Much Love and Love Much in Christ Jesus!
Friday, June 16, 2017
TRUTH MINISTRIES SHARES THE TRUTH WITH JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
While I am no longer concentrating on false prophets as I find someone puts everyone in that category and I think we are all aware of the vast majority of them. However, there's some very dangerous churches and many Christians are so severely deceived that whenever I find something to help bring them out of it, I will share. The JW organization denies the very basic tenets of the Christian faith by denying that Jesus Christ is God. They teach that He was not only created but in truth is the Archangel Michael. Read Jude 1:9 and that pretty much wipes out that theory. One of the most difficult new false churches is the JWs. It is almost impossible to teach them the truth. Please do not let them in your house unless you are fully prepared to defend the truth because the Watchtower has prepared answers to every scripture that only their own Bible upholds. They believe that Watchtower is the final authority and not the scriptures. So, if you want to learn how to witness to a JW, here's a video that can help but if you're not prepared, send them on there way. That is what the Bible tells us to do. God bless and stay grounded in His Word so that YOU cannot be deceived!
HOW TELEVISION COMMERCIALS ARE BRAINWASHING YOU
If you watch television, please be aware of how commercials are using symbols and sins to brainwash and indoctrinate you. This is nothing new. I took a class in school about how the media uses subliminal messages to influence you. I watch very few shows and when I do, I DVR them and skip the ads. They're much worse than the shows. Just be careful and aware! Oh, also research "floride" and just how dangerous it is to ingest it. It's one of the main ingredients of many anti-depressants. It puts you in a sort of hypnotic and easily indoctrinated state. God bless and pray. It's getting bad.
STAY GROUNDED IN THE WORD OF GOD!
FEMINISM IS A MAJOR PLAYER IN THE DOWNFALL AND GOES AGAINST GOD'S LAW
I'm tired of the "vanishing man." This is not what YHWH intended. I am 100% against feminism or their movement. It was never about choice but about being superior. BE MEN! God bless you all.
Much love in Christ Jesus and LOVE MUCH!
JUST THINK ABOUT IT - A NEW VIDEO SERIES I WILL BE SHARING
I love this man's videos. I will be sharing many of his videos and most are pretty short. I hope you'll watch as this has nothing to do with false prophets or anything like that, it's about prophecy foretold, salvation and what's happening today. It's not denominational or doctrinal except by the Word of God. Enjoy and be blessed. Feel free to share.
Shalom and Much Love in Christ Jesus!
PLAYING CHURCH? OR WORSHIP?
Mary Southerland |
Come, let's worship him and bow down. Let's kneel before the LORD who made us, because he is our God and we are the people he takes care of and the sheep that he tends. Psalm 95: 6-7, NCV
When I was a little girl, I loved to play church with my friends. We would line chairs up in rows and pull out a cardboard box we used for the pulpit. Then the great debate began over who would preach and who would sing. The more aggressive kids wanted the up-front jobs while the quiet ones were happy to just sit and watch the “show”. Sometimes one of the kids would pretend to be the Holy Ghost walking around the chairs saying “Boo!” If the leaders did a good job, we would play church for hours. However, if they were not entertaining enough, the kids in the chairs would soon get bored and go in search of more exciting recreation in the front yard. All in all, playing the church game was great fun and a delightful way to pass an afternoon.
Playing church is, however, a pathetic and meaningless way to pass a lifetime.
Every Sunday, churches are filled with those who are simply “playing” games with God. They line up in rows to watch the “show”. If it is good enough, they stay and even come back occasionally. However, if it is not entertaining, they will drift off to play some other game in life.
We were created to worship God! Until we recognize that spiritual principle and learn how to practice true worship, we will never be completely satisfied. Only the presence of God can fill the emptiness of a soul. True worship invites Him to fill that emptiness with Himself. In fact, we were made to worship Him. Few of us understand the importance or the life-changing power of worship. Let’s look at one woman who was dramatically changed as the result of experiencing true worship. Her amazing story is found in Luke 7:36-50:
“Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is--that she is a sinner." Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you." “Tell me, teacher," he said. "Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled." "You have judged correctly," Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little." Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." (NIV)
What a powerful passage of hope and complete transformation in the life of a woman just like you and me. Oh, her sins may be different from ours, but make no mistake; our hearts are just the same – bent toward sin and destruction. This woman found forgiveness and restoration – and so can we! Her story is a beautiful picture of the automatic response of a forgiven heart to the forgiving Father. She came,expecting to meet God (vs. 36)
Jesus was the big news in town and the main topic of every conversation. He had healed the leper, given sight to the blind and raised the widow’s son right out of the coffin. Everybody wanted Jesus at his or her party. Simon was an arrogant Pharisee who invited Jesus to his home for a feast. Jesus went, knowing that He would have an opportunity to minister to the Pharisees. But He also went, knowing that this woman would come seeking Him. God always responds to a seeking heart. Worship begins with a seeking heart. When we seek God, we must seek Him with our whole heart - a heart that is set on being in the presence of God. “Seek” literally means “to pursue, to chase or to hunt”.
An ancient tale from India describes a young man who was seeking God. He went to a wise old sage for help. "How can I find God?" he asked the old man. The old man took him to a nearby river where they waded into the deep water. Soon the water was up just under their chins. Suddenly the old man grabbed the young man by the neck and pushed him under the water, holding him down until he was flailing the water in desperation. Finally, the old man released him. The young seeker was coughing and gasping for air. Reaching the bank, he was furious! "What did that have to do with my finding God?" The old man asked him quietly, "While you were under the water what did you want more than anything else?" The young man thought for a moment and then answered, "I wanted air. I wanted air more than anything else!" The old man replied, "When you want God as much as you wanted air, you will find him." To pursue God means to long for Him with every fiber of our being. God promises to meet us in worship when we come seeking Him.
