Tag Archive for: persecution

What Will Persecuted Christians Face in 2023?

/in , , , , , , /by

The Bible radically challenges the status quo. It speaks truth to power.

During a recent conversation with Margaret, a woman who suffered life-changing injuries after Islamists assaulted a Catholic church in Nigeria last Pentecost Sunday, I couldn’t help but reflect deeply on the words of Christ:

“Whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5)

Indeed, who is it that can forgive their enemies and overcome hatred, violence and abuse of the kind suffered by Margaret but he or she who knows Christ?

In my work for the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) UK, I am frequently asked about how I deal with all the negative stories and the “doom and gloom”. But as St John’s letter reminds us, a strong faith in Christ’s ultimate victory upends this question: rather, how can I deal with all the pessimism and negativity without learning from the example of the modern-day martyrs?

Speaking to Margaret taught me two key lessons: that we in the West need the example of the persecuted Church, and they need us. The more that the opponents of the Church become emboldened in persecuting her, and the less we speak truth to power, the more severe will the persecution be this year. Our silence is a green light to violence.

2022 made this fact clearer than ever. More Christians suffer for their faith in Christ than any other religious group suffers for their faith, according to the Pew Research Center. This is borne out by fresh data from Aid to the Church in Need’s latest report Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2020-22.

The oppression or persecution of Christians increased in 75 percent of the 24 countries ACN surveyed. In Africa, the situation for Christians worsened in all countries reviewed amid a sharp increase in genocidal violence from militant non-state actors, including the jihadist groups Islamic State West Africa Province and Boko Haram. Nigeria is in particular trouble. In the Middle East, continuing migration deepened the crisis threatening the survival of three of the world’s oldest Christian communities located in Iraq, Syria and Palestine.

State authoritarianism has been the critical factor causing worsening oppression against Christians in China, North Korea, Vietnam and Burma (Myanmar). Religious nationalism has caused increasing persecution against Christians in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, among other countries. Fashionable holiday destinations like the Maldives fare poorly when it comes to the treatment of Christians. Football-famous Qatar has also been on our radar.

A key trend we are witnessing in the West which aids and abets the persecution of Christians is civil authorities’ frequent denial of the extent of the problem. This can stem from ignorance of and outright unwillingness to alleviate the suffering of Christians, but also takes the form of dubious arguments that reject explanations of the crisis rooted in anti-Christian hatred, instead preferring economic justifications or cries of “climate change”. But climate change alone cannot explain Christian persecution, as the UK parliamentarian Sir Edward Leigh MP explained in a recent article.

2023 will see these trends escalate, ACN’s research suggests. Our work proactively identifies the trends Christians face early on, rather than being purely reactive. This call to justice is crucial to waking up governments, decision-makers and the Church to the plight of the most vulnerable. We defend the persecuted Church and stand in solidarity with her but, perhaps even more importantly, we provide support and pastoral care so that she can persevere in her mission to preach the Gospel to all nations, whatever the cost.

Speaking to ACN last year after her release from captivity in Mali, west Africa, Sister Gloria Cecilia Narváez said: “My God, it is hard to be chained and to receive blows, but I live this moment as you present it to me … And, in spite of everything, I would not want any of [my captors] to be harmed.”

The Franciscan sister was held by Islamist militants for over four years, during which time she was repeatedly physically and psychologically tortured. Sister Gloria made clear that her Christian faith was the source of the animus against her, describing to us how her captors became enraged when she prayed. On one occasion, when a jihadist leader found her praying, he struck her saying: “Let’s see if that God gets you out of here. Sister Gloria continued: “He spoke to me using very strong, ugly words…My soul shuddered at what this person was saying, while the other guards laughed out loud at the insults.”

As Christ says to the persecuted Church and to us: “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

When I read these words, the smiling portrait of a humble and persevering Nigerian woman comes to mind. This year, like so many other Christians, Margaret will continue to suffer and to triumph. This year truth and falsehood will be asserted variably in the courts of power.

Yet, however worldly justice deals with the cause of persecuted Christians, long may their suffering smiles ring out the joy of victory.

AUTHOR

John Pontifex

John Pontifex is Head of Press and Information at Aid to the Church in Need (UK), an international Catholic charity which supports persecuted and other suffering Christians. More by John Pontifex

RELATED ARTICLE: Pro-Life Activist Mark Houck Found Not Guilty Months After Family Home Raided By Biden’s FBI

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Nigeria’s president: Trump “looked at me in the face. He said ‘why are you killing Christians?’”

/in , , , , /by

Nigeria ranks 12th in the Open Doors USA World Watch List of the worst countries for Christian persecution. Fulani jihadists and the Boko Haram jihad group brutalize and slaughter Christians on a routine basis.

For some odd reason, Buhari — himself a Fulani and a Muslim — decided to be honest about what transpired between him and Trump.

“I was in his office, only myself and himself. Only God is my witness. He looked at me in the face. He said ‘Why are you killing Christians?‘”

Buhari explained: “I tried and explained to him this has got nothing to do with ethnicity or religion. It is a cultural thing which the respective leadership was failing the nation.”

This is disingenuous. Nigeria has been termed the “biggest killing ground of Christians in the world.” Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Argak Kwashi of Jos said: “This thing is systematic. It is planned; it is calculated…. their intention is to Islamize Nigeria.”

Although Buhari openly condemns Boko Haram and Fulani jihadist attacks on Christians, he has done little to stop them.

In February, the Trump Administration launched the first-ever International Religious Freedom Alliance, which 26 countries joined: Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, The Gambia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Togo, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

Let’s hope more practical efforts are made to help Christians who are suffering persecution in Nigeria and elsewhere. Western countries need to be stop aid to countries that aid and abet persecution against Christians and other religious minorities.

“Buhari: Trump Accused Me of Killing Christians in Nigeria,” by Omololu Ogunmade, This Day, September 8, 2020:

For the first time since he met the United States President Donald Trump in Washington in April 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari disclosed Monday that Trump unequivocally accused him of killing Christians in Nigeria.

However, he said he defended himself, telling Trump that the conflict between farmers and herders in Nigeria was caused by cultural matters and not dictated by ethnic or religious factors.

Buhari, who said he was put on the spot by Trump when he was alone with him, alleging that he (Buhari) was slaughtering Christians in Nigeria, added that the question startled him but he put his emotion under control.

The president, who made the disclosure when he deviated from his closing speech at the end of a two-day ministerial retreat in the Presidential Villa, said he was the only African leader from less developed countries that was invited by Trump at the time.

He asked his cabinet members how they would feel if they were the ones put on the spot and confronted with such a grave allegation, disclosing that he further told Trump that the conflicts were caused by successive leaders of the country who tampered with established grazing routes.

According to him, only Nigerian leaders in the First Republic kept grazing routes while subsequent ones encroached on them, adding that the crisis was older than him and much more than Trump whom he said he was still older than.

“I believe I was about the only African among the less developed countries the President of United States invited, and when I was in his office, only myself and himself. Only God is my witness. He looked at me in the face. He said ‘why are you killing Christians?’

