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The Making of and Dealing with Jihadists

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By Amil Imani

Bewildered by what fanatic Muslims do, some conclude that Muslims are brainwashed. Otherwise, how can their totally illogical belief system and barbaric behavior be explained? But the notion of “brainwashing” that is bandied about is the stuff of science fiction and Hollywood movies such as the Manchurian Candidate.
The human person arrives in this world with his brain already washed in the sense of being what John Lock called tabula rasa, a clean slate—ready for an experience to imprint its script on it. John Lock was only partly correct. The brain also arrives with numerous predispositions already in place. It is a combination of life’s influences and a person’s own decisions that determine which of these dispositions develop and which ones fail. It is through this process that a unique human being is formed.

Many animals come with already in-place programs that automatically run much of their lives. Birds’ migration, mating courtship, and thousands of other complex behaviors are instances of this type of specific programming. A catchword for this type of behavior is “instinct.” As a general rule, the higher the organism the less is its rigid pre-programs and the greater its latitude to exercise choices.

Making choices depends on what there is to choose from and to what extent a given choice appeals to the person. And the human newborn enters the arena of life without the means of being other than a passive recipient of “things” already chosen for him.

It is like the old joke by Henry Ford who reportedly told his customers that they could have the choice of color for their car as long as it is black. Things are almost as bleak for the new arrival. He didn’t have a say in choosing his parents, his socio-economic condition, his environment of birth, and much more. All are already in place and he is to start in life from the context of his birth.

The development of a newborn in any family is influenced by many factors, among them how hands-on the parents are; how religious they are, and how severely they micromanage him in an attempt to make him not only a good person but also a person better-one than they themselves.

Parents tend to live vicariously through their children by programming them, the best they can so that they become or achieve much of what they had failed to become or accomplish. This attitude covers all areas of life such as giving the child the education they didn’t have, helping him with fame and fortune, nurturing him to become a top-notch athlete, and so forth.

It is a fact that early influences play a cardinal role in shaping a person. For this reason, for instance, the overwhelming majority of Muslims have been born into Muslim families, Catholics into Catholic families, Hindus into Hindu families, and so on. It is also a fact that the degree of religiosity ranges from mild to strong, with most people falling somewhere between the two extremes.

Interestingly, two siblings raised by the same set of parents under the same influences may end up at the opposite extremes in their religious views and practices. Here, the human dynamic of freedom of choice comes into play and steers one to one extreme and the other to the other extreme. Occasional extreme deviations notwithstanding, the great majority of siblings of a given family end up with various degrees of that family’s overall religious and other values. The same general principle of subscribing to a set of common values exists in all human groupings, in some cases with broad flexibility and inclusiveness while in others with rigidity and exclusivity.

In order to enjoy the privileges of belonging to a group, the person must also pay his dues of membership.

The very young human faces, beginning with the minute he can make some sense of the world, a bewildering array of mysteries, challenges, and enticements. There are questions at every step, fears, and hopes entangled with the need to survive and possibly thrive.

Who am I? What is this world all about? What’s the purpose? What am I supposed to do and how? Where am I headed? People die. Where do they go? And on and on and on. The information booths available to him in the fairground of life provide him with answers that may help relieve his innate existentialistic anxiety. And it is here that religion plays a critical role and holds a great appeal. Religion provides a surefire answer to those who are willing to take it on faith.

And Islam is a powerful magnet for the masses that are unable to deal with the uncertainties of life and death on their own. It is from this population, many already thoroughly indoctrinated from birth, that the majority of diehard jihadists emerge.

It is the bargain the jihadist makes. He surrenders totally to the religion of surrender in exchange for blanket security. Islam gives him all the answers he really seeks for dealing with this world and promises him a lush and eternal paradise of Allah once he leaves it. And leaving this world in perfect submission as the foot-soldier of the paradise’s creator gives the faithful unimaginably glorious sensual eternal reward in his next life. It’s a bargain that some buy in whole, some in part, and some refuse and seek other means of dealing with their questions and the unrelenting existentialistic anxiety.

The great majority of jihadists emanate from the ranks of those born into the religion of Islam, simply because they are the ones who are most thoroughly indoctrinated and influenced by the Islamic dogma in their most receptive early years. Yet, there are others who embrace Islam in adulthood, on their own and enlist themselves as devoted jihadists for the same rewards that Islam offers them.

Islam has a great advantage of the first call on the new arrival. It is an omnipresent system with masses of believers, mosques, madrasahs, and a host of other social and economic organizations that overpower the person and steer him into the same fold; it is a sea of people who seem to know what they are all about, what life and death are all about, and what one must also do.

Within this sea of surging humanity composed of some 1.5 billion Muslims, each individual believer—a drop—through a combination of choice and forces beyond his control, ends up in one of its many waves. It is the jihadist wave that is highly attractive to the deeply indoctrinated and poorly adjusted in dealing rationally and independently with life. Here, he finds the iron-clad perfect solution to his anxieties and perplexities.

To a jihadist, death is nothing more than casting off a shell of the worthless earthly existence and donning the suit for winging joyously to the life of bliss promised by none other than Allah’s beloved final emissary, Muhammad.

The eradication of jihadism is a daunting task since Islam is a virulent persistent pandemic disease. Massive education efforts, combined with a resolute confrontation of all sources and people that support and promote this deadly philosophy, hold the best promise of dealing effectively with this affliction of humanity.

In addition to the family, places such as mosques and madrasahs, Islamic associations and charitable organizations, prisons, and the like are incubators for jihadists. Massive efforts are required, on the one hand, to drain the breeding swamps of the Islamic virus, while on the other hand helping Muslims adopt an alternative perspective of life that addresses their perplexities and offers a degree of comfort that religions dispense without pitting one segment of humanity against another.

In the monumental task of dealing with jihadism, every individual, group, and government must combine their resources and energies to prevail. The destiny of civilized life hangs in the balance. It is an unpardonable act of shirking responsibility for anyone to adopt the attitude of “let George do it.” George is you. George is I. George is every enlightened human being and organization that values human liberty and dignity.

©Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: UK: Teen converts to Islam, plots jihad massacres in London

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Life, By the Numbers, Revisited

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By The Catholic Thing

Note: This column first appeared on January 24, 2020, before the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson last year, which reversed the Court’s finding in Roe v. Wade that there was a federal right to abortion – and returned questions about abortion to the individual States. Three years later, as the debates continue in many States, there is still a refusal to come to grips with the stark numbers indicated below. And as the national Pro-Life March takes place in Washington D.C. today, the World Economic Forum (currently meeting in Davos, Switzerland) seems to take it for granted that global access to abortion is an integral part of a better human future – though better for whom and at what moral cost doesn’t enter into the economic calculus.   

Robert Royal: Despite the pro-life victory in Dobbs, and as we march in Washington today, we need to redouble efforts to end modernity’s murderous, sinister, anti-life ideologies.

As a thought experiment, let’s assume something I would never accuse TCT readers of being: that you are materialist and utilitarian. You believe that “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” in tangible, physical measures, is the pre-eminent moral principle. What might you have to consider today, when hundreds of thousands of Americans will be marching to protect life in the womb? (And people in various countries conduct their own pro-life marches?)

Well, to begin with, though all such numbers are a bit uncertain, roughly 55 million people die, globally, every year. And numerous public health organizations intensely scrutinize the slightest increase or decrease in mortality, in a laudable effort to identify what factors may be harming or helping the health of diverse peoples around the world.

That number does not include the number of babies killed by elective abortions, however, which at one time would have been thought a rare, emergency measure. The Guttmacher Institute, an advocate for abortion, estimates that there are roughly 56 million abortions around the world every year. So allowing for the statistical uncertainties, we can say in broad terms that as many innocents are slaughtered every year in the womb as there are deaths from all other causes in the entire world.

That’s the kind of mayhem you associate with murderous ideologies like Nazism and Communism, not “reproductive health.”

Because of an ill-advised accord with China, the Vatican refrains from speaking about that government’s persecution, brainwashing, organ harvesting, and interference with the internal life of religious groups, including Catholics. But how about the more than 300 million abortions there since the 1970s, many forced – a number about equal to the entire population of the United States?

Or the more than 60 million abortions in America since Roe v. Wade? That’s more or less the population of the United Kingdom or France or Italy; much larger than Spain; a figure close to the populations of Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Hungary, and Poland combined.

Would even a materialist/utilitarian believe that such prodigal slaughter of the innocents has not and will not have enormous consequences?

At their annual meeting last November [2019], the American bishops, recognizing the moral questions in play during this year’s presidential campaign, tangled over whether abortion was the “pre-eminent” issue.

Or not.

Chicago’s Cardinal Cupich and San Diego’s Bishop McElroy, staunch partisans of Pope Francis, argued that the pontiff considers other life issues equally urgent. Nonetheless, two-thirds of the bishops voted to keep abortion “pre-eminent.”

Couldn’t the bishops, or at least some bishop, somewhere, do a little painting by the numbers? And speak out about the enormity that goes on unnoticed in the world, year after year now. Indeed, there’s a creepy current in international bodies seeking to define this slaughter as a universal human right.

The controversy among the bishops was cast in the media as the usual debate over Pope Francis. But Francis is not, as we have learned, in entire agreement with his champions.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann, who heads the USCCB’s Committee for Pro-Life Activities, met just a few days ago with the pope, along with other Midwestern bishops on their scheduled ad limina visits. He asked whether abortion is pre-eminent. Francis replied, “Of course, it is. It’s the most fundamental right. . . .This is not first a religious issue; it’s a human-rights issue.”

Francis is notorious for saying one thing to one group and the opposite to another. And as Archbishop Viganò has documented recently, we can’t be sure how much he’s permitted to know by those around him. So it may very well be that he wasn’t aware that “pre-eminent” is a term that, in America, is also a tripwire.

Many of us have suspected, going all the way back to then-Cardinal McCarrick’s misrepresentation of Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2004 letter to the American bishops, that efforts to make abortion just one of many “life” issues is really an effort to preserve the “political viability” of pro-choice Catholic politicians, almost all Democrats.

Still, Francis has, at least in one mood, spoken of abortion as “hiring a hit man” to solve a problem. He has not, however, shown anything like the urgency towards the tens of millions of deaths via abortion that he has towards the much smaller numbers of refugees, illegals, etc. who die every year.

The world desperately needs a sense of proportion about the evils we experience. For example, officials of various stripes warn against “hate crimes,” which, from their rhetoric, you might think constitute a vast epidemic, threatening the moral tone and very existence of civic life, especially in the “age of Trump,” who somehow is blamed for them, even though they largely predate his presidency.

Numbers? The FBI says in 2018 there was a “bump up” in incidents against Hispanics – from 430 to 485. Muslims? 270 – the fewest, by the way, since 2014.

Numbers, of course – even if minuscule – are not the only factor worth considering. Every human life is infinitely valuable, and injustice of any kind must constantly be fought. Catholics and other Christians realize this – quite contrary to the anti-Christian slurs, pro-life Christians seek to preserve all human life – from conception to natural death.

Still, numbers cannot be ignored. If millions, tens of millions, were dying crossing into America at the Rio Grande, or into Europe across the Mediterranean, or from the Middle East to refuge in Europe, there would be non-stop outrage around the globe – and rightly so.

So if the Catholic Church and others believe that abortion is the destruction of innocent human life, why do many – even within the Church – treat it like just one in a list of problems, and often far down the list?

The world looks at that relative passivity and asks, with some justice: So do these pro-lifers really think abortion takes a human life?

We do, of course. And as we march in Washington today and engage in other pro-life activities throughout the year, we all need to redouble efforts, both to defend the millions who are dying and to dispel yet another of modernity’s murderous, sinister, anti-life – and unrecognized – ideologies.