1 Chronicles 28: 9 If you seek him, he will be found by you. (NKJV)
Jesus made Himself available to this woman, wanting to meet her need of forgiveness. He chose to go to this party knowing she would be there. Jesus waits for you. He longs to spend time with you. He created you out of love and a desire to be with you. When we come expecting to meet God, longing to be in His presence, then, we will begin to worship.
Father, I want to know and worship You. Give me the heart of this woman who abandoned it all to spend time at Your feet. Strengthen my commitment to spend time alone with You. I pray that my heart will long for you so much that I have to come and sit at Your feet. I worship You, Father. In Jesus’ name. Amen
For Reflection
Ask yourself this question: What is keeping me from spending time alone with God?
Don’t wait another minute. Make a commitment to seek God! Choose to:
Mary Southerland is a pastor's wife, mother of two teenagers, co-founder of GiG (Girlfriends in God), author of Hope in the Midst of Depression, Sandpaper People, Escaping the Stress Trap andExperiencing God’s Power in Your Ministry (Harvest House) andconference speaker. She is also the founder of Journey Ministry, a teaching ministry dedicated to equipping every woman for her unique journey. Visit Mary's new website at www.MarySoutherland.com. Click here to read the Girlfriends in God devotional on Crosswalk.com.
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FINAL THE RAPTURE + + + FULL LENGTH FREE MOVIE
Enjoy and God bless you!
Fictional Christian Movie!
SPREAD THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST'S SALVATION
First Corinthians 15:1-11
Ephesians 2:8-9
John 3:16-17
TRUST AND BELIEVE THAT JESUS CHRIST IS OUR SAVIOR
DEATH + BURIAL + RESURRECTION = SALVATION BY GRACE ALONE!
NEW DIRECTIONS - SPREADING TRUTH - WHY YHWH MAY HAVE GIVEN THE ORAL LAW
l have decided to take my blog in a new direction. First and foremost it is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone. YHWH is the God of everyone. He's not only the God of the Jews as so many call Him and His Son, Christ Jesus. Abraham, to whom the Promises were given was a Hebrew, not a Jew. I do know he converted to Judaism at some point after the promises at age 99 but exactly when and where Jewish people became the Chosen, I'm not sure. I am learning my Jewish roots but I have yet to learn that. I will someday, God willing and I'll share. Yahwey is the God of every man, woman and child on earth. He's all-inclusive. Of course He's the God of the Jews AND Muslims as well. We are commanded to share the Gospel of Salvation by Christ Jesus to the world and there are no buts or exclusions in that command. By that I mean, spread the Gospel to the world EXCEPT to the Muslims, blacks, or anyone. Everyone is included.
I urge every Christian to learn as much as they can about Judaism and the Old Testament. I have this book that by no means claims their views are facts but does give very good solid reasons on why the oral law, known as the Levitical or Mosaic Law, was given and why it was extremely good for that age. I'll give you a few that I remember and will find the book (it was misplaced when we moved but it's in the house) and I'll share that with you. When you consider the times and customs of that period, laws that made no sense to us today suddenly enlightens us to the awesome God we worship. To me, whether or not they are the right answer, at least it gave me some insight that in my case, increased my faith and belief in the Bible and that God indeed created us as only He could know our bodies and what is good and bad for us. My first is a dietary law on the reason Jews were forbidden of eating pork and shellfish and fish that didn't have both scales and gills (I think that's what they were).
Let's start with pork. Pigs do not have sweat glands and even though they were called "unclean" doesn't mean that pigs are in any way bad. God created them and what did He say about everything He created? It was "good." So pigs are not to be hated or called bad as they were created to clean the earth. That is their purpose. That's a good thing. That's why even today (although we are no longer under bondage of the Law of Moses), we should either abstain or vastly limit the eating of pork. They will eat anything, including snakes, rats, mice, worms, trash, etc. and since they have no way of releasing toxins from their bodies, whatever they eat, so do we. Also, our bodies cannot metabolize and rid our bodies of pork fat. If you eat a great amount of pork, you are causing damage to your bodies. That's a proven fact. Honestly, pork is my favorite meat. I love BBQ and pork ribs. I'd eat it everyday if I could but it's rare that I do today. Sure I miss it and I am quite sure I'm not sinning by eating pork but if I choose to, I have to live with the consequences of it. My husband had a quad bypass and I love him far more than ribs so I don't cook it. I may buy it if we go out to eat for me but he abstains except in extremely rare cases. I'd rather have him breathing. I don't buy and cook pork. I also limit beef but he's a very picky eater and doesn't like vegetables. I tease him about this and say that the reason he won't eat vegetables is that he's not a cannibal. He's afraid of eating one of his relatives, lol. A private joke we share. I'm learning how to hide vegetables in his food but shhhh, don't tell him.
Now to shellfish. I didn't know this but shellfish contains iodine and Jewish people have a high population of people allergic to iodine. Today, we have epi pens and other means of helping people who have severe or life-threatening allergic reactions but back then, they didn't. The only way to know if one was allergic was to eat it and if they were, it meant instant death. So, this book believes that this law was given to prevent the death of Jews. You don't know if you're allergic to iodine so do not eat it because it will end badly for you if you are. That's a great law! It is also not specific to Jews as many non-Jews are also allergic to iodine. Fish without both scales and gills are also ocean cleaners and again, as with pork, what they eat, so do you. I have never liked fish very much and the few I do eat are healthy. Tuna, salmon, talapia, flounder, they are fine and extremely healthy as they are rich with Omega 3 so if you like fish, eat as much as you can.
