Convocation reflects on martyrdom

The 2015 NALC Convocation focused on the reality of Christians suffering for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel. Those at the Convocation heard stories that were both heartbreaking and inspiring about Christians being killed today because of their faith in Christ.

The Convocation heard keynote addresses from Pastor Bassam Abdallah, Robert Spencer and Margaret Khamoo. They highlighted the struggles Christians are facing at the hands of Muslims and explained the nature of the Islamic faith and why it is a threat to Christians. About 600 people attended the Convocation held Aug. 12-14 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel at the Dallas- Fort Worth International Airport. Given the threat that Islamic radicals pose to Christians in many parts of the world, NALC leaders thought that learning more about that threat would add to the NALC’s focus on Christian martyrdom. Robert Spencer, an expert in understanding Islamic jihad, delivered a keynote address for the NALC Convocation, explaining the Islamic view of Christians by using texts from the Koran. Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch (online at www.jihadwatch.org), a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of 14 books, including two New York Times bestsellers, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). “We see practically every day horrific news stories about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Islamic world. And I thought that today it would be useful, in order to help you to understand why this is all happening, to take you through the Islamic view of Christians and Christianity as per the Islamic holy book, the Koran,” he said.

Spencer noted that there are “some very serious theological disagreements between Islam and Christianity.” However, he explained that for Muslim believers much more than religious differences is involved. “When you have theological disagreements then they take on a very different character when combined with the Islamic view that the Muslims are the executors of the will of Allah. And this is a very important point,” he said.

“In the Scriptures we hear, ‘Vengeance is mine,’ says the Lord, ‘I will repay.’ And Christians are not to take revenge, not to avenge themselves in any way, according to the Scriptures. In the Koran, you have exactly the opposite teaching. As a matter of fact, you have the explicit obligation given to Muslims to be the executors of God’s wrath on earth.”

Spencer explained that Muslims believe that unbelievers will be punished in this world as well in the world to come. “And how will God punish the unbelievers in this world? By means of the Muslims.” “So this creates, you see, an obligation for a pious and knowledgeable Muslim ... a feeling that he has a responsibility before God to fight against those who have rejected the faith,” he said. “So when we see this persecution in the Middle East, when we see the Islamic State, or ISIS as it’s popularly known, waging war against the Christians, driving them out of lands that they have lived in for centuries, the people who are doing that believe they are carrying out a divine responsibility — something that will bring them blessings from God,” Spencer said. “You may recall that Jesus Himself said, in the Gospel of John, ‘The time will come when men will kill you and think they are offering service to God’ (John 16:2). That time is upon us now,” Spencer said. “That is happening every day in Iraq, in Syria and elsewhere.”

There have been times when Christians have lived under Islamic rule in relative peace. Islamic law permits Christians to live in an Islamic society if they agree to pay a tax, called the “jizya,” and to live as second-class citizens in “submission” to Muslims. “All of this is designed to remind the Christians that they have rebelled against the true God and that they have strayed from the right path and that they are suffering in this world as well as the next because of their rejection of Muhammad and the Koran and Islam. But once you’re in those boundaries — once you have accepted the subjugated status, this second class status, and you know your life hangs on the whims of the overlords and you accept the denial of basic rights that the dhimma entails — then you can live.” Spencer also said that the Koran teaches Muslims to look at the ruins of other civilizations to see how those civilizations fell because they did not believe in Allah. “There’s another divine responsibility that the Muslims have: to create ruins — to destroy — because that in itself shows the power of Allah,” he said.

“The Islamic State has very often said that it’s coming down to the end. It considers that it is preparing for the twilight battle, the last struggle between good and evil. And they see themselves as the good. ... They see all this in those terms. And I believe that they have a point in that. And we need to see that in those terms as well.”

“This is a challenge to the Church and to Christians — each individual Christian — such as has never been seen before or at least has not been seen since the very early Roman persecutions. We are called upon now to understand exactly what’s at stake and to know that the stakes are indeed very high. This group and groups like it are going to keep coming no matter what, and they’re going to keep advancing because they have an imperative to rule the world, by their own statements. They’re going to keep advancing until they’re stopped.”

He said stopping radical Islam will be a military struggle, but “it’s also a spiritual battle. A spiritual battle requires spiritual weapons. It requires not only prayer and fasting ... but also something that I think is very much lacking in the West today and that we have a responsibility to try to restore and that is: an understanding of and appreciation for what Judeo-Christian Western civilization has brought to the world.”

Spencer said that Western societies need to teach the Christian origins of the basic values of our societies including the freedom of speech, the equality and dignity of all people, and the equal rights of people before the law.

“It does matter what you believe. It does matter the content of the assumptions that you bring to the world. And the beliefs that come from the Koran are beliefs that lead to hatred and violence and oppression. Does this mean that every Muslim — every believer in the Koran — is hateful and violent and oppressive? Of course not. ... If the Koran teaches something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that any individual Muslim has any knowledge of it or interest in it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there.” Spencer said we need to understand that Islamic violence against Christians around the world “is something that is based very deeply ... on Koranic imperatives. And, as such, it’s not going to go away as long as there are believers in the Koran.”

