Can There Have Been Two Annunciations?

Islam claims the archangel Gabriel came to Muhammad commanding him to "Recite" and ushering in his prophetic calling. What are we to make of this "Second Annunciation? 

On March 25, the Orthodox Church commemorates the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary.  As the hymn for the Feast says,

Today is the beginning of our salvation,
The revelation of the eternal mystery!
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
As Gabriel announces the coming of Grace...

Islam also begins with an annunciation of sorts, to Muhammad, (not) coincidentally by a spirit being also identified as the angel Jibril (Gabriel). However, the nature and outcome of that annunciation is quite different from the one to the Virgin Mary six centuries earlier. As St Gregory Palamas noted in the 14th century, Muhammad's actions were "instigated by the devil":

"[Muhammad] came with war, knives, pillaging, forced enslavement, murders, and acts that are not from the good God but instigated by the chief manslayer, the devil."  (Source)

This article contrasts the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, with that 'second annunciation', to Muhammad. This is one of the most significant and revealing facts about Islam, one which forces us to confront at least two very serious questions:

1. If Muslims worship the Same God as Christians, how could that Same God possibly send two such radically opposed revelations and messages? 
2. And, could the sender of those two messages be the Same God if He chose to send His revelation to Muhammad through such a dark, threatening and blatantly evil "annunciation"?

Beyond the Cross

The Cross is God's final word on revealing Who He Is, through His Son Jesus Christ. The limitless, infinite humility and radical, self-emptying love through which Jesus restores us to the Father, is the most eloquent word ever spoken... uttered in silence as He lays down His life for us.

During this week at the mid-point of Great Lent, during which the Cross is brought out into the middle of the Church for the faithful to venerate, it seemed right to share this article I originally posted a couple of years ago.

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For the Veneration of the Cross, I'd like to share a selection from my book, Facing Islam. This is taken from the conclusion of the chapter on Muhammad, 'Prophet Motives - Was Muhammad a Man of God?'.

Beyond the Cross

By far the most compelling, overarching point to emphasize as we close this chapter is the Person and Mission of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the absolute, incontestable finality and divine pre-eminence of the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, through Whom God the Father has wrought salvation for mankind.

Fr. Thomas Hopko expresses the essence of the Christian message through the centrality of Christ and the Cross as follows:

Beyond the Cross there is nothing more God can do. Beyond the Cross there is nothing more God can say. Beyond the Cross there is nothing more to be revealed. (Fr. Thomas Hopko, The Word of the Cross, SVS Press, emphasis added.)

The working out of salvation in each of our lives through our cooperation (synergia) with the Holy Spirit is “just details” as Fr. Hopko succinctly puts it, but God’s Act of Salvation—the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ (and of course, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost)—is without any doubt the central event in all of history.

Thus there is no need for a subsequent revelation after Christ, least of all one which seeks to enslave the world to a barbaric legalistic system of belief and practice (i.e. Islam and sharia law) after we have embraced and been embraced by the grace of God, “for [we] are not under law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14).

In short, after Christ, Islam has no place, no relevance, no raison d’etre. If we stand firm on the rock of our confession, on Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (cf. Mt 16:16-18), then we will never be shaken by the assaults against our Faith...

The spiritual forces behind Islam know this, that Islam has no reason for its existence because of Christ and the Cross. It is the centrality of Jesus Christ and His Cross against which Islam wages its desperate war.

Pop Quiz for Lent: What great Orthodox saint condemned Muhammad's actions as 'instigated by the devil'?

If you're a regular reader of this blog, or have my book, Facing Islam, you'll recall this was the bold statement of St Gregory Palamas, whom we commemorated last week on the Second Sunday of Great Lent.

Here is the full quote:

"It is true that Muhammad started from the east and came to the west, as the sun travels from east to west. Nevertheless he came with war, knives, pillaging, forced enslavement, murders, and acts that are not from the good God but instigated by the chief manslayer, the devil."  

(The Lives of the Pillars of Orthodoxy, Holy Apostles Convent & Dormition Skete, Buena Vista CO, 1990, p. 352.)

It is not really a secret, yet I would suppose that most Orthodox Christians have no idea that St Gregory, during his later years as Archbishop of Thessalonica, was abducted by the Muslim Turks and held for ransom (an income generating crime still used by Muslims to this day, which observers of the Middle East will have to admit).

Suffering cruel hardships, deprivations, and beatings, and so weakened by the ordeal that he died a short time after being ransomed by the Serbs, the holy Gregory nonetheless boldly proclaimed the Orthodox Christian Gospel to his Muslim captors, even though he was putting his life at risk.

