Pope Francis Twitted – I pray every day for all who are suffering in Iraq. Please join me.
What to do concerning ISIS? A Christian’s anguish
When I think about ISIS and what our response as a nation should be to their reign of terror my soul is in anguish.
Why the anguish? Does ISIS not completely devalue human life and are they not committed to the utter destruction and mass enslavement of all people who refuse to surrender allegiance to them? Does this not warrant the use of military action to stop them?
The reason I am in anguish is because I take seriously the nonviolent life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth who I strive to follow. In the temptation narrative Jesus renounces the option of wielding power as a means of accomplishing God’s will.
In his conflict with the religious and political powers of his day, Jesus chooses the way of suffering every time instead of the way of violence. At the time of his arrest he tells his disciples, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52).
Jesus dies powerless and mocked, absorbing the animosity of his tormentors without wishing them harm.
Less we think this was somehow unique to Jesus, he instructed any would-be follower to renounce all violence by taking up his or her cross and getting in line behind him (Matt. 16:24).
He even told his disciples to love their enemies by praying for them and doing good to them (Matt. 5:38-48). In his letter to the Romans, Paul echoes basically this same teaching (Rom. 12:14-21).
Not all Christians have taken or do take Jesus’ teaching on love of enemies seriously. Church historian and religion professor Charles Marsh researched some of the sermons delivered by influential evangelical ministers during the lead-up to the first Iraq war.
He discovered that many, such as Franklin Graham, Paul Crouch (Founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network), Jack Graham (then president of the Southern Baptist Convention) and popular Baptist preacher Charles Stanley, to name a few, fully endorsed the war effort.
In one sermon Stanley admonished, “We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible.”
He quoted Paul in Romans 13:1 about being subject to governmental powers, but completely ignored Paul’s instruction to not repay evil for evil, refuse retaliation and do good to our enemies in Romans 14.
And he totally dismissed Jesus’ teaching on nonviolence and love of enemies in Matthew 5, claiming that Jesus was speaking to us as individuals, as if that somehow justified completely rejecting it.
Marsh observed that Stanley expressed “no anguish, no dark night of struggle,” no “hint of apprehension, or words of caution, about the certain violence inflicted on civilians.”
For the first three centuries the vast majority of Christians rejected all expressions of violence and refused to take up arms under any condition.
The reason: They sought to be faithful to the life and teachings of their Lord and his alternative kingdom. That all changed when Constantine wed church and empire, and made Christianity the official religion of Rome.
Since then the majority of Christians have endorsed violence or sought to justify it under certain conditions and circumstances. Many have simply ignored, dismissed or rationalized Jesus’ life and teaching as if they did not matter.
Father George Zabelka was the chaplain who administered Catholic mass to the bomber pilot who dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki in 1945 resulting in the mass destruction of civilians. Later he came to repent of his complicity in the destruction.
In an interview with Sojourners, he described the Christian ethos of the times:
“I’ll tell you that the operational moral atmosphere in the church [the church at-large/the majority of Christians] in relation to mass bombing of enemy civilians was totally indifferent, silent and corrupt at best – at worst it was religiously supportive ….”
There have always been pockets of resistance to violence from peace-loving people, and from Christian communities that have born prophetic witness to both state and church, but for the most part Christendom has a sad history of acquiescing to violence.
I struggle with Jesus’ teaching and do not claim to renounce violence in all circumstances as Jesus commanded. I cannot fault Dietrich Bonhoeffer for his involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler, for I probably would have done the same.
I suspect I would employ any means available, including violence, to save family and friends from death by violence (if an intruder invaded my home, for example), and so I struggle with the question of what to do about ISIS.
Do we, as a nation, have a moral obligation to our sisters and brothers in that part of the world to protect them from genocidal destruction?
By the way, I wish our president and national leaders would frame the question as a moral obligation to humanity, though I don’t expect them to.
They tend to frame the question the way empires frame the question: What must we do to protect national interests and our own people?
A follower of Jesus must frame the question in terms of the dignity and value of all human lives, not just American lives. Anything less is not Christian.
Is violence ever justified? According to Jesus it is not. Hence, my anguish of soul. I am a Christian minister, but I am not yet willing to follow Jesus all the way to the cross.
