Mob Takes Over NYC Park, Creates an ‘Autonomous Zone for Palestine’ Banning Cops, Jews, ‘No Pigs’ & ‘No Zionists’

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A new “autonomous zone for palestine” has been set up by left wing activists in New York City.

This time on behalf of the Palestinian-Hamas movement in Zucotti Park.

The zone, which commandeers public property, boasts signs like “this is the people’s park,” “no more cops,” “no pigs allowed” and much more (Townhall).

Demands:

  • Liberation of Palestine
  • NYPD funds redistribution to community
  • No cops on MTA
  • Mayor to resign
  • Empty buildings to be used for migrants

This is public property. Bulldoze the bastards. This is against the law. Why allow this? It will only grow.

Visgrad 24: An “Autonomous Zone for Palestine” was set up today in Zucotti Park (Manhattan). Demands: Liberation of Palestine, NYPD funds redistribution to community, No cops on MTA, Mayor to resign, and Empty buildings to be used for migrants (X).

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Oct 7th Coming to the USA?

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

$1 Million Dollar Challenge to Replicate the Shroud of Turin

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The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the cornerstone of historic Christianity. But is there scientific evidence it really happened? Some scholars believe that yes, there is and it’s in a cathedral in Turin, Italy.

The Shroud of Turin, a linen cloth 14 feet by 3 feet, contains the image of a man who was badly scourged, was crucified, wore a crown of thorns, and was stabbed in the chest with a Roman lance. Of course, all of these wounds fit what the Bible says happened to Jesus. Is the Shroud of Turin Jesus’ actual “clean linen shroud” given to Him in death by Joseph of Arimathea?

The word in Greek for shroud is sindon. There are many scientists who specialize in sindonology, which means study of the Shroud of Turin. Scientists such as physicist John Jackson, Ph.D. of Colorado Springs or the late biophysicist Dr. John Heller, author of the seminal book, Report on the Shroud of Turin.

The late Alan Whanger, M.D. of Duke Medical Center, once told me: “The Shroud is the most intensely studied single object in existence. There are probably 67 different fields of scientific and academic interests that have looked into the Shroud in one way in another.” He also said, “it provides scientific proof that something so extraordinary happened that there doesn’t seem to be anything else in human history that would fit.”

The Shroud was dismissed by some as a fake because of the carbon-dating in 1988 of a single specimen (divided into three tiny parts). They claimed the specimens dated to around 1260-1390. But critics of that particular test say that the sample chosen came from a rewoven (and dyed) part of the Shroud, which was often displayed during the Middle Ages.

Meanwhile, in February 2024 in Washington, D.C., there was a press conference at which British film-maker David Rolfe issued a million-dollar challenge: Make an accurate replica of the Shroud with the means available to a supposed Medieval forger, and you can win a million dollars. (The deadline is May 31).

Recently, I did a radio interview with Rolfe, who made such great documentaries as “The Silent Witness.”

Consider these facts. The Shroud is the most scientifically studied artifact in the world. That includes the 40 space age scientists who had round-the-clock access to the Shroud for five days in 1978. This group was known as “STURP,” The Shroud of Turin Research Project.

Some of them thought they would prove this thing to be a fake within 10 minutes. But they soon learned how wrong that assumption was.

A few years later, they sent out an official summary of their conclusions: “We can conclude for now that the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist.” [emphasis added]

We know where the Shroud has been since 1357, when it showed up in the household of a French crusader. Consider these facts:

  • The human anatomy represented on the Shroud is 100% accurate—far ahead of what they knew back in 1357.
  • The Shroud’s image is a photographic negative—that’s 500 years before photography was developed.
  • The faint image on the Shroud was not painted on. It was somehow lightly burned on. Shroud-film-maker David Rolfe told me that the image was produced by “an unbelievable amount of energy in an infinitesimally small amount of time” (40-billionth of a second).
  • The blood on the Shroud is real human blood—with all the wounds corresponding with the passion of Jesus in the Gospels. The blood type was relatively rare—AB+. The blood did not see decay—meaning, He was sandwiched inside that cloth for about 36 hours. Yet the blood was undisturbed, which means He somehow went through the cloth (or dematerialized within the cloth). It was not yanked off Him.
  • The image of the Shroud is three-dimensional. Paintings and pictures don’t have that property.

And on and on it goes.

Long ago, author Marc Antonacci noted in his book, The Resurrection of the Shroud (2001), that if a Medieval artist put the Shroud together, he “would have had to have a knowledge of light negativity, light spectrometry, microscopy, radiology, human physiology, pathology, hematology, endocrinology, forensics, and archaeology.” (pp. 8-9)

In the colonial days, there was a common practice in the Anglican churches to display the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments in large words. This panel on the walls is called a reredos. Of course, included in the creed is that Jesus rose from the dead.

In my view, the more you study about the Shroud, the more you realize, Wow, this is a scientific reminder of the fact that Jesus is risen. “He is risen indeed.”

For this piece, special thanks go to columnist Myra Kahn Adams

©2024. Jerry Newcombe, D. Min. All rights reserved.

Houthi-Controlled Research Center Publishes Report Identifying U.S. Military Bases In 14 Countries Across The Middle East And Africa

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Houthi-Controlled Research Center Publishes Report Identifying U.S. Military Bases In 14 Countries Across The Middle East And Africa: ‘Every American Military Deployment In The Region Is A Source Of Threat And A Defensive Military Target For The Yemeni Armed Forces’

The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

On March 29, 2024, the Saba News Agency’s Center for Research and Information, a Houthi-controlled broadcaster, published a research paper identifying American military bases in 14 countries around Yemen, including in the Middle East and Africa.[1]

The report was titled: “American Military Threats to the Yemeni Republic: Military Bases in the Areas of the ‘Central Command’ and the “Africa Command.'” It was authored by Anas Al-Qadi, a Sana’a-based Yemeni researcher.

The report opened: “The American aggression against Yemen has become a reality. Every American military deployment in the region is a source of threat to the Republic of Yemen and its people, and a defensive military target for the [Yemeni] Armed Forces, which are committed to the right of retaliation and self-defense in accordance with international conventions and national legislation.”

The 28-page report tapped open-source information to map the American military presence in and around Yemen. It detailed the names and locations of U.S. military installations in 14 countries, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Djibouti, the Seychelles, and Somalia. It also estimated the number of American soldiers based in each country, as well as the weaponry stationed at each installation.

Additionally, the report recounted American military involvement in Yemen from 2016-2024, casting the reported presence of American forces in the country as “colonial,” “hegemonic,” and “threatening.”

The full text of this post is available to subscribers.

Please login or register to request subscription information from MEMRI

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

General: Afghanistan Withdrawal Enhanced New Terror Threat to America

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Resurgent Islamist terrorism poses a threat to the U.S. homeland, experts warned after a deadly attack in Moscow. “The deadly attack … has raised concerns that the terrorist group could potentially move to carrying out attacks in Europe and even here in the United States,” Family Research Council Action President Jody Hice summarized on “Washington Watch” Monday.

On March 22, terrorists armed with rifles, pistols, and knives opened fire at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow and lit fires that caused the roof to collapse, killing more than 100 concertgoers and injuring more than 500. Russian authorities have charged four men from Tajikistan with terrorism in the attack, for which the Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) has taken credit.

General Erik Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, recently warned that ISIS-K “retains the capability and the will to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little to no warning.”

ISIS-K’s Rapid Expansion

ISIS-K “morphed from a series of radical groups that were in eastern Syria [and] northern Iraq years ago, during the Obama administration,” Lt. Col. (Ret.) Robert Maginnis explained on “Washington Watch” Monday. During the Trump administration, a U.S.-led coalition dismantled the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but not before its radical jihadis “spread elsewhere in the Middle East all the way to Afghanistan,” said Maginnis. Additionally, “they have tentacles not only in Central Asia, but all the way to northern and central Africa.”

The ISIS offshoot is “as radical an Islamic group as we’ve ever seen,” Maginnis described, to the point that they target other Islamists for their alleged compromises. Not only is ISIS-K “in contest with al-Qaeda and the Taliban,” as Maginnis said, but they have also attacked neighboring Muslim countries. In 2023, ISIS-K killed more than 60 people by bombing a political rally in Pakistan, and two ISIS-K suicide bombers killed 90 and injured more than 200 Iranians in January.

