Support Raymond Ibrahim: Sign the Open Letter protesting his being disinvited from speaking at the War College on Islam

No jump-break on this one, folks. This is too important to bury any of it below a "Read more" link.

This is urgent. Please follow the link and sign the NAS Open Letter to President Trump.

Thank you...

Sign Now: NAS Letter to Trump on War College’s Surrender to CAIR

06/26/2019 by Raymond Ibrahim

The National Association of Scholars (NAS), “the leading organization of scholars and citizens committed to higher education as the catalyst of American freedom,” has come forth in my support and written an open letter to the President of the United States.

The signatories, most of whom are academics, call President Trump’s attention to the US Army War College’s recent capitulation to CAIR/Linda Sarsour and “urge you to use the ‘bully pulpit’ of the presidency to call on USAWC Commandant Gen. John Kem and Provost Dr. James Breckenridge to restore Raymond Ibrahim’s lecture.”

Click here to read and sign the letter to President Trump.

The letter appears on a NAS page titled, “Disinviting Scholarship: An Open Letter in Support of Free Inquiry at the U.S. Army War College.” Below is the note that precedes NAS’s open letter:

Editor’s note: The National Association of Scholars invites scholars and members of the public to sign this petition in support of Raymond Ibrahim. Ibrahim was invited to speak at the United States Army War College (USAWC) as part of its 2019 Perspectives in Military History Lecture Series. USAWC, however, has “postponed” Ibrahim’s appearance indefinitely after the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) complained that he is “biased.” The “postponement” is, in fact, a disinvitation that reflects USAWC’s eagerness to appease a group that claims to represent Muslim-American sensitivities. Capitulating to CAIR by censoring Ibrahim is not in the educational interests of America’s present and future military leaders. 

The USAWC has created a dangerous precedent for institutions of military education. The National Association of Scholars is petitioning the White House to call on the USAWC to reverse its decision, and to set up procedures to prevent such disinvitations in the future. In the letter below we lay out our reasoning and our resolutions. If you agree with these, we urge you to sign.

Click here to read the letter to Trump. If you agree with it, sign it, and share with others.

____________

RAYMOND IBRAHIM is a widely published author, public speaker, and Middle East and Islam specialist. His books include Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (Da Capo, 2018), Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (Regnery, 2013), and The Al Qaeda Reader (Doubleday, 2007).

Ibrahim’s writings, translations, and observations have appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times Syndicate, CNN, LA Times, Fox News, Financial Times, Jerusalem Post, United Press International, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, and Weekly Standard; scholarly journals, including the Almanac of Islamism, Chronicle of Higher Education, Hoover Institution’s Strategika, Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, Middle East Quarterly, and Middle East Review of International Affairs; and popular websites, including American Thinker, Bloomberg, Breitbart, Christian Post, Daily Caller, FrontPage Mag, Jihad Watch, NewsMax, National Review Online, PJ Media, and World Magazine. He has contributed chapters to several anthologies and has been translated into dozens of languages.

Among other media, he has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, and NPR; he has done hundreds of radio interviews and some of his YouTube videos (here and here for example) have received over a million views each.

Ibrahim guest lectures at universities, including the National Defense Intelligence College, has briefed governmental agencies, such as U.S. Strategic Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency, provides expert testimony for Islam-related lawsuits, and has testified before Congress regarding the conceptual failures that dominate American discourse concerning Islam and the worsening plight of Egypt’s Christian Copts.

Ibrahim’s dual-background—born and raised in the U.S. by Egyptian parents born and raised in the Middle East—has provided him with unique advantages, from equal fluency in English and Arabic, to an equal understanding of the Western and Middle Eastern mindsets, positioning him to explain the latter to the former. His interest in Islamic civilization was first piqued when he began visiting the Middle East as a child in the 1970s. Interacting and conversing with the locals throughout the decades has provided him with an intimate appreciation for that part of the world, complementing his academic training.

Continue reading...

Raymond Ibrahim: 'Field of Blackbirds’: The 630 Year-Old Reason Eastern Europeans Dislike Islam

This essential historical summary by Raymond Ibrahim — one of the leading scholars on Islam's 1400-year continuing jihad against Christianity — offers compelling reasons for Eastern Europeans' distrust of Islam. 