Original photo by my christian daily
Amazon Launch Fire TV box launches in the UK
Amazon writes , Fire TV box will launch in the UK on 23 October for £79, Amazon announced.
Dear Customers,
We are excited to bring you Amazon Fire TV.
Fire TV is a tiny box that plugs into your HDTV for easy and instant access to Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Demand 5, Spotify, Sky News, Curzon Home Cinema, YouTube, low-cost video rentals and much more. With access to thousands of TV episodes and movies, plus your favourite subscriptions and streaming services, you can watch what you want, when you want. If you’re a Prime member, enjoy unlimited instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows, including exclusives like Vikings, Extant, Ripper Street, and Alpha House.
Fire TV has voice search that actually works. The old way of searching with a TV remote—scrolling and clicking one letter at a time on an alphabet grid—is painful. With Fire TV you simply speak the title, actor or genre into the remote and you’re done.
Fire TV may be tiny on the outside, but it has huge hardware specs on the inside. It has a powerful quad-core processor, dedicated GPU, 2 GB of memory, and dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi. With a fast, fluid interface, high definition 1080p video, and Dolby Digital Plus surround sound, Fire TV looks—and sounds—amazing. We also added an exclusive new feature called ASAP that predicts what movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and gets them ready to stream instantly. No one likes waiting for videos to buffer.
As a bonus, we also added games. There are over three hundred titles to explore on Fire TV including blockbuster games likeMinecraft, The Walking Dead, Monsters University and Amazon exclusive Sev Zero, as well as great free games. To enhance gaming even further, we’re also introducing our newAmazon Fire Game Controller—a dedicated wireless game controller designed to take you deeper into the action, with even more titles to enjoy.
Our customers in the US are loving both Fire TV and Fire Game Controller, and we are thrilled to now introduce them to the UK.
— The Amazon Fire TV Team.
P.S. We think everyone will love Fire TV, but it’s especially great for Prime members, who can enjoy instant, unlimited streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with Prime Instant Video. As a thank you to both new and existing Prime members, we’re excited to offer Fire TV for just £49, for five days only.
Original Announcement by Amazon.co.uk
Phil Robertson takes on ISIS: Convert Them or Kill Them
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joYbJ7pS9rc[/youtube]
Full Interview by FOX News
FULL INTERVIEW on Fox News ‘Hannity’ 9/2/2014- Phil Robertson on ISIS: ‘Convert Them or Kill Them’
Phil Robertson Tells Sean Hannity How He’d Combat ISIS: ‘Convert Them or Kill Them’. ‘Those who hate me love death’ Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson cites The Bible to explain the rise of radical Islam “Convert them or kill them”. Islamic State. Phil Robertson on his new book “Unphiltered: The Way I See It”
ROBERTSON: Worldwide, planet-wide, Biblically speaking, two groups of people, the children of God, and the whole world is under the control of the evil one. That’s First John 5:19. The evil one works in those who are disobedient. Galatians 3, they are prisoners of sin. Second Timothy 2, the Bible says they’ve been taken captive by Satan to do his will.
Listen, let me show you one. I’ve got the old — hey, America, Declaration of Independence, it’s my book marker. Don’t forget that. Listen to this, Sean. Solomon, one of the wisest men on earth if not the wisest, he’s speaking of wisdom, “Whoever finds me, wisdom finds light. Watch and receives favor from the lord. But whoever fails to find me,” this is the God of the Bible, “harms himself.” Now, listen to this on this ISIS thing, “All who hate me love death.”
So you scratch your head and you say, well, why is it that when we’re not even over there in the Middle East, why do they continue to slaughter each other when we’re not even on the premises? They can’t blame us. We left Iraq. You said what happened in Egypt and Syria, you say in Libya. They just slaughter each other. You say, what? “All who hate me love death,” Sean.
HANNITY: What is the answer? I think the only answer is, I think they are at war with us.
ROBERTSON: Yes.
HANNITY: Whether we like it or not, I think most people would rather live in peace. Most Americans, just leave us alone, we’ll leave you alone. They’re not going to leave us alone. They’re not going to leave Israel alone. So that leaves us with two options — do nothing and get ready for the next attack. And then we’ll have a report that says, they’re at war with us, we weren’t at war with them.