“They’ve got tentacles located in places like Tajikistan to the north … where the four suspects that were involved in the Moscow attack on the 22nd of March came from,” Maginnis continued. “One of the reasons I suspect they went after the Muscovites was because of the Chechnya battle that claimed tens of thousands of Muslim lives in 1990, but also because of the history of the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.”

ISIS-K’s Deadly Tactics

From suicide bombings and assassinations directed primarily at the Taliban, ISIS-K “has grown more ambitious and aggressive,” according to Clemson University professor Amira Jadoon, launching an international, “multilingual propaganda campaign and expanding the types of attacks it conducts.” The Moscow terror attack is among ISIS-K’s deadliest and most hazardous operations to date.

“They’re a very vicious group of people, very radicalized with their radical version of Islamic faith,” Maginnis noted. “They’ve always had, like al-Qaeda, an interest in using weapons of mass destruction (WMD): chemical, biological, radiological instruments. … These things are very, very serious.”

Maginnis added that ISIS-K “would do everything they can to come to this country.” Even if they couldn’t bring a WMD to the U.S., he suggested they might “attack a nuclear facility, or they would let off some sort of bomb near a chemical site that would have a mass casualty impact.”

U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Terror attacks perpetrated by ISIS-K have already resulted in the deaths of American citizens. This group was responsible for the 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, which resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers, among nearly 200 casualties. That terror attack occurred amid the chaos of America’s precipitous withdrawal from the country.

In fact, Maginnis said the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan is one reason why ISIS-K has expanded its reach. “With our departure, they had not only more equipment that the Taliban didn’t claim, but also more freedom of navigation,” he said.

General Frank McKenzie, former head of U.S. Central Command, offered a substantially similar analysis Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “The threat is growing. It began to grow as soon as we left Afghanistan and took pressure off ISIS-K,” he warned. “We should expect further attempts of this nature against the United States as well as our partners and other nations abroad.”

U.S. Vulnerability to Attack

To Maginnis, this expectation of a radical Islamist terror attack heightens the urgency of securing the southern border. “With the open southern border, we’ve had many, many people that have crossed over that don’t have our best interests in mind,” he said. Even more concerning, many illegal border crossers evaded capture, leaving U.S. authorities “totally clueless on who they are, what their intentions are,” Hice added. “You would think those who sneak in … [are] probably here for nefarious reasons.”

ISIS-K “has a strong desire to attack our homeland. We should believe them when they say that they’re going to try to do it,” McKenzie declared. Maginnis agreed. “They would like to attack the ‘Great Satan,’ the United States, and will do everything possible to do that.”

Maginnis predicted that “there will be an effort by ISIS-K, which likely already has a number of its terrorists deeply embedded in the United States.” These terrorists “would like to use any mechanism of terror that they could,” he concluded. “There’s no doubt we’re vulnerable.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

A Sermon by Schuler

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“There is always light in the Crystal Cathedral.” — Robert H. Schuller

Robert H. Schuller’s Final Sermon from the Crystal Cathedral:

With these words, Reverend Schuler began his sermons every Sunday in 2003.

Reverend Schuler had become the most important Christian leader, after the pope. He was different, for he was an original American.

“Don’t listen to voices in your head that tell you to commit sin”, Schuler always warned his audience.

The sermon was always very heavy stuff and therefor it was frequently interrupted by a Gospel choir.

Schuler always avoided political topics. He knew that politics would divide the audience. He spoke often about people with marriage problems.

He always prayed for the common people of America and expressed hope that their lives would improve. This got him in trouble with the government.

The sermons always ended with music again. Everyone left the Crystal Cathedral in tears.

Reverend Schuler his sermons in 2003 were called: “The Hour of Power.”

©2024. Matthys van Raalten. All rights reserved.

Florida Supreme Court Approves Pro-Life Law, But Sets the Stage for Abortion Showdown in November

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After being thoroughly remade by a popular Republican governor, the Supreme Court in one of the nation’s largest states has upheld a protective pro-life law which allows an even stronger protection to take effect. But the court also authorized a ballot initiative that could erase nearly all pro-life laws in America’s third most populous state.

In a near-unanimous (6-1) ruling, the Florida Supreme Court approved a bill prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks gestation. The Reducing Fetal and Infant Mortality Act “protects babies in the womb who have beating hearts, who can move, who can taste, who can see, and who can feel pain,” said Governor Ron DeSantis (R), who appointed five of the seven sitting justices, when he signed the bill in April 2022. The ruling also paves the way for a more protective pro-life law, which extends human rights to six weeks post-gestation, to take effect next month.

“Good news for life!” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “This ruling by the Florida Supreme Court upholds the state’s 15-week protection of unborn life and allows the state’s new heartbeat law — protecting unborn babies at six weeks — to go into effect in May.”

However, a narrower, 4-3 majority allowed a coalition of abortionists and their lobbyists to put forward a measure, Proposition 4, which would insert a constitutional right to virtually unlimited, late-term abortion in the state constitution. The court also authorized a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use.

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel called the ruling the “culmination of 35 years of work.” Staver, who has argued before the court, told “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice that the issue began with a 1989 ruling when “the activist liberal Florida Supreme Court at that time twisted this 1980 constitutional amendment that had nothing to do with abortion, but was about the privacy of your documents, to apply to abortion.”

In the case — Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida v. State of Florida — the majority ruled that Florida’s Supreme Court had wrongly interpreted the word “privacy” in an unrelated statute through the lens of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which has since been overturned. The 1989 Supreme Court decision “associated the language of the Privacy Clause with Roe’s understanding of privacy; but it did not justify how that concept of privacy aligned with our constitution’s text,” the court ruled Monday. The earlier court “also did not ask how Florida voters would have understood the text of the provision and how that understanding would be informed by Florida’s long history of proscribing abortion.”

The decision removes a roadblock to the Heartbeat Protection Act, signed by DeSantis last April, which protects unborn children from abortion the moment a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat, usually around six weeks. Legislators, noting the legal action over the 2022 law, included a provision in the heartbeat bill that it would not take effect until one month after justices upheld the less protective law. The Heartbeat Protection Act will take effect on May 1.

Pro-life leaders sounded notes of hope, mixed with trepidation, over the two abortion decisions. “We are pleased that Florida’s laws protecting preborn children were upheld. However, the court is allowing an extreme and detrimental ballot measure to move forward,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee. “Florida has made tremendous advances in protecting innocent human life and providing support for mothers. This ballot initiative would destroy Floridians’ hard work in creating a culture that supports and protects life.”

“Today’s victory for unborn children who have a heartbeat and can feel pain is in line with the views of the majority of Floridians who want to protect babies and serve mothers and families,” said SBA Pro-Life America State Policy Director Katie Daniel, in a statement emailed to The Washington Stand. “As Florida faces what may be its biggest ballot fight yet, Governor Ron DeSantis must be at the forefront of protecting Florida from Big Abortion’s attempt to eliminate the rights of unborn children, parents, women, and girls” and “lead in defending those protections,” Daniel told TWS.

Proposition 4

In a second ruling, justices also approved the language of a ballot initiative that would expand late-term abortion. The amendment is supported by “Floridians Protecting Freedom,” who describes itself as a coalition of “over 200 local, statewide, and national organizations” but lists just six groups, including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the 1199 Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Proposition 4 states: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

Opponents say the language is “misleading” and unconstitutionally vague. For instance, Staver noted on “Washington Watch” that the term “healthcare provider” encompasses “about 58 different categories, which includes non-medical personnel such as a 911 operator, a massage therapist, an orthotic shoe fitter, the assistant to the orthotic shoe fitter, a tattoo artist, and the list goes on.”

The inclusion of an exception for the patient’s “health” builds on the precedent established in the 1973 Supreme Court case Doe v. Bolton, allowing an abortion for virtually any reason, including mental and financial reasons. “Really, no abortion would be prohibited through all nine months of pregnancy up to and including birth if this passes,” Staver told Hice.

