What will the New Year bring?

Allow me to briefly pause to say Happy 2011 to all our readers.  May this new year be better than the last and might we all this coming year know, and heed, that which God deems fulfilling and productive.

2010 was a rough 12 months for many and we don't need to list the litany of reasons why it was so.  Many are intimately familiar with those reasons.

The new year has begun much like the old sadly:

President Hosni Mubarak urged Egypt's Christians and Muslims to unite and confront "terrorism" after a New Year's day car bomb killed 21 people at a Coptic church in Alexandria, in the latest blow to the Middle East's largest Christian community.

There was no immediate claim, but Al-Qaeda has threatened Christians everywhere, and called for punishment of Egypt's Copts, over claims that two priests' wives they say had converted to Islam were being held by the church against their will.

The health ministry's Abderrahman Shahine said 21 people were killed and 43 wounded.

The car, which was parked outside the Al-Qiddissine (The Saints) church in the Sidi Bechr district of the Mediterranean port city, exploded at around half past midnight (2230 GMT Friday) as worshippers were leaving after a service.

A witness told private television channel On-TV he had seen a green Skoda pull up outside the church shortly after midnight. Two men got out and the explosion occurred almost immediately afterwards.

...

The attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, which said its purpose was to force the release of the two women in Egypt.

"All Christian centres, organisations and institutions, leaders and followers, are legitimate targets for the mujahedeen (holy warriors) wherever they can reach them," the group said.

"Let these idolaters, and at their forefront, the hallucinating tyrant of the Vatican, know that the killing sword will not be lifted from the necks of their followers until they declare their innocence from what the dog of the Egyptian Church is doing," the ISI said.

It also demanded that the Christians "show to the mujahedeen their seriousness to pressure this belligerent church to release the captive women from the prisons of their monasteries."

The BBC has posted relevant pictures to include some of Christians in the streets protesting the bombing and riot police being deployed to separate them from a nearby mosque where apparently some Christians took to throwing stones, clearly not satisfied with merely turning the other cheek.  Which brings us to a relevant question and the real reason for this post.

How should Christians react to radical Islam?  Or as one leftist preacher has snidely put it to me, 'Since Brother Rick is so afraid of Muslims, my question is: "Rick what is your answer to the Muslim 'problem'?"'

I've thought hard about that for some time and believe the answer has multiple layers.

First, I think the West needs to quit playing politically correct games and seeing radical Islam as the threat that it is... this would include more vigorously confronting the so called moderate elements within this allegedly great relligion to do their own confronting with their radical brethren.  My problem however with this is that I'm of the belief that these moderates are simply cultural Muslims who aren't quite as... committed and passionate... to their beliefs as the jihadists... which makes this confrontation less likely to take place... but which leads to my next thought which can't really be expressed delicately.

Christians need to better fulfill the great commission.  All Christians.  To include those who haven't historically taken up this mission with any zeal and yes, here I include the denomination to which I find myself moving toward.  Of course, this mission too is dependent upon the committed and the passionate within the faith and frankly, there are too many within Christianity who are as marginal in their faith as those earlier referenced moderate Muslims and I'll quickly acknowledge that too often, I count myself amongst them.

I am, as many readers know, quick to react angrily to those stories recounting yet another Islamist attack.  I'm quick to want to see these murderous thugs be brought to justice.  I'm so quick to want to pick up the sword and smite the offender.  And I'm as quick, and perhaps with sound reason, to look to Just War theology as the basis for these reactions.  It's a constant inward struggle that comes largely from my belief in the veracity of the following scripture:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

The bottom line is simple to state but far more complex to practice and effectively put in place.  Evil must be confronted.  To confront evil, it must first be identified and branded as such.  And as a Christian, I must not confront evil with evil.  And there is where the rubber meets the road, there is where the struggle becomes real, there is where, if I can add a bottom line to the bottom line, I need help.

And so I commit this year to be constantly seeking that help.  Sadly, because I know myself, I'll need help in adhering to that commitment but I know from whence that help originates. 

May this post be a constant reminder to me, and perhaps you, to whom it is I should go.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Comments

[Mark Roth]

Thanks again, Rick. Let's remember to find our help in the right place.

[BroKen]

My Nigerian neighbor (and Roman Catholic priest) told me that in order to find peace with Islam in Nigeria, the church had to take a tough stand. When they "turned the other cheek", violence continued. When they responded, "If you burn a church, we will burn two mosques." the violence stopped.

(He also told me that the recent violence in Jos was NOT primarily a religious conflict but was cultural and economic in nature.)

[Scott Sester]

Hello Brother Rick,
Concerning the part about confronting evil with evil I would like you to consider this short couple verses written by kind David concerning how God works.