ROBERTSON: In this case you either have to convert them, which I think would be next to impossible. I’m not giving up on them, but I’m just saying, either convert them or kill them. One or the other.
HANNITY: That’s going —
ROBERTSON: Maybe that time has come and gone, so I think that with this ideology that we’re faced with, this is like street gangs, street thugs on steroids. You think about it, most of the wars we’ve fought, they were not asymmetrical like this one. This one, it’s not a country with a standing army, and we line up and do battle with a certain amount of rules that they violate. But you say this is more like worldwide gang warfare, but this gang is well-armed and well-organized. I think, my opinion, we’re going to have to deal with this group way more harshly than we have up to this point.
HANNITY: Because they’re so harsh. I know they’re going to be people that are always looking to jump on you and say, “Convert them or kill them.” And they’re going to say, “There goes Phil Robertson again.” I know the media. I know they how act.
ROBERTSON: I’d much rather have a Bible study with all of them and show them the error of their ways and point them to Jesus Christ, the author and perfector of having your sins removed and being raised from the dead. I would rather preach the gospel of Jesus to them. However, if it’s a gun fight and a gun fight alone, if that is what they’re looking for, me, personally I am prepared for either one.
COMPLETE INTERVIEW. Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson sat down with Sean Hannity tonight, and right off the bat they jumped right into ISIS. And Robertson shared his thoughts on how to deal with the terrorist group: “either convert them or kill them.”
Robertson spoke of how the Bible talks of evil in the world, and wondered why terrorists are still so angry at the United States even though the U.S. has left the Middle East. Hannity said it’s obvious that “they’re at war with us.”
Robertson said, “You either have to convert them, which I think would be next to impossible… either convert them or kill them.”
Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson cites The Bible to explain the rise of radical Islam “Convert them or kill them”. Phil Robertson on his new book “Unphiltered: The Way I See It” Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson cites The Bible to explain the rise of radical Islam “Convert them or kill them”. Phil Robertson on his new book “Unphiltered: The Way I See It” Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson cites The Bible to explain the rise of radical Islam “Convert them or kill them”. Phil Robertson on his new book “Unphiltered: The Way I See It” Fox News’ Sean Hannity Treats Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson Like He’s An Expert On ISIS
Interview & Post originally from FOX News You Tube page
Later after this interview, Andrew Hess, Senior Editor of ChurchLeaders.com, wrote this about the Interview
Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the famous family featured on A&E’s hit television show, Duck Dynasty, recently talked with Sean Hannity about how to handle the ISIS problem. Robertson came with Bible in hand and verses ready.
In response to Hannity’s questions about ISIS, Robertson said:
“In this case you either have to convert them, which I think would be next to impossible. I’m not giving up on them, but I’m just saying, either convert them or kill them. One or the other.”
Later in the coversation, Phil said:
“I’d much rather have a Bible study with all of them and show them the error of their ways and point them to Jesus Christ, the author and perfector of having your sins removed and being raised from the dead. I would rather preach the gospel of Jesus to them. However, if it’s a gun fight and a gun fight alone, if that is what they’re looking for, me, personally I am prepared for either one.”
Convert or die is not a new evangelistic strategy, but it is a bad one. Perhaps Phil is taking his cue from the 11th and 12th century Crusaders, the “Christian” armies from Western Europe that went to war against Muslim forces in the Holy Land, responding to Pope Urban II’s plea for war.
But is that how we should think and pray about ISIS? Are they beyond all hope as Phil suggests?
Is Phil missing the Gospel’s mighty power to save? Salvation can come to the worst of sinners as it came to the Apostle Paul and the immoral idolators in Corinth (1 Cor. 6:9-11) and even the imperial guard in Rome (Phil. 1:12-13), all of whom came to real faith through Paul’s ministry. It seems Paul was very slow to call anyone out of reach. The Christian faith is always optimistically looking to what Christ might do to bring glory to Himself in saving even the worst of sinners. Such were many of us.
Phil, and many of us, must remember that members of ISIS are not beyond the reach of the Gospel. Before we angrily call for their death, we might humbly tremble at the eternal punishment which awaits all those who don’t come to Christ. What members of ISIS need more than anything is to fear the one who can throw body and soul into hell. They need to have their eyes opened to the beautiful, forgiving heart of Jesus Christ. They are blind and need their eyes to see. They are deaf and need ears to hear.
