Iran then, Egypt now

Mark Durie is a reliable voice when it comes to contemporary Islam. Here he points to an article by Andrew Boston where the parallel is made between the Muslim Brotherhood currently on the up-and-up in Egypt, and the fawning attitude adopted towards Ayatollah Khomeini as he was coming to power in Iran.

Mark Durie on the Ground Zero mosque

Mark Durie is an Anglican minister in Melbourne who I know from our time down there. He is an expert on Islam, and everything he writes about it is well worth a read. Here's his take on the proposed mosque at Ground Zero.

He says:

America is in deep trouble. It seems impossible to have any substantive debate about Islam. Facts no longer matter, and genuine analysis has been replaced by prejudice and paralysing, fear-driven denial. A politically correct narrative has taken hold among the elites —that Islam has been hijacked by a few extremists — and a principle of censorship — that we must not offend the sensibilities of the other Muslims. The effect is that Islam is being given a higher place than that accorded to other religions.

A lot of his observations about the cringing way the American elites have approached Islam can be directly applied across to similar ignorances here in Australia.

Definitely have a look not just at this post but his whole website.

Should we apologize for the Crusades?

Justin Taylor links to an interview with Rodney Stark. Justin was interested in the bit where Stark talks about how the US left doesn't seem to make headway amongst evangelical Christians (which Stark qualifies very helpfully), but I was more interested in the bits where he talks about Muslims and the Crusades, for example:

Because the Crusades are often understood within a larger framework that says that Islam is the gentle faith and Christianity the violent one. Karen Armstrong would have us believe that Muhammad was a pacifist. Take Major Nidal Hassan, the man responsible for the Fort Hood massacre. Had an evangelical Christian of the nutty sort gotten up in front of Army psychiatrists and talked about how much he respected people who shot abortionists, he would have been out of the Army an hour later. But everybody tiptoes around the issue of Islam.

Several months after 9/11, former President Clinton gave a speech at Georgetown University in which he apologized for the Crusades. He said we had much to be sorry about, and we bore some of the guilt for sending those airplanes plunging into the Twin Towers. Now, Clinton isn't a nut. He's not an anti-American. He's just been miseducated. He's been told a whole lot of nonsense about the Crusades.

The interview itself is from Patheos.

Christians may call God 'Allah'

This has upset some people in Malaysia. Read the SMH report on the High Court case here.

We might pray that Christians in that country would boldly teach that the Lord Jesus is the only true Allah.

Islam will continue to be a terrorist threat in the year to come

Islam will continue to be a terrorist threat in the year to come.

There's a careful explanation of why by Mark Durie, here.

Muslims in the army

A friend from Melbourne days has a blog on which he's discussed the risks of Muslims in the military:

The contents of a two-year old seminar presented by Major Nidal M. Hasan, the medico believed responsible for the Fort Hood massacre, were apparently recorded in the form of powerpoint slides.

These slides are in one sense nothing new. They review the basics of Islam: the pillars and core beliefs, the Koran, abrogation ('later verses abrogate former ie: peaceful verses no longer apply' – slide 35), the rewards for believers in paradise and punishments of hell for those who do not submit to Allah's will, defensive and agressive jihad. However, in addition, Major Hasan explains the implications of this theological material for the lived situation of Muslims in the US armed forces. He is saying that Muslims can experience problems in the military for two reasons.

One reason is the prohibition against Muslims killing other Muslims ('whoever kills a believer intentionally, his punishment is hell' – slide 12).

The other is the requirement that Muslims wage war against non-believers in both defensive jihad (slides 37-41) and aggressive jihad (slides 42-48). This command, he is saying, can be expected to be followed by devout, God-fearing Muslims ('Allah expects full loyalty' – slide 49), especially if they are persuaded that in so-doing they would be 'fighting against the injustices of the "infidels,"' (slide 48). His point is that if US Muslim soldiers can be persuaded that fighting against fellow-Muslims is an injustice, this could trigger a deadly attack against fellow US soldiers instead, e.g. by means of 'suicide bombing, etc' ('We love death more than you love life!' – slide 48).

As Mark says "It is a tragic irony that Major Hasan may well have acted in accordance with his own training material."

Convert from Islam and be killed

Not only in Pakistan but also in the US, according to a report in CNN today.

The teenager, in a sworn affidavit, claims her father, Mohamed Bary, 47, was pressured by the mosque the family attends in Ohio to "deal with the situation." In the court filing, Rifqa Bary stated her father said, "If you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me!" The teenager claims her father added, "I will kill you!"

Pray for this girl.

Nigerian Taliban strikes

RADICAL Islamists yesterday torched a police headquarters, a church and a Customs office in northern Nigeria, as the death toll in weekend religious clashes climbed to 150.

