Detroit: Imam warns against allying with ‘people who endorse LGBTQ principles’ says Democrats are ‘at war with Allah’

A hadith depicts Muhammad specifying the punishment for homosexual activity: “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, ‘Whoever you find doing the action of the people of Loot, execute the one who does it and the one to whom it is done.’” (Sunan Abu Dawud 4462)

Detroit Imam Imran Salha Warns Muslims: In Supporting Palestine, Do Not Ally With Supporters Of LGBTQ Rights, Democratic Party, Who Are ‘At War With Allah’; Adds: May Allah Eradicate Sick, Disgusting Zionist Regime

MEMRI, May 19, 2023:

In a Friday, May 19, 2023 sermon at the Islamic Center of Detroit, Michigan, Imam Imran Salha warned Muslims against forging alliances with pro-Palestine activists who endorse LGBTQ principles and who are “at war with Allah”, such as the Democratic Party. Salha also condemned Israel’s Jerusalem Day Flag March, in which the “sick disgusting Zionist regime – may Allah eradicate them,” took their “disgusting flags [and] entered the purified land of Al-Aqsa.” He warned the Islamic leaders and scholars “who have sold out on Palestine,” saying: “You will be dragged by the chains of Hellfire with the people that you want to make peace with.” Imam Salha was born in New Jersey and is of Palestinian origin. The sermon was posted on the YouTube channel of ICD – the Islamic Center of Detroit.

Imran Salha: “If somebody loves Palestine, but they don’t worship Allah, then I don’t want your activism for Palestine. What is your activism for Palestine going to help me, if you are at war with Allah? This is one of the mistakes that, unfortunately, here in America, we have made politically. We want to work for the sake of Palestine, but then shake hands with people who endorse things like the LGBTQ principles.

“So you will say that the Democrats will support the Palestinians, but they are at war with Allah. Do you think that someone who is at war with Allah will help you achieve freedom for Palestine?

[…]

“You know Paradise, you know Hell, you know the Day of Judgement, you know the Purgatory. You know that if you are patient, you have something to look forward to, whereas those [non-believers], the only thing they know about death is that they will become fertilizer for cows.

[…]

“There was the Flag March in Palestine, where the sick, disgusting Zionist regime – may Allah eradicate them from existence, say: ‘Amen’ – they took their disgusting flags, the flags of occupation and oppression, and entered into the purified land of Al-Aqsa, walking around as if they had a claim to that land.

[…]

“The most confused youth are the white-washed youth. You are not white. You are not European. You are an Arab. And you are… Be as [Arab] as they see you can possibly be.

[…]

“Do not try to appease the White Man. We have been stuck under the colonized way of thinking.

[…]

“Those who don’t want us to succeed, want us to erase [our identity], and all come to America, in the melting pot, and listen to Justin Bieber. No. We don’t need this, and we reject that. We have our culture and we have our things that we return to.

[…]

“And we say, inshallah, to those who have sold out on Palestine, whether they are a sheikh, a leader, or call themselves an [Islamic] scholar – you are a sell-out, nothing but a sell-out, you are a dishonorable human being, and there is a problem with your faith, and you will be inshallah dragged by the chains of Hellfire, with the people you want to make peace with.

[…]

“May Allah grant us, in our lifetime, the ability to see a free Muslim nation, liberated from the shackles of colonization, Allah willing.”

AUTHOR

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

Target Shares Plummet Following Trans Push To Children, Posts $9 Billion Loss

The mamas ain’t havin’ it. The men pushed back at Bud Light. Now it’s our turn.

Disney, Bid, Noe, Target. Keep it up.

Target Shares Fall Following ‘Pride’ Push

Customers have started reacting strongly to corporate ideological pandering

By Naveen Athrappully, The Epoch Times, May 25, 2023Updated: May 25, 2023

Shares of Target have recently declined after the company launched LGBTQ products, including items aimed at children, triggering a backlash from Americans against the retailer’s transgender push.

Target rolled out its Pride collection at the beginning of the month, offering over 2,000 products, including clothing, books, home furnishings, and calendars, among others. Some of the items were targeted at children. For example, books for kids aged 2–8 had titles like “Pride 1,2,3,” “Bye Bye, Binary,” and “I’m Not a Girl.” Target also suggested “The Pronoun Book” to kids aged 0–3. In home décor, Target offered mugs labeled “Gender Fluid.” It also offered transgender swimsuits for adults with a “tuck-friendly” feature.

The company’s actions attracted a lot of negative reactions online, with the hashtag “BoycottTarget” trending across social media.

Amid the backlash, Target’s shares have declined by 11 percent as of 11:00 a.m. EST on May 25. Between May 1 and May 24, the company’s market capitalization fell from $72.52 billion to $66.05 billion, a decline of $6.47 billion.

In a May 24 press release, the company announced removing some of the controversial items. “Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work.

“Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”

Liz Wheeler, who hosts “The Liz Wheeler Show” video podcast, called out Target for not apologizing for promoting “pride” agenda.

“Target executives are freaking out & moving ‘pride’ displays to the back of the store. But DO NOT CAVE. They’re not apologizing. They’re blaming YOU, claiming conservatives who oppose a Satanist designing queer merchandise for kids are a ‘threat,’” she said in a May 24 tweet.

Satanist Products

Some of the items in Target’s Pride collection were designed by UK-based designer Abprallen, who identifies as a transgender gay man and is a proclaimed Satanist.

There were two items from Abprallen in the Pride collection. However, the products are now not available in Target’s online store following the backlash, according to Breitbart.

An outspoken Satanist, Abprallen is known for pushing messages like “Satan respects pronouns” on apparel and “burn down the cis-tem.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) slammed Target for its ties with a Satanist. “Even by the standards of woke corporations, @Target’s partnership with a Satanist to push the trans agenda on children is remarkable. The next time @Target comes begging for help, Republicans should respond, ‘best of luck,’” he said in a May 23 tweet.

Protecting Children

The Democrat governor of California, Gavin Newsom, hit out at Target for pulling out items from the Pride collection, calling the move “selling out the LGBTQ+ community to extremists.”

Read more.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

LA Dodgers choose anti-Catholic drag queens over sanity

What do Major League Baseball and drag queens who dress as nuns have in common?

It is a question that is yet to be answered.

Even so, the two have been on a collision course this week as the Los Angeles Dodgers first invited, then disinvited, then re-invited the ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’ — a “leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns” — to their Pride Night festivities scheduled for next month.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence promote themselves as a society devoted to “community service, ministry and outreach to those on the edges, and to promoting human rights, respect for diversity and spiritual enlightenment”. But with a motto like “Go forth and sin some more”, their sacrilegious use of ecclesiastical dress, and deliberately offensive stunts like crucifix pole dancing and “hunky Jesus” contests, their goal appears to be mockery, not “ministry”.

In early May, the LA Dodgers had announced they would be honouring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence with a Community Hero Award at the team’s 10th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night for the “life-saving work that they have done tirelessly for decades”.

People of sound mind, Catholics chief among them, voiced strong opposition to the Dodgers’ promotion of the Christophobic group.

In response, in a show of sanity rarely seen in these sex-obsessed days, the LA Dodgers reversed course, announcing their decision not to honour the anti-Catholic group at next month’s event.

“This year, as part of a full night of programming, we invited a number of groups to join us,” the team said in a statement. “We are now aware that our inclusion of one group in particular — The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence — in this year’s Pride Night has been the source of some controversy.”

But the burst of common sense was not to prevail. By Monday night, the pro-drag queen lobby (yup, that is a thing) exerted so much pressure that the Dodgers re-invited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, complete with the obligatory struggle-session confession.

In their statement released on Twitter, the Dodgers wrote, “After much thoughtful feedback from our diverse communities, honest conversations within the Los Angeles Dodgers organization and generous discussions with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the Los Angeles Dodgers would like to offer our sincerest apologies to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, members of the LGBTQ+ community and their friends and families.”

“In the weeks ahead, we will continue to work with our LGBTQ+ partners to better educate ourselves, find ways to strengthen the ties that bind, and use our platform to support all our fans who make up the diversity of the Dodgers Family,” the mea culpa concluded.