In a powerful dissent, Justice Jamie Grosshans wrote:

“A voter may think this amendment simply returns Florida to a pre-Dobbs status quo. It does not. A voter may think that a healthcare provider would be clearly defined as a licensed physician specializing in women’s health. It is not. A voter may think that viability falls within a readily apparent time frame. It does not. A voter may think that the comma is an insignificant grammatical tool that would have very little interpretive purpose. It will not. And, critically, the voter may think this amendment results in settling this issue once and for all. It does not. Instead, this amendment returns abortion issues back to the courts to interpret scope, boundary, definitions, and policy, effectively removing it from the people and their elected representatives. Perhaps this is a choice that Floridians wish to make, but it should be done with clarity as to their vote’s ramifications and not based on a misleading ballot summary.”

“I presented part of the oral argument at the court, and the chief justice really got the concern nailed down. He said the voters aren’t being informed that this law can impact other existing laws that recognize the humanity of the unborn child, laws that are criminal, civil wills and trusts, guardianship laws,” Staver told Hice.

Pro-life advocates have dug in for a long fight against the amendment. “We must oppose Proposition 4. Not only will this measure bring dangerous late-term abortions back to Florida, but it will allow girls who aren’t old enough to get their ears pierced on their own get an abortion without” parental consent, said Daniel.

“In a state where 25% of abortion centers failed inspections, it’s no surprise they want to be completely unregulated to increase their profits at the expense of women, girls, and babies,” Daniel, a Tampa resident, told TWS. “Those girls and the women who have abortions will be put at risk when this measure eliminates every abortion health regulation on the books.”

Democrats seized upon the two Supreme Court rulings to tout their viability in November. Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, believed the rulings gave the president and his party an “opening” in the increasingly Republican state. Christina Reynolds, senior vice president of communications for EMILY’s List, said although “we’ve had our heart broken before” in Florida, she hopes the ballot initiative “draws some focus to Florida that might otherwise not be there.”

All parties acknowledge it would be difficult to defeat President Trump, who lives in his 17-acre Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. And Republicans have determined not to back down from abortion as a campaign issue in 2024.

The ballot initiative will prove an uphill fight, especially as many party leaders have devoted little money to opposing the well-funded abortion industry’s expansion in a string of state elections. Staver said the “silver lining” in the Proposition 4 ruling is “we could bring another challenge to have the court rule on the personhood of the child based upon the Florida constitution itself.”

But in the meantime, pro-life advocates rejoice over the collective impact Governor DeSantis’s political and judicial decisions will have on the unborn.

“Thousands of lives will be saved by this law,” said Live Action founder Lila Rose.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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 War Against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

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A small group of American Jews who bill themselves as having “varying perspectives,” have signed a statement opposing AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

The group has vowed to oppose any candidate endorsed by AIPAC in the upcoming elections.

Ironically, these Jews claim that AIPAC doesn’t speak for the Jewish people. In truth, the views of the vast majority of American Jews are aligned with those of AIPAC, while the signatories to this statement mainly represent a fringe group of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist voices in the American Jewish world.

Nowhere in the statement is there a condemnation of Hamas. Rather, in Orwellian duplicitous language, this group claims they are advocates “for peace and a new, just US policy toward Israel/Palestine.”

They fail to elaborate on how peace would come about when negotiating with a genocidal terrorist organization whose stated mission is not only to kill every Jew in Israel but also every Jew on the planet.

STRATEGIC MOVE

This statement appears to be a strategic move by a network of Jewish anti-Israel activists, many of whom have a long history of anti-Israel activism within the media and academia.

Their aim is to drive a wedge not only between the longstanding alliance of Israel and the United States, but also between American Jews and Israel, the majority of whom support Israel, its right to self-defense and the mutually beneficial relationship between America and Israel.

It is not surprising that many of the signatories of the anti-AIPAC statement have profiles on Canary Mission for their extremist views which often involve promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and spreading outright lies about Israel.

Signatories on Canary Mission who signed the anti-AIPAC statement include:

Simone Zimmerman

Simone Zimmerman was suspended from her position as the Jewish outreach coordinator for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, in 2016. Zimmerman co-founded the anti-Israel group IfNotNow.

Sarah Schulman

Sarah Schulman spread anti-Semitism, expressed support for terrorists and spread hatred of Israel. She was also on the advisory board for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) since 2010.

Rebecca Vilkomerson

Rebecca Vilkomerson, in her capacity as executive director of the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization, has been arrested for trespassing at the offices of the Friends of Israel Defense.

Naomi Dann

Naomi Dann has demonized Israel, endorsed violent protests, spread incitement and was arrested at an anti-Israel protest. Dann is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Brant Rosen

In 2010, Brant Rosen founded and became co-chair of the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). He is involved with the group’s chapter at the University of Chicago (JVP UChicago).

Alissa Wise

Alissa Shira Wise has expressed support for terrorists, spread incitement, harassed a Philadelphia-based philanthropist and demonized a Jewish organization. Wise has also whitewashed anti-Semitism, endorsed anti-Israel agitators, demonized Israel and engaged in anti-Israel activism.

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

WATCH: Biden Regime Blames Trump For Biden’s Illegal Immigration Border Invasion

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Immigration under President Trump was at it lowest in decades. From day one, the Biden regime undid all of Trump’s immigration policies.

The Democrats are flying them in. Half a million.

DOOCY: “Most of the border crossers accused of beating up Texas National Guardsmen in a riot last month were released on their own recognizance Sunday. How does that make people in this country any safer?”

KJP: “So, I have to refer you to Department of Justice and DHS on that particular reporting. I will say this: As the event unfolded, the Border Patrol was able to act quickly and get the situation under control and apprehend the migrants and we were grateful that the Border Patrol was able to do their job. Look, there is a challenge at the border, right? Our immigration system has been broken for decades before — even before this President became President, obviously, three years — more than three years ago. And this President, a couple of months ago, worked with the Senate in a bipartisan fashion to get a negotiation done — right — and what we saw is from the last President — President Trump told Republicans in Congress not to move forward with this negotiation, this agreed negotiation, this agreed plan disagreed proposal because it would help Joe Biden. That’s what was reported by some of you and we can actually deal with this. We could actually deal with what we’re seeing and because they didn’t move forward — right — because we didn’t move forward with this proposal because of the last President and because they — he — they put politics ahead of the American people, we are seeing chaos. And so, we want to get this done. We did. We worked with Congress to get this done to deal with the challenges at the border. President Trump got in the way and because President Trump got in the way Republicans are now getting in the way.”

WATCH:

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

Facebook (Meta) Goes Jihad: Board Moves To Allow Users To Glorify Islamic Terrorists as Martyrs in Accordance With Sharia

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After suspended, deleting, shadowbanning those of us working in defense of freedom, Facebook (Meta) goes jihad.

Homicide bombers and mass murderers are being repackaged in accordance with sharia.

Why now? To expedite Jew killing.

Meta Oversight Board Recommends Loosening Standards To Allow Users To Glorify Terrorists as Martyrs

‘At such a precarious moment for Jewish communities … it would be irresponsible to reduce safety measures online,’ Jewish group says.

By Jessica Costescu, Washington Free Beacon

Meta’s oversight board is recommending the company loosen its standards regarding the glorification of terrorists. Under the board’s recommendation, Facebook and Instagram users can refer to terrorists as “shaheed,” an Arabic word for “martyr.”

The board released its recommendation Tuesday, calling Meta’s current policy “overbroad.” As of now, Facebook and Instagram posts that refer to “designated dangerous individuals”—such as Hamas terrorists—as “shaheed” are removed under a Meta policy that bars users from glorifying terrorists. Those posts would be allowed under the board’s recommended policy, so long as they do not include other “signals of violence,” such as an image of a weapon.[…]

The move comes amid a spike in online anti-Semitism in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. Anti-Semitic posts increased 28 percent in the week after the attack, according to Anti-Defamation League (ADL), while such posts increased 919 percent on X, formerly Twitter. The difference between the two platforms suggests Facebook “enforced their hate speech policy more robustly and/or their content moderation tools were more effective at removing violative content,” the ADL found.

For the World Jewish Congress, the Meta oversight board’s recommendation is misguided.

“There must be no confusion as to where Meta stands when it comes to praise of terrorists, terror groups and acts of violence [on] its platforms,” the group’s technology director, Yfat Barak-Cheney, said in a Tuesday statement. “[A]t such a precarious moment for Jewish communities and many others around the world, it would be irresponsible to reduce safety measures online.”