They remember, "those years—1541 to 1699, when the Islamic Ottoman Empire occupied Hungary—are replete with the massacre, enslavement, and rape of Hungarians."

The United States should learn from the abhorrent experience of our Eastern European brethren under the sword of Islam, and adopt their sane policy of prudent refusal to allow unbridled and unvetted Muslim immigration to America. 

Battle of Kosovo painting by Peter Radicevic, 1987

'Field of Blackbirds’: The 630 Year-Old Reason Eastern Europeans Dislike Islam

by Raymond Ibrahim, June 15, 2019


Why Eastern Europeans are much more reluctant to accept Muslim migrants than their Western counterparts can be traced back to circumstances surrounding a pivotal battle, that of Kosovo, which took place on June 15, 1389, exactly 630 years ago today. It pitted Muslim invaders against Eastern European defenders, or the ancestors of those many Eastern Europeans today who are resistant to Islam.

Because the jihad is as old as Islam, it has been championed by diverse peoples throughout the centuries (Arabs in the Middle East, Moors (Berbers and Africans) in Spain and Western Europe, etc.). Islam’s successful entry into Eastern Europe was spearheaded by the Turks, specifically that tribe centered in westernmost Anatolia (or Asia Minor) and thus nearest to Europe, the Ottoman Turks, so-named after their founder Osman Bey. As he lay dying in 1323, his parting words to his son and successor, Orhan, were for him “to propagate Islam by your arms.”

This his son certainly did; the traveler Ibn Batutua, who once met Orhan in Bursa, observed that, although the jihadi had captured some one hundred Byzantine fortresses, “he had never stayed for a whole month in any one town,” because he “fights with the infidels continually and keeps them under siege.” Christian cities fell like dominos: Smyrna in 1329, Nicaea in 1331, and Nicomedia in 1337. By 1340, the whole of northwest Anatolia was under Turkic control. By now and to quote a European contemporary, “the foes of the cross, and the killers of the Christian people, that is, the Turks, [were] separated from Constantinople by a channel of three or four miles.”

Mark Durie: 'The Qur’an’s Turn To Violence'

"A careful reading of the Qur’an’s text reveals a movement which was faltering under the weight of the non-arrival of a prophesied doomsday scenario. This movement was then saved – and transformed – by a shocking and epoch-making announcement that the swords of believers were to be considered an act of God."


This landmark article by Dr. Mark Durie, based on his groundbreaking new book on the Qur'an, upends the standard approach to understanding the shift of Islam from a relatively benign religious movement (in its so-called "Meccan Period") to an aggressive and militaristic religio-political ideology (typically identified as beginning with the "Medinan Period"), which expanded rapidly through the sword and bloodshed to conquer and subjugate huge swaths of the ancient Christian World lasting over a millennium — vast areas of North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of Europe — and which is directly responsible today for the new era of global martyrdom of Christians in the 21st century, the relaunch of Islam's 1400-year-old jihad against the followers of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Durie's enormous contribution to Quranic studies reveals the desperate and opportunistic theological motives behind Muhammad's — and Islam's — embrace of outright hatred and bloody jihad against non-Muslims. The false prophet and forerunner of Antichrist now stands clearly revealed as the maniacal tool of a bloodthirsty "god," justifying the waging of divine wrath on those who reject Allah and his messenger.


The Qur’an’s Turn to Violence

by Mark Durie, June 7, 2019

The Problem Of Peace Vs. Violence

It is widely recognized that, on the topic of violence, the Qur’an speaks with more than one voice. Some verses speak for peace, and others for war. The conventional explanation is that the difference hinges on the migration of the early Muslim community from Mecca to Medina: in Mecca Muslims were persecuted while Muhammad and the Qur’an preached non-violence and tolerance, but in Medina an Islamic state was established, and Muhammad gathered an army, leading it to triumph in battle against non-believers.

A Conventional Explanation

A conventional Islamic theological interpretation is that in Mecca Muhammad and his community were weak, vulnerable and persecuted, so Allah wisely commended patience and forbearance. However when their power was established in Medina the Muslims were commanded to fight for the cause of Allah, ushering in the triumphant advance of the religion.

