’s fall the Germans occupied the Italian territories and on September 9, 1943 a German force landed on the island.<p></p><p>The German commander ordered all Jews to be assembled so that they could be deported to the mainland and from there to the camps in Poland. To prepare for the deportation, the German officer summoned the Greek mayor, Carrer, and ordered him to prepare a list of all the Jews on the island. The mayor went to the local church leader, Metropolitan Chrysostomos for assistance. Chrysostomos volunteered to negotiate with the Germans and told Carrer to burn the list of Jewish names. He then approached the German commander and implored him not to deport the Jews. The Jews were Greek citizens, he said. They had done no harm to their neighbors and did not deserve to be punished by deportation. When the German would not listen and insisted on receiving the list of all local Jews, Chrysostomos took a piece of paper, wrote his own name on it and handed it over. “Here is the list of Jews you required”, he said.</p><p>The German authorities were resolved to continue with their plans. Realizing their attempt to stop the deportation failed, the Metropolitan and the mayor warned the Jews on the island, told them to leave their homes and go into hiding in the mountains. Chrysostomos promised that the Greek islanders would provide them with food and shelter. Two thirds of the Jews followed the instructions and stayed in hiding until the island was liberated.</p><p>In August-September 1944 three small German boats came to deport the Jews. However the small German force was unable to round up all the Jews, and the community was left relatively unharmed.</p><p>On March 14, 1978, Yad Vashem recognized Loukas Yiorgios Karrer and Metropolitan Dimitrios Chrysostomos as Righteous Among the Nations.</p><p>Metropolitan Chrysostomos declared that he was following the example of Archbishop Demaskinos of Greece, who on 23 March 1943, after the first deportation trains left Thessaloniki for Auschwitz, published an outspoken condamnation of the deportation of Greece’s Jews. Demaskinos was known to have said:</p><p>“I have taken up my cross. I spoke to the Lord, and made up my mind to save as many Jewish souls as possible.”</p><p><br /></p>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-43669574181634680232023-10-10T09:55:00.000-04:002023-10-10T09:55:06.651-04:00Dr. Timothy Furnish: 'Hamas, Iran’s Bloodthirsty Sock Puppet'<i>Here is an excellent primer on Hamas' bloody, barbaric Islamic Jihad terrorist attack against Israel, from noted Islam scholar and author Timothy Furnish:</i><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Hamas, Iran’s Bloodthirsty Sock Puppet<br /></b></span><br />By <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sects-Lies-Caliphate-Years-Observations-ebook/dp/B01AR4DVZO" target="_blank">TIMOTHY FURNISH</a> | <a href="https://stream.org/hamas-irans-bloodthirsty-sock-puppet/" target="_blank">The Stream</a> | October 9, 2023<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWaAO2kXxUVkCnzekYWVKa1hUx_n8MJKDHRS-JCbBdHuQwpnrLCM4pB1RD-hjLADXNE-ZY5eykyEBntDzTW2ZpRyFTV1PxP4UzI1PfdJ-GMJqkD3mX4fLpjc6DvTMJuFnzKuuKBTA5G6EhjW97qWNP41M0fPZYe2GfWi-ZrLD1oOZw-jfYx8lG5sEVOrfr/s565/Furnish-Sects-Lies-Caliphate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="372" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWaAO2kXxUVkCnzekYWVKa1hUx_n8MJKDHRS-JCbBdHuQwpnrLCM4pB1RD-hjLADXNE-ZY5eykyEBntDzTW2ZpRyFTV1PxP4UzI1PfdJ-GMJqkD3mX4fLpjc6DvTMJuFnzKuuKBTA5G6EhjW97qWNP41M0fPZYe2GfWi-ZrLD1oOZw-jfYx8lG5sEVOrfr/s320/Furnish-Sects-Lies-Caliphate.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Hamas has murdered, so far, over <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/hamas-attack-israel-war">600 Israeli civilians in its new war</a>. Only the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Israel">War of Independence (1948-49) and the Second Intifada (2000-05)</a> killed more non-combatants. In addition, over 400 Palestinians have died. Both sides are sure to lose more. Especially the Gaza Palestinians. Because Israel’s wrath is kindled. And with good reason.</div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-size: large;">Hamas: Elected Terrorists</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What is Hamas? It’s the Palestinian branch of the global Muslim Brotherhood. The name is actually an acronym from Arabic. Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyah, “Movement of the Islamic Resistance.” Founded in 1987, Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006. But it lost control of the West Bank to the non-jihadist Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Relegated to the tiny Gaza Strip, Hamas has spent the past 17 years periodically attacking Israel. It’s one of the <a href="https://occidentaljihadist.com/2023/08/15/terrorists-thy-name-is-legion/">55 Islamic terrorist groups in the world (81% of the total</a>). The vast majority of which are Sunni.</div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Iran: the Puppeteer<br /></b></span><br />However, Hamas and some Sunni groups, like the related Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are supported by staunchly Twelver Shi`i Iran. Since the 1979 “Islamic Revolution” the ayatollahs fancy themselves leading a global Islamic insurgency. Not merely sponsoring terrorism. But insurgency against what, exactly? Against the West in general. And the United States in particular. Why? Because European-American civilization has dominated the globe for 500 years. In the past, Muslims saw the West as pushing Christianity on others. Now, it’s seen as imposing godless secularism and the <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-does-lgbtq-mean-5069804">LGBTQIA+</a> agenda. (Orthodox Christian Russia and officially Communist China also see the post-modern West as overbearing. Which is why the three civilizational blocs often cooperate against the U.S.)<br /><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Little Satan is Closer<br /></span></b><br />So what’s that have to do with Israel? Fundamentalist Sunnis and Shi`is agree on one thing, at least. That the Jewish state is the tip of the Western spear, embedded in the Muslim Middle East. A “foreign body” that must be expelled. Sunni Usama bin Ladin often referred to the “Crusader-Zionist” alliance. The Shi`i ayatollahs now say the same. But unlike UBL, they’re loathe to directly attack the Great Satan. Besides, it’s the Far (Away) Enemy. So they provide funding and <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/from-where-does-hamas-acquire-its-weapons-understanding-the-sources-and-transit-routes-643953">weapons</a> — especially <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fajr-5">rockets</a>—to attack the Little Satan. Which is a convenient Near Enemy.<br /><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">How Hamas’ War Benefits Iran<br /></span></b><br />What do Iranian zealots get out <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/hamas-hezbollah-say-iran-helped-plan-deadly-attack-on-israel-report/ar-AA1hToj1">of goading, if not directing</a>, such horrible Hamas attacks at this juncture? Five benefits, in ascending order of importance.<br /><br />First, a thumb in the eye of the Biden Administration, which recently “released” $6 billion to the Islamic Republic, to ransom hostages. Earmarked, say Bidenistas, only for “humanitarian purposes.” The ayatollahs are laughing all the way to the weapons market.<br /><br />Second, sparking a major conflict in the Middle East gets Ukraine off the front page. This helps Russia, one of Iran’s patrons.</div><div><br />Third, the war makes the planned <a href="https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/how-israel-and-turkey-benefit-restoring-relations">Turkish-Israeli rapproachment</a> untenable.<br /><br />Fourth, it scuttles the <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-israeli-normalization-effort-takes-a-violent-detour-after-hamas-attack/">possible Saudi-Israeli normalization</a>. Neither Turkish President Erdoğan nor Saudi ruler Muhammad bin Salman can meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Not when the IDF is leveling Palestinian buildings. With people inside.<br /><br />Finally, there are some in Tehran obsessed with eschatology. These want to <a href="https://stream.org/is-iran-bound-by-an-apocalypse-vow/">hotwire the apocalypse</a>. Which means what? Destroying Israel in order to spark the return of the Twelfth Imam, the messianic Mahdi. In this view “<a href="https://www.memri.org/reports/iranian-majlis-member-ahmad-hossein-falahi-one-main-goals-islamic-revolution-has-always-been">the annihilation of the Zionist regime is one of the preconditions for the arrival of the Mahdi</a>.” <a href="https://stream.org/irans-new-president-the-mahdis-mini-me/">Iran’s President, and probable next Supreme Leader</a>, is almost certainly of this mindset, too.<br /><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Hamas: Jihadist or Joker?<br /></span></b><br />What does Hamas get out of this bloodletting? Many of its members will get a one-way ticket to the afterlife. Unfortunately, many of them have been convinced that they will be rewarded by Allah there with sensual delights. Instead, they will be punished by the true God for their evil deeds. Hamas’ jihadists truly exemplify that “<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@absolutemotivationshort/video/7216866869133839618">some men just want to watch the world burn</a>.”<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://stream.org/hamas-irans-bloodthirsty-sock-puppet/" target="_blank"><i>Much more in the full article at The Stream...</i></a></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-62105571642472106802023-10-08T21:25:00.003-04:002023-10-08T21:25:33.788-04:00Leo Hohmann: 'Attack on Israel activates ‘zero hour’ around the world, and America is not immune'<b>From noted independent journalist Leo Hohmann:</b><div><br /></div><div>"This single event in Israel has triggered [Muslim rallies in support of Hamas] <a href="https://www.wnd.com/2023/10/socialists-major-u-s-city-rally-palestinians-day-terrorists-kill-200-israelis/?ats_es=d1c767cde7eb2c2489ba4b115cb9f9d8&ats_ess=3bc3810c5a833bab55af5ae7b25d0525e464b7a8a59bcc0ba0bb134175eeaabd">in America’s largest cities</a>, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Muslims are also <a href="https://www.timesnownews.com/world/hamas-attack-on-israel-videos-of-celebrations-in-turkey-iran-iraq-jordan-lebanon-surface-on-internet-article-104247208">celebrating in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Turkey (a NATO member</a>), and they will launch more attacks on Jews and Christians around the world."<div><br /></div><div><div>"...It would be a mistake to view what happened in Israel as something 'over there'. It can and will happen here. In the U.S. and many European countries, the hordes are not standing at the gates, they’re inside the gates, waiting for their zero-hour event. This may be it."</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="font-size: large;">Globalists open second front in World War III: Attack on Israel activates ‘zero hour’ around the world, and America is not immune</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkQE6LhDDQYU1HlaJmTdWTbmyqWnCpKNkKoZGQRf7UWgFZLrqj2oTdz0ohwk9v36fwWVgwYZs25LJTHurhmX66BwLeytegUKW7cZ6sL7iEgOJLHrve5dBsHUi8CW5bvae0nWHshbJvDVCxD13MjtqHsl73dARyOryW4ajG2-AoOJkhjUGk1s-svoe_CI8X/s1050/Stealth%20Invasion_mn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkQE6LhDDQYU1HlaJmTdWTbmyqWnCpKNkKoZGQRf7UWgFZLrqj2oTdz0ohwk9v36fwWVgwYZs25LJTHurhmX66BwLeytegUKW7cZ6sL7iEgOJLHrve5dBsHUi8CW5bvae0nWHshbJvDVCxD13MjtqHsl73dARyOryW4ajG2-AoOJkhjUGk1s-svoe_CI8X/w213-h320/Stealth%20Invasion_mn.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://leohohmann.com/2023/10/08/globalists-open-second-front-in-world-war-iii-attack-on-israel-activates-zero-hour-around-the-world-and-america-is-not-immune/" target="_blank">LeoHohmann.com</a> | 10/8/2023<br /><br />In the realm of geopolitical events, things are almost never as they appear.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The messaging being sent by the media is no longer mere “news.” What we receive from them are carefully crafted narratives meant to advance certain agendas. The same event, in fact, can carry multiple narratives often diametrically opposed to each other because the narratives are tailored to specific audiences and loaded with explosive words and images meant to trigger emotions in those audiences depending on their prior conditioning.</div><br />And the devastating attack on Israel Friday night was no exception.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The “what” cannot be debated – over 600 Israeli citizens were slaughtered and more than 2,000 injured in a brazen and brutal attack by Hamas terrorists. More than 100 other Israelis, including an Israeli military general, were captured and are <a href="https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1711112772526727313?s=20">being held as hostages</a>.</div><br />But the “why” and the “how” – as in why now and how did they get away with it – will be less understood by the average American who’s more interested in who wins the Packers’ game this Sunday or how long Taylor Swift will retain her latest boyfriend.</div><div><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span></div><div><br /></div><div>While few realize it, what happened in Israel on the night of Friday, October 6, is an earthquake in terms of the impact on global stability, mostly because of the timing. The events of October 6 cannot be analyzed and properly understood separate from all that has been going on over the last 18 months between the US/NATO and their vassal states and Russia/China and their vassal states. The attack on Israel (a vassal state of the US/NATO) by Hamas (a vassal state of Iran which is a vassal state of Russia/China) opens up a second front in the escalating World War III scenario being advanced by the globalists for reasons I’ve provided in previous articles, the most recent of which was posted September 25 as “<a href="https://leohohmann.com/2023/09/25/globalists-have-another-shock-event-planned-in-pursuit-of-the-four-ds-digitization-dehumanization-destruction-and-depopulation/">The Four D’s of Digitization, Dehumanization, Destruction and Depopulation</a>.”<br /><br />Ukrainian President Zelensky has already come out with a statement in support of Israel and implying that Russia was responsible for the Hamas attack. We don’t know if that’s true but Zelensky said it so that makes it true for the faction of people who believe Ukraine’s war with Russia is just and totally defensive in nature.<br /><br />The media tells us that Hamas launched a sneak attack on Israel and caught the IDF napping.<br /><br />Excuse me, but there is simply no way the Israeli Defense Forces – the most technologically modern, most adept, most highly trained security force in the world – did not see this attack coming. For them to be caught off guard is inconceivable.<br /><br />We’re told they were totally surprised. Even on the 50th anniversary of the last massive attack on Israel, the Yom Kippur War of October 7, 1973, they were not prepared for an attack from their arch enemy? They left their border unmanned and unprotected, and it was breached in 29 different places, including in some areas right next to an international music festival where tourists from other countries were partying literally within yards of a dangerous Gaza border? Please. I’m not buying it.<br /><br />Nor is former IDF intelligence officer Efrat Fenigson buying into this narrative. Watch what she has to say in a post to the <a href="https://x.com/marcfriedrich7/status/1710752764039397487?s=20">platform X</a>.<br /><br /><a href="https://x.com/marcfriedrich7/status/1710752764039397487?s=20">https://x.com/marcfriedrich7/status/1710752764039397487?s=20</a><br /><br />Let this be an object lesson for all of us, in America and elsewhere.<br /><br />In my book, <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stealth-invasion-leo-hohmann/1125470624?ean=9781637580462">Stealth Invasion</a>, I referred to Muslim Brotherhood documents which prophesied about a “zero-hour event.” Zero hour can be any event that sets off panic and chaos among the masses, and at this point the Islamic terrorists all join hands to attack the infidel, whether that be Jews in Israel or Christians in the West. All the terror cells get activated.<br /><br />Since around 1990, the United States has imported more than 3 million Muslims to America, mostly through legal channels associated with the Office of Refugee Resettlement and other avenues where Muslims can come here on religious visas, visa lottery programs and countless other visa programs. Refugees are set on a path to full citizenship within five years.<br /><br />I’m not saying all of them are anti-American. But if even 10 percent of them are, we’ve got a problem very similar to Israel’s.<br /><br />Sources of mine in Sterling Heights, Michigan, reported seeing fireworks coming from at site on 15 Mile Road where a mega-mosque is under construction. The mosque is not even open for business, yet the property owners used the site to express their celebratory emotions and feelings of giddiness over the news coming out of Israel.<br /><br />Hundreds of miles away in Tampa, Florida, I was informed of a pro-Hamas rally, also expressing jubilation over Israelis being killed. Muslims also rallied in <a href="https://www.wnd.com/2023/10/socialists-major-u-s-city-rally-palestinians-day-terrorists-kill-200-israelis/?ats_es=d1c767cde7eb2c2489ba4b115cb9f9d8&ats_ess=3bc3810c5a833bab55af5ae7b25d0525e464b7a8a59bcc0ba0bb134175eeaabd">support of Hamas terrorists in America’s largest cities</a>, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Muslims are also <a href="https://www.timesnownews.com/world/hamas-attack-on-israel-videos-of-celebrations-in-turkey-iran-iraq-jordan-lebanon-surface-on-internet-article-104247208">celebrating in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Turkey (a NATO member</a>), among other places. This single event in Israel has triggered them and they will launch more attacks on Jews and Christians around the world.<br /><br />So it would be a mistake to view what happened in Israel as something “over there.”<br /><br />It can and will happen here. In the U.S. and many European countries, the hordes are not standing at the gates, they’re inside the gates, waiting for their zero-hour event. This may be it.<br /></div><span><br /></span>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-9862016669250889862023-09-08T23:00:00.003-04:002023-09-08T23:00:50.978-04:00Raymond Ibrahim: "The genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level"<p><i>Several genocide watchdog organizations are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.</i></p><p><i>Read the below article on the horrific and multilayered background story of this genocide, and contact your congressman and senator to express support for the Armenians.</i></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqP-8Rd88pR-YW8GJyLR4OJ9AgBBTFbtTZLIfZehdPH4HBtLiMBN6j84n_4iWwEyuWd9FKTLGp2Kh2HFkzE3pl9W4L9fBxm1SXhqsxYvlUkBVyht3QDc1JGNgB0cxEJEdD3ps8En1UITVJc2U_L_7FSPSENfbafDOHrYJrTatjPo7ALYPTF0taCHzDrh9N/s700/Armenian-keep-calm-and-recognize-armenian-genocide-3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqP-8Rd88pR-YW8GJyLR4OJ9AgBBTFbtTZLIfZehdPH4HBtLiMBN6j84n_4iWwEyuWd9FKTLGp2Kh2HFkzE3pl9W4L9fBxm1SXhqsxYvlUkBVyht3QDc1JGNgB0cxEJEdD3ps8En1UITVJc2U_L_7FSPSENfbafDOHrYJrTatjPo7ALYPTF0taCHzDrh9N/w274-h320/Armenian-keep-calm-and-recognize-armenian-genocide-3.png" width="274" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Starvation: ‘The Invisible Genocide Weapon’</b></span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">by <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2023/09/06/starvation-the-invisible-genocide-weapon/" target="_blank">Raymond Ibrahim</a>, originally published at the <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19941/starvation-armenians-artsakh" target="_blank">Gatestone Institute</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2020/11/19/chipped-away-into-nonexistence-armenia-surrounded-by-islam/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">thousand-year-old</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>genocide of Armenians at the hands of Turkic peoples has reached a new level.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Several watchdog organizations—including the Association of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/IAGS-EB-Statement-Armenia-Azerbaijan-Oct-2022.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Genocide Scholars</a>, <a href="https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/genocide-warning-azerbaijan-and-nagorno-karabakh-september-2022" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Genocide Watch</a>, and the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.lemkininstitute.com/single-post/lemkin-institute-giving-up-artsakh-would-mean-condoning-genocide-against-armenians" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention</a>—are accusing Azerbaijan of committing genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. Historically known as Artsakh, this ancient Armenian region was annexed by and brought under Azerbaijani rule in 2020.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Modern day hostilities between Armenia, an ancient nation and the first to adopt Christianity, and Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation that was created in 1918, began in September 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a war to claim Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Although it had been Armenian for over two thousand years, and still remains 90% Armenian, after the dissolution of the USSR, the “border makers” granted it to Azerbaijan, hence the constant warring over this region. (See “<a href="https://countercurrents.org/2020/10/15-artsakh-war-myths-perpetuated-by-mainstream-media/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">15 Artsakh War Myths Perpetuated By Mainstream Media</a>.”)</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Once the September 2020 war began, Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists against Armenia, though the dispute clearly did not concern it. It<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/09/25/reports-turkey-is-transferring-syrian-militants-to-azerbaijan-as-hostilities-against-armenia-increases/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">dispatched<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></a> <a href="https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1029205" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">sharia-enforcing</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“jihadist groups” from Syria and Libya—<a href="https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/09/25/reports-turkey-is-transferring-syrian-militants-to-azerbaijan-as-hostilities-against-armenia-increases/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">including</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division, which once <a href="https://www.syriahr.com/en/167177/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">kept</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>naked women chained and imprisoned—to terrorize and slaughter the Armenians.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of these captured mercenaries later <a href="https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1033500" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">confessed</a> that he was “promised a monthly $2,000 payment for fighting against ‘kafirs’ in Artsakh, and an extra 100 dollar[s] for each beheaded kafir.” (<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Kafir</em>, often translated as “infidel,” is Arabic for any non-Muslim who fails to submit to Islam, which makes them de facto enemies.)</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">All these Muslim groups committed massive atrocities (see<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://lindaberian.medium.com/this-is-the-photo-of-58-year-old-alvard-tovmasyan-an-armenian-woman-who-was-a-resident-of-karin-4d4c72e08532" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and <a href="https://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/pack-turks-beheading-armenians" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a>), including by raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/09/18/jihadist-sadism-azeris-rape-amputate-gouge-eye-of-and-slaughter-armenian-woman/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">hacking off</a> all four of her limbs, gouging her eyes, and mockingly sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The war ended in November 2020, with Azerbaijan claiming a significant portion of Artsakh.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then, on December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan sealed off the humanitarian Lachin Corridor—the only route between Artsakh and the outside world. A recent<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://ongehoordnederland.tv/2023/08/24/laatste-nieuws/blokkade-artsach-120000-armeense-christenen-al-8-maanden-afgesloten/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">report</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>by Dutch journalist, Sonja Dahlmans, summarizes the situation since:</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">In the extreme southeastern part of Europe, known as the Caucasus, a silent genocide is looming. The Lachin Corridor that connects Armenia to Artsakh, the region in Azerbaijan where mainly Christian Armenians live, has been closed by the government for eight months. Supermarket shelves are empty; there is hardly any food, fuel, or medicines for the 120,000 Armenian Christians who live there, including 30,000 children and 20,000 seniors.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">At the time of this writing [Aug. 24, 2023], a convoy of food and medicines has been standing in front of the border since July 25 [a month], but the International Red Cross is not allowed access to the inhabitants of Artsakh. According to journalists living in the area, most residents only get one meal a day. People in Artsakh queue for hours at night for bread, waiting for their daily rations. At the same time, sources within Artsakh report shooting at Armenians trying to <a href="https://twitter.com/REPUBLICPRESS_/status/1693918946792001787" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">harvest</a> the land.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">… [I]n all probability bread will also soon be unavailable due to the shortage of fuel… Bakers can no longer heat their ovens. Last week, a 40-year-old Armenian man died of malnutrition. A pregnant woman lost her child because there was no fuel for transport to the hospital.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Separate<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/armenia-azerbaijan-nagorno-karabakh-blockade-2a9fb9852534ab38656a99b435f0ba86" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">reports</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>tell of, in one instance, 19 humanitarian trucks “loaded with some 360 tons of medicine and food supplies” that have been parked for weeks and prevented from crossing.