Meta did not respond to a request for comment. Its oversight board consists of 40 “diverse” members, according to its website, and was created in 2018 to “bring accountability” to content moderation decisions.

The company pledged to respond to the board’s recommendation in 60 days. Meta has “committed to observing board rulings that apply to specific posts and users,” according to Axios.

For years, Hamas has used the term “shaheed” to glorify suicide bombers. In 2016, for example, it announced the “martyrdom of Shaheed Abdel Hamid Abu Srour,” a teenaged boy who carried out a suicide bombing that targeted a bus in Jerusalem.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

Misunderstanding Iran

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Periodically, the United States or Israel makes a concession to an adversary, planning—or hoping—for reciprocity. The underlying assumption is that, as the stronger party, they can afford to be generous and even, on occasion, to miscalculate. This is a fundamental misreading, not of the strength of the American or Israeli position, but of how the Muslim world will understand the concession. In the Muslim world, only weak people make concessions. An offer to compromise is a sign of weakness, encouraging those receiving one not only NOT to reciprocate, but to increase the pressure against their adversaries.

The frameworks are different.

For the US, the Cold War had a lot to do with the Western presumption of superiority. After decades of conflict with the Soviet Union around the globe, the balance of the West and its allies against the USSR and its allies tipped in favor of the West. The nuclear war everyone feared never happened, the Soviet Union collapsed, the “Captive Nations” were freed, and Russia became an acceptable trade and political interlocutor. For a while.

The US now seeks a balance with Iran, making the Islamic Republic an acceptable interlocutor in the region rather than an enemy of America and its allies. This sometimes is referred to as Security Architecture (whatever that means). On the surface it seems admirable/positive, but the idea of bringing Iran into a balanced relationship with its adversaries is not how things work in the Middle East.

Sadly, we don’t understand how people in that part of the world think. And more importantly, we seem almost never interested in learning. And in this case, our policy is based on a misunderstanding of how Iran sees itself.

Iran’s View

(Shiite) Iran doesn’t want a “balanced” policy with its neighbors, nor with us. It is pursuing a policy aimed at defeating and humiliating its Sunni Arab neighbors. And America is helping Iran do so.

How do we know? If we knew how to listen to and understand Iran’s subtle propaganda and nuances toward its Arab neighbors, we would realize that what concerns Iran most of all is to prove that its version of Islam – Shi’ism – is the correct one and to eviscerate Sunnism.

This battle may seem unimportant, even marginal to Westerners—that is, to us—but it is paramount to Iran and its Arab neighbors.

(Shiite) Iranians and their Arab (mostly Sunni) adversaries/enemies have been fighting this battle since their Prophet Muhammad died in 531 CE. We ask ourselves: Why can’t they sit down and find a compromise they can live with?

They Don’t Do Compromise

The Western concept of compromise does not exist in the Middle East. In that part of the world, giving in on issues before defeating one’s enemy means the person offering the compromise is humiliating/shaming himself. For those rooted in this culture, humiliation is worse than death. This, along with the historical enmity between Arabs and Persians, looms large in the background and percolates up to the surface, often to explode into the open when one side perceives a weakness in the other. This is all predicated on a tremendous sense of history and memory.

The Western concept of history is to bury it. “Let bygones be bygones.” Abraham Lincoln tried to set aside the raging emotions of the American Civil War in his second Inaugural Address, saying, “With malice toward none, with charity for all…” Americans often say, “that’s history” meaning something that happened in the past is of no importance.

This is alien to the Middle Eastern way of thinking. In that region, people have long memories.

Take, for example, President Joe Biden’s public berating of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan (MbS), holding him personally responsible for the murder of a Saudi journalist in Turkey. Almost two years later, Biden went to Saudi Arabia to beg MbS to increase oil production.

The Saudis knew exactly why Biden was coming. So, before the president arrived, MbS publicly announced the Kingdom would not increase oil output. The Saudis were humiliating Biden, who either didn’t understand why MbS announced this before his arrival—because to the American administration, Biden’s blistering accusation against the Saudi leader was “in the past”—i.e., “that’s history” – and therefore of no importance.

Saudis, like Iranians, harbor grudges and wait for the appropriate time to get even. And that is exactly why the Saudis who loathed Biden waited to get back and humiliate him for what Biden had said before he became president.

Another incident, this one involving Iran, comes to mind. From an Iranian perspective, the United States had been pro-Saudi for decades. So, when in 1988 the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner carrying more than 200 civilian passengers flying from the Arab side of the Gulf to Iran, the Iranians “knew” America shot it down intentionally. They “knew” because they “knew” America loathed the Iranian regime. The US government went out of its way to apologize profusely and wanted to pay restitution, but Iran never believed Washington’s sincerity.

Broken Mirror-Imaging

Despite America’s protestations, some years later then-Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani in an interview mentioned that Iran knew for sure that America had intentionally shot down the plane. Some Iran specialists in the US government were flabbergasted by Rafsanjani’s claim. Some even had no memory of the incident. After all, it was “history.”

It is essential for us to understand the Iranian regime as it sees itself. How we define Iran’s interests is secondary. Iran has a long sense of history dating back more than 2600 years of which it is extremely proud. This is meaningless to us.

On the other hand, the Iranian government is filled with senior officials who do know Western/American culture and have learned to use it to their advantage. One of Iran’s former foreign ministers – Javad Zarif – was intimately familiar with American culture. Zarif “negotiated” with then-Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barak Obama in 2015 for the Iranian nuclear weapons deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Zarif wrapped Kerry around his little finger and wrote about how he did it in a “tell-all” book in Persian.

Kerry, during part of the talks, had injured his leg and was walking with crutches. Crutches are a sign of weakness in Middle Eastern culture, though certainly not in America’s. And Iranians love cynical cartoon caricatures. The more Kerry submitted to Iran’s demands, the larger Kerry’s crutches grew in the cartoons. And we were clueless.

When some Westerners, steeped in Iranian culture, tried to explain what these cartoons meant to our “negotiating partners,” the people dealing with the Iranians either responded that they are “only cartoons,” or belittled those who tried to warn our side.

Even worse for the US, Iranian culture sees lighter/whiter skin color as a sign of beauty. Darker skin, on the other hand, is a sign of inferiority. Interestingly, the depiction of President Obama’s skin color darkened in these disgusting cartoons the more we conceded to Iranian demands.

Clearly, we cannot stoop to the level of Iranian indignities, nor should we.

Understanding the Shiite-Sunni Rift

There are things we can do to make life difficult for Tehran by using Iranian culture to create discord within the senior levels of the regime. And that requires an understanding of the different forces at play, which seem not to be understood in the West. The US instead appears adamant about its “rightness” and declines to understand how the Shiite religious establishment works. It seems esoteric to Westerners and is therefore ignored.

An important – crucial, even – example is as follows: In Iranian Shi’ism, there is a question of when and how the return of their messiah (the 12th Imam – the Mahdi, descended directly from their prophet Muhammad), will reappear. The Mahdi is the only true leader of the Shiite world, which is to say the Islamic world from their perspective. He disappeared (went into occultation) in 870 CE. These Shiites “know” he will re-appear, but the overwhelming majority of senior clerics have historically believed that they cannot do anything to hasten his return. Until then, for them, all political rule is illegitimate. The senior clerics, therefore, cannot rule.

The most senior Grand Ayatollah – Ali al-Sistani – who has been living in Najaf, Iraq (one of Shiism’s two most important holy cities) since 1951, strongly supports the view that clerics should NOT hold political power. Their job, he believes, is to tend the spiritual and related needs of his flock.

After the Revolution

From time to time throughout history, a tiny group within the Shiite clerical establishment had argued that a cleric could rule until the Mahdi returns.

Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, was one of them. He believed in the concept of Velayat-e Faqih (the Rule of the Jurisprudent) which almost all of the Shi’ite 12er religious establishment opposed. But Khomeini had power, military and political, so the Shiite establishment (called Quietists) remained silent. History had taught them that it is dangerous to publicly confront power.

