For the last several sessions we’ve been talking about Israel and God’s Heart for His People. As we watch today’s news we are seeing the fulfillment of prophecy unfold before us. But prophecy is advancing on many other fronts too. And today we’ll take a look at some of those.
A WAR ON FUNDAMENTALISM
The Pope is a very influential man and this one, perhaps, more than most. He is admired by Catholics….and Protestants….and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists etc. In the sense of promoting religious harmony, Pope Francis has become a promoter of spiritual unity on a global scale. So his recent remarks made while visiting the Central African Republic and a mosque there are quite curious to say the least – and to be very accurate, plain wrong. The mosque was described as besieged by Christian militias surrounding it after Muslim rebels ousted the president and seized control of the country. Francis came in the name of peace….of course. “Together, we must say no to hatred, to revenge and to violence, particularly that violence which is perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God himself.” However he made this statement that mischaracterizes the nature of Truth and the Christian Faith. “Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters.”[i] On its face, this is a misstatement of Christian theology. Muslims and Christians do not worship the same Father. Islam clearly rejects the Son-ship of Jesus. John writes of this: “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” (1John 2:22-23) Now, brotherhood is predicated on having the same parent. And becoming a child of God is anchored to belief that Jesus is the Son of God – and receiving Him as Lord and Saviour. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13) So, the Scripture is clear that only the believers or followers of Christ are our brothers and sisters. That is not to say we aren’t to love those of the Muslim faith. But it is not loving to leave them with the impression that there is any salvation outside of Jesus the Christ. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” (John 14:6)
We are to love and show compassion to our fellow human beings. But to somehow leave them with the notion that we all serve the same God is not an act of kindness but rather an abdication of our Christian duty to share the hope found only in the Gospel.
Pope Francis then went on to say this. Fundamentalism “is a disease of all religions. We Catholics, we have a few, even many fundamentalists. They believe they know absolute truth and corrupt others. I can say this because this is my church.”[ii] This mis-definition of the concept of Fundamentalism erroneously paints the Bible believing Christian as akin to the most violent jihadist on the planet. [This is a theme hammered by President Obama and the Liberal elite as they routinely target Christians, patriots and Constitutionalists in this country.] So here’s just a few words about fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism is an adherence to the essential doctrines of the Faith. So let’s start with Christianity. Fundamentalism here has a very technical meaning. It was developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by the likes of Darby, Moody, Warfield and Billy Sunday – and formalized in a twelve-volume work called The Fundamentals. But we’ll take it down to six essential points.
- The Bible is literally true and inerrant. That means without error or contradiction.
- Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, fully God and fully Man; the very Son of God.
- Salvation can only be obtained through the “substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross.” It is a work of the grace of God.
- Jesus was bodily resurrected on the third day – and is now seated at the right hand of God the Father.
- Christ’s miracles as recorded in the Gospels, are real and literally true.
- Jesus will return to earth to set up a Kingdom before the literal 1,000 year Millennium.[iii]
Now because Fundamentalist Christians believe that Jesus is the only way to be saved, they take seriously Christ’s command to preach the Gospel to all the world. So the danger is that a Fundamentalist Christian, following the essentials of his / her faith, may try to love you into the Kingdom by sharing a gospel of love and repentance. At its root, Fundamentalism is an adherence to the Truth of the Bible.
It’s a little different with Islam as pointed out on the website thereligionofpeace.com, a “site concerned with Islam’s true political and religious teachings according to its own texts.” Editor of the site, Glen Roberts explains. “We present the threat that Islam poses to human dignity and freedom, and we document the violence and dysfunction that ensues as a direct consequence of this religion’s supremacist teachings….The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule. Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding. Muslims who do not join the fight are called ‘hypocrites’ and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter. Unlike nearly all of the Old Testament verses of violence, the verses of violence in the Quran are mostly open-ended, meaning that they are not restrained by the historical context of the surrounding text (although many Muslims choose to think of them that way). They are part of the eternal, unchanging word of Allah, and just as relevant or subject to interpretation as anything else in the Quran.”[iv] Here is an example from the Quran 2:191-193. “And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing…but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)”[v]
Dr Tawfik Hamid is a former member of the violent terror organization al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya. He remains Muslim but is searching for a more peaceful brand of the religion. It is interesting that he does so by rejecting all the traditional interpretations of Islam. He points out that the Quran as well as the Hadith and other sources of Islamic authority all call for Muslims to fight the unbeliever, which of course includes Christians and Jews. This puts the lie to the administration’s claim put forth by Secretary of State John Kerry that Islam is a religion of peace that has been hijacked by Islamic radicals. Dr Hamid demonstrates the unity between historical Islam and its modern expression. In his argument he cites the five sources of Islamic law. “The guiding principle of the Islamic State (IS) is that Muslims must fight non-Muslims all over the world and offer them the following choices: Convert to Islam, pay a humiliating tax called “Jijya,” or be killed. This violent doctrine was the primary justification for the Islamic conquests by the early Muslims…. can a young Muslim become more religious-and more obedient to Allah-without subscribing to this ancient brutality? The sad answer is NO he cannot.” His conclusion: “Saying that “Islam is the religion of Peace” or condemning the IS as being “un-Islamic” without condemning the principle that Muslims must fight non-Muslims to subjugate them to Islam is not just hypocritical but also counterproductive as it hides the true cause of the problem and impedes the efforts to solve it.”[vi] Fundamentalism takes on all the trappings of violence and murder and terror – as a corollary to its underlying theology. Fundamentalist is Islam – is violent in nature.