“I wonder if you were the person how you will react. I hope what I was feeling inside did not betray my emotion. So, I told him that the problem between the cattle rearers and stagnant farmers I know is older than me, not to talk of him (Trump). I think I am a couple of years older than him.

“With climate change and population growth and the culture of the cattle rearers, if you have 50 cows and they eat grass, any route to your water point, they will follow it, it doesn’t matter whose farm it was.

“The first republic set of leadership was the most responsible leadership we ever had. I asked the minister of agriculture to get a gazette of the early 60s which delineated the cattle routes where they used meagre resources then to put earth dams, wind mills even sanitary department.

“So, any cattle rearer that allowed his cattle to go to somebody’s farm is arrested, taken before the court, the farmer is called to submit his bill and if he can’t pay, the cattle are sold, but subsequent leaders, VVIPs (very very important persons) they encroached on the cattle routes, they took over the cattle rearing areas.

“So, I tried and explained to him this has got nothing to do with ethnicity or religion. It is a cultural thing which the respective leadership was failing the nation,” he said….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Boris Johnson: Anti-Brexit Biden doesn’t understand UK’s negotiations with EU

CAIR Denounces Netflix’s Pedophilia-Fest ‘Cuties’ – Because It Portrays Islam Negatively

Hungary rejects EU’s new calls for open borders, insisting on right of sovereign states to control their own borders

RELATED VIDEO: Robert Spencer and Charles Moscowitz discuss ‘Rating America’s Presidents’

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

U.S. Catholic bishops complicit in Muslim persecution of Christians

/in , , , , /by

Recently I was interviewed about the persecution by Catholic bishops of Catholic priests who enunciate unpopular truths about Islam.

“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)

“Islamic Expert: US Bishops Complicit in Muslim Persecution of Christians,” by Anita Carey, ChurchMilitant.com, May 8, 2017:

DETROIT (ChurchMiltant.com) – A prominent Islamic expert is comparing the bishops’ silence on terrorism to sex abuse cover-up. Robert Spencer, an Islamic terror expert and author of 16 books on Islam, released an editorial Sunday excoriating the U.S. bishops’ actions to punish clergy and schoolteachers who speak out against Islam, including Spencer himself.

“The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops moves actively and swiftly to silence and demonize voices that tell the truth about the Muslim persecution of Christians,” Spencer noted, naming various bishops who’ve refused him, as well as other Muslim critics, a platform in their dioceses.

“You can reject every element of the Nicene Creed and everything the Church teaches, and still the U.S. Catholic Bishops will consider you a Catholic in good standing,” he continued. “But if you believe that Islam is not a religion of peace, you have no place in the U.S. Catholic Church.”

Church Militant spoke with Spencer on his thoughts regarding the reasons why the U.S. bishops are so reluctant to speak out against the evil of Islam.

CM: At what point do you think the bishops started to pander to a politically correct agenda?

RS: This is an outgrowth of the confusion that overtook the Church in the wake of Vatican II, and the popular but erroneous idea among liberal Catholics that the Church had discarded its tradition and dogmas and essentially embraced the leftist agenda. This idea took root in earnest in the 1960s, but began germinating long before that.

CM: Knowing the historical conflicts between Islam and Christianity, why would the bishops be so quick and severe toward those who are informing the laity? Why would they want the laity ignorant?

RS: This mystifies me, but my best assessment is that this is an outgrowth of the spirit of Vatican II, which called upon Muslims and Christians to set aside ancient antagonisms and find common ground. There is a general assumption among the bishops that just as Christianity has changed since the time of the Crusades, so also has Islam, and dialog will iron out any remaining differences.

In reality, this is an unfounded assumption, as Islamic teaching has not changed, and still contains an imperative to wage war against Christians and subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law. I would expect that most bishops, however, would dismiss the idea that Islamic teaching contains such an imperative as an “Orientalist” and “Islamophobic” false claim. They, however, are the ones who are ignorant.

CM: What do you think the bishops’ problem is with your talks and position on Islam?

RS: I’m told that Bp. Nicholas Samra believes that I am “spreading hate,” and since I was a member of his diocese, he himself told me that many bishops had approached him at the USCCB conference telling him that he had to “do something” about me. They apparently believe that I am harming the dialog they are conducting with Muslims, and they apparently also think that this dialog is producing results, even though Muslim persecution of Christians has increased exponentially since it began.

For my part, I reject the charge that I am spreading hate, and challenge Samra or any other bishop to quote a single hateful statement from my work. I am exposing facts that many would prefer to keep concealed; the “hate” charge is simply an attempt to make people of good will turn against my work.

CM: If the bishops do start to speak out against Islam, will it make Christian persecution worse or start an all-out war? 

RS: In Islamic law, Christians must live in subservience and submission to Islamic law. If they speak out about their plight, it will get even worse for them, and their lives could be forfeit. Thus they generally adopt an attitude of publicly praising and siding with those who persecute them, so that it won’t get even worse for them. This is the attitude that the bishops now appear to have adopted as well: Samra himself told me that I shouldn’t speak out against Muslim persecution of Christians, as doing so would only make matters worse for Middle-Eastern Christians.

While I am aware of that possibility, at the same time to dissimulate about the nature and magnitude of that persecution only misleads Christians outside the Middle East into complacency. It also just validates and reinforces violent intimidation. It is incumbent upon the bishops as messengers of the truth to tell the whole truth about what is happening to the Christians of the Middle East, and to reject a submission to Islamic intimidation that would condemn our children and our children’s children to slavery. To accept that intimidation and lie or remain silent because of it is only to encourage more such intimidation. They could speak out while working to ensure that the United States and other powers do everything they can to protect the remaining Christians in the Middle East from further persecution.

CM: What can the faithful do to influence the bishops or fight back against the liberal media?

RS: Call them to tell the truth. When they issue statements about Islam that are dishonest and misleading, challenge them. I have been severely criticized for criticizing bishops. Many Catholics seem to think that to do so is disloyal to the Church. On the contrary, I believe that not to call out bishops when they are sinful and wrong is even more disloyal to the Church. It is the kind of thinking that led to the pedophilia scandals.

RELATED ARTICLE: Video: The globalist agenda and President Trump’s immigration ban

RELATED VIDEO: Vice President Pence — ISIS Guilty Of Genocide Against Christians.

Interfaith Dialogue — A Bridge Too Far

/in , , , , /by

In this new monograph, adapted from Annex 1 of his superb recent book, Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad, Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy Stephen Coughlin explains what’s really behind the so-called ‘interfaith dialogue movement’ and how the Muslim Brotherhood has co-opted the well-meaning but misguided intentions of the Catholic Church in particular. Mr. Coughlin’s expertise in the nexus between Islamic Law (shariah) and Islamic terrorism informs his exposure of the manipulative Brotherhood strategy to use the interfaith dialogue arena as an opportunity to edge Catholics toward a dislocation of faith so as to pave the way for the insinuation of shariah into American faith communities and society in general.