Raymond Ibrahim: 'Pope Francis Tears at History’s Ancient Walls against Islam'

Had it not been for Pope Leo IV in the mid-9th century, building high and massive walls to keep out the Muslim invaders, Rome — and indeed all of Europe — might have been conquered for Islam well before the Crusades were even launched.

We live in a new age of Global Islamic Jihad, being waged on multiple fronts. We live in an age that requires walls, wisdom, faith and strength — not multiculturalism, weakness, apostasy and foolishness.


Pope Francis Tears at History’s Ancient Walls against Islam

by Raymond Ibrahim, February 24, 2017:

Pope Francis continues to argue for two interrelated points that, while seemingly humane, compromise Western nations and expose their citizens to danger.

He reiterated his first point earlier this month when he said, “I appeal not to create walls but to build bridges.” Francis has made this appeal frequently, both figuratively (when imploring Western nations not to close their doors against more incoming Muslim migrants) and literally (for instance by characterizing Donald Trump’s proposal to build a U.S.-Mexico wall as “not Christian”).

Francis reiterated his second point a few days ago when he said, “Muslim terrorism does not exist.” His logic is that, because there are Christians who engage in criminal and violent activities—and yet no one blames Christianity for their behavior—so too should Islam not be blamed when Muslims engage in criminal and violent activities.

In this, the Catholic pope appears unable or unwilling to make the pivotal distinction between violence committed in accordance with Islamic teachings, and violence committed in contradiction of Christian teachings.

But there’s another relevant and often overlooked irony: every morning Francis wakes up in the Vatican and looks out his window he sees a very large and concrete reminder that gives the lie to both his argument against walls and his argument in defense of Islam. I speak of the great walls surrounding Vatican City, more specifically the Leonine Walls.

Muslims Targeting US Churches, using Interfaith Outreach to conduct 'Pre-Op Surveillance'

Two reports combine active FBI and local police investigations, with info from Christian pastors and civilian eyewitnesses from several states, to confirm an alarming nationwide trend, which indicates a serious threat to Christian churches in the US from Muslim jihadis.

See the second story below for detailed reporting on how an Islamic organization in Chicago is "using interfaith outreach with Christian churches and Jewish synagogues for the purpose of (1) studying them internally to determine how to best influence their congregations to soften them towards Islam, and (2) to conduct pre-operational surveillance."

Related:

• Muslims screaming 'Allahu akbar!' through bullhorn terrorize Orthodox Church during Divine Liturgy

Muslims Targeting U.S. Churches
UTT, December 20, 2016:

Graffiti on a Lutheran Church in San Antonio, Texas reads “Islam or Die” (OCT 2016). In one southwest US state there are at least a dozen investigations on different churches where this has happened.

In the shadow of the savage killing of a priest by muslims during Mass in Normandy, France (July 2016) and the bombing of St. Peter and St. Paul chapel – a part of St. Mark’s Coptic church in Cairo, Egypt – four weeks ago, UTT has received reports in the last several weeks from law enforcement, pastors, and citizens revealing muslims are conducting pre-operation surveillance inside U.S. churches during services. 

The information received by UTT from different states indicates the manner of the surveillance is similar in each case. 

Two muslim males will come into a church during the service and sit together in the back of the church.  They will often take pictures and record video.  When approached by concerned ushers they will either tell their questioners they are “interested” in becoming Christians or they will run. 

This information has been passed to appropriate law enforcement officials, and UTT is aware of a joint investigation between local police and the FBI in at least one of the cases. 

Relatedly, in February 2016, an FBI criminal complaint for Khalil Abu-Rayyan was filed in Eastern District of Michigan alleging he was a muslim who wanted to wage jihad in the U.S., and specifically quoted Abu-Rayyan as confessing his plan to kill Christians at a large church.

Expert warns 50 MILLION Muslims are willing to back violence and terror

The Dutch Professor and Research Director of Migration urges "zero tolerance" for those "here to spread their medieval beliefs... widespread in Islamic countries." 

Adds that "half [the world's Muslims] are attached to an arch-conservative Islam," and he is "very conservative with my estimate of 50 million violent Muslims."


MIGRATION WARNING: Expert warns 50 MILLION Muslims are willing to back violence and terror
By Allan Hall, Express UK, February 13, 2017:

Dutch Professor Ruud Koopmans warned the EU today to block the entry of any refugees whose identity cannot be categorically confirmed.

Prof Koopmans, who is the Director of the Research Unit Migration, Integration, Transnationalisation at the Berlin Social Sciences Centre, said that of the 1 billion adult Muslims in the world, “half of them are attached to an arch-conservative Islam which places little worth on the rights of women, homosexuals, and people of other faiths".