Also keep in mind we were not created to be meat eaters. We were to eat the green herbs. In other words, we were created to be vegetarians. I'm not sure when we started eating meat, as some say after the fall of man but I believe it says it was after the flood that we became meat eaters but don't quote me on that. As I said, this book doesn't claim that they know the mind of God and exactly why He gave these laws but from what we know today, it's possible that these are the reasons. By no means is this meant to be factual but it is at least giving us new insights into things we don't understand. As I said, it built my faith. I'm going to cover one or two more.
One of the oral laws that never made sense to me was the no mixing of fabrics. Here's their thoughts on this law. Jewish people generally wore clothing made of linen, wool, or cotton. Natural growing plant materials. Other cultures wore leather, and other types of clothing mixed with other types of fabric. These cultures were dangerous to the Jews. They were not a very well-received people and they were in constant danger. It goes along with the no cutting yourself or putting any marks (tattoos) on your bodies. Here's why...if someone of danger tried to infiltrate themselves into their tribes, they would be identified as dangerous immediately by their clothing and/or tattoos. It was a great way of keeping themselves safe and protected. Yes, it also probably had something to do with keeping their bloodline pure. You must keep in mind that the Old Testament is about one thing and one thing only and that's the birth of the Messiah. No one new when or who would bring Him into the world so it was a must to keep their bloodline absolutely pure in order to fulfill God's plan for all of humanity. So many people think that the Jewish people today who have not believed that Yeshua is the Messiah continues to keep their bloodline pure because they think they are a superior race. Not true. They are still waiting for the promised Messiah as they don't believe Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise. But before you think more highly of yourself than you ought, remember that they were blinded to Him, in part, for our sake. Yahwey has great plans for the Jews and has not forsaken them by any means. They are still His chosen people. I have a theory on why they are His chosen as I believe they were the only ones who stayed faithful to Him and His sovereignty over the world as the others were worshiping strange and false Gods. They are His Chosen to be an example and a light of Him to the world. God is not a respecter of persons. He loves us all the same. He doesn't love the Jewish people more than He loves us and today He certainly doesn't love them one bit less. This is my opinion and I may be right or not. No true Christian should ever be antisimitic. That's wrong on every level.
This is just a few examples I specifically remember that I wanted to share. As long as you don't obey the law thinking that by doing so it somehow saves you, if you want to follow the law, especially the dietary ones, go for it. Respect the Jews who do follow the law that have yet to accept the Messiah. They will one day. Since tonight begins their Sabbath, out of support for Israel and the Jews, I wanted to share a bit of their history. Also, for those who think that the oral law was or is somehow bad laws, nothing Yahwey did was ever bad. While today as we are under grace and most of the laws are no longer really applicable, they're not bad laws. We're just no longer required to keep because to us Christians, we know that Jesus fulfilled the law. We are free from the bondage of the law but we should never boast in this. Christ did this for us, not us. We are no better than those who are still under the Law nor should be ever be offensive towards this. I think this applies to those of other faiths as well.
Learn your Hebrew roots. It's vital to understanding the New Testament. Some call it the "better" Testament but I don't. I think that term is offensive. I'm not being politically correct here as I feel that's a major reason we're in the mess we're in today but just because we have the right to say things, it doesn't make it right. On the flip side, I believe in freedom of speech and people are just way over the top with having their feelings hurt and getting offended over the least little thing. If someone offends you, Jesus told us what to do, turn the other cheek. Walk away and don't start a fight. Let it go. It's not worth going to jail over. He was the wisest man/God ever!
Shabbot Shalom and Happy Sabbath to those who keep the traditional Fri/Sat day of rest. Be blessed!
I urge every Christian to learn as much as they can about Judaism and the Old Testament. I have this book that by no means claims their views are facts but does give very good solid reasons on why the oral law, known as the Levitical or Mosaic Law, was given and why it was extremely good for that age. I'll give you a few that I remember and will find the book (it was misplaced when we moved but it's in the house) and I'll share that with you. When you consider the times and customs of that period, laws that made no sense to us today suddenly enlightens us to the awesome God we worship. To me, whether or not they are the right answer, at least it gave me some insight that in my case, increased my faith and belief in the Bible and that God indeed created us as only He could know our bodies and what is good and bad for us. My first is a dietary law on the reason Jews were forbidden of eating pork and shellfish and fish that didn't have both scales and gills (I think that's what they were).
Let's start with pork. Pigs do not have sweat glands and even though they were called "unclean" doesn't mean that pigs are in any way bad. God created them and what did He say about everything He created? It was "good." So pigs are not to be hated or called bad as they were created to clean the earth. That is their purpose. That's a good thing. That's why even today (although we are no longer under bondage of the Law of Moses), we should either abstain or vastly limit the eating of pork. They will eat anything, including snakes, rats, mice, worms, trash, etc. and since they have no way of releasing toxins from their bodies, whatever they eat, so do we. Also, our bodies cannot metabolize and rid our bodies of pork fat. If you eat a great amount of pork, you are causing damage to your bodies. That's a proven fact. Honestly, pork is my favorite meat. I love BBQ and pork ribs. I'd eat it everyday if I could but it's rare that I do today. Sure I miss it and I am quite sure I'm not sinning by eating pork but if I choose to, I have to live with the consequences of it. My husband had a quad bypass and I love him far more than ribs so I don't cook it. I may buy it if we go out to eat for me but he abstains except in extremely rare cases. I'd rather have him breathing. I don't buy and cook pork. I also limit beef but he's a very picky eater and doesn't like vegetables. I tease him about this and say that the reason he won't eat vegetables is that he's not a cannibal. He's afraid of eating one of his relatives, lol. A private joke we share. I'm learning how to hide vegetables in his food but shhhh, don't tell him.