But then, an even tinier, even more extreme group emerged from within this small clerical class. They argued that if they provoked a conflagration, they could force their awaited 12th Imam to come down and save them, and thus show the rest of the Muslims world that their view of Islam was correct.

Khomeini strongly opposed them, believing that if they provoked a conflict, the reaction from the outside world could be so violent that Iran would not survive. He therefore did his utmost to keep them constrained and out of power.

But when Khomeini died in 1989, this extremist group managed to wrest power from those who had Khomeini’s view. Which is why the late Prof. Bernard Lewis often said that MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction, a Cold War concept) might very well not work with the Iranian regime. As he stated, “a conflagration might be an incentive, not a deterrent.”

To Westerners, and to most Shi’ites, and Sunnis as well, this might sound preposterous – even absurd, but that’s how Iran’s present rulers see things.

A Western Response

Could we use this dispute to our advantage, just as Zarif used American culture to his advantage against us?

From time to time, internal differences among the senior clerical establishment has led to violence – sometimes serious violence. Surely, we could use these fissures to our advantage, but it would require us to study and understand how the Shi’ite clerical establishment functions, to learn about its internal disagreements, etc., which are totally alien to our way of thinking.

These fissures might hold the key to aiding those Iranian Shiite figures who believe that the Iranian regime has seriously damaged the survival of their beloved Shiite 12er Islam. Yes, Iranians are overwhelming Shiite, but from what we can tell, they by and large seem to want all their clerics to return to their seminaries and worry only about the spiritual and economic needs for their flock.

We might think about using these internal and potential dangers of descent into an apocalyptic war to our advantage, and thus help the Iranian people liberate themselves from their tyranny and re-join the international community as a member of the forces of good, where the Iranian passport is again respected, and its holders welcomed throughout the world.

But here in the West, almost no one thinks about using these fissures to our advantage. Perhaps this is because we don’t take our own religions seriously anymore, and don’t take Islam seriously either.

©2024. Harold Rhode. All rights reserved.

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Gallup Poll: America Is Still a Christian Nation

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Reports of American Christianity’s death are wildly exaggerated, according to a new Gallup poll.

Despite years of coverage that Americans have lost their faith, three out of four Americans not only believe in God but belong to a specific religion, according to a Gallup poll released on Good Friday. “By far the largest proportion, 68%, identify with a Christian religion, including 33% who are Protestant, 22% Catholic and 13% who identify with another Christian religion or simply as a ‘Christian,’” Gallup reported on March 29. Another seven percent “identify with a non-Christian religion, including 2% who are Jewish, 1% Muslim and 1% Buddhist, among others.” Only 22% said they did not identify with any religion.

Moreover, faith exercises a pivotal role in most Americans’ lives, with 71% saying that religion is “very important” (45%) or “fairly important” (26%) to them. The share of Americans who placed a high premium on their faith fell below a majority for the first time in U.S. history in 2019.

That does not mean that church membership has rebounded completely: 45% of Americans formally belong to a church, synagogue, or religious congregation. That number fell below a majority during 2020. “Slightly more than one-third of U.S. young adults have no religious affiliation. Further, many young adults who do identify with a religion do not belong to a church,” noted Gallup. “But even older adults who have a religious preference are less likely to belong to a church today than in the past.”

Yet even these numbers may overstate the number of unbelievers, as 69% of Nones (people who do not identify with any particular faith) believe in God, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Still, a separate poll from the left-leaning Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released March 27, found, “While the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as ‘nothing in particular’ is similar to a decade ago (16% in 2013 to 17% in 2023), the numbers of both atheists and agnostics have doubled since 2013 (from 2% to 4% and from 2% to 5%, respectively).”

Overall, the new Gallup poll revealed that one out of three Americans (32%) have attended a church or other religious service in the last week. That represents a modest increase from the historic low of 29% in 2021 during the wake of the COVID-19 lockdowns. About the same percentage say they attend church weekly (21%) or “almost every week” (9%). Larger shares say they attend church monthly (11%) and seldomly (26%). Another 31% say they “never” take part in religious services.

The most liberal churches have experienced the steepest losses in membership, numerous reports found. Ryan Burge, research director at Faith Counts, tracked the membership of numerous U.S. denominations between 1987 and 2021. “The mainline is just a bloodbath,” wrote Burge last June. “Five traditions are down by at least 30%. The ELCA is down 41%. The United Church of Christ is less than half the size it was in the late 1980s. The United Methodists are already down 31%, but with over 15% of their churches disaffiliating just this year, I wouldn’t be surprised in membership is down 40% or more by this time next year.”

Southern Baptists have also lost 4% of their membership, but the decline began only recently, Burge said.

The overall decline in church attendance stems not just from those leaving Protestant congregations but also “decreasing weekly attendance among U.S. Catholics,” Gallup relayed last week. PRRI stated that “Catholics continue to lose more members than they gain, though the retention rate for Hispanic Catholics (68%) is somewhat higher than for white Catholics (62%). White mainline/non-evangelical Protestants also continue losing more members than they replace and at higher rates than other Protestants.” Black Protestants (82%), Jews (77%), and white evangelicals (76%) have the highest retention rates, per PRRI.

Yet more conservative churches continue to grow. “The Assemblies of God has grown by over 50% in the 35 years,” wrote Burge. The Presbyterian Church in America “has doubled in size, as well.” Oriental Orthodox churches such as the Coptic church reported a 67% membership surge between 2010 and 2020, nearly all due to increased immigration from northern Africa and India.

Overall, the data paint a complicated picture. “The trends are clear that we are secularizing in some sense. There is a decline in participation in organized religion and in belief in God, but those are not necessarily the same thing,” Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “The one clear thing is that some belief in a higher power is persistent. People can’t shake the idea that the universe didn’t create itself.”

“That may be where the consensus ends,” he added. “Even within Christianity, we see such radically different opinions about what that means that it’s difficult to believe everyone identifying as a Christian shares the same faith.”

David Closson, director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at FRC, agreed. “What we’ve learned from FRC’s own research, as well as George Barna’s research with the Cultural Research Center, is that the percentage of those who hold a consistent biblical worldview is around 6%,” Closson told TWS. “Thus, it is probably more accurate to say that Gallup is helpfully illustrating the loss of cultural Christianity. But this is an important observation in itself; the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian is decreasing rapidly, which means that basic Christian beliefs will increasingly be seen not only as outdated or old-school but dangerous and subversive. We are still living on the fumes of a post-Christian culture, and this is reflected in the large percentages of Americans who still identify as Christian even though many of them don’t go to church or profess any specific theological viewpoints.”

All parties conceded that America’s religious atrophy and eroding biblical worldview will likely impact the policies enacted at a national and local level. “Compared with all Americans, the unaffiliated are notably more likely to identify as Democrats (35% vs. 29%) and independents (38% vs. 30%), and substantially less likely to identify as Republican (12% vs. 29%),” PRRI noted.

The declining share of Americans who hold a worldview “shouldn’t matter” when it comes to public policy, but it “ultimately will,” said Backholm. “The First Amendment requires that we treat small groups of religious individuals the same as big groups, but in reality cultural dominance, or the lack thereof, matters. That’s why we see pro-life activists being punished for public speech and business owners repeatedly sued for behavior that was uncontroversial 20 years ago.”

“Being a minority religion has always come with challenges, even in America,” Backholm told TWS. “The politically dominant religion in America is becoming a hybrid of secularism and progressive Christianity defined by the belief that people should be free to do whatever makes them happy.”

“Those who don’t embrace those creeds are going to have problems,” he warned.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

80% of Americans Support Israel Over Hamas

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We hear constantly that Israel is losing the information war, that the nightly scenes of buildings reduced to rubble in Gaza, and the latest Hamas-concocted numbers of “dead civilians” or, alternatively, and even more misleading, of “women and children killed,” are leading to a significant loss of support for the Jewish state.

This turns out to be false.

Israel is doing the very best it can to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. It continues to warn civilians away from targets the IDF is about to hit, through leafleting, messaging, and telephoning. So far the IDF has dropped six million leaflets, made 14 million prerecorded phone calls, and 72,000 personal calls. Those warnings, of course, reach not only civilians but also Hamas operatives. No other army in the history of the world has warned its enemy of exactly where impending attacks will take place. It is this practice, among others, that led British Colonel Richard Kemp to describe the IDF as “the most moral army in the world.”