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This, of course, would not be the first time Turks starve Armenians to death (as the following<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/lio___m/status/1680910836523491331/photo/1" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">picture</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of a Turkish administrator taunting emaciated Armenian children with a piece of bread in 1915 makes clear).</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwMR4ck0AIlg66WwMli3W2jnp8mez49HdJCy1trA2VL7HaeqC9Zs0x7LqP2Vxbd-lMHxxm1PSbeik2RI9A2VbVh1foAt1KuiXHKjS3O2SeOC8sNjv0WIN8VXr0pJu3DV0yj41Aox7cpyuv43ZsGXZqaLjlkCP128elwTEHK8Y_FSsG2VrIJdGMrSdAY3rm/s870/kjy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="870" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwMR4ck0AIlg66WwMli3W2jnp8mez49HdJCy1trA2VL7HaeqC9Zs0x7LqP2Vxbd-lMHxxm1PSbeik2RI9A2VbVh1foAt1KuiXHKjS3O2SeOC8sNjv0WIN8VXr0pJu3DV0yj41Aox7cpyuv43ZsGXZqaLjlkCP128elwTEHK8Y_FSsG2VrIJdGMrSdAY3rm/w400-h281/kjy.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On August 7, 2023, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://luismorenoocampo.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Armenia-Report-Expert-Opinion.pdf?utm_source=Web&utm_medium=Landing&utm_campaign=Downloads" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">framed</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the situation well:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.’</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">There are no crematories, and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">Starvation as a method to destroy people was neglected by the entire international community when it was used against Armenians in 1915, Jews and Poles in 1939, Russians in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1941, and Cambodians in 1975/1976.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Similarly, after going on a fact-finding mission to Armenia, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/amp/news/254631/religious-cleansing-threatens-armenian-christians-existence-warns-ambassador-brownback" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">referred</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to the blockade as the latest attempt at “religious cleansing” of Christian Armenia:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">Azerbaijan, with Turkey’s backing, is really slowly strangling Nagorno-Karabakh. They’re working to make it unlivable so that the region’s Armenian-Christian population is forced to leave, that’s what’s happening on the ground.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Muslim regimes regularly make life intolerable for Christian minorities in an effort to get them to abandon their properties and leave. Just a few weeks ago, the president of Iraq revoked a decade-old decree that granted Chaldean Patriarch Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako powers over Christian endowment affairs. “This is a political maneuver to seize the remainder of what Christians have left in Iraq and Baghdad and to expel them,”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.aina.org/news/20230713103215.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">said</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Diya Butrus Slewa, a human rights activist from Ainkawa. “Unfortunately, this is a blatant targeting of the Christians and a threat to their rights.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In Artsakh, the situation seems to be worse: just as no one can get in, no one can apparently get out. Azerbaijan is holding those 120,000 Armenians captive, starving and abusing them at will.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In his testimony, Brownback<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/amp/news/254631/religious-cleansing-threatens-armenian-christians-existence-warns-ambassador-brownback" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">said</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that this latest genocide is being “perpetrated with U.S.-supplied weaponry and backed by Turkey, a member of NATO.” If the U.S. does not act, “we will see again another ancient Christian population forced out of its homeland.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not only has U.S. diplomacy been ineffective for the besieged Armenians; it has actually exacerbated matters. According to one<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/us-diplomacy-failing-armenia-opinion-1819248" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">report</a>,</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">[T]he only thing the Washington-backed talks appear to have produced is the emboldenment of Azerbaijan’s aggression….</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">For over eight months, the region’s 120,000 Indigenous Armenians—who declared their independence in the early 1990s following escalating violence and ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan—have been deprived access to food, medicine, fuel, electricity, and <a href="https://eurasianet.org/six-months-into-blockade-nagorno-karabakh-faces-energy-crisis-as-key-reservoir-dries-up" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">water</a> in what is nothing less than <a href="https://apnews.com/article/armenia-azerbaijan-nagorno-karabakh-blockade-2a9fb9852534ab38656a99b435f0ba86" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">genocide</a> by attrition….</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">The same week peace talks began in Washington, Baku [capital of Azerbaijan] tightened its blockade by establishing a military <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/azerbaijan-installs-checkpoint-on-road-to-nagorno-karabakh-amid-fatal-clashes/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">checkpoint</a> at the Lachin Corridor. And when Washington-based talks resumed in June, Azerbaijan began <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/nagorno-karabakh-soldiers-killed-azerbaijani-fire/32480236.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">shelling</a> the region. In the months since, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/document/azerbaijan-armenia-sides-must-reach-humanitarian-consensus-to-ease-suffering" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">denied</a> access to Karabakh—and later reported that an Armenian patient in its care had been <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/medical-convoy-nagorno-karabakh-armenia-azerbaijan-conflict/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">abducted</a> by Azerbaijani forces en route to Armenia for treatment.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">This is the predictable consequence of Washington’s insistence on negotiations amid Azerbaijan’s blockade of Artsakh and occupation of Armenian territory. This has signaled to Baku that its strategy of coercive diplomacy is working, disincentivizing de-escalation, and forcing Armenia to negotiate with a gun to its head…</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">Washington has also actively strengthened Azerbaijan’s position by indicating <a href="https://www.azatutyun.am/a/32425936.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">support</a> for Artsakh’s integration into Azerbaijan. Given Azerbaijan’s state-sponsored dehumanization of Armenians, the litany of human rights abuses perpetrated <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/11/azerbaijan-unlawful-strikes-nagorno-karabakh#:~:text=Human%20Rights%20Watch%20visited%20Nagorno,on%20civilians%20and%20civilian%20objects." style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">during</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/14/video-shows-azerbaijan-forces-executing-armenian-pows#:~:text=(Berlin%2C%20October%2014%2C%202022,Human%20Rights%20Watch%20said%20today." style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">since</a> the 2020 war, and its own <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/06/azerbaijan-arrest-gubad-ibadoghlu/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">disastrous</a> domestic human rights record—it is impossible to imagine Armenians could ever live freely under Azerbaijan’s rule.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">For Azerbaijan, this disingenuous participation in negotiations has allowed it to uphold the veneer of cooperation while engaging in conduct that has immeasurably set back the prospects of a durable peace.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Clearly, negotiating simply bought the Azerbaijanis more time in which to starve the Armenians, and possibly another way for the United States to pretend it was “doing something” without actually doing anything — apart from allowing more savagery.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Indeed, part of the façade of diplomacy is that Azerbaijan insists that the Christian Armenians of Artsakh are being treated no differently than Muslim Azerbaijanis—since all are citizens of Azerbaijan. One<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/do-armenians-face-second-genocide-opinion-1767132" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">report</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>sheds light on this farce:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other officials have declared that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are citizens of Azerbaijan, seeming to back prior statements of Azerbaijani authorities pledging to guarantee the rights and security of ethnic Armenians.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">But actions speak much louder. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War three decades ago arose following waves of <a href="http://karabakhfacts.com/wp-content/uploads/1988/07/c_23519880912en00800163.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">anti-Armenian pogroms</a>. Azerbaijan is now one of the most repressive and autocratic countries in the world, scoring among the lowest in the world on freedom and democracy <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">indexes</a>—in stark contrast to Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">Aliyev (who inherited his post from his father) has confessed to having <a href="https://president.az/en/articles/view/57857" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">started</a> the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, and proudly admitted that a generation of Azerbaijanis has been brought up to deeply despise Armenians (<a href="http://abc.az/en/news/65774" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a> and <a href="https://apa.az/en/official-news/fifth-congress-of-world-azerbaijanis-gets-underway-in-shusha-updated-374170" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a>).</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">He <a href="https://twitter.com/presidentaz/status/507430784710361088?lang=ha" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">denies</a> the Armenian Genocide (alongside Turkey) and <a href="https://twitter.com/presidentaz/status/560718307515318272" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">negates</a> the existence of Armenians as a nation, including their history, culture, and right to be present anywhere in the region.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">No Armenian, not even a foreign national of ethnic Armenian descent or anyone with an Armenian sounding name, is allowed to <a href="https://visalogy.com/destination/Azerbaijan" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">enter</a> Azerbaijan.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">The results are clear: nearly every Armenian who fell into Azerbaijani captivity after the [Sept-Nov] 2020 war has been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, mutilated, decapitated and/or murdered. None of these acts have ever been punished. To the contrary, those who kill Armenians receive <a href="https://fip.am/en/20460?doing_wp_cron=1670227009.4785580635070800781250" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">medals</a> and are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/may/25/relatives-armenian-axed-death-by-azeri-officer-call-justice-ramil-safarov" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">glorified</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in Azerbaijan. It is no wonder that Armenians are petrified and cannot fathom living under Azerbaijan’s authority.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Aside from the Lachin corridor crisis, a recent 12-page<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://armenianbar.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Religious-Persecution-and-Ongoing-Ethnic-Clensing-in-Artsakh-June-2023.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">report</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>documents the systematic destruction of ancient churches, crosses, Christian cemeteries, and other cultural landmarks on land—Artsakh—that historically belonged to the world’s oldest Christian nation, Armenia.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One example is the Holy Savior Cathedral in Shushi, Artsakh. First, Azerbaijan bombed the church during the 2020 war, an act Human Rights Watch labeled a “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/16/azerbaijan-attack-church-possible-war-crime" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">possible war crime</a>.” Then, after Azerbaijan seized the region, officials claimed to be “restoring” the church, when in fact its dome and cross were removed, making the building look less like a church. As one<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.persecution.org/2023/06/20/report-outlines-cultural-genocide-in-armenia/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">report</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>notes,</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">The ‘case’ of Shushi is indicative of the well-documented history of Armenian cultural and religious destruction by Azerbaijan. From 1997 to 2006, Azerbaijan systematically obliterated almost all traces of Armenian culture in the Nakhichevan area, which included the destruction of medieval churches, thousands of carved stone crosses (“khachkars”), and historical tombstones.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dahlmans also<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://ongehoordnederland.tv/2023/08/24/laatste-nieuws/blokkade-artsach-120000-armeense-christenen-al-8-maanden-afgesloten/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">reports</a></span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">on an Armenian church in Artsakh that disappeared after Azerbaijan’s victory in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war (2020). During the victory, Azerbaijani soldiers pose on top of the church shouting “Allahu Akhbar” [image above]… [T]he church has been completely wiped out and only a few stone remains remain as a reminder… The Western press rarely writes about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Most reactions follow the line that it is not a religious conflict, but a claim by two countries over a disputed territory. Given the many examples that exist in which precisely religious buildings, tombs and inscriptions are systematically destroyed, it is difficult to maintain that this is the case.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the main reasons that Armenia finds itself standing alone against this genocidal onslaught is due to the West’s “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/us-diplomacy-failing-armenia-opinion-1819248" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">desire</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to maintain favorable relations with Azerbaijan given its role as a European energy partner [and this] has outweighed any purported commitment to upholding human rights—bolstering Azerbaijan’s aggression.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is these same priorities that have made Russia, once the defender of all Orthodox Christian nations in the East, more apathetic than might be expected. According to another<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/armenia-azerbaijan-nagorno-karabakh-blockade-2a9fb9852534ab38656a99b435f0ba86" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">report</a>,</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">Azerbaijan was able to impose this blockade because Russian peacekeepers allow them to do so. The Russians are there as part of a ceasefire agreement ending the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. The same agreement, inked by Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, guarantees access along that now-blocked road. Although Russia is often portrayed as Armenia’s patron, the reality is more complicated. Russia’s largest oil company owns a 19.99% share of Azerbaijan’s largest natural gas field. It is not so surprising then that Armenians in Artsakh demonstrated against Russian inaction after the killings of their police officials.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Longtime Armenian-activist,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://asbarez.com/book-review-perspectives-from-exile-by-lucine-kasbarian/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Lucine Kasbarian</a>, author of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0382394585?ie=UTF8&tag=lucinkasba-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0382394585" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Armenia: A Rugged Land, an Enduring People</em></a>, sums up the situation:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit;">We who are Armenian, Assyrian, Greek and Coptic bitterly know just how this will end. It’s deja vu all over again. Again and again, we’ve seen the deceit and brutality, received the chilling reports, warnings, graphic videos, open letters and petitions from alarmed genocide scholars. But alas, NATO, Islamic supremacism, gas and oil are going to take precedence over life and liberty once again unless high-powered vigilantism can save the day.</span></p></blockquote></div></div></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-19005849758670867202023-08-29T00:04:00.003-04:002023-08-29T00:04:40.619-04:00Dr. Timothy R. Furnish: 'There You Go Again with “White Supremacy,” Joe Biden'<i style="font-family: inherit;">A helpful selection of articles by Timothy Furnish, contributing author at The Stream, proving the complete falsehood of President Biden's revisionist narrative of homeland security and terrorist threats. Hint, the real threat is not cis-heteronormative white males playing guitar in the woods.<br /></i><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">There You Go Again with “White Supremacy,” Joe Biden</span><br /></b></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Dr. Timothy R. Furnish, </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="https://occidentaljihadist.com/2023/05/21/there-you-go-again-with-white-supremacy-joe-biden/" target="_blank">The Occidental Jihadist</a>, May 21, 2023</span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5YVmP5JiiPFmatmnCfY6__nEUrnuJJ8O-vj1TCgHBHYZYBbHXbeA0nL0Sy_ILmCf8OnsrBrzuF6BVA_suG__gx991T_jzM3mFz85LDcjb4RPxsg38hKWjbmXCdMPg1AZO-D0qVNsGe0DAUwbp1228uKptPWz2jpwtmWE2LOFDRCcoEP3oipS0MZiNQUIV/s450/ak-quran-dor-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="258" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5YVmP5JiiPFmatmnCfY6__nEUrnuJJ8O-vj1TCgHBHYZYBbHXbeA0nL0Sy_ILmCf8OnsrBrzuF6BVA_suG__gx991T_jzM3mFz85LDcjb4RPxsg38hKWjbmXCdMPg1AZO-D0qVNsGe0DAUwbp1228uKptPWz2jpwtmWE2LOFDRCcoEP3oipS0MZiNQUIV/s320/ak-quran-dor-1.png" width="183" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ronald Reagan had many great lines. “</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHJ8pyKofw" style="font-family: inherit;">There you go again</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">” was one of his best, and most-used. Against Carter in 1980, Mondale in 1984, and probably every time Sam Donaldson shouted one of his inane questions.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We Reagan epigones can find no better target for The Great Communicator’s velvety barb than the current POTUS and his incessant, inveterate yammering about “white supremacy.” Just last week, at Howard University, The Grey Prevaricator once again claimed that “</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_idmZSQNn7Q" style="font-family: inherit;">the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">.”</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, even given that </span><a href="https://stream.org/agreeing-on-lies-how-the-democrats-do-history/" style="font-family: inherit;">agreeing on lies is how the Democrats do history now</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, this constant untruth is not only appalling but injurious to the body politic. And rather than deconstruct Biden’s mendacious malarkey yet again, allow me to list, and link to, my numerous previous articles over at The Stream which do so. In these you’ll find not just opinion, but terrorism data that demonstrates the ludicrousness of Biden’s propaganda.</span></div></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">“</span><a href="https://stream.org/the-false-shadow-of-domestic-extremism/" style="font-family: inherit;">The False Shadow of Domestic Extremism</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">” (September 14, 2022)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">“</span><a href="https://stream.org/our-government-gone-to-the-dogs/" style="font-family: inherit;">Our Government: Gone to the Dogs</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">?” (April 11, 2022)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><span></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">“</span><a href="https://stream.org/gaslighting-the-gullible-the-latest-biden-administration-counter-terrorism-plan/" style="font-family: inherit;">Gaslighting the Gullible: the Latest Biden Administration Counter-Terrorism Plan</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">” (January 18 2022)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">“</span><a href="https://stream.org/bidens-new-counter-terrorism-strategy-a-lying-dog-faced-pony-soldier-of-a-document/" style="font-family: inherit;">Biden’s New Counter-Terrorism Strategy: A Lying, Dog-faced, Pony Soldier of a Document</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">” (June 30, 2021)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">“</span><a href="https://stream.org/white-supremacists-our-most-dangerous-threat-a-whiter-shade-of-tall-tale/" style="font-family: inherit;">White Supremacists Our Most Dangerous Threat? A Whiter Shade of Tall Tale</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">” (May 4, 2021)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">“</span><a href="https://stream.org/the-boulder-blunder/" style="font-family: inherit;">The Boulder Blunder: Ignoring Real Terror Sources to Chase Phantom Threats</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">” (March 25, 2021)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">“</span><a href="https://stream.org/the-daft-bigotry-of-woke-expectations-about-islam/" style="font-family: inherit;">The Daft Bigotry of Woke Expectations about Islam</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">” (January 26, 2021)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">And the first, and probably best, one I wrote on this topic: “</span><a href="https://stream.org/white-terrorists-v-sultans-slaughter/" style="font-family: inherit;">White Terrorists v. the Sultans of Slaughter</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">” (August 13, 2019)</span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-86943484458997572022023-07-10T14:46:00.001-04:002023-07-10T14:46:36.008-04:00Raymond Ibrahim: 'Can We Ally with Muslims against the Sexual Indoctrination of Children?'<div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Raymond Ibrahim looks at recent Muslim protests against LGBT and Leftist/Democrat Groomers trying to sexualize and corrupt children, and asks: <i>"</i></span><i>Are Muslims, due to some 'inherent' conservatism, the natural leaders of any U.S. resistance to state-sanctioned sexual indoctrination? Or is there more to all this than meets the eye?"</i></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /> The answer is complicated and requires caution.<br /><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Can We Ally with Muslims against the Sexual Indoctrination of Children?</span></b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7OeeTkMZApRtgcLboMt4EE-l2mbDqSjbppGqOQI2tLVEvL9oz4DBKNAlMd-VtA37S67CwAD8yqO3GEEjgJC2iIQEoZiFFJLgadRCdUjJi4I9PIIzvXx7NDjyBevC18xI_CZoPvR03S_Ct_ZuFuW9H7gzBZxBYY6iV9w1CZndgQcf-Juzk9wD5y9k3D6wy/s1422/GayGroomers1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="793" data-original-width="1422" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7OeeTkMZApRtgcLboMt4EE-l2mbDqSjbppGqOQI2tLVEvL9oz4DBKNAlMd-VtA37S67CwAD8yqO3GEEjgJC2iIQEoZiFFJLgadRCdUjJi4I9PIIzvXx7NDjyBevC18xI_CZoPvR03S_Ct_ZuFuW9H7gzBZxBYY6iV9w1CZndgQcf-Juzk9wD5y9k3D6wy/w400-h223/GayGroomers1.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">by R<a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2023/07/10/can-we-ally-with-muslims-against-the-sexual-indoctrination-of-children/" target="_blank">aymond Ibrahim</a>, 7/10/2023, <a href="https://stream.org/can-we-ally-with-muslims-against-the-groomers/" target="_blank">The Stream</a><br /><br />Muslims are clearly resistant to the indoctrination of children in sexual deviancy—a phenomenon that goes under various euphemisms and acronyms I deign not employ (“pride,” “inclusivity,” lgb-whatever).<br /><br />As such, are Muslims the long-awaited heroes who will save America’s children? Many conservatives seem to think so—and for good reason.<br /><br />For example, last October, 2022, havoc broke out during a schoolboard meeting in Dearborn, when hundreds of mostly Muslim parents protested the circulation of sexually deviant books in the city’s school system. Many protesters carried signs in both English and Arabic, some <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/video/muslim-protesters-shut-down-michigan-133134603.html">saying</a>: “Keep Your Dirty Books in the Closet,” “Stop Grooming Our Kids,” and “Homosexuality Big Sin.”<br /><br />More recently, in Ottawa, Canada, soon after it was revealed that a schoolteacher had <a href="https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2023/06/07/2907208/canada-school-teacher-takes-on-muslim-students-for-skipping-pride-activities">berated</a>a Muslim student for merely trying to skip classes dedicated to celebrating sexual deviancy (“pride activities”), a group of Muslim children, encouraged by a woman in hijab, appeared in a protest <a href="https://twitter.com/ben_kew/status/1667199624539688960">stomping</a> on so-called “pride” flags. When asked what message they wanted to send, the hijabed woman said, “Leave our kids alone!” The shirt of one of the boys had an even more ominous warning: “Now or Never.”<br /><br />On June 6, yet another Muslim-led protest of some 400 people took place in Montgomery County, Maryland, where schools recently decided that children can <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/muslim-parents-protest-losing-right-to-opt-out-lgbtq-school-books">no longer opt out</a> of sexual indoctrination.<br /><br />Clearly, then, if most American—including Christian—parents are passively open to the sexual grooming of their children, Muslims are not.