The team’s flip-flopping reveals the deep divide at the heart of America’s culture wars. Moreover, their final decision indicates which side has the upper hand.

The Dodgers saga is a reminder that when religion vacates the public square, it is not secularism or neutrality that takes its place, but irreligion, even sacrilege.

Nun costumes aside, the bizarre centering of drag queens in the culture wars is itself an irreligious act. It is an attempt to abolish and mock the natural and divinely-instituted sex binary.

But it is a tiresome and a tired mockery, a sad excuse for “art” and “freedom” in a culture that has lost its way. It is the death throes of what philosopher Philip Rieff dubbed an “anti-culture” hellbent on its own destruction and the defaming of all that is good and beautiful and true.

These observations are no black pill. On the contrary, they are the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

In practical terms, if enough LA Dodgers fans respond the way Bud Light and Target customers did to those companies’ trans madness, there will yet be hope for our culture.

AUTHOR

Kurt Mahlburg

Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate… More by Kurt Mahlburg.

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

The Coming of the Mahdi

The world is presently at its most wicked. It is beyond human help. It requires only a nudge to implode and prepare for the divine ruler, the Saheb-ul-Zaman (the Mahdi, the Lord of the Age) to come and set it aright. It is the sacred duty and privilege of every Muslim to do all he can to hasten the death of the old world and the birth of the global Islamic Ummah. Thus goes the thinking of Iran’s ruling mullahs and their hand-picked presidents.

It seems like the old millennialism thinking. The belief in supernatural intervention to set the world aright is scriptural to major religions, including Islam. The Jews have been earnestly supplicating the Lord for the Messiah to come, the Christians are impatiently awaiting the second coming of Christ, and, the Zoroastrians are convinced that Saoshayant is the one who shall come, defeat the trouble-making Ahriman — Satan — and make the creatures again pure. But this time around, a group of believers with tremendous resources are intent on forcing the issue, making the conditions so dire that they leave the reluctant Saheb-ul-Zaman no choice but to appear and assume his universal reign.

Up to this point, millennialism was a belief and a hope. No one ever aspired to or had the means of making the anticipated events come about. The matter was in the hands of God. The Muslims’ perennial prayer recited every day, posted in mosques and even on bumpers of vehicles has been, “O, Saheb-ul-Zaman, hasten your coming.” The prayer for the advent, thus far, has been limited to passive supplications of the faithful.

It is a well-established fact that beliefs are the potent impetus to action. If you believe your home is about to be burglarized, you secure the house and take other precautions. If you, under the influence of drugs, believe that a bug is burrowing into your skin, you may take a knife to your own body and try to dig the imaginary bug out.

Hence, it is shortsighted to dismiss the mullahs as a bunch of lunatics who are out of touch with reality and that they have no intention of doing catastrophic mischief to compel the Mahdi’s coming — maybe some arming of the Iraqi Shiites, a little support for Hezb’allah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine — but no, no major idiocy. After all, they are rational people and in touch with reality. Any large-scale troublemaking spells their doom as well. Thus goes rationalization — the greatest risky tranquilizer of the mind.

Rationalization, compounded by complacency and denial, can be deadly, particularly when adversaries have different realities. To the fanatic mullahs ruling Iran, Sahaeb-ul-Zaman is an absolute reality, and his promised advent is irrevocably ordained. This is their reality and their belief and they have every intention of leading their life according to them.

It is foolish for non-Muslims to dismiss the mullahs and the likes of the Taliban as a bunch of fringe lunatics who are going to go away simply by wishing for it. The Islamist reality is that non-Muslims are the ones who deserve to be done away with, they are the ones who have refused to submit to the summons of Allah for much too long, and, it is time for the faithful to get rid of them. This makes for a lopsided contest. The non-Muslims are passively wishing that the nightmarish surge of Islamism is only a temporary fringe phenomenon doomed to die on its own, while the other side is marshaling its huge destructive power to accomplish its aim by eradicating non-Muslims.

The cabal of fanatical mullahs ruling Iran has lost its patience, not only with the unbelievers but also with the Mahdi as well. They aim to force his arrival. The mullahs believe they have the means to make it impossible for the Mahdi to tarry any longer by causing unprecedented death and destruction — conditions deemed essential for his coming. The world must hit the very bottom before the savior of the world comes to the rescue, so they firmly believe.

The question is: What does prudence demand? Wishing the problem to go away is not a very effective solution in the same way that wishing for the Saheb-ul-Zaman to come has not been. Reasoning and negotiating with the mullahs and their ilk hold very little if any, lasting promise. There are always easy ways of denial and appeasement. We are very good at both practices. No, the Muslims have been around for ages. They make some trouble from time to time. But they are not all that bad and dangerous. We’ll get along. If we have to, we’ll even let them live by the Sharia — their stone-age laws — in our midst. We’ll be reasonable and they will come around. We’ll just have to get along. So goes the line.

One problem: The other side doesn’t think this way. The Islamofascists don’t believe in the notion of live and let live.” They believe that the earth is Allah’s and it has been sullied by the heathens, the unbelievers, and the kafir for far too long. Now that they have the means, they aim to make the world to their design and bring about the final solution — a nasty reminder of not too long ago Nazism.

Is this alarmist, or even hatemongering? You don’t believe Muslims can be that intolerant and hostile toward non-Muslims and that they’ll never go to the extremes? Do you know Muslims personally in your neighborhood or your workplace and they are nice people? The nice Muslims you know are presently small minorities in alien lands. They have to be nice, and they may indeed be nice. Yet, when the main force of Islam surges forward, these nice folks will either have to join it or be swept aside like the rest of the resisters.

The concern is not with individual Muslims who live as solid citizens in democratic societies. They may have developed a taste for the freedom democracy bestows or have simply learned to tolerate it. Our concern is with the gathering Islamic storm from the heart of Islamdom. To truly appreciate Islam, you must experience firsthand Islam in power. Take a quick trip to the lands of the Muslims and find out for yourself how horribly they treat the non-Muslims, even the “People of the book,” Jews and Christians. Try to have a Bible study group or build a church in Saudi Arabia and discover the benevolence of Islamic rule.

I urgently call on US politicians to redirect U.S. foreign policy in line with our nation’s lofty ideals and principles. I urge the Administration to proclaim its unequivocal support for the Iranian people and back that claim with concrete effective peaceful actions. It is the best investment that the U.S. can make to attract the powerful nation of Iran as a vital ally and concurrently refrain from foolishly undermining its present sole friend, Israel. Recall that it was the Iranian people’s massive magnificent movement against the re-election of the fraud Ahmadinejad that inspired the so-called “Arab Spring.” That movement has not stopped. It is ongoing.

The world is a laboratory where the experiment with Islam shows irrefutable results. To the extent that Islam rules any society, that society is stagnant, backward thinking, repressive and violent. The Islamic Republic of Iran represents the cutting edge for the newly petrodollar-invigorated Islam. It is determined to complete its task of ending the world of “Dar-ul-Harb” — the non-Muslim world to be warred upon — and establishing the “Dar-ul-Solh,” or “Dar-ul-Salam” — the Muslim world of the Ummah under the rule of the Mahdi. If achieving this aim hinges on the conflagration of a cataclysmic nuclear World War, the mullahs are happy to make it happen.

©2023. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

Biden Considering Antisemite Susie Gelman for Ambassador to Israel Who Described Israel’s Independence Day as ‘Catastrophe Day’

Sickening.

Translation of Nabka is catastrophe.

Biden Considering Anti-Israel Activist Susie Gelman for Ambassador to Israel

Gelman described Israel’s Independence Day as “Nakba Day”

By Daniel Greenfield, May 16, 2023:

Ambassadors to Israel tend to be hostile to Israel because they either come out of the State Department’s Middle Eastern professional class or worse, Democrat donors and apparatchiks who are “interested” in Israel.