Now to shellfish. I didn't know this but shellfish contains iodine and Jewish people have a high population of people allergic to iodine. Today, we have epi pens and other means of helping people who have severe or life-threatening allergic reactions but back then, they didn't. The only way to know if one was allergic was to eat it and if they were, it meant instant death. So, this book believes that this law was given to prevent the death of Jews. You don't know if you're allergic to iodine so do not eat it because it will end badly for you if you are. That's a great law! It is also not specific to Jews as many non-Jews are also allergic to iodine. Fish without both scales and gills are also ocean cleaners and again, as with pork, what they eat, so do you. I have never liked fish very much and the few I do eat are healthy. Tuna, salmon, talapia, flounder, they are fine and extremely healthy as they are rich with Omega 3 so if you like fish, eat as much as you can.
Also keep in mind we were not created to be meat eaters. We were to eat the green herbs. In other words, we were created to be vegetarians. I'm not sure when we started eating meat, as some say after the fall of man but I believe it says it was after the flood that we became meat eaters but don't quote me on that. As I said, this book doesn't claim that they know the mind of God and exactly why He gave these laws but from what we know today, it's possible that these are the reasons. By no means is this meant to be factual but it is at least giving us new insights into things we don't understand. As I said, it built my faith. I'm going to cover one or two more.
One of the oral laws that never made sense to me was the no mixing of fabrics. Here's their thoughts on this law. Jewish people generally wore clothing made of linen, wool, or cotton. Natural growing plant materials. Other cultures wore leather, and other types of clothing mixed with other types of fabric. These cultures were dangerous to the Jews. They were not a very well-received people and they were in constant danger. It goes along with the no cutting yourself or putting any marks (tattoos) on your bodies. Here's why...if someone of danger tried to infiltrate themselves into their tribes, they would be identified as dangerous immediately by their clothing and/or tattoos. It was a great way of keeping themselves safe and protected. Yes, it also probably had something to do with keeping their bloodline pure. You must keep in mind that the Old Testament is about one thing and one thing only and that's the birth of the Messiah. No one new when or who would bring Him into the world so it was a must to keep their bloodline absolutely pure in order to fulfill God's plan for all of humanity. So many people think that the Jewish people today who have not believed that Yeshua is the Messiah continues to keep their bloodline pure because they think they are a superior race. Not true. They are still waiting for the promised Messiah as they don't believe Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise. But before you think more highly of yourself than you ought, remember that they were blinded to Him, in part, for our sake. Yahwey has great plans for the Jews and has not forsaken them by any means. They are still His chosen people. I have a theory on why they are His chosen as I believe they were the only ones who stayed faithful to Him and His sovereignty over the world as the others were worshiping strange and false Gods. They are His Chosen to be an example and a light of Him to the world. God is not a respecter of persons. He loves us all the same. He doesn't love the Jewish people more than He loves us and today He certainly doesn't love them one bit less. This is my opinion and I may be right or not. No true Christian should ever be antisimitic. That's wrong on every level.
This is just a few examples I specifically remember that I wanted to share. As long as you don't obey the law thinking that by doing so it somehow saves you, if you want to follow the law, especially the dietary ones, go for it. Respect the Jews who do follow the law that have yet to accept the Messiah. They will one day. Since tonight begins their Sabbath, out of support for Israel and the Jews, I wanted to share a bit of their history. Also, for those who think that the oral law was or is somehow bad laws, nothing Yahwey did was ever bad. While today as we are under grace and most of the laws are no longer really applicable, they're not bad laws. We're just no longer required to keep because to us Christians, we know that Jesus fulfilled the law. We are free from the bondage of the law but we should never boast in this. Christ did this for us, not us. We are no better than those who are still under the Law nor should be ever be offensive towards this. I think this applies to those of other faiths as well.
Learn your Hebrew roots. It's vital to understanding the New Testament. Some call it the "better" Testament but I don't. I think that term is offensive. I'm not being politically correct here as I feel that's a major reason we're in the mess we're in today but just because we have the right to say things, it doesn't make it right. On the flip side, I believe in freedom of speech and people are just way over the top with having their feelings hurt and getting offended over the least little thing. If someone offends you, Jesus told us what to do, turn the other cheek. Walk away and don't start a fight. Let it go. It's not worth going to jail over. He was the wisest man/God ever!
Shabbot Shalom and Happy Sabbath to those who keep the traditional Fri/Sat day of rest. Be blessed!
NO TOLERANCE FOR EXTREMISM
- Posted for educational purposes only and the owner of this is the Gatestone Institute.
- At the moment, the bar for taking extremists out of circulation is set ridiculously high. People known for their own extremism that reaches pre-terrorist levels should not be walking the streets when they have expressed support for Islamic State (ISIS) or tried to head to Syria or called for the destruction of Britain and other democracies or allied themselves to people already in prison. Their demand for free speech or freedom of belief must never be elevated above the rights of citizens to live safely in their own towns and cities. It is essential for parliament to lower the bar.
- Is this to be the political landscape for the future, where groups of people demanding death and destruction are given the freedom of the streets whilst those wishing to hold a peaceful celebration are prevented from doing so?
- To see extremist Islam as a "perversion" of Islam misses an important point. The politically correct insistence that radical versions of Islam somehow pervert an essentially peaceful and tolerant faith forces policy-makers and legislators, church leaders, rabbis, interfaith workers and the public at large to leave to one side an important reality. Flatly, Islam in its original and classic forms has everything to do with today's radicals and the violence they commit. The Qur'an is explicit in its hatred for pagans, Jews and Christians. It calls for the fighting of holy war (jihad) to conquer the non-Muslim world, subdue it, and gradually bring it into the fold of Islam. Islam has been at war with Europe since the seventh century.
On the Sunday morning after the terrorist attacks in London the night of June 3, British Prime Minister Theresa May addressed the nation in a powerful speech. It deserves to be read in full, but several points stand out and call for a response.
