Posted on 03/28/2015 4:45:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
Given all the bad press Islam has gotten over the last few years, it might seem surprising at first glance that Islam is still such a vibrant, fast-growing religion. Even setting aside the fact that Muhammad was a bad guy and Allah doesn’t exist, the press about Islam over the last few years has been almost universally negative. If you’re not hearing about terrorist attacks, suicide bombers or sanctioned wife beating, you’re reading about ISIS taking slaves or Iranian morality police beating women with sticks for showing their ankles.
If all of that is so, then why was Muhammad the most popular name for newborn boys in Britain? How is it that the number of mosques in the United States has risen 74% since 2000? How can it possibly be that France is now 10% Muslim?
There’s a very simple answer to that question that goes well beyond, “Muslims are immigrating to Western nations.” Muslims are perceived as being very devout. In fact, most people have concluded that Muslims really BELIEVE IN SOMETHING.
On the positive side, it takes a lot of devotion to pray five times a day. On the more negative side, it also takes a great deal of belief to blow yourself up for Allah, murder people for drawing a cartoon of Muhammad or spend your life encased in a burka.
Do you see the potential appeal of that to someone who’s lost and looking for meaning in his life? Religion isn’t all fun and games. There are a lot of rules and an often inconvenient moral code comes with it. So, if you’re going to turn to religion to help provide direction in your life, wouldn’t you want to at least turn to a religion where the adherents really seem to believe in what they’re preaching?
So, if that’s what people are seeing when they look at Islam, what are they seeing when they look at Christianity in America? They see that TV shows and musicians can trash Jesus in the most vulgar ways without fear of getting serious blowback. Public tax dollars are being used to fund art that smears Christianity and “liberal Christians” are fine with it. It seems like every movie that has a Christian in it portrays him as a psychopath, a murderous hick or just a sanctimonious jerk you’re supposed to hate. Who’s keeping these movies afloat in a mostly Christian nation? Who’s buying the records of artists who trash Christians? Who’s voting for the people who funnel your tax dollars into anti-Christian causes?
Christians.
Meanwhile, way too many Christians are embracing this “Buddy Christ,” we-don’t-want-to-make-anyone-uncomfortable, watered-down version of Christianity.
We’ve accepted society’s idea that if you’re flawed, you can’t ever speak out against your flaw or you’re a hypocrite. Of course, since ALL OF US are flawed, many of us never speak out. Even if someone gets tempted to speak up, he stays silent because, “You’re not supposed to mix religion and politics.” Of course, politicians have no problem getting involved in religious matters, but that’s supposed to only go one way while Christians keep their mouths shut. Then if you still want to speak up and say something’s wrong, you’re told not to “talk about social issues.” Meanwhile, people who hate Christians are talking about social issues non-stop. But, we’re not supposed to fire back because that might be “intolerant” or make people “uncomfortable.” Then if all that’s not enough, if you want to condemn bad behavior, you’re told “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” Well, unfortunately, too many people seem to confuse the meaning of that statement with, “If it feels good, it’s okay to do it” or “If someone likes it, you can’t say anything about it because you might hurt her feelings.” The Presbyterian Church members, which have dropped their standards so much that I don’t even consider them Christians in any meaningful sense any more, has even stooped so low as to adopt gay marriage in a failed attempt to make themselves more palatable to a world that hates them.
However, what so many Christians are missing is that a neutered religion that has become so stale, timid and uncertain of what it believes in that it’s afraid to offend non-believers doesn’t have a lot of appeal.
Christians go overboard in the country to emphasize that God is all about forgiveness, making you happy and making you successful. Well, God will indeed help people who pray to Him, but He is not a genie who exists to grant your wishes.
We are here to serve God; He is not here to serve us.
God is also not all sunshine and roses. If our country makes Him angry, He may purposefully ruin us. If you displease Him, He will allow you to go to hell. Are you an atheist? A nice one, who’s generally a good guy? Well, life isn’t a pass/fail test and, yes, according to the Bible, you’re going to hell. Are you a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist? You may be a wonderful person and we can certainly be polite to you, treat you decently, and wish you well, but your gods don’t exist and according to Jesus Christ, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."