Outgoing Ambassador Thomas Nides was an odious example of this, but the Biden administration is looking for someone even worse. Possible candidates supposedly include Obama’s ex Dan Shapiro, and former Rep. Robert Wexler, an anti-Israel leftist, but there’s buzz about “selecting a woman”.

This isn’t about selecting a woman, obviously, it’s about promoting an anti-Israel leftist who happens to be female while painting her selection as historic.

Who’s the woman in question?

Reportedly, Susie Gelman, the chairwoman of the Israel Policy Forum.

While IPF is a more obscure anti-Israel activist group than Soros’ J Street, it is quite vehemently anti-Israel. Here’s the Discover the Networks profile.

As Kenneth Levin notes in The Oslo Syndrome, the group’s first executive director was Jonathan Jacoby, “who had earlier in his career signed a New York Times ad accusing Israel of ‘state terrorism.’”

In 2008, IPF lauded the newly formed J Street as a group whose objectives represented a refreshing alternative to the “Arab and/or Palestinian-bashing” of “their pro-status quo, pro-occupation counterparts.”

IPF has received funding from such sources as George Soros‘s Open Society Institute and the Tides Foundation.

The Israel Policy Forum, much like J Street, conducts lobbying and pressure campaigns against Israel, rallying Democrats to oppose Israeli and pro-Israel moves, and aiding some of the worst anti-Israel Dems like Rep. Betty McCollum

Susie Gelman, a Levi Strauss heiress, has spent the past year or so relentlessly attacking the Israeli government: itself normally disqualifying for an ambassador to that government.

Gelman attacked the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem as “the highest level of brazen partisanship in U.S.-Israel relations since Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress in 2015 in which he expressed his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal.”

And Gelman shockingly described Israel’s Independence Day as “Nakba Day”, writing that, “the decision to open the embassy on the eve of Nakba Day [marking the founding of the State of Israel as a “catastrophe” to the Palestinians who fled or were displaced from their homes] was a needless provocation.”

She complained that opening the embassy had not been packaged with “acknowledging Palestinian aspirations for a capital in east Jerusalem”

The Gelmans have their own group, the Morningstar Foundation, which funds a variety of leftist causes, but also anti-Israel leftist groups, including Ir Amim and the New Israel Fund, but that’s mixed with funding for things like Birthright Israel.

Read more.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLE: How The West Sanctions Enemies: Floods Them with Rewards

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Regime Appoints Holocaust Museum Board Member From Org That Accused Israel of Apartheid

A Human Rights Watch board member does not belong on a Holocaust museum board.

I have written about the problems with the Holocaust Museum in D.C. before. It’s a government museum and like most of those pursues predictable political agendas that have nothing to do with the Holocaust or Jews.

The Holocaust Memorial Council acts as the board of trustees, but like a lot of government institution boards, it’s a prestigious line to add to the biographies of major donors or political allies. There have been some whoppingly bad appointments by past administrations  In a final insult to the Jewish community, Obama appointed Ben Rhodes, the lead advocate for the Iran nuke sellout, to the council.

Biden has appointed Kimberly Marteau Emerson. Kimberly, the wife of John Emerson. a Democrat operative and financial bigwig, picked by Obama to be his ambassador to Germany.

Kimberly Marteau Emerson has been on the board of directors for Human Rights Watch since 2012.

HRW has repeatedly and falsely accused Israel of “apartheid”. Its personnel have done little to conceal their desire for the destruction of the Jewish State and the extermination of its population.

Joe Stork, who served for many years as HRW’s Deputy Director of Middle East issues. Before being hired by HRW, Stork openly supported Palestinian terror attacks against Jewish civilians, and opposed any and all peace treaties between Israel and Arab states.

Stork even traveled to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq for a conference on “Zionism and Racism.

Analyzing Israel’s victory in the 1967 War, Stork suggested what would be needed for the Arab states to reverse the outcome and destroy Israel:

This was part of a pattern.

In 2009, HRW bizarrely defended its senior military analyst Marc Garlasco following revelations that he was an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia and had even authored a book about Nazi-era medals. According to The Guardian, Garlasco once commented that a leather SS jacket made “my blood go cold it is so COOL!”

And nothing much has changed.

HRW founder Robert Bernstein blasted the organization’s pathological anti-Israel animus in a 2009 op-ed published in The New York Times, in which he lamented the turn the organization had taken regarding the Middle East. At HRW, Bernstein wrote, the organization originally drew distinctions between liberal and repressive states, focusing on the latter. However, HRW, “with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies.”

Bernstein observed that this change in focus was most apparent in the Middle East, where HRW “has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region,” even though the region “is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records.”

In the spring of 2009, Sarah Leah Whitson, the organization’s top Middle East official, traveled to Saudi Arabia and, as part of her pitch, said that she needed to raise funds to fight “pro-Israel pressure groups.”

To get a sense of HRW’s disturbing anti-Israel bias, consider this: over the past five years, the NGO has authored seven special reports on Israel. In comparison, the organization published none condemning North Korea, one of the worst criminal regimes in the world; and only three reports addressed the human rights violations of the repressive, theocratic regime in Iran.

That’s because HRW wants Israel to be destroyed.

The report’s primary author is Omar Shakir, HRW’s Israel/Palestine director, who signed a pledge in 2015 to “honor the BDS call.” The founder and leader of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement has stated openly that his movement aims to see Israel dismantled

Kimberly Marteau Emerson is a completely inappropriate choice. No HRW official or board member should ever have a position in a Holocaust memorial organization.

AUTHOR

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

The Islam Conundrum

The dictionary defines religion as, “The expression of man’s belief and reverence for a superhuman power recognized as the creator and governor of the universe.”

By this definition, Islam qualifies as a religion, and so do numberless others. A definition this broad is ambiguous and must be further defined with the specific tenets and practices of the belief.

Simply because someone or some people say that they believe in a superhuman deity and revere him, is the belief accorded the privileged status of religion?

It is generally assumed that religion addresses issues of importance to daily life as well as matters that transcend it. Religion is thought to exercise a civilizing influence by ordering social life, promoting spirituality, as well as advancing an array of human virtues. Zoroaster, for instance, based his faith on the triad of goodly thoughts, goodly speech, and goodly deeds: Moses framed the fundamentals of his faith in the Ten Commandments, and Jesus placed love at the core of his religion.

Many people adhere to religion for providing them with comfort and a compass in life. It is these assumed benevolent features of religion that confer it special status. Yet concern with religious overreaching has led societies to enact safeguards against that possibility. Some, for instance, feared that Christ was a rebellious Jew aiming to challenge the ruling Romans. Perhaps to assuage this fear, Christ emphatically proclaimed, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” To this day, there are those who still believe that Christ was a mere social revolutionary.

In the case of Islam, there is no ambiguity at all. The mosque and the state were one and the same from the very start. During his lifetime, Muhammad embodied in his person all three branches of worldly secular governance—the legislative, the judiciary, and the executive—as well as the religious domain. As a messenger of Allah, he transmitted Allah’s laws, adjudicated according to those laws, and implemented Allah’s design. He also prescribed a set of religious instructions for the spiritual life of the faithful.

After Muhammad, Islamic rule was continued by Caliphs and Imams. To this day, wherever it is able, Islam governs as the state, either directly as is the case in Saudi Arabia, or indirectly as practiced in places such as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

When religion crosses the line that separates it from the state, serious problems present themselves. In the case of Islam, the rule of the people, by the people, for the people is supplanted by the rule of Allah, by the faithful to Allah, for the pleasure of Allah.

Other problems arise. Liberty, deeply cherished by democracies, is replaced by submission—unquestioning obedience and adherence to the dictates and precepts of the all-knowing and all-wise Allah. It is this total form of submission that, among other things, prompted the Muslims to systematically burn libraries of the lands they invaded. They justified their action by contending that the Quran, the comprehensive unerring book of Allah, contained all the perfect knowledge that humanity needs. To this day, in places where Islam rules, many books are banned, newspapers and magazines are systematically either censored or shut down, and other non-print media are methodically blocked.

The contempt for free inquiry is encapsulated in the statement of Muhammad, “Al-elmo noghtatan katharoho al-jaheloon”—Knowledge is only one dot, expanded by the ignorant.