Perhaps May's strongest statement comes some lines later:
For years, we have known the identities of radical Islamic preachers and extremist organizations, but we have allowed them to bring their hatred for us onto university and college campuses, into mosques and Islamic centres, and even onto our streets, where they set up stalls to speak and hand out literature. Scroll down here or here to find long lists of radical individuals and organizations, few of which have even been banned. Few terrorist suspects have ever been deported. In a Telegraph article from 2015, one reads:
In a 2015 interview just shown by the tabloid newspaper The Sun, Corbyn spoke with the Bahrain-based LuaLua Television. Although The Sun is not a reliable source, the clip from the interview shows Corbyn speaking in English with an accurate Arabic translation in subtitles. The interviewer speaks in Arabic. What are alarming are Corbyn's statements, including a criticism of the UK government laws preventing would-be fighters who have travelled to Syria and from returning to the UK:
s to be exactly what has been happening.
In 2002, Corbyn addressed a large anti-Israel rally in London attended by Hizbullah supporters, several radical preachers including Abu Hamza, and 300 members of al-Muhajiroun, a banned extremist organization. According to one left-wing newspaper:
Whoever remains in power in coming months, the threat of terrorism has risen to the top of the agenda as a public preoccupation. Except that almost nobody talked much about it in the days after the London Bridge attack leading up to the election. Alarmingly, large numbers of young people rushed to vote for the leader of the one party that will do the least to combat that threat. The abolition of student fees or other right-on issues mattered so much more. And yet, in a matter of months, the British people have grown frightened of a beast our political correctness and laxity helped create, a Frankenstein monster that has risen from its slab and shows no signs of lying back down again. This beast has, in a few fell swoops, changed the nature of politics in Britain as it has elsewhere.
Jeremy Corbyn is the last person to whom we should entrust our future safety, yet he is now in a position to water down or cancel any legislation that might ensure more preparedness and better control. Theresa May, whatever her political disaster, has at least promised firmness in our relations with the Muslim community, identifying the problem and calling for action.
That promise of action is exemplified in her statements that:
Youssef Zaghba, one of the three attackers on London Bridge and Borough Market on June 3, had been stopped in Bologna in 2016 carrying terrorist literature while trying to fly to Istanbul en route for Syria. He told officers "I am going to be a terrorist", was arrested but later released. His name was flagged on an international terrorism database and the Italian authorities notified the British security services. Allowed to go to the UK, he helped kill seven people and injure more.
Even more alarmingly, his accomplice, Khuram Butt, a Pakistani-born British man, was well above the horizon. He had been reported to the security services and was alleged to have been an associate of Anjem Choudary, a radical preacher now serving time in jail for his support for Islamic State. Butt had defended Choudary by calling a Muslim opposed to the preacher an apostate (murtadd); and in 2016, he had appeared in a Channel 4 television documentary where he was seen with others in a park holding an ISIS flag and at two events attended by radical preachers who had been arrested for radicalizing others. One of those preachers, Mohammed Shamsuddin, has said: "Our message is deadly, we are calling for world domination, and for Sharia for the UK."
In 2015, MI5, the UK's domestic intelligence service, stated that it had 3,000 extremists on its watchlist. According to Business Insider:
That the police and security services are avoiding any real confrontation with Islamists is clear from the contents of this letter, sent on June 7 to the Daily Mail by pro-Israel activist Clive Hyman. It makes troubling treading:
What May plans to do will take us far, but not far enough. Her weakness, set against Corbyn's show of strength, undermines the likelihood of any serious changes to how Britain tackles the Islamic threat. Bit by bit, the political fear of appearing xenophobic or "Islamophobic" will reassert itself. Labour will make sure of that. Members of parliament with substantial numbers of Muslim constituents will answer calls to water down any legislation that can be labelled as discriminatory to Muslims. It is only when we come to terms with the fact that terrorist attacks are not being carried out by Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Baha'is, Quakers or the members of any religion except Islam.
Regrettably May herself fell into a politically-correct trap in her speech, when she said in reference to Islamic radicalism, "It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth." It is easy to see what she means by this -- that she wants to distance radicalism and terrorism from the majority of decent Muslims in the UK, the ones like Sara Khan who work to create a British Islam based on the best Islamic values in alliance with the British values May rightly extols. However, to see extremist Islam as a "perversion" of Islam misses an important point. The politically correct insistence that radical versions of Islam somehow pervert an essentially peaceful and tolerant faith forces policy-makers and legislators, church leaders, rabbis, interfaith workers and the public at large to leave to one side an important reality. If not tackled head-on, that reality will not go away.
Flatly, Islam in its original and classic forms has everything to do with today's radicals and the violence they commit. The Qur'an is explicit in its hatred for pagans, Jews, and Christians. It calls for the fighting of holy war (jihad) to conquer the non-Muslim world, subdue it, and gradually bring it into the fold of Islam. Muhammad himself led his followers into battle and sent out expeditions out of Arabia before his death in 632. The astonishing Islamic conquests that followed in the Middle East, Europe, and far beyond into Central Asia and India turned a swathe of territories into Islamic fiefdoms, and most of these remain under Muslim rule today. The Ottoman Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 not only destroyed the Eastern Orthodox Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire), but is still regarded by Muslims as a turning point in the history of the world. The subsequent Ottoman conquests across eastern Europe were only halted when the King of Poland John III Sobieski (1629-1696) defeated a massive Turkish army under the command of Sultan Soleiman I outside the city of Vienna.
In 2015, after Islamist attacks in Paris, French president François Hollande declared that "We are in a war against terrorism, jihadism, which threatens the whole world." But Islam has been at war with Europe since the seventh century. The beheadings, crucifixions, massacres and demolitions of towns and churches carried out by Islamic State today are replicas of wider atrocities carried out by the Muslim conquerors of Spain in the 8th century.[2]
Jihad wars against the Byzantines were carried out twice a year. Spain and Portugal were occupied for centuries until the Christian kingdoms of the north drove the Muslims out, in a process that itself took some centuries. The Ottomans continued to be a threat down to their defeat in the First World War. From the sixteenth to late eighteenth centuries, the Muslim slavers, known as the Barbary pirates, dominated the Mediterranean and took more than a million Christian slaves to North Africa. In the nineteenth century, jihad wars against European colonists were frequent.[3] Today, Europeans and others are fighting wars against Islamic radicals from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria, and on the streets of our own cities.
