Pastor Nadarkhani, Coptic Christians and the Religion of Peace?
Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush rushed into a local D.C. Islamic Mosque and declared that Islam was a “religion of peace.”
Many Muslim propagandists in the West have deliberately twisted the meaning of the word “Islam” and say that it comes from the word “salam,” which means “peace.” These deceptions are laughed at by anybody with a mere elementary knowledge of the Arabic language.
“Islam” in its purest form means “ total surrender.” The image that word holds is of a vanquished army on its knees before the vanquisher.
Recent news from Iran of Youcef Nadarkhani, a pastor sentenced to death by hanging, has presented the “religion of peace” in its most accurate and true form. This barbaric act is what both Sunni Wahhabis as well as Shiites are calling to be the norm in all Islamic countries … and they speak hopefully of applying it to Europe. So much for the “religion of peace.”
Elam Ministries, a U.K.-based organization that serves the Christian church in Iran, revealed that the arrest of Christians in Iran solely for worshipping Christ has been on the increase. Under the noses of the one who is the darling of many foolish Western organizations, President Ahmadinejad of Iran has arrested 220 Christians between June 2010 and January 2011. As of January, only 33 remained in prison.
When I watch videos or read speeches by Islamists in Europe, I cringe at how they speak optimistically about the implementation of these barbaric actions in the future in Europe. One of the clerics said, “It is a matter of time, when we, with our birthrate, will overwhelm the white Europeans and thus will be able to take control of all of Europe.”
As Shariah courts spread across Europe like a noose slowly being tightened around that venerable continent, one can foresee how Catholic priests, Protestant pastors or even Jewish rabbis will be brought before these courts with all sorts of false accusations of blaspheming Islam or their prophet. It will only take a few hangings or beheadings before most of the French and European former-Christian landscape surrenders to the power of the sword.
When Pastor Nadarkhani was asked to repent he said, “Repent means to return, what should I return to? To the blasphemy that I had before my faith in Christ?”
I cannot help but wonder if pastors, priests and rabbis in Europe would have such courage?
To bring it even closer to home—would we have many American pastors with such courage?
Would I have such courage?
May God have mercy on His children before such a time, but if it does come, every true Christian must ask themselves the question: What would I do?
The only answer for a complete change of heart from barbarism to love is the gospel of Christ. Two thousand years ago that gospel transformed a well-known terrorist’s heart by the name of Saul of Tarsus and he became Paul the apostle.
That same old gospel has been transforming hearts ever since … but the problem is that most Christians are not living by the powerful truth of that gospel nor are they seeking to take that gospel to the ends of the earth with all their heart.
Dr. Michael Youssef‘s expertise on the Islamic culture and the Middle East in today’s post-modern world is actively sought by hundreds of thousands of followers around the globe. With a Ph.D. from Emory University in social anthropology, his Egyptian heritage gives him particular insight into the cultural and religious entanglements of international affairs. It is estimated that over 10 million viewers/listeners around the world are tuned in every week through an international Christian media ministry founded by Youssef, www.leadingtheway.org. It broadcasts via radio and television to over 200 countries and in over 20 languages. Follow Youssef, a common sense intellectual and renowned author of 24 books, on twitter @michaelayoussef and through his news blog, www.michaelyoussef.com