<br /><br />That said, on June 6, the same day of the Montgomery protest, but on the other coast of America, the most dramatic of all protests—one that spiraled into an <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2023/06/08/hail-to-the-brave-parents-whove-had-enough-of-the-sexualization-of-children/">all-out brawl</a> against Antifa—broke out in Glendale, California. There, more parents—with more signs saying “Leave Our Children Alone!”—protested this same new law that prevents them from opting their children out of sexual indoctrination.<br /><br />Those parents, however, were not Muslim—far from it—but rather Armenians, Orthodox Christians, who, due to their proximity to and <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2023/04/24/armenian-genocide-remembrance-day-christians-continue-to-be-purged/">experiences with Muslim neighbors</a>, have little love for Islam.<br /><br />What to make of all this? Are Muslims, due to some “inherent” conservatism, the natural leaders of any U.S. resistance to state-sanctioned sexual indoctrination? Or is there more to all this than meets the eye?</span></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />As more fully discussed <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2023/06/08/hail-to-the-brave-parents-whove-had-enough-of-the-sexualization-of-children/">here</a>, Muslims and Armenians are resistant to Western-sanctioned perversion less because of religion, and more because they are immigrant peoples—meaning they have not been in the West long enough to have their senses dulled and minds subverted by nonstop propaganda and indoctrination. They still have a very healthy supply of common sense, a commodity that has been under assault for generations in America.<br /><br />So when you tell them that there are countless genders, or that men can become pregnant, rather than do what most Americans do—roll their eyes but passively acquiesce nonetheless—immigrant peoples get very angry and disgusted. Moreover, as immigrant peoples, both Armenians and Muslims really care about their children—more than they care about being “canceled” on social media.<br /><br />But if Muslims are not required to lead the battle against sexual corruption, can they at least be allies, including for conservative Christians? I think so, with some caveats.<br /><br />Perhaps the best way to explain it all is by analogy: take two Americans from very different demographics, say, a Black man from the rough streets of Chicago, Illinois, and a White man from affluent Darien, Connecticut. Put them at the same party, and it may not be surprising if they do not gravitate to or interact with one another, things reserved for others more aligned with their respective backgrounds.<br /><br />Now, take these same two men and drop them off in a very foreign nation—say China—and watch them become fast friends and allies. The reason behind this dramatic change is simple: whereas at the American party, they each found people much more akin to them, in China, they become remarkably akin, and not just due to language, but because they still share many cultural reference points from living in America.<br /><br />Now apply this to, say, practicing Christians and Muslims: in a natural setting, they have little in common and see the world through different lens (despite all <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/12/13/talk-of-abrahamic-religions-is-an-ecumenical-farce/">nonsensical claims otherwise</a>). Moreover, being against the sexual indoctrination and corruption of their children is no real commonality: historically, and till the present, that’s what every normal person outside the Western world believes. It’s no more of a special commonality than generic facts, such as saying all humans need air and water to survive.<br /><br />However, in the West, Christians, Muslims, and all normal minded people are no longer in a “natural setting.” Rather, they are in a bizarro world, where up is down and wrong is right. In such an environment, the onetime common and taken for granted belief that children should not be sexually groomed in public schools becomes a unique and socially binding belief, one that can be rallied around.<br /><br />In other words, the so-called “<a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2023/03/22/there-is-no-right-or-left-only-right-or-wrong/">Left</a>” has so subverted and undermined reality, that peoples who under normal circumstances would have little in common now find themselves natural allies for a cause once taken for granted.<br /><br />Two final observations—one pro, one con—concerning an alliance with Muslims:<br /><br />Pro: The Left has traditionally catered to Muslims, and is constantly chiding the Right about the need to be more understanding of and acquiescent to Muslim sensibilities. As such, having this “protected minority” go against it may be more challenging for the Left than simply more of “those pesky Christians.”<br /><br />Con: As ever, Muslims—who live according to <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2020/12/25/how-islam-deified-tribalism/">very tribalistic doctrines</a> meant to keep them separate from and clean of infidels—are not protesting any of this because they care for the betterment of America, or because they care for American children. They are in it for their Muslim children. Period.<br /><br />During the Montgomery protests, for example, Kareem Monib, the Muslim leader of an organization called the Coalition of Virtue—which apparently is made up of people of all and no faiths—<a href="https://twitter.com/asranomani/status/1666296606616961024?s=46&t=x_Xc9alCO_mzygm53s_lvg">said</a>, “Our first issue is to protect Muslim children in public schools from indoctrination to things that conflict with their beliefs.” He further justified his position by citing the “Koran and sayings of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.”<br /><br />Accordingly, if the Left ever creates a clause just to cater to Muslims and their children—and we are living in an age where such blatant discrimination is possible—expect Muslims to quickly drop out of the fight. In other words, only and as long as Muslims continue to be equally impacted will they be reliable allies.<br /><br />I have <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2018/01/12/professing-christ-becoming-hate-crime-west/">long maintained</a> that, for the Left—which has little in common with and is hated by Muslims—one old adage has long explained its strategy: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” In other words, for the Left, the true and immediate enemy is conservative Christianity. Thus it empowers and sponsors anything—in this case, Islam—that can be set against Christianity.<br /><br />Now, however, as we enter this alternate universe, where an increasingly emboldened Left is alienating its onetime foot-soldiers, Muslims find themselves pushed into a corner with Christians where they can both say of each other, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”<br /><br />As such, perhaps the slogan of a coalition of conservative Christians, Muslims, and others can be “Working together for a saner here and now (and letting God sort out the hereafter).”<br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-1211352714034684842023-02-24T07:00:00.001-05:002023-02-24T07:00:00.189-05:00Islam and Western Civilization: Pillar or Pillager?From noted Roman Catholic author and Tolkien scholar, Joseph Pearce, comes a sharp rebuttal of the fallacious belief that Islam is somehow compatible with, and even central to, Western Civilization. Excerpt:<div><br /></div><div><i></i><blockquote><i>The seven pillars of Western Civilization are the edifying edifices which tower over the landscape of the centuries as a fortress of faith and a beacon of reason. Islam has served throughout the centuries as an outside force which has repeatedly laid siege to the fortress, seeking its overthrow.</i><p></p><p></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz6-E0kiXFzkpqTYtaamG_NQ5CEhK0QvYV4Hia5Q3jMxaiuFUFlLUximyY8YOFheKcl5KeFoS16Zsa1BUPZbXJGhRroDQ_LxQXtuuHJ3bCfJB3csf-B5DWOiX48Eu9E3LBvv7y9fjrtIndHF5K4KAsN6XKb1kHuPmsBKx8ilDGHQ_ldfBKRjg0ynGeuQ/s1608/defenders-of-the-west.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="905" data-original-width="1608" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz6-E0kiXFzkpqTYtaamG_NQ5CEhK0QvYV4Hia5Q3jMxaiuFUFlLUximyY8YOFheKcl5KeFoS16Zsa1BUPZbXJGhRroDQ_LxQXtuuHJ3bCfJB3csf-B5DWOiX48Eu9E3LBvv7y9fjrtIndHF5K4KAsN6XKb1kHuPmsBKx8ilDGHQ_ldfBKRjg0ynGeuQ/w400-h225/defenders-of-the-west.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Islam and Western Civilization</b></span></p>By <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/author/joseph-pearce">Joseph Pearce</a>| <a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2023/01/islam-western-civilization-joseph-pearce.html">The Imaginative Conservative </a> |January 28th, 2023<br /><br /><br />Several weeks ago I wrote an essay for this illustrious journal entitled “<a href="https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2022/12/seven-pillars-western-civilization-joseph-pearce.html">The Seven Pillars of Western Civilization</a>” in which I listed the seven seminal tomes which form the textual foundation of the civilization of the West. These are The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Bible, The City of God, the Summa Theologica and The Divine Comedy. Collectively, these texts epitomize why Western Civilization is founded on the three civilizations of Athens, Jerusalem and Rome.<br /><br />This is not the place to offer explanations with respect to the rationale for why these seven texts were selected instead of other contenders. Those interested in understanding the reason for the selection are invited to read the original essay.<br /><br />What surprised me was that several readers of the original essay admonished me for failing to include the Qur’an as one of the seven pillars of wisdom on which Western Civilization is built. This seems to beg the obvious question which I thought my essay had answered implicitly. What exactly is Western Civilization? If it is anything at all, it must be something rooted in a cohesive and coherent set of common values, which are themselves the fruit of cohesive and coherent theological and philosophical principles. <br /><br /><b>In brief and in sum, Western Civilization in its fullness and fruitfulness is a synonym for Christendom.</b> [Emphasis added -ed.] It is the consummation of the mythological and philosophical musings of the Greeks and the fulfilment of the theological covenant of the Jews in the Person of Jesus Christ as made manifest in the Church He founded throughout the centuries since His Incarnation. The quest and questions of Athens and Jerusalem are fulfilled and answered in the Gospel as enunciated by the One who proclaims Himself to be the Way, the Truth and the Life. Christ incarnates the transcendental trinity of the Good, the True and the Beautiful in who He is.<br /><br />If this is so, the Qur’an is not one of the foundational pillars of wisdom on which the West is built but is a subversive text which undermines those very foundations. If Christ is who He says He is, Muhammed is a false prophet. This is as logically inescapable as it is theologically obvious.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /><br />As for the fruit of the Qur’an’s influence with respect to Western Civilization, it has been bitter indeed. Islam as a military force overthrew the emerging Christian civilization in the Middle East and north Africa and would eventually overthrow Constantinople, the capital city of eastern Christendom. At the height of its military incursions into the heart of Christian Europe, it reached as far north as Tours, in northern France. Had Islam prevailed, the Christian Bible and Augustine’s City of God would have been smothered by censorship and the sands of time, which is to say, in modern parlance, that they would have been “cancelled”. There would have been no Summa Theologica of Aquinas and no Divine Comedy of Dante. There would have been no heritage of Western art, no Renaissance, no Romanesque or Gothic architecture, no Shakespeare. These icons of civilization would have been cancelled in a debauch of iconoclasm.<br /><br />Irrespective of whether we accept or deny the truth claims of the Qur’an, the irrefutable fact is that civilization as we know it in the West would never have existed if Muhammed had prevailed over Christ.<br /><br />The seven pillars of Western Civilization are the edifying edifices which tower over the landscape of the centuries as a fortress of faith and a beacon of reason. Islam has served throughout the centuries as an outside force which has repeatedly laid siege to the fortress, seeking its overthrow.<br /><br />There are few better evocations of the real and irreconcilable differences between Christendom and Islam than Chesterton’s poem, “Lepanto”, which tells of the victory of the Christian fleet over an Islamic armada in 1571. If the Christians had been defeated in that naval battle, it is possible that Rome would have fallen as Constantinople had fallen and that Saint Peter’s basilica would have been made into a mosque as Hagia Sophia in Constantinople had been made into a mosque. It is little wonder that the holy and courageous pope, Saint Pius V, should have declared that the date of the battle, October 7, should be celebrated thereafter as the Feast of Our Lady of Victory.<br /><br />Chesterton ends his poem with a vision of Miguel de Cervantes who had fought and been wounded during the battle. Had he been killed, his classic work of literature, Don Quixote, the first real novel, would never have been written. Perhaps, had he fallen or had the Christians lost the battle, the novel itself as a literary form might never have existed. With this sobering thought in mind, I will end my own defence of Western Civilization with the words that Chesterton used to end his poem:<br /><br />Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath<br />(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)<br />And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,<br />Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,<br />And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade….<br />(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)<br /><br /><span><!--more--></span></div></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-89617309899133390322023-02-20T15:25:00.002-05:002023-02-21T12:15:33.163-05:00Raymond Ibrahim: 'The Never Ending ‘Pandemic’: 360 Million Christians Persecuted Worldwide'<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> "</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Perhaps the most disturbing trend is that, since the inception of the World Watch List, the persecution of Christians has</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>nearly doubled...<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">"</span></b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Bhwxtl4DQf3s9IUUboQcLm-xMKTvh5xhBEwLFXS6Uc35seL7lGcnbFElmRKmyqBaLon8e4NtUmjJ4nFFQgVL0oIq4RV5FzaJHxR7n3Wan6YN4hy1yrvUspQ8fTMHaWmaKBItf10uCltV7tZs0HHtUiNBiQFh5QIEGWop-ClAJeSMpnryHL2bClpsUA/s1024/WWL-map-2023.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Bhwxtl4DQf3s9IUUboQcLm-xMKTvh5xhBEwLFXS6Uc35seL7lGcnbFElmRKmyqBaLon8e4NtUmjJ4nFFQgVL0oIq4RV5FzaJHxR7n3Wan6YN4hy1yrvUspQ8fTMHaWmaKBItf10uCltV7tZs0HHtUiNBiQFh5QIEGWop-ClAJeSMpnryHL2bClpsUA/w400-h225/WWL-map-2023.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Never Ending ‘Pandemic’: 360 Million Christians Persecuted Worldwide</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">by <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2023/02/08/the-never-ending-pandemic-360-million-christians-persecuted-worldwide/" target="_blank">Raymond Ibrahim</a>, 2/8/2023</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">originally published at <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19365/christians-persecuted" target="_blank">Gatestone Institute</a></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In 2022, 5,621 Christian around the world were “<a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">killed for faith related reasons</a>.” Another 4,542 Christians were illegally detained or arrested, and 2,110 churches were attacked, many destroyed. Over all, the global persecution of Christians remains higher than ever, with 360 million believers suffering high levels of discrimination and violence.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">These are among some of the findings of the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">World Watch List-2023</a>, which was recently published by the international humanitarian organization, Open Doors. Each year the report ranks the top 50 nations where Christians are most persecuted for their faith by using data from approximately 4,000 field workers and external experts to quantify and analyze persecution worldwide.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Crunching some numbers, the report<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">finds</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that, on average, one in seven Christians (14%) are persecuted around the world. In Africa, that number grows to one in five (20%), while in Asia it is as much as two in five—meaning a whopping 40% of all Christians are persecuted there.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Christians suffer “extreme levels of persecution” in the top 11 of the 50 nations. This ranges from being assaulted, raped, imprisoned or slaughtered on being identified as a Christian or attending (usually underground) churches.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Those nations and their respective rankings are: 1) North Korea, 2) Somalia, 3) Yemen, 4) Eritrea, 5) Libya, 6) Nigeria, 7) Pakistan, 8) Iran, 9) Afghanistan, 10) Sudan, 11) India.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Coming in at #1, the absolute worst nation is<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/north-korea/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">North Korea</a>, “with the highest levels of persecution ever seen,”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/north-korea/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">says</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the report:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">If discovered by the authorities, believers are either sent to labour camps as political prisoners where the conditions are atrocious, or killed on the spot—and their families will share their fate as well. Christians have absolutely no freedom…. A new ‘anti-reactionary thought law’ makes it amply clear that being a Christian or possessing a Bible is a serious crime and will be severely punished.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Most of the “extreme persecution” meted out to Christians in nine of the top 11 worst nations continues, however, to come either from Islamic oppression, or takes place in Muslim-majority nations. This means that approximately 80% of the absolute worst persecution around the globe takes place in the name of Islam.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This trend affects the entire list, not just the top 11: the persecution that Christians experience in 39 of the 50 nations also comes either from Islamic oppression or occurs in Muslim majority nations. The overwhelming majority of these nations are governed by some form of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">shari‘a</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(Islamic law). It can either be directly enforced by government or society or, more frequently, both, although societies—family members outraged in particular by relatives who have converted—tend to be more zealous in its application.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Moreover, though the persecution in North Korea is worse, there is, at least, a light at the end of the tunnel for Christians in that nation, as their ill treatment is entirely connected to the regime of Kim Jong-un. Once he is gone, North Korea may well become like South Korea, where Christianity is flourishing. On the other hand, the Muslim persecution of Christians is perennial, existential, and far transcends this or that regime or ruler. It is part of the history, doctrines, and socio-political makeup of Islam—hence its tenacity and ubiquity.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In the worst of the Muslim nations, Christianity has been so stamped out over the years that there are no indigenous Christians to persecute, only converts—apostates, which, according to most interpretations of Islamic law, deserve death.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/somalia/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Somalia</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(#2), for example, “Imams in mosques and madrassas state publicly that there is no room for Christianity, Christians or churches. The violent insurgent group al-Shabaab has repeatedly expressed its desire to eradicate Christians from the country. Christians from Muslim backgrounds are regarded as high-value targets and may be killed on the spot if discovered.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Similarly, in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/yemen/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Yemen</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(#3), “The population is overwhelmingly Muslim and it is illegal to convert from Islam to Christianity”:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Yemeni Christian converts are at great risk of being killed, not just ostracised or expelled, by their families, clans and tribes. Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and so-called Islamic State threaten so-called ‘apostates’ with death if they do not return to Islam. In other areas, including those controlled by Houthis, converts risk imprisonment. In detention centres, Christian detainees have reportedly suffered physical and mental torture.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In most Muslim nations on the list, one or all of three segments of society—Muslim authorities, Muslim mobs, or Muslim terrorists—persecute Christians to varying degrees.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/libya/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Libya</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(#5), jihadists are chiefly responsible. The North African nation<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/libya/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">is</a></span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">a lawless land where both native Christians and those passing through from other countries face extreme violence. With no central government to maintain law and order, militant Islamic extremist groups and organised crime groups both wield power. They target and kidnap Christians, and some believers have been killed.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">On the other hand, in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/iran/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Iran</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(#8), which is “ruled by an<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/iran/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">increasingly strict Islamic regime</a>,” the authorities are chiefly responsible:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Iranian house church leaders and members have received long prison sentences involving physical and mental abuse. Iranian Christians may be banned from education, lose their jobs and find it very difficult to get back into employment. For women, the situation is even more precarious because Iranian law grants women few rights. For trusting in Jesus, they are likely to be violently punished or divorced by their husbands and have their children taken away from them, if their faith is discovered.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/afghanistan/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Afghanistan</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(#9), Islamic terrorists—who also happen to be the authorities—are chiefly responsible:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The Taliban’s takeover of power in August 2021 has forced most Christians either further underground or away from the country entirely. Many (if not all) house groups closed, with believers forced to leave behind everything they own. More than a year after the Taliban’s takeover, any promises they made about recognising freedoms have proved to be false. Following Jesus remains a death sentence, if discovered.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/pakistan/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Pakistan</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(#7), every rung of society is responsible for the persecution:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Christians in Pakistan are considered second-class citizens and face discrimination in every aspect of life. Jobs that are seen as low, dirty and degrading are reserved for Christians by the authorities, who continue to push them to the margins of society. They lack proper representation in politics … [and] there are almost constant attacks against individuals. Many do not feel safe to worship freely…. [R]oughly a quarter of all blasphemy accusations target Christians, who only make up 1.8% of the population. The number of blasphemy cases is increasing, as is the number of Christian (and other minority religion) girls being abducted, abused and forcibly converted to Islam.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Similarly, in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/egypt/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Egypt</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(#35), which is “very high” in persecution, Christians “<a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/egypt/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">report</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>that freedom of religion violations are mostly experienced in the community”:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Incidents vary from Christian women being harassed while walking in the street, to a mob of angry Muslims forcing a whole community of Christians to move out, leaving their houses and belongings to be confiscated…. President al-Sisi regularly speaks positively about Egypt’s Christian community. However, the lack of serious law enforcement and the unwillingness of local authorities to protect Christians leave them vulnerable to all kinds of attacks, especially in Upper Egypt. Communal hostility and mob violence, in particular, continue to cause difficulties.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Perhaps the most disturbing trend is that, since the inception of the WWL, the persecution of Christians has<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2023/02/08/the-never-ending-pandemic-360-million-christians-persecuted-worldwide/the%20attacks%20on%20Christians%20continues%20to%20grow%20annually.