AUTHOR

Robert Royal

Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent books are Columbus and the Crisis of the West and A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

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Pope Urges Christians Not to Try to Convert Nonbelievers

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By Discover The Networks

Speaking to crowds gathered in the Vatican for his weekly general audience on Wednesday, Pope Francis said trying to convince someone to become a Christian is a “pagan” activity unworthy of followers of Christ.

“To evangelize is not to proselytize,” the pope said. “To proselytize is something pagan, it is neither religious nor evangelical.”

“This is not about proselytism, as I said, so that others become ‘one of us’ – no, this is not Christian,” he added. “It is about loving so that they might be happy children of God.”

“You know your contemporaries, you know that many are alone, that many do not know Jesus,” Francis told young people gathered for a national Catholic youth conference in 2019. “Go, go and bring the Lord, go and fill your environments, even the digital, but not of convictions, not to convince, not to proselytize, but to witness to the tenderness and mercy of Jesus.”

The following month, the pope told a group of Christian high school students that a Christian should never try to convince others of the truth of Christianity but should simply give a testimony of consistency and wait for others to ask about the faith, he proposed.

“You must be consistent with your faith,” he said. “It never occurred to me (and nor should it) to say to a boy or a girl: ‘You are Jewish, you are Muslim: come, be converted!’ You be consistent with your faith and that consistency is what will make you mature. We are not living in the times of the crusades.

“The last thing I should do is to try to convince an unbeliever. Never… The gospel is never, ever advanced through proselytism,” he continued. “If someone says he is a disciple of Jesus and comes to you with proselytism, he is not a disciple of Jesus. Proselytism is not the way; the Church does not grow by proselytism.”

For a dissenting view, see Matthew 28:19-20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

Pope Francis

Calls on America to welcome illegal immigrants fleeing persecution in their homelands

Characterizes capitalism as an economic system “where the powerful feed upon the powerless,” and which leads inevitably to “the greedy exploitation of environmental resources”

Asserts that the “inequality” inherent in capitalist economies constitutes “the root of social ills” and “eventually engenders … violence”

Believes that “the bulk of global warming” is due to “the great concentration of greenhouse gases” generated by “human action”

Opposes the death penalty and life-in-prison

To learn more about Pope Frances click here.

EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Faith in Dark Times

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By Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.

The article below by Bill Muehlenberg was sent to me today by a member of an intelligence network to which I have belonged for over ten years. Not only is the article timely and worthy of your reading, but I wanted to share that there are far more members of law enforcement, intelligence and threat assessment specialists, security professionals and protection agents who are Christians than the public might imagine. It was never easy to be in law enforcement, but the present is far more tenuous and fraught with danger. From the moment one checks “in-service” for his/her shift the pressure is there, the threat is there, the discord and possible dark times are there. As Bill Muehlenberg writes so clearly, God is still in control, He is still on the job, He sees everything – even in times of political and social turmoil and despair.

To all who swear to Serve and Protect, know that prayers truly are being offered for your protection and guidance. While the world is clearly slipping away the Lord of lords and King of kings is not! He is “in-service” working right along side of all of us regardless of our mission or standing.

To all others reading Bill Muehlenberg’s article, stand firm yourself. Look UP and not merely concentrate on the surrounding political and social turmoil. The Lord is very much still in control. While He may appear silent, do not confuse His silence with non-attentive, non-caring, non-involved. There is not even a sparrow that falls in the middle of the night, in the middle of a forest the Lord doesn’t see and had already known would fall. His perfect plan is coming into fruition. Give thanks in all things, not for all things but in all things.

Faith in Dark Times

By Bill Muehlenberg

God is still there, even in times of political turmoil and despair:

It is times like this when many Christians might be really struggling. A horrific election result is just the icing on the cake of a woke, secular left blitzkrieg which is overwhelming not just Victoria and Australia, but all of the West. It seems like one ugly anti-Christian agenda item after another is being implemented, and the war of faith, freedom and family is in the final stages.  With all this going on many believers can be very discouraged and disillusioned. I know I am. We naturally ask where is God, why he seems to be silent, why our prayers are not being answered, and so on. Why is this all happening? Why does not God intervene?

Many believers throughout the centuries have asked these sorts of questions and wondered about these kinds of matters. It can be any number of things that produces such questioning: the death of a loved one, losing your job, coming down with cancer, or getting a divorce. And nationally we can also ask questions about all sorts of things: invasion, civil war, depressions, treason, national disasters, corrupt politicians and so on.

Here in Victoria having another heart-wrenching election result is one of those big ticket items. It is certainly more serious than when your fave sporting team loses, but less serious than being invaded, as in Ukraine. In my short election piece I penned late last night, I mentioned how when God judged rebellious Israel, it was not just those deserving of such punishment who suffered.

It was also the godly remnant, including some of God’s choice prophets. They too experienced the destruction of Jerusalem by the evil Babylonians, and many of them were carried away into Babylonian exile as well. They suffered right along with all the others.  They could easily have been asking similar sorts of questions: ‘Why Lord?’ Of course they did know that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple was God’s judgment on a rebellious and sinful people, and they heavily grieved about all that. But they also had to undergo these horrible experiences themselves, being exiled from home and dragged off to a strange land.  But they also knew that their time there would not be permanent, and that God would bring them back home one day. Not only that, but God would judge Babylon, the very nation that had been his instrument of judgement upon Israel in the first place. They had all this by prophetic revelation. Things differ today.

When we see one electoral defeat after another, with secular left parties bent on doing so much great harm to faith, family and freedom, we do not have that same prophetic word. Another four years of Labor here in Victoria may well destroy it. And one Liberal MP says it is quite likely it will be at least ten more years before Labor finally gets booted out. I do not think Victoria can last that long. But again, we do not have the divine word on all this, so we can only guess about how things will pan out.  So all we can do is grieve, and ask questions, and plead with God, and hope that some sort of miracle happens. We can repent, individually, and on behalf of a sleeping and often spiritually inert church, and ask for God’s mercy. The fate of the state is often to a large extent dependent on the fate of the church.

If the church was being all it was meant to be under God, things may well have turned out differently. So we as Christians must begin on our faces before God, confessing our own sins and seeking his favour. But many would rightly be asking right now if all that we have been going through of late is not the judgment of God on this state and on this nation – not just on the pagan populace, but on the church as well.

There is much here to think about and pray about. But I know that many believers and conservatives went to bed last night with very heavy hearts, with real grief, and with plenty of questions. I certainly did. A bit past midnight as I headed off to bed I flipped over the page on my daily Bible verse calendar thingee, and it was interesting what I found. The verse for Sunday was the very familiar passage from Romans 8:28.  It says this: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” I thought it was quite interesting that the last thing I saw before heading to bed and a long night of tossing and turning was this verse. Indeed, in yesterday morning’s daily reading I was also in Romans 8.

So I took it as an indication that God may have been seeking to speak to me and comfort me. And what better verse to do this with than this one. It is such a familiar passage that we tend to take it for granted. But it is a marvellous text indeed, and it is worth offering a bit of commentary on. James Montgomery Boice reminds us that the ‘good’ discussed here has to do with being conformed to the image of Christ:

That is an obvious good. It is impossible to think of a higher good for human beings, to be like one’s Maker. Pastor Ray Stedman rightly calls this “what life is all about.” But at the same time, seeing this allows us to see other not so obviously good things within the greater purpose. We can see how sickness, suffering, persecution, grief, or other ills can be used by God for this good end….

Are the things used in our lives by God for this good end necessarily good in themselves or only in their effect? The answer is the latter. In other words, this text does not teach that sickness, suffering, persecution, grief, or any other such thing is itself good. On the contrary, these things are evils. Hatred is not love. Death is not life. Grief is not joy. The world is filled with evil. But what the text teaches—and this is important—is that God uses these things (and others) to effect his own good ends for his people. God brings good out of the evil, and the good, as we saw, is our conformity to the character of Jesus Christ.

Romans: Righteousness from Heaven
(Preaching the Word) by Hughes, R. Kent (Author)

  1. Kent Hughes makes these remarks:

Romans 8:28 does not mean, as is commonly thought, that “everything will turn out okay in this life.” It means, rather, that everything will work out for our ultimate good. These words have our eternal rather than our temporal good in mind. Bishop Anders Nygren writes:

“Just as the present aeon is to be followed by eternity, it has already been preceded by an eternity. Only when we see our present existence set in God’s activity, which goes from eternity to eternity, do we get it in right perspective. Then man comes to see that everything that comes to the Christian in this life—and consequently the sufferings of the present too—must work together for good to him.”

And R. C. Sproul offers this comment:

What we get from Romans 8:28 is this: in the short run each of us is visited at some point by tragedy. We are actors in the theater of the tragic. Tragedies are on our minds every day, but what Romans 8:28 teaches is that ultimately – not proximately but ultimately – there are no tragedies for the Christian. Tragedy now is a blessing later. In every tragedy we experience, God is working with it, molding it and shaping it, for our eternal blessedness. The tragic is ephemeral and temporary. It is in the world but never permanent.

Sure, it will be quite difficult for us to understand how yet another term in office with one of the most corrupt, evil and anti-Christian politicians in Australian history can be viewed as good. But Paul is talking about goods for the believer. And for the long haul it may be a very real bad thing for the state and the nation, but God can still use it to achieve his purposes in our lives and beyond.  And this is where faith comes into play. It sure does not look like anything good can come out of this disastrous political mess. But we are not God and we have no full idea as to what he is up to. But we do know that he is too wise to make a mistake, and too loving to be unkind.

So that means we CAN trust him, and we can cast all our cares upon him. Things are looking very grim right now, but Jesus is still on the throne, and he is still working out his purposes in our lives and in the nations. That is what gives us hope and that is what helps us to persevere.

About Bill Muehlenberg’s Culture Watch

We live in an age where we see evidence of cultural decline, the erosion of values, the decline of civility, the denial of truth and the elevation of unreason. Many people are asking, “Where is our culture heading?” This website is devoted to exploring the major cultural, social and political issues of the day. It offers reflection and commentary drawing upon the wealth of wisdom found in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It offers reflective and incisive commentary on a wide range of issues, helping to sort through the maze of competing opinions, worldviews, ideologies and value systems. It will discuss critically and soberly where our culture is heading. Happy reading!
https://billmuehlenberg.com/

©Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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“Amazing Grace” and the Abolition of Slavery

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By Jerry Newcombe

This month, January 2023, marks the 250th anniversary of the classic hymn, “Amazing Grace.”

The Museum of the Bible writes: “It was January 1, 1773. John Newton led his congregation down the road from the parish church in Olney, England, to Lord Dartmouth’s Great Hall to sing…and the hymn he wrote for this day was special. It spoke of his conversion, of his self-proclaimed wretchedness, and of the saving power of God’s grace. Since then, the words of ‘Amazing Grace’ have struck a chord with millions across cultures and generations, and its popularity has never wavered.”

The museum based in D.C. now has a section dedicated to the anniversary of this amazing hymn.

In the hymn, John Newton, a former slave-trader now converted, indeed describes himself as a “wretch,” who was amazed that God would extend His grace to one such as he.

He became a minister after his conversion, and one day, a politician came to visit him for personal guidance. That man was William Wilberforce, who had recently been converted to faith in Jesus.

Everybody should know who William Wilberforce was—perhaps the greatest Christian statesman of all time.

He was a longtime Member of Parliament, who worked tirelessly (with a group of like-minded associates that became known as “The Clapham Sect”) to end the slave trade of the British Empire and then to free all the slaves therein. By the time of his death in 1833, Wilberforce was successful. But it took him about half a century.

Author Dr. Os Guinness once said, “When Wilberforce died, he was described as ‘the George Washington of humanity.’”