Author Stephen Coughlin introduces the problem in this brief video:

At a time when Vatican policy seems to many to have become unmoored from the traditional doctrinal teachings of the Church in ways advanced by the permissive environment of the interfaith dialogue movement, including tolerance of anti-Constitutional, anti-Western, shariah-based Islamic principles as well as those who promote them, this publication hits home hard. As Mr. Coughlin points out, it is intellectually impossible to adhere faithfully to Church doctrine and yet grant acceptance to principles that are fundamentally opposed to such precepts at the same time. Only a dislocation of Catholic faith could allow such moral equivalence. Ultimately, as he argues, the objective of Islamic supremacists is the prioritization of interfaith relationships over advocacy on behalf of fellow Christians being slaughtered elsewhere by the co-religionists of their Muslim interfaith partners—in other words, the neutralization of the Catholic faith community as a serious obstacle to the encroachment of shariah.

In praise of this new Center publication, Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney said,

While the interfaith dialogue movement presents itself as a laudable effort to ‘bridge’ the distance between faiths, those more familiar with the doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood know that the actual agenda of too many such efforts is, in fact, modeled after the well-known dictum of Sayyid Qutb, who candidly reminded Muslims that such a ‘bridge’ is ‘only so that the people of Jahiliyyah [society of unbelievers] may come over to Islam.

The Center for Security Policy/Secure Freedom is proud to present this monograph as a superb addition to its Civilization Jihad Reader Series. “Bridge-Building” to Nowhere: The Catholic Church’s Case Study in Interfaith Delusion is available for purchase in kindle and paperback format on Amazon.com.

Click here to purchase this newly released monograph in Kindle format.

Click here to purchase this newly released monograph in paperback format.

 Click here for a full PDF of the monograph.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY

The Center for Security Policy is a non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security and then ensures that such issues are the subject of both focused, principled examination and effective action by recognized policy experts, appropriate officials, opinion leaders, and the general public. For more information visit www.SecureFreedom.org

What’s wrong with this picture?

/in , , , , , /by

Over the past five years of the Saudi-sponsored war in Syria, the United States has admitted a grand total of only 53 Syrian Christian refugees and just one lone Yazidi, despite all the media attention on the Yazidi situation last year.

What’s wrong with this picture?

What shall I tell the Yazidi sheiks when I meet with them in early December?

I will never forget the religious leaders in Lebanon last December saying to me, “We cannot trust the United States government.  You are now bombing ISIS, when two or three years ago, you were arming what is now ISIS?!”

What’s wrong with this picture?

Now our president, while at the G20 Summit in Turkey, in reaction to the Paris multiple-terrorist bombings and carnage, tells the world that we will “stay the course” for victory.  What???

Obama held a press conference in which he said the terror attacks in Paris that left 130, including one American dead, will not change his policy in regards to ISIS, and that he still will not consider American boots on the ground in Syria or Iraq.

Although the Joint Chiefs of Staff would recommend many boots on the ground, seemingly, they are afraid to contradict the “Commander-in-Chief”.

bob armstrong with Iraqi christians

Reverend Armstrong with Iraqi Christians. Photo by Bob Armstrong.

However, former New York City Mayor Rudy Guliani, weighed in on the outrage where every country is against ISIS even more.  Guliani said, “I don’t care about public opinion.  I care about the national security of the United States.  We should have 30,000 or 40,000 troops in Iraq.  If we had had them there consistently, ISIS would never have emerged.”

What’s wrong with this picture?

The French military has bombed more of ISIS strongholds in two days, than the United States has bombed in almost six months! Hello??

What’s wrong with this picture?

According to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) 19,000 Syrians have been picked straight from “refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan” and given U.N. approval for resettlement in the United States.  However, most Christians are NOT in the United Nations refugee camps because of assaults and rapes by Muslims.  Most Christians are “urban refugees” living in basements of rundown buildings – and worse – in cities.  Virtually all of the 19,000 Syrian “refugees” will be Sunni Muslims who have a hatred for free Western governments.

What’s wrong with this picture?

IMG_0281

Former Iraqi General Georges Sada (right) with Reverend Bob Armstrong. Photo courtesy of Bob Armstrong.

According to former Iraqi General Georges Sada, head of Saddam’s Air Force and then a consultant to former President George W. Bush (and even now a consultant to the current Iraqi government on a daily basis) he knew a month ago that President Obama would send a few troops in to fight ISIS, “ONLY because Russia has taken the lead in the region!”  I had the privilege of having a private lunch with him.

Although he does not speak to many American audiences, except the United States War College, he reveals that Americans really do not want to hear the truth!  He states, “America’s best supposed ‘allies’ in the Middle East are:  Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.  Yet these three countries provide over three-fourths of the money to fund worldwide terrorism!”

What’s wrong with this picture?

The United States is giving BILLIONS of dollars to bonafide terrorists in Iran as a part of the supposed “Iran Nuclear Deal” even while Iran gathers and chants “DEATH TO AMERICA!”

What is wrong with this picture?

Then there are the arguments for and against immigration.  Yes, I am for legal immigration.  Yes, I am for protecting our borders with a wall or whatever is required.  Our 21,444 U. S. Border Patrol agents need our support and backing, regardless of the inaction by our government in reference to enforcement.

I am against illegal immigrants who disobey our laws to gain access to America, regardless of their color or creed or culture.  How can I teach my child to obey laws, if the United States government turns a blind eye to people who are disobeying the laws.  (Of course we cannot deport 12 million people.  How ludicrous!)  But something must be done to STOP the illegal flow!

What about a future attack on the United States?  A new Islamic State video is pointing toward New York City as a terrorist target.  The New York Post reports:  “The images of New York City are spliced between disturbing clips of suicide bombers preparing for attacks.  A fighter also holds a grenade, pulling the trigger as the camera cuts to black.  French President Francois Hollande then appears on screen, giving an address just after the Paris attacks.  At the end of his speech, he says, “It’s horrible!”  Then words flash on the screen, saying, “And what’s coming next will be far worse and more bitter.”

Obviously, the United States of America is in the “crosshairs” of a future attack by ISIS.

Breitbart News reports: “Two federal agents operating under the umbrella of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are claiming that eight Syrian illegal aliens attempted to enter Texas from Mexico in the Laredo Sector.

A local president of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) confirmed that Laredo Border Patrol agents have been officially contacting the organization with concerns over reports from other federal agents about Syrians illegally enter the country in the Laredo Sector.  The sources claimed that eight Syrians were apprehended on Monday, November 16, 2015.

Honduran officials have arrested five Syrians who intended to go to the United States with stolen Greek passports.

On and on, the stories continued to multiply.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Our current administration is like a “Trojan Horse” in assisting Terrorism and radical Islam to make it to the shores of the United States of America.  Islam is on the verge of accomplishing in half a dozen years what the Ottoman Empire could not do in 600 years – conquer Europe!  Our own U. S. President supports the Muslim Brotherhood!

