Ummm, Pope St. Pius V led Europe's Catholics in a rosary crusade imploring God's assistance in what wold become the Battle of Lepanto (10/7/1571). The Catholic navy was slightly outnumbered but had superior artillery/cannons on board many of its ships. The Catholic naval forces (the Holy League) under the command of Don Juan of Austria, sank 210 ships of about 240 of the Turkish Muslims' fleet which went to the bottom of the Mediterranean along with any Muslim pretense of using naval forces to facilitate conquering Christian Europe. The Church established October 7 as the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and also began devotions to Our Lady of Victory.
You are apparently not Catholic. Ours is certainly, even now, a free country and you are free to disagree or to scoff as are Catholics to believe.
See also the 9/11-9/12/1683 lifting of the Muslim Siege of Vienna by mostly Polish forces under King Jan Sobieski in which the Muslims were routed. Their commander, Kara Mustafa, was executed thereafter (by formal strangulation) at Belgrade (12/25/1683) as a result of his loss. The Muslims were so shamed that they attack Western Civilization with some regularity on 9/11 of various years. Nonetheless, the Muslims have never made another significant military attempt against Europe by land.
It may well be that allowing Muslim immigration into Europe to replace the children that so many Europeans have been too self-centered or lazy to bear in their advancing apostasy from all forms of Christianity may accomplish for Islam what the Muslim military never could.
Christians need to unite in the face of such challenges rather than continuing the endless intramural food fight over religious differences among us. Instead, let's concentrate on the 95% on which there is agreement, concede that Jesus Christ's flock would not and probably will not be as one, but serve Him in all things according to our own insights and faiths. It is also, as always, a wise strategy to keep our powder dry and to be ready militarily to help ourselves with His help.
The power of intercessory prayer and God's assistance had much to do with these military successes. Perhaps you are not a believer at all. If so, thank the military commanders: Don Juan of Austria and King Jan Sobieski for your good fortune in not being up speaking Arabic or being oppressed by "Sharia Law."
AMEN.
On the Undead Thread, we don't say we have to respect other beliefs. We say we respect the people who hold other beliefs, and address differences in belief politely or not at all.
Look for Christians from the “global south” nations to go to the west, the same west that sent missionaries to the global south to bring the good news of the Gospel of Jesus back to the west.
“Christians need to unite in the face of such challenges rather than continuing the endless intramural food fight over religious differences among us.”
Such a “unity” founded upon nothing at all except a name certainly cannot stand. The difference between those of us who believe in the sufficiency of God’s grace to save, and those of you who deny it, is a huge gap that cannot coexist. I would say that it is creates such a different effect on the heart of man, and is such a different world view, that it divides us into two separate religions entirely.
Gospel purity, and the true worship of Christ, is of higher importance than a farcical unity against a common enemy. When it comes down to it, it is God who is actually in charge, who raises up some nations and brings down others. There is nothing man can do that can resist the will of God, and nothing we can do to get anything of ourselves. “... what hast thou that thou didst not receive?” (1 Co 4:7). To say that we must unite in order to defeat Islam, instead of asserting that it is God who controls our fates and can defeat Islam with just an army of 300, like in Gideon’s day, is to deny the providence and almighty power of God.
As for me, I will prefer to keep what I know to be true, and not be unequally yoked with those who deny the essential truths of Christianity. Compromise is a terrible sin.
Good post! Thank you, Black Elk.