These concerns [about civilian casualties in Gaza] are fueled by Biden’s low approval rating on the issue — as only 39% of voters say that they approve of his handling of the war — along with large-scale anti-Israel protests across the country and pressure from within the administration.

However, that number is primarily driven by Republican opposition to Biden, as only 19% of Republicans say they approve of his handling of the war and 61% of Democrats approve. Additionally, New York Times polling from December found that among those who disapprove of Biden’s handling of the war, nearly as many say it is due to being too pro-Palestinian as it is due to be too pro-Israel (16% vs 19%).

So much for all the talk of a groundswell of opposition to Biden for not doing enough to pressure Israel into accepting a ceasefire. In fact, Israel has just offered Hamas a two-month ceasefire, in exchange for the release of all the hostages. Hamas turned the offer down flat.

Meanwhile, all the claims that Israel has been engaging in “genocide” have not done a great deal to lessen support for Israel among Americans. The Jewish state has never engaged in “genocide,” so the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where South Africa preposterously opened a case against Israel on this charge, need not worry on that score. The ruling handed down by the ICJ in The Hague on January 26 could have been much worse. The Court might have agreed with South Africa’s contention that in Gaza the Jewish state is engaged in “ethnic cleansing” or in “genocide.” It might have ordered an “immediate ceasefire” or, still worse, a complete withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza. The ICJ did none of those things. Israel has not been told to pull out of Gaza; the ICJ recognized the atrocities of October 7 and the right of Israel to self-defense. It also spoke of the need for Hamas to free the hostages. Nor did the ICJ seek to impose a ceasefire, of any length, on the Jewish state. For those decisions by the ICJ, just announced, as to what it condemns and what it condones, Israel should now breathe a sigh of great relief.

More on the latest opinion poll on Israel and Hamas can be found here:

Poll: 80 Percent of Voters Support Israel Over Hamas

by Jack Elbaum, Algemeiner, January 23, 2024:

A new Harvard CAPS-Harris poll shows the vast majority of Americans still support Israel over Hamas, suggesting concerns about the electoral impact of President Joe Biden’s decision to stand with Israel may be overblown.

The poll found that 80 percent of respondents said they support Israel over Hamas in the current war, while only 20 percent support Hamas over Israel. The majority of every sub-group polled supports Israel more than Hamas — including those aged 18-24, where the split is 57% support of Israel and 43% support of Hamas.

These numbers are released within the context of mounting concern in recent months that young people, Muslim voters, and the progressive wing of the Democratic party may be so upset with Biden over his support of Israel that it will reconsider their support for him in the 2024 election and thus put his chances for re-election in jeopardy.

US President Joe Biden has fully supported Israel and its military campaign to destroy Hamas and rescue the hostages since Hamas’s October 7th terrorist attack, but has also pressured Israel to take additional humanitarian measures in Gaza to reduce civilian casualties.

[ … ]

This suggests that while there is a minority of the Democratic party that substantially disagrees with Biden’s approach to Israel, it is much smaller than metrics such as issue approval rating let on. At the same time, a small number of votes can be a deciding factor in an election.

The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll was conducted online between Jan. 17-18 and garnered responses from 2,346 registered voters.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

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

Muhammad — A Critical Biography: ‘A groundbreaking work that will revolutionize the popular understanding of Muhammad’

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Muhammad: What can we really know about him?

We know a great deal about Muhammad—or so it seems. Islamic tradition contains an astonishing wealth of information about the founding figure of the Islamic faith, and most historians take for granted that this material is generally reliable.

In his latest book, historian and Islamic scholar Robert Spencer shows that there is no agreement in the earliest Islamic sources about the most fundamental details of this towering figure’s life. There are conflicting accounts of key details of his life, including the circumstances and contents of the first revelation he claimed to have received from Allah; the year of his birth; the length of his prophetic career; the name of the angel who supposedly appeared to him; and even his own name.

Muhammad: A Critical Biography takes a detailed look at the Islamic traditions regarding Muhammad and lays bare their contradictions, inconsistences, and incoherence. Spencer continues the groundbreaking research he began in The Truth About Muhammad and Did Muhammad Exist?, exposing the shocking reality of how shaky Islam’s foundations really are. He meticulously explains why competing traditions may have been invented and definitively demonstrates that, contrary to the complacency of establishment historians, the Muhammad of Islam is more legend than history, more fable than fact.

Muhammad: A Critical Biography does the work that mainstream academics—who are either bought by Saudi Arabia or Qatar, or too afraid to depart from the herd—should have done long ago. Not for the faint-hearted, this book will do nothing less than rock the Islamic world to its very core.

“Ernest Renan famously claimed that Islam emerged in the ‘full light of history.’ Spencer’s startling non-biography biography finds quite the reverse. When it comes to Muhammad’s life, ‘we appear to have precise and detailed historical information, but what we actually have is myth, fable, folk tales, sermonizing, factionalism, and guesswork.’ This fascinating book by an accomplished scholar establishes that, in place of Muhammad’s supposedly minutely detailed biography, from birth to death ‘what he said and did, and who he really was, is … thoroughly lost in the mists of time.’ This has immense implications for Islam – and the world.” (Daniel Pipes, Middle East Forum)

“Robert Spencer’s Muhammad: A Critical Biography offers not just an overview of the singular life of the founder of the Islamic religion; it is also a unique evaluation of the historical value of the traditions regarding Muhammad’s life that most historians take for granted as being historically accurate. Spencer demonstrates that virtually every aspect of what Islamic tradition teaches about Muhammad, including the circumstances of his first revelation, the identity of the being who appeared to him, and even the Islamic prophet’s very name, is controverted by other Islamic traditions. He proves definitively that the accounts of Muhammad’s life, which he examines in detail, are not historical records, but the product of mythical and legendary development, with the renowned aspects of Muhammad’s biography being the result of selection from a great mass of material rather than of remembrance by his contemporaries. This is a groundbreaking work that will revolutionize the popular understanding of the figure of Muhammad and the circumstances of Islam’s origins.” (Ibn Warraq, author, The Quest for the Historical Muhammad)

“The always brave Robert Spencer offers his readers once again an amazing opportunity to look at the history of Muhammad — and the stories that have been told about him — in a thought-provoking manner. Spencer is a genius and this book historical. What is simply accepted by many as the historical truth, deserves further consideration. How trustworthy can a narrative be that was written decades and sometimes even centuries later? This paragon of critical literature shows that not everything always has to be accepted at face value, especially when the consequences of what is said and written can be disastrous. This book a must read for anyone interested in the truth.” (Geert Wilders, Party for Freedom, Netherlands)

“What an amazing book! This was such a joy to read, and with all the ‘marking-up’ I’ve done with it, I’ll be using it for decades to come. This latest book studies the biography of Muhammad’s life through the prism of historical criticism, something which has never really been done adequately before, possibly due to the controversy such an endeavor will cause any author who dares take on such a task (something Spencer is well accustomed to and refers to in his closing statements). Yet because this book is so unique, it will, I believe, be foundational for anyone who wants to really understand who this man Muhammad was (or was not), and why so many millions in the world today choose to follow him. This is certainly a ‘must have’ book for your library, not only because it is so interesting and readable, but because Spencer has taken the time to amalgamate the best research by the best scholars, and put them all into one book.” (Dr. Jay Smith, Pfander Films)

“Robert Spencer has once again produced a scholarly tour de force. Muhammad: A Critical Biography is a searching enquiry of the earliest islamic texts pertaining to the ostensible prophet of Islam, demonstrating that these are not and cannot be viewed as first-hand historical sources, but at best as posterior apocryphal hagiography. He perspicuously shows their many contradictions, disparities, and sundry inconsistencies. This book is an accessible yet thorough and comprehensive introduction to the overwhelming difficulties that the early Islamic literary traditions present to those wishing to discover the authentic words and deeds of this towering yet mysterious persona who even so remains firmly enshrouded in the shadows of lore.” (Prof. Robert M. Kerr, Research Director, Inârah Institute for Research on Early Islamic History and the Qur’an, Saarbrücken, Germany)

Muhammad: A Critical Biography, will be out October 22, and is available for preorder now: click here.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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

“Truly, This Man Was the Son Of God”

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Randall Smith: If this man is God, it fundamentally alters our understanding of the cosmos and human life.