“But Muslims are peace-loving!” contends many people, even former President George W. Bush.  I understand there are those who do love peace and their peaceful way of life in America, but if one were to thoroughly read the Qur’an, and act upon every part, there is really no such thing as a “peace-loving” Muslim.

Most Islamists do not understand that their “cult” is disguised as a religion as they “worship” this false god called “Allah” who directs them to torture and kill anyone who does not submit.  They even convince many that Allah and God are one in the same!

President Obama and “wanna-be president” Hillary Clinton both continue to defend radical Muslims.  But Islam is for sure tied to every ISIS attack.

Just in the last few hours, in Mali, Islamic Jihadists released a number of the hostages unharmed after they proved that they were Muslims by reciting, for the jihadis, verses of the Qur’an.

In the 2008 Mumbai, India terror attacks, the Islamic terrorists from Pakistan released a number of hostages from the hotel.  They did this when the hostages in question proved that they were Muslims by reciting passages from the Qur’an.

A little-known fact is during the Mumbai attacks, a Muslim Labour MP who was in the hotel at the time of the attack was allowed to leave unharmed by the Islamic Pakistani terrorists.  He never gave any interviews about his experiences but seems to have withdrawn to the margins of obscurity in British politics.  Maybe one day France and Great Britain will have a Muslim majority electorate.  Dear Lord, help us!  A well-known Muslim told me: “We do not need to fire a shot to win control.  France and England allow Muslims to practice their religion of having four wives.  Considering all the children, one day we will be in the majority in France and England.”  Wow.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Much has been said on social media about the refugees who drowned in the Mediterranean, but no one is forcing these people onto unsafe boats.  They all do so willingly.  President Obama wants to bring 10,000 Syrian refuges (how many are terrorists?) into the United States.  However, the number of refugees welcomed by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Libya, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, etc. is ABSOLUTELY ZERO!!

What’s wrong with this picture?

With the backdrop of the Paris terrorist attacks, which left 130 dead including one American, President Obama wants to continue our no-win policy against ISIS.  Former GOP House Majority Leader Tom DeLay urges: “The president in his press conference, what I saw was he all but surrendered.  He has surrendered to ISIS!  We have a president that’s feckless, that’s incompetent, that has no idea what he is doing.  His worldview is the wrong worldview for a war president and Congress has to say it. Congress has to stand up.”

The recent anti-Immigration of Syrians bill voted on this past week had nearly 50 Democrats joining the Republicans, but it falls far short of solving the problem.  After this past week’s vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed to kill the bill even though it received overwhelming bipartisan support in the House.

In another immigration bill, President Obama is vowing to veto the bill which would increase the screening for Syrian and Iraqi refugees before they enter the United States.  The bill would add FBI background checks.  Despite the European terror attacks, President Obama simply does not “get it.”

This invasion of America, which is called immigration, is the biggest threat to your personal safety of our generation.  In fact, even before the immigration crisis of the last four months, we faced the biggest immigration crisis since World War II.  But this could lead to the “Trojan Horse” of terrorism in the USA!

What is wrong with this picture?

Most Americans understand there may be a major terrorist attack in the United States.

The Washington Post – ABC News survey, finds an unbelievable 83 percent of registered voters believe a terrorist attack in the United States resulting in large casualties is likely in the near future.  Forty percent say a major attack is “very likely,” matching the level of concern after the 2005 subway bombings in Britain.

Get this, in spite of what our President says, the survey shows that 59 percent think “The United States is at war with radical Islam.”  YET, President Obama and presidential candidate Clinton refuse to use that term as the enemy!

In spite of all the worldwide carnage and the terrorism finger pointed directly at the United States of America, our “Commander in Chief” is hell-bent on making “Gun Control” his legacy in his last year in office.  I am reminded of Ronald Reagan’s advice: “Self-defense is not only our right; it is our duty.”

Please don’t be sucked into the potent videos children being killed by guns.  Bad people will always somehow have access to weapons.  Americans must cling to their Second Amendment rights:  To defend themselves and their families.

It is against this dismal backdrop that I plan on meeting the enemy head-on in December for three weeks.

If you will recall the daily news last August, 2014 about the Iraqi people who were surrounded by ISIS on a mountaintop, the Yazidis.  One-half of the men women and children were slaughtered by ISIS (5,000).  The USA dropped from the air food, water and blankets, while the Kurds finally rescued the other half.  Genocide, on a smaller scale, still continues in that region.  I plan to spend one week in December with them:  giving them food, encouraging them, and showing them the love of Christ.  Yes, it is still considered a “war zone.”

In fact a Kurd offensive was begun earlier this week, as first reported by CNN to rid Sinjar of the 300 ISIS fighters.  U. S. Coalition forces bombed strategic regions near there this past week!  But my “insiders” tell me they will be rid of by the time I get there! Pray the Kurds eliminate ALL the IEDs!    I will be a couple of miles from ISIS territories and within six miles where Turkey last month – and yesterday – bombed the PKK of the Kurds.

Even though God nudged me to do this, and I will be safe because of Him, for three days I will have five armed bodyguards of the Assyrian Christian “Special Forces”.  Confidentially, the Nineveh Plains Protection Unit!

In addition, I will spend the day at a special home for 30 Yazidi women where they have been brutally raped by ISIS (and their husbands killed by ISIS)!  I need divine guidance on how to encourage these dear women who have sacrificed ALL. It is like a Rehab Center “on steroids.”

Then the second and third week I will be in Iraq, Jordan, and near the Syrian border in Lebanon, partnering with my good friend, Bill Murray, in the Religious Freedom Coalition’s program “Christmas for Refugees.”  Thousands of refugee children will be fed, and their parents will receive food for a week for the entire family, as well as a Bible in their own language.

Last year, I was within 100 yards of ISIS tents; and several Muslims came to know Christ. An ISIS sympathizer infiltrated the church.  As a result, according to General Georges Sada, former Iraqi general and present consultant with the Iraqi government on a daily basis, he informed me that I have a $300,000 kidnapping bounty on my head by ISIS, if I came to Baghdad region of Iraq!!

I am not “crying wolf” now.  This trip is extremely serious…even one of a kind.  NO ONE is reaching the Yazidis except a couple of my new friends!  I will be within a few miles where the United States just this weekend sent Special Forces into Syria.  Russia’s presence is already enormous in Syria!

What is wrong with this picture?

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Bob Armstrong needs to raise $10,000 before December 3rd for his security-conscience Middle East trip to feed Yazidis and refugee children.  If you can assist, financially, thank you.  All gifts to Lovelink Ministries are tax-deductible.

Readers who wish may give by check. Please email Bob Armstrong at:  bobkimandb@gmail.com. To give online, go to www.LovelinkMinistries.com

Catholic bishops call for ‘complete decarbonization’ by 2050, silent on Muslim slaughter of Christians

/in , , , , , /by

Complete decarbonization? You first, fellas. No more jetting to Rome to cause trouble for everyone by canonizing hard-Left Democratic Party policies. And let’s see you portly prelates start bicycling from parish to parish — no more driving for you, McManus. That wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

While the bishops call for this destruction of the global economy, they continue to ignore a genuine and growing threat from the global jihad.  Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem Joseph III Younan recently appealed to the West “not to forget the Christians in the Middle East.” And he is not the only one. “Why, we ask the western world, why not raise one’s voice over so much ferocity and injustice?” asked Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI). The Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregory III has also said: “I do not understand why the world does not raise its voice against such acts of brutality.”