So while the slaughters of the Crusaders and the excesses of the Inquisition were outside the teachings of Christ and in violation of Biblical principles – the actions of murderous Islam are enshrined in their theology and the teachings of the Quran, Mohammed and the Hadith. Let’s look at some history. We know that the Religion of Peace was spread by the sword. Take the conquest and subsequent enslavement of India, for instance. A conservative estimate would put the death toll from that event at 80 million.[vii] In a book entitled, The New Persecuted, Antonio Socci tells the story of 45 million murdered Christians in the 20th century alone, and up to 70 million since the time of Jesus. An average of 160,000 Christians have been killed every year since 1990 – the overwhelming majority by Muslims.[viii] That’s just outright murder. Let’s look at deaths caused by slavery. John Allembillah Azumah, author of The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa, tells us that at the very minimum 28 million Africans were captured and enslaved by Arab / Islamic traders. Carry this through the generations and this could have resulted in as many as 140 million deaths. In the course of this slavery millions of Africans were castrated and made eunuchs. But the spread of Islamic slavery did not stop there. The conquest took them to the Philippines, Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo and Java. Mike Konrad writes: “After Muslims came to power in the early 15th century, animist hill peoples eventually disappeared due to their enslavement and ‘incorporation.’…. The Buddhists of Thailand and Malaysia were slaughtered en masse….. Add in the Armenian genocide. Then add in the lesser known, but no doubt quite large number of victims of Eastern Asia. Add in the jihad committed by Muslims against China, which was invaded in 651 AD. Add in the Crimean Khanate predations on the Slavs, especially their women. Though the numbers are not clear, what is obvious is that Islam is the greatest murder machine in history bar none, possibly exceeding 250 million dead.”[ix] In the words of Srdja Trifkovic, “Islam …has created jihad and remains defined by jihad…a quasi-religious ideology of cultural and political imperialism that knows no natural limits.”[x] Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders perhaps summed it up best in a speech lamenting the impending fall of European civilization. “Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ‘submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is Sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies. Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam ‘the most retrograde force in the world’.”[xi] This is Islam at its root. This is Fundamentalist Islam. This is the force that has been raised up in opposition to the God of the Bible. We would do well as a culture to recognize the difference.
[i] Pope Francis visits besieged mosque in Central African Republic, The Guardian (UK), November 30, 2015
[ii] FUNDAMENTALISM IS ‘A DISEASE OF ALL RELIGIONS’: POPE SAYS IT IS NOT JUST ISLAM THAT HAS EXTREMIST
FACTIONS, The Police State Journal, December 2, 2015
[iii] S Michael Houdmann, What is Fundamentalism?, Got Questions, December 3, 2015
[iv] What Does the Religion of Peace Teach about Violence, viewed December 8, 2015
[v] Translation from the Noble Quran
[vi] Dr Tawfik Hamid, Does Moderate Islam exist?, republished in Foster’s Campfire Blog, September 18, 2014
[vii] Mike Konrad, The Greatest Murder Machine in History, The American Thinker, May 31, 2014
[viii] From a review by Chuck Colson, A New Century of Martyrs, Prison Fellowship Ministries, June 17, 2002
[ix] Mike Konrad, The Greatest Murder Machine in History, The American Thinker, May 31, 2014
[x] Dr Tawfik Hamid, An Arab Muslim Challenges CAIR, The Free Copts, March 9, 2006
[xi] Geert Wilders, America As The Last Man Standing, Speech delivered at the Four Seasons Hotel, New York, NY,
September 25, 2008
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