Radical Islam's Next Target: Rome

While you were going to church this weekend, one TV preacher from Hamas told his listeners:

"Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our Prophet Muhammad. Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs [the Jews] in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam."

This part was especially encouraging...

"I believe that our children or our grandchildren will inherit our Jihad and our sacrifices, and Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them. Today, we instill these good tidings in their souls, and by means of the mosques and the Koran books..."

Read more about it here, and even watch the "sermon" here.

Remember the Persecuted

This Christmas, while we in America are enjoying the last vestiges of religious freedom and tolerance, don't forget the millions of persecuted Christians around the world:

• Christian bookstore owner arrested in communist China
• Anti-Christian TV leads to violence by Muslims in Turkey
• Hindu mobs threaten the safety of Christians in India
• Political party promises persecution if elected in India
  
• Christians murdered and churches burned down in Nigeria
• Teenagers beheaded for being Christians in Indonesia
• Prominent Christian leader murdered in Gaza
• Two shootings, just hours apart, in Colorado
  

And these are the stories from just three websites for just the month of December!!!

2 Murdered in Nigerian Jihad

This article describes the effects of a violent jihad against young Christians in Nigeria where one man was killed with a sword and another, a Sunday school teacher named Henry Emmanuel Ogbaje 24 (pictured), was bludgeoned to death.

Iranians Becoming Christians

The author featured in this article suggests the deep dissatisfaction with the Islamic regime in Iran has created a growing interest in Jesus Christ in that country.

Christian Persecution in Egypt

Radical Islamic lawyers join the government's opposition of a newly converted Christian from Islam in Egypt who's life has been threatened for this. Read more about what this brother and his wife are facing here.

Palestinians Murder Christian

Read here about the murder of Rami Ayyad, manager of a Christian bookstore operated by the Palestinian Bible Society in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.

Turkey: Leads on Murderers of 3 Christians

I posted earlier this year about the murder of three Christians, the men pictured above, in Turkey here.

I found out here that they have some suspects from inside the Turkish military who may be responsible for their gruesome torture and murder.

Pastor Necati Aydin, 36; Ugur Yuksel, 32; and Tilmann Geske, 46. Three more the world is not worthy of.

10 Christians Slaughtered...

In Northern Nigeria Muslims destroyed 9 churches, displaced some 500 Christians, injured 61 and slaughtered 10. Why? "Muslim high school students claimed a Christian student had drawn a cartoon of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, on the wall of the school’s mosque" (see the rest of the story here and here).

Homosexuals in Iran

I happened to be listening yesterday to the question and answer session at Columbia University with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he said "We do not have homosexuals like in your country."

Here's why. To all you "open-minded" and "tolerant" students at Columbia who gave him a standing ovation--and to all of you who agreed with them--here is what you were cheering.

For the article and more pictures about the execution of these TEENAGERS, click here.

Obsession THE Movie

I don't buy many movies (maybe one every 2 years), but I purchased and watched Obsession, the movie about radical Islam, and I have to tell you it was absolutely riveting. I think I'm going to watch it again right now.

If you don't buy it, I'm sure you can rent it--but either way, you HAVE TO see it. For you own good, you HAVE TO see it.

Obsession the Movie

I've tried to keep this a purely religious blog, but when geo-politics and religion are colliding like they are in our day I cannot help but recommend that you go here and watch the trailer for the award-winning Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West.

You can also watch short clips of the movie here:

• Jihad in the Classroom (clip)
• Jihad and the Media (clip)
• Jihad and Hitler (clip)
• Jihad and the West (clip)

If you do nothing else, you should watch this 12-minute version of the documentary.

A Real Hero

Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu was a youth pastor who led the group of 22 South Korean aid volunteers to Afghanistan that got captured by the Taliban.

Eventually, he was one of two who were murdered, and it came out recently that he was murdered because he refused the Taliban’s demand to convert to Islam.

I pray that if I'm ever in that kind of situation that God would give me the grace to have the same character and courage as Pastor Hyung-kyu.

Read about this hero here.

Christians Tortured in Egypt

Here is an article about man seeking asylum in the U.S. because he would be tortured in Egypt for being a Christian.

The article is also interesting because of the history and statistics it gives on Egyptian persecution of Christians.

Conversion from Islam

Here is an article about how sharia law views and is interpreted concerning conversion from Islam to another religion.

Let's pray for the estimated "thousands of Muslims [who] switch to Christianity every year," and that there will be many many many more.

Persecuted in Uzbekistan

Persecution is still alive and doing very well. Please pray for this pastor, his wife and three kids.

21% of American Muslims...

..., out of an estimated 2.35 million, believe homicide bombings against civilians are OK to "defend Islam" while "5% of [all] Muslim Americans express even somewhat favorable opinions of al Qaeda."

Those statistics can often pass by without impact. I thought 21% was kind of high, that is until I did the math. For the sake of clarity, 21% of 2.35 million is 493,500 and 5% is 117,500!

The Pew Research Center poll also writes that Muslims under 30 are "much more religiously observant and more accepting of Islamic extremism than are older Muslim Americans."

Don't believe me? Click here to read the Fox News article and here to read the full report, which is less alarming than the two important statistics above.

Interestingly, the Fox News article gave the percentage as 26% who think homicide bombing of civilians is OK while I only counted 21% after adding the percentages from the textbox on page 6 of the report found at the Pew website. I don't know where they got that number, so one of us is wrong by 5% (or 493,500 vs. 611,000 Muslims), but I just can't figure out who.

Islam: Convert or Die!!!

Here and here is the same story from two different sources about yet another incident of Islamic "tolerance" towards minorities who disagree with them religiously.

This is just another in a long line of stories about Islamic tolerance in this region in the past 6 months (see here and here and here).

If you're a Christian on the Pakistani border, close your churches and convert to Islam or we'll bomb you. The religion of peace, huh?

Pray that these brothers and sisters would bring honor to Christ as they seek to deal with these harsh realties wisely and courageously.

Iraqi Christians Need Protection

Click here to read how Al-Qaeda is attacking, kidnapping and killing Iraqi Christians who are now asking their fledgling government for help.

17 Year-Old Iraqi Girl Stoned for Falling in Love with the Wrong Guy

This is an article about the "honor" killing of a 17 year-old Iraqi girl who fell in love with a guy from a different sect of Islam than her family.

On this note, I heard an excellent presentation from Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. (which you can download here) this week by Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo on the theology and practice of contemporary Islam.

The more I've thought about it the more I tend to agree with him that the problem we're facing in the war on terror is NOT radical Islam, or Islamo-fascism, or fundamentalist Muslims (it doesn't matter what synonym you use).

The problem we're facing is not even Muslims per say, but it is Islam itself.

I may say more about this later, but for now the gist of Dr. Sookhdeo's argument is that Islam is not a religion in the sense that Americans understand religion. Instead, Islam is a religio-political belief system that fuses religion AND politics. In direct contradiction to what we have here, the two aren't separate in Islam. They are one.

Until we realize this, our country's war on terror is going to continue to be very difficult.

Three Martyrs in Turkey

I want to thank James White for posting this story, which the BBC gives just the facts about, concerning three Christian Bible publishers who were tortured before being murdered by their Muslim captors.

Dr. White also posted on this article, which is an unedited English translation from the terrorist forces in Iraq.

Please take the time to read these articles, and add the persecuted church in Muslim lands to your prayer list.