I do. It’s because the bishops in the West believe that the spurious and self-defeating “dialogue” they’re conducting requires them to be silent about Muslim persecution of Christians: “Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims.” — Robert McManus, Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, February 8, 2013

That’s why bishops such as McManus, Kevin Farrell of Dallas, Jaime Soto of Sacramento and others move actively to silence and demonize voices that tell the truth about this persecution. Meanwhile, their “dialogue” hasn’t persuaded a single jihadi to lay down his arms. Nor has it prevented a single Christian from being murdered by Muslims in pursuit of that jihad. Nor has it kept a single church from destruction at the hands of those jihadis.

The Church could have and should have been a voice for a genuinely charitable response to the jihad threat, and a robust defense of the value of Judeo-Christian civilization. Instead, it parrots Leftist talking points about climate change.

“Global bishops call for ‘complete decarbonisation’ by 2050,” AFP, October 26, 2015:

Bishops launched a global appeal Monday for a break-through at upcoming Paris climate talks, including a “complete decarbonisation” of the world’s economy and more help for poor countries battling the effects of climate change.

The bishops said any agreement “should limit global temperature increases to avoid catastrophic climatic impacts, especially on the most vulnerable communities”.

From across five continents they called “not only for ‘drastic reduction in the emission of carbon dioxide and other toxic gasses’, but also for ending the fossil fuel era”.

The goal should be “complete decarbonisation by mid-century, in order to protect frontline communities suffering from the impacts of climate change, such as those in the Pacific Islands and in coastal regions”.

The November 30-December 11 conference in Paris will be the culmination of six years of work since the ill-fated 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, which failed to lock down significant agreements.

The bishops urged those taking part to “keep in mind not only the technical but particularly the ethical and moral dimensions of climate change” as laid out in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“Those responsible for climate change have responsibilities to assist the most vulnerable in adapting and managing loss and damage and to share the necessary technology and knowhow,” they said in a statement….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Syria: Islamic jihadis hit Roman Catholic church with mortar shell during Mass

Graphic video: Islamic State executes man by running him over with tank, justifies act by quoting Qur’an

Video: Muslim persecution of Christians — the speech the U.S. Catholic Bishops don’t want you to see

/in , , , /by

On August 13, 2015, I was the keynote speaker at the annual convocation of the North American Lutheran Church in Dallas, Texas. I spoke about the global Muslim persecution of Christians.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sends a representative to the North American Lutheran Church convocation every year. However, this year, when the USCCB found out I was the keynote speaker, they pulled their rep from the Lutheran convocation. Kudos to the North American Lutheran Church for not caving in to this lily-livered fascism and allowing me to speak anyway, rather than canceling me so that the Catholic rep would come. The Lutheran bishop told me that what I had to say was “too important” for that.

Watch this speech and see what the Catholic Bishops of the United States find so objectionable that they can’t even be in the same room while it is being said. Find out what they don’t want you to know.

(Note: there is about 15 minutes of the NALC convocation on this video after I speak. This has nothing to do with my talk and is just an editing error.)

RELATED ARTICLES:

Ahmadi Muslim leader Qasim Rashid slanders Ben Carson, lies about Islam

Jordanian MP’s son joins Islamic State, dies in jihad suicide attack

VIDEO: New Film to Expose Muslim Persecution of Christians

/in , , , /by

The ethnic and religious purging of Christians today is exactly like Hitler’s ethnic cleansing of Jews in WWII,” [film director Peter] Spencer said. “True Christians are today obligated to rescue the perishing from the blades of [the Islamic State].”

Brave and bold words, and all too rare in America these days, where naming the evil is all but illegal. The ‘Orange Resistance Movement’ seem like a strong and creative response to Muslim persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Africa. Judging from the endorsements on Mr. Spencer’s site, the message seems to be catching on among Christians and Jews. Let’s hope so.

“Filmmaker’s ‘Chilling’ Warning About the Islamic State and His Message to ‘True Christians’ About Why They Must Fight Back,” by Billy Hallowell, The Blaze, September 17, 2015:

The writer and director of a feature film about a group of young people who fought to save the innocent during the Holocaust has unveiled a new movement aimed at raising awareness about the dire religious persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

Peter Spencer, director of “Return to the Hiding Place” — the sequel to Billy Graham’s “The Hiding Place” — exclusively told The Blaze about his new Orange Resistance effort to rescue Christians being harmed by the Islamic State, and the “chilling similarities” that he sees between what’s happening now and the horrors that unfolded during the Holocaust.

“The ethnic and religious purging of Christians today is exactly like Hitler’s ethnic cleansing of Jews in WWII,” Spencer said. “True Christians are today obligated to rescue the perishing from the blades of [the Islamic State].”

The Orange Resistance movement is named for the both the color of the jumpsuits worn by victims of Islamic State extremists and for the Netherlands’ historic association with orange; the setting of the ”Return to the Hiding Place,” which is based, in part, on Dutch Christian Corrie ten Boom’s heroic acts to save Jews in the Netherlands.

Spencer said that the campaign will employ a number of tactics to get the word out about the plight of Middle Eastern Christians.

“We are working with denominations across the country to schedule screenings of our film followed by a panel discussing the terrifying parallels between Nazi Germany’s extermination of the Jews and the current hate-onslaught of [the Islamic State] and their mission to liquidate Christians, starting in the Middle East,” he said. “Groups won’t even need to sell tickets to the event.”

“Return to the Hiding Place,” which is based on a true story, tells of ten Boom’s refuge for Jews, as well as an “army of untrained teenagers” who helped rescue the most vulnerable from the horrors of the Holocaust.

“We know viewers, often intimidated and discouraged by today’s frightening news will see this film and be mobilized, encouraged that there is hope,” Spencer told The Blaze. “Resistance is not futile … even one person can make a revolutionary difference.”

Spencer will also be selling Orange Resist shirts and bracelets in an effort to raise money to help organizations that are actively working to rescue Christians from the region, while also featuring these organizations in special video posts that will be distributed via social media.

The goal, Spencer said, is to cause “America to become aware and involved in politically vocalizing the need to intervene on behalf of Christians and Jews worldwide experiencing a second holocaust.”

“The only hope for coping is by taking action. The only way we can cope is if solutions are at hand,” he said. “These solutions will not present themselves — we have to stand and fight, get behind the cause, and put our resources into saving lives today.”

Spencer invited people to learn more about Orange Resistance here, and to purchase copies of “Return to the Hiding Place” here.