As John Knox once prayed over a spiritually corrupt Scotland, “Give Me Scotland, or I Die!” Perhaps Christians today should be zealously pleading with God to glorify Himself by adopting children for Himself even out of ISIS.
How do you think Christians should pray for members of ISIS?
Free Farshid! Action Urged to Release Iran Pastor
Iranian Christian Pastor Farshid Fathi is spending his 35th birthday in an Iranian prison.
He was arrested in December of 2010 simply for his faith in Christ and was later sentenced to six years imprisonment in February of 2012.
For reasons unknown, Farshid was recently moved to one of Iran’s most brutal prisons, Rajai Shahr.
His situation has become precarious since the move and Elam Ministries reports he is having trouble sleeping for fear of being attacked by fellow inmates.
Rajai Shahr is where fellow Christian prisoner Saeed Abedini is also incarcerated.
David Yeghnazar with Elam Ministries spoke with CBN News from the United Kingdom about Pastor Farshid’s situation and renewed efforts to see him released.
Join the social media campaign and petition:
1. Sign the petition here for his release
2. Tweet birthday messages and images for Farshid to Iran’s Supreme Leader (@Khamenei_ir) and Iran’s state television (@PressTV): this will show Iran that Farshid is known and loved around the world. Remember to include #HappyBirthdayFarshidFathi in your tweet!
3. Share the petition and the #HappyBirthdayFarshidFathi campaign with your friends and family.
More on Pastor Farshid
Pastor Farshid Fathi Malayeri, an evangelical church leader who was sentenced to six years in prison in March 2012, had his sentence confirmed following an unsuccessful appeal hearing in Tehran at the end of June.
Pastor Farshid was arrested on 26 December 2010 during raids that targeted a large number of house-church Christians, many of whom were released after making exorbitant bail payments. Pastor Farshid remained in prison, however, where he was held in solitary confinement for over 100 days.
Pastor Farshid’s trial was postponed several times by the judicial authorities but eventually, after 14 months in detention, he was tried on 5 March 2012 by a Revolutionary Court in Evin Prison in Tehran. Judge Salavati convicted him of being the chief agent of foreign organisations in Iran and of administrating funds for foreign organisations, for which Pastor Farshid was sentenced to six years in prison. Both the verdict and sentence were upheld on appeal, and he will serve the remainder of his sentence in Evin Prison.
There are concerns over the lack of due process in the case: Pastor Farshid’s lawyer was deprived of full access to his client’s case until a few days prior to the initial court hearing; and despite the fact that the pastor’s family relinquished the title deeds of their home as bail, he was not released. On one occasion he was told to pack his belongings and was led out to the prison gate, before suddenly being returned to his cell.
Andrew Johnston, Advocacy Director at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said, “Pastor Fathi Malayeri’s illegal detention in the 14 months prior to his case coming to trial, his lengthy stay in solitary confinement, and the lack of due process in his case are wholly illegal and unacceptable. Moreover, as in recent cases involving Christians, the charges against the pastor were couched in political language when in reality he was arrested merely on account of his faith. The ongoing harassment and imprisonment of Christians, Baha’is and other minorities by the regime contravenes international covenants to which Iran is a signatory, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to freedom of religion.”
Sam Yeghnazar of Elam Ministries commented, “Farshid is a man after God’s own heart and God will be faithful to him. I am convinced that the greater the persecution, the more the church will grow in Iran. Such injustice will only cause more Iranians to want to know the Jesus that people like Farshid proclaim. Farshid has become a shining beacon for Christ in Evin prison, so much so that the son of an Iranian Ayatollah has commented on Farshid’s sweet nature… remarking on how beloved Farshid is amongst the inmates.”
Pastor Farshid and his wife Leila have two children, Rosana and Bardia. (Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Elam Ministries)
ISIS Terrorists may now be Operating in a Mexico Border Town Waiting to Enter the US, Intelligence Sources Say
High-level intelligence officials and federal law enforcement are saying that terrorist attacks might be “imminent” for Texas cities and towns located near the U.S.-Mexico border as it’s believed the jihadists are already operating in a Mexican border town.