%20%20According%20to%20the%20report," style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">nearly doubled</a>:</span></p><blockquote style="border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Since 1993, the World Watch List has revealed the scale and severity of the persecution of Christians. In the last 30 years, the number of countries where Christians suffer high and extreme levels of persecution has almost doubled to 76 countries. Today, more than 360m Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith. In Open Doors’ World Watch List top 50 alone, 312m Christians face very high or extreme levels.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">[. . .]</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Last year, 360 million Christians around the world also<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18226/christians-persecuted-worldwide" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">experienced</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“high levels of persecution and discrimination.” That number represented a 6% increase from 2021, when 340 million Christians<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16963/calamity-christians-persecuted" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">experienced</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the same degree of persecution; and that number represented a 31 % increase from 2020, when 260 million Christians<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15507/christians-persecution-global-catastrophe" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">experienced</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the same level of persecution; and that number represented a 6% increase from 2019, when 245 million<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15147/christians-global-persecution" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">experienced</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the same level of persecution; and that number represented a 14% increase from 2018, when 215 million<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11775/persecuted-christians-open-doors" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">was</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the number.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In short, the persecution of Christians, which was already horrific, has already increased by nearly 70% over the last six years, with no signs of abating. For the first time since the inception of the WWL thirty years ago,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/nicaragua/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Nicaragua</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(#50) has now made the list.</span></p><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">How long before this seemingly irreversible trend metastasizes into even those nations currently celebrated for their religious freedom?</span></span></p><p><br /></p>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-54972415931797222922023-02-16T17:01:00.005-05:002023-02-21T12:14:59.585-05:00Announcing a New Book on Islam from an Orthodox Christian Perspective<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Respected writer and Orthodox Christian priest, Fr. Lawrence Farley, has announced his new book on Islam: </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://sebastianpress.org/exploring-islam-a-christian-perspective-on-the-life-of-muhammad-and-the-quran/" target="_blank">Exploring Islam: A Christian Perspective on the Life of Muhammad and the Qur'an</a></b>, available now from Sebastian Press.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Regular readers of this blog may remember Fr Lawrence from previous posts:</span></p><span><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://facingislam.blogspot.com/2016/07/worshipping-with-muslims.html" target="_blank">Worshipping with Muslims? </a></b><span><i><span style="font-size: large;">- </span><span style="font-size: medium;">"Our ultimate goal and divine mandate is not co-existence with Muslims but their conversion—as it is for all the children of men."</span></i><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b></span></li><li style="font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://facingislam.blogspot.com/2015/02/saying-amen-to-canonization-of-21.html" target="_blank">Saying 'AMEN' to the Canonization of the 21 Coptic Martyrs of Libya</a></b></span></li></ul></span><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">In the article below, Fr Lawrence presents an introduction to his book, at one point stating his purpose: </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Scholarly research and impartial detailed examination of the history of Muhammad and his movement, and of the sayings he transmitted (eventually collected and published as “the Qur’an”) prove that the claims Islam makes for itself cannot be sustained. Wherever the truth about God lies, it is not here.</i></span></p><p></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I have ordered a copy, and plan to provide a review after reading it. Given Fr Lawrence's previous articles, and his stated purpose in the below article, I look forward to what may be a helpful resource for Christians in presenting the Saving Gospel of Jesus Christ to our Muslim neighbors. </span></p><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; margin: 2rem 0px 1rem;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Exploring Islam</span></h1><span style="font-size: medium;">February 16, 2023 | Fr. Lawrence Farley | <a href="https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/exploring-islam/?fbclid=IwAR2mWnUHwv2M2MOgMC2oaIGWG3WVzKN-JytIfJSrUhlaXN4Kaf9-xidojeg">No Other Foundation</a><br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUiWoEwhFC6Lz3MIHqB5OPLehAMJWFKB1SRXc6jMb992bHWfMPNSCvjVaj3ttEvwYtsi4B_-SjE3_5sR8Yvyqb0Hj4CBBoD5vFxkKg2A_WvlmByPQGXoxDL-GT8UD6q9lGWuKwRHUox_Mj4fym-QICnd-YXzAkBbJ_wukcG1ZR3-C1KkXBOnHLgLJ6fA/s2000/exploring-islam__54196-v2.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUiWoEwhFC6Lz3MIHqB5OPLehAMJWFKB1SRXc6jMb992bHWfMPNSCvjVaj3ttEvwYtsi4B_-SjE3_5sR8Yvyqb0Hj4CBBoD5vFxkKg2A_WvlmByPQGXoxDL-GT8UD6q9lGWuKwRHUox_Mj4fym-QICnd-YXzAkBbJ_wukcG1ZR3-C1KkXBOnHLgLJ6fA/s320/exploring-islam__54196-v2.png" width="256" /></a></div><br />I would like you all to meet a young woman, raised a devout Roman Catholic, who converted to Islam. Her online story reads in part as follows:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I’m one of the many western converts out there… I grew up in a very traditional orthodox Christian household. My family was going to church and respecting all traditions, but it was mostly something they did out of habit, not something they actually felt… I could never agree with many concepts Christianity supports. I did try to accept it, I did want to be firm in my convictions, but it never happened…I had the best intentions in the world for any religion that came to me, but the one and only that stuck in my heart was Islam…The moment I started reading the Qur’an, I felt this incredible wave of love surrounding me and all the weight from my shoulders was lifted off. I will never be able to put it in words…Here I am after years, still a Muslim, and an incredibly grateful one. I was 18 when I converted.”</div><br />One can only feel for this young woman who by her own testimony never managed to find Christ. And one does wonder about the paths she trod as a Roman Catholic, especially since she also said that when she converted to Islam it was her priest who gave her a copy of the Qur’an. But I share her story in order to focus upon the need for the Church to deal with Islam here in the West. Though perhaps not typical, her story is hardly unique, and includes some big name converts such as Cat Stevens, who converted to Islam in 1976.</span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Islam is, to say the least, a very controversial religion. For some people, especially since the tragedy of 9-11, all Muslims are either terrorists or potential terrorists. For others, Islam is a religion of peace, and is unjustly slandered by Neanderthal “Islamophobes”. Obviously Islam, like any large religion, contains of number of very diverse people, and sweeping generalizations make things difficult. Where does the truth lie?</span></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br />Specifically, what can one say in response to the standard Islamic self-portrayal of itself as a religion of peace, reason, and reasonableness? Islam offers a faith that is coherent, all-embracing, and (for many) a refreshing change from the immoral culture of the West with its pornography and twerking. It is familiar enough to include Biblical figures such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, as well as Biblical concepts such as the necessity for compassion, justice, and a final judgment. It also emphasizes that it avoids such complexities as the three-in-one Trinity, which it portrays as unreasonable, self-contradictory nonsense. Jesus was a prophet, they say, and nothing more. He is respected, but not worshipped as God, for if He was God, wouldn’t that make two gods? How can Christianity claim to be monotheistic if it worships Jesus?<br /><br />Islam’s presentation of its history gives the impression of being straightforward and clear, without the necessity for believing in miracles. Indeed, one writer (Renan, d. 1892) asserted that “Islam was born in the full light of history”, in contrast to the supposedly murky and uncertain beginnings of Christianity. The Qur’an is easy to read and claims to represent the ipsissima verba of Allah to Muhammad given through the archangel Gabriel from the years 610-632. The authenticity of the sayings attributed to Muhammad are vouched by for chains of witnesses, whose names are given. Surely nothing could be more clear, more illumined by the full light of history?<br /><br />Well, no actually. When western scholars subject Islam to the same searching inquiry and the same bright glare of impartial research with which they approach any other historical subject, certain problems immediately arise. For one thing, the earliest compiler of hadith (the stories about Muhammad on which Islamic history is based) examined 600,000 hadith, memorized 200,000 of them and rejected all but 2700 of them as inauthentic.<br /><br />Even granting some pardonable exaggeration in the numbers, by any standard of judgment this represents an astonishing number of false stories being fabricated about Muhammad. And the earliest collection was made about 250 years after the events they purported to document. By anyone’s thinking, this is hardly “the full light of history”. Moreover, the chains of supporting witnesses have been found to be faulty—not surprisingly, since they came into existence late, around the mid-eighth century. Furthermore, conflicting stories are justified using the same chains of witnesses.<br /><br />When one turns from the life of Muhammad to the Qur’an itself, one finds it riddled with historical errors, including a confusion of the “Miriam” who was Moses’ sister with the “Miriam” who was Jesus’ Mother. A detailed and comprehensive reading of the Qur’anic text reveals that it was the work of someone who had heard many stories about Jesus and the events of the Old Testament from others, but had never actually read the sacred texts himself—hence the confusion and the garbling.<br /><br />Scholarly research and impartial detailed examination of the history of Muhammad and his movement, and of the sayings he transmitted (eventually collected and published as “the Qur’an”) prove that the claims Islam makes for itself cannot be sustained. Wherever the truth about God lies, it is not here.<br /><br />It is one thing to assert this in a brief blog piece, and quite another to argue it to its final conclusion. That is why I have written a book about Muhammad, the early history of Islam, and an exploration of the Qur’an itself. It is written irenically (as befits writing done in a liberal democracy, where many people live together who must somehow all get along), but it is also written clearly, letting the evidence speak for itself. It draws upon the work of scholars such as Fred Donner (who kindly examined some of the chapters on early Islamic history and gave it a “thumbs up”), Claude Gilliot, Patricia Crone, and Stephen Shoemaker. It also draws upon the voices of Nabeel Qureshi and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, both of them former Muslims, the former of whom converted to Christianity.<br /><br />I commend the book to you and hope you will buy it and read it for yourself. It is available from Sebastian Press <a href="http://sebastianpress.org/exploring-islam-a-christian-perspective-on-the-life-of-muhammad-and-the-quran/">here</a>.</span><span><!--more--></span><div><br /></div></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-56918024127180596012023-02-13T15:24:00.000-05:002023-02-13T15:24:03.906-05:00William Kilpatrick and Raymond Ibrahim: 'Defenders of Faith and Family'<i style="font-family: inherit;">William Kilpatrick's stirring, in-depth review of Raymond Ibrahim's newest book, is itself a vigorous rallying cry to defenders of Western Christian Culture against not merely Islamic supremacy or terrorism, but against the anti-Christian, anti-family and anti-human Progressive, Leftist agenda.</i><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span><div><i style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNStZIta1GXJ3UewlDVET7qtR-8G5jOmFCCCgoifDC9DNjdpaix8yIOnAPZlpzuuLkhsCnoTy2grc5_gCmD2C9p2B7qwpn3TQZJ39nu7SgdYBPxJxRLx1Tfu3WpFLYalwuaUAo2sNi3vnBhdYrB69mn4By1jBXiwEOQvZgERQMpDyhynQLkY7U0PgRw/s1608/defenders-of-the-west.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="905" data-original-width="1608" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikNStZIta1GXJ3UewlDVET7qtR-8G5jOmFCCCgoifDC9DNjdpaix8yIOnAPZlpzuuLkhsCnoTy2grc5_gCmD2C9p2B7qwpn3TQZJ39nu7SgdYBPxJxRLx1Tfu3WpFLYalwuaUAo2sNi3vnBhdYrB69mn4By1jBXiwEOQvZgERQMpDyhynQLkY7U0PgRw/w400-h225/defenders-of-the-west.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Defenders of Faith and Family</b></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><i><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Like today’s leftists, the Ottoman Turks wanted to turn Christian children against their parents; but one man turned the tables on them.</span><br style="font-size: large;" /></b></i><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">by William Kilpatrick, <a href="https://www.crisismagazine.com/opinion/defenders-of-faith-and-family" target="_blank">Crisis Magazine</a></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /><blockquote><b><i>Christianity was saved in Europe solely because the peoples of Europe fought. If [Europeans]…had not possessed a military equality with, and gradually a growing superiority over the Mohammedans who invaded Europe, Europe would at this moment be Mohammedan and the Christian religion would be exterminated.</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></b></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: right;">—Theodore Roosevelt</blockquote><br />I came across Roosevelt’s observation in Raymond Ibrahim’s recent book, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Defenders-of-the-West/Raymond-Ibrahim/9781642938203" target="_blank">Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes who stood against Islam</a>. At a time when Islam once again seems poised to conquer Europe—this time by dint of immigration and higher birthrates—Ibrahim’s book serves as a timely reminder that this clash of civilizations is far from over. <br /><br /><i>Defenders of the West</i> focuses on eight individuals who fought against Islamic armies at various times in past centuries. Interestingly, Ibrahim himself can be considered a modern-day “defender of the West” or, more accurately, “defender of the faith.” <br /><br />I say this because the faith can’t be effectively defended unless Christians first realize that it needs defending. Much of Ibrahim’s work concerns the oppression of Christians by Muslims all over the world but particularly in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East—a story that relatively few Western Christians are familiar with. <br /><br />Ibrahim, of course, also writes about the continuing threat to the West—to Europe and the Americas. </span></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Unlike the daily persecution and slaughter of Christians in Africa, however, Christians in the West are subject to more subtle but still effective types of intimidation which cause them to look the other way in the face of Muslim transgressions. Most Westerners now understand that the subject of Islamic aggression is to be avoided. <br /><br />Indeed, the reluctance to get involved in the problems of other Christians was a major factor in hindering Christian efforts to resist Islamic attacks on Europe in past centuries. As long as their own territory wasn’t threatened, many kings and princes refused to come to the aid of their neighbors despite repeated pleas from Rome to unite in defense of Christendom. <br /><br />Some of these Christian leaders were even willing to make alliances with the (Ottoman) “Turks” and fight alongside them against their fellow Christians. Indeed, Defenders of the West is filled with considerably more accounts of betrayals than you will find in the pages of The Lord of the Rings. <br /><br />Speaking of The Lord of the Rings, there is an almost fantastical quality to Ibrahim’s book. Much of what took place seems beyond belief. Yet, Defenders of the West is based almost entirely on primary sources. And the stories they tell are astounding: Duke Godfrey of Bouillon’s fight to the death with an “enormous” bear; Christian warriors prevailing against ten-to-one odds; and psychological warfare that sometimes took the form of mountainous piles of skulls left by the roadways as a warning to Christian soldiers of the fate that lay before them. <br /><br />And the battles? If you’ve seen the battle scenes in the film version of The Lord of the Rings, you might assume that they are gross exaggerations of actual medieval battles. Well, yes and no. There were, of course, no Orcs or giants or walking trees in those days; but there were enormous armies—some of them numbering in the hundreds of thousands. <br /><br />Moreover, there were huge engines of war: enormous battering rams; giant catapults capable of hurling 400-pound projectiles; and wooden towers taller than castle walls which were constructed in a matter of days and wheeled up to the walls, enabling archers to shoot down from above into the courtyards below. <br /><br />Remote as all this seems to us, however, there were aspects of the wars which seem both familiar and shocking to us. The Ottoman Turks were masters of psychological warfare and had developed a particularly cruel institution which allowed them to enlist Christian children against their own parents. It was called the janissary (“new soldier”) system. <br /><br />In those areas of the Balkan region which the Turks controlled, Christian families were compelled to make an annual blood tribute of their own sons. The Turks selected the strongest, healthiest, most talented, and most intelligent of these boys and then turned them into Ottoman warriors. As Ibrahim tells it:<br /><br /><blockquote><i><b>These children were then marched to the Ottoman heartland, forcibly converted to Islam, indoctrinated in the teachings of jihad, trained to be—and rewarded for being—warriors par excellence, and then set loose on their former Christian kin, thereby perpetuating the cycle of conquest, enslavement, and conversion, always to Islam’s demographic gain and Christendom’s demographic loss.</b></i></blockquote><br /><br />Thus indoctrinated, the youngsters often developed a slavish devotion to Islam and their Islamic masters, and a deep hostility toward Christians. Although the institution of the janissaries was novel at the time, we have seen several similar examples in the modern era. Both the Hitler Youth and the Soviet-era Young Pioneers aimed to inculcate youngsters with beliefs and values that were often in opposition to those of their parents. Moreover, children who betrayed their parents to the authorities were held up as models for other youth to emulate. <br /><br />The most recent example of an organized attempt to separate children from their families and from the faith of their families can be found no further away than your neighborhood school. All across the country, children are being indoctrinated to believe that gay is okay, that boys have the right to use the girl’s locker room, and that children can choose their own gender. <br /><br />Some teachers and counselors even encourage children to believe that they have been assigned the wrong gender and offer to assist them in transitioning to their “true” identity. In the meantime, they advise the children not to inform their parents. <br /><br />And why should parents be informed? Like the Ottoman rulers of old, many education “professionals” have convinced themselves that the children belong to the state, not to their parents. Never mind what parents believe, teachers know best. And, indeed, it is now common knowledge that a K-through-college education often has the effect of turning children away from the values of their parents. <br /><br />What’s more, exposure to our educational system also has the effect of turning young people away from the values of our nation. In recent years, our academies of higher education have painted America as the root of all evil. According to this “woke” view, America was founded by racists, and is still guilty of systemic racism, white supremacy, ethnocentrism, sexism, and transphobia. <br /><br />Americans, in short, are taught to be ashamed of their culture and their heritage. A large part of that heritage, of course, goes back to our European ancestors and to the brave warriors who stood against Islam and ensured that our heritage would be a Christian heritage, not a Mohammedan one.<br /><br />As everyone knows, the last several years have been marked by a concerted effort to “trash” our culture—to pull down statues of American heroes and to brand them all as white supremacists (even Lincoln and Frederick Douglass). <br /><br />As Ibrahim shows in his final chapter, this trashing now extends to our European ancestors who fought to defend their faith and their liberties against the advance of Islam. For example, “in 1999, hundreds of self-identified Christians participated in a ‘reconciliation walk’ that began in Germany and ended in Jerusalem. Along the way, they wore T-shirts with the words ‘I apologize’—in Arabic, no less.” <br /><br />More recently, in 2020 in St. Louis, Missouri, “throngs of ‘progressives’—led by Black Lives Matter and Muslim activists—violently targeted for destruction the forty-foot iconic statue of King Louis IX [St. Louis].” <br /><br />St. Louis happens to be one of the eight heroic defenders of the West who are the subject of Ibrahim’s book. “It mattered little,” writes Ibrahim, “that the saint-king had spent much of his life and wealth in pious works of charity to better the lot of his fellow man.” <br /><br />At the same time that Western Christians were being smeared, however, Western academics were busy whitewashing the brutality of the Mohammedans. For example, as Ibrahim notes, the “devilish” institution of the janissaries “has been whitewashed and portrayed by Western academics ‘as the equivalent of sending a child away for a prestigious education and training for a lucrative career.’”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.crisismagazine.com/opinion/defenders-of-faith-and-family" target="_blank">Read the full article, with much more, at Crisis Magazine...</a></b></span></div><div><br /></div></div></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-41259128831692343182023-02-07T15:17:00.005-05:002023-02-07T15:17:55.923-05:00Links to provide Relief Aid to Victims of the Earthquakes in Turkey & Syria<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI5ZEFN3u--lc5OA5MDtMub0YGhoHOAGvyo6Euv-C9HH7nFsiKMByXhH6pN-yEHFkIBRkMKCwSRvAqJWy19_e5fHNGvHqK6pOnV-PQo4R-c4gR8RhVY-Am4EVPIBJ1SPN3so3HOMSWUJZmw1zjILW5QzUN_nNRZ8Y3gNyIZsCDcYQ7sgiJ-nenKEwpTA/s225/Canonical-Bishops-Logo.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI5ZEFN3u--lc5OA5MDtMub0YGhoHOAGvyo6Euv-C9HH7nFsiKMByXhH6pN-yEHFkIBRkMKCwSRvAqJWy19_e5fHNGvHqK6pOnV-PQo4R-c4gR8RhVY-Am4EVPIBJ1SPN3so3HOMSWUJZmw1zjILW5QzUN_nNRZ8Y3gNyIZsCDcYQ7sgiJ-nenKEwpTA/w200-h200/Canonical-Bishops-Logo.png" /></a></div>From the Communication Office of the <a href="https://www.assemblyofbishops.org/" target="_blank">Assembly of Canonical Bishops</a>,<br /><br />h/t <a href="https://www.monomakhos.com/from-the-communication-office-of-the-assembly-of-canonical-bishops/" target="_blank">Monomakhos</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The Assembly of Bishops’ international humanitarian relief agency, International Orthodox Christian Charities (“IOCC”), is mobilizing direct relief on the ground. They have set a goal of $250,000 to provide immediate emergency relief. Here are their direct links:</div><br /><a href="https://support.iocc.org/site/Donation2?df_id=8464&mfc_pref=T&8464.donation=form1&_ga=2.199272045.2143495723.1675800764-624994095.1675800764" target="_blank">IOCC Main Website - Donation Portal</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.facebook.com/IOCCRelief/" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/IOCCRelief/</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.instagram.com/ioccrelief/?hl=en" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/ioccrelief/?hl=en</a><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/IOCCRelief/status/1622701679731679232?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/IOCCRelief/status/1622701679731679232?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet</a>.<br /><br /> Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-52557208690338536412023-01-25T13:43:00.004-05:002023-02-13T15:05:16.077-05:00Raymond Ibrahim: 'Pope Benedict Told the Grim Truth about Islam'<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><i>"As if to validate the claim that Muhammad had only taught “evil and inhuman” things, when Benedict quoted this assertion, anti-Christian riots erupted around the Muslim world, churches were set aflame, and an Italian nun who had devoted her life to serving the sick and needy of Somalia was murdered there."</i></span><div><br /><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8IaN_F8y99XkMc3QcqoGmiAgnUpT55nVOjrvr_CU-4NrtcCuRV1QCfGshqvTGHSIjKC4pB0FRC2isgykVfy064R2lisR6ILeAnoeI4rTE-KobU_WkC34aUgi1H170rT5rNvnUilZziWn66RoE8sMQtZAuMzgiHtJskIMo-CvfwR0Evxy4CobOevfzDA/s900/Jesus-Muhammad-Christianity-Islam-Cross-Crescent-Star-900.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="462" data-original-width="900" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8IaN_F8y99XkMc3QcqoGmiAgnUpT55nVOjrvr_CU-4NrtcCuRV1QCfGshqvTGHSIjKC4pB0FRC2isgykVfy064R2lisR6ILeAnoeI4rTE-KobU_WkC34aUgi1H170rT5rNvnUilZziWn66RoE8sMQtZAuMzgiHtJskIMo-CvfwR0Evxy4CobOevfzDA/w400-h205/Jesus-Muhammad-Christianity-Islam-Cross-Crescent-Star-900.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Pope Benedict Told the Grim Truth about Islam</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">01/16/2023 by <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/author/raymond-ibrahim/">Raymond Ibrahim</a><br /><br />Originally published by <a href="https://stream.org/pope-benedict-told-the-grim-truth-about-islam/">The Stream</a><br /><br />“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”<br /><br />In certain respects, this is the sentence that Pope Benedict XVI will be most remembered for. And while those who cite it do so to disparage and dishonor his memory—to portray him as an “Islamophobe”—that notorious assertion is of profound significance, and in more ways than one.