One of the strangest lines in the Gospels is uttered by the centurion at the foot of the Cross. In Mark, we are told that when he saw that Jesus had “breathed his last,” he said: “Truly this man was the Son of God.” (15:39)

One would have thought this was the last thing a person would say after seeing a man die.  Everyone knows that the one thing gods don’t do is die.  Thus, it would have made more sense if, the moment the centurion saw Jesus die, he had said: “Well, clearly that guy wasn’t a god.”

Had Jesus shot fifty feet up in the air and shot laser beams out of his eyes, then we might imagine the centurion saying, “Uh oh, that was the son of God.” After which, he might have run for cover, reasoning that the man, now so revealed, would not be entirely pleased with those who treated him so badly — what with the whole spitting, taunting, scourging, crowning with thorns, and nailing him to the Cross business.

But Christ didn’t shoot fifty feet in the air and shoot laser beams out of his eyes.  That’s comic book stuff.  No, He died: something “gods” are never supposed to do.  And yet it was at that moment the centurion said: “Truly, this man was the Son of God.”

We have to imagine that Mark included this odd story in his Gospel, well, first, because it happened. It would be a strange thing to include it if it hadn’t, since most readers would be inclined to conclude, as I did, that it made little sense for a down-to-earth Roman soldier to conclude from a man’s death that He was “the son of God.”

But second, Mark likely included the story because it represented something important about the faith of the early Church. The apostles weren’t proclaiming the divinity of Christ in spite of His death on the Cross, but because of it. They weren’t hiding the fact of Christ’s death; rather, they were proclaiming that, contrary to what anyone would imagine, His death on the Cross was the decisive revelation of his divinity and His role as our divine Redeemer.

This is so strange; it really should give us pause. A God who dies?  What kind of God is that?  Either a powerless one, or a really, really devoted one.  But if He is that devoted, and if He can undergo death – not avoid it, not pretend it, but really undergo it – and still beat it, then He has fundamentally altered our entire idea of what it means to be “powerful.”  A power so great that it transcends even death, but then submits itself to death?  A God who reveals Himself as a servant?  We don’t sacrifice to Him; He sacrifices Himself for us?  It bursts all our categories.

But if this is true, it fundamentally alters our understanding of the cosmos and human life. Galaxies upon galaxies extending into the abyss; atoms and quarks and neutrinos, and fundamental quantum forces so complex they boggle the mind – and yet all of it made as a free act of love by a God who loves us so much that He was willing to take on our death to give us life?  Could that possibly be true? And if it were, how would God communicate that truth to us?  Lighting storms?  Earthquakes?  Beautiful sunsets?  We have those, but for many of us, “we had the experience but missed the meaning.”  But death – now that’s something whose meaning is hard to miss.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, its looming presence threatens whatever meaning we might have thought we had.

Consider the situation of Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales. Those of us who have had a cancer diagnosis, as she has, know that it changes everything.  The future becomes uncertain.  The plans one had made for next week, next month, and next year become irrelevant.  As a mother, she is undoubtedly worried about her children.  Her struggles are not more important, just more public.  But the questions are the same. Is there any meaningful future for me at all?  It’s excruciating – like a cross.

Faced with the darkness of death, the fundamental questions of life are posed with remorseless urgency:  What could overcome an uncertainty so great and a darkness seemingly so complete? Could anything restore light and peace and set life on a surer, less precarious foundation?

We can’t heal the universe.  But maybe its Creator can.  But if He were to heal it, how would He do that?  Laser beams?  Light shows?  Those are silly magic tricks.  Or would it have to be by imparting a love so great that it illuminates the darkness?

If this were “A Charlie Brown Easter,” and Charlie Brown cried out: “Does anyone know what Easter is all about?”  Linus might step forward and say, “Yes, Charlie Brown, I know what Easter is all about.”

God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.  Because there is no greater love than this, that man should lay down His life for His friends.  And the “good news” is that no power on the earth, above the earth, or below the earth, can separate us from that love and from those we love.  And if that’s true, then the universe isn’t empty and meaningless and human life isn’t empty and meaningless, even in the face of suffering and death.

If someone loved you so much that he had been willing, freely, to sacrifice his life for you, would it change the way you live?  Would the revelation that you were loved that much make you think differently about your worth and the meaningfulness of your life?  That much love and devotion – for me?  It’s almost too much to believe.  But why fight spring?  If that’s the universe God has made, and if He wanted to share His love with us that much, why say no?

AUTHOR

Randall Smith

Randall B. Smith is a Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. His latest book is From Here to Eternity: Reflections on Death, Immortality, and the Resurrection of the Body.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2024 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.

THEOLOGICAL BUTCHERS: John Calvin

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“After the Holocaust we need God more than ever. For there is no limit to the evil men may do when they no longer believe that anything is sacred.” —  Rabbi Jonathan Sachs

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” —  Primo Levi, Auschwitz Survivor

“He could be vain of himself and not be ashamed of it.  Yes, he could be excused for it.  The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away.  The Greek and the Roman followed and made a vast noise.  They are gone.  Other peoples have sprung up and held the torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight or have vanished.  The Jew saw them all, beat them all and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no dulling of his alert, aggressive mind.  All things are mortal but the Jew.  All other forces pass, but he remains.  What is the secret of his immortality?” —  Mark Twain

Mark Twain fell in love with Joan of Arc and wrote a beautiful book about her.  Did he come to faith?  We don’t really know, but his statement about the Jewish people stands the test of time and truth.  The secret of Israel’s mortality is the Lord God and His love for His chosen people.

  • The king of Egypt could not diminish him.
  • The waters of the Red Sea could not drown him.
  • Balaam could not curse him.
  • The great fish could not digest him.
  • The fiery furnace could not devour him.
  • The nations of the world could not assimilate him.
  • The dictators cannot annihilate him.

It is interesting that a minority group like this retained its identity for 2,500 years without a flag and without a government.  No other ethnic group has remained intact that long.  Israelites stand as a miracle people throughout the world today.

God had made it very clear that they would survive:

“For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.”  Jeremiah 30:11

The Lord will not allow them to be destroyed.  And his original promises from the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant are still at work today.

Author Oliver Melnick, in his book, They Have Conspired Against You, writes, “Jewish suffering is not a new concept.  While it is true that anti-Semitism hasn’t remained the same over the centuries and has morphed from theological anti-Judaism in theory to racial anti-Semitism in practice, it is still a tragic witness of Jewish suffering.  An unfortunate factor in this suffering has been the wrong interpretation of the Scriptures as they pertain to Israel.  It has led to an exponential increase in hatred of the Jewish people and the passing of many anti-Jewish laws.”

Another early church father who failed to follow the Golden Rule of Interpretation was John Calvin.

John Calvin

Calvin was born in Noyan, France in 1509 and died in Geneva, Switzerland in 1564.  He was a pupil of Augustine, who tortured the text of the Bible “to confess that which was never in it.”  Like Augustine, who in matters of church discipline, was a totalitarian, and hardly a benevolent father, Calvin ordered brutal methods in sixteenth century Geneva, even to the point of sanctioning the death penalty for “heretics.”  Chrysostom and Augustine still speak through the replacement sentiments of Calvin with their prejudicial Christian attitudes to the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jewish people.

John Calvin was the man who did more than any other to ensure that no vestige of premillennial truth made its way into the emerging theology of the Reformation.  He was a formidable amillennial champion who for nearly five hundred years, has commanded obeisance across the entire spectrum of the Christian church.

For those who believe in Calvin’s doctrine, I have no desire to alienate or be confrontational, but the truth must out.  The theological and historical facts where they have a bearing on the development of replacement theology are littered throughout Calvin’s doctrine.  He did more than probably any other Reformer to further the predatory doctrine of “replacementism” that has so mercilessly targeted the Jewish people throughout the ages.

Calvin was the most prolific and influential writer of his day.  He dominated the theological landscape of Reformation Europe, and his works are available in many languages.  His doctrine has had a huge resurgence in the evangelical church and points to the antisemitism of today.  His amillennial views are widely disseminated, not only through his writings and sermons, but also through the marginal notes in the Geneva Bible, and catechisms and confessions of the Protestant church.