Watch the trailer for ‘Return To The Hiding Place’ here.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Russian Foreign Ministry: Coalition only simulating anti-terrorist efforts

New York Muslim: “I’m ready to die for the Caliphate, prison is nothing”

Jail Time for Christians: No Longer a Hypothesis

/in , , , , /by

So this is how the game is played. Leftist operatives in the courts (supreme and state) create unconstitutional laws to further their anti-God agenda. Then, Leftists say those who disobey their lawless laws are not behaving like Christians and good Americans. Many on our side fall for it.

gay marriageThe SCOTUS’ ruling on Obamacare and homosexual marriage means the Constitution will now say whatever Leftists want it to say. Folks do you realize that based on this new precedent, the Left can make anything they want a law; incest, pedophilia, bestiality and so on? Before you call me crazy, Leftists are already clamoring for the normalization of these sins. Have you heard of NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association)?

Suppose our kangaroo supreme court decreed that ending slavery was unconstitutional. All blacks must report to government for their slavery assignments. How many idiots on our side would comply because Christians and good Americans must obey the law?

Meanwhile, it goes without saying that Obama is the most lawless president in U.S. History; refusing to obey laws he dislikes. Sanctuary cities which are run by Democrats defiantly disobey federal immigration law at the cost of endangering and even the deaths of American citizens. It is insane to allow these conniving vipers to claim moral high ground over us; lecture us about obeying the law.

Christians with their heads not buried in the sand knew jail-time was coming for Christians that refuse to bow down and worship homosexual’s false god.

In response to the SCOTUS ruling on homosexual marriage, a mega-church pastor said he hoped it would not infringe upon our religious freedom. I thought, “Well duh!” That is the purpose of the attacks and lawsuits; to criminalize biblical standards.

Wedding chapels, cakes, flowers and everything else needed for homosexuals to marry are readily available to them. Homosexual’s ultimate mission is to force Christians to rubber-stamp their behavior, thus betraying the true God.

This is why I get upset with Christians who still do not get it; labeling any push back as intolerant and unchristian, lecturing fellow Christians about showing these passive humble homosexuals more love. I want to scream, “This ain’t about that!” This is about saying no to being bullied into embracing anti-biblical behavior.

The radical homosexual movement is a form of the Mark of the Beast. In essence, any business or household which does not display the homosexual rainbow flag over its doorway will not be permitted to exist.

Remember the pro football player that was fined and forced into sensitivity training for tweeting his disapproval of two men kissing on national TV. That is not far from being forced to display the homosexual rainbow flag tattooed on your forehead.

When did we lose the power folks, becoming subservient to 2% of the population; forced to comply or end up in jail?

Kim Davis realizes that the Creator’s Law trumps the creation’s law. This is why she has the strength to in essence say, “Y’all can have a fit and even throw me in jail, I will not bow down and worship your god.” Trust me, the forces of evil are outraged. Note that all the vitriol is coming from the Left, not from Christians.

Christian abolitionists disobeyed the law helping blacks to escape slavery via the underground railroad. They also broke the law teaching blacks to read.

Daniel was a high ranking highly respected government (King Darius) employee. A new law said everyone must pray only to King Darius. Daniel disobeyed, continuing to pray to the God of Israel. He was arrested and thrown into the lion’s den. When interviewed by reporters from the Stone Tablet Times, I suspect some Christians trashed Daniel for noncompliance to the King’s law.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were government (King Nebuchadnezzar) appointees. The King built a golden statue, proclaimed it god and decreed that all must bow down and worship it. Faithful to the true God, the three Hebrew boys disobeyed the law, refusing to bow down or worship the government’s statue. They were arrested and thrown into a fiery furnace.

Like Kim Davis, Daniel and the three Hebrew boys believed the consequence of betraying God is eternal; heaven or hell. It is hard to believe Christians are now forced to make such a choice in the United States of America.

God bless GOP presidential contender Senator Ted Cruz for standing up for religious freedom.

“…I stand with Kim Davis. Unequivocally. I stand with every American that the Obama Administration is trying to force to choose between honoring his or her faith or complying with a lawless court opinion.

“In dissent, Chief Justice Roberts rightly observed that the Court’s marriage opinion has nothing to do with the Constitution. Justice Scalia observed that the Court’s opinion was so contrary to law that state and local officials would choose to defy it.”

Please click this link to read the rest of Senator Cruz’s powerful statement.

Frankly, GOP presidential contender Carly Fiorina saying Kim Davis should issue the license or resign smells of more GOP caving to the Left; we-don’t-have-your-back politics as usual. This makes me a bit nervous envisioning Fiorina in the big chair in the Oval Office.

Fiorina’s behavior takes me back to an article I wrote titled, “Which GOP Presidential Contender will Keep Their Word in the White House.”

Again, thank you brother Cruz for leading the charge for religious liberty and We the People.

RELATED ARTICLE: Judge orders Kentucky county clerk released from jail

VIDEO: How the Western Establishment Conceals Muslim Persecution of Christians by Raymond Ibrahim

/in , , , , /by

On June 11th, I delivered a lecture on Capitol Hill, Washington D.C. It was part of Coptic Solidarity’s sixth annual conference. My topic was the failures and cover ups of the Western establishment—academia, government, and mainstream media—concerning the rampant persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

This 15-minute video is from my lecture:

RELATED ARTICLE: Brazilian author Paulo Coelho defends Qur’an as “book that changed the world”

VIDEO: Church of Perverts

/in , , , , /by

The USA is in big trouble now that Christianity has been shoved aside by the worship of sexual perversion.

Grimly, History Repeats Itself

/in , , , /by

In a recent story by BBC reporter Jane Corbin, she describes the plight of Christians living in Muslim nations of the Middle East.  After a visit to an ancient monastery in Iraq, she writes,

“As I climbed the steep mountain path above the plain of Nineveh, Iraq, the sound of monks chanting and the smell of incense drifted out of the 4th Century monastery of St. Matthew.  Once, 7,000 monks worshipped here when Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire.  Almost the whole population was Christian then.  Their numbers have dwindled and now there are only six monks – and no pilgrims dare to visit.”

Describing the rise of ISIS, she writes, “They swept across the plain of Nineveh last year, forcing tens of thousands of Christians to flee from Mosul, Iraq’s second city…  A million people, two-thirds of Iraq’s Christians, fled in the decade following the fall of Saddam.  The same story is being repeated in country after country across the Middle East where the Arab Spring unleashed forces that turned against Christians and the authoritarian leaders who once protected them.”

In a radio interview on April 12, 2015, Samy Gemayel, a Phalangist Party member of the Lebanese Parliament, predicted that, “If the U.S. and international community do not intervene, Christians may be driven out of the Middle Eastern Arab countries within two years.”  Other experts predict that, in the absence of western intervention, Christian churches will be razed to the ground and the faithful either killed by radical Islamists or driven from their homes.

After centuries of brutal conquest, the Ottoman Turk empire extended across Southeast Europe, Western Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa.  Their most significant minority, the Armenian Christians, were treated like second class citizens, denied such basic protections as property rights and personal security.  As non-Muslims, they were forced to pay discriminatory taxes and denied participation in the affairs of government.