Once liberty is surrendered for submission, a host of serious consequences present themselves. The individual becomes little more than a passive obedient vessel of Allah and his perspective of himself and life drastically changes. Once he submits to the all-powerful, all-knowing, then he is absolved of the responsibility of having to chart his own way in life.

There is considerable allure in submission to a power that is willing and able to take care of the person. It is not a bad arrangement. The problem is that all past claimants have invariably been proven as either frauds or failures in honoring their part of the bargain. Islam is no exception. A cursory glance is enough to show the condition of Muhammad’s flock. In spite of huge material wealth, Muslims in oil-rich countries are imprisoned in the paralyzing mentality of submission and all the terrible ancillaries that go with it.

There is no reason to believe that Muslims have inferior intelligence. Their inferior existence is strictly a function of the primitive doctrine of Islam: a doctrine of nihilism, ignorance, and violence that denigrates this life and fixes the starry eye of the faithful on the next life. A case in point is the Islamic madrasahs in places like Pakistan. Never mind the girls. Girls are not in the calculus—women are incidental in Islam.

Consider the boys. Millions of young boys are enrolled in madrasahs—religious boarding schools—learning very little besides memorizing and reciting the Quran. This is a case of total submission: Islam at its best, as championed by the oil-money-flushed Saudi patrons of the Wahabi sect.

Sadly enough, instead of Muslims marching out of the suffocating swamps of submission to the meadow of liberty, Allah’s faithful aim is to drag the rest of humanity into the deadly Islamic quagmire. Islam may have been an improvement to the life of the savages that roamed the Arabian desserts some 1400 years ago. The 21st-century world is not willing to surrender to the clearly failed and failing Islamic experiment, simply because of the claim that it is the one and only true religion of Allah.

The Mevlana Museum in the Turkish City of Konya houses an extremely rare relic from Mohammed’s body itself: this antique box contains what is said to be Mohammed’s beard. Tour guides at the museum say that such relics were taken from across the Middle East by Ottoman Sultans and brought back to Turkey to preserve them from fundamentalist Islamic sects (such as the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia) that sought to destroy idolatrous Mohammed relics even centuries ago.

©2023. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

The Barbaric Slaughter of Innocence

Unmasking the Repressive Terror Unleashed Upon a Peaceful Nation.


In a heart-wrenching display of callousness and disregard for human life, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has once again stained the lands of Iran with the blood of the innocent. Today, we mourn the unjust execution of  three more innocent souls, Saeed Yaghoubi, Majid Khazemi, and Saleh Mirhashemi. These tragic victims met their undeserved fate at the hands of a regime that thrives on terror, propagates religious extremism, and perpetuates a reign of darkness upon a once peaceful nation.

Iranians, with their voices amplified from rooftops, have repeatedly warned the world of the horrors committed by the Islamic Republic. The regime’s brutal disregard for the sanctity of life has transformed this once-thriving nation into a terrifying graveyard. The echoes of anguish from grieving families reverberate through the streets, pleading for the world to hear their cries and end the relentless slaughter of their loved ones.

I resolutely affirm that this merciless execution of innocent Iranians serves as a meticulously orchestrated strategy, intended to crush any form of dissent and instill paralyzing fear within the hearts of those who dare to challenge the oppressive rule.

The Islamic regime’s grip on power is built upon the terror they instill in people. But fear and terror can be overcome by courage, and courage can lead to change. Iranians once again must rise above the darkness that engulfs their nation, to stand shoulder to shoulder in defiance of oppression. We must let them know that they are not alone in this struggle; that the world stands with them in solidarity.

Amidst the smoke and debris of shattered lives, the Islamic regime clings to power, exerting its iron grip over the people of Iran. Fair trials, a fundamental pillar of justice, have become an alien concept in this oppressive regime. Instead, innocent individuals are subjected to sham proceedings, deprived of their basic rights, and forced to face a predetermined fate that holds no regard for truth or justice.

The harrowing truth is that today’s executions are not isolated incidents. The Islamic Republic has transformed Iran into a macabre theatre of death, where  hundreds of souls have been prematurely ripped from their families this year alone. The IRI is the  ‘world’s leading executioner.’ This brutal regime’s appetite for bloodshed seems insatiable, and if left unchecked, the death toll will continue to rise, leaving behind a trail of shattered dreams and extinguished hopes.

The international community must recognize the Islamic Republic for what it truly is – a terrorist regime occupying a once-peaceful nation. The civilized world must offer its unwavering support to the people of Iran. They should stand in solidarity with their cries for justice, demand for freedom, and yearning for a future devoid of fear. The time for idle condemnation has long passed; action must be taken to end this reign of terror. Diplomatic efforts, economic sanctions, global pressure, and “carrot and stick” must be employed to hold Islamic leaders accountable for their crimes against humanity.

Silence and indifference will only embolden these tyrants, allowing them to continue their gruesome campaign of execution and suppression.

Again, the world cannot and must not turn a blind eye to the plight of Iranians. The blood spilled on its soil is a haunting reminder of the atrocities committed in the name of religion. Let us unite in the pursuit of justice, demanding an end to the merciless slaughter, and work towards a future where the innocent no longer tremble under the shadow of the Islamic regime.

It is crucial to recognize that the struggle faced by Iranians extends far beyond their borders. The Islamic Republic’s brutal tactics are a global threat. If left unchallenged, their ideology of fear and violence could spread like wildfire, engulfing nations in a dark abyss of oppression and suffering.

Iranians pledge to continue to fight for a future where no innocent person trembles at the hands of an unjust regime. Together, they will restore the light that has been dimmed by the darkness of tyranny, ensuring that Iranians can once again live in peace, harmony, and freedom.

The lives lost, the tears shed, and the cries of anguish must not be in vain. Together, we can make a difference and herald a new dawn for the brave people of Iran.

©2023. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Iran Executes Three Protesters Who Marched For Freedom

More Americans Changing Religions, Embracing Atheism

But optimistic and hopeful are those who remain.


DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) – A new survey reveals an increasing number of Americans are switching religions, and even disaffiliating from organized religion altogether. However, the dwindling population of practicing individuals remains optimistic about the future.

According to recent data from the Public Religion Research Institute, the American Catholic population has itself not been immune to a wider shift towards irreligion. The PRRI report states, “Catholics, in particular, have seen a significant shift in the number who say religion is not important in their lives.”

In the United States, the number of religious “nones,” those who disclaim any religious affiliation, has significantly increased over the decades. In 2021, the Pew Research Center reported that approximately three in ten American adults identify as nones, nearly doubling the same metric from 2007. It further reported that Americans identifying as Christian decreased from 78% in 2007 to 63% in 2021.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW INFOGRAPHIC ON 2021 ESTIMATED OF FREQUENCY OF ATTENDANCE, PRAYER FREQUENCY, AND RELIGION’S IMPORTANCE AMONG SUBGROUPS

The new PRRI study, titled “Religion and Congregations in a Time of Social and Political Upheaval,” surveyed over 6,600 adults from all 50 states.

For the one in four Americans who switched religions, the majority (56%) stated that they stopped believing in the teachings of their previous religion. Other reasons proffered for leaving their erstwhile creeds include negative teachings about the LGBT community (30%), growing up in an irreligious family (29%), scandals involving religious leaders (27%), traumatic events (18%) and excessive focus on politics by their church (17%).

Religious fervor is also waning stateside.

According to PRRI, “Today, 16% of Americans say that religion is the most important thing in their life, [and] 36% say religion is one among many important things.” But a mere 10 years ago, 20% of Americans considered religion the most important thing, and 43% regarded it as one among many important things.

Catholics, in particular, have been significantly affected by this trend. The survey highlights that among white Catholics, the percentage who consider religion unimportant doubled from 7% in 2013 to 16% in 2022. The trend is even more marked among Hispanic Catholics, with those holding religion to be unimportant rising meteorically — from 2% to 13%.

