A Triumph For Christianity in Qatar

With Islam on the march and warpath it may seem hopeless sometimes for some, but God is still in control in this world. Nothing is impossible with Him. The truth will stand even in darkness.

In the last few weeks in e-mails and during a chat with my Turkish boyfriend, he has expressed a desire to become a Christian. He says he wants us to be the same, and since as he says he dislikes Muslims because they think only about war and killing, he says he prays to Jesus now. His grandfather came from Greece and his grandmother from Bulgaria. He also told me recently that one of his grandfather's grandparents were Christians but was forced to become a Muslim by the Ottomans. I feel guilty because I have not be dilligent in sharing my faith, even with him. Still despite my laxity, he seems to be discovering Christ on his own. On a personal level Christianity may be triumphing.

Today I found this article about the first church being established in the Arab Gulf nation of Qatar. Truly God is in control and the church and the truth will not be defeated by darkness:

Christians in Qatar will celebrate Easter this year in a church for the first time in 14 centuries.

Next month, the St. Mary’s Catholic Church will be among the first of a series of churches to open its doors in the Qatar capital of Doha. Anglican, Greek Orthodox, and Coptic churches are expected to soon follow.

"A few years ago, opening a church in Qatar was sort of impossible, but Qatar has changed since the coming of the new emir,” Italian ambassador Igantio Di Pashi recently told a local Qatari newspaper, noting the significance of the country’s first church since the 7th century. (Continue)

My Favorite Spot During My First Trip to Turkey

When I traveled to Turkey in May 2003 as a tourist, my favorite sacred spot that I was able to see in Istanbul was the church of St. Savior in Chora. The mosaics in this church (now museum) were to me masterpieces of Byzantine art. I also very was moved to see what looked to me like an artist's attempt to even portray the Holy Spirit. Information about the history of St. Savior can be read here.


Also you can see here frequent traveler to Turkey, Dick Osseman's photos of mosaics in the church.

For Christians who feel that YouTube is a worthless contaminant, these two videos from YouTube shows the usefulness of the site for Christians who seriously want to expand their knowledge of places and lands where Christianity was once the chief religion and where the love, hope, and peace of Jesus Christ must be taught again.

A New Discovery: GodTube

I was skeptical. I am still.

This week I glimpsed the title of an article on The Christian Post which had the words "GodTube" in it. Since I currently have The Christian Post as my homepage, I saw the article's title several times this week on my way going to other sites. One evening I finally stopped long enough to click on the title, and by doing so learned that GodTube which came into existence last year is the Christian answer to YouTube.

I admit that I love YouTube because it offers much to me who loves history, culture, art, music, and other cute curiosities such as videos of babies' reactions to eating their first lemon. Like I have said in an earlier post, I define myself as a "primitive" Christian, one who believes that the church in America needs to go back to its' roots and follow Christ's teaching of love, sacrifice, and pacifism. Elements in American Christianity need to see God as One who not only loves but Who also reserves the sole right to judge and to punish.

Too much of American Christianity is ruled by greed and ignorance of God and His Word The Bible. There are some preachers who meddle and dabble too much in politics. This has particularly been the case with the Bush administration where preachers like John Hagee has espoused pre-emptive strikes against Iran even though the country is mired in two wars. Many preachers, especially many African-American preachers have poor theological training and just preach God's Word according to how black preachers have traditionally gotten into their pulpits and spoken or shouted for generations. Others are slick con men and women. The problems in the end are not an issue of color because misinformation and deception are flowing from preachers of varying colors and of both genders. Church has become a business in America.

So often I do not find in American Christianity what I know The Bible and God is about. We do not have the humbleness or knowledge of the early church. It is very disturbing to see so much mediocrity and ignorance.

So what about GodTube? I cannot say very much right now. You watch and decide. The little that I have watched proves that Chris Wyatt, the CEO of GodTube and its' creator has offered nothing really creatively unique. Wyatt has admitted that he wanted to create a family friendly or sanitized version of YouTube. The idea in portions of the Christian community in America is that in order to draw more people to Christianity, the church should get ideas from popular culture and mold what it gets into a Christian copy. Often what popular culture itself offers is low in standard, so what the church ends up with is nothing to really inspire or bring a kind of passionate truth to the world.

The church in America is not growing. For all the effort and good intensions of those who create sites and items like GodTube or MyChurch.org, the Christian answer to MySpace.com, the end results are not profound and artistic. Where are the spices to jazz up the bland fare we get? Where are the Christian scholars, especially in the Protestant evangelical church here?

It may be too early to come to final negative critique of GodTube since it is young and hopefully evolving. For those who feel like me, lets hope it evolves into something as beautiful and innovative as pre-Renaissance and Renaissance Christian art. I own some Greek icons which I purchased when I visited the Greek island of Rhodes in 2003, so lets hope they can arrive at the level of primitive beauty and creativity of an icon at least.

Where are the artists and Christian intellectuals in America? We truly need them.

Here is GodTube's answer to Desperate Housewives called Desperate Housewives of The Bible. I did find it quite funny, but in the end still rather bland fare.

Unchurched Americans

On Tuesday I discovered The Christian Post newspaper online. I was totally unfamiliar with it until then. Then yesterday I ran across the article "How Do Unchurched Americans View Christianity?. The article immediately got me thinking about my dad who is unchurched and Biblically illiterate. He spends hours and hours watching TV preachers who preach prosperity in many cases. Dad is anti-social, and believes that you don't have to go to church or read the Bible to be a Christian. He can relate to a Christianity that is pseudo-psychology, but he cannot deal with a faith which speaks about loving God, the importance of the Cross, loving people, sacrifice, and suffering. So I do not know about my dad... Mom and I have prayed and prayed, but he has chosen to stagnant in his walk towards Christianity. Ignorance, like many things, is a choice.

