Christian Pastor in Iran again facing Execution

The heroic story of Confessor for Christ Youcef Nadarkhani has taken a dire turn in recent days, as an Iranian court has issued its "final verdict," meaning Pastor Nadarkhani may be executed at any time without warning. The news report below does not mention certain details, such as how Iranian prosecutors kept changing the charges against him to try to make them seem more justifiable in the face of outcry from the West.  Now, however, all pretense is dropped, and it is clear Nadarkhani is facing the death penalty for becoming a Christian at age 19, for refusing to convert to Islam, and, most recently, for refusing to even recognize Muhammad as a prophet.  

This last offer of "leniency" (something of a "theological plea bargain") from the Iranian courts, to simply recognize Muhammad as a prophet so as to be released from prison, shows the weakness, insecurity and fearfulness of Nadarkhani's Muslim persecutors. At some level they recognize that the Pastor's steadfast confession of Jesus Christ, even and especially unto death, makes him especially dangerous, so they try to tempt him to at least accept Muhammad as a prophet, which would remove the power of Nadarkhani's confession of Christ.

Shockingly, as I discuss in my book Facing Islam, there are all too many Christians who have been willingly deluded into doing just that, including even Orthodox Christian patriarchs, bishops, priests and educators. Some of them manage to avoid openly proclaiming Muhammad as a true "prophet," although their "bending over backwards" efforts to not offend Muslims amount to the same thing. 

Let this one simple truth be told. Only a false religion founded by a false prophet would use fear and intimidation tactics to keep its followers locked in, bludgeoning them with the threat of death for apostasy or blasphemy. 

For an insightful article by Raymond Ibrahim providing context and continuity go here. 

For related articles at Jihad Watch about Youcef Nadarkhani go here.

Read on for the posting from Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch:

Muslim spokesmen such as Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz(among many others) have assured us that Islam has no death penalty for apostasy. I expect that they will immediately be jetting over to Tehran to explain to the mullahs that they're getting Islam all wrong, wrong, wrong, and should free Youcef Nadarkhani immediately.

Of course, they won't really do that... they know full well that Islam has a death penalty for apostasy. They know that Muhammad, the prophet of Islam,said, "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari 9.84.57). And all the schools of Islamic law still teach that death is the proper penalty for apostates.

An update on this story. "Iran court convicts Christian pastor convert to death," by Lisa Daftari for Fox News, February 22 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

A trial court in Iran has issued its final verdict, ordering a Christian pastor to be put to death for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity, according to sources close to the pastor and his legal team.

Supporters fear Youcef Nadarkhani, a 34-year-old father of two who was arrested over two years ago on charges of apostasy, may now be executed at any time without prior warning, as death sentences in Iran may be carried out immediately or dragged out for years.

It is unclear whether Nadarkhani can appeal the execution order.

“The world needs to stand up and say that a man cannot be put to death because of his faith,” said Jordan Sekulow, executive director of The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).

“This one case is not just about one execution. We have been able to expose the system instead of just letting one man disappear, like so many other Christians have in the past.”...

“This is defiance,” Sekulow said. “They want to say they will carry out what they say they will do.”

The order to execute Nadarkhani came only days after lawmakers in Congress supported a resolution sponsored by Pennsylvania Rep. Joseph Pitts denouncing the apostasy charge and calling for his immediate release.

“Iran has become more isolated because of their drive for nuclear weapons, and the fundamentalist government has stepped up persecution of religious minorities to deflect criticism,” Pitts, a Republican, told FoxNews.com. “The persecuted are their own citizens, whose only crime is practicing their faith.”

The ACLJ has been a major driving force in keeping Nadarkhani’s case in the international spotlight. Many other advocacy groups and human rights organizations also have mounted global campaigns and petitions against the Iranian government, and experts credit Nadarkhani’s international support for keeping him alive.

The ACLJ recently launched a Twitter campaign to publicize Nadarkhani’s case, asking participants to dedicate a daily tweet to “Tweet for Youcef,” stating the number of days he has been imprisoned (currently 863) and ending the tweet with “ViaOfficialACLJ,” sending readers back to the organization’s website where they could learn more about his case.

Tweets have reached 157 countries and over 400,000 people.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and 89 members of Congress, along with the European Union, France, Great Britain, Mexico and Germany, have condemned Iran for arresting Nadarkhani and have called for his quick release.

Nadarkhani was arrested in October 2009 and was tried and found guilty of apostasy by a lower court in Gilan, a province in Rasht. He was then given verbal notification of an impending death-by-hanging sentence.

His lawyers appealed the decision under the premise that Nadarkhani was never a Muslim at the age of majority, and the case was sent to Iran’s Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court’s decision of execution, provided it could be proven that he had been a practicing Muslim from the age of adulthood, 15 in Islamic law, to age 19, which was when he converted.

The lower court then ruled that Nadarkhani had not practiced Islam during his adult life but still upheld the apostasy charge because he was born into a Muslim family.

The court then gave Nadarkhani the opportunity to recant, as the law requires a man to be given three chances to recant his beliefs and return to Islam.

His first option was to convert back to Islam. When he refused, he was asked to declare Muhammad a prophet, and still he declined....

Source: Jihad Watch 

The Spiritual Power of the Holy Fathers

In my email correspondence with Deacon George (Yury) Maximov, friend and co-laborer of Priest-Martyr Daniil Sysoev of Moscow (†2009), Deacon George wrote me the following admonition which we all can heed:

I believe it's better for people to read the words of the holy fathers than words of mine or other unholy man. Because through reading the holy fathers' words they can come to taste true Orthodoxy and feel God's presence. You know, one of my missionary students in Moscow told me this story. She speaks about Christ with one muslim. He doesn't agree and he was very emotional. Then she starts to read him the words of holy fathers about salvation just in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he became quiet and said: "I agree with this." It was a miracle. He changed in a moment, just due to the words of holy fathers. 