While the new survey indicates a decline in religious adherence, it also reveals that the remaining percentage of practitioners are optimistic and confident. “More than eight in ten churchgoers (82%) say they are optimistic about the future of their church,” the study reveals. It also concludes that “the rate of optimism is similar across Christian denominations.”

Across the spectrum of religious denominations, 88% of Hispanic Protestants, 86% of white evangelicals, 81% of black Protestants, 81% of Hispanic Catholics and 80% of white Catholics express optimism.

Hopeful Christians in America, although a minority, are running sharply athwart the prevailing trend of secularization. So perhaps a faithful remnant will continue animating America with the spirit of the gospel.

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

172,202 Murdered by Muslims Since Marvel’s Muslim Superhero Debuted

Marvel Wants Us to Mourn Her Fictional Death.


After ten years of failing to make their Muslim superhero popular, during which they’ve tried everything except making her compelling, Disney/Marvel just killed off Ms. Marvel in the comic books, likely in an attempt to try to make her relevant through sympathy as she will appear in an all-female movie that no one asked for, The Marvels, this November. The Ms. Marvel live action streaming show on Disney Plus is their lowest-viewed show. And Disney/Marvel only allows Muslims to write her adventures (unlike with Captain America, where they only allow anti-American leftists to write the patriot’s exploits), and dishonest Muslims at that, who are as leftist as they are Muslim. I attempted to become a watchdog for the comic book when it debuted, but I tapped out after only four issues, as it was mind-numbingly boring, and underhandedly propagandistic: Islam is good, Muslims are good, and there’s no such thing as jihad. The only reason we began to talk about Islam was jihad, and so of course the leftists at Disney/Marvel kept jihad out of their comic book, streaming series, and upcoming movie.

Marvel often boasts that their fictional world is “the world outside your window.” Well, the world outside of Marvel’s New York windows saw the atrocity of 9/11 take place, and Marvel mainly responded with crying fireman and crying cops, as if that’s what was needed in the face of evil. And they had their superheroes helping do the clean-up after the attacks, but didn’t have any of them hunt down the jihadists. If you’re going to allow the reality of 9/11 into your comic books, then you better allow at least one of your superheroes, one of the ruthless ones, to do what needs to be done, even if only in fiction.

So back to Ms. Marvel and her death, which Marvel is trying its best to create a buzz over, but the problem is that most people don’t even know about her. Also, she’s not being killed off in her own comic book, because she currently doesn’t have her own comic book. She’s being killed off in the pages of Marvel’s most popular superhero, Spider-Man, in order to try to make her appear important by association. And in a cover for an upcoming unearned tribute to Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man is on his knees, with his hands over his face, hysterically crying over the death of someone he barely knows. It’s embarrassing, but Marvel’s entire attempt to try to make her appear as a worthwhile character has been embarrassing. Based on her words and actions, no one would ever assume that she’s a Muslim. She’s Muslim the way Biden is president.

And in the ten years of her appearances across comic books, video games, cartoons, streaming shows and movies, Marvel kept her clear from doing what they now routinely do with their characters, that is, making them lock lips with someone of the same sex. I guess they thought twice about doing that because Muslims aren’t as permissive as most are about such matters.

Also, there’s another factor that may be behind this unexpected killing of a Muslim character. The Muslim Marvel editor who’s to blame for this relentlessly unpopular character is named Sana Amanat. She wears an Arafat scarf at comic book conventions. Amanat saw the gutless leftists at Marvel and made her move by pitching a Muslim superhero that she knew would not be denied, and once in, they’d never dare cancel the comic book. And so “Marvel’s First Muslim Superhero!” was born, which isn’t even true, as a British comic book writer, Grant Morrison, who tellingly declared himself a pacifist right after 9/11, created a Muslim mutant character, Dust, for the X-Men. And there likely were others before that. But since no one remembers those characters, Marvel touted its first Muslim superhero, as if having one were somehow a badge of honor. As for Amanat, as is often the case these days, whenever a non-white, non-straight employee of major companies such as Disney/Marvel acts in ways that are either scandalous or criminal, these companies never outright fire them, but quietly remove them from their positions. And that appears to be the case with Sana Amanat, who was once a reliable media whore, but who hasn’t been seen for a long time. And despite Disney/Marvel’s silence on the matter, some who claim to be insiders have said that she  violated company policies in some damning way. So maybe getting rid of the character has something to do with getting rid of Amanat.

And while I mock Disney/Marvel and its Islamophilia, and it should be mocked, there really is something sinister about what it has done here. The comic book and streaming series is enemy propaganda produced by a domestic enemy for a foreign enemy. Even though innocent people continue to be murdered around the world by Islam’s true believers, a major American entertainment company has promoted a character who shares the same ideology as the Islamic enemy.

Superheroes were once a way for cartoonists during World War II to smash our enemies, to give themselves and their readers a much-needed taste of victory over them. Can you imagine Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, instead of creating Captain America in order to fight Nazis during World War II, creating a German superhero, while completely ignoring Nazis and the Holocaust? That’s what was going on with Disney/Marvel’s ten-year run of Islamic propaganda in wartime.

AUTHOR

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

Fatwa To Commit Murder Is A Terrorist Act

Where do these Islamic clerics get their authority to make life and death pronouncements? They claim it’s from the Quran, for one. A book that was compiled some 1400 years ago by the primitive savages of Arabia and presumed as Allah’s word-for-word.

International terrorism has roots in both political and religious entities. There is no difference between a Mafia Godfather issuing a death sentence on people who do not toe his line and a turbaned Islamist who masquerades as the authorized agent of Allah to run and ruin peoples’ lives by fiat and political terrorists. All civilized people, governments, NGOs, and other international agencies, must condemn both groups.

The civilized free people of the world have paid the ultimate price far too many times in the past and are not likely to shirk their responsibility of fighting off the resurgence of the scourge of Islamism—a cult of intolerance and violence that has shed and continues to shed the blood of far too many people.

It is beyond the pale that a self-glorified cleric finds in himself the audacity to issue a death warrant for a human he has never seen, and without even a pretense of a trial.

Apostasy is a capital offense in most Islamic countries, but the execution of the apostate is not common. Yet it does take place from time to time by frequently buttressing the “crime” of apostasy with additional fabricated charges. The Islamic Republic of Iran, for instance, often adds the charge of mohareb (one who wars with Allah) to further legitimize its execution of apostates. A case in point pertains to the treatment of the religious minority Bahá’ís by the Islamic Republic. A number of Bahá’ís have been charged as apostates and mohareb and executed, with some secretly buried in unmarked graves.

It is noteworthy that Islam considers the world its ummah and does not bother with national boundaries. Hence, Islamic clerics feel free to issue fatwas and other adjudications regarding any person, group, or nation anywhere in the world. Fanatic Muslims anywhere in the world take it upon themselves to carry out fatwas issued by Islamic high divines. Other high-profile cases — the killing of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch film director, and the recent attack on the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westeraard — are instances of this barbaric, arbitrary practice, which runs counter to the civilized world’s due process and has a serious intimidating impact on the freedom of expression.

Salman Rushdie is perhaps the most celebrated person with an Islamic bounty on his head.  He has been for decades. The man was condemned to death by Ayatollah Khomeini, without the least due process, for supposedly insulting Islam’s sanctities in his book The Satanic Verses. Rushdie has been living a dreadful life for decades, mostly in hiding, hoping to elude the daggers or bullets of far too many zany Islamists who would eagerly carry out the edict of the certifiably crazed Islamic ayatollah.

Fatwas are religious rulings with wide-ranging and shocking implications. For one, not long ago, Salih bin Fawzan, “a prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, issued a fatwa proclaiming that there is no minimum age for marriage and that girls can be married even if they are in the cradle.” Why not? Didn’t Islam’s founder, Muhammad, marry six-year-old Ayesha?

Islam needs to be fully exposed for what it is, with its Godfathers de-frocked and punished if they keep issuing fatwas as binding rules for Muslims to obey and implement.

Half-hearted, perfunctory attempts by the civilized world at staying at the hands of these villains and preventing them from issuing rulings by fiat serve only to embolden these perpetrators of hatred and violence.

