“In times of impending calamity and distress; when the liberties of America are imminently endangered by secret machinations and open assaults…it becomes the indispensable duty of [Patriots], with true penitence of heart, and the most reverent devotion, publicly to acknowledge the over ruling providence of God…that we may…through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon and forgiveness; humbly imploring his assistance to frustrate the cruel purposes of our unnatural enemies…that it may please the Lord of Hosts, the God of Armies, to animate our officers and soldiers with invincible fortitude, to guard and protect them in the day of battle… .” –Proclamation by the Continental Congress, 16 March 1776
I’m certain there is an Anti-Christian Liberty Union lawyer determined to prove the above is a pre-Constitution violation of the Constitution…
Tag: God
If you want to track how tolerant the “Religion of Peace” is, I would suggest one way is to subscribe to the free e-mail updates from the Voice of the Martyrs. While VOM is committed to showing the persecution of Christians around the world, increasingly a lot of this persecution is coming at the hands of the supposedly-tolerant followers of Allah. This week’s update includes:
+ In Nigeria, “Andrew Akume, a Christian lecturer and dean of the faculty of law at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Kaduna State, has disappeared after receiving a death sentence from a militant Muslim group. …[W]hile the Nigerian constitution professes a secular status for the nation, the 12 states in Northern Nigeria that have implemented Islamic law promote and propagate Islam using public funds.”
+ In Pakistan, “on Tuesday, June 28th, the homes of Christians in three areas near Peshawar, Pakistan were attacked by a radical Muslim mob. The attacks came after a Christian man was accused earlier that day of burning pages that contained Koranic verses. The man, Yousaf Masih (about 60 years old), has worked as a sweeper for almost two decades for the Pakistani military. While cleaning the home of a military officer, he came across a bag of “rough papers,” and the major told Yousaf to burn them. Yousaf is illiterate and had no way of knowing what was written on the papers he was told to burn. Other workers saw the papers and said Yousaf was burning pages from the Koran. The next day police arrested Yousaf. (Insulting Islam, the Prophet Mohammed or the Koran can be punishable by death under Pakistan’s harsh anti-blasphemy laws.) Radical Muslims returned to the area that night and burned an estimated 200 houses. Many were looted by members of the mob, who stole televisions, refrigerators and other items. The mob beat Yousaf’s three sons and his brother, Yaqoob. Police have reportedly arrested 16 people involved in the attacks. A Hindu temple was also attacked, as apparently the mob at first believed Yousaf was a Hindu.”
+ In Saudi Arabia, Christians are regularly persecuted by the Muslim majority, with the full approval of the ruling family. “Within the past two months, at least three groups of expatriate Christians meeting privately for worship in Riyadh have been raided and their leaders put under arrest for several days or weeks. Under the rule of strict Islamic law, Saudi Arabia prohibits the public practice of any religion other than Islam within its borders.”
+ In Turkey, Christian Yakup Cindilli was beaten so badly by Muslim nationalists, he was in a coma for 40 days. Cindilli’s family, conservative Muslims, continue to pressure him to renounce his faith, but he continues his recovery from the October 2003 attack committed to Christ.
It was semi-widely reported that in Afghanistan, the Taliban set to destroy numerous Buddhist statues, some of which had been around for more than a thousand years.
These are the kinds of things Muslims around the world are responsible for on a daily basis. I’m not saying all Muslims are this intolerant of non-Islamic faiths. I’m just saying that this is happening far too often for this to simply be a “few extremists” we are continually told are responsible for such atrocities. Those “few extremists” sure have a way of getting around.
In his Daily Devotional for February 1st (free registration required), Pastor Greg Laurie talks about a homesickness for heaven.
You were created to know God. You were created to go to heaven. God has put this homing instinct in you, and it will only be satisfied when you see Him face to face. Are you ready to do that? Are you ready to go home?
In the Beginning
“How did life, in its infinite complexity, come to be?” asks Newsweek in a subheadline. “A controversial new theory called ‘intelligent design’ asserts a supernatural agent was at work.”Apparently the Old Testament isn’t on Lexis-Nexis, or Newsweek’s fact-checkers would have realized this isn’t actually a new theory.
Today’s American Minute over at WND honors an Englishman, whose works, including Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia are considered seminal volumes in not only Christian, but all English, literature. Not bad for a former agnostic. One of Lewis’s contemporaries was another famous English author, who was also a professor at Oxford, and wrote what is considered the standard for all fantasy fiction: J.R.R. Tolkien.
“Being a lover of freedom, when the (Nazi) revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks.
“…Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.” –Albert Einstein, from Kampi und Zeugnis der bekennenden Kirche
bq. “Life can be a do-it-yourself project, or life can be built by your Father in Heaven. The choice is yours to make freely. Personally, I rely on the Carpenter of the cosmos to step in when I forget to ‘measure twice, cut once.'” –your humble host
(Feel free to use, just with proper attribution, i.e., Christopher Turner, or retrophisch, and if applicable, the permalink.)
From the “Religion of Peace” department…
The Barnabas Fund is reporting that a Palestinian Muslim who converted to Christianity was butchered and his body returned in four pieces to his family.
The Fund channels aid to suffering Christians in more than 40 nations, where they face anything from simple discrimination to wholesale genocide. The latter, consequently, is usually by members of the “Religion of Peace.”