William Wilberforce was born in 1759 and inherited considerable wealth which placed him among the landed nobility of England. He was indeed a polished gentleman, and he first ran for Parliament and won at the age of 21.

But not until his conversion a few years later did he begin to take life seriously.

After committing his life to Christ, he briefly dallied with the idea of leaving politics to serve God. But John Newton counseled Wilberforce to stay and let God use him in politics. Newton declared, “The Lord has raised you up to the good of his church and for the good of the nation.”

I shudder to think about someone like Wilberforce seeking guidance today among some modern ministers, who might easily convince him that Christians and politics shouldn’t mix. But John Calvin Coolidge, an often-overlooked president, once said, “If good men don’t hold office, bad men will.”

Soon after meeting with Rev. Newton, God put it on Wilberforce’s heart to fight against slavery. Working to uproot it was a daunting task because the slave trade brought enormous wealth to those involved.

After much prayer, Wilberforce felt that this indeed was the very voice of God speaking to him, calling him to this important mission. He was also concerned by the godless immorality of the age. In 1787, he wrote in his diary: “Almighty God has set before me two great objectives, the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.” (“Manners” would be comparable to “morals” in modern parlance.)

In an interview I once did with the late Chuck Colson, prison reformer and Wilberforce admirer, he told me: “[Wilberforce] stood up on the floor of the Parliament influenced by his new Christian conviction, took a stand that was enormously unpopular because all of the vested interest opposed him, including the government, and for 20 years he waged that battle.”

Kevin Belmonte, author of William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity, observes, “Wilberforce had to travel with an armed bodyguard.” But Wilberforce persevered—despite whatever personal cost he must pay.

Colson said, “One day in 1807 in a February snowstorm, the votes were cast to abolish the slave trade. While members of Parliament were jumping up and down for joy, they looked over and there was Wilberforce, head bowed at his desk, praying, thanking God for what He had done.”

But Wilberforce wasn’t finished. He then set out to emancipate the slaves, who, even after this vote, were still in chains throughout the British Empire. This was a battle to last for another 25 years.

Because of health problems, he had to resign in Parliament in 1825, but the movement he began to free all of the slaves in the British Empire continued without his direct involvement—and when he was already on his death bed, in 1833, he received word that the Parliament decided to free all of the 800,000 slaves throughout the British Empire.

Wilberforce is a great example of what Jesus can do through those fully committed to Him in whatever position in which He has placed them—when God’s “amazing grace” gets ahold of a life wholly committed to Him.

©Jerry Newcombe, D.Min.

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German-Egyptian Scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad: Islam Was Born With The Seed Of Civil War And Has Failed To Come Up With A Plan For Coexistence

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By Middle East Media Research Institute

The Shari’a Is Dwindling, And What Is Left Of It Is The Hijab And Sex! 

German-Egyptian scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad said in an interview that was posted to the Brother Rachid TV channel on YouTube on November 17, 2022 that Islam has been “distorted” from the beginning and that countries that implement shari’a law such as Afghanistan, ISIS, Iran, and the Boko Haram have failed to produce ideal societies. He also said that the Gulf countries are abandoning shari’a law because it is incompatible with their economic interests, and he said that in the modern world, shari’a law has been reduced to the subjects of sexuality and hijabs because there is no longer a slave trade. 

For more about Dr. Hamed Abdel-Samad, see MEMRI TV Clips Nos. 8955, 8870, 7421, 7229, 7188, 7123, 7072, 6960, 6759, 6727, 6651, and 6112.

View the clip of German-Egyptian scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad:

Islam Failed To Come Up With A Program For Coexistence Between Nations

Hamed Abdel-Samad:

“Islam was born distorted. I’m sorry but for some, this might be difficult to hear. Islam was born with the seed of civil wars in it.

[…]

“It put forward great slogans, but failed to come up with a program for coexistence between nations.

Implementing Shari’a Law Has Not Produced Ideal Societies; The Gulf States Once Championed Shari’a, But Now They Know It Does Not Serve Their Economic Interests

“Afghanistan implements shari’a law with all its punishments. ISIS also implemented the Islamic shari’a when it founded its state in Mosul. Boko Haram partially implements the Islamic shari’a law. Iran also implements the shari’a. What have these nations produced for us? Have they produced ideal societies? On the contrary, the Gulf states that came up with the idea of implementing the shari’a and the Islamic punishments are now shedding the shari’a, because they know that their economic interests do not go hand in hand with the life of the Middle Ages and the chopping off of limbs.”

Read The Full Report

©MEMRI 2023. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Islamic Republic of Iran: Leading imam says drought has come because women aren’t wearing hijab

WATCH: Man Wearing ‘Jesus Saves’ Shirt Kicked Out of Mall of America in Minnesota thumbnail

WATCH: Man Wearing ‘Jesus Saves’ Shirt Kicked Out of Mall of America in Minnesota

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By The Geller Report

The guard: “We’ve had guests come up saying that they’ve been offended by your shirt…

There is a very large Somali Muslim population….they’re ‘offended.’

Man Wearing “Jesus Saves” Shirt Kicked Out of Mall of America in Minnesota (Video)

By Anthony Scott, TPG, January 16, 2023 at 4:33pm

A man who was wearing a t-shirt that read “Jesus Saves” was reportedly kicked out of the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota for his shirt being too offensive for others.

Footage of the incident went viral and shows security officers telling the man wearing the green “Jesus Saves” shirt that his shirt was “offending” other shoppers in the mall.

I automatically assumed this was overseas, but it’s right here in America. pic.twitter.com/Q79eUCG7xh

— John Mason (@LivingGodsTruth) January 12, 2023

The security would continue to tell the man he either had to remove his shirt or leave the mall.

The back of the man’s shirt read “Jesus is the only way” and had the word “coexist” crossed out.

According to Blaze, the video first emerged on Facebook on January 7th and has been making its way around the web ever since.

In the video, the officers were quoted saying, “Jesus is associated with religion, and it’s offending people.”

The man would respond, “I didn’t speak… I didn’t say anything. I just went to Macy’s.”

Many users on Twitter were shocked this occurred in the United States:

This man was stopped by Mall cops for wearing a Jesus Saves t shirt.

This is considered offensive to the shoppers at the @mallofamerica

This id happening in the USA the land of the free and the home of the brave. https://t.co/mGhxn5Ui5s

— CHP – Christian Heritage Party (@CHPCanada) January 13, 2023

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Real Cause of Climate Change thumbnail

The Real Cause of Climate Change

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By Bud Hancock

Can there possibly be one human who has not by now heard those fear-inducing, horrific words, “Climate Change”? Just in case you  have not heard that term, it is the same as the one previously used by the fear-mongers: “Global Warming”.

The whole uproar over changes in our global climate have caused a serious divide between those who are certain that unless we “do something immediately” to “save the planet” and those who completely deny any climate change is occurring. The doom-speakers demand we all act quickly or we are all going to die as a result of the catastrophic events they say are coming on the earth. The deniers seem to be content to remain unaware of any changes in the climate or the reason for those changes (hint: it AIN’T about carbon emissions).

Personally, I have been more amused than worried about the effects of “global warming/climate change”. After nearly eighty years of life on this planet, and having lived in several areas of the US, as well as visiting several foreign countries from near the arctic circle to the equator, I can assure you  that, indeed the climate is changing; in fact it is changing on a daily basis. News reports, especially in the past several years offer concrete proof that the weather is getting more and more topsy-turvy and totally unpredictable.

A Little History

When our recorded history began, the earth was in a condition that no human has ever witnessed. But God, the creator of all things, wanted that condition to be known so that He could prove to all mankind that His true nature is to provide a perfect, peaceful, comfortable and productive environment for his prized creation: the human race.

God’s word does not provide many details of the means He used to bring about what is called a “chaotic void”, or the words “Tohu va bohu” in the Hebrew (Genesis 1:2 KJV). The English translation of “tohu va bohu” is “without form” (tohu/chaotic) and “void” (bohu/empty). This is the description of the earth when, in God’s perfect timing, He moved upon the scene and began the recreation/renovation of the earth we now inhabit.

Even though we are not told the details of the catastrophic event that produced “tohu va bohu”, we know that a massive amount of water that was previously gathered into specific places was allowed to cover the earth and bring utter destruction to anything that had previously been living on the earth’s surface.

However, we do know that Satan (Lucifer), one of God’s highest creations, full of splendor, beauty and even ‘music’, before pride brought him down, was responsible for the destruction that caused the ‘tohu va bohu’ condition of the earth due to his rebellion and foolish attempt to elevate his throne (on earth) above that of God.

After the flood that eliminated all beings on earth prior to the recreation of Genesis 1:1-3, God decided to make a being, “in His image” and “after His likeness”. That creature was named Adam, and he had the same genetic bodily characteristics (shape and fashion) of God. The Hebrew words used as image in Genesis 1:26, tselem (Strong’s 6754, pronounced tseh’-lem) and likeness, dmuwth, (Strong’s 1823, pronounced dem-ooth’) both indicate  something that has or is, a  shade, a phantom, a resemblance, hence a representative figure of the original. If man was created perfect (uncorrupted) as God declared, then the genetic structure of Adam was also as perfect and as uncorrupted as was God’s.

God’s Perfect Man Becomes Corrupted

After the sin of Adam, the curse placed upon humanity, the earth and the ‘serpent’ allowed that ‘the seed of the woman’ (Eve) would bruise the head of the serpent (Satan); God already had His plan of redemption ready for the time when it was needed. That plan required a sacrifice, a perfect human specimen that would be capable of satisfying God’s righteous demand for a perfect, undefiled and uncorrupted sacrifice. That sacrifice would need to be descended from the lineage of man ‘through a woman’ and would come through the womb of Eve’s direct descendants , a virgin we now know as Mary (Eve’s seed).

However, the corruption of humanity had already taken its toll on the human race with death having entered the picture and for the most part, the life expectancy of men having gradually decreased.

Obviously, God’s plan to redeem the human race was sometime into the future and when that time came, everything had to be as God had said it would be.

As Adam and Eve began to reproduce, multiplying the human race, a serious problem for the future of mankind was introduced by Satan and those fallen angels who, alongside Lucifer, rebelled against God and followed Lucifer in his future war against God.

Some of those sinful fallen angels ‘looked upon the daughters of men’, saw their physical beauty and chose them to marry and had intercourse with them, thus producing the giants spoken of in Genesis 6:4, who then reproduced and created a race of giants that were NOT of the pure DNA that Adam had received from God. The obvious intent of Satan was to corrupt the DNA of all men and thus deny God the means of introducing the promised Redeemer into the earth.

Having seen the condition of man, so totally depraved and wallowing in sin and disobedience, with mankind being so wicked and corrupted, God made the decision to wipe everything away and start over. The record of the condition of humanity when God made His decision shows just how successful Satan had been in his quest to destroy humanity and defeat God.

God’s Planned Destruction of Corrupted Mankind

As corrupted as all of mankind was, God still found in one man the pure lineage needed to produce His Messiah. Noah, the ninth generation of sons from Adam was described as being a ‘just man and perfect in his generations’. The word perfect is the English translation of the Hebrew word tamiym (Strong’s 8549, pronounced taw-meem’) and it is translated as without blemish (bodily), upright and undefiled; this is the same description of the Jewish animal sacrifices that God required to be ‘bodily perfect and without spot or blemish’.

