Over the past three months, as this blog has been up, I have read numerous stories about persecution from around the world towards Christians. What I have noticed is that in most instances the persecution is coming from radical Islam. This is not to say that there aren't many peace loving Muslims in the world, but from most of the news I read concerning persecution of Christians, the majority is from the religion of Islam.
Today I read an article written by Michael Vatikiotis called Islamizing Indonesia and as I read the article I couldn't help but think about the danger Christianity continues to be in especially in Indonesia.
One interesting quote from this article reads as follows:
The fear in conservative Islamic circles is that political openness will erode religious values and allow proselytzing by Christians.
This is an interesting fear especially in light of the propaganda that we hear here in America telling us that Islam is a religion of peace.
The article goes on to report:
The Ministry of Religious Affairs refuses to bring charges against Muslims who have forced the closure of almost two dozen churches in recent weeks, blaming Christians instead for not seeking legal permits to worship.
What is interesting about the fact that the Ministry of Religious Affairs won't charge Muslims is that by denying Christians fair representation, they are really breaking the moral law of God that says to treat one another how you want to be treated. And of course we all know that this is truly a Christian idea and not a Muslim one.
The concern for Americans should be the rise of Islam in America because unless sleepy saints realize our religious freedoms are slowly being taken away and that we are truly under spiritual attack in this country we could end up like the Christians in Indonesia and other nations that love to oppress Christians.
Certainly Islam is a religion more likely to produce and support persecution that Christianity, although those who wish to persecute will use any religion (or none!)to do so. A witness to Christianity's basic hostility to persecution is Roger Williams's third title in his famous exchange with Mather: "The Bloody Tenet of Persecution Made Yet More Bloody by Mather's Attempt to Wash it White in the Blood of the Lamb"! The blood of the Lamb was clearly NOT shed to inspire bloodshed, but rather to end it.
HOWEVER, that having been said, it seems clear that it is not Islam, a recent arrival in America, that has eroded our religious freedoms. That attack has very clearly arisen from the quarter of atheism, agnosticism, humanism -- or even that older and cruder form of irreligion, hedonism. Christianity in our society has been assailed by these forces since our country's very beginning, when the forces of the French enlightenment equated all religion with superstition. They are still making that equation, and also they also equate the spirit of faith with the spirit of persecution.
It is chiefly to combat that latter error that Christians must educate themselves on Islam, so that we can be ready to distinguish the founding doctrines of Islam from the founding doctrines of Christ as logical and hospitable potential breeding grounds for hatred, mayhem, and murder. The Christ who in agony forgave those who were driving nails into His body did both in word and in example absolutely forbid and repudiate hatred and persecution in any form. Mahomet in many places clearly enjoined them. While we recognize that many Muslims do not choose to follow the "bloody tenet of persecution" themselves, we must point out this distinction between their faith and ours in answer to the militant atheists (and allied pseudointellectuals) who dip their own intolerant broad brushes into the hue of Muslim terrorism to paint ALL religion blood red!
Posted by: Diana N. Shaw | September 03, 2005 at 06:02 PM