A BBC reporter counted 100 bodies, mostly of the Taliban-styled militants, near the police headquarters in Maiduguri, Borno state, where hundreds are fleeing their homes.

Nigerian police chief Ogbonna Onovo said earlier that five of his officers and 65 of the militants had been killed in the neighbouring states of Bauchi and Yobe.

The Australian.

Please pray for our Nigerian friends.

Persecuted Christians in Islamic countries

Here's a good question. Why do the majority of American Christians remain so oblivious to the increasingly bitter fate of their fellow Christians in the Islamic world? These ancient communities -- many descended from the very earliest followers of Jesus himself -- are under growing siege.

True, and true of us too. Huffington Post, with thanks to Dan Phillips at Biblical Christianity.

Pray for Pakistan

and any friends you have there:

Put simply, Pakistan represents the first realistic prospect for a jihadist movement to capture a nation-state, or at the very least to control large parts of it. It would, in effect, mean that militants would have something approaching a mini-state within the country where the central government's power and influence would be non-existent, and from which they could plan and launch attacks beyond its borders. And Pakistan is not just any nation-state at threat from militant groups, but one that has nuclear weapons, a large population and economic resources; one that borders a vulnerable failed state in Afghanistan where tens of thousands of Nato forces are stationed; and one that also has as its neighbours two emerging economic superpowers, China and India. What is more, Pakistan has a long coastline open to the most economically important stretch of waterway in the world, the Gulf, from which hundreds of tankers supply oil-hungry economies. It is a nightmare scenario from which no country is immune. None of us will escape the consequences of a situation where large parts of Pakistan are politically, militarily and economically controlled by jihadists.

From Rageh Omaar at Telegraph.co.uk

Roman Catholics criticize Rowan Williams on Sharia law

A Roman Catholic leader said that Rowan Williams' thinking about accepting parts of sharia law into British law is a 'mistake' and 'naive'. Reuters report here.

Prayer

One of the things I most appreciated about today's MTS (Ministry Training Strategy) day was Stewart Binns' report on his work amongst Muslims.

They are not hostile people, they are friendly, if you bother to speak to them. Stewart not only bothers to speak to them, he prays for them, and over 20 years has had marvellous conversations and seen many of them come into God's heavenly kingdom, through the Lord Jesus. Why hasn't he been assassinated? Well, most Muslims aren't as crazy as some Australians like to make out. The are lovely, warm people who put our efforts at hospitality to shame.

The religion of Islam is as loopy and ridiculous as Mormonism, but most Muslims realize this in their heart of hearts and are relieved to find someone who will talk to them about truth, but with prayerful compassion.

Death in Islamabad

This morning I heard a Muslim cleric on the radio, the leader of a group that attacked and took hold of the Red Mosque in Islamabad. He was being interviewed but broke it off because the room that he was in was starting to fill with smoke.

I don't know who this man was and I've never heard of him. Perhaps in Pakistan he is a hero along the lines of Robin Hood, or some kind of anti-hero like Ned Kelly or one of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

He told the interviewer that if he was killed, then his soldiers would not rest until the families of the perpetrators of his death were all themselves dead.

Well, he's dead now. The interview was recorded just before he was shot "in crossfire", according to the Pakistani government. The fighting at the mosque continues, with snipers shooting at each other from the minarets.

It is awful stuff, and completely alien to me. It makes me worry for the friends I have in Pakistan. It also makes me wonder if there is any Christian cleric in any mainstream denomination in the world who, like this Muslim cleric, would threaten to kill the families of soldiers that were trying to kill him.

Critical mass of Muslims

Professor Raphael Israeli of Hebrew University recently caused a stir in Australia when he asserted that “”When the Muslim population gets to a critical mass you have problems. That is a general rule, so if it applies everywhere it applies in Australia.”

It’s an observation based on his own research, so bears attention. I wrote an opinion piece for the Daily Telegraph, a local Sydney newspaper.

Muslim migration bad?

A Professor of Islamic studies at Hebrew University has warned
that Australia should be careful about how many Muslims they
allow into the country, and says that they should be screened
carefully and monitored. The SMH report is here.

I wrote a letter in response and it was published today.

The letter:

Raphael Israeli's warnings should be listened to.

At present, no other major world religion is consistently associated
with international terrorism. Nor does any other major world religion
find support for such terrorism within its scriptures.

The unpalatable truth within Islam is that some believe they
must be prepared to kill others in order to spread their religion.

Compare the unpalatable truth at the heart of Christianity,
which is that Jesus had to die to save others from death.

The Reverend Gordon Cheng, Kingsford.

You didn't used to be able to say that religions were different
from each other.