<br /><br />Pope Benedict read the above assertion on Sept. 12, 2006, during his <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg.html">Regensburg address</a> on faith and reason. He was quoting Eastern Roman (or “Byzantine”) Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (b. 1350-1425). An erudite and pious man, Manuel knew much about Islam, both abstractly and experientially.<br /><br />In 1390, Manuel’s father, John V, submitted to becoming a vassal to, and sent his son, Manuel, as a hostage of, the Ottoman sultan, Bayezid I (1360-1403), whom the contemporary chronicler Doukas described as<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>"a feared man, precipitate in deeds of war, a persecutor of Christians as no other around him, and in the religion of the Arabs [Islam] a most ardent disciple of Muhammad, whose unlawful commandments were observed to the utmost, never sleeping, spending his nights contriving intrigues and machinations against the rational flock of Christ. . . . His purpose was to increase the nation of the Prophet and to decrease that of the Romans. Many cities and provinces did he add to the dominion of the Muslims."</i></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Unsurprisingly, the sultan never seemed to miss an opportunity to humiliate the heir apparent of Constantinople. Bayezid even sadistically forced Manuel to accompany the Turks and witness the final destruction of Philadelphia, the last Christian bastion in Asia Minor. The “sight of destroyed Christian cities” produced much “intense suffering” and even “sickened” the prince, writes one historian.<br /><br />One year later, in 1391, Emperor John V died, and his son, Manuel, became emperor—after escaping from the sultan’s court to Constantinople. It was not long before Bayezid declared a fresh jihad, put Constantinople to siege (1394-1402), and once again began slaughtering Christians.<br /><br />Earlier, during his time with the Turks, Manuel had regularly debated religion with Muslims. It was then that he said to a learned Muslim, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”</span></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br />As inflammatory as this sentence may be to modern sensibilities—and despite all the criticism Benedict received for quoting it—it is hard to gainsay it. The jihad promulgated by the Muslim prophet has led to the slaughter of millions and brutal conquest of much of the earth’s surface, including some three-fourths of what was once the Christian world. The Middle East and North Africa—like Constantinople, now Istanbul—were more Christian than Europe until the sword of jihad Islamized them.<br /><br />Indeed, almost as if to validate the claim that Muhammad had only taught “evil and inhuman” things, when Benedict quoted this assertion, anti-Christian riots erupted around the Muslim world, churches were set aflame, and an Italian nun who had devoted her life to serving the sick and needy of Somalia was murdered there.<br /><br />Be that as it may. This is not the place to document the veracity of Manuel’s statement—I have already written <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306825554/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0306825554&linkCode=as2&tag=raymondibrahi-20&linkId=0f925201768b161ae319879bb3fdf1d7">two</a> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1642938203/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1642938203&linkCode=as2&tag=raymondibrahi-20&linkId=f41d2e2f0b3c33ac1456833892c7e05b">books</a> that fulfill that purpose—but rather to get to the emperor’s point, which was theological: God is rationale—as the Logos, the very embodiment of rationalism—whereas the teachings of Muhammad were not. This comes out clearly in Manuel’s own words on the three options Islam offers non-Muslims:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>"[1] they must place themselves under this law [sharia, meaning become Muslims], or [2] pay tribute and, more, be reduced to slavery [an accurate depiction of <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2015/05/28/islamic-jizya-fact-and-fiction/">jizya</a> and <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2014/03/24/western-ignorance-of-the-conditions-of-omar/">dhimmi status</a>], or, in the absence of wither, [3] be struck without hesitation with iron."<br /></i></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />Manuel argued that these three options are “extremely absurd,” irrational, and therefore unbecoming of the Supreme Deity. For example, if being a non-Muslim is so bad, why would God allow money, jizya, to “buy the opportunity to lead an impious life?” asked the emperor. Clearly these are very self-serving and manmade rules, designed to empower one group (in this case, Muslims) against another. Manuel continued:<br /><br /><i>"God is not pleased by blood—and not acting reasonably [σὺν λόγω, “with logic”] is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…"</i><br /><br />Benedict had quoted all of this less to defame Islam, and more to argue for the importance of reason, and its compatibility with faith—both of which are under assault today more than ever (as when a society cannot tell the difference between men and women).<br /><br />As for Islam—which is <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2011/10/20/the-closing-of-the-muslim-mind/">inherently irrational</a>—Benedict had closed his address with,<br /><br /><i>“ 'Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God', said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures."</i><br /><br />Here, one cannot help but remark how utterly different Pope Benedict and his successor, Pope Francis, are in their approaches to Islam. Whereas Benedict knew that without agreement on a first premise—namely, the (rational) nature of God—“dialogue” with Muslims would achieve nothing, <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/?s=pope+francis&id=17601">Francis</a> has become the champion of dialogue, and all apparently for show—rationalism and reality be damned.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /><i>For more on Manuel II, his struggles against Islam, and the subsequent fall of Constantinople, see chapter 7 of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306825554/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0306825554&linkCode=as2&tag=raymondibrahi-20&linkId=0f925201768b161ae319879bb3fdf1d7">Sword and Scimitar</a>.</i></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-69727679750457578662022-12-31T18:36:00.001-05:002022-12-31T18:36:25.572-05:00William Kilkpatrick: 'See No Islam, Hear No Islam'<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">New Catholic title on Apologetics omits any consideration of Christian witness to Muslims, or the impact of Islam on Christians.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>See No Islam, Hear No Islam</b></span></p><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">by William Kilkpatrick, <a href="https://turningpointproject.com/see-no-islam-hear-no-islam/">Turning Point Project</a>, November 15, 2022<br /><br /><i>A significant omission in an otherwise good book.</i></span><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></em></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></em></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAqRdAJRdTleA2M6Td9pueNLziX437rl7QYUcnU7wPfwY-cqllMJQgPvs1_cIqVf_zOWJjtMM8FX1KZlTq3w3PUOI1YlRPBv3t8C04feygNfg7DGLIlMBNj7_Nte0EhOnTmI0CxPgLGOJ7NFe4InSWajTYlMrp0bMeEEJONMxZlXWmSBUR2kKRE4e4SA/s1024/See-No-Evil-1024x675.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1024" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAqRdAJRdTleA2M6Td9pueNLziX437rl7QYUcnU7wPfwY-cqllMJQgPvs1_cIqVf_zOWJjtMM8FX1KZlTq3w3PUOI1YlRPBv3t8C04feygNfg7DGLIlMBNj7_Nte0EhOnTmI0CxPgLGOJ7NFe4InSWajTYlMrp0bMeEEJONMxZlXWmSBUR2kKRE4e4SA/w400-h264/See-No-Evil-1024x675.jpg" width="400" /></a></em></div><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></em><br /><br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Apologetics-Matthew-Nelson-ebook/dp/B0B6KV585R/ref=sr_1_1?crid=249RMX0K6PJAL&keywords=the+new+apologetics+matthew+nelson&qid=1667790906&sprefix=%2Caps%2C91&sr=8-1" style="font-size: large;"><i>The New Apologetics</i></a><span style="font-size: medium;"> is a collection of 41 essays by noted Catholic apologists.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">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, </span><a href="https://tntnewsonline.com/2022/07/26/insecurity-18000-nigerians-killed-by-terrorists-in-two-years-pdp/" style="font-size: large;">18,000 people have been killed by</a><span style="font-size: medium;"> 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.</span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><br /><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">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.</span></i></blockquote><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">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 </span><a href="https://www.document.no/2022/09/25/how-civilizations-will-be-decided/" style="font-size: large;">Giulio Meotti</a><span style="font-size: medium;">, Islam is now the dominant religion among children in Birmingham, Leicester, Bradford, Luton, Slough and the London boroughs of Newham, Redbridge and Tower Hamlets.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">In France, for example, Muslims commit almost all of the violent crimes and constitute almost 80 % of the prison population. </span><a href="https://www.jihadwatch.org/2022/10/dire-warnings-from-the-former-police-chief-of-paris" style="font-size: large;">According to Hugh Fitzgerald</a><span style="font-size: medium;">, “[Muslim migrants] are creating a parallel society, hostile to French authorities and contemptuous of the non-Muslim French.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">In response to the Muslim crime wave, Didier Lallement, the recently-retired head of the Paris police has written a book warning of social breakdown and civil war. He’s not alone. </span><a href="https://www.jihadwatch.org/2022/10/dire-warnings-from-the-former-police-chief-of-paris" style="font-size: large;">Pierre Brochand</a><span style="font-size: medium;">, the country’s former top intelligence director has also warned of civil war due to mass immigration. Moreover, in 2021 about 1,000 active servicemen and women, including twenty retired generals signed an </span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56899765" style="font-size: large;">open letter to the government warning of civil war</a><span style="font-size: medium;"> due to “religious extremism” (i.e., Islamism.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">The situation is not so dire in the U.S., of course, but let’s not forget the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and in 2001, and dozens of other Islamic terrorist attack, including the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando which left 49 dead and 53 injured, the San Bernardino massacre which left 14 dead and 24 seriously injured, the Fort Hood massacre which resulted in 14 deaths and over 40 injuries, and numerous other deadly jihad attacks since 2001.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">The point is, Islam is a deadly threat to Christians all over the world. Its aggressive and expansionist nature, moreover, is built into its theology. In addition, its founding scripture, the Koran, directly attacks and threatens Christians and Jews. One would expect that at least some Catholic apologists would turn their attention to the subject, but few do.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">To the extent that anything is being taught about Islam in Catholic schools and colleges, it is the Pollyannish version that emanates from the Vatican and places such as Georgetown’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Christian-Muslim Understanding. For its part, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops puts most of its efforts into upbeat dialogues with their Muslim counterparts and into helping Muslims fight a supposed epidemic of “Islamophobia.” Meanwhile, the bishops show little curiosity as to why so many people fear Islam. Don’t Christians and other non-Muslims in Africa who are slaughtered on a regular basis in the name of Islam have good reason to fear Islam? Don’t ask. Such questions are off-limits in Catholic-Muslim dialogue.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">A number of years ago I gave a talk on Islam to FOCUS (The Fellowship of Catholic University Students) during one of their training conferences. The organization is made up largely of Catholic university graduates. The group of about 60 that I talked to seemed intelligent and highly motivated. And they seemed to have a good understanding of the Catholic faith. But not of Islam.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Before my talk I administered a twenty- question multiple choice quiz about Islam. The questions were on a very basic level: e.g., “the word ‘Islam’ means________;” “The word ‘jihad’ means________.” Yet only 33 % of the group passed the quiz. Most thought “Islam” meant “peace,” and that “jihad” meant “an interior spiritual struggle.” Most were probably unaware that, in Africa, a Muslim’s “interior struggle” might well be the agonizing decision of whether to use an AK-47 or a machete in the service of Allah.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Historian <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crucified-Again-Exposing-Islams-Christians/dp/1621570258/ref=sr_1_1?crid=27PAU0FDXWMV8&keywords=crucified+again&qid=1667796807&sprefix=crucified%2Caps%2C102&sr=8-1">Raymond Ibrahim</a>'s work is packed with the kind of information and insights that Catholics are so badly in need of...</i></span></blockquote><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Undoubtedly, these graduates had been exposed to some first class works of Catholic apologetics, but with a few exceptions such as Fr. James Schall SJ and Fr. Samir Khalil Samir SJ, most Catholic apologists have steered clear of Islam.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Indeed, most of the apologetics work on Islam is being done by Evangelical Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and ex-Muslim converts to Christianity. Some of these are “official” apologists in the sense of holding advanced degrees in theology, and some may not even think of themselves primarily as apologists. For example, former-Muslim Nonie Darwish who speaks and writes about Islam might not qualify as an “official” apologist, but her book </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=wholly+different&crid=259E84JCKODOV&sprefix=wholly+different%2Caps%2C106&ref=nb_sb_noss_2" style="font-size: large;">Wholly Different</a><span style="font-size: medium;"> is one of the most informative, insightful and clearly written books on the subject of the differences between Islam and Christianity that one is likely to find.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Likewise, historian </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crucified-Again-Exposing-Islams-Christians/dp/1621570258/ref=sr_1_1?crid=27PAU0FDXWMV8&keywords=crucified+again&qid=1667796807&sprefix=crucified%2Caps%2C102&sr=8-1" style="font-size: large;">Raymond Ibrahim</a><span style="font-size: medium;"> writes mainly about the history of conflict between Islam and Christianity, and about present-day persecution of Christians. He isn’t exactly doing apologetics, yet his work is packed with the kind of information and insights that Catholics are so badly in need of.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Catholics already had, in Spencer, the world’s leading Catholic apologist on the topic of Islam, but Catholic leaders ignored him; and, when that was no longer possible, they tried to censor him.</i></span></blockquote><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Ibrahim is a Coptic Christian–in other words, a member of the Orthodox Church. Robert Spencer, who has to rank as today’s preeminent authority on jihad and political Islam, is also Orthodox. Once again, I’m not sure if Spencer considers himself a Christian apologist, but it seems to me that he ought to. Although he writes and speaks about all aspects of Islam, he has written frequently and authoritatively about the theological issues that divide Christians and Muslims.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Ironically, Catholics already had, in Spencer, the world’s leading Catholic apologist on the topic of Islam, but Catholic leaders ignored him; and, when that was no longer possible, they tried to censor him. Although Spencer was frequently invited to speak to Catholic audiences, he was almost as frequently banned from speaking by the relevant local bishop. The fact that the Catholic hierarchy treated Spencer as a pariah, probably contributed to his eventual decision to join the Orthodox Church.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">The reason that Spencer was suppressed by elements in the hierarchy was that what he had to say about Islam was almost in direct contradiction to the pleasant narrative about Islam that the Church leadership had been pushing ever since the Second Vatican Council.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s likely that many Catholic apologists avoid the subject of Islam for the same reason. Presumably, they don’t want to be put in a position where they might have to contradict the prevalent Catholic notion that Islam is a fellow Abrahamic religion that reveres Jesus and embraces the same values that Christians do.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that some Catholic apologists accept the cotton-candy version of Islam. Indeed, Peter Kreeft, one of the leading apologists of our era, and a writer who has frequently been compared with C.S. Lewis, did paint a favorable portrait of Islam in a 2010 book entitled </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Between-Allah-Jesus-Christians-Muslims/dp/0830837469/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1XFHTJ862AI9G&keywords=between+allah+and+jesus&qid=1667797013&sprefix=Between+allah+and+Jesus%2Caps%2C107&sr=8-1" style="font-size: large;">Between Allah and Jesus.</a><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Not long after, Kreeft had a friendly </span><a href="https://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/12/kreeftspencer-debate-transcript-is-the-only-good-muslim-a-bad-muslim" style="font-size: large;">debate with Robert Spencer</a><span style="font-size: medium;"> (who had once taken courses taught by Kreeft) at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. Apparently, Spencer had benefited from the courses because he beat Kreeft handily—a point which Kreeft graciously acknowledged after the debate. Although Kreeft is an accomplished debater, Spencer’s wide-ranging knowledge about Islam carried the day. Peter Kreeft has an open and curious mind, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually changed his mind on the subject.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Coincidentally, Kreeft is one of the featured apologists in The New Apologetics. His essay on Blaise Pascal is well worth reading. So are all the essays in the book. But one wishes that the editor had found some space for an essay on Islam—the political religion that is arguably the major threat that Christians now face.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Unfortunately, Catholic apologists who are inclined to take a critical look at Islam won’t get any support from Rome.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">At a time when well-trained Muslim apologists are successfully proselytizing non-Muslims in every corner of the globe, Pope Francis has made it clear that proselytism is no longer acceptable for Catholics. The only kind of evangelization that passes muster in the Vatican these days has to do with “listening,” “accompanying,” and pretending that all religions are essentially the same.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">But the Great Commission that Christ gave his Apostles was not to listen but to teach: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (MT. 28:19-20)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Moreover, the misguided message that all religions are essentially the same will only serve to convince Muslims who are dissatisfied with Islam to join the ranks of the “nones” rather than to convert to Christianity.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Catholic apologists are well-advised to follow the command of Jesus rather than the advice of Francis. Catholics and many other Christians as well, are ill-informed about Islam. As a result, they are ill-prepared for what will happen to non-Muslims in a world that is increasingly Muslim.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Muslims, likewise, are poorly informed about Christianity. Many are unaware that there exists a much more profound and powerful version of Christianity than the sketchy one that Islam teaches. Catholics should think twice about the wisdom of withholding the Gospel from them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Pictured above: Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil. Cool version.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Picture credit: Pixabay</span><br /></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-54635256314509506582022-12-28T14:38:00.002-05:002022-12-28T14:39:46.089-05:00Raymond Ibrahim: 'Christmas Time: When the West Appeases and Islam Slaughters'<p><i>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:</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifa_D3wK0JemdN29iPHDAffgLXtmy71dfCHbMDApJjytEaNPwaDcmn-cDuP7EbACkqU1FTp08Hh_2N3KrnfhpzroO_cdtC_5y1cAwo0f9MH2h1AqvYJk-EVnXokJfxFPNFuGsp0z87IXNiKPbsWB5b5Key4jpzCt9C6LLEFzDjqQgMy4BlQLdGtgqnog/s853/Khilafa%20Christmas.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="853" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifa_D3wK0JemdN29iPHDAffgLXtmy71dfCHbMDApJjytEaNPwaDcmn-cDuP7EbACkqU1FTp08Hh_2N3KrnfhpzroO_cdtC_5y1cAwo0f9MH2h1AqvYJk-EVnXokJfxFPNFuGsp0z87IXNiKPbsWB5b5Key4jpzCt9C6LLEFzDjqQgMy4BlQLdGtgqnog/w400-h245/Khilafa%20Christmas.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Decapitated Santa — typical image disseminated by “extremists” around the Christmas season</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Christmas Time: When the West Appeases and Islam Slaughters</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">by <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/12/20/christmas-time-when-the-west-appeases-and-islam-slaughters/" target="_blank">Raymond Ibrahim</a>, 12/20/22, originally posted at <a href="https://stream.org/the-islamic-war-on-christmas/" target="_blank">The Stream</a></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">One of the most odious aspects of the so-called War on Christmas is Western appeasement of Muslim sensibilities.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Consider recent events in Sweden, where St. Lucia’s Day has been celebrated for centuries. According to</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/St-Lucias-Day" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Britannica</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">:</span> </span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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.</span></p></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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 <a href="https://nya.samnytt.se/skola-vek-sig-for-muslimers-krav-kristna-inslag-forbjuds-i-luciatag/">report</a> (English translation <a href="https://medforth.biz/swedish-school-gives-in-to-muslim-demands-christian-parts-excluded-from-lucia-procession/">here</a>), </span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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.”</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">chose</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>exclusion.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5195/sweden-rape" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">report</a>; as Muslim migration has continued to soar over the last nearly eight years, these stats have likely gotten worse.)</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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 (<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1091594/Primary-school-cancels-nativity-play-interferes-Muslim-festival-Eid.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10249975/Ministers-warned-using-word-Christmas-jab-drive-offend-minorities.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a>), Italy (<a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/742698/Priest-Nativity-scene-Italy-could-offend-Muslims-Sante-Braggie" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://alt.politics.narkive.com/ZS1iZm5Y/christmas-play-cancelled-to-avoid-offending-muslims" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a>), Germany (<a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/746662/Christmas-banned-menu-fears-offend-Muslims" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/school-restricts-christmas-celebrations-muslim-student-says-not-compatible-islam.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a>), and Belgium (<a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2453094/belgian-town-removes-christmas-nativity-scene-in-case-it-offends-muslims-gays-and-victims-of-church-abuse/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/11/brussels-bans-annual-christmas-tree-it-may-offend-muslims/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a>).</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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—<a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0222/p04s01-ussc.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">except for Christianity</a>, with a particular emphasis on banning the Nativity scene.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">It’s also worth noting that not a few of those Western people engaged in such self-suppression are self-identified “Christians”—including the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://pjmedia.com/columns/raymond-ibrahim/2022/04/12/pope-francis-abandons-christs-cross-to-appease-muslims-n1589112" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">pope himself</a>.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">What makes all this appeasement especially loathsome is that, of all non-Christians, it is precisely Muslims who, far from reciprocating such “sensitivity,” do the exact opposite. If anything, the Christmas season often heralds nothing but a rise in the persecution of Christian minorities throughout the Muslim world.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">During Christmas of 2015, for example, I made it a point to closely follow and collate instances of persecution for an</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span><a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2016/01/18/a-gruesome-christmas-under-islam/" style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">article</a><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">. A few examples follow:</span> </span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>USA</b>: Muslim terrorists attacked a Christmas party in San Bernardino, killing 14 people, including a Christian woman from Iran who thought she had successfully fled persecution by coming to America.