Yours in Christ,
deacon George Maximov

Turkish Boy Pledges to Suffer for Christ despite School Beatings

Here is an inspiring story of a young Christian confessor in Turkey, named Hussein, who is happy to suffer for Christ.  Let us strive, especially as we prepare to enter into Great Lent, to acquire such joy which comes through a living, vibrant faith.

~ ~ ~

A 12-year-old boy from Turkey whose family converted to Christianity has been beaten and abused by both classmates and teachers after revealing his newfound faith, but the boy says he is happy to suffer for Christ.

Hussein, whose last name was not revealed in the CBN persecution report that shared his story, invoked the anger of his school by wearing a silver cross necklace to school. Christians are a distinct minority in Turkey – the CIA World Factbook reveals that Muslims make up 99.8 percent of the near-80 million population, while Christians and Jews account for only 0.2 percent.

It is not uncommon for Christians in the country to be targeted for their beliefs, but few are as outspoken and as open about their religion as Hussein.

"It's not the physical cross. It's the meaning of the cross that is important. It is a beautiful thing," the boy explained in the report. "I wanted people to ask me about it and then I could tell them about Christ."

As Hussein began going with his father, Hakeem, to church and started wearing his cross at school, his classmates began spitting on him, calling him names and physically abusing him.

"The boy grabbed me by the arm, squeezed my hand, and yelled, 'I'm going to shoot you if you tell about this!'" Hussein shared of one of the attacks.

The abuse the Christian boy suffered didn't end there – in Turkey, like many Islamic countries, students are forced to attend Islamic studies where they have to recite prayers from the Quran. When Hussein refused to participate on account of his Christian faith, he was beaten on numerous occasions by the teacher with a two-foot long rod.

Hakeem has tried to stand up for his son by confronting the parents of the children who bullied him and the teacher who beat him.

"I thought the father would be concerned about his son's action. But instead, he called me names, threatened me, and said he would shoot me himself if I pursued action against his son," Hakeem recalled in the CBN report.

"The religion teacher said (the beating) was allowed. That the principal and parents agreed that he should do this," he explained.

Despite the fear and threats of continued persecution, however, the Hussein says he will continue following Christ and will never return to Islam.

"Christ said, 'You would suffer for me.' So it's okay to suffer and we should be happy to suffer for Him. The Lord is with me," the school boy remarked.

Persecution of Christians in Turkey is not uncommon. In 2007, three missionaries were tortured for hours before being killed by having their throats slit. Christian Today reported the details of the ordeal, which was videotaped by the attackers. One of the wives of the slain missionaries said that she forgives the murderers, citing the words Christ said on the cross: "They know not what they do."

Religious attitudes in Turkey in general are notably conservative – 59 percent of those who responded to a survey in 2009 said that members of other (non-Muslim) faiths should not even be allowed to hold meetings or publish literature about their beliefs.

Turkish authorities are known for seizing church properties, closing Orthodox churches, monasteries and schools and trying to force Christianity out of the country all together. The head of the Eastern Orthodox Church, His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, has said that Christians are treated like second-class citizens in Turkey, and that the government has been unresponsive to concerns about religious inequality in the country.

Open Doors USA, an organization that exposes persecution and injustice committed against Christians worldwide, ranked Turkey as #31 on its list of top 50 countries where persecution of Christians is most severe.

Source

Crash Course on the Muslim Brotherhood

Since the beginning of the 'Arab Spring' revolutions a year ago, the Muslim Brotherhood has been lauded by the Obama Administration as a "largely secular" organization. The Brotherhood (or Ikhwan) was able to position themselves as "moderates" in the political upheaval after the overthrow of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak thanks to the rise of an (even more) extremist Salafist group. In the Parliamentarian elections last Fall, the Ikhwan and the Salafist groups won a combined 65% of the vote, decisively sending Egypt on the path towards becoming an Islamist state where the constitution is fully based on the Shariah. The Obama Administration has chosen from the outset to partner with the Ikhwan, not the secular, liberal reformists in Egyptian society.

For background and context, watch the 4 minute video below, which ably condenses Andrew McCarthy's significant book, The Grand Jihad.  (Read an interview with McCarthy about the book here.  Order the book here.)

Then scroll down for an alarming article by Dr Mark Durie which elaborates the issues at play.

And as the political power drama plays itself out in Egypt (and in the United States), the Copts are ever more aggressively persecuted, not just by Muslim mobs, but by government forces...

Saboteurs for the Islamic Movement?
Dr Mark Durie
February 17, 2012

For years now I have been visiting the US regularly, and usually make my way to Washington DC, where I have had many opportunities to meet with journalists, politicians, lobbyists and other experts who are paying attention to the course of Islam in the US.  These conversations, and a whole host of reports from a wide variety of sources, including White House official statements, have made it obvious to me that there is increasing trend for US government agencies to align with and empower radical Muslim agendas. At the same time, American elites are being cowed into silence.  If anything, they seem less capable of critiquing radical Islam than they were a decade ago.  An Orwellian veil of silence through control of public discourse is being pulled over eyes of many in the Land of the Free.

To put it bluntly, the government of the United States has become an ally of the radical Islamic Movement, under the careful guidance of Muslim Brotherhood agents in the US.  The first victims of this alliance are secular and liberal activists all across the Middle East, whose bodies are being broken and voices silenced because of official American engagement with and support for the cause of radical Islam.

I was discussing this observation with friends who had made their way to Australia from the former Soviet Union decades ago.  Their comment was:  "In Russia we just called people like that saboteurs."  They were referring to the present US admnistration.  This view may seem absurd, but the evidence is clear enough.  

In the light of these troubling thoughts, I was startled to come across the following recent article by Essam Abdallah, a prominent Egyptian liberal intellectual.  He claims that radical Islam is winning in the Middle East because of carefully targetted support for the Islamic Movement by the US.

Interested readers may also wish to follow the commentary - and follow upcoming discussion of this issue - at the Investigative Project.