It is indisputable that there is a progression from peace to violence in the Qur’an. But is the conventional explanation for that shift supported by the text of the Qur’an itself? Does this explanation make the best sense of the Qur’an?

"If we read the Qur’an with an ear for changes in its theology around the transition between the (so-called) ‘Meccan’ and ‘Medinan’ verses, a different story emerges."

A Different Story To Be Told

In my recently published book, The Qur’an and its Biblical Reflexes, I argue that the traditional explanation is based on a misreading. Setting aside the whole Mecca-Medina narrative (for a whole host of reasons), I argue that if we read the Qur’an with an ear for changes in its theology around the transition between the (so-called) ‘Meccan’ and ‘Medinan’ verses, a different story emerges. This is a story about a crisis of faith and how it was successfully resolved.

NY Times slanders Jihad Watch, tries to cover for Minneapolis' Somali community, the 'terrorist recruitment capital of the US'

"More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country."

The NY Times just featured an article by Astead W. Herndon, titled, "‘These People Aren’t Coming From Norway’: Refugees in a Minnesota City Face a Backlash," in which the following false and libelous statement is made:

Every weekday, he sits in the same spot at Culver’s restaurant — the corner booth near the Kwik Trip — and begins his daily intake of news from xenophobic and conspiratorial sites, such as JihadWatch.org, and articles with titles like “Lifting the Veil on the ‘Islamophobia’ Hoax.”

Of course, Jihad Watch, run by the indefatigable Robert Spencer (who just survived a serious health incident, and thankfully is returning to top form in writing on and warning about Islam and the global varieties of the jihad threat) is anything but "xenophobic and conspiratorial," with its sober postings of well documented news reports on Muslim jihad plots and terror attacks, and examples of dhimmitude, cover-ups, and willing capitulation by politicians and media before professional Muslim victimhood organizations like CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations, itself named by the US Dept of Justice an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Terror Funding Trial, the largest such terror funding case in history).

But Herndon's piece is too busy painting ordinary Americans as bigots afraid of immigrants, reactionary adherents to "white replacement" theory to present the full picture. Take this section:

Their [the Somali refugees] increased presence — and an attack at a mall in 2016, when Dahir Adan, a Somali-American refugee living in St. Cloud, stabbed 10 people — has emboldened a loosely connected network of white, anti-immigration activists who are trying to pressure local and state Republicans to embrace an increasingly explicit anti-Muslim agenda. 

Across the state, this network includes conservative radio hosts, think tanks and digital media that focus on anti-refugee news in Minnesota, as well as small community groups like C-Cubed, which repeatedly invite anti-Muslim speakers to town, leading to clashes and protests.

The stabbing attack by Somali refugee Dahir Adan (he can't be Somali-American and be a refugee, can he?) is the only specific news story cited which gives an honest glimpse into the effect mass Muslim immigration is having on Minnesota. The article makes only passing reference to "anti-refugee news" before returning to its narrative, ignoring widespread terrorist recruiting of Somali Muslims as reported in detail  by Hollie McKay of Fox News:

More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country. 

FBI stats show 45 Somalis left to join the ranks of either the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab, or the Iraq- and Syria-based ISIS combined. And as of 2018, a dozen more had been arrested with the intention of leaving to support ISIS. Both numbers are far higher than those of alleged terrorist wannabes who left or attempted to leave the country from other areas in the country where Muslim refugees have been resettled. 

In the case of the Somalis, it's no longer just the men. Early last year, a female was apprehended by authorities on charges of supporting providing material support to Al Qaeda and arson.

McKay's reporting provides hard facts from the FBI itself on the link between Minnesota Muslims and Al Shabaab and ISIS back in Somalia,

With by far the largest Somali American population in the United States - estimates of up to 100,000 - the insular ethnic community in Minnesota offers a rich recruiting ground. Investigators told Fox News that early on, al-Shabab recruiting was almost exclusively word-of-mouth. One family connection to a contact in the terrorist group would be pulled in as a recruit, in a process that was repeated as the ranks of the al-Shabab grew.