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Nigeria</b>: Muslim terrorists of Boko Haram slaughtered 16 Christians, including children, on Christmas Day. In other years, the jihadist group has bombed or burned several packed churches on Christmas Day. One of the deadliest occurred in 2011, when the jihadists bombed a Catholic church during Christmas mass, killing 39 and wounding hundreds.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Philippines</b>: Muslim terrorists slaughtered ten Christians on Christmas Eve, in order to “make a statement.”</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Iraq</b>: On Christmas Eve, Islamic terrorists bombed ten homes and a convent in a Christian village.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Bethlehem</b>: In the birthplace of Christmas, and scene of the Nativity, Muslims stoned a Christian leader and, elsewhere, torched a public Christmas tree.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Belgium</b>: “Allah akbar” yelling Muslims torched a large, public Christmas tree in Brussels.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Bangladesh</b>: Christmas midnight mass was canceled due to severe threats of terrorism.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><b>Indonesia</b>: Christmas mass was not canceled, though heavy security—150,000 personnel—was posted all around churches due to threats of terrorism.</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Some might argue that most of these examples were the work of terrorists or other “extremists”—that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">true</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Muslims are welcoming of Christmas.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Au contraire. During that same Christmas, the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">authorities</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of several Muslim nations “cracked down” on Christmas celebrations.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In Iran, 10 Christians quietly celebrating the Nativity in a house were arrested, shackled, and hauled off on Christmas Day. Moreover, the governments of three other Muslim nations—Brunei, Tajikistan, and Somalia—formally<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/23/christmas-banned-somalia-tajikistan-brunei" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">banned</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Christmas on pain of lengthy prison sentences. Bans included celebrating the Nativity story to putting up trees, dressing like Santa Claus, and/or giving gifts. The Islamic clerics of Brunei summarized the general rationale: “Using religious symbols like crosses, lighting candles, putting up Christmas trees, singing religious songs, sending Christmas greetings … are against Islamic faith.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Although the above examples come from just one year, 2015, every Christmas season, before and after, sees the same sort of persecution by Muslims. For example, whenever America’s great “friend and ally,” Saudi Arabia, suspects Christian laborers of, as one Saudi official once complained, “<a href="https://english.al-akhbar.com/content/saudi-detains-dozens-plotting-celebrate-christmas" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">plotting to celebrate Christmas</a>,” they are <a href="http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Christians-detained-by-Saudi-religious-police-in-raid-on-private-home.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">arrested and punished</a>.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Christmas 2022 hasn’t even arrived and Islamic hostility is already brewing. A few days ago in France a Muslim man<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.sudouest.fr/gironde/lormont/gironde-il-scie-un-sapin-de-noel-installe-par-la-mairie-de-lormont-en-criant-allahu-akbar-13394013.php?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1671129517" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">sawed down</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>a Christmas tree that had been erected in and by the officials of Lormont; a few days before that in Italy, another Muslim man “<a href="https://www.frosinonetoday.it/cronaca/sora-luminarie-urla-allah-akbar.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">terrorized everyone</a>” in the town of Sora as they participated in a Christmas tree lighting celebration. Lest the “religious,” that is, Islamic, motivation be missed, both Muslim men hollered Islam’s ancient war cry—“Allahu Akbar!”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">If this is how some Muslim minorities react to the overt symbols of Christmas in Western nations, where they are “guests,” how might they react where they feel “at home,” that is, in the Muslim world itself? Well, in Tajikistan, a supposedly “secularized” Muslim nation that is seldom associated with “radicalism,” a Muslim man screaming “infidel!”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tajikistan-fatherchristmas/father-christmas-stabbed-to-death-in-tajikistan-idUSTRE8010NR20120102" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">stabbed</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>another young man to death—simply because he was dressed as Santa Clause. In Jordan, police<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2014/12/28/jordan-santa-claus-arrested-for-evangelizing-and-inciting-sectarianism/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">arrested</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>a man for dressing as Santa Clause.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Such is the lamentable—if not downright disgusting—state of affairs. In the West, where Muslims are granted all sorts of concessions—beginning with the gift of migrating from the Third to the First World— Christmas is increasingly being stifled, lest it offends them. Meanwhile, in the Muslim world, the Christmas season sees only an uptick of the persecution of Christian “infidels.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Although both are bad, the distinction (more fully discussed<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/11/28/are-muslims-invading-the-united-kingdom/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">here</a>) should not be missed: Christmas is under attack in the West, not<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">because</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of Muslims, but because of homegrown Western elements who despise the Christian holiday and everything it represents. Rather than be honest, however, they use Muslims as pawns and pretexts.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">That, by the way, is the case with<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">everything</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Western people are told they must suppress—beginning with their religion—in the name of “inclusivity.” In the end, this exercise in self-suppression is not about accommodating minority groups but rather sabotaging Western civilization from within.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-91221849779979461612022-09-02T18:43:00.000-04:002022-09-02T18:43:08.775-04:00New Blog & Website on the Veneration of Fr. Seraphim Rose<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6S4c_9IKDPgXIuf30egAeHZMhyrR9WJMXSG3VitZTUxl8cCjGs_PuIv7aUy0lkr7YQtzfY_xNJXo8lmZYGHwgbGkeFt5zcy5BNEl12AB3Oo-phqmpwGQPO5teq-oyyk3pKhZ5CukWCLMKSIUrO29R_1Kg60_B3s_rVyzz-5twvZw3YgJ2ec51NOoEg/s1800/Zosimas-Platina-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6S4c_9IKDPgXIuf30egAeHZMhyrR9WJMXSG3VitZTUxl8cCjGs_PuIv7aUy0lkr7YQtzfY_xNJXo8lmZYGHwgbGkeFt5zcy5BNEl12AB3Oo-phqmpwGQPO5teq-oyyk3pKhZ5CukWCLMKSIUrO29R_1Kg60_B3s_rVyzz-5twvZw3YgJ2ec51NOoEg/w400-h266/Zosimas-Platina-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At Blessed Father Seraphim's monastic cell, 2018.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">For many years I have been maintaining here on the Facing Islam blog a <a href="https://facingislam.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">resource page</a> on Father Seraphim Rose of blessed memory. </span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">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 <b><a href="https://blessedfatherseraphimrose.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The Veneration of Blessed Father Seraphim</a></b>, 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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To begin with, I have posted an original article of mine titled, <i><b>'<a href="https://blessedfatherseraphimrose.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-veneration-of-father-seraphim-rose.html" target="_blank">The Veneration of Father Seraphim Rose'</a></b></i>, 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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>In addition, there are three main pages on this new site:</b></span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blessedfatherseraphimrose.blogspot.com/p/akathist.html" target="_blank">Akathist</a></b> - 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.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blessedfatherseraphimrose.blogspot.com/p/videos.html" target="_blank">Videos</a></b> - 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.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://blessedfatherseraphimrose.blogspot.com/p/resources-links.html" target="_blank">Resources & Links</a></b> - A growing list of resources which I intend to update regularly.</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I invite you to explore <b><a href="https://blessedfatherseraphimrose.blogspot.com" target="_blank">this new site</a></b>, and to share it widely. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>It is my strongly held opinion that Father Seraphim Rose is a true saint for our age.</b> 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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Let us turn to him even and especially now in this late hour, and ask his intercessions for us.</b> 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.</span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: large;">O Holy Father Seraphim, pray to God for us!</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Amen!</i></span></p><p><br /></p>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-59782519415426472462022-08-12T13:53:00.000-04:002022-08-12T13:53:01.313-04:00NEW BOOK BY RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>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."</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSHBqKAZdcfsOxiF8m35v6aXDY9iV5SoSk2Yl-Z8nZ-ASPy9MfBZsIz-DKjzpIlJ3aHzmQ1usnQ71fxVHF0p-mOlog-tmwKn5EoKfpSGxRM6YUDkPC8j8XWyeXESBxMWrJoI063LCynRKfxI7R21i0s4rhPp410AG8JqrhI1NbD9ksLKBoTCdMKh0_cA/s591/defenders-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="591" data-original-width="405" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSHBqKAZdcfsOxiF8m35v6aXDY9iV5SoSk2Yl-Z8nZ-ASPy9MfBZsIz-DKjzpIlJ3aHzmQ1usnQ71fxVHF0p-mOlog-tmwKn5EoKfpSGxRM6YUDkPC8j8XWyeXESBxMWrJoI063LCynRKfxI7R21i0s4rhPp410AG8JqrhI1NbD9ksLKBoTCdMKh0_cA/s320/defenders-3.jpg" width="219" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"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 <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306825554/" target="_blank">Sword and Scimitar</a></b> revolved around decisive battles, <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1642938203/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1642938203&linkCode=as2&tag=raymondibrahi-20&linkId=f41d2e2f0b3c33ac1456833892c7e05b" target="_blank">Defenders of the West</a></b> revolves around decisive men." <i>(From the publisher's description.)</i></div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">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. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The below review by Mark Tapson frames this important new work in vigorous and appropriate terms.</span></p><p><span style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Adamina; font-size: 17px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><b>Order Raymond Ibrahim’s</b><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-weight: 700;"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam</em><b> </b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1642938203/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1642938203&linkCode=as2&tag=raymondibrahi-20&linkId=f41d2e2f0b3c33ac1456833892c7e05b" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank"><b>HERE</b></a><b>.</b></span></p><p><span style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Adamina; font-size: 17px; text-size-adjust: auto;"><b>Learn more about Raymond Ibrahim's writing and sign up for his regular posts <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Defenders of the West</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Raymond Ibrahim profiles eight heroes in the clash of civilizations.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">by Mark Tapson, <a href="https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/07/defenders-west-mark-tapson/" target="_blank">FrontPage Mag</a>, July 28, 2022</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixAQFD1MGYSmVScorli899N-A4j9IFCtuZDZoB4BXxOe2_H1AHEHf7UOomaV3JRRU2YuCwCIXSjRc5aH55wTEXt4ga4li_RqkQWYJUpgKnNadxWD8t26EoPQeBCLCXnyqeRsfsLtq6GKA_Ub-JlUNI5nh-SGItmc1_Y-iT4dp0MKV-x3yy29ladi2P2w/s1608/defenders-of-the-west.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="905" data-original-width="1608" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixAQFD1MGYSmVScorli899N-A4j9IFCtuZDZoB4BXxOe2_H1AHEHf7UOomaV3JRRU2YuCwCIXSjRc5aH55wTEXt4ga4li_RqkQWYJUpgKnNadxWD8t26EoPQeBCLCXnyqeRsfsLtq6GKA_Ub-JlUNI5nh-SGItmc1_Y-iT4dp0MKV-x3yy29ladi2P2w/w400-h225/defenders-of-the-west.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">New York Times</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>propagandist Nikole Hannah-Jones of the widely-debunked but nonetheless influential<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/organizations/1619-project" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #801717;">1619 Project</a></em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>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.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This is one reason why the new book<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Defenders-West-Christian-Heroes-Against/dp/1642938203/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #801717;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam</em></a>, 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 (<a href="https://posthillpress.com/bombardier-books" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #801717;">Bombardier Books</a>, in this case) to take today.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Defenders</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is a sort of follow-up to Ibrahim’s essential 2018 book<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Scimitar-Fourteen-Centuries-between/dp/0306921421/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #801717;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sword and Scimitar</em>:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West</em></a>. That book centered on decisive<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">battles</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in the clash of civilizations, while the newer one zeroes in on the profiles of eight decisive<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">men</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in that ongoing conflict, between the 11<sup style="box-sizing: border-box;">th</sup><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and 15<sup style="box-sizing: border-box;">th</sup><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>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.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">As in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sword and Scimitar</em>, the foreword to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Defenders</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>was written by renowned historian Victor Davis Hanson, who actually served as Ibrahim’s Master’s thesis advisor in the late ‘90s. Hanson says of the men in Ibrahim’s latest, “In what now may seem an archaic sensibility, they were fighting for a unique way of life—or often a restoration of it—against a rising challenge completely foreign to everything in their experience, from the aspirations voiced on the Sermon of the Mount to Classical traditions of individual liberty.” Ibrahim himself explains that the book is about “eight men who, driven by something greater than themselves, devoted much of their lives and went to great lengths… to make a militant if not desperate stand against Islamic aggression.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Ibrahim begins his profiles with a chapter on one of the most notable figures of the Age of Chivalry, Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, descendant of Charlemagne and Charles Martel. Godfrey – “a man totally devoted to war and God,” as one contemporary put it – did not hesitate to answer Pope Urban II’s call in 1096 to undertake the first of the Crusades against the Muslim occupiers of the Holy Land. The Crusades have been demonized, of course, by today’s anti-Western apologists as Christian aggression against Islam, when in fact, as Ibrahim notes,</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem 0.5in; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Duke Godfrey and the other First Crusaders traveled to the Holy Land only because Muslims had been slaughtering and enslaving literally hundreds of thousands of Christians in the region over the preceding years and decades; [and because] Muslims had violently conquered that city most holy to Christians—Jerusalem, repeatedly defiling and torching Christ’s Sepulchre therein—to say nothing of the Islamic conquest of two-thirds of the Christian world in the preceding centuries, all of which gave Europe’s Christians little choice but to fight fire with fire.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">One of the very first to set out to liberate the Holy Land, Godfrey led a force of 80,000 crusaders there, beginning years of combating not only Muslim warriors while retaking such cities as Nicaea and Antioch but hunger and thirst as well, in the unforgiving desert region, before finally reaching the gates of Jerusalem in 1099. Ibrahim’s rendering of the Crusaders’ determined siege of the Muslim-held city, and the bloody aftermath, is masterful storytelling. In the end, as historian Edward Gibbon described it, “Godfrey of Bouillon stood victorious on the walls of Jerusalem. His example was followed on every side by the emulation of valour; and about four hundred and sixty years after the conquest of Omar, the holy city was rescued from the Mohammedan yoke.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In the wake of the siege, a reluctant Godfrey was chosen unanimously to rule the city, but only under his condition that he not be called King of Jerusalem, but Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. “God forbid,” he said, “that I should be crowned with a crown of gold, where my Saviour bore a crown of thorns.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Upon his untimely death a year later at the age of 40 (likely having been poisoned by Muslim enemies), King Godfrey’s fame immediately spread far and wide; Ibrahim notes that “he was seen as<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></em>chivalrous hero” of the First Crusade. Visiting the Holy Sepulchre in 1867, no less a luminary than Mark Twain observed, upon seeing the relic of Godfrey’s sword there,</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem 0.5in; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">No blade in Christendom wields such enchantment as this—no blade of all that rust in the ancestral halls of Europe is able to invoke such visions of romance in the brain of him who looks upon it— none that can prate of such chivalric deeds or tell such brave tales of the warrior days of old…. This very sword has cloven hundreds of Saracen Knights from crown to chin in those old times when Godfrey wielded it.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In subsequent but no less fascinating chapters, Ibrahim paints portraits of seven more inspirational heroes of the West...</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><i><a href="https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/07/defenders-west-mark-tapson/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Read the full review with much more...</span></a></i></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></p>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-73681439895623409802022-07-08T12:27:00.004-04:002022-07-08T12:28:19.291-04:00Announcing a New Book from Robert Spencer<p><b> </b></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">NEW! From <a href="https://uncutmountainpress.com/shop/product/the-church-and-the-pope/" target="_blank">Uncut Mountain Press</a></span></b></p><p><i>Available in paperback and eBook formats</i></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Church and the Pope</b></span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Case for Orthodoxy</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">by Robert Spencer</span></p><p><br /></p><p><b>OVERVIEW</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikRo6XwpfiSkU2P1_iC4p97ubGgIV4rTEhR2au_EaxkPYUgpL4P0Gl5Ooi2qkHgbl6d6k6nqMQfEE-oP66n3PrxRJNjyIOC9ulLArFR7hxhJooFXTOJdnaCPLl_NpmLZNbGb7Jx_4A88Flc98emNQjDH_oplI8ZsAkif1H9OlZnvVhIdVBT8wkcdKe9g/s900/The_Church_and_the_Pope_WEB.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikRo6XwpfiSkU2P1_iC4p97ubGgIV4rTEhR2au_EaxkPYUgpL4P0Gl5Ooi2qkHgbl6d6k6nqMQfEE-oP66n3PrxRJNjyIOC9ulLArFR7hxhJooFXTOJdnaCPLl_NpmLZNbGb7Jx_4A88Flc98emNQjDH_oplI8ZsAkif1H9OlZnvVhIdVBT8wkcdKe9g/w266-h400/The_Church_and_the_Pope_WEB.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">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.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p><a href="https://uncutmountainpress.com/shop/product/the-church-and-the-pope/" target="_blank">Full info and online ordering...</a></p><p><br /></p><p>ABOUT THE AUTHOR</p><p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p><p><br /></p><p>DETAILS</p><p>First published: July 2022</p><p>Length (softcover): 112 pages</p><p>Size (softcover): 6 x 9 inches</p><p>ISBN (softcover): 978-1-63941-005-7</p><p><br /></p>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-14350783713948250582022-07-07T10:59:00.000-04:002022-07-07T10:59:20.489-04:00Fr. Alexey Young - On the New Martyrs under the Turkish Muslim Yoke<p><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>'Where are the Mighty of the Earth?' - Sunday of the New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">by Fr Alexey Young</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://orthochristian.com/147009.html" target="_blank">OrthoChristian.com</a></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1YcaXaG6NRpsJwf5qQI99fRXR61Ts64uoRbkedqA2yWNcgzkO5E3kG83M4cAU1-Hz3BExo1qQCSYIsdHk23_KdXt195SaCj62m8hyFecM1IVjR6UpyPrsWCfBVjnJ1t2UVKGsKxzXAM2Tr718yUV-OLV6xojDdu3SXl93wgIca460zmJKbIg940FSKg/s1318/NewMartyrs-painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1318" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1YcaXaG6NRpsJwf5qQI99fRXR61Ts64uoRbkedqA2yWNcgzkO5E3kG83M4cAU1-Hz3BExo1qQCSYIsdHk23_KdXt195SaCj62m8hyFecM1IVjR6UpyPrsWCfBVjnJ1t2UVKGsKxzXAM2Tr718yUV-OLV6xojDdu3SXl93wgIca460zmJKbIg940FSKg/w400-h274/NewMartyrs-painting.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">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."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">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.</span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When speaking of New Martyrs today, one generally thinks of the recently glorified New Martyrs of Russia. But until just last year, the “New Martyrs” listed in the Orthodox calendar of saints referred to those men and women who suffered for the faith under the Turkish Yoke. Their lives are not very well known, and yet they are a rich catalogue of the diversity and generosity of the Holy Spirit acting in the lives of Orthodox believers in time of oppression and persecution. The following examples illustrate the image often used in their Lives which describes them “laboring like diligent bees, gathering the honey of virtue” as they moved through life towards martyrdom.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Guard the deposit; keep safe what has been entrusted to you</i> (I Tim. 6:20).</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">St. Cyprian the New, for instance, was a pious monk from Mount Athos. After fortifying himself with Holy Communion, he went forth and found a Pasha (the ruler of a province). Straight way he witnessed to him that Mohammed was a false prophet and the enemy of God. The Pasha only laughed, thinking he was crazy; he ordered his guards to beat him and cast him out, which they did. St. Cyprian then went to Constantinople, to the Grand Vizier whose position was like that of a prime minister. There he attempted to witness to the Grand Vizier by sending him a written message about the Gospel of salvation. The Vizier thought the saint must be drunk, or mad. But when at last he realized that the saint was quite sober and quite sane, he ordered that he be beheaded and, as his Life says, as he was being led to the place of execution, “his face shone with joy; it was as though he hurried not to execution, but to a wedding banquet.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">St. Timothy of Esphigmenou is an example of a Christian who betrayed Christ and then returned to suffer martyrdom for his Lord. He was married, but his beautiful wife was abducted by a Moslem who added her to his harem after forcibly converting her to Islam. In order to get his wife back through the process of Islamic law, St. Timothy himself converted to Islam. His wife was indeed returned and they both secretly repented of having converted to Islam and returned to Christianity. Finally, his wife withdrew to a convent and he to Mount Athos, where he became a monk and prepared for the day when he could descend back into the Turkish world, there to “witness for Christ and accept martyrdom”, which in fact he eventually did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sometimes the family of a martyr would beg him to embrace Islam rather than die. In the life of St. Zlata, a pious virgin-martyr of the thirteenth century, for example, the parents and sisters of the saint implored her to convert to Islam, saying, “O sweetest daughter, have pity on yourself and on us your parents and your sisters… Deny Christ just for the sake of appearances.” But she turned and said to them? “You who incite me to deny Christ, the true God, are no longer my parents and sisters… But in your place, I have my Lord Jesus Christ as a father, my Lady the Theotokos as a mother, and the saints as my brothers and sisters.” She suffered a particularly horrible form of torture and martyrdom, including thrusting a red-hot skewer through one ear and out the other, so that smoke came forth from her nose and mouth. The writer of her life tells us that her sufferings were so terrible “that even the most stout-hearted of men would be humbled.” This martyr, he says, “now dances and rejoices together with the prudent and prize-winning virgins in the heavenly bridal chambers, and stands at the right hand of her Bridegroom, Christ.