======


Islamist Lobbies’ Washington War on Arab and Muslim Liberals

The most dramatic oppression of the region’s civil societies and the Arab Spring is not by means of weapons, or in the Middle East. It is not led by Gaddafi, Mubarak, Bin Ali, Saleh, or Assad. It is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington DC. People may find my words curious if not provocative. But my arguments are sharp and well understood by many Arab and middle eastern liberals and freedom fighters. Indeed, we in the region, who are struggling for real democracy, not for the one time election type of democracy have been asking ourselves since January 2011 as the winds of Arab spring started blowing, why isn’t the West in general and the United States Administration in particular clearly and forcefully supporting our civil societies and particularly the secular democrats of the region? Why were the bureaucracies in Washington and in Brussels partnering with Islamists in the region and not with their natural allies the democracy promoting political forces?

Months into the Arab Spring, we realized that the Western powers, and the Obama Administration have put their support behind the new authoritarians, those who are claiming they will be brought to power via the votes of the people. Well, it is not quite so.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Nahda of Tunisia, the Justice Party of Morocco and the Islamist militias in Libya’s Transitional National Council have been systematically supported by Washington at the expense of real liberal and secular forces. We saw day by day how the White House guided carefully the statements and the actions of the US and the State Department followed through to give all the chances to the Islamists and almost no chances to the secular and revolutionary youth. We will come back to detail these diplomatic and financial maneuvers which are giving victory to the fundamentalists while the seculars and progressives are going to be smashed by the forthcoming regimes.

In the US, there are interests that determine foreign policy. And there are lobbies that put pressure to get their objectives met in foreign policy. One of the most powerful lobbies in America under the Obama Administration is the Muslim Brotherhood greater lobby, which has been in action for many years. This lobby has secured many operatives inside the Administration and has been successful in directing US policy towards the Arab world. Among leading advisors sympathetic to the Ikhwan is Daliah Mogahed (Mujahid) and her associate, Georgetown Professor John Esposito. Just as shocking, there is also a pro-Iranian lobby that has been influencing US policy towards Iran and Hezbollah in the region.

One of the most important activities of the Islamist lobby in the US is the waging of political and media wars on the liberal Arabs and Middle Eastern figures and groups in America. This battlefield is among the most important in influencing Washington’s policies in the Arab world. If you strike at the liberal and democratic Middle Eastern groups in Washington who are trying to gain support for civil societies in the region, you actually win a major battle. You will be able to influence the resources of the US Government to support the Islamists in the Middle East and not the weak democrats. This huge war waged by the Islamist lobbies in America started at the end of the Cold war and continued all the way till the Arab spring. The two main forces of this lobby are the Muslim Brotherhood fronts and the Iranian fronts. According to research available in the US, the Ikhwan fronts such as CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations), led by Hamas supporter Nihad Awad, as well as the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Islamic Society of North America, and others waged their political war to block the representatives of Arab liberals and Muslim moderates from making their case to the American public. The Iranian lobby, exemplified by the National Iranian American Committee (NIAC), led by Trita Parsi, has been hitting at Iranian exiles.

Since the 1990s CAIR and its allies have attacked Copts, Southern Sudanese, Lebanese, Syrian reformers, Assyrians and Chaldeans, and Muslim dissidents in the United States. The Ikhwan of America demonized any publication, book, article, or interview in the national media or local press raising the issue of secular freedoms in the Middle East. The Islamists wanted to eliminate the liberal cause in the Arab world and replace it with the cause of the Islamists. What is also shocking is that CAIR and its allies stood by the oppressive regimes and visited them, claiming they speak on behalf of the peoples. CAIR and the Brotherhood fronts in America destroyed systematically every project that would have defended the seculars and liberals originating from the Middle East. The notorious and well-funded Islamists of the US allowed no book, documentary, or show on the liberals in Arab civil societies to see the light.

Thanks to this powerful lobbying campaign, the American public was not given a chance to learn about the deep feelings on the youth in the region. Americans were led to believe that all Muslims, all Arabs and all Middle Easterners were a strange species of humans who cannot appreciate freedom. Instead, the American Islamists, helped by apologists on the petrodollars payrolls, convinced the mainstream media that the Arab world has authoritarians and Islamists only.

Dr Shawki Karas, president of the American Coptic Association, told me in the late 1990s how he was harassed by Islamist activists for speaking up against the Mubarak regime and the Muslim Brotherhood in America. He was threatened with losing his job at the college where he taught. Reverend Keith Roderick, who has assembled a coalition of more than 50 group rights from the Muslim world, was severely attacked by the Islamists and was threatened to be removed from his church position. Muslim American leaders who are conservative and secular, such as Dr Zuhdi Jasser, were crucified by CAIR and the Brotherhood for daring to challenge the Party line of the Isl.amists in America and claiming that the Jihadists are the problem in the region. Muslim liberal dissidents such as Somali Ayan Hirsi Ali, Saudi Ali al Yammi, Syrian Farid Ghadri, Iranian Manda Ervin, and many others were trashed by the Islamist lobbies to block them from defending the causes of secular liberty in the US. Egyptian liberals as well as seculars and democracy activists from Iraq, Sudan, Syria, and other countries have been attacked by CAIR and allies. The pro-Iranian lobby targeted most Iranian-American groups and tried to discredit them, particularly with the rise of the Green Revolution in Iran. By smearing the Muslim liberal exiles, the Islamists were trying to destroy their causes in the mother countries. In the 1990s and the years that followed 9/11 the region’s dictators supported the efforts by Islamist lobbies to crush the liberal exiles. The Mubarak, Bashir, Gaddafi, Assad, and Khomeinist regimes fully supported the so-called Islamophobia campaign waged by CAIR and its Iranian counterpart NIAC against dissidents for calling for secular democracy in the region. The dissidents were accused of being pro-Western by both the Islamists and the dictators.