We are told in Genesis 6:8 that Noah ‘found grace’ in the eyes of the Lord. The word ‘found’ is the English translation of the Hebrew word ‘matsa’ (Strong’s 4672, pronounced maw-tsaw’) and it means ‘to attain’, or to arrive at, to reach as a goal. God declared Noah to be “a just man, and perfect in his generations” indicating that, 1) it was God who was searching for the person needed to carry on the uncorrupted DNA of the original Adam, and 2) Noah himself, through his life as a devout God-seeker, a man who had kept himself  pure in ‘his generations’ with uncorrupted DNA, was counted worthy of God’s consideration.

Noah was descended from a lineage of men whose DNA had not been corrupted by mixing with that of the fallen angels, making him a candidate to continue the line from whom the Messiah would come. That lineage was as follows: Seth, Enos, Cainaan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah and Lamech. Even though the fathers of each of these men had “other sons and daughters”, their names are mentioned first because they were the specific persons who would carry on the pure lineage through uncorrupted DNA. This info can be found in Genesis 5.

God’s Plan: The ARK of Safety

God then spoke to the man Noah and informed him of the coming destruction of all flesh and gave him the plan that was formulated before the foundation of the world, the plan to construct a shelter that would withstand the coming destruction and save eight souls alive, besides a selection of all clean animals.

So, What About Climate Change?

In Ecclesiastes 1:9, Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes declared: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Those who constantly run to and fro proclaiming the dangers of burning ‘fossil fuels’ (not to mention the absurdity of ‘cow flatulence’) that release copious amounts of carbon into the atmosphere resulting in the threatened destruction of the planet due to ‘climate change’ (formerly global-warming’), want us to believe that what we are seeing now with the changes in the global temperatures, massive storms in diverse areas and all manner of strange weather phenomena, none of which I deny, has never been seen before in the history of man.

However, we know from the record in Genesis that this is not true. When God recreated  the earth, it was perfect. There were no recorded strange weather phenomena mentioned from the recreation to the Flood of Noah.

So, what caused the sudden change that resulted in the flood and the destruction of all flesh save the eight souls and the animals that were saved along with them?

Genesis 6:5-7, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repented me that I have made them’.”

The absolute depravity of mankind, who disobeyed God and refused to live according to His dictates, had brought the entirety of mankind to a place where God saw no value in them any longer and His creation no longer brought Him joy or pleasure. The answer was to destroy them all with a massive change of climate with “all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened” (Genesis 7:11 KJV) to cover the earth and wipe out all of those beings that were not safe in the ark.

We know that God directed the catastrophic weather event that flooded the entire earth and destroyed all flesh except those that were saved on the ark. And there are now those whose shallow knowledge of God has prompted them to claim that God was cruel to do so, but, they would be wrong.  Just as it was an act of God’s grace and mercy that drove the man from the Garden of Eden wherein was the tree of Life that, had it been accessed by man in his sinful state, it would have allowed mankind to live forever in that depraved fallen state, so was His decision to destroy all corrupted humans to save alive the ones who would go on to produce the body of Messiah.

Even though there are many in Christian circles who have fallen for the ‘Climate Change narrative’ that says man’s physical actions, burning carbon based fuels and other actions in the way he relates to the planet have caused the damage we see from the weather now being experienced, there is a far more reasonable explanation and it totally aligns with God’s word.

Just as the first earth which became ‘tohu va bohu’ as a result of Lucifer’s rebellion and sin against God, the same thing occurred in the centuries  leading up to the time of Noah where “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” (Genesis 6:5-6 KJV). This heart condition of God moved Him to make a decision that would allow the race of man to continue living until the Messiah could be introduced into the earth.

The time from Adam’s creation to the time of the flood of Noah has been estimated to be around 1650 years and during that time it is also estimated that approximately 500 million people had been born on the earth. Sadly, of that large number of souls, there were only a few that had remained uncorrupted in God’s eyes. Had God not mercifully sent the flood, there would have been none that remained capable of producing a saviour worthy to become the perfect sacrifice demanded by God’s righteousness.

Conclusion

Jesus’ disciples questioned Him about the “signs of His coming, and the end of the world” (Greek ‘aion’ or English ‘age’, meaning a period of time, NOT the end of the world or the earth as they will both continue forever), Jesus was speaking of the end of the Church age which takes place at the rapture when Jesus appears in the clouds to call His body home to be forever with Him.

In answer to their question, Jesus said: “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be”. We know from scripture that in the days just before the flood came, all mankind had entered a period of total depravity and corrupted itself through sin, rebellion and utter disobedience against God. The mixing of DNA from fallen angels and human women had nearly corrupted the human DNA causing bodily impurity.

We are now living in the days mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 24. Just as wickedness was rampant in the days of Noah, today, with the increase in human knowledge leading to the attempt to clone a human being, DNA alterations aided by Artificial Intelligence and the constant introduction of more and more potentially dangerous pharmaceuticals that cause sometime irreparable damage to the human body, mutations that evil scientists are using to introduce ‘hybrid beings’ that are neither human nor  robot but a mixture of the two, the similarities between the ‘Days of Noah’ and our current time are startling and eye-opening.

The world is now being deceived by certain groups, e.g., the WEF, the CDC, the WHO and others who are trying to play God and utterly corrupt the current human DNA and allow the earth to be controlled by inhuman or transhuman monsters. The timing of the events that ‘imitate’ the times of Noah indicate that we are in the days leading up to “the coming of the Lord”.

Paul told Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3:12-13, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” Every day we read of persecution against Christians around the world, and that will soon be coming to the US as well to all who choose to live Godly in Christ Jesus.

The deception the world is receiving is the absolute lie that some actions of evil men will create a perfect utopia on earth instead of bringing the destruction God has planned for all evil.

Unfortunately, some Christians are also accepting the deception and allowing themselves to be drawn into satanic behavior and religious apostasy instead of “living Godly in Christ Jesus”.

After Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives exited the ark, Noah built an altar and, of the clean animals he saved, He offered sacrifices to God. God then made a covenant with Noah promising that He would not ever again destroy the earth by a flood of water.

But just as man’s sin and rebellion caused the weather disasters recorded in God’s word in Genesis, the strange and unusual weather we are now witnessing is also a direct result of the increase of sin and rebellion against God and His word. We don’t know just how bad these weather events will become, but we know one thing for certain, the time leading up to the seven year period known as Daniel’s seventieth week, aka the Tribulation Period will bring destruction, devastation and loss of human life that has never been witnessed in human history.

Burt, DO NOT FEAR! As in the days of Noah God has a plan and neither man, nor Satan nor his demonic minions  have the power to stop that plan. Yes, evil will continue to become more evil and the catastrophic weather events will also continue and will cause men’s hearts to fear and fail, but we know that all who have entered into the “Ark of God’s Provision” will not only live, but will live eternally with God!

Blessings! And Maranatha!

©Bud Hancock. All rights reserved.

Oops! Democratic ‘Oversights’ Would Legalize Polygamy, Infanticide thumbnail

Oops! Democratic ‘Oversights’ Would Legalize Polygamy, Infanticide

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By Family Research Council

One of the most famous illustrations in all of literature comes from “The Adventure of Silver Blaze,” when Sherlock Holmes notes “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time”: the dog that did not bark. The canine’s silence revealed the watchdog’s familiarity and comfort with the criminal. “Obviously the midnight visitor was someone whom the dog knew well,” remarks Holmes.

Voters can glean the inner disposition of our lawmakers, learning which issues they consider vital and which never enter their minds, through a similar device: the “errors,” omissions, and oversights politicians make when drafting legislation. Allegedly inadvertent “oversights” and “drafting errors” by Democratic lawmakers over the last year alone would have decriminalized infanticide, legalized polygamy, and suppressed sacred religious liberty rights enshrined in the First Amendment.

Lest I be accused of overstatement, let’s look at the record:

1. Infanticide

En route to becoming an “abortion sanctuary,” California lawmakers passed Assembly Bill 2223, introduced by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks. The original draft forbade law enforcement from prosecuting or investigating any mother for the death of her child through “miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death.” Pro-life legal scholars noted that California state law extends the term “perinatal death” up to 30 or “60 days following delivery,” essentially decriminalizing infanticide. Wicks retorted that her law could never be construed to support child murder, because “one of the tools judges would use in that case is legislative intent.” (Then again, if judges valued original intent, Roe v. Wade would never have been written.) Wicks called pro-life concerns “absurd and disingenuous” … but then the Assembly’s overwhelmingly Democratic Judiciary Committee released its official analysis, which put the matter as gently as possible:

[T]he “perinatal death” language could lead to an unintended and undesirable conclusion. As currently in print, it may not be sufficiently clear that “perinatal death” is intended to be the consequence of a pregnancy complication. Thus, the bill could be interpreted to immunize a pregnant person from all criminal penalties for all pregnancy outcomes, including the death of a newborn for any reason during the “perinatal” period after birth, including a cause of death which is not attributable to pregnancy complications, which clearly is not the author’s intent.

That is, pro-life critics were right all along: The language of her bill would legalize the murder of newborns. Wicks amended the “perinatal death due to a pregnancy-related cause.” Despite this change, the law “still prevents law enforcement from investigating ‘perinatal death,’ and the amendments Ms. Wicks” added proved “woefully inadequate,” Jonathan Keller, president of California Family Council, told me at the time.

Nonetheless, Governor Gavin Newsom (D), an undeclared 2024 presidential hopeful, signed the amended bill into law alongside a pack of 12 other abortion-promoting bills. These bills underscore the need for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which passed the House of Representatives on January 11: national lawmakers must correct the “oversights” of far-left state legislators. Unfortunately, they must also correct their own.

2. Legalizing Polygamy Nationwide

After then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hustled the drastically misnamed Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA) through the House of Representatives in one day, U.S. senators noted something curious: The original draft of the bill did not limit marriage to two people. While one provision mentioned “2 individuals,” another section of the bill would have amended federal law to say simply “an individual shall be considered married if that individual’s marriage is valid in the State where the marriage was entered into,” with no numerical limit.

The bill’s chief Republican sponsor, Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), chalked the oversight up to a “drafting error,” though she admitted “the language needs to be clarified” that the bill does not permit polygamy/polyandry. The authors said, in effect, they intended to redefine the most fundamental institution in human society, just not quite that far. Again, legal scholars say the new legislative patch sewn into the old garment of the RFMA failed to fix the problem. The “clarified” final draft of “the bill leaves open the possibility that one person can be in multiple two-person marriages at the same time, which would trigger federal recognition if a state legally were to recognize such consensual, bigamous unions as separate family units,” noted the Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino. Nonetheless, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (R-N.Y.) exclaimed “Praise God!” as President Joe Biden signed the bill into law last December 13. That would not be the bill’s only oversight.

3. Erasing Religious Liberty

The Respect for Marriage Act makes a second appearance, as the bill’s authors also ignored all concerns about religious liberty. Despite years of litigation aimed at bringing Bible-believing Christians to heel, and warnings that the bill will usher in “a new era of oppression” of Christians like Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, Senate Democrats only entertained the notion of a religious protection amendment as a fig leaf for wavering Republicans. They insisted they did not mean to wage culture war against believers; they just crushed your religious freedom all accidental-like. Once again, the “cure” proved inadequate, as the Senate rejected Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) amendment in favor of an irrelevant and legally ambiguous substitute.

Like Holmes, we can deduce from these silences that when social liberals ponder transforming life, marriage, and society, they give not one thought to the lives of newborn children, the nuclear family, or a Higher Power (Who, in His sovereignty, might restrain and hold them accountable for their actions). Their ideological fever to revolutionize everything from marriage to human nature blinds them to any negative consequences — or convinces them these results will be tolerable, even desirable.

That analysis would explain how Democrats omitted the word “God” from their 2012 platform and then booed when His Name was restored. It might make clear why candidate Joe Biden referred to the benevolent Creator as “you know, The Thing,” apparently likening Jehovah to a 1950s monster movie — much as the man most responsible for inflicting Biden on the nation, Barack Obama, regularly elided the Almighty from his quotations of our founding documents (which Obama demeaned as “the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day”).

