It still almost baffles me when I consider that it is the year 2008 and people are still being murdered for believing in Jesus Christ. Truly the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY has blessed this nation called America (of course other nations have religious freedom and don’t violate or deny human rights). Although there is promised to be a time when Christians will be persecuted on a worldwide scale, I guess it’s still strange to me to know that people are being rounded up and executed under some “law” as I type this. While I’m walking down the street. While I’m watching re-runs on TV Land. While I sleep. — I pray the LORD keeps me humble and compassionate to all around me in need.
Anyway, the whole point of this post is to question some curious reporting I’ve come across. There are three articles mentioned here:
One from Christianity Today:
1. Two Iranian Christians were charged with “apostasy” and several others arrested as Iran’s parliament approved a bill making the death penalty mandatory for those so convicted. The measure is part of a new penal code that easily passed in parliament in a 196-7 vote on September 9. Christian and Baha’i communities are most likely to be affected by the bill.
But one source told Compass Direct News that when he discussed the apostasy section with some members of parliament, they said they were unaware of it. The source argued that the Iranian government was trying to bury the bill in the 113-page penal code.
Current Iranian law considers apostasy (leaving Islam) a capital offense, but punishment is left to the discretion of judges. The Guardian Council, Iran’s most influential body, must approve the penal code before it becomes law. Sources say they expect the council, which comprises six theologians and six jurists, to approve it.
Under the past three decades of Iran’s Islamist regime, hundreds of citizens who have left Islam and become Christians have been arrested for weeks or months, held in unknown locations, and subjected to mental and physical torture.
While this is going on, so-called religious groups were meeting with the Iranian leader who only speaks evil, Mahmoud Amadinejad, under some all-inclusive umbrella about us all worshipping the same god or some such nonsense. My GOD doesn’t approve of exterminating Jewish people or the land of Israel or persecuting Christians — as shown in HIS Holy Scriptures. Obviously, Ahmadinejad worships a false god who takes pleasure in death and violence.
The New York Times apparently doesn’t know anything about how non-Muslims are persecuted in Iran, as the writer totally neglected to make a whisper or hint about Christians in Iran.
2. After two days of prickly confrontations with critics at Columbia University and the United Nations, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran held a friendly, even warm, exchange yesterday with Christian leaders from the United States and Canada convinced that dialogue is the only way to prevent war.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, center, speaking during a panel discussion with religious representatives at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.
The session, held under tight security at a chapel across the street from the United Nations, was a reminder that Mr. Ahmadinejad is a religious president of a religious nation who relishes speaking on a religious plane. He spent his 20 allotted minutes at the start of the two-hour meeting recounting the chain of prophets central to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the commonality of their messages.
He took questions from a panel that included a Quaker, a Catholic, an Anglican, a Baptist and a representative of the interfaith World Council of Churches, some of whom separately said they had been criticized by other religious leaders for sitting down with the Iranian president. Given the furor over Mr. Ahmadinejad’s earlier appearances, there was no advance publicity.
Even Reuters apparently blocked out the Iranian citizens persecuted for their non-Muslim faith:
3.The Iranian leader gave a lengthy discourse on the need for religion in both private and public life, and the decline of morality in countries where politicians reject religion.
… Ahmadinejad has said Israel should be wiped off the map. His government held a conference in 2006 questioning the fact that Nazis used gas chambers to kill 6 million Jews in World War Two.
Wouldn’t it be “fair and balanced” to make note of Iran’s human rights record with respect to its people’s religion? Instead, neither report makes note of the irony that the leader of a Muslim nation trying to make so-called apostasy punishable by death talking about the importance of morality and religion?
Despite the apparent decision to ignore the plight of Christians in Iran, let us remember to pray always for our brothers and sisters around the world who cling to Salvation through Jesus Christ — those who do believe and those who will believe.
To The Persecuted Church – 8 “And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, ‘These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and came to life: 9 “I know your works, tribulation, and poverty (but you are rich); and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10 Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”‘
This article responsibly does what the NY Times and Retures failed to do.
An Iraqi dressed as Santa Claus or Father Christmas rings a bell as children dressed in Christmas outfits wave Iraqi flags during a pre-Christmas celebration organized for the Iraqi Christian community by the Interior Ministry in Baghdad on Dec. 20, 2008. Around 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq at the time of the US-led invasion of 2003, but the number has since shrunk by around a third or more as members of the minority community have fled the country, according to Christian leaders. (AFP/Getty Images)
As many of us hunker down and start the annual orgy of Christmas shopping for our loved ones (why, I haven’t figured that part out yet), let’s try — just try — to remember our brothers and sisters saved through Christ Jesus’ spilled blood and who are desperate for the freedom to just say “Thank you, Jesus for saving me” in public.