However, by 1914, having lost virtually all of their territories in Europe and Africa, the Ottoman Turks experienced enormous internal pressures, both political and economic.  And when the Armenian minority pressed demands for representation and participation in government, ethnic tensions were intensified.  Demands by Armenian political leaders for administrative reforms, especially in provinces where Armenians represented a clear majority, invited further repression.

The Armenians were not unaware of the dangers represented by challenging the authority of their Muslim rulers.  For example, a series of massacres carried out during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II between the years 1894-96 were still fresh in their minds.  Those massacres cost the lives of as many as three hundred thousand Armenians.

Just over 100 years ago the Armenian Christian population of the Ottoman Empire numbered some two million people.  However, beginning on April 15, 1915, the Turks accelerated their campaign to cleanse their country of their Armenian minority, ordering the entire Armenian population deported.  Tens of thousands… men, women, and children… were forced to walk hundreds of miles toward the Syrian frontier.

The Turks made no arrangements for food and water, and while a great many of all ages died of starvation or dehydration, or from attacks by criminal Muslim bands, physical exhaustion took the lives of many of the elderly and the infirm.  Straggling south under the scorching desert sun, the denial of food and water was intended only to hasten the death of the Armenians.  By 1918, some one million Armenians had been systematically murdered, and by 1923 virtually the entire Armenian Christian population had disappeared from Turkey.

It is estimated that, in the eight year period between 1915 and 1923, as many as 1.5 million Armenians perished at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.  Those Armenians who survived the genocide owed their lives to the humanitarian efforts of the United States.  Under a plan devised by Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to Constantinople, the U.S. Congress established a relief program called “Near East Relief,” and tens of thousands of Armenian lives were saved.

But now, exactly a century later, we find that history is repeating itself, but on a much broader and more brutal scale.  What happened to the Armenian Christians in the early 20th century is now happening to Christians all across Africa and the Middle East in the early 21st century.  And while western political leaders, most notably Barack Obama, the reluctant “leader” of the free world, stand transfixed in fear, not knowing what to do or how to respond, American and European Christians are attacked and murdered in the streets of their own cities.

The March 24, 2015 edition of Globe Newswire asks,

“Who is courageous enough to brave the possibility of being beheaded, burned alive, or crucified to bring the world the voices of those Christians whom Muslim extremists have been hunting off the face of the Earth?”  We are, after all, at war with a worldwide religious sect that thinks nothing of kidnapping hundreds of young girls at a time and selling them into slavery, of raping and crucifying children, of beheading their captives in order to strike terror into the hearts of non-Muslims, of setting caged captives on fire in a public square, of drowning captives by placing them in a cage and submerging them in tanks of water, or of gathering up all the Christians from among hundreds of refugees and throwing them overboard in mid-ocean as they attempt to escape the poverty and the Muslim-inspired brutality of their homelands.

So who is to stand up to such barbarism… whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, or here at home?  What do you do when all those guys dressed in black, wielding machetes and flying a black flag, come after you with guns blazing, offering to slice off your head at the shoulders and to rape your wife and your children?

Some of the 450 new troops that Obama is sending to Iraq to face 30,000 or 40,000 ISIS butchers will be embedded with forward units of the Iraqi military as advisors and air controllers.  If those U.S. troops begin to take casualties, especially fatalities, how will Obama explain that?  But worse, if radical Islamists step up their attacks on our own soil, how will Obama react to that?

On February 26, 1993, radical Islamists detonated a truck packed with explosives under the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, killing six and injuring 1,042 others.  Seven Islamic terrorists, under the leadership of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), were tracked down, captured, and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.  KSM now resides in a cell at Guantanamo Bay while Barack Obama searches for a politically expedient way to free him.

Under “enhanced” interrogation, KSM admitted to masterminding both attacks on the New York World Trade Center, as well as the attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  In that attack, carried out by nineteen radical Islamists, nearly 3,000 people were murdered.

Since the second World Trade Center attack, radical Islamists have staged some 73 separate attacks on U.S. soil in which 93 people have been killed and 333 seriously wounded.  The last such attack occurred on July 16, 2015, when 24-year-old Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, born in Kuwait, opened fire on an armed forces recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, before driving seven miles to a naval reserve center where he was shot to death by police.  Five unarmed American servicemen, four Marines and a Sailor, were killed in the surprise attack.

In a July 17 article in FrontPageMag, titled “Terror Immigration to America Must Stop,” writer Daniel Greenfield writes that, “As the government began filling it with immigrants from terror zones, Tennessee, the Volunteer State, fought back because it hadn’t volunteered for this.  In 2008, it pulled out of the Federal refugee resettlement program, but the resettlement continued.”  Clearly, when Democrats are determined to swell the ranks of reliable Democratic voters, they are not easily dissuaded.

Greenfield tells us that three days before the Chattanooga terror attack, Muslims in Chattanooga protested in support of Islamberg, an exclusively Muslim New York community established by Mubarak Ali Gilani, who has said, ‘We are fighting to destroy the enemy.  We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America.’  These are the people that Barack Obama is importing to live next door to you and me.

Greenfield explains that, “Every time the citizens of Tennessee attempted to stand up to terror immigration and the Murfreesboro Mega-Mosque , they were shouted down, smeared and lied about by the media.  A day from now, the media will have shifted the focus of the story from the murdered Marines to local Muslims whining about the backlash…”

Greenfield warns that it is not just the people who send checks to terrorist groups who deserve to be called terrorist supporters.  Those who support the importation of terrorists into this country, including Barack Obama and others in his administration, are the biggest terrorist supporters because without them most of the attacks we have suffered would not have been possible.

One wonders what would happen if fundamentalist Christians began attacking and killing Muslims in the same numbers and with the same frequency as Muslim fundamentalists attack and kill Christians, at home and abroad.  Would liberals, Democrats, and the mainstream media insist that we import more radicalized Christians?  Probably not.  As Greenfield says, “The war keeps coming home because we have filled our home with the enemy.  It’s time we clean house.”  But, short of draconian “house-cleaning” measures, we must ask ourselves this question: if there is no Morgenthau plan when the world’s non-Muslim population faces almost certain extinction, who will be there to save us?  Who will we look to?

Where is the Homeland for Christians?

/in , , /by

With the rise of persecution, perhaps its time to call for a national homeland for Christians!

RELATED ARTICLES:

Top Democrat on Bakers Fined $135K Over Wedding Cake: ‘You Shouldn’t Be Able to Turn People Away’

‘Cake Artist’ Fights in Court to Be Able to Refuse to Make Wedding Cakes for Gay Couples

Oklahoma Governor Rejects Supreme Court’s Ten Commandments Ruling [+video]

When the Feds Demand Same-Sex Marriage, What Will Our Bishops and Pastors Do? [+video]

The New Totalitarians Are Here

Supreme Court’s Same Sex Marriage Decision Judicial Tyranny — Expect a Wave of Christian Persecution

/in , , , /by

Last Friday, June 26th, a committee of five un-elected lawyers ignoring the expressed will of an overwhelming majority of Americans, ruled that the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one women, which has existed for thousands of years, is unconstitutional. In the process the majority dispelled the concept “that we are a government of laws, not of men.”