The unnamed officials told Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, that there’s good reason to believe Islamic State terrorists are operating in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, and are planning to use the border to gain entry into the U.S. to carry out their attacks.
Juarez is located just over 8 miles from El Paso, and is a hotbed for violent and narcotic crimes and has been linked to the Islamic militant group, Hezbollah, in previous years. Officials claim that Islamic State jihadists might be setting up shop in Juarez, and plan to attack using car bombs and other vehicle-born improvised explosive devices.
The Judicial Watch report states: “Intelligence officials have picked up radio talk and chatter indicating that the terrorist groups are going to ‘carry out an attack on the border,’ according to one JW source. ‘It’s coming very soon,’ according to this high-level source, who clearly identified the groups planning the plots as ‘ISIS and al-Qaeda.'”
According to the report, an official said the threat of an attack is so likely that the commanding general at Ft. Bliss, the U.S. Army Base in El Paso, is being briefed on security measures.
Iraq (Photo: Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay)
A Kurd of the ethnic minority of Yazidis holds up a placard reading “Stop IS” during a demonstration in Bielefeld, Aug. 9, 2014. Some 10,000 ethnic Kurds of the Yazidis sect, who practice an ancient faith related to Zoroastrianism, protested in the western German city on Saturday against Islamic State militants, who are surging across northern Iraq near the Kurdistan borders in their drive to eradicate unbelievers such as Christians and Yazidis.
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ISIS May Already Be in US; Will Attack America If Not Stopped, Warns Rick Perry (CP Video)
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Islamic Terrorists Could Attack US, Europe Within Months, Saudi King Warns
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Captured Suicide Bomber Reveals ISIS Filled With Foreign Fighters, Including Americans
Fox News reported Friday that Texas Department of Public Safety released a three-page bulletin that warned Islamic State terrorists have studied and are “expressing an increased interest” in crossing over the border to carry out attacks. The Texas Department of Public Safety came to this conclusion through monitoring Twitter accounts that are believed to be linked to Islamic State jihadists.
The bulletin states: “A review of ISIS social media messaging during the week ending Aug. 26 shows that militants are expressing an increased interest in the notion that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of the U.S., for terror attack.”
An anonymous federal law enforcement official told The Blaze that there has been a long-standing concern about terrorist groups taking advantage of the border.
“Chatter has certainly increased and there’s a need to be vigilant,” the official told The Blaze. “Al-Qaeda and groups like ISIL have been vocal about the southern border. ISIL is making direct threats now and the situation is changed.”
During President Barack Obama’s press conference Thursday he said the U.S. doesn’t have a concrete plan to combat ISIS.
“I think what I’ve seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of where we’re at than what we currently are,” Obama asserted.
Michael Scheuer, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, told Fox News that it would be naive to think that Islamic State jihadists would not use the U.S. southern border to their advantage to gain an entry point into the country.
“You’d have to be silly not to take an advantage of that opportunity. You can say many things about the Islamists, but silly they are not,” Scheuer said. “They may be brutal, but they are not dumb. We are the dumb ones.”
As reported by The Christian Post, Texas Governor Rick Perry said last month that it’s a “real possibility” Islamic State terrorists have already used the border to cross into the country due to lack of border security.
“Because of the condition of the border from the standpoint of it not being secured and us not knowing who is penetrating across: individuals from ISIS or other terrorist states. And, I think it is a very real possibility that they have already used that,” Perry told attendees at a Heritage Foundation panel on border security.
Scheuer added that it’s pretty common to see people from Asia and the Middle East use the U.S.-Mexico border to gain access into the country.
“We are confidently sure that every month a number of Arabs or Pakistanis come across the border illegally in the south,” Scheuer told Fox News.
Original Photo by Christian Post
Atheist Poll Claims Over One-third of Americans Want ‘Under God’ Removed From Pledge of Allegiance
A secular organization has released a poll which states that over a third of Americans support removing the phrase “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.
The American Humanist Association released on Tuesday a study done for their organization by The Seidewitz Group indicating that 34 percent of Americans support removing the phrase.
Roy Speckhardt, executive director for the American Humanist Association, told The Christian Post that the poll was done, in part, as a counter to a LifeWay Research Poll from last year.
