Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
Something about that combination of words seems to portend bad news.
But despite the fact that bad news markets well in our day (“If it bleeds, it leads”), a fast search shows this one not getting much attention out there:
Why is Christian persecution in Saudi Arabia ignored?Read it all
Wishing a special fate on anti-Christian persecutors
According to Wikipedia, Homs has the second highest concentration of Christians in Syria.
Had.
According to several other sources, Christians have been driven from Homs. Read it all
Christians kill Muslims.
Muslims kill Muslims.
Muslims kill Christians.
Christians kill Christians.
Which of them do so as an exercise of their faith? Read it all
Short answer: Where it’s always been.
More informative answer: Wherever God’s people gather.
And that’s true even after the government razes the last public meeting house.
In Afghanistan’s case, Christians might be forgiven for wondering Read it all
Here are excerpts from the story, as reported by Mission Network News:
Juma Nuradin Kamil, a Christian convert from Islam, was kidnapped and found in early September decapitated on the outskirts of Hudur City in southwestern Somalia.
The kidnapping and subsequent murder appear to be the work of al Shabaab militants, based on how it was carried out.
Church leaders confirm that al Shabaab often decapitates Muslims they suspect to have embraced the Christian faith, or those who appear to sympathize with Western ideals.
Based on the terror-linked nature of the attack, area Christians were initially afraid to bury Kamil’s body. They did not want al Shabaab extremists seeing them associated with a newly-discovered convert to Christianity. The body thus lay in the open for two days, until an unknown group reportedly buried him in secret.
It’s a dangerous time for Christians in Somalia who not only face ongoing threats from al Shabaab, but whose own government is against them.
Pray for believers on the underground to continue to stand up boldly for their faith and to continue to proclaim the Truth of Christ, whatever the consequences. Pray for those who mourn the loss of Kamil, that his family and fellow believers might have peace and remain safe.
Which do you see as the greater threat to Jesus Christ’s Church: Islam or secularism?
Which do you fear more?
Evangelicals, according to survey research conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, view secularism as a greater threat to Christianity than Islam. It seems, on the surface, like a great question for the cultural curmudgeon, at least from this relatively uncultured curmudgeon’s point of view. Will Christianity rot from the inside, or instead be overrun by the heathen hordes?
[…]
Or maybe what respondents meant, the 71 percent of them who chose “secularism” as the major threat to Christianity, is that what they fear most is a falling away, a slow boiling of the frog. Maybe it’s the gradual relaxation of standards that frightens them, the willingness of more and more self-professed Christians to pick and choose which doctrines they believe, if they care to countenance doctrines at all.
Wouldn’t it be something if the reason for this creeping secularism, if it exists, is the very notion of secularism itself?
[…]
In other words, maybe the greatest threat to Christianity is not that people abandon it for other things, but rather our own tendency—or mine, at least—to imagine that it has a limited domain, that there are the things of Christ and then there is all the rest of it. It’s not that a man goes to pornographic sites, it’s that he forgets every woman he sees is crafted in the image and likeness of God. It’s not that a woman goes cold in the marriage bed, it’s that she believes a Christian union is only a spiritual one. It’s not that our children go to where Christ is not, it’s that they imagine there is such a place.
How often I have imagined myself going to a “Christless corner,” some place in real life where God isn’t.
Such foolishness to attempt so impossible a task!
Let’s banish from our heads and from our living the dangerous notion that life has separate Christian and secular dimensions.
May God’s people be revived to such a degree that every dimension of our experience and environment becomes a living reality of acknowledging God in all our ways.
Well, please read Tony Woodlief’s full article over at World magazine: Christless corners.
Is this a legitimate use of Islamic law in a US civil court?
Is this anything to be alarmed about?
Is this precedent setting?
The question of what law applies in any Florida courtroom usually comes down to two choices: federal or state.
But Hillsborough Circuit Judge Richard Nielsen is being attacked by conservative bloggers after he ruled in a lawsuit March 3 that, to resolve one crucial issue in the case, he will consult a different source.
“This case,” the judge wrote, “will proceed under Ecclesiastical Islamic Law.” Read it all