Free people and nations should not sacrifice their God-given liberty to please the Islamists by muzzling dissenters and even endangering their safety and their lives.

In short, there is no difference between a Mafia Godfather issuing a death sentence on people who do not toe his line and a turbaned Islamist who masquerades as the authorized agent of Allah to run and ruin peoples’ lives by fiat.

Let freedom ring. Let people sing their songs and lead their lives without death threats hanging over their heads.

No oppression of women, minorities, or freedom lovers, and no death sentences by fiat. Imams and mullahs who engage in these criminal acts must be dragged to the court of law and, after due process, given their due punishments, in the same way, that any criminal is processed by a just and civilized society.

©2023 Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

Will America Survive the Threat of Islam?

Nearly 1400 years ago, a large number of Muslim jihadists from across the scorching Arabian desert, motivated by the ideology of Islam, indoctrinated by Muhammad, unafraid of death, conquered Iran (Persia), one of the greatest, strongest and most tolerant empires known throughout the history of man. The invasion of Persia was completed five years after the death of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, though Persian resistance continued for centuries up to and including the present time. (Most Iranians consider the current Islamic regime as the continuation of 1400 years of Islamic tyranny and oppression).

The Bedouin Arabs who toppled the Sassanid Empire were propelled not only by a desire for conquest and to steal Persian jewels and treasures, but also to enslave Iranian women and children, while imposing their barbaric ideology upon the entire population. With that, they almost wiped out one of the most benevolent and ancient religions, Zoroastrianism, which is often called the mother of all revealed religions.

The political nature of Islam demanded that a conquered people not only convert to Islam but also regard its past history as a time of darkness before the light of Islam came. Today the Islamic Republic of Iran is busy purging Pre-Islamic Persian history from children’s textbooks. Islam required conquered people to scorn their own past and love their Islamic Arab conquerors by striving to imitate them. According to Islam, all history before Islam was an era of “darkness” and should be discarded. Islam is a brutal, hyper-masculine, barbarian, tribal warrior cult that glories in murder, mutilation, rape, genocide, terrorism, destruction, and anarchy.

When Arabs, a collection of backward, nomadic warrior tribes who did not even have a fully developed scripted language, conquered sophisticated cultures such as Egypt, Syria, Persia, and the Byzantine Empire, they took control over some of the world’s largest centers of accumulated knowledge. To claim that there was an “Islamic Golden Age” is like saying a group of savages storming into the world’s largest libraries, murdering all the librarians, and then claiming to have written all the books there, gives credit to this myth. Islam’s much-vaunted “Golden Age” was in fact just the twilight of conquered pre-Islamic cultures, an echo of times past. In all honesty, Islam’s trophy to human civilization is and always has been, Islamic terrorism.

The prophet of Islam motivated his rapidly growing body of followers to rally around him by proclaiming: if they are victorious, they will have the treasures of the infidels as well as their women and children as slaves to hold or sell; if the faithful kill the infidels in doing the work of Allah, a further reward awaits them in paradise; and, in the unlikely event that they are killed, they find themselves in Allah’s glorious paradise for an eternal life of joy and bliss.

The Persians underestimated the power and dedication of this newly formed Islamic ideology of hate and violence by desert dwellers. An unexpected unorthodox attack on the Persian army caused it to fall into the hands of the butchers of Islam and eventually, the culture of death prevailed and the era of Islamic terrorism began. Americans need to learn from the Persian experience and become more vigilant.

Americans must understand the history of Islam if they want to avoid the Persian experience. However, 1400 years later, a few Islamic terrorist States, flushed with petrodollars, are seeking and working hard for Islamic world domination through worldwide Islamic terrorism. They are determined to destroy everything America and the free world stand for and intend to replace it with the most barbaric ideology known as Sharia. Islam sees Christian America as a formidable enemy standing in its path of world domination. Hence, it has waged stealth jihad on Christian America. It is time to wake up and wake up fast.

In many surprising ways, America resembles the great ancient Persia. Like the ancient Persians who were the first-world managers and the most tolerant empire-builders, America, by its constitution, is also the most tolerant and benevolent nation in the world. Let us hope that America’s destiny will not end up like Persia’s.

Regretfully, reading about the Islamic religiously mandated horrific acts and even seeing them on television or the Internet may momentarily repulse, but does not terribly concern many Americans. After all, those things still are happening on the other side of the world and away from their homes, we are safe in Fortress America, so goes the thinking.

“Fortress America” is a delusion that even the events of 9/11 and the Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan massacre seems to have failed to dispel. Many prefer to believe that the assault of 9/11 was an aberration, since nothing as it has happened since, and it is unlikely that anything of the sort will ever happen again, so goes the wishful thinking. Reality portrays a vastly different picture. America is far from a fortress, given its vast wide-open borders. It is a nation of laws where all forms of freedom are enshrined in its constitution; where Americans live by a humane ethos diametrically different from those of Islamist savageries. Sadly, these differences confer great advantages to the Islamists and place America in imminent danger.

The breach of “Fortress America” from the air on 9/11 is only the first installment of many more forthcoming heinous assaults, about which we have been repeatedly warned by Muslim thugs living in caves. Unless we abandon our way of thinking, we will suffer the consequences of a dangerous complacency. We need to stop relying on the invincibility of the law-enforcement people and willingly make the sacrifices that would protect our way of life.

I have never claimed that the reported 1.5 billion Muslims are all jihadists aiming to destroy civilization and establish Muhammad’s Ummah over all of us. I certainly know that the active jihadists are a small minority. Yet, it takes a blind eye to ignore militant minorities. Did Hitler become the Chancellor of Germany because he and his gang got the majority vote in Germany? More than 65% of Germans were not supporters of Hitler and his party and viewed the Nazis as louts and worthless. Yet, we all know what this little minority did while being ignored.

What about forest fires? You cannot ignore a little smoldering fire here, a little smoldering fire there because the rest of the forest is not on fire. Only a fool will ignore these fires because they will eventually devour the forest.

The recent migration of Muslims to non-Islamic lands began as a seemingly harmless, even useful; trickle of desirable cheap needed labor. Before long, greater and greater numbers of Muslims deluged the new territories, and as they gained in numbers—by high birth rate as well as new arrivals—Muslims began reverting to their intolerant ways by, for instance, demanding legal status for Sharia (Islamic laws), the type of draconian laws that for the most part resemble those of man’s barbaric past.

Just a sobering note; mild Islamism is already here. As an example, there was the Muslim cab driver of the Minneapolis Airport and his refusal to ferry passengers with alcohol or even those with seeing-eye dogs; Muslim inmates demanding to be served only halal food, Kentucky Fried Chicken opens first halal restaurant in New York City, honor killing, Muslim students badgering universities for special facilities for their meetings, and, for the first time ever two Muslim Congressmen assuming the office by swearing on the Quran and not the Bible.

Islam need not even literally destroy the civilized world. All it needs is to gain enough power to impose its worse-than-death Sharia on everyone. If you are not up to speed with the horrors that Muslim governments and their jihadist foot soldiers commit on a daily basis, you need to open your eyes and deal with this deadly threat of Islam with much more realism.

Ignoring the smoldering fire and relying on a few local “firefighters” to keep the fires from spreading is either naive or outright criminal, but it is certainly the easiest thing to do. That’s why I have chosen to fight the fire and I am calling for help to put out Islam, the source that raises arsonists — the minority that they may be. It takes one arsonist to set a fire that a thousand firefighters will have difficulty putting out. The few Muslims who are brave enough to advocate reform of their religion are tossed out of mosques or, very likely labeled as apostates with a death warrant.

When our leaders, for instance, call Islam a great religion, they are appeasing, if not lying outright. We the people, elect our leaders and we hold them accountable to be honorable. When they are using their voice to call Islam a great religion, the most deadly threat to everything we cherish, not only do they legitimize Islamofascism, but also they infuse the rest of us with a false belief.

While people like former President Obama glorify Islam, the barbarians have made it inside our fortress. They have infiltrated our system of government. This time around, the people of the sword have their collaborator, Useful Idiots, inside busily doing all they can to dismantle our republic and replace it with worse death Islamic ideology by appeasing the enemy.