“What can change it, of course, is the power of the truth insofar as we ourselves have the courage to stand upon that truth without the slightest compromise and without the slightest demur and without the slightest hesitation in the face of what are certain to be, in the coming days and months and years, increasingly virulent and even violent challenges.

“The good news is that we know how it ends up. We know that we will win. We know that life always triumphs over death. We know that life will never be entirely extinguished,” Spencer said. “There are hard times ahead. And, of course, we have abundant warnings about that and abundant advice about how to deal with it in the Christian Scriptures. That ultimately is where we can find the answers to this tremendous challenge. And it is indeed a tremendous challenge. We have the best of all fighters on our side in the Lord. But we have to be willing to stand for Him no matter what, as He stands for us,” Spencer concluded.

The Rev. Dr. Bassam Abdallah, pastor of First United Lutheran Church in Hammond, Ind., led a Bible study for the Convocation and offered reflections based on Acts 26. He pointed to the words of Jesus to Paul (Acts 26:16-18): “But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you. I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles — to whom I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”

“The past few years, the Church and all the faithfilled Christians have been standing up — firm in Jesus Christ. They did not and they will not yield to the evil forces of the world,” he said.

He noted the 21 Christians slaughtered in Libya in February. “Do you know what they were saying as they were beheaded by the evil men who were beheading them?” he asked. “‘My Lord Jesus’ were their final words.”

“From 1915 until the year 2015 — a hundred year period — there were more martyrs crowned than in the preceding 1,900 years of church history. Over 3 million Christians have been slaughtered — have been martyred over the past 100 years because they say, ‘Lord Jesus.’”

“Stand up, Christians, and tell the story of your sisters and brothers suffering for their faith. Do not be intimidated by the devil and his forces in the world. ... If we do not speak up on their behalf, please tell me who could and who should?

“The wounds of the Church are as deep as history has ever seen. Jesus has become a threat to many. ... The number one enemy of ISIS is Jesus Christ.” Pastor Abdallah told the often untold part of the story of the 21 Christians beheaded by ISIS in Libya. Only 20 of those killed were Coptic Christians. The 21st man was a Muslim from Chad. When he saw the immense faith of the others, he reportedly said, “Their God is my God,” knowing that he would be killed. The witness of the 20 Christians resulted in that man’s conversion to Christianity. “Twenty were sacrificed for that one to receive salvation.” Pastor Abdallah said. Pastor Abdallah, a Palestinian and native of Jerusalem who still bears on his own body the wounds of Muslim hatred for Christians, challenged listeners to share the love that Christ has for Muslim people. He also reported a hopeful statistic that millions of Muslims are converting to Christianity every year.

“We need to reach the heart of God in prayer and supplications, not only on behalf of those who are being tortured from our families, those who are being displaced and killed. But we need to pray for those who are torturing them, displacing them, and killing them. ... We need to lift our voices to heaven, bringing to the altar of God those who cheer the agony of our family of faith. God has sent them, and God is sending us to the evils of the world that by the power of the Holy Spirit they will turn from darkness to light and have their sins forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ,” he said. “We continue to have a problem on our hands. The Church is wounded, but the Church will never die. Christians are hurting, but Christians will never surrender to the forces of the devil in the world. “And even though sheiks and imams throughout the Muslim world continue to preach hatred, we preach the love of Jesus Christ to all people. And even though Islamic television and radio stations indoctrinate people, teaching them violence taken right from the Koran and from the Hadith, the speeches of the prophet, we continue to preach forgiveness in the name of Jesus Christ. And even though thousands of sermons are preached every Friday against Christians and Christianity, against the infidels and the United States, we preach that we are all God’s children for whom Jesus died and was resurrected. And even though the Islamic schools continue to produce generations of teachers and students who believe in jihad, fighting, killing, and suicide bombing and torturing and slaughtering infidels, we follow the command of our Lord and search for His lost sheep and, when we find them, we bring them home, we feed them, we embrace them, and we accompany them,” said Pastor Abdallah.

“I know first hand the pain of being Christian in an intolerant and evil world. I know good and well what the plans of Satan in many parts of the world are. I have heard and I continue to hear the cries of my Christian family in many parts of the world. We cannot and we should not give up on the power of the Lord to (change) these men and women. We have to bring them to the foot of the cross of Jesus with penitent hearts and contrite minds believing that Jesus is their Lord also and the blood of the saints are eternally joyful in the presence of God.”

Margaret Khamoo of Chicago delivered a keynote address about the persecution of Assyrian Christians. She told heartbreaking stories of Assyrian Christians in Iraq.