The Minneapolis and St Cloud Somali Muslim community has proved to be a ripe target for jihad recruiters, who prey on the Islamic culture's innate distrust of the infidel to motivate a people already predisposed to not assimilate into American culture to join and actively support America's enemies:

Muslim Children in Philadelphia Proclaim True Islam: 'We will chop off their heads, subject them to eternal torture'

Is this what Muslims do in mosques when they think no one is paying attention? 

For context on this shocking video (and the transcript below), it is essential to know that four separate studies performed in the first decade of the new century revealed that upwards of 80% of mosques in the United States either openly taught violent jihad as an essential pillar of Islam or sold and distributed books and materials advocating for violent jihad to overthrow the USA.

These mosque studies predated the rise of ISIS/Islamic State by at least several years. In the age of ISIS we see similar disturbing levels of support for the Islamic State and violent jihad in America and around the globe.

With this context, here is the harrowing video from a mosque in Philadelphia:



CHILDREN IN PHILADELPHIA MUSLIM SOCIETY: WE WILL SACRIFICE OURSELVES FOR AL-AQSA; WILL CHOP OFF THEIR HEADS, SUBJECT THEM TO ETERNAL TORTURE

MEMRI, May 3, 2019:




On April 22, 2019, the Muslim American Society Islamic Center in Philadelphia (MAS Philly) uploaded a video of an "Ummah Day" celebration to its Facebook page in which young children wearing Palestinian scarves sang: "Glorious steeds call us and lead us [to] the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The blood of martyrs protects us… Take us, oh ships… until we reach our shores and crush the treacherous ones… Flow, oh rivers of martyrs!" A young girl read a poem praising martyrs who sacrificed their lives for Palestine, and she asked: "Will [Jerusalem] be a hotbed for cowards?"

Another young girl read: "We will defend [Palestine] with our bodies… We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque… We will subject them to eternal torture."

MAS Philly belongs to the Muslim American Society (MAS), which has 42 chapters in the United States and one in the United Kingdom. MAS' website says that its mission is to "move people to strive for God-consciousness, liberty and justice, and to convey Islam with utmost clarity," and that its vision is "a virtuous and just American society."


Following are excerpts:

Leo Hohmann: 'Is your public school endorsing Ramadan prayers to Allah?'

"When efforts to accommodate Muslim students morph into Islamic indoctrination of Christian, Jewish, Hindu or atheist students, that becomes a problem..."



Is your public school endorsing Ramadan prayers to Allah?

by Leo Hohmann, LeoHohmann.com, June 1, 2019:

Public Schools in America are secretly
indoctrinating students with Islamic
prayers and religious lessons.

The Islamization of America’s public schools continues to take place with breathless speed, but in the few districts where awakened parents push back, Islam is forced to recoil into a constitutional place that is at least equal with other religions.

Where parents are asleep, Islam will simply take over and eventually turn that school into a virtual madrassa, says one constitutional scholar. In rare cases where parents are alerted to the Islamic teachings going on in their children’s schools and take action, the school system typically backs off rather than invite expensive litigation.

A recent case in the state of Washington highlights this reality.

Unpacking, exposing and dismantling the pro-Islamic Ramadan practices within the Northside School District started with a savvy and courageous teacher.

The teacher, who remains anonymous out of fear for her job, became troubled by the policies she and other teachers were being forced to implement at the school. Two weeks ago, in mid-May, the teacher informed a small group of parents, who hired the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, a public-interest law firm offering pro bono work on behalf of Americans under threat of losing their First Amendment rights.

Northside School District, which serves Lake Tapps in Pierce County, received a “cease and desist” letter from the defense fund, demanding that it stop granting most-favored status to Muslim students, effectively endorsing Islam over all other religions.

According to lawyers for the defense fund, the school district was found to be following a script handed to it by the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] on how to treat Muslim students during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

CAIR is itself a highly suspect organization that was spun off from the Islamic Association of Palestine in 1994. In 2007 CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-funding trial ever conducted on U.S. soil [U.S. vs. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development]. Several of the foundation’s members were sentenced to prison for raising funds from U.S. Muslims that were then funneled to Hamas, a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization committed to the elimination of Israel as a nation.

But here’s the good news: The Northside School District has withdrawn its CAIR-backed Ramadan policy in response to the “cease and desist” letter.