The Geneva Bible is often promoted by those within the Dominion/Reconstructionist Christian heresy.  Dominion is seen as the right to dominate and to possess absolute control over the entire earth.  One of the original authors of Dominion heresy was Dr. Gary North and his Holocaust denying father-in-law, Rousas Rushdoony, the author of Reconstructionism.  The latter wrote the following, “The fall of Jerusalem, and the public rejection of physical Israel as the chosen people of God, meant also the deliverance of the true people of God, the church of Christ, the elect, out of the bondage to Israel and Jerusalem.”

The origins of the Presbyterian Church descend from Scottish Calvinism.  Extreme Calvinism slithers over into the full-blown heresy of Dominionism/Reconstructionism.

As the major architect of Reformed amillennialism, Calvin’s belief in a future thousand-year reign of Messiah on earth was, “a fiction too foolish to need or deserve refutation.” There is no doubt that Augustine’s “concept of the kingdom,” in which the Roman Catholic Church ruled triumphant upon the earth, is firmly rooted in replacement theology.  He was steeped in humanistic scholarship, which formed the basis for his biblical exegesis.  He drew from the poisoned wells of Plato, Cicero, and Aristotle.  Calvin’s lifelong favorite was John Chrysostom, the “Golden Mouth” master of anti-Jewish invective.

Calvin firmly believed that by applying “methods of humanistic scholarship to the Bible,” he would discover “the exact meaning of a text and the circumstances of the history involved.”  The term for this form of exegesis is “accommodation,” from classical Greek rhetorical theory.  Origen used it, and his influence on Calvin’s own system of interpretation is beyond question.

John Calvin spiritualized everything in the Bible, from creation to the thousand-year reign of Messiah, twisting and replacing the truth of the Lord’s Word to His people, both Jew and Gentile.  The end result is a catastrophic teaching of hatred for God’s chosen people.

Like Luther, a similar mixture of innovation and hatred toward the Jews marked Calvin’s doctrine.  His use of anti-Jewish invective was clear in his sermon on 2 Samuel 24:24 where he declared: “Now the Jews are cut off like rotten limbs.  We have taken their place.”  He repeatedly referred to the Jewish people as “profane unholy sacrilegious dogs,” describing them as a “barbarous nation,” and “the people of Israel rejected by God.”

Like his mentor and teacher, Calvin imitated Augustine’s totalitarian style of government and advocated the use of military force to compel church attendance.  He not only believed in Augustine’s philosophical doctrine, but adopted the same brutal methods as his mentor, even to the point of sanctioning the death penalty or exile for heretics.

This was particularly true of his treatment of Michael (Miquel) Servetus (1511-1553), who Calvin denounced to the civic authorities, signing Servetus’ death warrant.  The Spaniard was condemned by the ecclesiastical court and burned at the stake in Geneva.  The murder of Servetus exposes the vindictive streak which disgraced the Reformer.  The cruelty of Calvin was condemned by Protestant circles and opened the door for greater religious freedom which also applied to the Jewish people.

“Calvin was the man most responsible for the preservation and propagation of the Augustinian doctrine of the Kingdom of God, upon which the amillennial pulpits of Reformed Europe were erected and from which Jewish hopes of national restoration have been so relentlessly and cruelly dashed.”  (Andrew Robinson, Israel Betrayed, Volume I: The History of Replacement Theology.)

The perpetuation of amillennialism was a feature of John Calvin’s doctrine.  He believed society should be constructed in line with the Mosaic Law, which “he tried to imitate as much as possible in his new Christian republic in Geneva. (Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 5, 66.)  His autocratic and unbending policy censured all doctrinal opposition, disciplined the profligate and punished the “heretic” who disagreed with Calvin’s authoritative and totalitarian doctrine.  He used the ecclesiastical court to discipline.  Calvin’s handiwork can also be seen in the ecclesiastical court sessions of the Scottish Presbyterian Church.  Calvin repeatedly demanded assent and threatened banishment to the unyielding.

The chilling declarations and harshness against anyone who was not conscripted to Calvin’s doctrine and who might believe in free will or adult baptism, were anathema to Calvin.  Calvinists have more than proved the point that they “are the most violent and intolerant of all the Protestant Christians.” (“An Attempt to Shew the Folly and Danger of Methodism in a Series of Essays,” The Examiner, No 22, London, May 29, 1808, 349.)

Many scholars conclude that Hitler’s violent antisemitism was enabled by a wake of anti-Jewish theologies of church heroes like Calvin and Luther, but as we’ve seen, it goes back to the second and third centuries with Origen and Tertullian.

It is difficult for modern Christians to believe that antisemitism was flowing in the lifeblood of the Church for thousands of years, but John Calvin stated, “Their rotten and unbending stiff-neckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.”

Can you imagine a pastor uttering these words from the pulpit today?

This age-old heretical doctrine of Replacement theology has spawned numerous offshoots, but all are equally destructive and unbiblical.  This heresy turns Israel and the Jewish people into “God’s ex-wife.”  God chose one group of people, the Jewish people, and made an eternal covenant with them.

He said, “And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.” (Genesis 17:7)

If the Lord were to simply change His mind due to shortcomings on the part of His “wife” (Israel), and then takes a new covenantal partner (the gentile church), it is an absolute assassination of His faithful character.

We have been warned by the Lord’s solemn Word in Romans 11:18, “Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.”

The olive tree is the place of privilege that was first occupied by the natural branches (the Jews).  The wild branches are Gentiles.  The root of the tree is the Abrahamic Covenant that promised blessings to both Jew and Gentile.  “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”

Far too many who call themselves Christians, are not blessing the Lord’s people, Israel.

The Golden Rule of Interpretation

The church fathers in this series have failed to follow the Golden Rule of Interpretation.

David L. Cooper (1886-1965), one of the greatest conservative theologians and Bible scholars who ever lived, left a legacy of Bible teaching that to this day is helping many understand and apply God’s Word to their lives.  In his attempt to understand Scripture the way it was meant to be understood, Cooper came to the conclusion that in light of past prophecies fulfilled, only a literal approach to the Bible would be appropriate to understand God and His plan for mankind.  He eventually came up with a rule of interpretation still used by many Biblical scholars today, known as “The Golden Rule of Interpretation.”

“When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.  Moreover, one must be guided by the principle thus stated: ‘A text apart from its context is a pretext.’”

Conclusion

This abridged history in a few short articles has told the tragic story of the church and the Jewish people.

Truly, our hands are stained with blood.

 Lagniappe

On Saturday of Holy Week, I received an email from a Jewish friend.  He basically wrote that he hated Christ.  I was stunned at his insensitivity and hurt at his lack of empathy.  Yet, by Sunday evening, I understood.

I remember listening to one of my favorite teachers, Mottel Baleston, lecturing on the Holocaust, and he mentioned that his great-grandparents had lived in a Jewish village earlier in their marriage, but had moved.  A year later, the entire village was murdered.  Mottel told us that his grandfather said never to touch a Bible; it would burn him.

The Jewish people have lived with hatred, not only from Ishmael and Esau, but by those calling themselves Christians throughout the Middle Ages and the crusades.

The twentieth century recorded the worst genocide of European Jews in modern history. It started in Germany, a nation of Catholic and Lutheran Christians.

Today that age old satanic evil has raised its ugly head once again. The horror we’re seeing throughout America is reminiscent of 1933 Nazi Germany.

With this history, is it any wonder that our Jewish brethren would mistrust and detest Christians, and the Christ we call our Savior?  Many Crusaders left in their wake the bodies of hundreds of Jews as they made their way to the Holy Land. Jews lost their homes, families, property, and lives in a frenzy of anti-Jewish feeling among many European Christians.

This evil isn’t from the Jewish Savior we worship; it is the work of men throughout history who have come against the Lord’s people. Their allegorizing of Scripture to fit their own desires has produced demonic hatred and jealousy of the Jewish people.

Replacement theology is a lie from the very pit of hell.

The Lord told us He will bless those who bless them and curse those who curse them.

Which will you choose?

As for me and mine, we choose the blessing of loving the Lord’s people.

©2024. Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.