Four Justices wrote stinging dissents. Justice Scalia wrote that the majority opinion is “a threat to American democracy.”  Scalia went on: “This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government…. A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.”

READ the dissents: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito.

Of the 35 States that voted on the issue of same-sex marriage, 32 States opted to retain the traditional definition of marriage.  In fact, in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges, the Court reviewed the laws of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.  In each of these states, an overwhelming majority of voters voted in favor of traditional marriage: 88% in Tennessee, 74% in Kentucky, 62% in Ohio and 59% in Michigan.

Chief Justice Roberts, destroying the majority’s legal basis for same–sex marriage, concluded, “The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.”  He wrote, “The Constitution itself says nothing about marriage, and the Framers thereby entrusted the States with “[t]he whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and wife.”

Up until last Friday, since the founding of our nation, and for the last approximately 2,000 years of Christianity, across all civilizations and cultures, the definition of marriage has been the same—the union of a man and a woman.

And Bible believing Christians cannot and will not accept this illegitimate decision.  Christ said:

“Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” (Matthew 19: 4-6, NASB)

The Court’s decision in this case is not the final word.  It is not the same as So sayeth the Lord.

In 1857, the Supreme Court used the same substantive Due Process rationale in its Dred Scott decision to protect the rights of slaveholders to own slaves as property.  As Chief Justice Roberts observed, “Dred Scott’s holding was overruled on the battlefields of the Civil War….”

Christians are born for combat, and so this decision, similar to the Courts creation of the constitutional right to abortion in Roe v Wade, will not end the debate.  We must launch a well-thought out offensive to change this decision and stop America’s decline as a result of her jettisoning the Christian principles upon which this great nation was founded.

So what’s next?

In the short term we must ensure that federal and state laws are enacted that will protect the religious freedom of Christians, not only to speak out but also, to exercise their faith. But that is just the beginning. We must also begin to counter the slick, meaningless slogans used by homosexual advocates such as “marriage equality.”  A million-man march on Washington may also get the Court and politicians to act.

Families are too important to the survival of our nation for Christians to retreat to their religious ghetto. Besides, homosexuals will not be satisfied until every vestige of opposition to same-sex marriage is destroyed.  They have already embarked on a wave of persecution against those opposed to their agenda.  It will only get worse.

Princeton law professor Robert George pointed to the increasing oppression of Christians who oppose a redefinition of marriage. He said that business owners, adoption agencies and workers in several states have already been threatened, pushed out of their industries, or forced to violate their consciences in order to operate their businesses. George pointed out that many government employees have been subjected to disciplinary action and threatened with termination for expressing their biblical views on marriage. Unquestionably there will be efforts to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church as well as other Christian organizations that teach that marriage is the union of a man and woman. And the list will continue on.

The Thomas more Law Center filed several friend of the court briefs in support of the definition of traditional marriage. It has defended the rights of Christians to speak out  and act on this issue and it will continue to do so.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Senator Ted Cruz Tells States to Ignore Supreme Court Ruling on Homosexual Marriage

Stop the Media From Silencing Your Voice on Marriage

Why Bobby Jindal Is ‘Not Evolving’ on Marriage

In-Depth: 4 Harms the Court’s Marriage Ruling Will Cause

How to Preserve Religious Freedom After Supreme Court’s Activist Decision on Marriage

Bobby Jindal: ‘Religious Liberty Created the United States of America’

Where’s the Pope’s Encyclical on Christian Persecution? by Raymond Ibrahim

/in , , , /by

Pope Francis recently released a new encyclical. Portions of it deal with environmentalism, global warming, and climate change. Naturally, this has prompted controversy.

It’s noteworthy that Francis didn’t merely make a passing comment on global warming during this or that sermon, but that he issued a papal encyclical on the matter. Encyclicals are much more formal and significant than remarks made during mass. They are letters written by a pope and sent to bishops all around the world. In turn, the bishops are meant to disseminate the encyclical’s ideas to all the priests and churches in their jurisdiction, so that the pope’s teaching reaches every church-attending Catholic.

All this leads to the following question: Where is Pope Francis’ encyclical concerning the rampant persecution that Christians—including many Catholics—are experiencing around the world in general, the Islamic world in particular?

To be sure, the pope has acknowledged it. On April 21, during mass held at Casa Santa Marta, Francis said that today’s church is a “church of martyrs.” He even referenced several of the recent attacks on Christians by Muslims (without of course mentioned the latter’s religious identity).

Said Pope Francis:

In these days how many Stephens [early Christian martyred in Book of Acts] there are in the world! Let us think of our brothers whose throats were slit on the beach in Libya [by the Islamic State]; let’s think of the young boy who was burnt alive by his [Pakistani Muslim] companions because he was a Christian; let us think of those migrants thrown from their boat into the open sea by other [African Muslim] migrants because they were Christians; let us think – just the day before yesterday – of those Ethiopians assassinated because they were Christians… and of many others. Many others of whom we do not even know and who are suffering in jails because they are Christians… The Church today is a Church of martyrs: they suffer, they give their lives and we receive the blessing of God for their witness.

The pope is acquainted with the reality of Christian persecution around the world.  So why isn’t he issuing an encyclical about it?  Such an encyclical would be very useful.

The pope could instruct bishops to acknowledge the truth about Christian persecution and to have this news spread to every Catholic church.  Perhaps a weekly prayer for the persecuted church could be institutionalized—keeping the plight of those hapless Christians in the spotlight, so Western Catholics and others always remember them, talk about them, and, perhaps most importantly, understand why they are being persecuted.

Once enough people are familiar with the reality of Christian persecution, they could influence U.S. policymakers—for starters, to drop those policies that directly exacerbate the sufferings of Christian minorities in the Middle East.

Whatever the effects of such an encyclical—and one can only surmise positive ones—at the very least, the pope would be addressing a topic entrusted to his care and requiring his attention.

As recent as 1958, Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical that addressed the persecution of Christians.  A portion follows:

We are aware—to the great sorrow of Our fatherly heart—that the Catholic Church, in both its Latin and Oriental rites, is beset in many lands by such persecutions that the clergy and faithful … are confronted with this dilemma: to give up public profession and propagation of their faith, or to suffer penalties, even very serious ones.

[…]

Missionaries who have left their homes and dear native lands and suffered many serious discomforts in order to bring the light and the strength of the gospel to others, have been driven from many regions as menaces and evil-doers…

Note that Pius does not mention the burning and bombing of churches, or the abduction, rape, enslavement, and slaughter of Christians.  The reason is that Christians living outside the West in 1958 rarely experienced such persecution.  In other words, today’s global persecution of Christians is exponentially worse than in 1958.  Pius complained about how Christianity was being contained, not allowed to spread and win over converts…

Keep reading

RELATED ARTICLES:

Vatican validates jihad terror, signs treaty recognizing State of Palestine

Pakistan’s government won’t abolish blasphemy law because it “fears the reaction of extremists”