'Parakletos', not 'Periklytos' - The One to Come is the Holy Spirit, not a False Prophet from Arabia

As Orthodox Christians celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, this seemed like an opportune time to excerpt my refutation of the common Muslim claim that Jesus Christ prophesied of the coming of Muhammad.

Detail from an ancient Syrian icon of Pentecost.

The following is excerpted from my book, Facing Islam, pp 101-106, slightly reformatted, with new topic headings. Sections 4 and 5 have been added for this presentation. (Updated 6/17/19, 8:07am.)


Parakletos, not Periklytos -

The One to Come is the Holy Spirit, not a False Prophet from Arabia

1. Manuscript Evidence

Fragment p75 of the Bodmer Papyrus,
showing John 14:9-26a,
with the Greek word “Parakletos”
in verses 16 and 26.

Muslim attempts to prove that Muhammad was prophesied by Jesus as the “messenger to come” are typically based on these passages in the Gospel According to St John:

“And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper [Greek: Parakletos], that He may abide with you forever” (Jn 14:16).

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper [Greek: Parakletos] will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you” (Jn 16:7).

Muslim apologists would have us believe that the New Testament was corrupted so as to eradicate the prophecies about Muhammad. They claim that the true Greek word in these verses should be Periklytos, not Parakletos. Periklytos may be translated as “glorious,” so Muslims argue that it refers to Muhammad (spoken of in Sura 61:6 as Ahmad), whose name means “the praised [or glorious] one.”

This is of course absurd, but it is educational for us to turn to the actual manuscript evidence, which is undeniable. There are, in fact, over seventy existing Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, all of which date from well before the time of Muhammad, and all of which prove that the original Greek word used in John 14:16, 14:26 and 16:7 is Parakletos. Two of the oldest manuscripts, Codex Sinaiticus (mid 4th c.) and Codex Alexandrinus (late 4th or early 5th c.) are actually housed in the British Museum in London and may be examined. The oldest complete manuscript of the New Testament, Codex Vaticanus (early 4th c.) likewise confirms the use of Parakletos in these verses. The even more ancient Bodmer Papyrus fragment of St. John’s Gospel (ca. 200 A.D.) also verifies the use of Parakletos in Chapter 14: 16, 26.

The Miracle of the Holy Fire - God's Encouragement to Christians following the rise of Islam

"Miracles come when they are needed, and it seems that the Holy Fire first came when it was needed most — during the time of the Islamic oppression of the Church, when the Christians suffering under the yoke of Muhammad most needed confirmation that their faith in the crucified and risen Christ was true." — Fr. Lawrence Farley

Today, May 2, 2019, the Holy Fire arrived at a wonderful parish I am closely connected to, by circumstance and by the heart. Alas, I could not travel to be with them to greet and receive the Holy Fire, brought all the way from Jerusalem, but it did spur me on to read up on the annual Miracle of the Holy Fire.

In doing so, I came across a typically wonderful article by Fr Lawrence Farley. It is his quote at the top of this post, and his observation is no less true today than it was when the Sword of Islam cut its wide and bloody swath across the Christian world, decimating churches and slaughtering and subjugating Christians across the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, and even into Western Europe, the Balkans, Italy, and Russia.

Today, 80% of the countries where Christians suffer the worst persecution are Muslim majority and/or an Islamic dictatorship. Muslim persecution of Christians worldwide jumped almost 15% from 2017 to 2018, also according to Open Doors' World Watch List.

Christians in the West and in the USA and Canada are being increasingly pressured to acquiesce to the secular agenda. While open persecution of Christians in America has recently been highlighted by lawfare against Christian bakers and florists, outbursts of demonic hatred against Christians is encountered everywhere. Just recently, the peaceful Abbot Tryphon of Vashon Island was assaulted by a tormented soul who saw his cross and could not hold back his venom, and truly like a serpent, struck a potentially deadly sucker punch without any warning.

So, the Holy Fire remains with us, a visible annual miracle, a gift from God to bolster the faith of Christians the world over.

More sucker punches — and Muslim jihad terror attacks — are surely coming. Just ask the persecuted Christians in Nigeria and elsewhere.

But for now, let us give thanks for this powerful miracle.

What Good is the Holy Fire?