The Islamist lobbies also severely attacked members of the US Congress such as Democrats Tom Lantos, who has since passed away, Eliot Engel, Howard Berman, Gary Ackerman, and Joe Lieberman as well as Republicans Frank Wolfe, Chris Smith, Trent Franks, John McCain, Rick Santorum, and Sam Brownback for their efforts in passing legislative acts in support for democracy and liberty in the Middle East. CAIR and NIAC heavily savaged President Bush’s speeches on Freedom Forward in the Middle East, deploying all the resources they had to block US support to liberal democrats in the region. Islamist lobbies in Washington are directly responsible for killing any initiative in the US Government to support Darfur, southern Sudan, Lebanon, the Kurds, liberal women in the Muslim world, and true democrats in the Arab world and Muslim Africa.

In the think tank world, CAIR and its allies aggressively attacked scholars who raised the issue of persecution against seculars or minorities in the Arab world and Iran. Among those attacked were Nina Shea and Paul Marshal from the Hudson Institute and the founder of an anti-slavery group, Dr Charles Jacobs, who was exposing the Sudan regime for its atrocities. Last but not least is the Islamists’ relentless campaign to stirke at top scholars who advise Government and appear in the media to push for democratic liberation in the region. The vast and vicious attacks leveled against Professor Walid Phares—initially by CAIR’s Nihad Awad and then widened by pro-Hezbollah and Muslim Brotherhood operatives online—has revealed to Arab and Middle Eastern liberal and seculars how ferocious is the battle for the Middle East in the US. Phares’s books, particularly the latest one, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East (2010), hit the Islamist agenda hard by predicting the civil society revolts in the Middle East and then predicting how the Islamists would try to control them. Phares was attacked by an army of Jihadist militia online like no author since Samuel Huntington in the 1990s. As a freedom activist from the Middle East, Mustafa Geha, wrote, Phares is a hero to Muslim liberals. Along with dissidents, lawmakers, experts, and human rights activists, Phares is a force driving for a strategic change in US foreign policy towards supporting secular democracies in the region. This explains why the Islamists of America are fighting the battle for the forthcoming regimes with all the means they have.

Dr. Essam Abdallah is an Egyptian liberal intellectual who teaches at Ain Shams University and writes for the leading Arab liberal publication Elaph.

Dr. Mark Durie: A Dozen Bad Ideas for the 21st Century

Australian Anglican Pastor and Human Rights Activist, Rev. Dr. Mark Durie, is author of two essential books which should be required reading for everyone (and especially for Christians) grappling with the challenge posed by Islam:

- Revelation? Do We Worship the Same God?
- The Third Choice - Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom

In this post a week ago on his own blog, Dr Durie distills the fuzzy thinking about Islam into a list of twelve specific presumptions and assumptions generally held by people of good will who have a difficult time accepting the truths about Islam. Feel free to share this with those you know who would benefit.

Here is a list of false beliefs and modes of thought which make it hard for people in the West to come to terms with the challenge of Islam today.  If you are deeply attached to any of these ideas or ways of thinking, you will have difficulty accepting the truth about Islam's teachings and their impact.

1. The belief that all religions are the same. They are not.  Different faiths make different claims about what is true, and about what is right and wrong and produce radically different societies.  The same is true for different political ideologies: consider the different trajectories of North and South Korea.  Atheists have helped entrench this belief, because to acknowledge material differences between religions would undermine the atheist (and radical secularist) narrative.
2. The belief that religion is irrelevant as a cause of anything.  According to this view, religion can be exploited or hijacked as an excuse or an instrument (e.g. of oppression – such as an ‘opiate of the masses’), but not an underlying cause of anything.  Marxist ideology has made a significant contribution to establishing this belief. In accordance with this assumption, security analysts all over the Western world presuppose that religion cannot be the cause of terrorism: so they and the politicians they advise must say that terrorists have ‘hijacked’ religion.
3. The belief that we all worship the same God. We do not. Thousands of different gods are worshipped by people on this earth.  These gods manifest different characteristics, and make different demands.  The worship of them forms very different kinds of people and communities.
4. The belief that one can justify anything from any sacred text. This is not true.  It is a postmodern fallacy that all meaning is in the eye of the beholder.  Certain texts lends themselves to supporting particular beliefs and practices much more than others.
   
5. The belief that the Christian Reformation was a progressive movement. This is not true.  In fact the Christian Reformers aimed to go back to the example and teaching of Christ and the apostles.  Throughout the  whole medieval period reformatio always meant renewing the foundations by going back to one’s origins.   Understanding ‘reformation’ in this way, Al Qa'ida is a product of an Islamic reformation, i.e. it is an attempt to go back to the example and teaching of Muhammad.
   
6. The belief that dispelling ignorance will increase positive regard for the other. This was the message of Harper Lee’s powerfull novel To Kill a Mockingbird (pub. 1960). Although it is true that racial hatred can feed on and exploit ignorance, accurately dispelling ignorance sometimes rightly increases the likelihood of rejecting the beliefs or practices of another. It is illogical to assume that those opposed to a belief are the ones who are most ignorant about it.  Ignorance can breed positive regard for what is wrong just as easily as it can breed prejudice against what is good.
   
7. The belief that everyone is good and decent, and if you just make a sincere effort to get to know another person, you will always come to respect them. This is not universally true.  Holding this view is a luxury.  Those who have experienced life under evil governments or in dysfunctional societies are shocked at the naivety of this assumption.
   
8. The belief that putting something in context will always produce a more innocuous interpretation. This is not true.  Attending properly to context can make a text even more offensive than it would otherwise have been.  Conversely, if you take something out of context you may regard it more positively than you ought to.  In reality, radical interpretations of the Qur’an, such as are used to support terrorism, almost always involve an appeal to a rich understanding of the context in which the Qur’an was revealed, including the life of Muhammad.  On the other hand, many have taken peaceful verses of the Qur’an out of context, in order to prove that Islam is a peaceful religion.
   
