I think this speaks for itself…
Category Archives: Current Events
Christian Converts from Islam: Landmark Decision in UK
From the ACLJ:
An immigration court of appeals in the United Kingdom has, for the first time, recognized the plight of Syrian Evangelical Christians with Muslim backgrounds seeking asylum in the United Kingdom.
In this precedent-setting victory, the European Centre for Law and Justice (the ECLJ, based in Strasbourg, France) represented the young couple (whose identity is being withheld to protect their safety) who was granted refugee status in the U.K. The court recognized that if the couple returned to Syria – the country of origin of the husband – they would face very real physical threats, possibly resulting in their deaths. The court granted the appeal on both asylum and human rights grounds.
The couple, former adherents of Islam, converted to Evangelical Christianity (the husband in 2003 and the wife in 2005) and thereafter became open witnesses of the Christian faith to Muslims through Internet chat rooms.
As a result of their conversion, which is deemed apostasy under Sharia law and subject to death, the couple began receiving death threats including a video of a beheading. The husband’s family told him that if he did not return to Islam, the family would move against him and ”wash their shame” – a phrase that he was told meant he would be put to death.
In its landmark decision, the court recognized that a true commitment to Evangelical Christianity requires evangelism, and that the circumstances of such converts to Evangelicalism in the Muslim world do pose a serious threat to life.
This is a significant and groundbreaking decision that clearly puts the focus on the fact that many converts to Christianity from Islam face real danger, including the ultimate penalty of death. This important decision will not go unnoticed in the international arena, and we’re delighted that it provides protection for Christian converts who are at great risk because of their faith and their desire to share it.
”This is truly a landmark day in the United Kingdom as a nation awakens to the ever-growing threat of radical Islam and the plight of Christians in the Middle East,” said Roger Kiska, Legal Counsel of the ECLJ. ”I couldn’t be happier with the decision and the role that the ECLJ played in the case.”
The ECLJ worked closely with the ACLJ on this issue. The organizations provided legal advice and support throughout the case, as well as the only key expert testimony at the hearing on the threat posed to converts from Islam in Syria.
The ACLJ also enlisted the assistance of six members of the U.S. Congress who sent a letter to the U.K. appeals court in August urging asylum for the couple. They asked the appeals court to protect the couple, acknowledging that they ”would face severe religious persecution as a result of their conversion from Islam to Christianity.”
The letter also recognized the couple faced a ”credible threat,” and that their lives were in danger. The letter concluded:
”….based upon the United Kingdom’s strong history of protecting religious refugees, we strongly urge the government of the United Kingdom to spare (the couple) and grant religious asylum in this case.”
The New Atheists
Why the Bailout is a HORRIBLE Idea
Ron Paul is exactly right in this video. What ever you do, don’t encourage any of your Congressman to bail out the banks! DO NOT DO IT!!! This will destroy our country and ultimately result in the loss of all our freedoms. For when the people cry peace and safety… Do you know what happens? (1 Thess. 5:3)
Will Evangelism Cure the SBC?
From James Grant:
I finally got around to reading iMonk’s rant on the ten year focus on evangelism in the SBC. It is well worth the read. I agree with him. The last thing the SBC needs to do is focus on evangelism. There are a lot of other things the SBC should be focusing on, and Spencer mentions some of them. For example,
- We need to have healthy churches.
- We need to have a clear Gospel message.
- We need meaningful church membership.
- We need pastors who can grow disciples.
- We need Christians on mission in the world where God’s placed them.
We need to love people.- We need to live authentically human lives.
- We need a missional mindset for going into the world.
- We need to see our prevailing sins, like materialism, classism, racism and involvement in the prosperity Gospel.
- We need to repent of our pragmatism, because it’s not true that if just one walks forward, everything we did was right.
I agree 100% and would add several other problems. But Spencer goes on to say, “We’re like a hospital with real problems. Doctor problems. Staff problems. Quality problems. Effectiveness problems. People aren’t getting well. Some are getting a lot worse. Some aren’t making it. And we are concerned……about getting more patients.†Take a moment and read his whole rant.
Clay Aiken Comes Out of Closet, Confirms He’s Gay
Well, this is always sad news, but it’s even worse when the person coming out of the closet says that they are a confessing Christian and don’t believe that homosexuality is in conflict with God’s prescription for human sexuality. Please pray for Mr. Aiken and ask God to change his heart. God’s done greater things before, so don’t think it cannot happen. May God have mercy on Clay Aiken and show him the truth!
Excerpt from news article:
The 29-year-old former “American Idol” runner-up, multiplatinum recording artist and Broadway star credits his son, conceived by in-vitro fertilization with friend and producer Jaymes Foster, with making him realize that he could no longer hide his homosexuality from the world.
“It was the first decision I made as a father,” Aiken told the magazine, which arrives on newsstands Friday. “I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things. I wasn’t raised that way, and I’m not going to raise a child to do that.”
