Pakistani Christian Keeps On Preaching

I was and once again a big fan of a Christian radio station at Toccoa Falls College which is north of my town/city of Athens. In the last few weeks I have returned to the station to listen some evenings and also when I am dressing for work. What the station presents is a more intelligent and global way of telling about the Gospel instead of the usual American way of mixing politics with Christianity, or presenting God like a genie in the sky who will grant us all our worldly wishes for money and material things. What is occurring in the church widewide is often discussed. Last week a pastor from church in Bulgaria was interviewed. The week before I heard a news report about a street preacher in Pakistan.

The report said that there are few majority Christian neighborhoods in Pakistan. But in this case, where this Pakistani Christian was preaching on the street was one of only a few Christian communities in the country. While was he proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, two Muslim men came up to him and demanded that he stop preaching. He ignored them and continued doing what he was doing. The two men left, but showed up again and brutally attacked him. He was sent to the hospital, where he recovered. Once he was discharged, he went back to preaching in that neighborhood. At the time of the report it was said that the police had not yet located the preacher's attackers. In Pakistan it is said that when Christians are attacked or killed, the police tend to drag their feet in investigating such crimes.

Our Christian brothers and sisters in Islamic and non-Islamic nations like China and North Korea who live daily under the gun deserve so much praise and admiration for being determined to not back down when faced by so much hate, deception, and evil. They truly have the spirit of the early church, the spirit that God intended the church to have.

In The Weeks To Come

Before listening to Wafa Sultan's video above, read what I have written below. Mrs. Sultan was one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people of 2006.

In the weeks to come, whenever I write here I have decided to discuss what I know and what I am learning about Islam. I have lived in the country of Turkey which is about 98% Muslim, a nation which for close to 2000 years had been inhabited by first Christian Armenians and Assyrians and later Byzantine Greeks. Like most places in that part of world, the Islamic sword came and descended on the necks and lives of the people and they converted or were driven out or killed.

Writing about what I know and is learning is going to be both a catharsis and highly painful because it is rarely a week that passes when I did not hear from someone in Turkey who is either a friend or former student. The man I will probably never see again and whom I love said recently to me that "I am your husband and want you to come back here," is a nominal Muslim Turk. I may never return to Turkey because the climate there is tense, there is no future there just as some of my students has expressed to me. Christian I should never have forgotten these Scriptures from II Corinthians 6:14-17:

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.

Do how think this scripture means to persecute or kill those who are not Christians. I believe when it seems that unbelievers are trying to get you to come over to their way and there is not genuine respect, it is our duty to wave good-bye to them. Some people cannot accept you as you are, but insist on dragging you over to their bad ways. This happens unless you can find a special person who is not a Christian and who has an open mind. I have over the years, but it has not been often. I have Muslim friends, gay friends, and atheist friends. It has worked between us because I nor they try to tell each other what to do or how to live. I was even told by a person I met online that I was creating the "wrong image" by having a Christian blog. I am? Well, I am not into the image business. I am a Christian, and a Romantic as my other blog shows. I write to not grab or seek attention, I do it because writing is like breathing and eating to me. If there is not out right hostility to what one stands for, there is always subtlety when Christians deal with some unbelievers.

Christians are to follow the example of our Lord who loved people, was a giver, but who told a lot of hard truths. Large amounts of what Jesus expressed was not meek and mild in context and nature. Jesus warned His followers that some things He would have to tell them would be painfully hard to stomach. As Christians we cannot straddle the fence; and it is not showing genuine love to not tell the full truth in order to not upset people in the areas where they like to be comforted. We cannot be over here one day and back over in another place the next day. We have to take a stand, whether it costs us friends, family, or our lives.

Over the past few months I have observed myriad behaviors from a lot of people who are Muslims or are what I call "kinda sorta Muslims." Islam looks less and less like a religion of peace when we look at what is happening sometimes daily, but certainly weekly. In less than a month there has been the issue of the teddy bear named Muhammad, week before last Christians in Egypt were attacked, then just Thursday opposition leader and former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Still, in the era of political correctness (I once worshipped at this false altar) few want to be seen as bigots. Christians have to ask themselves were the prophets of the Old Testament bigots when they confronted their kings who had gone bad and joined the pagan way? No! They were telling the truth and giving tough love.

I am a pacifist, so imagine how I felt when my country entered two wars. I was sceptical (still is, but not on the same issues) because I saw these wars as once again people of color getting beaten down by arrogant white men. Still as a former Bible college attendee (I quit because the work was too easy) and someone who has read about and observed Islam since 1979 during the Iranian hostage crisis, I knew some things that the average American did not, and I want to and intend to learn more. Knowledge is power and light.

In the last 7 years I have been turned off by the behavior of some Christian evangelicals and a lot of Republicans. I know now that when they did get it right, they were right especially when they said that America has to win these wars now that we are in them. The Christian world was complacent and divided when the Islamic threat began after the 8th century. Latin Christians saw Eastern Christians as strange, effete, heretics. Eastern Christians saw the Latins as uncultured, nasty, stinking, greedy, hypocritical brutes. What I have long known and refused to admit to myself is that the Quran teaches that a Muslim is not required to tell someone who is not a Muslim the truth. There are Muslims who will however, but I have known some whose stories, word, and position will change like the wind. Dealing with them makes one think you have memory loss or is losing your mind, 'But you said?' I would think. Also there are some who say that they practice no religion, but who are like the devout 9/11 hijackers who went to a strip club the night before they took and flew those planes. I have met Muslims who eat pork. It seems to be a chameleon religion which changes like the wind.