Quoting Bible verses to people who don’t want to hear them, wagging your finger in their faces or treating sinners hatefully is counterproductive and ultimately, that’s not going to convert very many people to Christ. What will turn people around is showing some spine and standing up for what you believe in. Christians need to take a hint from Phil Robertson, Franklin Graham, Tim Tebow and other Christians who aren’t willing to sanitize their beliefs and their message because people who hate Christians don’t like it.
We should treat people with love and compassion when it’s possible, but we should also be inspired by the courage that early Christians had when preaching the gospel might lead to being thrown to the lions. If we’re not going to talk like we believe, if we’re not going to act like we believe, if we’re not going to live like we believe, then how are people going to become believers through our example?
Yadda yadda, “Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion”, yadda yadda.
Not to dispute the article’s stance on Christianity, however the Islam line is an Islamist lie.
HOW many muslim “converts” in the world today have any “choice” in the matter?
Islamic State is butchering dissenters across the Middle East. Other nations require extortive taxes as penalty and establish a second class citizen status for non-muslims. Muslims are forbidden from converting away from the faith under penalty of death in “moderate” Islamist nations.
I’ve read that 2/3 of the muslims in America are first generation immigrants. Our growing muslim population are settlers colonizing the land with foreign funding, not converts.
When we look at the muslim converts in America we find them among the antisemitic hard left who have identified with the “struggle” against Boosh’s war in Iraq. We also find them among the jailhouse converts to the black separatist Nation of Islam.
So much for “fastest growing religion in the world”. Largest death cult, maybe.
>>HOW many muslim “converts” in the world today have any “choice” in the matter?
In the US and Europe, 100% of them had a choice. The huge mosque in my city fills up parking lots a couple blocks away on Friday as the muzzies come in for prayers and sermons. Many of them are not middle eastern.
Do you live near Dearborn, MI??? ;-)
Nope. Jacksonville Florida...right in the Bible Belt.
This is located in the middle of suburbanian Omaha.
June 8, 2014
A Mosque, a Synagogue, and a Church: What Could Go Wrong?
By Joe HerrIng
The Tri-Faith Initiative in Omaha is a project that raises questions. The planned co-location of a synagogue, a mosque, and a church on the same campus is a novel enough idea to stir curiosity. Add in connections between the proposed mosque and groups that have been named as unindicted co-conspirators in the largest terror-financing trial in our nation’s history, and it becomes the lack of questions that should make news.
I have written previously about the links between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Tri-Faith Initiative in Omaha, Nebraska. Recent developments include my source, Dr. Mark Christian, the executive director of the Omaha-based Global Faith Institute, receiving a “shut up or get sued” letter from the project’s leaders.
While the project was originally conceived with the mosque, a Reform Jewish congregation and an Episcopal Church forming the three legs of the Tri-Faith stool, the Episcopal Church has since gotten cold feet and is bailing out of the project. Its representatives are actively soliciting another church to take their place and buy out their stake, to the tune of $1.5 million.
It is this transaction the Tri-Faith Board is seeking to protect by attempting to intimidate Dr. Christian into silence. Mind you, the good doctor hasn’t been marching up and down outside the project, waving signs and screaming; he has simply asked some very reasonable questions regarding the relationship between the mosque and two well-known groups – CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America.
Seeking clarification, Dr. Christian has approached the respective leaders of the Tri-Faith Initiative and reports that each conversation followed a similar path. First, flat denials of any links between the Tri-Faith Initiative and ISNA, CAIR, or the Muslim Brotherhood. Second, after being presented with the fact that CAIR and ISNA are prominently featured on their website as “Resources,” they shift into a denial that ISNA and CAIR are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Finally, after Dr. Christian provides the evidence from the FBI and the State Department that both groups are known fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood in America, the response settles into a mumbling assertion that maybe the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t such a bad thing in the first place.
Dr. Christian has good reason for concern; he is a former Muslim who has converted to Christianity and lives under a fatwa approved by his own father, calling for his death.
Dr. Christian is no ordinary Muslim apostate, however. His father and uncle were top-level leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in his former home of Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Christian was trained as an imam and groomed for Muslim leadership.
Dr. Christian’s uncle Ahmed spent time in prison for his role in the 1965 raid against Gamal Nasser. During this time he was a cellmate of the Islamic writer Sayyid Qutb, the ideological father of the radical outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood that we know today as al-Qaeda.
