I have recently come across two videos which seem to me to be important in the dialogue about the influence of Islam world-wide.

Brigitte Gabriel

Member of German Parliament Oskar Freysinger

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I felt these two recent pieces on the internet should appear together as they highlight a growing anti-Christian sentiment in our own country and in the world at large.

International Christian Concern has released its annual Hall of Shame Awards given to the ten worst nations for religious persecution.  They note that there is a recent gradual  shift in religious persecution from Communist countries to Islamic countries.

ICC ranks the world’s worst persecutors of Christians as following:

1. North Korea
2. Iraq
3. Ethiopia
4. Saudi Arabia
5. Somalia
6. Iran
7. Eritrea
8. China
9. Vietnam
10. Pakistan

Michael Voris on The Vortex tells about the “shadow” that Pope Benedict sees falling over the culture with the collapse of the old world and an ever increasing marginalization of the Catholic Church.

And here, Protestant Evangelist David Wilkerson wails over what is happening in our society.

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For her part, the Church in the United States is called, in season and out of season, to proclaim a Gospel which not only proposes unchanging moral truths but proposes them precisely as the key to human happiness and social prospering — Pope Benedict XVI

Thirteen died and thirty were injured following the November 5, 2009, shooting at Fort Hood TX.      Here Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin talks to CBN about why no one dealt with the Fort Hood terrorist beforehand.

Boykin has written two books, Never Surrender:  A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom,  which “will keep you riveted as he reveals how his military duty worked in tandem with his faith to bring him through the bloody storms of foreign battle-and through the political firestorm that ambushed him in his own country.”  Just this past summer he also published Danger Close, a novel.

Eight-year old singing prodigy Rhema Marvanne is scheduled to sing at an anniversary remembrance of the Fort Hood massacre.

I am posting  Whitehead’s What Would Jesus Do? the same day as I  publish my thoughts on encroaching Islamization because I have been unable to decide to my satisfaction when a Christian stands and fights and when a Christian stands  and dies.   I believe wholeheartedly in the power of love. I believe in passive resistance and non-violence, in the manner of Martin Luther King and Gandhi.   And Randy Terry’s Operation Rescue.

“What would Jesus do?” is the question.

The Catholic Catechism(2309) gives the four conditions for a just war:

1. the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

2. all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

3. there must be serious prospects of success;

4. the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

These are hard conditions to fulfill; the Church teaches that war should always be the last resort.

Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) thought that “reasons sufficient for unleashing a war against Iraq did not exist,” in part because “proportion between the possible positive consequences and the sure negative effect of the conflict was not guaranteed. On the contrary, it seems clear that the negative consequences will be greater than anything positive that might be obtained.”

As immoral as it was to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it had the good effect of scaring the world silly that it could happen again. I don’t think the rest of the world fears that the United States, unprovoked,  is likely to again drop an atomic bomb.  On the other hand, the 9/11 attack in the name of Islam on the Twin Towers was a wake-up call that there are indeed others who are just looking for an opportunity to attack us again, who are willing to offer up their own bodies in order to wreak havoc on The Great Satan — that’s us.

That being said, once our country is attacked, we have a right to self-defense.   It is my feeling that disarmament is foolish as long as we know that others are arming.   We are safer in a position of strength; we do not need to appear weak and appeasing.  I do not like to see us running scared.   I firmly believe in welcoming to our country those who are willing to abide by our laws, which, on the whole (having a Judeo-Christian basis) are what make the United States a good place to be. Whether they be Mexicans or Muslims, I find it hard to welcome those who come thinking to impose some other legal structure upon us (or respecting none at all) and flying their own flag.

Jesus’ message is a simple one of love and peace. We can all get along if we do to others as we would have them do to us.    If the others are coming from the same mindset it makes it a lot easier.

Thank you all for putting up with my musings.  Feel free to try to straighten me out.  I will listen.