I want to emphasize here again, I am not writing this to inspire hate or fear. My situation has been very unique because each time I went to work in Turkey, there were plenty of people who were afraid for me and saw all Muslims as blood thirsty killers, but I went anyway to teach English only, never to convert because that was not my mission. To have experienced what I have has been a great gift because God has put me in a position to educate people and share what I know. Americans are new kids on the block in dealing with this religion. Europe is not, having for centuries dealt with the Ottoman Turks who were, until the advent of the Turkish republic, the defenders of the Islamic faith. When I first visited Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, we were shown a room where one of the prophet Muhammad's swords were kept on display.

I feel such sadness for my friends who are Muslims and may not know the truth or cannot reveal it about their religion. I doubt that many have ever read the Quran like I have read all of the Bible. I have read a great deal of the Quran, and over the next year I hope to find time to continue examining it. Most Muslims have never read the Hadith which are stories by followers of the prophet Muhammad concerning him. Many Muslims are sweet, decent people who would give you the shirt off their back, but do not know. They just do not know. But there is a monsterous and a smooth deceptive element in Islam too. The smooth deceptive ones are more dangerous than the openly violent ones, because it becomes impossible to understand where they really stand.

I want to say that the first thing is to compare and contrast the lives of Jesus and Muhammad. There is very much contrast, but very little to compare. Jesus was the Prince of Peace and was always on the move during his ministry to aide the sick, poor, and the physically and spiritually dying. He never lifted a sword. He is not a dead prophet, but continues to live. To be a Christian you must believe He lives, and not try and use scientific and intellectual arguments to figure out if He does. Do so, and you set yourself up for failure. Also if Islam is a peaceful religion, why is it that every week there is some outrage? The inhabitants of Islamic countries know not to make too many waves, they know prison, the bullet, or the bomb quickly awaits them if they speak out. It is so sad and tragic.

I am not encouraging hate and fear here, just knowledge and vigilance. Americans are far from perfect and like so many including myself, the government and others wanted to trust some of these people. But a bad element has long terrorized Islamic nations. There are probably millions of Muslims who want to speak out and breathe, but they are in a a position like those Germans under the thumb of the Nazis or whites who lived in the US south during segregation. They know like these people what happens to traitors.

We have short memories in this age, but just recall Salman Rushdie. His plight should be a clue to what is lurking for those who break ranks in Islam.

The Christians of Iraq

The above video is about the Christians of Iraq. Since the war in Iraq, which has in essense been ongoing since 1991 through sanctions and systematic bombings even during the Clinton administration, the American public has not been exposed to much about the existence of the Christian community in Iraq, a community which is close to 2000 years old. American Christian media and ministries have shown little concern or talked about the plight of these people. I have known about them early on beginning when the war became its' most destructive in 2003. I knew that under Saddam Hussein, who was a secularist, that Iraqi Christians did not face persecution the way they now do in Iraq. The Christians of Iraq never tried to undermine Saddam's government. They lived quietly in their communities, even on rare occasions intermarrying with Muslims. As long as people swore allegiance to Saddam and his dictates, religion was a private matter and not seen as a threat.

The Christian community is disappearing in Iraq through killings but mainly through thousands who have gone into exile because of fear that eventually they will be swept away by the tide of Islamic extremism that is boiling in the region. These articles which were written not long after 2003 explains the plight and the history of the Iraqi Christians and are still very relevant:

Life After Saddam

Christians in Iraq

Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians get more more press in America than any other Christian group. Their narrow worldview often borders on the nationalistic and materialistic. The only big issues on the radar with these Christians are basically gay marriage and abortion. They do not have a global sense of Christianity the way the Catholic Church does. They do not see many of the Christians of the world as their brothers and sisters due to variations on doctrine and church practices. I do not see the church in this limited way. I believe I have written in an earlier post that I would describe myself as a "primitive" Christian. I want to see the church, especially in America get back to its' basic roots. I want to see the church start showing more concern for the brethren worldwide. One aspect of God is that He is love, and today there is not enough love and understanding in the American branch of Christianity

Christians in America live an easy life with very little real persecution. When life is easy, one can easily forget about those who suffer and live in fear unless one is a very special and unique individual. I have been very concerned about the Christians of Iraq for some time now. I have waited to no avail to hear preachers and televangelists really tell their listeners about these Christians. There is a general ignorance of the subject, which is a shame considering that Christianity originated in the Middle East, a fact which some Christians in America seem to forget. The ancestors of many Middle and Near Eastern Christians actually came into contact with and were converted by some of the Apostles.

I know one dirty secret of why these Christians are ignored. It is because often their brand of Christianity is very similar to Catholicism. With the majority of Americans being Protestants, there is an uneasiness about anything that looks too Catholic. I am Protestant, but I do not feel that way.

In the end, I think the American church is going to be judged harshly for its' indifference, igorance, and silent bigotry against the eastern Christians oppressed under Muslim rule whether in Iraq or elsewhere.

My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you... (Hosea 4:6)