9. The belief that extremism is the problem, and moderation the solution. Warnings against taking things to extremes are as old as Aristotle.  More recently the idea was promoted by Eric Hoffer, in The True Believer (pub. 1951) that mass movements are interchangeable, and an extremist is just as likely to become a communist or a fascist.  He claimed that it was the tendency to extremism itself which is the problem.  This idea has become very unhelpful and generates a lot of confusion. ‘Moderation’ or ‘laxity’ in belief or practice can be destructive and even dangerous, e.g. in medical surgery or when piloting a plane.  Ideas that are good and true deserve strong, committed support, and the best response to bad ideas is rarely lukewarm moderation.
   
10. The belief that the West is always guilty. This irrational and unhelpful idea is taught in many schools today and has become embedded in the world views of many.  It is essentially a silencing strategy, sabotaging critical thinking.
    
11. Two wrongs make a right reasoning. E.g. Someone says that jihad is a bad part of Islam, to which a defender of Islam says ‘What about the crusades?’  Someone says the Qur’an incites violence, to which someone else replies ‘But there are violent verses in the Bible.’  This kind of reasoning is a logical fallacy.
    A specific sub-type of this fallacy is tu quoque reasoning:

    Tu quoque (‘you too’) reasoning: you can’t challenge someone else’s beliefs or actions if you (or your group) have personally ever done anything wrong or have objectionable characteristics. E.g. A Catholic says jihad is bad, but someone counters that popes supported the Crusades. This is a sub-type of the ‘two wrongs make a right’ reasoning: it too is a logical fallacy.

12. Belief in progress: everything will always get better in the end. This is a false, though seductive bit of wishful thinking.  Bad ideas have bad consequences.  Good societies can easily become bad ones if they exchange good ideas for bad ones.  Bad situations can last for a very long time, and keep getting progressively worse.  Many countries have deteriorated for extended periods during the past 100 years.  It is not true that ideologies or religions will inevitably improve or become more ‘moderate’ as time passes, as if by some magical process of temporal transformation.  But things are not always going to get better.

Source

Egypt Post 'Arab Spring': Mob of 20,000 Muslims Attempts to Kill Priest, Destroy Coptic Church

Here is yet another news story documenting Egypt's downward slide into a nightmarish hell of Islamic extremism with Coptic Christians in the crosshairs.

(AINA) -- A mob of nearly 20,000 radical Muslims, mainly Salafis, attempted this evening to break into and torch the Church of St. Mary and St. Abram in the village of Meet Bashar,in Zagazig, Sharqia province. They were demanding the death of Reverend Guirgis Gameel, pastor of the church, who has been unable to leave his home since yesterday. Nearly 100 terrorized Copts sought refuge inside the church, while Muslim rioters were pelting the church with stones in an effort to break into the church, assault the Copts and torch the building. A home of a Copt living near the church and the home of the church's porter were torched, as well as three cars.

The mob demanded the return Rania of Khalil Ibrahim, 15, to her father. She has been held with the Security Directorate since yesterday. Christian-born Rania had converted to Islam three months ago after her father, who had converted to Islam two years ago and took custody of her. She had disappeared from the village on Saturday, after claiming to go shopping. According to Reverend Guirgis Gameel, she had a disagreement with her father, who had arranged a marriage for her with a Muslim man.

Her father, Khalil Ibrahim, went to the police on Saturday and accused the priest of being behind her disappearance, and said she had gone to live with her Coptic mother.

Yesterday a Salafi mob of 2000 went to the priest's home and destroyed his furniture and his car, surrounded the church and pelted it with stones. They demolished a large section of the church fence. In the evening security forces announced that they had found Rania in Cairo and that she was not abducted by Christians; she was brought to the police station in Meet Bashar.

"After hearing this news yesterday everyone was relieved," said Coptic activist Waguih Jacob. "However, the Copts noticed that the Muslims did not completely disperse, but were hovering in all streets." The few security forced who were stationed in front of the church were dismissed as the village seemed to return to peace.

But the mob became more angry this evening when they heard that Rania refused to go back to live with her father, and returned in much greater numbers.

Some Coptic eyewitnesses said that a number of Muslim villagers tried to prevent the Salafis from assaulting their Christian neighbors and some stood as human shields to protect the church, until security forces arrived.

Bishop Yuaness, Secretary to Pope Shenouda III, said this evening that they have been in contact since yesterday with authorities "at the highest levels."

Ms. Marian Malak, a Coptic member of parliament, contacted the Egyptian prime minister El-Ganzoury, who ordered sending reinforcements to contain the crisis.

Bishop Tadros Sedra, of Minia el Kamh and Zagazig Coptic diocese, said this evening that military and police forces have arrived in great numbers and have dispersed Muslims from outside the church and the home of Reverend Guirgis Gameel. He confirmed that security will stay in the village for at least two weeks.

US-based Coptic Solidarity International, issued a press release today strongly urging the international community, through the United Nations Human Rights Council, to appoint a special rapporteur for the Copts in Egypt, particularly in light of the recent evictions, property confiscations and attacks against Copts (AINA 1-28-2012).

By Mary Abdelmassih

Source: AINA

St Joseph of Aleppo, Priest and Martyr

On February 4/17, we commemorate St. Joseph of Aleppo (in northern Syria), who lived in dangerous times.

Syria had been invaded by Arab Muslims in the 7th century, followed by Turkish Muslims, who for centuries attempted to wipe out the Christian religion in the Middle East. The Ottoman Turks had ruled Syria since the early 16th century and, while Christianity was officially tolerated under this rule, individual Christians were often harassed and persecuted.

Born in the mid-17th century, Joseph tried to lead a quiet, peaceful life, treating his Muslim neighbors with Christian charity. But his kindness was met with animosity and some of his neighbors decided to slander him by reporting abroad that he wished to convert to Islam.

