Posted on 12/25/2015 6:06:57 AM PST by Kaslin
"This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you." (John 15:12-13)
These words of Jesus represent the true essence of Christmas and this special season.
This is the time of year to wish for God's blessing in the upcoming year. But it is also a time to reflect upon what happened during the year that is about to end.
The world news this year has unfortunately been filled with horror, and the last months of the year brought that horror disturbingly close to home. The carnage in San Bernardino showed that the threat of Islamic extremism recognizes no boundaries and that the sense of security President Obama expressed earlier in 2015 was ill-advised.
And as we usher in 2016, which is an election year, one of the main issues of the day has again become terrorism and how to handle it, especially in the form of the Islamic State and Islamic extremism as a whole.
This phenomenon is a danger not only to our national security but also to the cherished values of civilized society. It has targeted the very concepts of cultural and ideological tolerance and has tried to undermine friendship and coexistence between Muslims and Christians which are part of the fabric of our society in the modern era.
In fighting Islamic extremism, a strategy is needed. It includes decisive military, intelligence, and law enforcement measures; but that is not enough. Part of a coherent strategy is identifying our allies in this battle and reaching out to them. And the best such allies are moderate Muslim leaders who are willing to stand up to Islamic extremists in word and deed, especially those who possess legitimacy among the same people who are living under the thumb of extremist groups.
A prime example of such a leader is Maryam Rajavi. As the head of the Iranian opposition, she is leading the charge to overturn the rule of the ayatollahs that effectively brought political Islam into the modern world and turned extremist ideology into a global force. It was after the revolution of 1979 in Iran that high-profile hostage-takings became a means of governance and bombings, suicide attacks, and assassinations became the modus operandi for a theocratic state.
As a practicing Muslim, she has been fiercely pushing back against the ayatollahs' extremism for decades. A true believer in a democratic, moderate, tolerant interpretation of Islam, Rajavi believes anything that promotes terrorism or dictatorship is counter to the teachings of Islam, as is anything that violates people’s freedoms or denies equality to women.
By embodying this modern, tolerant Muslim faith, Mrs. Rajavi has helped to demonstrate the error of attributing this year's barbaric crimes to Islam itself. And by advocating on behalf of that faith, she urged other Muslims to avoid remaining on the fence during the conflict that will likely define the year 2016. She had emphasized that Muslims who believe in democracy are the most effective force that could fight and defeat this global danger.
Mrs. Rajavi certainly understands and accepts the sacrifice that is involved in taking part in this fight. The Iranian regime executed some 120,000 members of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), the main Iranian opposition movement and the primary component of the coalition that she leads. One of her own sisters was executed by the ayatollahs and another by the regime of the Shah.
Yet she and her movement have not wavered.
In her message on the occasion of Christmas and the New Year, Mrs. Rajavi wished "that 2016 would be a year of unity and victory over Islamic extremism and especially the religious fascism ruling Iran and its evil allies in the Middle East who sow the seeds of enmity in the world."
Her message is made timelier by the fact that this year Christmas coincides with the celebration of the birth of Mohammad in the Muslim world.
Mrs. Rajavi used her Christmas message to underscore her view on the need for unity in the fight against Islamic terrorism: "Muslims and Christians can rely on their common values to stand up to those who pervert their religions. So, in contrast to what the extremists want, we should make our hope and faith in humanity deeper than ever."
We can all share with her hope for a swift end to extremism, for the freedom of various peoples from the dictatorships of Bashar Assad, Ali Khamenei, and ISIS (ISIL) terrorists, and for an end to persecution of Christians throughout the Middle East and Christian converts in Iran from the oppression of the ruling mullahs.
Because her hopes for the coming year are the same as the hopes that are traditionally cherished in the West, she should be listened to this Christmas.
“A prime example of such a leader is Maryam Rajavi” who should only be heard when she renounces Islam and converts ...
Iran was the only nation where President Obama did NOT support a movement of democracy and revolution against dictators.
Obama’s goal was not ‘democracy’ in the Middle East, it was Islamist theocratic rule.
There is no such thing as terrorism. It is simply islam waging war against the infidels.
That is still his goal, and Islam is still the problem.
Parts of the world are waking up to it:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3376577/posts
UK condemns Muslim Brotherhood in break from Obama administration
Fox News ^ | December 24, 2015 | Adam Shaw
Yea, mmmk.
I think the religion of the pedo, er, prophet was waging war against all for quite a while before the ayatolla’s came on the scene.
Islam= enemy of civilisation.
Author couldn’t be more wrong. Like so many people that claim to be Christians yet don’t read or follow Jesus’ words, this woman claims to be a Muslim but doesn’t follow what truly being a Muslim is. The terrorists are the true Muslims and anyone like this woman, or other so called moderate Muslims, have created their own, new religion that is quite dangerous in itself as it provides cover for the true Muslims whose mayhem continues and festers worldwide.
“A prime example of such a leader is Maryam Rajavi†who should only be heard when she renounces Islam and converts ...
What you said! Yes!
So many MOslems.
Where WILL we bury them all?
It’s really not my choice. It’s just the cards we have been dealt—now we must play the hand to the best of our ability.
Lock and load, boys and girls.
Rajavi believes anything that promotes terrorism or dictatorship is counter to the teachings of Islam, as is anything that violates peoples freedoms or denies equality to women.
Well then she does not believe in Islam.
She is ignorant, flat out wrong, or lying.
Within the muslim world, obama (no caps, ever) will oppose any secular leader and support efforts to overthrow them. The caliphate cannot contain secular leaders.
Concur. I believe the author of this piece would do well to consider that, in the particular context of the verses from John 15 that are cited, Jesus's instruction was for His disciples to love fellow followers of Jesus.
I don’t listen to members of murder cults.
Ditto your About page ...
The future must not belong to those who deny the true nature of Islam
John Quincy Adams on Islam
In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE.
Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinction of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. It is, indeed, amongst the mysterious dealings of God, that this delusion should have been suffered for so many ages, and during so many generations of human kind, to prevail over the doctrines of the meek and peaceful and benevolent Jesus (Blunt, 1830, 29:269, capitals in orig.).
Exactly!
I have no interest in hearing anything that “Islamic leaders” have to say.
“It was after the revolution of 1979 in Iran that high-profile hostage-takings became a means of governance and bombings, suicide attacks, and assassinations became the modus operandi for a theocratic state.”
Wrong.
L
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