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And his banner over me is love. — Song of Solomon 2:4

For though we live in the world, we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds.   — 2 Cor. 10:4

All I did was post a quote from Newt Gingrich on Facebook:

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.  The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our submission is over.  — Newt Gingrich

It seemed to me that Gingrich has a better world view than most people.  I was surprised by the responses I received.  I was reminded with a scriptural quote (Matthew 5:44) that we are called to love our enemies and do good to those who hate you.   I was reminded that the First Amendment provides us with freedom of religion.   (Believe it or not, I already knew these things.)

Hate-mongering was mentioned.  I had not considered myself or Gingrich hate-mongers.   These (below) are hate-mongers.

Pilgrims to Mecca shout “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

Newt Gingrich was well aware of the phenomenon known as “creeping Sharia,” especially in European countries but also beginning in our United States.  I posted a small sample on Facebook.

Here are links to samples of Sharia in Minnesota, the megamosque being planned in London, and the Islamization of Paris.

William Federer has made a study of the muslim history of erecting mosques after a victory.

William J. Federer

Sept. 6, 2010

The HISTORY OF ISLAM may hold answers to WHY it is so important for Moslems to build that GROUND ZERO MOSQUE…

In 630, Muhammad led 10,000 Muslim soldiers into Mecca and turned the pagans’ most prominent spot, the Ka’aba, into the Masjid al-Haram Mosque.

In 634, Rightly Guided Caliph Umar conquered Syria and turned the Christians’ most prominent spot, the Church of Job, famous for being visited by Saint Silva in the fourth century, into the Mosque of Job.

In 637, Caliph Umar conquered Hebron and turned the second-most prominent spot in Judaism, the Cave of the Patriarchs, into the Ibrahim Mosque. (This was repeated by Saladin in 1188.)

In 638, Muslim generals Amr ibn al-As and Khalid ibn al-Walid conquered Gaza and turned the prominent fifth-century Byzantine church into the Great Mosque of Gaza.

In 638, Caliph Umar conquered Jerusalem.

In 691, Caliph Al-Malik ordered the Dome of the Rock  built on the most prominent spot in Judaism, the Temple Mount, followed by Caliph Al-Walid building the Al-Aqsa Mosque there in 705.

In 651, Muslims conquered Persia and turned Zoroastrian temples in Bukhara and Istakhr into mosques.

In 706, after Muslims took Damascus from the Byzantine Empire, Caliph Al-Walid turned the prominent Orthodox Church of St. John the Baptist into the Umayyad Mosque.

In 710, Gen. Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Pakistan, defiled the prominent Sun Temple in Multan, which house the great idol “sanam,” and erected a mosque.

In 784, after the conquest of Spain, Emir Abd ar-Rahman turned the prominent Visigothic Christian Church of Saint Vincent into the Great Aljama Mosque of Cordoba.

After the conquest of Egypt, Caliphs al-Mamun (813-833) and al-Hakim (996-1021) turned prominent Coptic Christian churches and Jewish synagogues in Cairo into mosques.

In 831, Muslims conquered Palermo, Sicily, and Asad ibn al-Furat turned the prominent Church of Saint Mary of the Assumption into the Great Mosque of Bal ‘harm.

In 1193, Muslims conquered Delhi, India, and Qutbuddin Aibak turned the Red Citadel in Dhillika, the most prominent spot of the last Hindu rulers, into the Qutb Minar Mosque.

From 1250-1517, Mamluk Muslims controlled the Golan Heights and used the ancient Synagogue of Katzrin as a mosque.

In 1387, Turkish Muslims conquered Thessaloniki and turned the Katholikon Monastery and the Church of Aghia Sophia, which housed the relics of Saint Gregorios Palamas, into mosques, as Symeon of Thessaloniki recorded:

“The greatest number of the buildings of the churches fell to them, of which the first was the Holy Church of the Savior. … These were trampled underfoot and the infidels rejoiced in them. … Most of the religious buildings in the city were despoiled, while altars were demolished and sacred things profaned.”