A platform that doubles as a photographic negative of God’s Word might offer some insight into why the Left “did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (Romans 1:28).

Such hostility to the God of the Bible has led liberals into the legislative wilderness for two more years. One of the most overlooked upgrades the Republican congressional majority will have over previous management has gone unappreciated: Even the quality of legislative errors will improve.

The Democrats’ radical “oversights” should also warn every thoughtful statesman against hastily voting for any bill promoted by social liberals, lest they risk placing their own stamp of approval on polygamy, atheism, infanticide, or other evils they cannot see while blinded by left-wing bias.

Finally, the fact that many of these oversights come as news, even to well-informed conservatives, serves as an eloquent indictment of the nation’s Christians. It is not merely Sherlock’s dog that held its peace. The prophet Isaiah condemned the inert watchmen of his day as “blind,” “ignorant,” “greedy,” and “dumb dogs [who] cannot bark; Sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.” They “have no understanding” and look only unto their “own gain” (Isaiah 56:9-12; compare with John 10:11-12).

Like the self-serving shepherds of Isaiah’s day, too many people who know better did not expose the implications of these bills for the sake of political favoritism, for fear of offending the Facebook algorithm (and its sweet, remunerative traffic), or sheer timidity. Some modern evangelicals also love dreams — fantasizing of being hailed as the “reasonable” and “winsome” Christian, of their leftist overlords granting their children a safe haven from endless culture wars, even of being invited to “a seat at the table” to carve out their rights as an ideological minority. They may have even been promised these things — but then, empty promises were the one thing the devil never lacked.

The other side’s silences show their fealty to their masterplan. Let our speech prove our fidelity to our Master’s plan. Now is no time to remain silent.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED TWEET:

Sheila Jackson Lee introduces bill that criminalizes criticism of a “non-White person” by a White

“The bill says any White person who criticizes immigration or vilifies any “non-White person or group” can be charged with committing a federal hate crime.”https://t.co/zAEijeigW9

— Sue Knows Best (@sues86453) January 15, 2023

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‘Pro-life Champion’ Pete Ricketts Named to U.S. Senate

Republicans Pass Pro-Life Resolution and Bill; Democrat Uses Scripture to Support Abortion

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

University of Michigan: ‘Palestinian’ jihad supporters call for destruction of Israel, ‘There is only one solution’ thumbnail

University of Michigan: ‘Palestinian’ jihad supporters call for destruction of Israel, ‘There is only one solution’

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By Jihad Watch

Why is anyone surprised? This is the entrenched orthodoxy on college and university campuses all over the country today.

Note also the charged word “solution,” used quite deliberately in this context.

At the University of Michigan, a call to murder Jews. pic.twitter.com/UoA0LUft1h

— Blake Flayton (@blakeflayton) January 13, 2023

Michigan University rally calling for ‘Intifada,’ demise of Israel stuns internet: ‘A call to murder Jews

by Gabriel Hays, Fox News, January 14, 2023:

Social media users were shocked and outraged over a recent anti-Israel rally put on by pro-Palestinian protestors at the University of Michigan this week.

Clips of the protest depicted marchers, chanting “Intifada, Intifada! Long live the Intifada” a call to violent overthrow of the Jewish state inspired by Palestinian riots and rebellions against Israel in the late 80s, early 90s, and early 2000s.

“There is only one solution!” a female marcher was seen chanting, as the crowd behind her responded, “Intifada! Revolution!

Marchers, seen walking around the Ann Arbor campus screaming into bullhorns and waving Palestinian flags, were also heard chanting the infamous anti-Israel call to arms: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

Media reported that the antisemitic rally was held to protest Vice President Kamala Harris’ Thursday visit to the campus, where she gave a speech on climate policy, and student activism. The protestors appeared to be standing against U.S. government support for the state of Israel.

Another video depicted the marchers outside of campus building in which Harris was giving her speech, saying, “Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel’s crimes.”

The blatant call to overthrow Israel disturbed prominent Twitter users, who were stunned that such sentiment was expressed so freely on a major American college campus.

Jewish Journal columnist Blake Flayton tweeted, “At the University of Michigan, a call to murder Jews.”

Rep. Jared Moskovitz, R-Fla., spoke to the shocking nature of the rally, tweeting, “Using Hitler’s word ‘solution’ is intentional here. Israel has a right to exist. We will never compromise that. The Jewish people have a right to exist. We will ensure.”…

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Connecticut: Man converts to Islam, says ‘I need Islamic law,’ tries to join ISIS thumbnail

Connecticut: Man converts to Islam, says ‘I need Islamic law,’ tries to join ISIS

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By Jihad Watch

by Paul Best, Fox News, January 12, 2023:

A Connecticut man pleaded guilty on Thursday to attempting to travel to the Middle East to fight for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

Kevin Iman McCormick, 29, was arrested in October 2019 at a private airport in Connecticut, where he was allegedly tried to board a flight to Canada and then to Amman, Jordan.

In the months leading up that arrest, McCormick pledged his allegiance to ISIS and its then-leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

“I gotta fight bro, because those people, Abu Masa and ISIL, they fought for me bro, I know it, I can feel it, in my heart. So it’s my time to fight… It just is what it is bro, it’s just my – it’s just my time to go bro,” McCormick said in one conversation in October 2019, according to prosecutors.

McCormick later said that he wants to travel to Syria, or “whatever place I can get there the fastest, the quickest, the easiest, and where I can have a rifle and I can have some people.”

“I need Islamic law, I need, that’s what I need, because if I have these things, it’s gonna to be very hard to kill me,” McCormick said, according to prosecutors….

Biden Tells Israel to Give Money to Terrorists, Not Terror Victims thumbnail

Biden Tells Israel to Give Money to Terrorists, Not Terror Victims

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By Jihad Watch

The most anti-Israel administration stands with Islamic terrorists.

The Biden administration condemned Israel for giving $39 million in tax revenues to the victims of terrorism instead of the terrorists.

“It is morally just and important for the war against terror. There is no greater justice than using the funds for the victims of terror,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said of the move.

State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned Israel’s actions as a “unilateral response” that will “exacerbate tensions. and warned that the administration will raise the issue with Israel.

Price did not address whether the Palestinian Authority spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to finance terrorist attacks against Israelis through the ‘Pay-to-Slay’ program raises any tensions. The ruling PLO body spending millions to kill Jews is not unilateral, but Israel refusing to finance the murder of its own citizens is a dangerous move that will make peace difficult.

Palestinian Authority PM Mohammad Shtayyeh claims that if Israel doesn’t give it $39 million, that “will promptly lead to its collapse.”

The terror organization has been claiming variations of the same thing for over two decades.

“Palestinian Authority Broke and In Disarray,” the media agonized in 2004. “Palestinians Threaten to Collapse the Palestinian Authority,” they clamored in 2009. “Suspended tax transfers leave Palestinian economy on the brink” came the warnings in 2015. “Palestinian finances near collapse as cuts deepen,” we were told in 2019.

The PLO’s terror infrastructure is always on the verge of collapse, but sadly never does.

“Israel sells us everything, including water treatment, electricity and drinking water, and in fact profits from all of this,” Shtayyeh whined.

Why after 30 years can’t the aspiring terror state do anything for itself? The “Palestinians” have received an estimated $40 billion in foreign aid. Other estimates have put it at $50 billion.

Over $14 billion of that money went directly to the Palestinian Authority. What did all that money buy apart from mansions for top terrorists?

Pinchas Rutenberg, who had unsuccessfully urged Russia’s liberal Kerensky government to execute Lenin and Trotsky before it was too late and fought to the last to defend the Winter Palace against the Bolsheviks, headed to Israel and began electrifying the country.

“No one doubts the duty of the British Empire to develop the Land of Israel, but who will be charged the financial burden? The British taxpayer? Or perhaps the Arab public that has lived in the country for hundreds of years and has not lifted a finger to develop it. True, Rutenberg is a Jew, and he recruited businessmen and Jewish capitalists to develop the natural resources of the Land of Israel and create jobs for its Arab residents, but is it therefore necessary to disqualify his vision?” Churchill opined.

In a matter of years, much of Israel was powered by the generators that Rutenberg had built.

And all of this happened over two decades before Israel even achieved independence.

Somehow Jewish refugees could do a better job of providing electricity in the 1920s after only a few years than the Palestinian Authority has managed in the 2020s after 30 years.

Churchill correctly observed that the Arab invaders and colonizers had lived there for “hundreds of years” yet had “lifted a finger to develop it.” The cost of developing the territories under PLO control has passed right back to the British taxpayer, the American taxpayer and the Israelis.

Every few years, Israel threatens to cut off the power unless the terrorists pay their debts. The last time around the debt had shot up to $500 million. Each time diplomats warn that if Israel cuts off the power, there will be a humanitarian crisis. But when isn’t there a crisis?

Biden directed over half-a-billion dollars to the terrorists since taking office. And yet the PLO claims that it’s still on the verge of collapse and Israel has to save it all over again.

“The PA must stop its involvement in terror if it wants to survive. As long as it continues to encourage terror, it is our enemy and as such, what interest do we have to help it?” Israeli Finance Minister Smotritch pointed out.

The Palestinian Authority has never run out of money to pay the terrorists, but it can’t manage to pay for its power bill or accomplish anything useful for its people.

Secretary of State Blinken and Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, are headed to Israel to scold the Jewish State for not giving money to the terrorists. The administration has used every possible forum to show contempt and undermine Israel: including a recent UN session denying Jews the right to visit the Temple Mount which is the holiest site in Judaism.

When National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount, the Biden administration called it an “unacceptable” violation of the “historic status quo” that bans Jews.

And yet Ben-Gvir’s visit came and went.

Since then, he’s told the police to take down the terrorist flags of the PLO.

“It is inconceivable that lawbreakers will wave terror flags, incite and encourage terrorism,” Ben Gvir said. “I have issued instructions for the removal of the flags, which support terrorism, from the public space and to stop incitement against the State of Israel.”

The Biden administration, which funds terrorism and incitement against Israel through its foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, is probably unhappy with this. Its spokesmen repeatedly accuse Israel of “unilateral” acts that increase “tensions”. Every time a Jewish person sneezes in Jerusalem, Ned Price appears at a State Department podium to intone about unilateral sneezing, raising tensions. And yet it’s the Biden administration that is conducting unilateral actions meant to undermine Israel’s status like its rogue diplomatic operation to the PLO.

The level of pettiness included stepping in when an Iron Age spoon was seized from the founder of Birthright Israel to “return” it to the Palestinian Authority even though the Arab Muslim colonists had invaded the area a thousand years later and have no claim to the ancient artifact.

The spoon was identified in the files as coming from the country of Israel, “from the Hebron area” that “is the area of the richest Iron age Jewish tombs (many royal).”

The pettiness of seizing an artifact that originated from an Israeli source and turning it over to the Arab Muslim terrorists who currently occupy parts of Hebron to make a point is emblematic of the Biden administration’s determination to undermine the Jewish People’s claim to its land.

The Biden administration and the media are furious that Israel’s new patriotic government is asserting its rights. It’s a belated act of self-defense that the media treats as an attack.

A hysterical AP news story denounces Netanyahu’s new government as “hard-line”,  “ultra-nationalist”, and the “most hard-line and religious government in Israel’s history” that is “shaking the foundations of Israel’s democracy”, “fomenting divisions” and “barreling toward conflict”.

And that’s just the first two paragraphs of a deranged screed masquerading as news coverage.

Israel’s new government is not “shaking the foundations of Israel’s democracy”, it’s restoring it after decades of hijacking by an activist judiciary by implementing a system of checks and balances to equalize its power with that of the legislature.