Joseph could not allow this untruth to be told, so he began to argue with the men and deny this rumor they had started. The men beat Joseph and accused him of rejecting Islam. They brought him before the local authorities for questioning. Recognizing Joseph’s intelligence and an opportunity for advancing the cause of Islam over Christianity, the judge offered Joseph high position if he would simply go along with the original rumor and deny Christianity in favor of Islam.

Joseph’s faith was too strong to do such a thing. He began debating with the judge, accusing the Muslims of corrupting the holy Scriptures and believing in myths. He pointed out that they even had to rely on seeing a full moon to announce the dates of their holy days and that, if the moon were shadowed by clouds, their observances would be off-schedule and they would be ridiculed by other nations.

The reaction was swift and harsh. Joseph was tortured and carried away to be executed by beheading. St. Joseph received the martyr’s crown on February 4, 1686.

Today, in most countries dominated by the Muslim religion, Christians suffer from some sort of persecution – from simple harassment or extra taxation and restrictions to outright condemnation and execution. And in countries with no established religion, heresy and anti-Christian sentiment are rampant, making the practice of Orthodox Christianity still difficult. May we, with St. Joseph, pray for all suffering Christians.

St Gregory Orthodox Church, Washington DC

The Worship of the Trinity was made Manifest

Greetings during the Feast of Theophany, when Orthodox Christians commemorate the Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan. The significance of this great feast, which is every bit as important as the Nativity of Christ (Christmas), is expressed in the troparion hymn for the day:

When You, O Lord
were baptized in the Jordan,
The worship of the Trinity
was made manifest, 
For the voice of the Father
bore witness to You,
And called You His beloved Son. 
And the Spirit, in the form of a dove, 
Confirmed the truthfulness of His word. 
O Christ, our God,
You have revealed Yourself 
And have enlightened the world,
Glory to You!

The worship of Christ as Lord, "Light of Light" and Enlightener of the World is also strongly emphasized in the kontakion for the feast:

Today You have shown forth
to the world, O Lord, 
and the light of Your countenance
has been signed on us. 
Knowing You, we sing Your praises. 
You have come and revealed Yourself, 
O unapproachable Light.

This Feast has great import for us vis a vis Islam, as we can glean from the below sermon by Schema-hieromonk Ambrose Young. In his homily, Fr Ambrose connects the many theophanies from the Old Testamental period with the Great Theophany of the Coming of Christ. He also contrasts the false pagan theophanies of ancient times with the true divine theophanies of the Old and New Testaments. 

We may rightly include Islam with the false pagan religions and their artificial theophanies. For unlike the many true divine theophanies of the Old and New Testaments, which were witnessed by others and set down by the witnesses for the edification of the faithful, there were no witnesses to Muhammad's so-called "revelations." Muhammad brought forth his revelations — his theophanies — without corroboration, and when challenged as to why he should be believed to be the messenger of God, he replied that his revelations point to him, that they themselves — i.e. the Qur'an — are the greatest miracle. Muhammad provides the epitome of a closed, self-defining system: "Believe in me, for I bring you these revelations, which point to me as the bringer of these revelations."  Is this not just like the pagans of Delphi, Egypt or Rome (described below) who displayed their false idols to the people for adoration? Islam is no less idolatrous for its extreme iconoclasm.  

St John of Damascus was quite right in ridiculing the credulity and gullibility of those who would accept "revelations" from Muhammad with no witnesses or corroboration. Christ Himself, while holding up John the Baptist as His witness (JN 5:31-35), challenged the people to examine His works, for they are proof of His Divine Sonship:

"If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him" (JN 10:37-38; see also JN 5:36).

(Much has been written elsewhere of Muhammad's works — war, slaughter, rape, pedophilia, enslavement of captives, concubinage, and much more — so we won't belabor the point here.)

Of the highest importance for us as we celebrate this important feast, the New Testament Theophanies of God (The Baptism of Christ, and the Transfiguration of Christ) reveal God as Love, as a loving communion of Three Divine Persons united in One Essence, co-eternal, co-working, and co-redeeming mankind and the whole of the cosmos. And this is made known to us through the entry into human history of the Co-Eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who proved Himself to be He Who Is through His words, actions, miracles, and ultimately through His voluntary suffering, crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension/glorification. We affirm that Christ reveals the true character of God through His entire self-emptying (Greek: kenotic) mission. 

The Great Feast of Theophany thus reveals not just Christ, but Who God Is: God as Love, God as intimately connected with mankind, God as Trinity. And as Christ triumphs over death through His Resurrection, so Truth triumphs over falsehood, Light over darkness, Love over hate, the Church over the gates of hell.

Islam, in its doctrinal hatred towards Christianity reveals its brittle weakness and gnawing self-doubt. The very existence of merely one faithful Christian is the full repudiation of Islam as a false religion. But the more forcefully Islam denies the Trinity, denies that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate, denies the resurrection, and condemns Christians, the more it shows what it is afraid of: Truth, Light, Life, Faith. Islam's most devout adherents — based on the Qur'an, and the sayings and example of Muhammad — rage against and mercilessly persecute our Christian brothers and sisters all around the globe, and in so doing reveal the actual source and purpose of Islam, as well as its ultimate destiny, which is abject and eternal failure and condemnation. 

This is why we are must pray for our suffering Christian brethren throughout the Islamic world, that they would stand firm in the Faith, and bear witness as righteous confessors of Christ Jesus. But we are also compelled to reach out with the Love of Christ to our Muslim neighbors, and offer to them the humble truth of loving communion with the God Who is Love, Who takes away the sins of the world, and frees men from hatred, division, blindness and condemnation. And may many be saved!