2 samuel, 22:26-27
To the faithful you show yourself faithful; to those with integrity you show integrity.
To the pure you show yourself pure, but to the wicked you show yourself hostile.
There is no need to apologize for attacking evil and standing against the wicked and their continuous murder of innocent men, women, and children.
To vanquish them would not be repaying evil for evil.
If our great country had not fought against tyranny and oppression we would have been conquered long ago.

[Bernie]

Christ warned us of this and again and again the evils of Islam proves that this is a false religion. If we see someone walking down the street killing people do we just stand by and wait to be killed? I am no expert in my faith but, I do not think "turn your other cheek" means to stand and be killed. My dad was a Marine Drill Instructor and we grew up with the motto God, Family, Country, Corp. In my Corp we say "GET SOME". The first saying from my dad still is planted in me but, It is time to GET SOME. It would be nice to see all the Catholic Clergy pray the prayer of exorcism on these possessed people. God be with us.

[Dymphna]

I don't think prosletyzing works in our largely secular culture. Remember the injunction not to toss pearls before swine?

Islam increases by using terror as its mechanism. Look at any conflict around the world and there are Muslims in it.

The Koran describes the slaughter in Medina very clearly. It set the example for all Muslims. They are enjoined by the Koran to kill infidels. They don't have a choice if they're devout Muslims.

When you read the Koran, follow the verses carefully. By the principle of "abrogation" the earlier verses about peace, love and tolerance are always and everywhere ABROGATED by the later verses which tell good Muslims to kill in order to gain Paradise.

The descriptions of hell are so numerous in the later verses that they become mind-numbing.

Every citizen needs their own copy of the Constitution, the Koran, and the definitive book of interpretation of Shariah Law called "The Reliance of the Traveler". All are available on Amazon.

The way to defeat Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood (which has reached into the higher realms of our permanent govt bureaucracy) is to stand against any incursions of Shariah Law. That is the way they plan to tunnel through, the same way the socialists tunneled thru via Marx and now own the joint.

Right now the socialists and the Muslims are working together but when push comes to shove, the socialists will be the first to go. Totalitarians cannot bear one another.

Oh, and no more calling Islam a religion. It's a totalitarian political system. Judaism is a religion. Christianity is a religion. Islam is not. Pasting "Allah" on top of a brutal, murderous system doesn't make it a religion anymore than Nazism was a religion. BTW, Hitler was envious of the totalitarian control of Islam.

[Dolly]

Catholicism is not a denomination.

[Rick]

Dolly, I’m afraid you’ll have to expound… Catholicism is most certainly a denomination within Christianity…

Help me here with your comments…

[Dolly]

"Every citizen needs their own copy of the Constitution, the Koran, and the definitive book of interpretation of Shariah Law called "The Reliance of the Traveler". All are available on Amazon."

Confirms my suspicion that for some Americans the Constitution has become a "holy" thing. It's not. It's just a constitution. The Bible should precede the constitution.

[Dolly]

Rick -

"And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18 "

The Catholic Church is taproot and source of all of the other (ever-growing) denominations. They are denominations, all broken off from the source. She is not a denomination. More here: http://www.catholic.com/library/pillar.asp

It seems to me that the splintering of the Christian churches is part of the problem of "niceness". It is "not nice" to suggest that all of the Christian denominations are mere offshoots of the source. If we can't even discuss that, then it will be pretty interesting to watch all of those various Christians trying to somehow convince a confused world that Islam is not just "one more way to believe." We can't have our cake and eat it too. Either the Christians become one, again (and Benedict XVI seems to be trying to do that) or they fall before a united Islam, which does not have "denominations" per se. Catholic is catholic - universal - even Eastern Rite churches are still "Catholic". Islam is Islam. They may have tribes, but they are not broken into 2500 offshoots. Protestantism, Mormonism, etc, are "denominations." Worry about uniting the branches back to the taproot, or the battle with Islam is pointless.

[Rick]

Thanks Dolly... I see your point (on the term denomination)...

[Leslie]

Where does a person stick the Greek Orthodox on the tree? (re: denominations)

[Dolly]

Russian and Greek Orthodox are like the "tribes" of the Islamists. They're still catholic.

[Leslie]

I see. So the two groups are living in communion with each other? How did there get to be two tribes in the first place?

[Dymphna]

No, the Constitution of the US isn't holy. It's the most important of our Founding documents. It's vital to know what it contains since those Amendments are under direct attack from Shariah Law, which the Muslim Brotherhood will use to tunnel through what remains of our Republic.

If nothing else, it will be useful to fully understand what we have lost. For example, ask the next three people you meet what "government rights" are.

We did this with our Yale-lawyer Congressional Rep. He proceeded to tell us what they were until we reminded him that only individuals have rights. But he's a Soros-funded useful idiot who admitted (they have it on YouTube) that the American people need to stop Congress or the spending will just continue.

Maybe someday the Constitution will be a relic -- something people go to look at like we do the Magna Carta today. There are actual originals still extant!

I hold those two documents to be vitally important, but not sacred. The rights contained therein are sacred and God-given, though.