In an interview with a German news website he claimed that of these 500 million conservative Muslims, at least – and probably more – than 50 million are willing to sanction violence.

Canada on verge of passing alarming anti-‘Islamophobia’ motion

Passage of M-103 in the House of Commons on February 16 "would in effect set Canada on the path to imposing a form of Islamic Sharia blasphemy law on all of Canada."


by Steve Jalsevac, February 9, 2017 (LifeSiteNews)

There is an alrming [sic] government development in favor of Islam north of the U.S. border.

Canadian PM Trudeau participating in Islamic ritual that included Islamic initiation prayers. It is not certain if he actually said the initiation prayers, but he was praying during the initiation prayers in a Surrey, British Columbia mosque

A motion that threatens to later lead to a crushing of some core freedoms of all Canadians, resulting in an Islamist-favoring state next to the U.S., appears poised to overwhelmingly pass the House of Commons. This is happening at a time when the country's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, a firm internationalist, is far more amenable to Islam than any prime minister in the nation's history.

Parliamentary Motion M-103 is designed to advance the goal of adding to Canada’s hate crimes laws the undefined crime of “Islamophobia,” which would protect all Muslims and Islam itself from any criticism related to that religion and its Shariah law. The motion has been proposed by Islamic Member of Parliament Iqra Khalid.

All parties so far have indicated they will unanimously vote for M-103. Its passage in the House of Commons on February 16 would in effect set Canada on the path to imposing a form of Islamic Sharia blasphemy law on all of Canada.

Banner typical of many such signs displayed during numerous hate-filled Islamist demonstrations in Europe where the concentration of Islamist immigrants is greater than in North America - so far.

The federal House of Commons motion would likely lead to extraordinary, historically unprecedented special protections for the tenets of one religion in Canada, Islam, a religion radically different from and, with some exceptions, generally very hostile to Christianity and all other religions as directed by later verses in the Koran.

President Trump's Executive Order on Refugees - What it really means

A sober and detailed analysis by David French of National Review provides facts and analysis on President Trump's executive order. 

Key highlights:

• "Trump is improving security screening and intends to admit refugees at close to the average rate of the 15 years before Obama’s dramatic expansion in 2016. Obama’s expansion was a departure from recent norms, not Trump’s contraction.

• "The order imposes a temporary, 90-day ban on people entering the U.S. from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. These are countries either torn apart by jihadist violence or under the control of hostile, jihadist governments.

• "The plain language of the order doesn’t apply to legal permanent residents of the U.S., and green-card holders have been through round after round of vetting and security checks. The administration should intervene, immediately, to stop misapplication.

• "You can read the entire executive order from start to finish, reread it, then read it again, and you will not find a Muslim ban. It’s not there. Nowhere.

• "Trump’s order was not signed in a vacuum. Look at the Heritage Foundation’s interactive timeline of Islamist terror plots since 9/11. Note the dramatic increase in planned and executed attacks since 2015."

Dr. Timothy R. Furnish notes in a Facebook post that the wording of the executive order specifically provides for admittance of Muslims, when they are a minority under threat of persecution:

SecState is directed to "prioritize religious claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality.” Pray tell, how is that a "ban on Muslims?" Answer: it's not.  

Members of Muslim minority sects (Isma'ilis, Alawis, Druze, etc.) being persecuted in Sunni countries will be allowed in; Sunnis persecuted in, say, Iran or Iraq will be; Christians in Iraq, Syria, etc., will be, yes. But there is no "ban on Muslims."

And, President Trump is vigorously defending his policy:

“The seven countries named in the executive order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror...” — a fact underreported by the mainstream media.

“To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting. This is not about religion — this is about terror and keeping our country safe."

"There are over 40 different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not affected by this order.”

“America is a proud nation of immigrants and we will continue to show compassion to those fleeing oppression, but we will do so while protecting our own citizens and border.”

Trump’s Executive Order on Refugees — Separating Fact from Hysteria

by David French, National Review, January 28, 2017:

To read the online commentary, one would think that President Trump just fundamentally corrupted the American character. You would think that the executive order on refugees he signed yesterday betrayed America’s Founding ideals. You might even think he banned people from an entire faith from American shores.