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Another striking example of faithfulness to Christ and His Church is found in the Life of Martyred Monk James and his disciples. This Saint led a very pure life and was often vouchsafed to see angels during the Divine Liturgy. One day, while a guest in the home of a wealthy Turk, St. James declined the meat given at a banquet because it was the Apostles’ Fast. This identified him immediately as a Christian. For such a holy one as this, the Moslems devised a particularly painful method of torture and death, which included wrapping bands of cloth around his head and twisting them gradually, crushing the skull</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">There were many rewards given to those Christians who would convert to the Moslem religion. Sometimes these enticements worked and Orthodox believers gave up the struggle for the true Faith. St. John the Bulgarian was a young boy when he fell into the company of some Moslem youths and was led by peer pressure to renounce Christ and follow Mohammed. It was not long before he came to his senses and, overwhelmed with grief at having renounced Christ, he fled to Mt. Athos and gave himself up to a life of repentance. His conscience, however, would give him no rest until finally he set out for Constantinople in order to preach the Gospel. Dressing as a Turk—something forbidden to Christians—so as not to be detected, he entered a great mosque. There, in front of everyone, he made the sign of the cross and began to pray, witnessing to all that he had been a Christian and had fallen away, but that he had now been delivered from the error of Mohammed. Concluding with the ringing declaration, “Without Jesus Christ there is no salvation!” St. John was dragged out into the courtyard of the mosque and beheaded.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">While many other Christians lived in daily fear and trembling, these noble warriors of Christ marched forth directly into the enemy’s camp in order to boldly plant the cross of Christ like a battle banner. Penetrated by the very essence of Christianity, Christ Himself; they were able not only to endure the most frightful tortures, but also to be victorious. The victory of martyrs, however, is understood only from an otherworldly perspective, for they had deep in their hearts the words of Scripture:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"></span></i></p><blockquote><i><span style="font-size: large;">What will it profit a man if he win the whole world and lose his sou1? What can a man give in exchange for his soul?</span></i></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To paraphrase the closing paragraph from the life of yet another confessor of the Turkish Yoke:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Where are those Moslems who once saddened and despised the New Martyrs? Where are the mighty of the earth? Where is the Ottoman lord? Where the fearsome guards and Tartars who bound them and beat them and martyred them? Where are their pampered bodies? O! They are dispelled as a morning mist. The tombstone of forgetfulness has covered them. And in Jerusalem on high, in the dwelling where are found the blessed souls of the saints who lived in privation in this world so that they might pass through the narrow and afflicted w a y that leadeth unto life, there rejoices also with them the spirits of these much-suffering martyrs whom we remember today. They reposed in the Lord and received the reward of the labors and toils and pains which they endured for Christ, Whom they loved more than all the fleeting things of this world. And now, wearing crowns in heaven, they rejoice with the choirs of the saints and behold in glory the Prize-bestower, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. To Him be glory and dominion and worship unto the unending ages. Amen.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Fr. Alexey Young</span></p><p><a href="https://www.roca.org/oa/volume-iii/issue-23/new-martyrs-of-the-turkish-yoke" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: medium;">Orthodox America</span></a></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">7/3/2022</span></p><div><br /></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-26061313317772810992022-06-13T12:58:00.000-04:002022-06-13T12:58:07.516-04:00Raymond Ibrahim: 'The Black Lives that Don’t Matter: 50 Christians Murdered in Their Church'<i>Muslims persecute Christians <a href="#">globally</a> and commit genocide in Nigeria, but the West, including western Christians, are silent.<br /></i><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Black Lives that Don’t Matter: 50 Christians Murdered in Their Church<br /></b></span><br />by <a href="#">Raymond Ibrahim</a>, <a href="#">Gatestone Institute</a>, June 12, 2022<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaN6EIXV3wgnyEmOMhWFJBgF262KBBsWWMEMH_mriKrdI84_cztm0lMgKp2o18O6QcDw5FDFCAjOw93p_xI4-IwwiZj_aG_Y_d5eIGHr9nz7lHfaRwX11FtQZbCdPMQcnWnAyX2vzQEiwag8Gh0m9fVOiOWEp_VH5pVUzN0brOs12TkctkKOAgxgwVCQ/s1024/Nigeria-June2022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="1024" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaN6EIXV3wgnyEmOMhWFJBgF262KBBsWWMEMH_mriKrdI84_cztm0lMgKp2o18O6QcDw5FDFCAjOw93p_xI4-IwwiZj_aG_Y_d5eIGHr9nz7lHfaRwX11FtQZbCdPMQcnWnAyX2vzQEiwag8Gh0m9fVOiOWEp_VH5pVUzN0brOs12TkctkKOAgxgwVCQ/s320/Nigeria-June2022.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><br /><br />Last Sunday, June 5, 2022, Islamic terrorists stormed the St. Francis Catholic Church in Ondo, Nigeria, and massacred <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/gunmen-kill-worshippers-during-church-service-nigeria-media-2022-06-05/">more than 50 Christians</a> who were otherwise peacefully worshipping their God. Videos, according to one <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nigeria-africa-religion-government-and-politics-8775c5367906bbcf43e35673dc24c9e0">report</a>, “showed church worshippers lying in pools of blood while people around them wailed.”<br /><br />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:<div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.spyghana.com/police-and-boko-haram-massacre-over-150-dead/">Easter Sunday</a>, Apr. 20, 2014: Islamic terrorists torched a packed church; 150 Christians were killed and countless injured.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://zeenews.india.com/news/world/50-people-killed-in-easter-sunday-bombings-in-nigeria_768956.html">Easter Sunday</a>, Apr. 8, 2012: explosives planted by Muslims detonated near two packed churches; more than 50 Christians were killed and unknown numbers injured.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://archive.ph/20130113105453/http:/www.trust.org/alertnet/news/nigeria-church-bomb-death-toll-rises-to-37-wounded-57/">Christmas Day</a>, Dec. 25, 2011: Muslim terrorists shot up and bombed three churches; 37 Christians were killed, 57 injured.</li></ul><div><br />The Christians of Nigeria are, in fact, being <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2021/10/18/the-jihadist-genocide-of-christians-in-nigeria-intensifies/">purged in a genocide</a>, according to several NGOs (<a href="https://csi-usa.org/csi-issues-genocide-warning-for-christians-in-nigeria/">here</a> and <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/voices/genocide-in-nigeria-calling-it-what-it-is.html">here</a>, for instance). One Christian is killed <a href="https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/every-two-hours-a-christian-in-nigeria-is-killed-for-their-faith/">every two hours</a> in Nigeria. According to an August 2021 <a href="https://intersociety-ng.org/43-000-christians-killed-by-nigerian-jihadists-in-12-years-18500-permanently-disappeared-and-17500-churches-attacked/">report</a>, since the Islamic insurgency began in earnest in July 2009— first at the hands of the Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram, and later by <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1198134/christians-killed-by-terrorist-groups-in-nigeria/">Fulani</a>, Muslim herdsmen, also motivated by jihadist ideology to <a href="https://punchng.com/how-fulani-seized-our-farms-raped-our-women-kidnapped-and-killed-our-people-convener-igangan-development-advocates-oladokun/">seize Christian (“infidel”) land</a>—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.</div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br />Less than a month ago, the Islamic State in Nigeria released a video of its members <a href="http://saharareporters.com/2022/05/12/terror-group-islamic-state-releases-video-showing-execution-20-nigerian-christians-">slaughtering 20 Christians</a>. Although it is very reminiscent of the 2015 video of another pack of <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2015/02/16/christian-slaughter-in-libya/">Muslim terrorists slaughtering 21 Coptic Christians</a> in Libya, it received significantly less media coverage. The 2015 video of the Copts itself had received <a href="https://newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/katie-yoder/2016/06/02/nets-cover-gorilla-death-6x-more-isis-christian-beheading">six times less media coverage</a> than the <a href="https://newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/katie-yoder/2016/06/02/nets-cover-gorilla-death-6x-more-isis-christian-beheading">killing of a gorilla</a> which occurred at the same time. Last month’s more recent video of the Nigerian Christians barely made a peep in the Western media—as if to suggest that the ritual slaughter of Christians has become so hackneyed as to be unworthy of reporting on.<br /><br />The silence is, as they say, deafening. When an Australian, Brenton Tarrant, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-zealand-mosque-shootings">attacked</a> two mosques and killed 51 Muslims in 2019 in New Zealand, the world stood up in condemnation; the handwringing has not stopped since. The United Nations responded to that <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18532/mosque-church-massacres">lone and aberrant attack</a> by inaugurating a “<a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/03/23/un-foists-combat-islamophobia-day-on-the-world/">combat Islamophobia</a>” initiative. Where, after years and decades of being attacked, are the UN initiatives to “combat anti-Semitism” and to “combat Christian genocide”?<br /><br />All the UN seems interested in doing is ignoring violations of its own laws by its own members, such as Iran’s <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/international/433249-40-years-of-iranian-threats-against-israel-and-few-pay-any-attention/">genocidal threats</a> which <a href="https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2.shtml">violate</a> the UN Charter and are <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-2">grounds for expelling Iran</a>; ignoring crimes against humanity by many of its members, such as slavery (<a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/biden-signs-bill-to-ban-goods-made-by-uyghur-slave-labor-/6366894.html">here</a> and <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-still-have-slavery">here</a>) or China’s <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/05/02/intelligence-report-says-china-lied-about-origin-of-coronavirus/">lies</a> about the human-to-human transmissibility of its corona virus. Instead, the UN <a href="https://today.law.harvard.edu/dershowitz-in-wsj-the-u-n-gangs-up-on-israel-again/">wrongfully</a> <a href="https://unwatch.org/un-israel-key-statistics/">persecutes</a> into eternity Israel, a democracy that actually protects and upholds human rights for all its citizens—whether Muslim, Jewish, or Christian.<br /><br />So what will the UN and other large governmental bodies do now in response to the shooting up of a church and killing of more than 50 Christians? Absolutely nothing—that is, except try to shut up those who expose the driving ideology of the murderers. And we know this because the UN et. al. have done absolutely nothing in response to the countless other Muslim attacks on churches that have claimed <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18532/mosque-church-massacres">thousands of Christian lives over the years</a>—except to try and shut up those who expose the driving ideology of the murderers (aka “combat Islamophobia”).<br /><br />Indeed, just two weeks ago, when Members of the European Parliament, one of the European Union’s legislative bodies, submitted a proposal to have a discussion on the rising tide of <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2021/04/05/the-most-tragic-story-never-told-the-muslim-persecution-of-christians/">Christian persecution around the world</a>—ironically, in the context of the then latest atrocity in Nigeria: the <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/05/12/muslim-mobs-burns-female-christian-student-alive-in-nigeria/">stoning and burning to death</a> of a Christian student, Deborah Samuel—the majority of the European Parliament, most of whom are affiliated with Leftist parties, <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/05/25/shameful-european-parliament-rejects-discussion-on-christian-persecution/">refused even to have the discussion</a>.<br /><br />Ignoring the murder of Christian lives is, of course, only one piece of the puzzle; covering up the religious identity of their murderers is the other. In describing last Sunday’s massacre of more than 50 Nigerian Christians, the words “Muslim,” “Islam,” or even “Islamist” never appeared in the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nigeria-africa-religion-government-and-politics-8775c5367906bbcf43e35673dc24c9e0">AP report</a>. Rather, we are told that “It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the church.” To maintain this ambiguity, the AP omits pointing out that Islamic terrorists have routinely stormed churches and slaughtered many Christians over the years in Nigeria—a fact that might just offer a hint as to “who was behind the attack.” But dissembling over what is happening to Nigeria’s Christians is an old “mainstream media” tactic (as discussed in this 2011 <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2707/nigeria-church-attacks">article</a>).<br /><br />One need only consider the <a href="https://zeenews.india.com/news/world/50-people-killed-in-easter-sunday-bombings-in-nigeria_768956.html">words</a> of Johnnie Carson, Obama’s then- Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, speaking after Muslim terrorists in Nigeria slaughtered another batch of 50 Christian church worshippers on Easter Sunday, 2012: “I want to take this opportunity to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence [in Nigeria].” Instead, “inequality” and “poverty”—to <a href="https://newsone.com/1872805/bill-clinton-says-poverty-is-fueling-violence-in-nigeria/">quote</a> former President William Jefferson Clinton—are “what’s fueling all this stuff” (“this stuff” being the massacre of Christians at the hands of Muslims). A decade—and countless Christian corpses later—the U.S. has not changed its position.<br /><br />Worse, the Biden administration’s response to the jihadist onslaught against Christians in Nigeria—where <a href="https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/every-two-hours-a-christian-in-nigeria-is-killed-for-their-faith/">13 Christians</a> are slaughtered every day—has been to <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2022/01/24/leftist-indifference-to-christian-genocide/">remove</a> Nigeria from the State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern, that is, nations which engage in, or tolerate violations of, religious freedom.<br /><br />Where is the outcry? Where is the outrage? Where are the “hashtags” in support of Christian Nigerians? Why don’t these black lives matter?</div></div><br />Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-74702041083069433442022-06-03T18:36:00.004-04:002022-06-03T18:36:54.604-04:00Remembering New-Martyr Fr. Ragheed Ganni of Iraq<div><span style="font-size: medium;">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:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div><blockquote><i>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.</i></blockquote></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>For more on this heroic confessor and witness for Christ, see my previous post <a href="https://facingislam.blogspot.com/2015/03/new-martyr-fr-ragheed-ganni-and-his.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br /></span><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">A Martyr In Iraq</span></h1><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Remembering Father Ragheed Ganni, who was murdered 15 years ago today in Iraq.<br /></b><br />by Andrew Doran, <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-martyr-in-iraq/" target="_blank">The American Conservative</a></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">June 3, 2022</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNVqtO890CSgpBJTzqrMy9DDQslsH1e1DAdZ45i_2vTQkUQIBNxWwBx3EFDMFh8Pk7uJ76RAVr4mbGvNYrRvHUxq-fNsDs6aas7f3_qqX4YDtQSyeeF33SUhKIkHYur0_YqRuN-lgWoOiNH00bd1KbKtSPqKSgihJbMMWtiV4oBF9F2AvemucU6a2HQ/s1600/RagheedGanni.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyNVqtO890CSgpBJTzqrMy9DDQslsH1e1DAdZ45i_2vTQkUQIBNxWwBx3EFDMFh8Pk7uJ76RAVr4mbGvNYrRvHUxq-fNsDs6aas7f3_qqX4YDtQSyeeF33SUhKIkHYur0_YqRuN-lgWoOiNH00bd1KbKtSPqKSgihJbMMWtiV4oBF9F2AvemucU6a2HQ/w300-h400/RagheedGanni.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">“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</span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br />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.” <br /><br />“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.<br /><br />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.</span></div><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />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. <br /><br />As Iraq became the epicenter of Sunni-Shia violence, Christians, caught in the middle, fled urban centers for safer places in Iraq, like Erbil or the Nineveh Plain, or they simply left Iraq altogether. By 2007, the Sunni militants who were Al Qaeda Iraq (and would become ISIS) were flocking to Nineveh Province and its capital, Mosul. There, Father Ragheed served the city’s Christian remnant and many Muslims, while also acting as secretary to Archbishop Faraj Rahho. On Palm Sunday that April, terrorists fired shots through the windows at Father Ragheed’s parish, Holy Spirit Church. The following month, a bomb detonated in the church. <br /><br />Father Ragheed had received numerous threats almost immediately after his return to Iraq, but the attacks were growing more frequent, as were killings and kidnappings; some Sunnis in Mosul even demanded that Christians pay the jizya tax. Through all this Father Ragheed remained in Mosul. In homilies he condemned terrorism—not a distant abstraction for him but a real, daily threat. His correspondence at the time reveals his awareness of the mortal danger in which he lived, and also his weariness. His last written prayer was penned at this time: “Lord, give me the strength to not humiliate your priesthood that I represent.”<br /><br />On Sunday, June 3, 2007, Father Ragheed said Mass at Holy Spirit Church. When the liturgy finished, Father Ragheed departed with three subdeacons—Basman Yousef Daud, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed, as well as Bidawed’s wife. They were then approached in the street outside the church by several gunmen, one of whom took Bidawed’s wife away. A brief dialogue followed between the defenseless men in their last moments on earth and their murderers. <br /><br />“I told you to close the church,” the lead gunman said, “so why didn’t you? Why are you still here?” Fr. Ragheed replied, “How can I close the house of God?” <br /><br />The four men were then shot to death and laid dead in the street. <br /><br />The leader had apparently spoken with him before, making the terrible, impersonal act of murder somehow more intimate and incomprehensible. Father Ragheed’s murderers apparently asked of him what Henry Plantagenet had asked of Thomas Becket centuries before in England: will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? The identities of the gunmen and their fate is unknown; likely they died by the sword, but maybe they’ll die in their beds. <br /><br />Nine months later, Archbishop Rahho was kidnapped and held for ransom. He managed to text from the trunk of his car to insist that no one pay for his release, for the money would only be used to perpetrate more evil. His captors demanded, among other things, that Iraqi Christians form militias to resist the U.S. occupation. He was tortured and murdered, and his body was found later in a shallow grave—one more murder among thousands, one more trauma among millions. And yet it was all prelude: the worst for Iraq’s Christians lay ahead. <br /><br />* * *<br /><br /><br />Father Ragheed was buried in Karemlesh, a village near Mosul. Seven years after his murder, in 2014, ISIS captured Mosul and overran much of the Nineveh Plain, the Christian heartland of Iraq. His grave was desecrated by ISIS during the occupation, as were Christian and Yazidi tombs across northern Iraq. In 2018, Father Ben Kiely visited the site of his tomb, then still stone rubble. <br /><br />In 2021, a young Iraqi-American Catholic friend, whom we’ll call Josef, visited Father Ragheed’s grave as well, which by then had been rebuilt. He also visited the few Christians who returned to Mosul after ISIS was driven out. But, he adds, “That community doesn’t really exist anymore.”<br /><br />Josef was a child in 2003 and has no memory of the debates, such as they were, among Catholics prior to the invasion. In 2017, I asked him to research the prewar and postwar writings of prominent Catholic supporters of the Iraq War, such as Father Richard John Neuhaus and George Weigel, to see what if anything they had to say about Iraq’s Christian community. By the time he finished his research, he was angry. “I do wish they would feel an ounce of the pain we did,” he says today. “Maybe that would make them repent a bit or admit fault instead of doubling down. It’s disheartening to still meet Catholics in this day and age who are unrepentant or go through mental gymnastics to justify it. If that helps them sleep at night, great.” He concludes our exchange pointedly: “God will deal with them accordingly.” Many from his community share his frustration. <br /><br />A Middle Eastern Christian American woman whose parents fled persecution recently told me that she came to understand civil society, faith in the public square, and American Catholicism through the writings of thinkers like Neuhaus and Weigel, whom she otherwise admired. Their apparent lack of empathy for Middle Eastern Christians, she said, “felt like a betrayal.” It has since come to feel like a betrayal to many American Catholics, who are today skeptical of Caesar—especially when it comes to war. Not everyone floated with the currents at the time, however. <br /><br />Damon Linker, an associate editor for Neuhaus’ journal First Things in 2002, recounted a conversation with Neuhaus about an essay Linker hoped to publish in that journal’s pages making “a conservative case against” the invasion of Iraq. “Neuhaus responded to my proposal in a tone of grave seriousness. ‘Oh Damon, that’s really not a good idea. You don’t want to get a reputation for being unreliable.’” Perhaps foreseeably, a generation of angry (mostly Catholic) editors like Linker has followed. <br /><br />What a contrast with Father Ragheed. Why was a Catholic priest using a journal of religion and public life as a propaganda vehicle for an administration bent on selling war to its base? The short answer is that, at the time, there was a modus vivendi of sorts between social and national security conservatives. One didn’t mention Iraqi Christians or Egypt’s Maadi Sisters or priests like Ragheed Ganni, and the hawks would in turn tolerate social conservatism; a hawk like Bill Kristol might even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/susan-b-anthony-lists-pro-life-gala-had-progressive-undertones/2014/03/13/94e2a7c2-aaca-11e3-98f6-8e3c562f9996_story.html">emcee a pro-life gala</a> despite his apparently not being pro-life. This tenuous alliance wasn’t severed by Donald Trump; he merely exposed irreconcilable differences. The real cause of the rupture was the Iraq War. <br /><br />It was into that hellish violence that Father Ragheed went, back to Nineveh. If the Catholic hawks used their place in the public square to advocate for policies to protect Christians and others imperiled by the U.S. invasion, let it be entered into the record in their defense. If their silence on the matter merely bespeaks an ignorance of that community’s existence, then this points to amateurism and suggests they shouldn’t have weighed in on this key foreign-policy matter. But if, as one might reasonably suspect, they knew of the existence of Christians and regarded them—as many did and do—as regime sympathizers who merited the suffering they endured, then let those still alive have the courage to say so, and deal with the consequences. (And for those who say, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, let them speak first of Father Ragheed.)<br /><br />There was too often a mix of theology and politics among Catholics in those days. I still cringe when I recall a Catholic friend who echoed the words of the Gospel as he argued in support of democracy promotion: “Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.” One hears none of that talk today, but there’s also too little acknowledgement of failure—the kind of general unaccountability that characterized other scandals that are certain to haunt Catholics for a long time. And yet many elites are bewildered at the rise of the very illiberalism on the Catholic right that their unapologetic failures helped bring about.<br /><br />Linker concluded his 2015 reflection with that observation that, “When philosophical, theological, or historical ideas are blended with political passions and convictions, the result is very often a species of propaganda.