Clearly, a Muslim Brotherhood foothold in his adopted hometown of Omaha poses a serious security risk for Dr. Christian and his family. “Trust us,” just isn’t a good enough answer in today’s security climate.
Radical Islamists are promoting interfaith projects in many places around the U.S., successfully putting a gentle mask on their brutal ideology.
Extremism is introduced only after the non-Muslim partners have invested sufficient time and capital to ensure their willingness to overlook questionable connections and activities for fear of losing their financial stake.
Under the protective umbrella of interfaith peace and harmony, suspicious activities may occur with little scrutiny, with the non-Muslim partners frequently running interference for the Islamic component – all in the name of love, unity, and justice.
While it remains unclear if the Tri-Faith Initiative will fall prey to such machinations, their present refusal to address reasonable questions provides cold comfort to a worried populace.
As occurred in the case of the Holy Land Foundation, Islamists sometimes launder money through charities and aid organizations in order to conceal the transfer of millions of dollars to terrorists around the world. In the Holy Land Foundation case, these terror-funders were caught red-handed, and the ensuing prosecutions revealed extensive involvement on the parts of CAIR and ISNA.
The Tri-Faith Initiative subsequently hosted Ingrid Mattson, then-president of ISNA, for a citywide interfaith event, highlighting ISNA’s involvement in their project. She is described in an article on their website as being the “head of the movement” behind the mosque.
Given their prior record, it hardly seems unreasonable to question CAIR’s and ISNA’s continued involvement with the Tri-Faith Initiative.
Moreover, given the controversy, is it prudent for the Tri-Faith Board to peddle a $1.5-million plot of land to a largely unsuspecting church congregation, while simultaneously threatening Dr. Christian with legal action if he alerts the buyer to the 800-pound gorilla in the room?
It is Dr. Christian’s contention that this behavior from the Tri-Faith leadership is reckless and unseemly.
The Global Faith Institute has formally called on the Tri-Faith Initiative to simply renounce its association with CAIR, ISNA, and other similarly radicalized groups, and to open its books to an independent auditor going forward, to reassure the concerned citizens of Omaha that such groups will not re-enter the project at a later date.
Such a simple thing – such a sensible course of action, to disavow radical Islamic supremacists and their poisoned ideology, yet the Tri-Faith Board thus far finds these words too difficult to utter.
As a lawyer friend of mine said recently regarding this subject, “if peace-loving Muslims won’t differentiate themselves from the radical Islamists, how then are we, their neighbors and co-workers, to tell the difference?”
Indeed. This is the question Dr. Christian asks every day, at the risk of his life.
The author writes from Omaha, Nebraska and welcomes visitors to his website at readmorejoe.com.
The Tri-Faith Initiative in Omaha is a project that raises questions. The planned co-location of a synagogue, a mosque, and a church on the same campus is a novel enough idea to stir curiosity. Add in connections between the proposed mosque and groups that have been named as unindicted co-conspirators in the largest terror-financing trial in our nation’s history, and it becomes the lack of questions that should make news.
I have written previously about the links between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Tri-Faith Initiative in Omaha, Nebraska. Recent developments include my source, Dr. Mark Christian, the executive director of the Omaha-based Global Faith Institute, receiving a “shut up or get sued” letter from the project’s leaders.
While the project was originally conceived with the mosque, a Reform Jewish congregation and an Episcopal Church forming the three legs of the Tri-Faith stool, the Episcopal Church has since gotten cold feet and is bailing out of the project. Its representatives are actively soliciting another church to take their place and buy out their stake, to the tune of $1.5 million.
It is this transaction the Tri-Faith Board is seeking to protect by attempting to intimidate Dr. Christian into silence. Mind you, the good doctor hasn’t been marching up and down outside the project, waving signs and screaming; he has simply asked some very reasonable questions regarding the relationship between the mosque and two well-known groups – CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America.