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Speckhardt also told CP that he believes the unusually high percentage of individuals supporting the removal of the phrase was due to the study providing background on the pledge’s history.
“The numbers in support of retaining ‘under God’ that they were getting didn’t line up with what we were seeing in towns and cities across the country,” said Speckhardt.
“We thought it possible that the increased support for returning the pledge to its pre-Mcarthy Era form, might be higher if people learned about the origins of the 1953 addition of “under God” to the pledge. This survey showed the truth in that hypothesis.”
The AHA study was a six-question survey found online that was conducted on May 29 and had a sample space of 1,000 American adults.
For their questionnaire, the group told the survey takers that the phrase “under God” was absent from the Pledge of Allegiance up until the 1950s.
“During the Cold War, in 1954, the phrase ‘one nation indivisible’ was changed to read ‘one nation, under God, indivisible.’ Some people feel this phrase in our national pledge should focus on unity rather than religion,” read the information given to respondents.
The study’s findings noted that 21.4 percent of Christian respondents, 40.9 percent of respondents professing different faiths, and 62.7 percent of those professing no religious affiliation supported removal.
In April, LifeWay Research released the findings of a poll they conducted last September on what Americans felt about the phrase “under God” being in the Pledge of Allegiance.
For the LifeWay poll, 85 percent of respondents wanted “under God” to remain in the Pledge, 8 percent said it should be removed, and 6 percent said they did not know.
LifeWay’s sample space was 1,001 adults, who they interviewed over the telephone during a four-day period in September of last year.
“Most Americans have recited the pledge hundreds of times and are not inclined to memorize a different pledge,” said Scott McConnell, director of LifeWay Research, back in April.
“Changing it may just feel wrong. Most Americans say they believe in God or a higher being and feel comfortable having ‘under God’ in the pledge.”
From when it was first proposed in the 1950s, various polls on the position of “under God” in the pledge have produced supermajorities in favor of the phrase.
In 1953, a Gallup Poll found that 69 percent of Americans surveyed supported adding the phrase, 21 percent were opposed, and 10 percent held no opinion.
In 2002, an ABC News.com/Washington Post poll conducted via telephone of 1,024 adults nationwide, found that 89 percent of Americans felt the phrase should remain in the pledge.
They conducted the poll in response to a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the phrase earlier that year.
“The Ninth Circuit may differ, but an overwhelming majority of Americans pledge allegiance to the pledge,” reported Dalia Sussman of ABC News back in 2002.
“George W. Bush called the ruling ‘ridiculous’ and both houses of Congress passed resolutions condemning it.”
The American Humanist Association has stated that the poll has encouraged them to begin a “new campaign” on the topic beginning next Monday.
Speckhardt of AHA declined to give details to CP about what this “new campaign” will specifically do, but he did acknowledge that AHA is overseeing a lawsuit against the phrase in New Jersey.
Original Photo by Christian Post
Boko Haram declares Nigeria people Caliphate
ABUJA (Worthy News)– In Gwoza, Abubakar Shekau — the leader of the Islamist Boko Haram — has declared an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State, according to International Christian Concern.
Once a predominantly Christian town situated near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, Gwoza was seized by Haram on August 5, prompting the massacre of up to 1,000 Christians after the Nigerian military mutinied and refused to try and retake the town.
For weeks, Haram has captured towns like Gwoza to encircle Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State that the Islamic insurgency apparently intends to take as well.
“Today, a once-predominantly Christian town in northeast Nigeria joined the Islamic caliphate at the expense of far too many Christians martyred, displaced, and terrorized at the hands of armed extremists,” said Cameron Thomas, ICC’s Regional Manager for Africa. “For years, Boko Haram has waged a campaign of terror against Christians, moderate Muslims, educators and students, and law enforcement and military personnel for the establishment of a separate Islamic state, which today they felt capable of declaring. Such a declaration should serve as rallying point for the international community to come together and lend its full support to the Nigerian state in its battle against Boko Haram and all other extreme ideologies plaguing the stability of not only that state, but the entire region.”
Since 2009, Haram has been waging a war to establish a separate Islamic state ruled by sharia. It is also responsible for the mass-abduction of more than 270 schoolgirls from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok.