To be at war is justification for extreme measures. Deportation and internment are unattractive, just as the measures Western countries have been forced to take against their enemies in other wars. But set next to the threat of unending terror in our cities, and given the nature of the people we will deport or intern, they are probably not as bad as the alternative. We will not execute terrorists (just as Israel has never executed the thousands of terrorists who have murdered its citizens) nor torture them or harm their families. Minor adjustments to our human rights laws and the lowering of the bar a bit on what we consider unacceptable are all we need. But that will not stop Jeremy Corbyn and his terrorist-supporting friends crying that such measures will be a "slippery slope" that will set back community relations by decades.
[1] See also here.
[2] See DarÃo Fernández-Morera, The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise, Wilmington, 2016, chapters 1 and 2.
[3] See Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History, The Hague, 1979, especially chapter 3.
We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are. Things need to change and they need to change in four important ways.Lower down, she enhances that by saying:
First, while the recent attacks are not connected by common networks, they are connected in one important sense. They are bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism.
It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam.
Second, we cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed. Yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide.No one who has watched the endless stream of radical Muslim preachers who appear on YouTube or who post extremist, anti-Western, anti-democratic, or anti-Semitic opinions on Facebook would object to May's stricture. But given earlier attempts to rein in the providers of so many internet spaces in a demand for better scrutiny and the removal of radicalizing material from their sites, we must remain pessimistic about how far May or any other Western leader can bring effective pressure to bear. Without strong financial disincentives, these rulers of the internet will pay little heed to the concerns of the wider public and our security services.
Perhaps May's strongest statement comes some lines later:
While we have made significant progress in recent years, there is -- to be frank -- far too much tolerance of extremism in our country. So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out across the public sector and across society. That will require some difficult, and often embarrassing, conversations.Here, she puts her finger on the most sensitive yet compelling reason for our vulnerability. The democracies have been and still are weakened by the very things that in other contexts give us strength. May speaks rightly of our "pluralistic British values". But those values include freedom of speech, freedom of religion, open-mindedness, and tolerance -- things that are not held as desirable values in any Muslim country. Such values are key to our survival as free and tolerant people unrestricted by any overarching ideology. Yet May is right. Even toleration has its limits. While allowing Muslims to live in our societies with full freedom to live their lives according to the tenets of their faith is desirable expression of our openness and love for humanity, we have been tolerant of radical Islam and even traditionalist and conservative Islam where it leads into radicalization and an extremism that erupts in physical assaults, fatalities, and, as intended, widespread public fear.
For years, we have known the identities of radical Islamic preachers and extremist organizations, but we have allowed them to bring their hatred for us onto university and college campuses, into mosques and Islamic centres, and even onto our streets, where they set up stalls to speak and hand out literature. Scroll down here or here to find long lists of radical individuals and organizations, few of which have even been banned. Few terrorist suspects have ever been deported. In a Telegraph article from 2015, one reads:
Here is an astonishing figure to mull over. In the past 10 years, the UK has deported just 12 terrorism suspects from its shores under its Deportation with Assurances (DWA) scheme. In the same period, France deported more than 100 more. The British figures come from a review of the DWA programme that is unlikely to be published until after the general election. It suggests, as we have always suspected, that the UK remains a soft touch for foreign-born jihadists.It took eight years, 15 court cases and a £25 million bill to keep the hate preacher and terrorist fighter Abu Hamza and his huge family in the UK before he was finally deported (to the United States) in 2012, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment. In that same year, Theresa May (then Home Secretary) was frustrated because another sinister figure, Abu Qatada, could not be deported to Jordan because the European Court of Human Rights had ruled against it for fear of his being tortured there. But in 2013, once Jordan agreed not to do so, he was sent there only to be tried and set free. Last year, he used Twitter to urge Muslims to leave the UK for fear of persecution and "bloodshed" -- a possible encouragement to would-be jihadis to head abroad. May spoke vehemently against the Strasbourg ruling:
It is simply isn't acceptable, that after guarantees from the Jordanians about his treatment, after British courts have found that he is dangerous, after his removal has been approved by the highest courts in our land, we still cannot deport dangerous foreign nationals.We constantly undermine ourselves by our need to be principled. This is an ongoing problem in politics. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's Labour Party, is frequently described as a man of principle, and in many ways that judgement seems fair. Certainly, he has stuck by his socialist principles even if they have led him to adopt positions not well aimed at creating security for Britain. He has supported the IRA; refused many times to condemn their terrorist attacks; has called Hamas and Hizbullah his "friends" and invited their representatives to the British parliament. If that were not enough, he has boasted of his opposition to every piece of anti-terrorist legislation parliament has tried to pass.
...
The right place for a terrorist is a prison cell. The right place for a foreign terrorist is a foreign prison cell far away from Britain.