It is not “fomenting divisions”, it’s confronting divisions created by leftists and dealing with them. And it’s not “barreling toward conflict” but responding to the attacks against the Jewish State.

What has Israel’s “ultra-nationalist” and “hard-line” government done so far? It diverted money that will be used by terrorists to finance the murder of Jews to the victims of these attacks.

One of its cabinet members briefly visited the holiest site in Judaism. Another suggested that the terrorists need to choose between getting money through Israel and killing Jews.

All that outrage over basic acts of decency.

It’s hard to argue with any of these actions when they’re described objectively. That’s why shrill labels like “hard-line” and  “ultra-nationalist” are being used to silence any meaningful debate.

The media doesn’t want to talk about why Israel and the United States should be financing Islamic terrorism against Jews. Israel’s new government is determined to make that the issue.

Anyone in the Biden administration, the media and activists who scream about “unilateralism” and “ultra-nationalists” should be asked to put away their thesauruses and answer why money should go to terrorists not terror victims.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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A House United: How Prayer Played a Central Role in Electing a Speaker

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By Family Research Council

In the wee morning hours of Saturday, January 7, the 434 members of the House of Representatives swore an oath to “bear true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution. After 15 votes, they had finally chosen a House speaker and could all take the oath of office. A short time earlier, seven of their number had acted out their true faith and allegiance to a different, higher governmental authority.

“We have a prayer caucus in the House,” explained Representative Mike Johnson (R-La.) on FRC’s “Pray Vote Stand” (PVS) webcast. “We gather for prayer, for example, the beginning of each week … and ask the Lord for his wisdom and discernment and guidance.”

As Friday dawned with the House no closer to choosing a Speaker, “we were in a real bind,” Johnson confessed. So, the prayer caucus gathered to pray in the House chamber “in the early morning before the session began. … We repented to the Lord for our individual transgressions, and those collectively as a legislative body, and as a people, as a nation. And we asked for his divine guidance.”

“I believe the Lord has answered the prayers of many because there was an outcome in which I believe the Congress is stronger,” remarked FRC President Tony Perkins, who hosted PVS. “Last Friday, as the future looked questionable — there was a lot of angst, a lot of tension — you and your colleagues gathered on the floor of the House to pray.”

Johnson agreed. “My specific prayer in that circle was, ‘Lord, the House is divided. We know that a house divided cannot stand. And we ask you to unite this House.’ And in short order, that’s what happened. And I tell you, this morning at the meeting with all the House Republicans, I think this group has never been more united than it is right now.”

In four rounds of voting during the Friday session, 20 Republicans who had opposed Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker changed their votes to him or “present,” enabling him to win a majority with 216 votes on the 15th ballot.

“The core group that joined together on that floor for prayer [is] accustomed to praying together, because we do it routinely,” said Johnson. “We pray for individual prayer requests, often of our constituents and those that we know who are struggling. And it’s just a great time of unity and bonding.”

“Friday’s events proved the power of prayer in miraculous ways,” said Representative Greg Steube (R-Fla.), one the members who prayed on the House floor. “We lifted the speaker’s race up to the Lord, and immediately after the prayer of seven members, 14 members changed their vote. And, by the end of the day, it had concluded, and we had a speaker. My church and many others prayed together at the same time, and the power of the Holy Spirit was seen in the results thereafter. I want to thank Jon and Jolene Hamill of Lamplighter Ministries for the prayer.”

Steube’s office provided The Washington Stand with a copy of his prayer on the House floor, which read in part, “Father God, we lift up to you the seat of authority of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. We bring this seat literally before the Throne of the Ancient of Days, in the highest Court of the Kingdom of God. We ask for Your verdict of justice in favor of the saints. … Forgive the sins that have taken place by those stewarding this seat, including all sexual immorality, abuse of power, abuse of children, unjust bloodshed, occult sacrifice, betrayal of national interest, etc. Ultimately, they are all a betrayal of You. Please forgive these grave injustices. …”

Another member who knelt in prayer was Representative Tim Walberg (R-Mich.). “As a person of faith, I believe in the power of prayer — both in calm and challenging times,” he told TWS. “Before the vote took place, my colleagues and I bowed our heads and knelt on our knees in the well of the House to seek God’s guidance and ask that His almighty hand continue to watch over and sustain our great land.”

Johnson said that many “committed, solid believers” serve in Congress. “They’re not always the ones you see on TV, but they are the ones that I believe in many ways are holding the country together. And we’re seeking God’s providence, guidance, and direction every single day. There’s always been a remnant that God works through, and this group here believes that that’s still possible.”

Perkins noted this prayer on the House floor was “in sharp contrast to the efforts we’ve seen in recent years to remove God from Congress.” Last spring, in response to Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) quoting from the book of Deuteronomy, Representative Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) retorted, “What any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress.”

“This is a spiritual battle,” Johnson added. “When people of faith have their voices censored and silenced routinely and increasingly, it’s a threat to the survival of the republic. I mean it; this is not hyperbole.”

But no one interrupted the Friday morning prayer circle. “Desperate times lead people to turn to God,” said Perkins.

Last Wednesday, The Washington Stand reported on the unanimous outpouring of prayer for Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin. In seeming answer to those prayers, Hamlin was safely discharged from the hospital this Wednesday, nine days after the 24-year-old suffered cardiac arrest on-field during Monday Night Football.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Standard column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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‘Allahu Akbar’ – ‘Allah Is The Greatest’ – A Jihadi Battle Cry

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By Middle East Media Research Institute

By: Y. Carmon

This report will discuss jihadis’ use of the phrase Allahu akbar – meaning “Allah is the greatest” – as a battle cry during terror attacks. This subject has been discussed in previous MEMRI analyses, but there have been many attacks since carried out by jihadis in the West in which this battle cry was repeated. In two recent examples, an Islamist named Trevor Bickford shouted “Allahu akbar” as he lunged at New York Police Department officers with a machete on New Year’s Eve near Times Square, and a man who stabbed six people in a January 11, 2023 attack at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris also shouted the phrase during his attack. This report will provide more than three dozen additional examples from recent years of the use of the term as a jihadi battle cry (see Appendix below).

This article will also examine how and why this term is routinely mistranslated and misunderstood by Western media. This was illustrated very clearly after the October 31, 2017 attack in Manhattan by Sayfullo Saipov, who according to witnesses shouted Allahu akbar as he drove a truck into a crowd of cyclists and pedestrians in Manhattan, killing eight and injuring nearly a dozen. Minutes after the attack was reported, CNN’s Jake Tapper said: “The Arabic chant Allahu akbar, God is great – sometimes said under the most beautiful of circumstances and too often we hear of it being said at moments like this.”

The media’s usual rendering of Allahu akbar as “God is great” is misleading and omits the aspect of superiority in the word akbar (which means “greater” or “greatest,” not merely “great”) and blurs its specific reference to Allah – and not to any other entity or deity. Translating and understanding this phrase as merely “God is great” is not only wrong – it also strips it of its crucial aspect of Allah’s supremacy over all other entities and deities. This is why throughout the history of Islam, and to this day, Allahu akbar has been a battle cry shouted out during attacks, as demonstrated in modern-day Islamic terror attacks.

Indeed, jihadis themselves relate to the battle cry of Allahu akbar as the “Marseillaise of Arab conquests,” as the Muslims’ “nuclear bomb,” and as what the “communist East and the capitalist West fear the most,” and they believe that it guarantees victory just like it had in the times of the Prophet Muhammad.

Needless to say, when Allahu akbar is used, for example, by an Arab Christian priest, it is not a jihadi battle cry. But when it is uttered by a Muslim, it is always an assertion of Allah’s supremacy– either in a nonviolent context (such as prayer – indeed, Allahu akbar is repeated several times during the Islamic prayer ritual) or in a violent context.

Translating “Allahu Akbar”

Translating concepts from one language into another is a difficult endeavor. Translating concepts that have no equivalent in the target language is even harder. Translating religious concepts for a culture in which religion has ceased to play a central role in the life of the individual and in society is hardest of all.

Perhaps this is the reason why religious Islamic idioms representing concepts such as Allahu akbar, la ilaha illa Allah, and istishhad are routinely mistranslated in the American media.

The American failure to understand religious concepts does not apply only to Islam. A similar misunderstanding occurred in 1993 between the authorities and fundamentalist Christian David Koresh, who had holed up at a remote complex outside Waco, Texas along with dozens of his followers, including women and children, and an arsenal of weaponry. Besieged by the authorities, who attempted to negotiate with him, Koresh recited Biblical prophecies about the End of Days. Trying to peacefully end the standoff, the authorities urged him, “Let’s not discuss religion now.” Koresh, immersed in his religious beliefs, could only reply, “But religion is life and death.” It was a “dialogue of the deaf,” doomed to end as it did, with the loss of many innocent lives.

The problem is not one of linguistic relativity – as comprehensively discussed in the last century by the renowned linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf – since there are ways to convey original meaning in a proper, brief explanation. Instead, it is about the tendency of the media to choose the easiest solution, that is, to translate to what will sound most familiar to readers, even if inaccurate.

The word istishhad (related to the term “to bear witness”) denotes a religious act of faith in which a believer strives to kill as many perceived enemies as he can, at the price of his own life, as a means of getting closer to Allah, the prophets, the righteous, and the shahid “martyrs” (see below) in Paradise. The goal of this act of faith, which is considered blessed, is to make Allah’s religion supreme on Earth, in what the perpetrator believes to be an imitation of the battles of early formative Islam of the time of the Prophet Muhammad and the four righteous caliphs. This term is often recklessly and inaccurately translated as “suicide,” which is an act motivated by personal desperation and is forbidden in Islam, and for which a different word – intihar – is reserved in Arabic.

This is also why Allahu akbar and la ilaha illa Allah – both statements of faith that embody the religious concept of the supremacy of Islam and of Allah – are mistranslated. First it was the struggle to establish the supremacy of the monotheistic Islam over the pagan idols of seventh-century Mecca. Then it was a struggle for supremacy over other religions, including monotheistic ones, in the Arabian Peninsula, resulting in the expulsion of non-Muslims, as related in the compilation of hadiths on behalf of the Prophet Muhammad: “I shall take out the Jews and the Christians from the Peninsula” – a ban that is in force to this day against non-Muslim religious institutions. Later it was a struggle against other religious empires, such as the Persian and the Byzantine. However, the rendering of Allahu akbar in the U.S. media as “God is great” omits the aspect of superiority in the word akbar (which means “greater” or “greatest,” not merely “great”) and blurs the specific reference to Allah rather than to another deity. In the same vein, la illaha illa Allah is often translated in the U.S. media as “There is no god but God” (rather than “There is no god but Allah”). Omitting the supremacy of Allah over all other deities is a mistranslation, and moreover leads to a logical fallacy – reminiscent of Carrollian nonsense verses.

One of the reasons for such mistranslations is the fact that in the modern Western world the struggle for supremacy among religions has almost completely ceased, and to the extent that it still exists, it is nonviolent. Therefore, statements of religious faith that embody a continuing historical struggle for divine religious supremacy lack a modern religious/cultural conceptual basis through which to be understood in the West, and consequently lack a linguistic equivalent. The American media, facing the risk of not being understood in translating these Islamic concepts, prefer to provide an approximate translation, even though these are inherently misleading.

This is not to say that Allahu akbar is uttered only by jihadis continuing the age-old struggle for the supremacy of Islam and of Allah. Over the centuries it has come to be uttered by non-religious Muslims as well, and even by Christian Arabs. In many cases, it carries a variety of meanings – ranging from admiration for what is perceived as a wonderful act of Allah to an expression of shock and horror in the face of calamity.