… Reliability may well be a political virtue. It’s also a pretty serious intellectual vice.” <br /><br />* * *<br /><br />The administration of George W. Bush refused to confer the status of persecution on Iraqi Christians who sought asylum. Subsequent events in Iraq would compel the Obama and Trump administrations to recognize not mere persecution but genocide of Christians at the hands of ISIS. Vice President Pence, Mick Mulvaney, and others spearheaded an effort to deliver aid to what remained of the Christians in Iraq. I witnessed some of these events, both inside and outside government. Though my opposition to the 2003 invasion hasn’t changed, I have grown sympathetic to those who were tasked with executing a war, many of whom were neoconservatives. It was they who had to marshal a resistant bureaucracy and provide civilian oversight (especially over certain insipid generals), and who’ve since been forgotten. <br /><br />Those failures are often blamed on neoconservatives, though it wasn’t neoconservatives who decided to go to war; it was George Bush. Bush was not a neoconservative—nor was Condoleezza Rice, nor Colin Powell, nor Dick Cheney, nor Donald Rumsfeld, each of whom were cabinet officials. There were, in fact, anti-war neoconservatives, though these are rarely mentioned. There were also senior officials in the Bush administration, including Catholics, who did care about Iraqi Christians but whose focus was national security—neutralizing a threat, though one that was grossly exaggerated. Bush, once regarded as a war criminal by the American left and globalists at large, is now seen as an innocuous, avuncular statesman. The Iraq War is as forgotten by the American left as Iraq’s Christians were twenty years ago by the Catholic right. <br /><br />Josef had occasion to live in Iraq and observe the good that came from the Pence initiative for ISIS victims. George W. Bush’s recent slip—in which he referred to “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq, I mean of Ukraine”—wasn’t amusing for millions of people in the Middle East, who suffered terribly in the years that followed the U.S. invasion. Of Bush’s gaffe, Josef said simply, “I was disgusted.” Josef remains very much engaged in the life of what remains of Iraq’s Christian community and sees hope among the hundred thousand or so Christians who survive there. Father Ragheed remains a beacon of courage for them to this day.<br /><br />In 2018, the cause for Father Ragheed’s canonization began. It was alleged at the time that the gunmen gave Father Ragheed and his companions the opportunity to convert to Islam and that they refused. This claim will be scrutinized during the canonization process—a process far more rigorous than the banal proclamations of “shahid” (martyr) that invariably follow the death of an Islamist terrorist. Even Christians in the region refer to those killed fighting ISIS as shahid, though they would note that Father Ragheed’s was a proper martyrdom. <br /><br />Father Ragheed and his companions were true shahid. His murderers, like centuries of murderers before them, doubtless regarded their victims as unmanly, unworthy, weak—as pagans and half-pagans have regarded Jewish and Christian martyrs for centuries. Neither the Iraqi nor the U.S. government could protect him or Iraq’s Christians, nor did they make any effort to do so. How absurd—how insane—the outside talk of “democracy” must have seemed to anyone living in Mosul in 2007. <br /><br />The Christians of the Middle East speak often of the blood of the martyrs. That’s rare among American Christians, especially Catholics. We have little patience for the idea that evil must be endured; it ought rather to be countered or conquered, exclusively through politics. It’s this mindset that tempts Christians to seek—like everyone else—overarching political solutions, and so tempts them to power. When a political ideology is interwoven with the religious sense, it can give rise to a kind of liberation theology—a temptation of the right and left alike. <br /><br />T.S. Eliot’s Thomas Becket in the play Murder in the Cathedral is confronted with variations of the three temptations of Christ in the desert. Eliot’s character and the historical Becket refused that temptation, just as Christ refused the third and greatest temptation: a messiahship over the powers and principalities. Few Christians, however, seem able to resist the allure of power, however fleeting or illusory, when they get close to it. <br /><br />Father Ragheed went to say his last Mass fifteen years ago today with no earthly power to protect him or his companions. A year and a half later, his brother priest, Father Neuhaus, followed him in death. It’s a pity the two never met in this life. Fr. Ragheed is one of many Christians martyrs in the region this century. The magazine that is Father Neuhaus’ legacy has written much about Christian persecution in the Middle East for many years. And many Catholics—including some senior officials from the Bush administration—have done much to help persecuted Christians and other religious minorities in the region in the years since, often unbeknownst to activists or media. The Iraq War’s lessons for statesmen are numerous and complex, and merit much study. But the lessons for prominent Catholics and Christians in civil society are much simpler, and the first may be this: The things of Caesar—powers and principalities—can’t be sanctified by your proximity to them. <br /><br />Andrew Doran is a senior research fellow at the Philos Project. He previously served on the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State (2018-21).</span><span><!--more--></span><span><!--more--></span></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-69914091113392629762022-05-23T09:37:00.000-04:002022-05-23T09:37:00.427-04:00New Martyr Evgeny of Chechnya (+1996) commemorated on May 23<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">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.<br /><br /> For more on New Martyr Evgeny, <a href="https://facingislam.blogspot.com/2013/05/new-martyr-evgeny-rodionov-of-chechnya.html" target="_blank">see my earlier post here.</a><br /><br /><br /><iframe allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="784" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjoshua.anna.507%2Fposts%2F1811762279155093&show_text=true&width=500" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="500"></iframe><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX7G6rt7B72uOUQRWy2Xut5StggUf1X3ctZvzQvdLF86UDDg6GT8xiduWj6Du-rG1nNSkBe251ME8wwhQl6BmnT4r0TqbCcurKQQRkuzAGEi6wSmYWPb-VTwv8zvStYUmOlBfVJzJ46NgwQpAqxA16lmaPoo5JvlaubIzyCVoesUPYG3ieXzuzxypQYA/s1080/Evgeny%20Icon-2022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX7G6rt7B72uOUQRWy2Xut5StggUf1X3ctZvzQvdLF86UDDg6GT8xiduWj6Du-rG1nNSkBe251ME8wwhQl6BmnT4r0TqbCcurKQQRkuzAGEi6wSmYWPb-VTwv8zvStYUmOlBfVJzJ46NgwQpAqxA16lmaPoo5JvlaubIzyCVoesUPYG3ieXzuzxypQYA/w266-h400/Evgeny%20Icon-2022.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX1NXLygr9ct3E_4yc35Q7krW3aYiu2lPRtWBxLdoQkQNhStN8TgdD0uK1zbnjzlYaXpYpbImgnL2hrb96b-eOiVaERfwT1-3E0Tw56GfHzMO4Ga0OSqObc_THakiEQ_ocQCt7-FymGueMWhA_5CdbvFy6n8iUK5AgT5mrNMbTRRnudiAWrkDBjoNjSA/s720/Evgeny-painting-2022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="720" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX1NXLygr9ct3E_4yc35Q7krW3aYiu2lPRtWBxLdoQkQNhStN8TgdD0uK1zbnjzlYaXpYpbImgnL2hrb96b-eOiVaERfwT1-3E0Tw56GfHzMO4Ga0OSqObc_THakiEQ_ocQCt7-FymGueMWhA_5CdbvFy6n8iUK5AgT5mrNMbTRRnudiAWrkDBjoNjSA/w400-h258/Evgeny-painting-2022.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-58566603234248959562021-12-02T17:56:00.000-05:002021-12-02T17:56:22.378-05:00Raymond Ibrahim: 'The Muslim Appropriation of Mary'<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>In this second in our series for the Nativity Season, Raymond Ibrahim shows how contemporary Islam perpetuates the blasphemous appropriation of the Ever-Virgin Mary, the Mother of God (Greek: Theotokos), first initiated by the depraved false prophet Muhammad fourteen-hundred years ago, and why it is essential for Christians to be aware of the truth behind Islam's "veneration" of Mary. </i></span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Using the Virgin Mary "</span>as a model of 'open borders' between religious and multicultural worlds" in an effort to reconcile Islam and Catholicism is to deny Christ and His Most Pure Mother, and reveals those behind such initiatives as full-blown apostates from the Christian Faith and self-condemned.</i></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmRghwThHIEr6-JtVn6CmYjoHdSfjV7Hnd4f_gQ5cwlv8AyAX2-uIx_lSqxyz-PfXl8KYhmd14CuTbdlhcndFo5blKHgh0k3TFtJn9pbQPgabWRxdJYOfRaHERnE5CIiyK7CBzOUmPoZ7j/s810/2021-02-18-Mary-Islam.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="810" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmRghwThHIEr6-JtVn6CmYjoHdSfjV7Hnd4f_gQ5cwlv8AyAX2-uIx_lSqxyz-PfXl8KYhmd14CuTbdlhcndFo5blKHgh0k3TFtJn9pbQPgabWRxdJYOfRaHERnE5CIiyK7CBzOUmPoZ7j/w400-h223/2021-02-18-Mary-Islam.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The Muslim Appropriation of Mary</span></h1><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">by <a href="https://www.raymondibrahim.com/2021/02/21/the-muslim-appropriation-of-mary/" target="_blank">Raymond Ibrahim</a>, February 21, 2021</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In “<a href="https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/vatican-distorts-mary-as-muslim-catholic-model?fbclid=IwAR3Fx5jb1kvH1WTwETyZW_sURVQkRUuiMXdSsrDx6o0u4eWcG4uxpkOgW2s" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;">Vatican: Mary is Catholic-Muslim Bridge</a>,” Jules Gomes of Church Militant interviews me:</span></em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">VATICAN CITY (<a href="https://www.churchmilitant.com/" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">ChurchMilitant.com</a>) – The <a href="http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/mariana/documents/rc_pa_mariana_pro_20110913_profile_it.html" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Pontifical International Marian Academy</a> (PAMI) is promoting the Blessed Virgin as a bridge reconciling Islam and Catholicism following the <a href="http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/travels/2019/outside/documents/papa-francesco_20190204_documento-fratellanza-umana.html" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Abu Dhabi pact</a> between Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayyeb.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">On Thursday, the Marian academy in Rome launched a 10-week webinar series titled “Mary, a model for faith and life for Christianity and Islam” in <a href="https://www.dailymuslim.it/2021/02/maria-modello-di-fede-e-vita-per-il-cristianesimo-e-lislam/" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">collaboration</a> with the Grand Mosque of Rome and the Islamic Cultural Center of Italy.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Based on his belief that Mary is “a Jewish, Christian and Muslim woman,” Fr. Gian Matteo Roggio, organizer of the Muslim-Catholic dialogue series on Our Lady, is seeking to mobilize Mary as a model of “open borders” between religious and multicultural worlds.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Mary responds “to the genetic codes of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,” <a href="https://www.lastampa.it/vatican-insider/it/2020/04/03/news/maria-per-la-pace-primo-incontro-musulmano-cristiano-nel-tempo-della-pandemia-1.38674374" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">affirms</a> Roggio, a member of the religious order of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, writing in the Italian liberal Catholic periodical <a href="https://www.famigliacristiana.it/articolo/maria-tra-cristianesimo-e-islam-un-corso-online.aspx" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Famiglia Cristiana</a>.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Islamic historian <a href="https://www.hoover.org/profiles/raymond-ibrahim" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Raymond Ibrahim</a> told Church Militant that “this series is yet another attempt to try to convince Catholics that Islam is somehow similar to their Faith when, in fact, Islam appropriates the names and sacred auras of biblical figures but then recasts them with completely different attributes — ones that reaffirm Islam as the ‘true’ faith.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Ibrahim, a prolific writer, and the author of recent bestseller <em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306825554/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0306825554&linkCode=as2&tag=raymondibrahi-20&linkId=0f925201768b161ae319879bb3fdf1d7" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War Between Islam and the West</a></em>, explained:</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><blockquote>For example, the series’ organizers insist that Mary was a “Jewish, Christian and Muslim woman,” which is only two-thirds true: Yes, she was a Jew by race and background, and yes, she was a Christian in that she literally birthed Christ(ianity), but she was most certainly not a Muslim — a term and religion that did not exist until 600 years after the end of her earthly life.</blockquote></span><div><br /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">“Worse, far from being the Eternal Virgin, as she is for 1.5 billion Christians — Catholics and Orthodox — Islam presents Mary, the Mother of Christ, as ‘married’ to and ‘copulating’ with Muhammad in paradise,” Ibrahim revealed.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In an article for <a href="https://www.meforum.org/6554/muhammad-and-the-virgin-mary" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">Frontpage Magazine</a> titled “Muhammad and the Virgin Mary: A Match Made in Heaven?” Ibrahim cited a <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">hadith</em> (Islamic canonical tradition) wherein Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, declares: “Allah will wed me in paradise to Mary, daughter of Imran.”</span></p><div class="red-tweet-block" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Far from being the Perpetual Virgin — Islam presents Mary, the Mother of Christ, as ‘married’ to and ‘copulating’ with Muhammad in paradise.<a class="bq-tweet bq" data-permalink="https%3A%2F%2Fwww.churchmilitant.com%2Fnews%2Farticle%2Fvatican-distorts-mary-as-muslim-catholic-model%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3Fx5jb1kvH1WTwETyZW_sURVQkRUuiMXdSsrDx6o0u4eWcG4uxpkOgW2s" data-quote="Far%20from%20being%20the%20Perpetual%20Virgin%20%E2%80%94%20Islam%20presents%20Mary%2C%20the%20Mother%20of%20Christ%2C%20as%20%27married%27%20to%20and%20%27copulating%27%20with%20Muhammad%20in%20paradise." href="https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/vatican-distorts-mary-as-muslim-catholic-model?fbclid=IwAR3Fx5jb1kvH1WTwETyZW_sURVQkRUuiMXdSsrDx6o0u4eWcG4uxpkOgW2s#" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank"><i class="fa fa-twitter" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></i><span class="bq-tweet" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tweet</span></a></span></div><div class="red-tweet-block" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Few Christians know about this claim, but medieval Christians living under Islamic occupation were familiar with it because their Muslim conquerors regularly humiliated them with this text to refute the Church’s claim of Mary’s perpetual virginity, writes Ibrahim.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">In fact, Egypt’s former deputy minister of religious endowments, Dr. Salem Abdul Galil, openly declared that among other biblical women like Moses’ sister and Pharaoh’s wife, “Our prophet Muhammad — prayers and peace be upon him — will be married to (the Virgin) Mary in paradise.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vTvq968xKc4" width="320" youtube-src-id="vTvq968xKc4"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fluid-width-video-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ibrahim obtained the Arabic </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfaIHA174AQ" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #469bd1; font-family: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;" target="_blank">video</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> of Galil stating this on the Mahwar television network.</span></span></div><div class="fluid-width-video-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="fluid-width-video-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">“Far from creating ‘commonalities,’ it should be clear that such appropriation creates conflict,” Ibrahim told Church Militant.</span></div><div class="fluid-width-video-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="red-tweet-block" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Mary is a Jewish, Christian and Muslim woman. The prolific writer elaborated:</span></div><div class="red-tweet-block" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><blockquote>By way of analogy, imagine you have a grandfather whom you are particularly fond of, and out of the blue, a stranger says: “Hey, that’s my grandfather!” Then — lest you think this stranger is somehow trying to become your friend — he adds: “And everything you thought you knew about grandpa is wrong!” Would that endear this stranger to you?</blockquote></span></div><div><br /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The webinars will end during the month of Ramadan in the conference room of the Great Mosque of Rome with “Mary’s dates” — a reference to the fruit of the date palm and a verse from the Koran (<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sura </em>19.22–26).</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The verses describe how Mary was ostensibly driven by her labor pains to the trunk of a date palm tree where a voice from Heaven said: “Shake the trunk of this palm tree towards you, it will drop fresh, ripe dates upon you. So eat and drink, and put your heart at ease.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Roggio hopes that the series will conclude at the mosque once the sun goes down, with a meal of friendship and fraternity as a tangible pact of covenant for the service of the common good of all.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">This, writes Roggio, is in obedience to the Abu Dhabi document’s “understanding of the great divine grace that makes brothers of all human beings.”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The series lectures will be given jointly by Catholic and Muslim speakers, who will seek “dialogue, knowledge and cooperation” regarding themes such as “Mary, a woman of faith,” as well as prayer, purity, hospitality, non-violence, penitence, fasting and citizenship.</span></p><p></p><div class="inline-campaign" data-cid="31877" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div><div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled" style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: both;"></div><p></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Co-organizers of the series include the Pontifical University of Saint Anthony (Antonianum), through its Duns Scotus chair of Mariological studies and the International Islamic-Christian Marian Commission.</span></p><p><br /></p></div>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006744169700321103.post-77758614065478495632021-11-19T13:12:00.005-05:002021-11-19T13:12:57.064-05:00Raymond Ibrahim: 'How Islam Mutilates Christ'<p><i> "While relying on the figures of the Old and New Testaments—for the weight of antiquity and authority attached to their names—Islam completely recasts them in a manner that validates itself and invalidates Judaism and Christianity. This would seem to burn rather than build bridges." </i></p><p style="text-align: right;"><i>— Raymond Ibrahim</i></p><p>As we enter into the Nativity Fast and the Advent/Christmas season, it seems an especially proper time to post some recent articles of a theological nature. This new piece by Raymond Ibrahim surveys numerous examples of how Islam strives to appropriate Jesus Christ, Abraham, and a whole range of Old and New Testament figures, and even some Christian saints, but as Muslim heroes, distorting historical fact and mutilating their actual theological and spiritual message and import. </p><p>This is a well known tactic of Muslim <i>'dawah'</i> which dates back to Muhammad himself, and must be exposed as one of the primary lies of the Same God Heresy which Islamic apologists and well intentioned but gullible Christians so often promote.</p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">How Islam Mutilates Christ</h2><p>by Raymond Ibrahim, 11/2/2021</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCL1CBgH0leToT6IgTZNEiyV5ybJD62kQdk7NChXDICuQOxrlPOoHyPl81BjjbwTAqTD_FsR35JxCfqhoa0JIc-2xqE9I5b97-rmY8OVQ3Rf6y54NQb0hK24bkwzpF5HukNqyWfZx2tsLi/s800/Christ-Muhammad-Raymond+Ibrahim-110221.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="800" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCL1CBgH0leToT6IgTZNEiyV5ybJD62kQdk7NChXDICuQOxrlPOoHyPl81BjjbwTAqTD_FsR35JxCfqhoa0JIc-2xqE9I5b97-rmY8OVQ3Rf6y54NQb0hK24bkwzpF5HukNqyWfZx2tsLi/w400-h244/Christ-Muhammad-Raymond+Ibrahim-110221.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>Not only does Islam claim Abraham, Moses, and Jesus; it apparently claims post biblical figures, such as Saint George, as well. So states a recent article on My London, the real point of which is apparently to assert Christian and Muslim “commonalities.” Thus, we learn that “on St George’s Day, which in Eastern Christianity is marked on May 6, Muslims in the area [of Nazareth] join Christians in their venerations of the saint.”</p><p>Judaism also finds its way into this article on religious syncretism: “According to some Sufi traditions, the [Hebrew] Prophet Elias, Al-Khidr [a character in the Koran], and Saint George are all the same person. They believe Elias reappears at different times in human history under different names to help stricken believers in times of crisis.”</p><p>The entire article is a testimony to the widely entrenched conviction that, because Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share many of the same characters, creating rapprochement between the three faiths is not just easy; it’s the most natural thing to do.</p><p>Left out of this calculus is the all-important fact that Islam does not treat biblical characters the way Christianity does. Christians accept the Hebrew Bible, or “Old Testament,” as it is. They do not add, take away, or distort the accounts of the patriarchs that Jews also rely on.</p><p>Conversely, while also relying on the figures of the Old and New Testaments—for the weight of antiquity and authority attached to their names—Islam completely recasts them in a manner that validates itself and invalidates Judaism and Christianity. This would seem to burn rather than build bridges.</p><p>Consider, for example, Islam’s treatment of Jesus (‘Isa in the Koran). Not only does Islam vehemently deny Christ’s sonship to God, a new book on Islamic sources inadvertently underscores the fact that ‘Isa is the antithesis of Jesus—his doppelganger.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>Although Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period by professors James E. Lindsay and Suleiman Mourad is full of important historical documents from that era, including first time translations, the writings of Ibn ‘Asakir (1105-1175)—an influential Islamic scholar who also authored the popular Forty Hadiths for Inciting Jihad—on Jesus, based on established hadiths, are germane to our topic. From beginning to end, Ibn ‘Asakir, like all other Muslim scholars before and after him, uses Jesus to validate Islam and invalidate the actual faith founded by Christ.</p><p>According to these Muslim accounts, Jesus will indeed return—Christian “bridge-builders” to Islam can be happy about that—but only to “break the crosses, slaughter the pigs, end the jizya tax on non-Muslims, making warfare against the People of the Book (e.g. Jews ,Christians, Zorastrians etc.) and others licit…” (p. 158) In short, Islam’s Jesus seems to be a jihadist on a par with ISIS.</p><p>Here are a few selections from Ibn ‘Asakir’s “biography” of Jesus/‘Isa (from Muslim Sources of the Crusader Period):</p><p><br /></p><p></p><blockquote><p>He quotes Muhammad asserting that whoever is willing to make him, Muhammad, Christ’s equal, as well as contradict the oldest Christian Creed (1 Cor. 15: 3-7), will go to heaven:</p><p>Whoever testifies that there is no god but God, alone with no partner, and that Muhammad is His servant and messenger, and that Jesus is His servant and messenger, the son of His servant, His word which he gave to Mary, and a spirit from Him, Allah will admit him to paradise for saying that (p.159).</p><p>When a woman says to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast that suckled you,” a shocked Jesus replies: “No, but blessed is he who reads the Qur’an and follows what is in it” (p.159).</p></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p><p>In several of these hadiths, Muhammad appears intent on making himself Jesus’s equal. Thus when his child-bride, Aisha, asks the prophet: “If I outlive you, would you permit me to be buried beside you?” “No,” responds Muhammad: “in that place there is only room for my grave, for Abu Bakr’s grave [Muhammad’s companion and successor, or first caliph], for ‘Umar’s grave [Muhammad’s companion and second caliph], and for the grave of Jesus son of Mary” (p.160).</p><p>In another account, Muhammad says, “The biblical prophets are siblings of the same lineage. I and Jesus too are siblings because he prophesied me and there are no prophets between me and him (p.161).”</p><p>In yet another account, Ibn ‘Asakir presents Jesus as “praying behind” yet another caliph (Muawiya I): then, “after Jesus finishes his prayer, he will take his lance, go toward the Antichrist and kill him. Then Jesus will die and the Muslims will wash him and bury him” (p.161).</p><p>Such is the transformation—or mutilation—that Jesus has undergone in the Muslim tradition. And Christians are supposed to see this as a possible “bridge” to Islam, a source of “commonalities”?</p><p>It’s the same, incidentally, with other biblical characters. Consider Abraham (Ibrahim), whom this entire “Abrahamic” movement is named after. While Jews and Christians focus on different aspects of Abraham—the former see him as their patriarch in the flesh, the latter as their patriarch in faith or in spirit (e.g., Gal 3:6)—they both rely on the same verbatim account of Abraham found in Genesis.</p><p>The Muslim account, however, introduces and exemplifies the hate Muslims are obligated to have for non-Muslims: “You have a good example in Abraham and those who followed him,” Allah informs Muslims in Koran 60:4; “for they said to their people, ‘We disown you and the idols that you worship besides Allah. We renounce you: enmity and hate shall reign between us until you believe in Allah alone.’”</p><p>In fact, this verse is the cornerstone verse that all “radical” Muslims, especially of the Islamic State, cite as proof that Muslims must hate all non-Muslims. In other words, far from serving as a bridge between Islam and Judaism and Christianity, the Muslim Abraham teaches Muslims to hate Jews and Christians.</p><p>One can go on and on: according to Islamic traditions, Mary, the mother of Christ, is Muhammad’s “wife” in heaven—yet another characterization that would seem to sever hardly build “bridges,” especially for Catholics [and Orthodox!].</p><p>Surely it’s a curious thing: when certain people—namely, whites—“appropriate,” say, the superficial dress or costume of another people, woe, all is woe. But when Islam appropriates and completely perverts the central figures of two faiths, Judaism and Christianity, Jews and Christians are supposed to feel good about it, see it as an opportunity for “reconciliation” with Islam. Interesting how that works.</p><p>To be clear, the Muslim appropriation and subsequent mutilation of biblical figures is a source of problems, not solutions. It is only the secular mindset, which cannot rise beyond the surface fact that three religions claim the same figures—and so they must all eventually “get along”—that does not and never will get it. The Saint George article on My London—which spends an inordinate amount of time cracking jokes about drinking in pubs—is a perfect example.</p><p><br /></p>Zosimashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04627398304409815852noreply@blogger.com