On May 29, 1453, Sultan Mehmet II conquered Constantinople and turned the great Byzantine church, Hagia Sophia, into the Ayasofya Mosque.  The largest church in Christendom for a thousand years, the church’s four acres of gold mosaics was covered with whitewash and Quran verses.

In 1458, Sultan Mehmet II conquered Athens and turned the Greeks’ most prominent spot, the Parthenon on Acropolis hill, into a mosque. When Venetian Gen. Francesco Morosini drove the Muslims out in 1687, a cannonball hit the gunpowder stored in the mosque, blowing it up.

In the 15th century, Ottoman invaders turned Saint Clement’s Macedonian Orthodox Monastery in Plaosnik, Balkans, into the Imater Mosque.

From 1519-1858, Muslim Mughal rulers gained control of India and turned over 2,000 Hindu temples into mosques, including demolishing the Temple of Ram Janmabhoomi in Ajodhya, the birthplace of Rama, and replacing it with the Babri Mosque.

India’s Mughal Muslim ruler, Jahangir (1605-1627), wrote in Tujuk-i-Jahangiri: “At the city of Banaras [was] a temple. … I made it my plea for throwing down thee temple … and on the spot, with the very same materials, I erected the great mosque.”

In 1543, Hayreddin Barbarossa’s 30,000 Muslim troops wintered in Toulon, France, and turned the prominent Toulon Cathedral into a mosque.

In 1570, under Sultan Selim II Khan, Muslims conquered Paphos, Cyprus, and Gov. Mehmet Bey Ebubkir turned the prominent Christian church into the Great Mosque of Paphos.

In 1571, Muslims invaded Famagusta, Cyprus, and turned Saint Nicolas Cathedral, a rare Gothic church, into the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque, and Saint Sophia Cathedral in Nicosia, constructed in 1228, into the Selimiye Mosque.

In 1588, Sultan Murat III turned the Eastern Orthodox Church of Saint John the Forerunner in Constantinople into the Hirami Ahmet Pasha Mosque.

In 1781, after having conquered the Old City of Acre, Ottoman Muslims turned the Roman Catholic Church built by Crusaders into the Jezzar Ahmet Pasha Mosque, where a hair from Muhammad’s beard is preserved.

In 1923, Muslims expelled Greeks from Turkey and turned Orthodox churches into mosques. In World War II, Nazis allied with Bosnians and turned the prominent Artists’ Gallery Museum in Zagreb, Croatia, into a mosque.

In the 1950s, Muslims expelled Jews from Arab lands and turned synagogues into mosques. Algerian Muslims warred against French colonial rule till France pulled out in 1962, after which the Cathedral of St. Philippe was turned into the Ketchaoua Mosque.

Violence against Jews caused 30,000 to flee and the Great Synagogue of Oran was turned into the Mosque Abdullah Ben Salem.

In 1974, Turkish Muslims invaded northern Cyprus, and prominent Greek Orthodox churches were turned into mosques.

In 1981, Muslim immigrants to the Netherlands converted Amsterdam’s historic Catholic Sint-Ignatiuskerk into the Fatih Mosque, and a synagogue in The Hague into the Aksa Mosque.

In the following  video Imam Rauf explains why Sharia law is compatible with our Constitution.  Be warned that it is not friendly to the Imam’s plan.

Over a hundred mosques have been built in New York City without any flak.  There have been numerous offers to help Imam Rauf move his mosque to a site further from Ground Zero.  In this video clip Imam Rauf said that moving the mosque further away might precipitate an attack by radical muslims.   “If we move from that location…the headlines in the muslim world will be that Islam is under attack..”   That sounds rather like a threat!

If the Imam were to denounce the 9/11 attack on my country by terrorists, that would help me believe this particular mosque could be an  “outreach.”   But the thought of a Victory Mosque on ground where the dust of the Twin Towers and the ashes of our fellow Americans rained down does not sit well with me…or with many others.

Further information click  here. And here.

Muslims confront Pope Benedict.

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But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. — 1 Peter 15