A translation should always reflect the context, the speaker, and his intent. But what often happens in the U.S. media is that when Allahu akbar is said by a jihadi, it is translated as if said by a non-religious Muslim or a Christian Arab. This is utterly wrong. And when such mistranslations occur time and again, whether intentional or out of ignorance, it results in a profoundly apologetic misrepresentation of the concept, and its cultural and religious meaning.

So what could be the solution? One school of translation holds to keeping the original term, followed a brief explanation of its meaning, as, for example, the Japanese word kamikaze. In this case, this solution was so effective that the original word no longer required explanation. There is no reason why the same process should not occur with the word istishhad, which over time could become as well known and understood as kamikaze.

So what could be the solution? One school of translation holds to keeping the original term, followed a brief explanation of its meaning, as, for example, the Japanese word kamikaze. In this case, this solution was so effective that the original word no longer required explanation. There is no reason why the same process should not occur with the word istishhad, which over time could become as well known and understood as kamikaze.

The alternative is for the media to adopt a more professional approach, translating these terms in each case according to the specific context, speaker, and intended meaning, and not settling for an approximate but misleading term.

This is not to claim that MEMRI, in its 25 years of translating tens of thousands of pages of primary source material from the Arab and Muslim media, has not at times fallen for the temptation to prioritize being understood by a non-expert reader. Even in the field of transliteration, we have accepted incorrect transliterations because they were common in the media (for example, “Koran” instead of “Qur’an”). In many cases, we used the word “martyrdom operations” for “istishhad,” even though martyrdom is an inaccurate translation, since it is a Christian concept for an individual accepting death rather than forsaking his religious beliefs, while the Islamic concept of istishhad relates in modern times primarily to killing enemies at the price of one’s own life.

“Allahu Akbar” – An Expression Of The Supremacy Of Islam

The term Allahu akbar embodies the fight for the supremacy of Islam, Allah, and the true believers: past, present, and future; actual and symbolic; military, cultural, or by means of forces of nature controlled and directed by Allah. It is the battle cry and the anthem of this fight for supremacy. Victory for Muslims is victory for Islam and for monotheism, and it is Allah’s victory over false gods. Victory comes from Him and proves His supremacy. This was the main meaning of the term in the early centuries of Islam. Today it is a mark of Islamists and jihadis, as well as all others who wish to restore the ancient grandeur of Islamic empires, where “the crescent must always be on top of the cross,” as described by New York-based Muslim Brotherhood activist Ayat Oraby.

It is worth noting that Allahu kbar is uttered by both Sunni jihadis and the Shi’ite leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran (which was established as an “Islamic State” long before ISIS). In every major sermon delivered by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the crowd, comprising thousands and sometimes tens of thousands, regularly chants Allahu akbar together with “Death to America”, “Death to England”, and “Death to Israel.” (See, for example, MEMRI TV Clips 4154, 5075, and 5011.)

Appendix – Examples Of The Use Of “Allahu Akbar”

Use As A Battle Cry During Terror Attacks – A Timeline

  • In September 2022, a Muslim man shouting “Allahu akbar” stabbed two British police officers in London.
  • In September 2022, a 200-strong mob chanting “Allahu Akbar” surrounded a Hindu temple in Birmingham; chants of Allahu akbar were heard.
  • In October 2020, a Muslim high school student in Paris shouted “Allahu akbar” as he beheaded his teacher, Samuel Paty, who had shown cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a class on free speech.
  • In November 2021, Fulani Muslims shouted “Allahu akbar” as they slaughtered 10 Christians, including several children, and burned down 100 homes in Nigeria.
  • In June 2020, Muslim rioters in Stuttgart, Germany chanted “Allahu akbar” as they attacked police with stones and bottles.
  • In March 2018, Yacine Mihoub stabbed to death 85-year-old French Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll in her apartment while shouting “Allahu akbar.”
  • In June 2017, a Canadian man, Amor R. Ftouhi, shouted “Allahu akbar” as he stabbed a U.S. police officer at Bishop Airport in Flint, Michigan.
  • In March 2011, a gunman shouted “Allahu akbar” as he gunned down two U.S. airmen in Germany.

From MEMRI Reports

In March 2015, MEMRI published a report titled “Jihadi Media Company Praises Tunisia Attack, Calls For More Attacks On Western Tourists,” in the aftermath of that month’s attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis in which 17 were killed. The article quotes the shooters: “‘How did you enter so easily,’ they asked in astonishment, and the two answered: ‘We come in the name of Allah.’ Then they began throwing grenades, crying ‘Allahu akbar,’ and shooting at infidels and at the policemen that guarded them, and the massacre began.”

In May 2003, an Al-Qaeda video about one of the group’s suicide bombings, in Riyadh that month, included an audio recording of the bombing itself. In the recording, the suicide bombers can be heard praying, and then, en route to carry out their attack, crying “Allahu akbar!” and “Allah, expel the polytheists from the Arabian Peninsula!”

Read The Full Report

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EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Car Jihadist Who Ran Over New Yorkers Pleads Guilty to Serving Allah

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By Jihad Watch

“He still believes it was Allah’s will that he do what he did.”

In 2019, Sayfullo Saipov as the Uzbek immigrant who ran over people in New York City near Ground Zero while shouting, “Allahu Akbar” was quite clear about his motive.

Speaking through an interpreter for about 10 minutes, Saipov said the decisions of a U.S. court were unimportant to him. He said he cared about “Allah” and the holy war being waged by the Islamic State…

“The orders issued here have nothing to do with me,” Saipov told Judge Vernon Broderick through an Uzbek interpreter. “I am following orders of Allah.”

Everyone seems to be giving up on arguing that Saipov is suffering from airborne PTSD, debts or mental illness. So the lawyer is trying an interesting courtroom strategy.

“And as we sit here today, he still believes that, he still believes the ISIS messaging and he still believes it was Allah’s will that he do what he did,” Saipov’s attorney David Patton said.

Saipov has pleaded not guilty in federal court to 28 counts, including eight counts of murder, 18 counts of attempted murder and other terrorism charges in connection with the deadliest terror attack in New York since 9/11.

The attorney called Saipov’s actions “senseless,” adding, “There is no excuse for what he did and we will not offer one to you.”

“He did it because he had become immersed in a world of ISIS messaging online and social media in chat groups, hours and hours of audio and video material and other material. And he had become convinced that it was a religious obligation for him to commit a martyrdom attack,” Patton said.

Not guilty of killing infidels, but guilty of obeying Allah.

So he’s a victim of social media? Videos are not going to convince a large number of people that their religion tells them to kill people if it doesn’t.

ISIS recruits Muslims by accurately quoting the teachings of Mohammed. Saipov’s actions were another of the thousands of points in the Jihad which is operating and claiming lives all over the world.

He’s clear about that, but even his lawyer seems to be confused.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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UK: Muslim screams ‘May Allah destroy you’ as he’s sentenced for using government Covid loans to fund ISIS

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Video from Iran: Protesters shout, ‘No to Islam, no to the Qur’an. My life is only for Iran!’

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By Jihad Watch

Video from Iran: Protesters shout, ‘No to Islam, no to the Qur’an. My life is only for Iran!’ – Dr. Rich Swier

Copyright © 2021 DrRichSwier.com LLC. A Florida Cooperation. All rights reserved. The DrRichSwier.com is a not-for-profit news forum for intelligent Conservative commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own. Republishing of columns on this website requires the permission of both the author and editor. For more information contact: drswier@gmail.com.

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A Christian Nation … REALLY?

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By Bud Hancock

“For those looking for security, be forewarned that there’s nothing more insecure than a political promise.” — Harry Browne

“There is no political solution to a spiritual problem.” — Bonnie Harvey

“Money is the currency of power; power is the currency of politicians.” — Bud Hancock

“Votes don’t decide elections; MONEY decides elections.” — Bud Hancock

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.” — Thomas Jefferson

In discussing the meaning of ‘being a Christian Nation’, we must first decide what the term means. The Merriam-Webster provides these definitions:

Christian:

  • One who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ
  • of or relating to Christianity
  • based on or conforming with Christianity
  • of, relating to, or being a Christian
  • Christian responsibilities
  • professing Christianity

Nation:

  1. a politically organized nationality,
  2. a non-Jewish nationality (Biblically),
  3. a community of people composed of one or more nationalities and possessing a more or less defined territory and government and
  4. a territorial division containing a body of people of one or more nationalities and usually characterized by relatively large size and independent status

Christianity:

  • the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies
  • conformity to the Christian religion
  • the practice of Christianity

What IS Christianity, Really?

Even with the dictionary meanings, many questions are left unanswered as to the meaning of Christianity and ‘being a Christian nation’. In the US, if a person attends a ‘Christian’ church, he may regard himself as a Christian, which would be a bit of a stretch since nowhere in the definitions of the word “christian” is church attendance, regular or not, mentioned as being a characteristic of a Christian person. In fact, it has often been said that there are more demons who regularly attend church than humans. Would that attendance then make the demons ‘Christians’? Hardly.

I do not discount the possibility of church attendance being a good and worthwhile action, but the value of the time spent at church services is, or should be, totally dependent on what is heard and seen from those who have been called to be pastors and teachers, shepherds and leaders of the local flock.

I seldom use the word religion when discussing biblical topics because of the bad connotation it has,  based on the behavior and actions of many who claim to be ‘Christian’. The word ‘religion’ as defined by Dictionary.com is:

  • a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs
  • a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects
  • the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices
  • something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience

Church Attendance and Religion

I have some serious concerns that many people only consider church attendance data when trying to determine whether a nation is considered to be truly Christian, or not.

I remember that the churches I attended even as a young boy were careful to post the Sunday attendance numbers along with the tithes and offerings in a prominent place in the church sanctuary and when a “new record attendance number” was reached, much ado was made of it. Most people tend to associate the practice of ‘religion’ with regular church attendance and the paying of tithes or giving of ‘offerings’ to a church rather than  what the Bible says of religion. For some, the amount of offerings and tithes posted on that board could be a measure of the religion they espouse and hold to.

This statement can be attributed to the Jews of Israel in the time of Jesus when, on a certain occasion, He was visiting the Jewish Temple, sitting opposite the treasury observing the many worshippers who entered the Temple and deposited their money, the rich putting in large sums. But Jesus was moved to speak when He observed the poor widow who cast in two mites (one farthing), and knowing that her money represented all that she had, He stated that her offering was “more than all they which have cast into the treasury” (Mark 12:38-44 KJV).

Which of the Jewish worshippers, the poor widow, or all the wealthy, showed true religion?

Consider the ‘Model’ for a Christian

Contrary to many people’s individual belief, The word Christ is NOT the last name of Jesus. The word Christ is a transliteration of the Greek word, Christos (Strong’s 5547, pronounced Khris-tos’) and it has a meaning taken from the word Messiah, an English transliteration of the Greek word, ‘messias’ (Strong’s 3323, pronounced mess-see’-as, which coincides with the English word ‘messiah’, a transliteration of the Hebrew word mashiyach (Strong’s 4899, pronounced maw-shee’-yach)  which means ‘anointed’ and usually indicates a king or priest. Thus, the word that follows Jesus name is more of a description of what Jesus was and what His appearance on earth was meant to accomplish. The words ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’ put together literally means Jesus, the One anointed by God.  Read Isaiah 61:1-2 which is a prophecy of the appearing of the coming Messiah, the One Anointed; then read Luke 4:16-20 where Jesus completely fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 61:1-2

The point here is that Jesus was the one sent by God into a flesh and blood world, in a flesh and blood body and having emptied himself (‘made himself of no reputation’, Philippians 2:7 KJV; ‘emptied himself’, Philippians 2:7 ESV) and walked this earth as a man just like any other flesh and blood man. Jesus performed great miracles and did many great and might works totally by and through the powerful anointing that came upon Him when He was baptized by John in the Jordan River.