Aiken, who rose to fame on “Idol” in 2003, has long been subject of rumors and tabloid fodder that he was gay, but usually refused to acknowledge them. In an interview with The Associated Press two years ago, he said of the talk: “I don’t really feel like I have anybody to answer to but myself and God and the people I love.” . . .
The magazine cover features Aiken holding his son, born in August. Aiken, who considers himself a born-again Christian, said he knows he may turn off some fans — known as Claymates — with his admission and his decision to have a child outside traditional marriage.
“I’ve never intended to lie to anybody at all,” he said. “But if they leave, I don’t want them to leave hating me.”
Gay groups applauded Aiken’s public admission.
Great Britain IS under Sharia Law in less than a year
Well, I didn’t want to believe it. I hoped that I was wrong. But I wasn’t and it did not even take 8 months… Britain has now adopted Islamic Sharia into it’s court system for Muslim cases! This is a very sad time for Great Britain. It’s so sad that I don’t even want to call them “Great” anymore. Please pray for this situation and pray that things do not get taken too far with this for the sake of all those who live in Britain and don’t want to be under Sharia law themselves.
Here is an excerpt from the news article I linked to above:
Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.
The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.
Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through county courts or the country’s High Court, a part of its Supreme Court system.
Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.
Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system†based on sharia for some British Muslims.
Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.â€
Feeding the Poor or Murdering Babies
So, when you want to choose sides for this election in November, which of these choices above will you favor on your ballot? Will you pick both? Or only one? Here are some comments from an OPC pastor on the logic of some in my generation who are choosing to walk down a certain liberal path…
Jesse Pirschel, pastor of Providence OPC in Temecula, CA, vented some frustration about the “logic†of recent political discourse:
I just wonder if the recent trend in the “young†church going DNC on issues (and I am not a republican, but far from a democrat) is really that well thought out. For instance, are we really saying it’s not the governments job to prevent murder but on the other hand it is their job to protect the environment, give to the poor, supply health care, save for my retirement and educate my kids?
Now help me with the logic. We can’t legislate morality on one issue, but must shove it down the throat on every other issue? Why is it the government’s moral duty to give me insurance and send my kids to school but not protect them if I want to kill them prior to them leaving the womb?
Or how is it we can give up that issue because the church should stop murder, but still expect programs to be extended by the government to feed the poor? Please tell me how things got so backwards in our thinking to come to this?
[HT: James Grant]
Obama, Apostasy, and the American Dream
Well, I can hardly believe that Obama did what he did tonight in his DNC acceptance speech… But with everything I’ve seen so far, I cannot say that I’m too surprised. For starters, I would like to point out two very important references that Obama made during and at the end of his acceptance speech. I quote from Collin Hansen over at the Christianity Today Live Blog regarding “Obama’s Code Language“:
Obama’s Code Language
Democratic nominee borrows from New Testament
By: Collin HansenI doubt any commentators will accuse Sen. Barack Obama of using religious code language in his acceptance speech. Yet two famous New Testament passages made an appearance. As is typical of civil religion today, God was replaced by the “American promise.”
“Instead, it is that American spirit – that American promise – that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend,” Obama said, borrowing from 2 Corinthians 4:18.
Obama then concluded his remarks this way: “Let us keep that promise – that American promise – and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.”
This statement comes from Hebrews 10:23. But the context of this passage explains something far more beautiful than the American promise. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:19-22).
This is truly to most ironic part about the whole Speech. Though every thinking Christian should realize that Obama is promoting the idolatry of “the American Dream”, I would like to point out that, based on one of my previous posts, the subsequent verses of Hebrews chapter 10 that follow verse 23 apply directly to Barack Obama and his apostasy from the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
The verse in Hebrews that he quoted was talking about holding fast to our confession of Christ as Lord and Messiah, not the American Dream! I wonder what people would think if he continued to quote the passage? I wonder if the speech write even bothered to read the context of the verse or if he just Googled it in from an online Bible and a vague memory he had about the wording of that particular sentence?
So, for those of you thinking about it now… here is the passage in full from verse 23 to verse 31:
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.†And again, “The Lord will judge his people.†31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
So, you decide now who you will vote for in the November election. These are just some crucial thoughts we need to be having as Christians who are citizens in this great land of freedom and liberty and justice for all. Does Obama’s speech convince you of something? Talk back to me about it in the comments.
In Christ and In Defense of the Faith,
Glenn Jones
Obama: The Apostate Christian
Well, I don’t care what he says about himself being a “Christian”. Barack Obama is not a faithful Christian and therefore an apostate. This man is twisting ever which way to gain Evangelical and Catholic voters, but if people merely read his interviews about his faith and know what denomination he originates from, faithful Christians will know that he’s a universalist and does not believe in hell and questions the reality of an afterlife. To put it simply, Barack Obama is a practical atheist.
Check out this Baptist Press article for some further details. If you don’t want an atheist as your president, you know what to do this coming election. 🙂
