John R. Houk
© January 7, 2012
I am a Christian. I consider myself as a part of the Christian Right. In an attempt to pin down the faith/nature of my Christianity my description might run something like a Charismatic, Pentecostal and Word of Faith kind-of-guy. Now I realize a significant amount of other Christians have a problem with that kind of theology. I also am aware that that those that are plugged into the realm of faith that I follow have a problem with the theology of more traditional Protestants, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians.
I for one have decided not to judge the Christian theology of those that differ with me. If a person follows some basic Biblical principles that a majority of Christian theologies agree, I for one will play finger pointer of who is correct and who is wrong.
· Jesus is the Christ
· Jesus is the Son of God
· Jesus is both fully human and fully God (This goes to the reason humanity has a Savior/Redeemer)
· The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three persons that are a total union in ONE God
Beyond these basic principles all other matters of doctrine lead to personal conflict and are not worth the bicker but are worthy of understanding each other and perhaps adopt portions of theology that does not outrage one’s inner man/conscience.
I am just saying this is where I stand.
Now I begin in this way because we Christians have to recognize we are entering a time period in which the world’s ruling elites could care less about Christianity. Even in European nations that still have Established State Churches are not exactly Christian-friendly. I mean the Arch Bishop of Canterbury that is supposed to be the Clerical leader of the Church of England/Episcopalian Church globally has gone on record as accepting the Sharia Law of Islam as a working proposition in the United Kingdom. In case you are unaware Islam denies that Jesus is the Son of God and denies that the Lord died on the Cross as a sacrifice to Redeem humanity from the dark corrupted world that came into existence after the Fall of Adam.
Irony is that Islam accepts the existence of Jesus, but only as a great human prophet that is only superseded by Mohammed. Thus a Muslim will tell you that they believe in Jesus (the son of Mary) just like a Christian. That is deception!
There is a two-pronged – perhaps a three-pronged – attack going on now against Christianity.
1. Christianity is being attacked by Secular Humanists and Moral Relativists
2. Christianity is being attacked by Islam
3. Sadly, Christianity is being attacked from within by persons that reject the Divine origin of the Word of God by whatever good logic that disproves the existence of the Bible’s God and Jesus Christ. These Christian cherry pick the Bible and collect principles validating good secular press and rejecting the Bible’s Commandments as displayed for humanity by the Creator of all things.
These thoughts today will gravitate towards Islam’s war on Christianity.
Islam’s history is that of conquest of other civilizations to use the sword to convert non-Muslims (kafir) into Islam. After Mo’s death the Muslims embarked as a conquering horde through the Christian Middle East, Christian North Africa, Persia (Iran) and the Indian Sub-Continent.
As far as Christianity goes, conquering Muslims easily defeated Byzantine armies because the local Christians did not necessarily enjoy the suzerainty of the Byzantine Empire because not all the Middle East or North Africa agreed with the theology of the Greek Orthodox Church. There was a bit of hope that the Muslims were Arab conquerors looking for territory to exploit as do all conquerors. The Middle Eastern Christians and North African Christians quickly discovered that the Muslim concept of exploitation was severe and cultural changing.
I like what Bill Warner writes in this situation in his post “Saint Doonesbury.”
Through the centuries, the dhimmis became Muslims. This accounts for the law of Islamic saturation. When Islam can institute Sharia, the civilization will become completely Islamic. It is only a matter of time.
The “dhimmis” were the Christians. Warner uses a term I may have read before but got my attention for the first time; i.e. “the law of Islamic saturation.” The forcible institution of Islamic Sharia Law saturated the Christian population with severity. Over time the law of Islamic Saturation did its job by wearing down Christians who grew weary of living a subhuman life of a dhimmis and thus converted to Christianity to escape political oppression that berated them via Islamic Supremacism.
It is time for Christians to establish a modern Crusade to confront the three-pronged attack on Christianity. The old period of the Crusades was that of battle-hardened Noblemen from Europe that saw an opportunity to acquire fiefdoms denied by matters of inheritance. Soldiers don’t say please when they seek to acquire. There is an old expression: “War is hell”. That means soldiers that desire to win will make the attempt utilizing the actions of all costs. These kinds of actions in pre-Crusader battles in Europe perhaps led to doing something that was obviously a sin according to Christian doctrine. Pope’s in Europe further sweetened the enticement for Noblemen to join in Crusades against Saracens (an invective term for Muslims) by offering blanket forgiveness for past sins and I think (I might have to do more research) future sins that might accrue in battling in the Holy Land.
The Catholic Popes basically gave Crusaders the same religious tools as Mohammed had established as rules of engagement that Muslim soldiers enjoyed. So it was kind of a tit-for-tat you kill my dog I’ll kill your cat. The Crusaders had a religious dispensation to be just as ruthless as Muslim soldiers without worry of going to hell.
The Crusades began in 1095 roughly 460 years after ruthless Muslims began their invasion of Christian lands and the institution of Sharia that led to the transformation from a Christian culture to an Islamic culture. For all the horrors you read or hear about the early Crusader conquest of the Holy Land, those horrors dwarf to the horrors perpetrated by Muslims against a majority Christian population worn down to accept Islam as their life and culture.
Shortly after WWI Radical Islam, really the purist Islam as set forth in the Quran, Hadith and Sira; began to emerge and caught the eye of a few Muslims that desired a return to global Caliphate glory. The thing is the few Muslims that joined up with Radical Islam in the early 1920’s has grown immensely and still are gaining. I have read that radical Muslims represent only 10% of Muslims. The estimated global Muslim population in 2010 was about 1.6 billion. That would mean the existence of about 160,000,000 Radical Muslims.
(Segue: Can anyone dare tell me there are 160,000,000 violent Right Wingers or Extremist violent Christians? I doubt it!)
Friends that One Hundred Sixty Million Radical Muslims is growing, even worse, there is near zero condemnation of the Radical Muslims by the majority Muslims. Why?
The reason is fundamentally easy. It is because the Muslims revere the Quran, Hadith and Sira with the Quran as infallible. When Radical Muslims attack Westerners, Jews or Muslims declared heretical (Sunni-Shia split); those radicals are merely following the Quran and the example of Mohammed. If a Muslim openly and compellingly condemns a Radical Muslim, they are risking talking against the holy writings of Islam and insulting Allah and Mohammed.
Friends it is Crusade time; however this is the 21st century. There is no nation in the West that values secularism that will embark on a military expedition to protection the Western culture from the intentions Radical Muslim nut jobs that are rarely condemned by the majority of Muslims. So what would be an effective Crusade in the 21st century?
It is time for Christian Churches to stand-up and take an enthusiastic stand to specifically condemn Radical Islam especially in the United States where one still has Free Speech to speak against Radical Islam without fear of fines or jail.
But John, that is not politically incorrect! The Churches willing to take an intellectual and spiritual stand against Islam will undoubtedly receive doses of hate-the-Christian Islamophobes. The Left and Muslim apologists will harangue Christians for preaching Christianity is not Islam or anything like Islam and point the finger of racist (even though Islam is a religion and not a race) and haters against Christians.
It is not the first time Christians were the minority voice. The thing is in America our U.S. Constitution allows us to speak out and demand that law enforcement protect us. Those days may change, BUT IT HAS NOT CHANGED YET!
JRH 1/7/11
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