May 15, 2017 · Fr. Lawrence Farley, No Other Foundation

The so-called “Holy Fire” is the name given to the fire that appears on ends of the candles of the Patriarch of Jerusalem and others every Holy Saturday. The Patriarch, accompanied by a church crammed filled with others, awaits for the annual miracle every Holy Saturday. On that day the Patriarch strips himself of his holy robes and enters the Tomb of Christ with a bundle of unlit tapers, says certain prayers, and then awaits for his tapers to be miraculously lit from heaven. He is not disappointed: his tapers are miraculously lit every year and he emerges from the Tomb with the flame to the tumultuous shouting of everyone in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Apostate Pope advocates for Islam, forces Dhimmitude on Moroccan Christians

Pope Francis has for some time now been openly teaching an explicitly false Gospel, what I have termed the "Same God Heresy". This is one of the greatest heresies and scandals of our age, and many Christians are falling all over themselves to endorse it.

Catholic news site Gloria.tv reports:

On the eve of his visit to Morocco (March 30-31), Pope Francis said in a video message on VaticanNews.va that “as Christians and Muslims we believe in God, the Creator and Merciful”... 

This message repeats Francis heretical Abu Dhabi declaration according to which the diversity of religions that contradict each other and religions which deny the Trinity and Incarnation are willed by God.

Of course, there are also some Orthodox Christian bishops (e.g., Met. Georges Khodr) who preach religious syncretism, pan-ecumenism, dhimmitude and submission to Islam, but when the Pope of Rome does this on the global stage, cue the "Last Pope Prophecies" trailers. The Apostate Pope's heretical teachings are clearly a sign of the age.

Traditional, orthodox-minded Roman Catholics, come to Orthodoxy. We are waiting for you with open arms!

"Come out of her, My people..." (Rev. 18:4)

Pope Francis offers more doves to be attacked by crows.

The Pope to the Christians of Morocco: Please do not need to preach

BBC Middle East, March 31, 2019 (Google Translate from Arabic)
Thanks to Timothy R. Furnish.


The Pope, Francis, told members of the small Catholic community in Morocco that the role of community members in the country is not to try to make their neighbors convert to Christianity, but to live in brotherhood with other religions.

The Pope took the two-day trip to emphasize interreligious dialogue, while supporting King Mohammed VI's efforts to promote religious moderation in order to promote interfaith dialogue and renounce violence in the name of religion.

Roman Catholic Christians in Morocco represent less than one percent of Morocco's 35 million population, while there are 23,000 Christians, mostly immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa and those from Europe, particularly France.

"Christians are a small minority in this country, and I see that this is not a problem, although I realize that this may be difficult for some of you," he said during a meeting with community leaders in a Rabat cathedral.

For the First Week of Lent: 'British Government refuses to say whether proclaiming divinity of Christ is a hate crime'

“You can say what you like about the Virgin Birth, the miracles and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but as soon as you say ‘come on, is Islam really the religion of peace that it claims to be’, all hell breaks loose.”

Islam is protected in the UK now, and any legitimate questioning or criticism of it is branded as hate speech. It will not be long before authentic, Orthodox Christianity is outlawed as "hate speech."

Keep this in mind as we celebrate the "Triumph of Orthodoxy" and the Restoration of the Holy Icons this Sunday.


British Government refuses to say whether proclaiming divinity of Christ is a hate crime

Catholic Herald | Staff Reporter | 14 December, 2017

The British government has refused to say whether telling people about the Christian faith could be a hate crime.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a UKIP peer, says when he raised a question on the issue on the House of Lords, the government failed to state clearly whether Christians cannot be prosecuted just for stating their beliefs.

“I said to the government ‘Will they confirm unequivocally that a Christian who says that Jesus is the only son of the one true God cannot be arrested for hate crime or any other offence, however much it may offend a Muslim or anyone of any other religion?'”

In response to the question, government whip Baroness Vere of Norbiton said: “My Lords, I am not going to comment on that last question from the noble Lord.” She added that the legal definition of “hate crime” has been the same for the past 10 years.

Speaking to Premier Christian Radio, Lord Pearson said the refusal to comment was “pretty unique” and “makes one very worried”.