©2023 Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

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How the Apostles Spoke of the Beauty of Christ

Note: I’ve been reading for years – in great souls like Solzhenitsyn, Dostoyevsky, Ratzinger, and many others – how “beauty will save the world.”  It seems more often that it takes many of us on a joyride to Hades. But it’s a part of our tradition that Truth, Goodness, and Beauty (the three transcendentals) are the main highways to things above us. And our friend James Matthew Wilson offers an interesting exposition today on what that means. Retrieving Catholic truths like this is just one part of what we are about here at The Catholic Thing. Day by day, we have to recover and advance the fullness of what God has revealed to the world – and that the world tries to ignore or deny. We’ve been at our mid-year fundraising for one week now, and as always we’ll take Sunday off so as not to be moneychangers in the temple. But all the more reason, if you haven’t already donated, to do so today. Many of you have signed up for automatic monthly payments, which is a great way to help with our work if you can’t make a larger one-time gift. You’ll find all that, with simple explanations, by just clicking the button. Life is beautiful, and so is the work both writers and readers are doing here. Let’s make sure we all do our part in affirming the Beauty that saves the world. – Robert Royal


James Matthew Wilson: The form Christ fulfills the “form” of time, space, and our interior yearnings for wholeness. It’s as if there were a pattern with a part missing. 

One of the most frequently quoted passages from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s many writings is his famous assertion that the “only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.” The beauty of holiness and the beauty of art are not mere ornaments but the strongest argument for what the Church teaches.

So, for all of the Church’s formidable intellectual achievements, including its great synthesis of classical philosophy and divine revelation in her theology, could it really be that the saints and works of art alone are truly “effective”? Does beauty move human beings in a way that truth alone cannot?

Ratzinger answered this question in his 2002 address to the members of Communion and Liberation, stating, “All too often arguments fall on deaf ears because in our world too many contradictory arguments compete with one another, so much so that we are spontaneously reminded of the medieval theologians’ description of reason, that it ‘has a wax nose’: in other words, it can be pointed in any direction, if one is clever enough.” In contrast with the arguments of reason, Ratzinger continues, “the encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart.”

Perhaps, however, the distinction between art and argument, between beauty and truth, is not so categorical as these passages, quoted out of context, suggest. From the very beginning, the Apostles indicated as much. In the Acts of the Apostles, we find examples of how the first Christians learned to speak about what had been revealed to them in Christ – and their several ways are striking.

Early in Acts, indeed on the day of Pentecost, Peter steps out to address Jews “from every nation” who have come to the city of Jerusalem. Peter quotes to them the prophet Joel, who proclaimed that God would pour out his Spirit so that “your sons and daughters shall see visions, / and your old men shall dream dreams.” He cites David on the promise of the Holy One who will not “see corruption.” This “Jesus. . .you crucified and killed” is the Holy One who has been “raised up,” and the Apostles have now received the Holy Spirit.

Peter shows, in other words, that Christ and the Church are the fulfillment of the prophets’ words. In a subsequent address, he argues for Jesus as the “Holy and Righteous one” promised by “the God of our fathers,” of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Peter’s addresses are but a foretaste of how Stephen, when arrested, will speak to the high priest. Stephen retells the whole history of the Jews, from Abraham to Moses, from the flight out of Egypt and the journey to the Promised Land. He shows that the Jews have always persecuted their prophets, Moses included, and that, by implication, Jesus is the new Moses and his fulfillment, who has now been “betrayed and murdered.”

After his conversion, Paul preaches in the synagogue and offers a similar history. He recalls the priest and prophet, Samuel, and the kings, Saul and David, before he shows that Jesus is the Holy One whom God has promised and resurrected, and who fulfills at once the roles of priest, prophet, and king.

In all these cases, the apostles appeal to their Jewish audience’s knowledge of salvation history to argue for Christ as the promised Son of God.

Something very different happens, though, when Paul addresses the loquacious, curious, and “very religious” men of Athens. He tells them Christ is the “unknown god” whom their philosophical desires seek. He quotes a Greek poet to show that the God of Jesus Christ is the one in whom “we live and move and have our being.” He appeals not to Christ as the fulfillment of history, but as the cause and logos of the cosmos, the whole world order.

Paul never repeats this argument to the Athenians, however, the way he and Stephen repeat Peter’s historical appeal to the prophets. When we next hear Paul preach, it is as a “witness.” He bears witness to the power of Christ to transform a life – his life. For, he was one who “persecuted the Way,” as he calls Christianity. Christ threw him to the ground and blinded him, and through his baptism at the hands of Ananias, he regained his sight, received forgiveness of sins, and now gives his life to Christ.

Paul bears “witness” a second time when he is brought before Agrippa and Bernice. Once again, he speaks of his devotion as a Pharisee, which led him to oppose Jesus, and repeats the story of his conversion on the road to Damascus.

In some respects, these three kinds of preaching could not be more different. One appeals to the Jews’ knowledge of their scriptures and sacred history and holds Jesus as their fulfillment. The speech to the Athenians appeals to the laws of the cosmos, the order of reality, gleaned through wisdom and metaphysics. Both of these argue from general truths, as it were, the truths of history and the truths of being. Paul’s bearing witness at his conversion may seem, by comparison, no argument at all. He merely confesses the great transformation that has been wrought in him by Christ’s word, power, and spirit.

All three, however, are arguments from beauty, at least as the classical and Christian world understood that word. For the beautiful was the term used for the wonder and delight born in us, when we see how parts fit together to make a whole when we see the orderliness, coherence, and inner meaning of things in a unified vision.

The Jews hear of the beauty of history, where the present makes sense of and fulfills the past. The Athenians hear of Christ as the logos, the principle of order that causes all things to be and to seek their highest good. Paul’s argument is an appeal to moral or ethical beauty, which was the most celebrated kind in the Hellenistic world in which he lived, for even the most skeptical ancient people still desired their lives to be full, that is to say, to become things of beauty or “glory.”

When we take them together, we see that the form of Christ fulfills the “form” of time, space, and our interior yearnings for wholeness. It’s as if there were a pattern with a part missing, whose shape we could discern, but now we see it fitted into place. They are all arguments for the truth. But they do not seek to convince their audience of the truth by proving a mere fact of is or is not, however. Rather, they show to the eye of the mind a more comprehensive order, an order we may eventually understand as truth, but which we at first see, and finally come to adore, as a revelation of beauty.

You may also enjoy:

Eduardo J. Echeverria’s Pauline Freedom According to Aquinas

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AUTHOR

James Matthew Wilson

James Matthew Wilson has published ten books, including, most recently, The Strangeness of the Good (Angelico) and The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition (CUA). Professor of Humanities and Director of the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Saint Thomas (Houston), he also serves as poet-in-residence for the Benedict XVI Institute, poetry editor for Modern Age magazine, and as series editor for Colosseum Books, from the Franciscan University at Steubenville Press. His Amazon page is here.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Americans’ ‘Health May be Undermined’ by Not Going to Church: Surgeon General

In a recent official government report, the Biden administration has warned that Americans’ “health may be undermined” due to their “decline in participation” in church services and other religious activities.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued the first-ever government advisory on the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” earlier this month, calling persistent isolation an “urgent public health issue” that impacts the physical and mental health of millions. “Research shows that loneliness and isolation are associated with a greater risk of heart disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death,” says Murthy in an online video released to coincide with the report.

Loneliness is as bad for individuals as smoking 15 cigarettes a day — a pack-and-a-half daily habit — and harms physical health “even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity,” the report notes.

Unfortunately, Murthy writes, Americans have become disconnected from one of the institutions that can forge deep and permanent social connections: church attendance. “Religious or faith-based groups can be a source for regular social contact, serve as a community of support, provide meaning and purpose, create a sense of belonging around shared values and beliefs, and are associated with reduced risk-taking behaviors,” Murthy writes. “As a consequence of this decline in participation, individuals’ health may be undermined in different ways.”