Khamoo is a first-generation American whose parents were born in Baghdad, Iraq. She is president of the Chicago Chapter of the Assyrian Aid Society of America, which was formed in 1991 after the first Iraq war to aid the internally displaced Christians in Iraq. She is also involved in the Assyrian American National Federation — formed in 1933 following an Assyrian genocide that took place in Iraq — that fights for Assyrian rights and protection in Iraq and the Iraqi Christian Relief Council — established in 2007 in response to church bombings in Baghdad to educate Christians about the plight of Christians in the Middle East. Assyrians have a history of over 6,000 years. They are natives of ancient Mesopotamia. Their language is based on ancient Aramaic. They were among the first people to accept Christ. They have publicly worshiped Christ in that area in spite of persecution by Muslims for nearly 2,000 years — until they were forced underground in 2014. “Assyrians are driven by their faith. ... All they have is their church,” she said. “But the church is within. They can destroy our churches. They can destroy our homes. They can take down our crosses. But these people and their faith have not wavered. They remain strong in their faith,” she said. “And their faith is in the West as well. We’re Christian. We have brothers and sisters all over the world ... and their hope is in all of us — that we will come to their rescue, that we will lobby for them to stay alive,” Khamoo said.

“Iraqi Christian persecution hasn’t ended. Everything that happened 100 and 200 years ago is systematically happening all over again,” she said. “It’s an annihilation of Christians.”

There has been major persecution of Assyrian Christians — including genocide — about every 45 years since the rise of Islam.Lots of stories — lots of persecution against Christians — that are happening every day aren’t being broadcast,” she said. “There’s so much more that is happening every day.”

“It’s all about religious cleansing. Our faith is a threat. And for as long as we are there, (Muslims) will not be happy. For as long as our churches are there, they will not be content. Their goal is to wipe you out at all cost,” Khamoo said.

“Assyrians are always on the run. Christians are always on the run. And they’re still on the run. It’s still not stable,” she said. “ISIS is everywhere. And this is happening under the watchful eyes of the world, right? We all have heard the stories about Syria and Iraq. But where’s the intervention? What are the tools? What can we do?”

What Christians in the West can do to help: 1. Pray. 2. Provide urgent and direct humanitarian aid. 3. Provide international protection for Assyrians and other Christians. 4. Establish local protection units like police. “What do (Assyrian Christians) want? They want to go home. They’re tired of running. They want peace,” she said. “The slaughter is ongoing. It happened then; it’s happening now. Children died then; and children are dying now. “All we have is each other. This is a Christian issue. These are our Christian brothers and sisters dying because they are Christians. If we can’t help, I don’t know who can,” Khamoo said.

“Martyrdom and the Sufferings of the Righteous” was the theme of the Carl E. Braaten and Robert D. Benne Lectures in Theology, the annual theological conference which precedes the Convocation. Six speakers explored the theme from different theological perspectives. Two of the speakers told stories of recent persecution of Christians. Raymond Ibrahim, a widely published author, public speaker, and Middle East and Islam specialist, spoke on the “Muslim Persecution of Christians: Past and Present.”

Ibrahim produces a monthly report on the Muslim persecution of Christians which is available on his website: www.raymondibrahim.com. His books include Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians and The Al Qaeda Reader.

“More Christians are being persecuted and killed in horrific ways than have ever been,” he said. “It’s mostly happening in the Islamic world, or, more particularly, where Muslims are present.” “This is not just ISIS. This is happening all over the Islamic world by average Muslims, by Muslim governments, by Muslim regimes, by terrorists, by the Muslim mobs or the Arab street,” Ibrahim said. “What we’re discussing here is a centuries-old, continent-wide attack on Christianity by Islam. And it’s based on doctrine,” he said.

“There is not a moderate Islam and a radical Islam. There are moderate Muslims and radical Muslims. But because there isn’t a moderate Islam, the moderate Muslims really have no theological leg to stand on, but they do exist. ... If you go by the traditional Islamic jurisprudence and how you derive reasoning and rulings and fatwas, the ISIS version actually wins,” he said.

Lensa Gudina, Managing Director of the Gudina Tumsa Foundation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, told the stories of her parents, the Rev. Gudina Tumsa and Tsehay Tolessa. Her father was killed in 1979 and her mother was imprisoned and tortured by the Communist Derg which ruled Ethiopia 1971-1994.

Video Recordings Video recordings of the speakers and all of the sessions of the 2015 NALC Convocation and the Braaten-Benne Lectures in Theology are available online at thenalc.org/2015-event-videos. .

Lutheran Ping!

Be rooted in Christ!

Most of the New Martyrs of the Middle East are Orthodox, therefore:

Orthodox Ping!

Save Thy people, O Lord,
and bless Thine inheritance.
Grant victory to Thy Church over her enemies,
and protect Thy people by Thy Holy Cross!

The North American Lutheran Church (NALC) began its denominational life in response to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Amercia’s (ELCA) 2009 decision to begin to Ordain non-chaste/celibate homosexuals.

There are some in the NALC who have a strong affinity for the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and, in fact, two of the NALC “House of Studies” for theological education are located at the ACNA Seminaries of Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA; and Nashota House in Nashota WI.

The NALC very wisely determined that it would be foolish to incur massive indebteness to build a brick and mortar Seminary when there were confessionally solid institutions willing to partner with them.

http://www.thenalc.org

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