Theophany at the Baptism of our Lord Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple Skete In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. In Orthodox Christianity we call the commemoration of the Christ’s baptism in the River Jordan by St. John the Baptist the “Theophany”, a word which comes from the ancient Greek and means the “appearance” or “showing forth of God".  It can also refer to a divine revelation. In Greece, at Delphi, the “Theophania” was an annual festival in spring celebrating the return of the god Apollo from his winter quarters. The culmination of this feast was a display of statue of Apollo to worshipers, normally kept hidden in the sanctuary. Later Roman mystery religions also often included similar brief displays of images to enthusiastic worshippers.  The ancient Egyptians did the same with their multitude of gods and goddesses, keeping them hidden in a dark inner sanctum except once or twice a year, when these idols were brought forth for people to look upon and adore. Sometimes we Orthodox tend, wrongly, to think of our Feast of the Theophany as the only example of this in human history, in the Scriptures, but this is not true.  As I said, ancient pagans saw various manifestations or appearances or experiences oftheir “gods” as theophanies, too.  We see this all through ancient literature. But of course for Christians and Jews the term has a very limited and specific meaning: it marks a true manifestation or literal appearance of the presence of the true God to man.  The Old Testament makes it very clear that God did in fact reveal Himself to man, and did so several times and in different ways. This is not a matter for our speculation or philosophizing; this is an object of belief, of faith.  These theophanies were not just some “state of mind” or “feeling”, but an actual appearance—sometimes in the form of a mighty angel or angels (as in the case of Abraham at the Oak of Mamre).  These visions of Almighty God were not at all uncommon, and some of them were so startling, even shocking, that the seers could not bear to look upon them and could find few or no words to describe them. For instance, in the Book of Exodus the Theophany which Moses experienced on Mount Sinai, although it is described in rather simple and calm language, was accompanied by thunder and lightning, flame reaching up to the very skies (like a volcano, except that Sinai is not a volcano!), the shatteringly loud notes of a trumpet, and the whole mountain shaking.  And out of the midst of this overwhelming manifestation God’s voice was then heard, revealing the Ten Commandments.  The account in Deuteronomy of this same event adds that God appeared like a shining sun and was accompanied by myriads of holy angels. I could go on to describe other theophanies in the Old Testament, primarily those to Isaiah and Ezekiel, but I’ve said enough here to show why it’s important to read Scripture, and not only the New Testament, but the Old as well.  For by doing this we see that the Theophany of our Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament is merely the culmination of many earlier clear manifestations of the divine in the Old Testament. Nothing, however, was like the Theophany which occurred at the baptism of the Lord. Therefore what, exactly, was the “manifestation” or “Theophany” of God at the Lord’s baptism?  Well, it marked one of only two occasions when all three Persons of the Trinity were revealed simultaneously to humanity: God the Father by speaking through the clouds, God the Son being baptized in the river, and God the Holy Spirit in the shape of a dove descending from heaven (the other occasion was Christ’s Transfiguration on Mount Tabor).  This was the first public display of Christ as God the Incarnate Word, the first time this revelation was given to the world and testified to by God the Father Himself, who said, “This is my beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.” In mystic commemoration of this incredible revelation at the Jordan River, water is especially blessed on this day, and used by the faithful throughout the year and also for the annual blessing of homes by the priest. Now, all of this is rather easy to say, easy to talk about, “nice” words, even.  But think for a moment about what it really means and what it meant to John the Baptist and his followers, and also the followers of Christ who were present, and what it meant to all of creation, and what it should mean to us today.  I’m not talking here so much about the remarkable external signs—the voice of God the Father, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and Jesus, standing in the River Jordan.  I’m talking about what is behind all of this; what it means. Of course there were already indications, hints, about God the Holy Trinity in the Old Testament, but it is only in the New that it becomes unmistakably clear—that God is one in essence, but triple in person yet undivided, and this Holy Trinity is to be worshipped and adored by us in one single and inseparable worship.  Thus, even when we have prayers addressed to one Person of the Trinity, those prayers almost always end in a glorification of all Three Persons of the Godhead.  And when we specifically address the All-Holy Trinity in our prayers and services, it is in the singular, not the plural, number, for God is One, always, and forever. It is this revelation—that God is a Oneness in essence expressed as a Trinity of persons—that sets Christianity completely and irrevocably apart from all other religions on the face of the earth.  It is also one of the ways in which we differentiate what I call loosely mainstream doctrinal Christians from those groups that call themselves Christian but do not believe in the dogma of the Trinity as expressed here—such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and other sectarian groups. It’s important for us to try and grasp the meaning of this doctrine—as difficult as this is with our very frail, fallen, limited, and feeble minds—because the dogma of the Three Persons reveals something about the inner, mystical life of God Himself--: it shows how God is love, as St. John the Evangelist testifies.  One person alone cannot love.  And since God existed eternally before He created the universe and our world, this love which is God could not be something that was extended to His creation, which didn’t yet exist.  Rather, His love was manifest between the Trinity of Persons in Him. The late Archpriest Michael Pomazansky, in his important work, “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology,” further explains that “God in His very essence is wholly consciousness and thought and self-awareness, each of these three eternal manifestations of Himself by the one God has self-awareness, and therefore each one is a Person....Thus, when in Christian doctrine we speak of the unity of the Tri-unity of God, we are trying to describe the mystical inward life hidden in the depths of the Divinity, revealed to the world in time, in the New Testament, by the sending down of the Son of God from the Father into the world and by the activity of the wonderworking, life-giving, saving power of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.” Today, to the degree that people have any faith, any beliefs, many see God as something very vague and insubstantial, often equated with good behavior, being nice, etc.  Some will even use the phrase “Lord”—but who knows what this really means to them?   However, for us it means something very dramatic, revelational, and clear: God is a Holy and Divine Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We have God above us, the ever-flowing source of everything that is and the foundation of all being, Who loves and cares so much for us that He sent His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to be with us, right here on earth, and Who took our sins upon us for our salvation, Whom we receive in the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist; and finally, there is God in us and in all of creation, that is, the Person of the Holy Spirit, who is the Giver of Life.  It is this God, this tri-une God, which was manifested to us on the occasion of the Lord’s baptism in the River Jordan, witnessed by a great multitude, and it is this God, and this God only and no other, that we worship and adore. The dogma of the Trinity is not something that was developed and added on later to the Christian faith, as some heretics claim.  It was there from the beginning, and the allusions, both in the Old Testament and the very specific allusions in the New, testify to this.  Very early Holy Fathers of the Church spoke about their faith in the Holy Trinity, as also did the very earliest liturgical services of the Church.  Similarly, and in obedience to Scripture, from the very beginning all baptisms have been performed in the Name of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  ...Throughout her history, the Church has undergone great disturbances in defending this dogma, and the same is true even today... As did the early Christians who were martyred not only for their faith in Christ but their faith in the tri-une God, we too must be prepared to defend with our lives and go to our deaths, if need be, in defense of this fundamental and over-arching truth, and we must not hesitate to speak of it in our relationships with others.  I’m not suggesting that we be preachy and intrusive in the private spiritual beliefs of others, but that we be discerning and alert to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, so that when someone speaks very vaguely of God or “the Lord,” we quietly but warmly affirm our belief in the Trinity and be prepared to give an explanation. For this is truth, and, as the Lord Himself taught us, “the Truth shall set you free.” In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Ominous Highlights