In a 2015 interview just shown by the tabloid newspaper The Sun, Corbyn spoke with the Bahrain-based LuaLua Television. Although The Sun is not a reliable source, the clip from the interview shows Corbyn speaking in English with an accurate Arabic translation in subtitles. The interviewer speaks in Arabic. What are alarming are Corbyn's statements, including a criticism of the UK government laws preventing would-be fighters who have travelled to Syria and from returning to the UK:
The British government's response has been to try to make it impossible for them to travel, to restrict their ability to travel, to take upon themselves the ability to remove passports and, strangely, to deny people the right of return – which is legally a very questionable decision.Surely no responsible politician would want to make it easy for jihadi fighters to come and go between Syria and the UK, especially while Islamic State is encouraging jihadis who leave to go back to European countries to carry out acts of terror -- which seem
In 2002, Corbyn addressed a large anti-Israel rally in London attended by Hizbullah supporters, several radical preachers including Abu Hamza, and 300 members of al-Muhajiroun, a banned extremist organization. According to one left-wing newspaper:
None of these groups called (openly at least) for the destruction of the state of Israel. It was a different story though for the ultra-reactionaries of such organisations as Al Muhajiroun, who held placards reading, "Palestine is muslim". They chanted, "Skud, Skud Israel" and "Gas, gas Tel Aviv", along with their support for bin Laden. Two would-be suicide posers were dressed in combat fatigues with a 'bomb' strapped to their waists. This section accounted for no more than 200-300, but they made a noise far out of proportion to their numbers.[1]Stories concerning Corbyn's support for jihadis was plastered on the front pages of several newspapers one day before the general election on June 8. He may never take charge of our national security, but following the results of the election, which proved disastrous for May and her Conservative party, it is now not entirely unimaginable that he may yet form a minority government. Overconfidence in her party's strength, a hardline stance on Brexit, and a lack of concern in her Manifesto for public sensitivities concerning the National Health Service, social care and pensions led May to lose the confidence of much of the public, especially some, such as the elderly, who were traditional Tory voters. The campaign she ran turned out to be very badly handled. The two advisers who worked on it have just resigned, and large numbers of citizens, including 60% of Conservatives, are calling on her to resign. She no longer commands the large parliamentary majority of which she was so sure when she called the election, in fact she has no majority at all without pairing with the backward-looking Democratic Unionist Party, founded by bigoted Ian Paisley in 1971 and now the largest party in Northern Ireland. Many predict that the alliance will soon founder.
Whoever remains in power in coming months, the threat of terrorism has risen to the top of the agenda as a public preoccupation. Except that almost nobody talked much about it in the days after the London Bridge attack leading up to the election. Alarmingly, large numbers of young people rushed to vote for the leader of the one party that will do the least to combat that threat. The abolition of student fees or other right-on issues mattered so much more. And yet, in a matter of months, the British people have grown frightened of a beast our political correctness and laxity helped create, a Frankenstein monster that has risen from its slab and shows no signs of lying back down again. This beast has, in a few fell swoops, changed the nature of politics in Britain as it has elsewhere.
Jeremy Corbyn is the last person to whom we should entrust our future safety, yet he is now in a position to water down or cancel any legislation that might ensure more preparedness and better control. Theresa May, whatever her political disaster, has at least promised firmness in our relations with the Muslim community, identifying the problem and calling for action.
That promise of action is exemplified in her statements that:
If we need to increase the length of custodial sentences for terrorist-related offences -- even apparently less serious offences -- that is what we will do. Since the emergence of the threat from Islamist-inspired terrorism, our country has made significant progress in disrupting plots and protecting the public. But it is time to say "Enough is enough".On June 6, addressing party supporters in Slough, and again speaking about resistance to terrorism, she went farther, saying:
I mean longer prison sentences for those convicted of terrorist offences.Clearly, not even May can ride roughshod over essential human rights values and legislation, things put in place to protect the public. Now, with Corbyn looking over shoulder, tough and measured action is in jeopardy. It is clear nonetheless that an excessive concern for the rights of dangerous individuals and hostile communities has served to take away vital protections for the lives of British citizens. This misguided generosity is linked to a growing worry that we have been too relaxed about individuals who have later gone on to commit atrocities in our midst. Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber who murdered 22 concert-goers, including several children, during an Ariane Grande concert in Manchester, had been reported to the authorities no fewer than five times, yet had been allowed to walk free enough to take forward his mission to kill and maim.
I mean making it easier for the authorities to deport foreign terrorist suspects back to their own countries.
And I mean doing more to restrict the freedom and movements of terrorist suspects when we have enough evidence to know they are a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court.
And if our human rights laws get in the way of doing it, we will change the law so we can do it.
Youssef Zaghba, one of the three attackers on London Bridge and Borough Market on June 3, had been stopped in Bologna in 2016 carrying terrorist literature while trying to fly to Istanbul en route for Syria. He told officers "I am going to be a terrorist", was arrested but later released. His name was flagged on an international terrorism database and the Italian authorities notified the British security services. Allowed to go to the UK, he helped kill seven people and injure more.
Even more alarmingly, his accomplice, Khuram Butt, a Pakistani-born British man, was well above the horizon. He had been reported to the security services and was alleged to have been an associate of Anjem Choudary, a radical preacher now serving time in jail for his support for Islamic State. Butt had defended Choudary by calling a Muslim opposed to the preacher an apostate (murtadd); and in 2016, he had appeared in a Channel 4 television documentary where he was seen with others in a park holding an ISIS flag and at two events attended by radical preachers who had been arrested for radicalizing others. One of those preachers, Mohammed Shamsuddin, has said: "Our message is deadly, we are calling for world domination, and for Sharia for the UK."
In 2015, MI5, the UK's domestic intelligence service, stated that it had 3,000 extremists on its watchlist. According to Business Insider:
There are 6,000 employees at GCHQ and 4,000 at MI5. But there are up to 3,000 terror suspects in the UK. At the French ratio, you would need 60,000 officers to track them all. That's almost half of Britain's total number of police officers, 127,000.What this means, in effect, is that thousands of potential terrorists are left free to live with little interference from the police or MI5. Raising the number of police, as Jeremy Corbyn demands, would place a heavy strain on the economy of a country sailing into uncharted waters as it leaves the EU. The answer must be, as May suggests, a different approach to human rights legislation. At the moment, the bar for taking extremists out of circulation is set ridiculously high. People who are known for their own extremism that reaches pre-terrorist levels should not be walking the streets when they have expressed support for Islamic State or tried to head to Syria or called for the destruction of the UK and other democracies or allied themselves to people already in prison. Their demand for free speech or freedom of belief must never be elevated above the rights of citizens to live safely in their own towns and cities. It is essential for parliament to lower the bar.