The model for all who claim to be Christian (transliteration of the Greek word ‘Christianos’ (Strong’s 5546, pronounced khris-tee-an-os’, which means ‘followers of Christ’) is the same Jesus Who did mighty miracles of healing, even raising the dead, while walking as a flesh and blood man under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

It then stands to reason that, if a person claims to be a follower of Christ (The anointed One), he would be expected to do the same works that Jesus, the Christ, the One Anointed, did and even greater works (John 14:12 KJV) according to Jesus Himself.  This indeed sets a high standard for a person, and especially a nation, to be called Christian. I am nearly eighty years of age and I will admit that I have only seen a few works of miraculous healing during that time and one of them was on my own body.

If the United States were truly a “Christian nation” with as many people claiming to be Christian walking around should we not expect to see a multitude of miraculous healings and not a few being raised from the dead? I now fear that the words “Christian Nation” have become a byword for all who, instead of doing the works connected to true Christianity use them to make themselves ‘feel better’ about their own lives, most of which exhibit no anointing of The Holy Spirit.

James, the half-brother of Jesus, the Christ, the One Anointed, exhorted those to whom he wrote: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:22-25 KJV).

One expositor stated that James is comparing the word of God to a mirror wherein a man can observe his own actions and deeds and, continuing to observe and make every effort to conform to the word by allowing it to transform the image he sees to one that pleases God, (Romans 12:1-2 KJV), he can be a blessed man and will bless others in the process.

Conclusion

 Having grown up with Jesus, his ‘big brother’, and closely observing the words and deeds of Jesus, James fully understood what it meant to be ‘Christian, a follower of Christ’. Using the words penned by James, I must conclude that any person who still blindly claims the US is a Christian nation has looked into the mirror without seeing the faults and blemishes the mirror plainly  shows has decided to continue using the ‘Christian Nation’ byword as a ‘feel good’ therapy with no concern about the real meaning of being a Christian or a Christian nation.

James also said in James 1:26-27, “ If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

There was a time when most of the rest of the world respected this nation and indeed considered the US to be a Christian Nation. But former president Barack Obama stated in June 2007, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation — at least, not just.  We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”

As much as I hate to agree with anything Obama ever said, he spoke the truth in those words, and shamefully, we have now become a nation that is far less Christian than when they were spoken. As a result,  the US is now facing the total loss of the blessings promised in Psalm 33:12, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance”.

I have become a person who now places absolutely no confidence in man or his ability to make himself or his nation better without the anointing that Jesus had when he walked the earth. Until that anointing, the presence of The Holy Spirit of God, is invited back into our nation, no amount of “claiming to be a Christian Nation” will have any meaning other than as a political catchphrase or an empty ‘feel-good’ byword.

Maranatha

God said what? Come on! thumbnail

God said what? Come on!

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By Martin Mawyer

You might not have noticed this is the biblical creation story, but God created gender fluidity in the Garden of Eden.

Just kidding, Lord – please don’t smite me for uttering this heresy.

Yet that’s the conclusion reached by the first “non-binary gender-queer” Anglican priest in the U.K., the Rev. Bingo Allison of the Diocese of Liverpool.

Rev. Bingo (Bingo?) recently quoted the Bible: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them,” then added that this passage from Genesis clearly expresses “maleness to femaleness” instead of separate men and women.

Rev. Bingo asserts that this interpretation gives him the authority to promote the “normalization” of gender-fluid behavior in children.

“One of the biggest things is … normalizing it for children,” says Rev. Bingo. “When I’m wearing my collar, it lets children know that it’s OK and that there is a place in church and the outside world for people like me.”

People like Bingo? He’s a dude wearing a clerical collar, bizarre makeup, fake (or maybe surgically enhanced) breasts, and long stringy hair. Oh, and he’s got a receding hairline. I doubt any children want to be like Rev. Bingo.

He said his revelation about the creation of gender fluidity was “a deepening spiritual experience” that God is using to “guide me into this new truth about myself.”

In a sermon commemorating Trans Day of Visibility, Rev. Bingo likened the plight of transgender people to the suffering of Christian martyrs.

Ok, enough of this drivel. The biggest sin here is not just Rev. Bingo’s blasphemy against God. It’s the Church of England that allows a mentally disturbed man to continue in his position. The church is also considering a proposal to allow gay weddings.

God is not dead, as some have said … but the church that once worshipped Him in truth is in its death throes.

EDITORS NOTE: This Christian Action Network column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Palestine: The Perverse—and Perplexing—Paradox thumbnail

Palestine: The Perverse—and Perplexing—Paradox

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By Martin Sherman

Why do professed liberals persist in support for an entity that would comprise the utter negation of all the values they allegedly cherish?

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”—widely attributed to Albert Einstein

Recently, the idea of a Palestinian state has—much like a ghoulish zombie arising from its erstwhile grave—re-emerged as a topic of relevance in the international discourse.

Tyrannical dictates of political correctness

After being thrust aside to the outer margins of the debate during much of the Trump term in the White House, the Biden administration has managed to breathe new life into a failed and fatally flawed formula, whose attempted implementation has wrought trauma and tragedy on Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Perversely, far more than any others, the Palestinians, the intended benefactors of the ill-conceived notion, were by far its greatest victims. Indeed, the casualties and the socio-economic disruption they suffered greatly outstripped anything endured by Israel.

But this is not the only element of perversity regarding Palestinian statehood and the advocacy therefor. Indeed, support for the two-state formula—i.e. the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan river alongside Israel—became the sine-non-qua for access into “polite company”. Indeed, it was considered an indispensable credential for anyone aspiring to be part of “bon-ton” liberal circles. Daring individuals with the temerity to question the prudence of the idea had to brace themselves for grave consequences to their personal and professional standing that almost always resulted from such recalcitrant resistance to the dictates of political correctness.

Impervious to past precedents & future probabilities

But vindictiveness aside, liberal support is not only decidedly perverse, but equally paradoxical and perplexing as well.  After all, there is virtually no doubt that any future Palestinian state will be the embodiment of values that are the diametric antithesis of those to which Left-leaning, progressive liberals profess to subscribe.

Indeed, there is little reason to doubt that a prospective Palestinian state, in any conceivably plausible configuration, will be anything but what most other Arab states are, in some form or another: A homophobic, misogynistic Muslim majority tyranny—whose hallmarks would be gender discrimination against girls/women, persecution of homosexuals, religious intolerance against non-Muslims and oppression of political dissidents.

Accordingly, it is a decidedly baffling conundrum why so-called “progressives,” who purportedly cherish liberal values of societal diversity, religious freedom, and individual liberty, would cling so doggedly to support for a Palestinian state that would, in all likelihood, comprise the utter negation of everything to which they claim to hold dear. Yet impervious to past precedents and future probabilities, they adhere resolutely to their defective dogma.

No reason to believe that, which was in the past, will not be in the future

This is particularly pertinent given what has transpired in Gaza—perhaps the ultimate indictment of two-statism—where Palestinians were first given a shot at self-governance, and which has become a brutal bastion of Islamist governance and a safe haven for jihadi terror.

Of course, there is scant cause to believe that what was in the past will not be again in the future. After all, even the most fervent two-state enthusiast has yet to offer up a persuasive argument why the envisioned Palestinian state would not quickly emerge as the said homophobic, misogynistic tyranny.

As Albert Einstein reportedly commented: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Clearly, the turmoil of today is indisputably the result of trying to foist statehood on the Palestinians. Accordingly then, there is little reason to believe that persisting with the same thinking that created the seemingly perennial violence will contribute in any way to its cessation. For, the problem of the current violence cannot be resolved by using the same level of thinking (i.e. aspiring to Palestinian statehood) that created it.

This perverse—and perplexing—paradox is something that has not been adequately addressed in the public discourse on the Middle East. Indeed, it is rarely—if ever—fully articulated. The time has come to do so.

©Dr. Martin Sherman, 2023. All rights reserved.

Want a Better Life? Go to Church thumbnail

Want a Better Life? Go to Church

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By Jerry Newcombe

Is religion good for society? One man who would answer in the affirmative is Gourverneur Morris, the founding father who spoke at the Constitutional convention more than anyone else. He originated the phrase “we the people of the United States.”

He once said something that virtually all of the founding fathers would have agreed with: “Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.”

How is the church good for society? Through the years I have asked Dr. Byron Johnson of Baylor about the impact of faith on society. He has taught at Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton. For the last several years, he has headed up Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR).

The website describes its mission:  “Baylor ISR exists to initiate, support, and conduct research on religion, involving scholars and projects spanning the intellectual spectrum.”

In a radio segment, Dr. Johnson told me, “Churches are phenomenally important to society and important in so many different ways.” That includes volunteering and charitable giving. He told me that Americans give more than a billion dollars a day to charities—much of that coming from church-goers.

Johnson added, “If you just look at dollars and contributions, it’s staggering. One study shows that religion brings about 1.2 trillion dollars to the U.S. economy each year.”

Johnson keeps abreast of the psychological and sociological studies on the impact of church on society. For example, Oxford University Press published a study two years ago showing the positive impact of church-going on the health of individuals.

They found that “compared with those who never attended religious services, individuals who attended services at least once per week had a lower risk of all-cause mortality by 26%…heavy drinking by 34%…and current smoking by 29%.”

The study also found that depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and loneliness—as well as physical maladies like hypertension, heart disease, and strokes—were lower in those who regularly attended church, while satisfaction with life, social connection, and a feeling of purpose were higher.

In short, living for Christ is good for you. Not that we live for Christ in order to live longer or lives with a higher quality. But that apparently is a happy by-product.

We live for Christ because He who is divine became human, lived a perfect life, and died in our place, so that we might be forgiven for our sins through faith in Him. He sealed the deal by rising from the dead and will one day return.

Dr. Johnson has written a scholarly book highlighting the kind of research featured in the study cited above. It’s called “Objective Religion.” The ignorant may rail against church—and surely there are many who have bad experiences at church because of abusive leadership. But the studies show that, all things being equal, the Gospel really is good for you.

Another man who studied the impact of religion on society came to Baylor because of Johnson. Dr. Rodney Stark, who died in July, wrote many books documenting religion’s impact.

One of my favorites was his 2012 tome, America’s Blessings: How Religion Benefits Everyone, Including Atheists. On a vacation once, I read the book carefully and took many notes.

Stark writes, “Americans benefit immensely from being an unusually religious people—blessings that not only fall upon believers but also on those Americans who most oppose religion. In America, militant atheists are far less likely to have their homes broken into or to be robbed on their way to work than they would be in an irreligious society, because of the powerful deterrent effects of religion on crime.”

He also adds, “Religious Americans also enjoy superior physical health, having an average life expectancy more than seven years longer than that of the irreligious”

Another scholar who has also been studying the impact of faith on society for years is author Dr. Joseph Loconte. He has written for the Heritage Foundation, taught at The King’s College in New York City, and is now a distinguished visiting professor at Grove City College.

He told me, “Skeptics and secular critics of Christianity have to circumvent an awful lot of history to argue that political societies are better off without it. The rights and freedoms that our secular friends take for granted—freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, government by consent—grew from philosophical soil that was watered by biblical religion….Take away the Christian ethic of love of neighbor—even love of enemy—and you sweep away nearly everything that makes modern life tolerable and humane.”

Atheists like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris see the increasing secularization of our culture as a good thing. But in reality, ostracizing faith and marginalizing churches will ultimately only harm all of us. Literally.

©Jerry Newcombe, D.Min. All rights reserved.

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