“Membership in organizations that have been important pillars of community connection have declined significantly,” including “faith organizations,” writes Murthy. “In 2020, only 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue, or mosque. This is down from 70% in 1999 and represents a dip below 50% for the first time in the history of the survey question.”

Experts have known about the fraying web of meaningful personal relationships for decades. For instance, the percentage of American men who said they have no close friends had increased 500% between 1990 and 2021. But a persistent sense of abandonment reached societal proportions during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Church attendance and health issues have an inverse relationship, according to multiple studies, including a new report released by evangelical pollster George Barna.

The percentage of millennials who attended a church worship service, either in-person or online, dropped by seven percentage points over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, says the study from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University (ACU), where Barna is director of research.

The retreat from faith has devastated young people, Barna told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” recently.

Separate ACU polls found that 75% of millennials “say, ‘I don’t know why I should get out of bed in the morning,’” said Barna. A majority “admit that every day they’re struggling with mental health issues, severe depression, anxiety, fear,” and “the highest suicide rate of any generation we’ve ever seen.”

That’s roughly the percentage of millennials who do not attend religious services: Only 28% take part in services in any way.

Conversely, Americans who believe in God and value marriage are more likely to be “very happy” than isolated secularists, according to a Wall Street Journal-NORC poll taken in March.

Young adults’ isolation persists despite the fact that millennials desperately yearn for meaningful social interactions at a core level. “They believe that relationships are vitally important. They want to be connected. They want to belong. They want to be part of a community,” Barna told Perkins. “But they say it’s not working. It’s not happening.”

In part, Americans became disconnected from churches because of the churches — and government policies shutting down churches while allowing marijuana dispensaries to remain open.

“The last three years have been a time of high anxiety for tens of millions of adults. It was an ideal time for the Christian church to provide wise guidance and emotional calm. Unfortunately, most churches agreed to the government’s dictate that they close their doors and remain mostly silent,” says Barna in a statement accompanying the ACU’s research.

“Obviously, that has not worked out so well,” Barna observes.

Millennials were not the only demographic to give up congregational worship. Generation X saw their church attendance fall 13 points, from 41% to 28%. Although 53% of the oldest American generation attends church, that’s a three-point drop from 2020. Only Baby Boomers became “more likely now than they were before COVID-19 to read the Bible, praise and worship God, seek and do God’s will, and attend church services,” says the report.

During the pandemic, “every generation turns to their worldview to navigate the challenges,” says Barna. “As a nation, we may be past the danger of COVID-19, but we’re in the thick of the danger brought about by people relying upon syncretism as their dominant worldview. Biblical churches must see this as a time for an urgent response to the direction society is taking.”

The surgeon general is not the first to find that frequenting a church increases longevity and improves overall health. “[A]ttendance at religious services had a dose-response relationship with mortality, such that respondents who attended frequently had a 40% lower hazard of mortality,” wrote researchers at Emory University in a 2017 research paper.

The correlation between a strong faith and psychological well-being is well-attested by social science. “Young-adult Gen-Xers in the strongly religious class across the three measurements generally reported better mental health when they reached established adulthood than those in the nonreligious class,” reported a 2022 study by a team of analysts from Syracuse University. “Findings suggest that religiosity may serve as an important resource for mental health in the transition to established adulthood.”

Barna says this is a perfect time for the church to proclaim the Christian message, for Americans’ spiritual and physical health. The Bible encourages deep connections to fellow believers across the boundaries of time, space, and culture. Scriptural anthropology begins with the observation that “it is not good that man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). The New Testament exhorts Christians to “consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some” (Hebrews 10:24-25).

“While the Left pursues the Great Reset, it is time for the Church to pursue the Great Renewal — leading people’s hearts, minds, and souls back to God and His life principles,” wrote Barna.

The full section of the surgeon general’s report reads:

Membership in organizations that have been important pillars of community connection have declined significantly in this time. Take faith organizations, for example. Research produced by Gallup, Pew Research Center, and the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey demonstrates that since the 1970s, religious preference, affiliation, and participation among U.S. adults have declined. In 2020, only 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue, or mosque. This is down from 70% in 1999 and represents a dip below 50% for the first time in the history of the survey question. Religious or faith-based groups can be a source for regular social contact, serve as a community of support, provide meaning and purpose, create a sense of belonging around shared values and beliefs, and are associated with reduced risk-taking behaviors. As a consequence of this decline in participation, individuals’ health may be undermined in different ways.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The Bible and the Coronation

Millions worldwide tuned into the coronation of King Charles III at Westminster Abbey on Saturday.

The full name of Westminster Abbey, where kings and queens of England have been crowned since 1066, is the Collegiate Church of St. Peters at Westminster.

When St. Paul’s Cathedral was built in the 1600s, they ran out of funds. So bells were taken from St. Peter’s and given to St. Paul’s, and thus  reportedly was born the phrase, “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

The important aspect of the coronation is how much the Christian faith is infused in the ceremony.  For example, the anointing by oil goes back to the Bible. The kings were anointed, in the same way that King David and King Solomon were anointed by oil.

As Charles was anointed Saturday behind discreet screens, the choir beautifully sang a number by George Friedrich Handel, “Zadok the Priest” (1727), celebrating Solomon’s anointing as king 3000 years ago. Interestingly, Handel is buried and memorialized with a statue in that very building.

The ultimate “anointed one” is Jesus Christ. Even His title, Christ, is derived from the Greek, and it means “Anointed One.” When He was baptized by John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit came upon Him, and thus He was anointed. Later He was anointed for His soon-to-come burial by Mary, the sister of Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.

After His death on behalf of sinners, His burial, and His resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven, and He sits at the right hand of God. Even now He intercedes for His people. One day He will return and will be recognized by all for what He truly is—the King of kings and Lord of lords.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury noted in his sermon for the coronation ceremony, the crown Jesus wore when He was on earth was one made of thorns.

But now Jesus wears a crown of gold. By Him, kings on earth rule. They rule in His place. They are vice-regents for the King of kings. In fact, King Charles was handed a reminder of that fact, the Sovereign’s Orb, on Saturday.

The orb (created in 1661) is one of the crown jewels, a golden ball symbolizing the earth, with a jeweled cross of Jesus atop it. The monarch rules, in principle, on behalf of Christ the King.

In America, we decidedly traded in a monarchy for the Constitution. “We the people” are the ones, theoretically, with the power in this country. We rule through our elected representatives. Yet the principle of rule under God remains.

The Constitution was ratified in 1788. It went into effect on April 30, 1789 in New York City (then the capital of the United States).

George Washington was sworn in on the Holy Bible and gave the standard oath (in the Anglican tradition) “So help me God.” He even leaned over and kissed the Bible. Dr. D. James Kennedy, once remarked, “Why, that’s enough to give the ACLU apoplexy.”

Then, Washington led the new government, including the cabinet members and House members and senators and their wives over to St. Paul’s Chapel, which still stands today. Even now, George Washington’s pew remains in that church, which is near Wall Street.

Then they participated in a two hour service of Christian prayer and celebrated the Lord’s Table. Eyewitnesses say the president received communion.

Soon after this, the Congress asked George Washington to declare a Day of Thanksgiving as a nation to thank the Lord for the freedom we enjoyed to peaceably create our own system of government under God. He complied.

On October 3, 1789, Washington issued our first national day of Thanksgiving as a new nation under the Constitution. He began, “Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon Almighty God.”

In that document, he encouraged the new nation to offer “supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions.” Here is a petition for forgiveness of sins from Jesus, who is described in Revelation 12 as the one “to rule all nations.”

A lot of people on either side of the Atlantic are quick to discount any of the pageantry celebrating “God and country” as in the coronation of King Charles III or the inauguration of George Washington.

But those who put together the substance of these various services demonstrate a greater understanding of the need to humbly serve the Lord God, in whatever station of life He has placed us, with whatever tasks He has set before us. This is something that Peter and Paul and Christians throughout the ages have recognized, and we forget it to our peril.

As God’s Wisdom personified in Proverbs 8 declares, “By me, kings reign.”

©2023 Dr. Jerry Newcombe, D. Minn. All rights reserved.