That the police and security services are avoiding any real confrontation with Islamists is clear from the contents of this letter, sent on June 7 to the Daily Mail by pro-Israel activist Clive Hyman. It makes troubling treading:
On 18th June, Muslims will be holding a march in central London to celebrate Al-Quds Day. In previous years these marches have called for the destruction of Israel and death to the Jews, and the marchers have carried signs to this effect and flags supporting Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIS. Despite requests from both the Christian and Jewish communities for this march to be cancelled because of the violence it will incite amongst those participating and their followers, Mayor Khan and the Metropolitan police have refused to do so, their reason being that there has been no violence at these marches in previous years.As might be expected, leftists have rejected May's appeal for changes in human rights legislation. They argue that she will need to declare a state of emergency, something that can only be invoked when the life of the nation is under threat. This is not incorrect, since all democracies have to avoid potential dictators using changes in the law to give themselves powers they might not otherwise have. But that is not the whole story.
By comparison, an event to honour Israel organised by Christians United for Israel for 22nd June has been cancelled apparently because Mayor Khan and the Metropolitan Police cannot guarantee the safety of those who wish to attend.
Is this to be the political landscape for the future, where groups of people demanding death and destruction are given the freedom of the streets whilst those wishing to hold a peaceful celebration are prevented from doing so?
What May plans to do will take us far, but not far enough. Her weakness, set against Corbyn's show of strength, undermines the likelihood of any serious changes to how Britain tackles the Islamic threat. Bit by bit, the political fear of appearing xenophobic or "Islamophobic" will reassert itself. Labour will make sure of that. Members of parliament with substantial numbers of Muslim constituents will answer calls to water down any legislation that can be labelled as discriminatory to Muslims. It is only when we come to terms with the fact that terrorist attacks are not being carried out by Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Baha'is, Quakers or the members of any religion except Islam.
Regrettably May herself fell into a politically-correct trap in her speech, when she said in reference to Islamic radicalism, "It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth." It is easy to see what she means by this -- that she wants to distance radicalism and terrorism from the majority of decent Muslims in the UK, the ones like Sara Khan who work to create a British Islam based on the best Islamic values in alliance with the British values May rightly extols. However, to see extremist Islam as a "perversion" of Islam misses an important point. The politically correct insistence that radical versions of Islam somehow pervert an essentially peaceful and tolerant faith forces policy-makers and legislators, church leaders, rabbis, interfaith workers and the public at large to leave to one side an important reality. If not tackled head-on, that reality will not go away.
In a June 3 speech, British Prime Minister Theresa May regrettably fell into a politically-correct trap, when she said in reference to Islamic radicalism, "It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth." (Photo by Hannah McKay/Pool/Getty Images)
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Flatly, Islam in its original and classic forms has everything to do with today's radicals and the violence they commit. The Qur'an is explicit in its hatred for pagans, Jews, and Christians. It calls for the fighting of holy war (jihad) to conquer the non-Muslim world, subdue it, and gradually bring it into the fold of Islam. Muhammad himself led his followers into battle and sent out expeditions out of Arabia before his death in 632. The astonishing Islamic conquests that followed in the Middle East, Europe, and far beyond into Central Asia and India turned a swathe of territories into Islamic fiefdoms, and most of these remain under Muslim rule today. The Ottoman Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453 not only destroyed the Eastern Orthodox Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire), but is still regarded by Muslims as a turning point in the history of the world. The subsequent Ottoman conquests across eastern Europe were only halted when the King of Poland John III Sobieski (1629-1696) defeated a massive Turkish army under the command of Sultan Soleiman I outside the city of Vienna.
In 2015, after Islamist attacks in Paris, French president François Hollande declared that "We are in a war against terrorism, jihadism, which threatens the whole world." But Islam has been at war with Europe since the seventh century. The beheadings, crucifixions, massacres and demolitions of towns and churches carried out by Islamic State today are replicas of wider atrocities carried out by the Muslim conquerors of Spain in the 8th century.[2]
Jihad wars against the Byzantines were carried out twice a year. Spain and Portugal were occupied for centuries until the Christian kingdoms of the north drove the Muslims out, in a process that itself took some centuries. The Ottomans continued to be a threat down to their defeat in the First World War. From the sixteenth to late eighteenth centuries, the Muslim slavers, known as the Barbary pirates, dominated the Mediterranean and took more than a million Christian slaves to North Africa. In the nineteenth century, jihad wars against European colonists were frequent.[3] Today, Europeans and others are fighting wars against Islamic radicals from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria, and on the streets of our own cities.
To be at war is justification for extreme measures. Deportation and internment are unattractive, just as the measures Western countries have been forced to take against their enemies in other wars. But set next to the threat of unending terror in our cities, and given the nature of the people we will deport or intern, they are probably not as bad as the alternative. We will not execute terrorists (just as Israel has never executed the thousands of terrorists who have murdered its citizens) nor torture them or harm their families. Minor adjustments to our human rights laws and the lowering of the bar a bit on what we consider unacceptable are all we need. But that will not stop Jeremy Corbyn and his terrorist-supporting friends crying that such measures will be a "slippery slope" that will set back community relations by decades.
Dr. Denis MacEoin has recently completed a large study of concerns with Islam. He is an Arabist, Persianist, and a specialist in Shi'i Islam. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
[1] See also here.
[2] See DarÃo Fernández-Morera, The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise, Wilmington, 2016, chapters 1 and 2.
[3] See Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History, The Hague, 1979, especially chapter 3.
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