Original photo by worthy news
How a paralysed man came to realise that life is worth living
I happened to listen to the World Service programme, “Heart and Soul” in the early hours of the morning this last Saturday, on the very topical subject “To Die with Dignity”. The interviewer, John Laurenson, tried to provide balance, as these kinds of programmes always do, by interviewing those on both sides of the debate. Inevitably, certain people, identified as Belgian Catholics (euthanasia is now legal in Belgium), had becomes advocates of euthanasia and saw nothing wrong with it. One person, explaining why it did not contravene the Biblical injunction “Thou shalt not kill”, said it was just like the “coup de grace” on the battlefield; an interesting notion.
But for me the most riveting interviewee came halfway through the programme, when I was drifting back to sleep: a chap called Count Philippe Pozzo di Borgo (from an ancient Corsican aristocratic family, apparently) came on air and raised the debate to a completely different level. He had become tetraplegic in 1993 following a paragliding accident and initially had wanted to kill himself. Somehow he managed to dislodge all the tubes plugged into him, but failed to die. When his wife died of cancer a couple of years later he was again very depressed: “You want to stop living” he said in his heavily-accented English. Had French law allowed euthanasia he would not be here, he admitted.
What had changed his life was his (painfully acquired) new understanding of St Paul’s words, “When I am weak, then I am strong”, which he described as “a lovely message for everyone”. Giving no indication that he was a conventionally religious man – indeed, he stated “You don’t have to be religious to believe what Christ says” – Count Philippe had come to see that Christianity alone paid attention to “the small, the fragile, the weak”. It was through his own weakness that he experienced the revelation that one can live “with great depths and relationships” even if immobile from the neck down.
This seems an almost mystical understanding. After all, it is what characterises the saints – their total self-abandonment to God and trust in him, despite their own weaknesses. For the rest of us, such radical dependency on God is something we struggle with all our life. For the Count, instead of becoming bitter and remaining determined to die, it was a moving and complete reversal of all the values he had lived in his previous 42 years. He told the interviewer that when you are physically helpless “it doesn’t mean everything is wrong” – that’s what comes of believing in “the tyranny of normality and productivity”. Instead, he asserted, “our condition is to be weak, not the other way round.”
In what could be described as a spiritual journey, the Count had come to see that “the place in the shadow of death” where he found himself, was a place “where the light falls most brightly” – the place where the soul lives “even when the brain isn’t functioning”. You could spend years in prayer and spiritual exercises without ever coming to understand Christ’s teaching on self-surrender. Count Pozzo di Borgo, about whose life an award-winning film, Untouchable was made in 2011 (and which I am now keen to see), has come to live it in practice. Needless to say, it was impossible to go back to sleep after listening to this extraordinary man. Talk about triumph of the human spirit: he needs to be wheeled in to the House of Lords the next time the Lords debate another proposed bill by Lord Falconer on euthanasia.
Original Photo by Catholic Herald
Pope: Iraq’s persecuted Christians are courageous witnesses of Christ
Iraqi Christians are true and courageous witnesses of Christ’s message of hope, forgiveness and love, Pope Francis has said.
“The Church suffers with you and is proud of you, proud to have children like you,” he said on Wednesday during his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square, in a greeting to Arabic-speaking pilgrims, especially those from Iraq.
The Pope spoke in Italian, with Arabic translation, telling the pilgrims that the Church is a mother who knows how to help her children most in need, “pick up the child who falls, heal the sick, seek the lost, wake up the sleeping, and also defend her defenseless and persecuted children.”
The Pope said he wanted to assure Iraqis, and all those helpless and persecuted, of his closeness. “You are in the Church’s heart,” he said, as he asked God to bless and protect them.
The Church is proud of those who persevere through such hardship, he said, because “you are the strength and real and authentic witness of her message of salvation, forgiveness and love. I embrace you all, all of you.”
The Pope’s words to Iraqis came after a catechesis on the maternal nature of the church.
“We are not orphans! We have a mother” in the Church and in Mary, he said.
“The birth of Jesus from the womb of Mary, in fact, is the prelude to the rebirth of every Christian in the womb of the Church,” he added.
Original Photo by catholic herald