Here is a quick collection of extremely insightful news stories and analysis. Each one is worth a thorough read, but if you even skim the first paragraph or two of each, you'll get the gist.

Keeping up with the news on the jihad front is, sadly, a necessary part of this work. One senses it bubbling up all over, like a pot coming to a boil. For Christians, however, awareness of all this should not prompt despair, but rather compel us to persevere and grow deeper in our most holy faith.

Such has been the message of the saints throughout two millennia. St John admonishes us in the Book of the Apocalypse,

He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity; he who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints (Rev 13:10).

And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on’” (Rev 14:11-13).

Christ has come to set us free. Therefore, those who lead into captivity are themselves spiritual captives of the devil, and will be confined with him in hell. Those who kill with the sword shall find themselves confounded by the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and are spiritually dead. (And who was it who spread his evil religion by the sword? That this is a rhetorical question does not prevent us from openly condemning Muhammad, whom St John of Damascus identified as the prophet of antichrist.)

Now the warning against receiving the mark of the beast, according to many holy fathers, is not referring so much to a physical mark, nor to a subcutaneous barcode or transmitter or some such thing, but rather to the giving of assent and the submission of one's will. This can take the form of a merely functional choice, in order for one to preserve one's way of life in the world. This is why in Rev 14:9 the angel warns of the torments to come upon those who "worship the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand."

The fathers teach us that the mark on the forehead indicates the assent of the mind and will, and coupling with the dictates of the beast. The mark on the hand may point to a mere superficial acceptance of domination, so as to be able to buy and sell and live in peace. Other fathers warn that the mark on the right hand indicates the rejection of Christ, for it is with the right hand that we make the sign of the Cross. Thus concealing our faith so as to "coexist" and keep ourselves safe from persecution may extend to not making the sign of the Cross in public. Such a simple sin of omission becomes our condemnation!

The notion that a Christian could preserve his faith while accepting the temporal domination of the beast is repudiated by this image. This is why the faithful Russian hierarchs in the 1920s, like Bishop Theophan of Poltava and others, condemned the Soviet regime as of the antichrist, and were mercilessly persecuted and slaughtered for it. They knew that even tacit acceptance of the rule of the beast was a denial of Christ. Here also is the secret, infernal implication of the profane dhimma contract in Islamic sharia: the "third way" offered to Christians by their Muslim conquerors (if they refuse to convert to Islam) is to acknowledge the superiority of Islam and deny their right to build or repair their churches, deny any right to openly practice their faith, ring their bells, wear a cross, or show any outward sign of their Christian faith, including making the sign of the Cross! Thus the terms of the dhimma contract are not merely oppressive, but lead to a de facto denial of Christ and acceptance of the mark on the hand. Christian dhimmis thus suffer a most horrendous form of living martyrdom, striving to preserve their faith when everything raised against them demands they deny it.

Yet we must not lose hope! All of these images in the Apocalypse are given to us to strengthen and embolden our patience and our faith. The Lord tells us, "Lift up your heads, for your redemption draws nigh" (LK 21:28).

Let us consider these spiritual realities as we survey the ominous signs below.


Muslim Persecution of Christians: November, 2011
Raymond Ibrahim

Study Shows U.S. Mosques Repositories of Sharia, Jihad, and Muslim Brotherhood Literature and Preachers
JihadWatch

Nigeria's Christmas Present: Blown Up Christians
Nigeria's Blackest Christmas Ever
Raymond Ibrahim

Obama Administration Reverses US Policy in Reaching Out to Muslim Brotherhood
New York Times

The Muslim Brotherhood Will Become Much More Savage After Elections
Coptic Solidarity

Israel Security Council: Obama Naive Regarding Muslim Brotherhood
Naive... or something worse?
Israel National News

Jihad Plotting Persists in Mosques:
Studies from 1999 to the present consistently show that at least 80% of Mosques in U.S. teach jihad, Islamic supremacism, hatred of Christians and Jews, and the necessity to impose Islamic rule.
Human Events

Staten Island Jihadist Blows Lid Off Muslim Plotter Network in U.S.
FrontPage

'Arab Spring' fuels rising tide of discrimination and violence against Christians
Vancouver Sun

Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Goal: Islamic Caliphate
Al Masri Al Youm

Nigeria: Islamic Militants Boko Haram warn Christians to leave North in three days, or else.
CNN

Coptic priest: We will resist reimposition of jizya to the point of martyrdom
JihadWatch via MEMRI

Egypt: Coptic Bishop warns of more church bobbing threats; New Year's festivities canceled, kidnappings on the rise.
Assyrian International News Agency

Saudi Textbooks Teach Islamic Extremism
FrontPage

Distorting Reality to Justify Jihad
Raymond Ibrahim