Just look at the rhetoric. Here’s Chuck Schumer:

Chuck Schumer of Trump's 'extreme vetting' Exec. Order: "Tears are running down the cheeks of the Statue of Liberty tonight."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) 7:06 PM - 27 Jan 2017

If you thought only Senator Schumer saw tears in Lady Liberty’s eyes, think again. Here’s Nancy Pelosi:

Pelosi blasts Trump's 'extreme vetting' Exec. Order: "This Administration has mistaken cruelty for strength and prejudice for strategy."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) 7:19 PM - 27 Jan 2017

CNN, doing its best Huffington Post impersonation, ran a headline declaring “Trump bans 134,000,000 from the U.S.” The Huffington Post, outdoing itself, just put the Statue of Liberty upside down on its front page.

So, what did Trump do? Did he implement his promised Muslim ban? No, far from it. He backed down dramatically from his campaign promises and instead signed an executive order dominated mainly by moderate refugee restrictions and temporary provisions aimed directly at limiting immigration from jihadist conflict zones.

Let’s analyze the key provisions, separate the fact from the hysteria, and introduce just a bit of historical perspective.

America's Toxic Immigration Practices Exposed in 'Stealth Invasion'

This is such a powerful, in-depth review of Leo Hohmann's excellent new book, Stealth Invasion, which I posted about here, that it deserves to be re-posted so as to encourage as many people as possible to purchase this essential new title.

This book is already an Amazon bestseller, and is fast being recognized as a powerful, irrefutable resource in the battle against Islamic jihad.


Leo Hohmann Exposes Our Toxic Immigration Practices — Trump Responding in the Nick of Time!

Blue Ridge Forum, January 28, 2017:

“We are bringing this enemy here on air-conditioned planes as legal refugees, legal guest workers, legal green-card holders, legal students, legal entrepreneurs, and legal professors and preachers.” – Leo Hohmann

In his new book, Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and Resettlement, veteran investigative reporter Leo Hohmann cuts through the gaslighting that has obscured the dark side of the refugee resettlement program and some other avenues of legal immigration.

This book couldn’t be more relevant to where we are right now, as president Trump begins strong actions on immigration and refugee reforms.

During the campaign candidate Trump made the sensible suggestion to halt the flow of refugees from countries with Jihadist violence, until “we figure out what is going on.”

He demanded that we do a better job of screening immigrants to keep out Jihadists and to favor those who love America and its values.

In his inaugural address, he vowed to hire American – which logically would include stopping the replacement of American workers with cheap foreign labor through the H1-B and H-2B visa programs.

Refugee Resettlement — A “Rigged System?”

Most encouraging, however, Trump also has a pretty good track record of calling out rigged systems.

And, as Hohmann describes it, much of the legal immigration system is rigged against American workers.

First, we have no say in picking the pool of potential refugees. The United Nations does this, habitually leaving behind persecuted Christians. Nine American voluntary agencies are paid for resettlement services by the head – with millions of dollars at stake.

But, despite the nominal religious affiliation of six of the nine voluntary agencies – such as the U.S. Conference of Bishops and World Church Services – local resettlement actions tend to occur quietly, to the point of secrecy. Rarely does a receiving community have a chance fully to learn about resettlement plans, or to debate the issues involved in bringing in this new source of often-unassimilable cheap labor.

Further, as a condition of doing business, these government funded programs operate under a gag rule against Christians sharing their faith with Muslims.

Catholic Archbishop of Pompeii: Europe will be Muslim in 10 years 'because of our stupidity'

“We have a weak Christian faith,” he added. “The Church nowadays does not work well and seminaries are empty."

There is some sort of apocalyptic irony at play, when the Archbishop of Pompeii warns of the Muslim 'Vesuvius' which is now erupting and will soon bury formerly Christian Europe.

In any case, Mark Steyn isn't the only one to warn about the collapse of Europe and the rise of Islam.


Top Bishop: Europe Will Soon Be Muslim 'Because of Our Stupidity'
by Nick Hallett, Breitbart News, January 14, 2017:

This scene in London is being played out all across Western Europe as well.

Everyone in Italy and the rest of Europe will “soon be Muslim” because of the country’s “stupidity”, a prominent Italian archbishop has said.

Monsignor Carlo Liberati, Archbishop Emeritus of Pompeii, said that Islam will soon become Europe’s main religion thanks to the huge number of Muslim migrants alongside the increasing secularism of native Europeans.

Speaking to Italian Catholic journal La Fede Quotidiana, the archbishop said: “In 10 years we will all be Muslims because of our stupidity. Italy and Europe live in a pagan and atheist way, they make laws that go against God and they have traditions that are proper of paganism.

“All of this moral and religious decadence favours Islam.”

“We have a weak Christian faith,” he added. “The Church nowadays does not work well and seminaries are empty.

“Parishes are the only thing still standing. We need a true Christian life. All this paves the way to Islam. In addition to this, they have children and we do not. We are in full decline.”