The article mentioned I above begins:

In a portrait of the "unchurched" in America, a new study found that most are willing to hear what people have to say about Christianity but a majority also sees the church as a place full of hypocrites.

"A full 72 percent of the people interviewed said they think the church ‘is full of hypocrites,’" said LifeWay Research director Ed Stetzer. "At the... Read the rest here.

Not only is there the crisis of the unchurched in America, but there is the Biblically illiterate. They are not only those who do not set foot in the church, but many who enter the church doors regularly, including some of the ministers, who are also not fully versed in The Bible. This is a crisis that all knowing Christians need to be aware of and try to remedy.

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)

The Apostle's Creed

A statement was created sometime between the 1st and 5th centuries which summarized the beliefs of the Christian faith. It was the Apostle's Creed. The Apostle's Creed states what every Christian whether Protestant, Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox essentially believes. It was possibly copied from the Nicene Creed which was a statement of faith created to combat the heresy of Gnosticism. Legend also has it that the apostles wrote the creed 10 days after Jesus ascended back into heaven.

In the creed you will notice the term 'Catholic.' Catholic here does not refer specifically to the Roman Catholic church. Catholic here means 'universal' or the entire church as a body of believers. The word's Latin origin is 'catholicus' which means 'general.' The Greek is 'katholikós' which means 'the whole.'

I think it would be very useful if every Christian learned the creed by heart. It is an excellent statement of the explanation of the what and why of the Christian religion.

The Apostle's Creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen.

The Reasons For This Blog

This is my third blog. The previous two were deleted a couple of weeks ago when my emotions were really running high. I deleted them both at the spur of the moment and also after some pondering over some feelings of slight dissatisfaction with them. I was basically writing what most people blog about, their personal feelings, experiences, and commentary on current events. For sometime I have had recurring thoughts of starting a blog oriented towards Christian subjects and a Christian perspective about current events. Therefore, after I deleted my secular blogs, I started making plans for here. Presenting my new blog: The Ichthys.

If you live in America, you may occasionally see an Ichthys on automobiles. It is the silver fish decal seen on the tail end of some cars. The standard ichthys placed on a vehicle is a symbol that the owner is a Christian. Previous to the use of the cross as the symbol for Christianity, the early Christian church used the ichthys or fish as their secret symbol so members would know where to congregate for meetings and services. The early years of the church, particularly the first three centuries of its' existence, were racked by persecution from the Roman Empire. Therefore, the church was in some areas basically mobile moving from one secret site to another. Ichthys is actually a Greek acronym which if translated into English is roughly "Jesus Christ God's Son is Saviour."

The ichthys or fish as the symbol for primative Christians perhaps was adopted because references to fish are often made in the New Testament, the second half of the Bible. Four of Jesus' 12 disciples or followers were fishermen. Fish was one of the main food staples of Biblical times. Jesus himself personally on at least one occasion as told in the Bible cooked a meal of fish for his disciples. He also increased a small amount of fish on two occasions to feed a few thousand listeners and followers who came out to hear one of His sermons. Jesus also told his followers to become "fishers of men" meaning that He expected His followers, who were later to be called Christians, to spread His message of salvation (saving) from the darkness of evil and sin, along with hope, peace, and love for God. His followers were to fish for humanity the way a fishermen throw out their nets. The net is Christ's message. This net is a benevolent net, however. It brings one in from the darkness and hopelessness of sin. The net or message affects the heart and mind of the listener who wants a change for the better in his or her existence.

You might if you happen to come across this blog think, "uh oh, not another bigoted Christian fundamentalist, evangelical sitting on a holier than thou mountain waiting to condemn everyone to eternal hellfire, mixing politics with the spiritual to get brownie points with a certain sector of the society." Or you might think, "Uh oh, not another slick prosperity advocate teaching that God is a genie whom a person only has to say a few magic words to and all kinds of nice blessings will come raining down." No, I am neither one of these. I think of myself as a "primative" Christian. By primative here I do not mean the usual dictionary definition of someone or something that is crude or undeveloped, I mean that I am "primative" because I believe that the church must go back to its' roots, the way it was in its' first 300 years before corruption set in and before the church became so riddled by a type of spiritual gangene that it was no different from any other political/secular institution.

Today in America, church is big business. Here we seem to have with the big and megachurches something very similar to what Martin Luther fought against in the Roman Catholic Church back in the 1500s leading to what was the Reformation and the beginning of the Protestant Church. Reformation comes from the root "reform." What the church in America needs is reform. Since there is no really strong persecution of the church here since America is considered a Christian country, people have become soft in their following of Christ's teachings. We Christians have become anemic spiritually as a group, not very different from people who are agnostic or atheistic. We are Biblical illiterate and listen more to what our favorite preacher has to say without examining what the Bible says about the purpose of life and living. We arrogantly feel deep down inside that we don't need God or His spiritual guidance. We can go it alone. We want God on our terms, not His.

Religion is a controversial topic nowadays. Too many people hold extreme but unbalanced views of the relevancy of faith and God in this era. I decided to start this blog because I wanted to explain the Christian faith from a Biblical prospective. I wanted to show that the message of the Bible and Jesus Christ is timeless and that by reading or hearing it it can inspire hope to person who decides to believe it. It want to show from my own experience who Christianity can change lives for the better if it is practiced sincerely. With this blog I want to apply a Biblical perspective to some current events. I plan to present here a picture of the early church and its' history. I will be presenting advise from a Biblical viewpoint and also creating online prayers for nations and various groups in distress. In other words, the concern here will be Christianity in varying forms and in its' original state. I very much welcome comments, suggestions, and questions.

Peace Be With You...