Seeking clarification, Dr. Christian has approached the respective leaders of the Tri-Faith Initiative and reports that each conversation followed a similar path. First, flat denials of any links between the Tri-Faith Initiative and ISNA, CAIR, or the Muslim Brotherhood. Second, after being presented with the fact that CAIR and ISNA are prominently featured on their website as “Resources,” they shift into a denial that ISNA and CAIR are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Finally, after Dr. Christian provides the evidence from the FBI and the State Department that both groups are known fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood in America, the response settles into a mumbling assertion that maybe the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t such a bad thing in the first place.
Dr. Christian has good reason for concern; he is a former Muslim who has converted to Christianity and lives under a fatwa approved by his own father, calling for his death.
Dr. Christian is no ordinary Muslim apostate, however. His father and uncle were top-level leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in his former home of Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Christian was trained as an imam and groomed for Muslim leadership.
Dr. Christian’s uncle Ahmed spent time in prison for his role in the 1965 raid against Gamal Nasser. During this time he was a cellmate of the Islamic writer Sayyid Qutb, the ideological father of the radical outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood that we know today as al-Qaeda.
Clearly, a Muslim Brotherhood foothold in his adopted hometown of Omaha poses a serious security risk for Dr. Christian and his family. “Trust us,” just isn’t a good enough answer in today’s security climate.
Radical Islamists are promoting interfaith projects in many places around the U.S., successfully putting a gentle mask on their brutal ideology.
Extremism is introduced only after the non-Muslim partners have invested sufficient time and capital to ensure their willingness to overlook questionable connections and activities for fear of losing their financial stake.
Under the protective umbrella of interfaith peace and harmony, suspicious activities may occur with little scrutiny, with the non-Muslim partners frequently running interference for the Islamic component – all in the name of love, unity, and justice.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/06/a_mosque_a_synagogue_and_a_church_what_could_go_wrong.html#ixzz3VgbZhyRk
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Christianity is the fastest growing religion in Africa, No? And what about Asia? That Islam is so popular and powerful only shows how cowardly and evil so many people are. Hardly something to be admired by decent people.
Good article. Modern Christianity has repented of telling people to repent. It is now “God loves you just like you are”, so...why change? When was the last time you heard a preacher describe the lost as “by nature children of wrath”?
A radical Muslim wants to chop your head off. A moderate Muslim wants to cheer while the radical Muslim chops your head off.
The muslims in America are colonists, not Americans.
Islam is growing in America because there are those who wish to help the Islamists subvert the nation.
40,000 refugees, 55,000 refugees... and the mosques are foreign funded. So much on the ban on State funded religion. Why the hell should the Saudis be permitted to establish State owned religious centers in America?
Genocide is occurring around the globe and the press can only talk about thugs being shot by police, rape culture, white privilege, and the need for same sex marriage.
The culture is #@&%!ed.
Is Osama Bin Laden misunderstood Islam, why did President Barack Hussein Obama give him a state funded Islamic funeral at sea?
FUBO, FUISIS, FUCAIR
If they are not middle eastern, are they black muslims or kool aid drinking liberals?
>>If they are not middle eastern, are they black muslims or kool aid drinking liberals?
It’s a mix of the two. But, the blacks are not all the dark-skinned blacks found in Sub-Saharan Africa. There are a good number of white and light-skinned people there. It doesn’t matter. They are Americans and they chose islam.
My point is that the article is correct. In the US and Europe, Christianity has become a consumer product, marketed in the most non-threatening and inclusive way possible. We tell the unchurched, “Look, we have created McChurch...just for you!” and they reply with “Meh.”
People seek a God who is powerful, not a God with good coffee and great sound system. Islam pulls no punches and declares their allah to be the one true god. Many, if not most, American churches will hem and haw about John 14:6 and talk about many paths up the mountain and then quickly move on to something less challenging.
The secular culture has made us afraid to proclaim that Jesus is God and that ALL who seek eternal life must come to him. Period!
We attended a *feel-good, happy megachurch* like that, once. The pastor actually said, as part of his *sermon*, "...the Genesis story...if you believe that stuff"...we got up and walked out.
Hippie Jesus is one of the great accomplishments of the Left.
Thugs are not only being talked about, but immortalized in song -- Trayvon Martin being the most egregious example. Since there are so many songs about thug wannabe, Trayvon Martin, I did one, too; however, it is a little different in theme from the many adulatory poems about thug wannabe. It is called The Trayvon Martin Lied
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