DAVID CLOUD'S "WAY OF LIFE" RECENT ARTICLES

DAVID CLOUD'S "WAY OF LIFE" 

RECENT ARTICLES

SEE: https://www.wayoflife.org/friday_church_news/21-21.php;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 

purposes:

DARLENE ZSCHECH SOLD HER SEASIDE MANSION FOR $4 MILLION 

(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2020, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 

Darlene Zschech, former worship leader of Hillsong Sydney, has sold her seaside mansion for a reported $4-$4.4 million. The cliffside property, with a nearly 360 degree view of the ocean, is 1,258sqm with three levels, multiple entertainment areas, private movie theater, pool, and several cliff facing balconies (“Former Hillsong Church Leader,” Warwick Daily News, May 13, 2020). Zschech was “worship pastor” at Hills Christian Life Centre, Sydney, for 25 years, and published many of the most popular contemporary worship songs, including “Shout to the Lord,” “This Is Our God,” and “Mighty to Save.” In 2010, Darlene and her husband became the senior pastors of Hope Unlimited Church, but she continues to be involved in music projects with Hillsong. The New York Times reported that Hillsong is “without a doubt the most influential producers of worship music in Christendom” (“Megachurch with a Beat Lures Young Flock,” Sept. 9, 2014). Hillsong pushes one-world church ecumenism. Zschech says, “There is a new sound and a new song being proclaimed across the earth. It’s the sound of a unified church, coming together, in one voice to magnify our magnificent Lord” (“You Shine” album cover). Zschech and Hillsong performed for the Roman Catholic World Youth Day in Sydney on July 18, 2008. Pope Benedict XVI was present and conducted a papal mass. In July 2015, Darlene Zschech and Hillsong joined hands with the pope at the Convocation of the Renewal of the Holy Spirit at the Vatican. On her Facebook page, Zschech said: “Honoured to be singing this week, with Andrea Bocelli, Don Moen, Noa [Israeli singer], with Pope Francis and thousands of worshippers gathering in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. This is a celebration of unity and peace in the Renewal of the Holy Spirit. Amazing days for the Body of Christ.” Sadly, she doesn’t know the “body of Christ” from a pineapple, has zero spiritual discernment, yet she has vast influence among all denominations, including independent Baptist. In January 2019 and 2020, Hillsong Phoenix hosted the annual Alpha Conference which featured a Catholic mass. Fundamental Baptists and Bible-believing churches that use charismatic contemporary praise music are playing with fire. They will learn, probably too late, that this music brings with it a philosophy that will change the character of any fundamentalist church. It builds bridges to the “broader church,” which is progressing toward the formation of a “one-world church.”

WHEN HEBREW WAS PROPOSED AS THE LANGUAGE OF AMERICA 

(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2020, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 

The following is excerpted from “How Hebrew Almost Became the Language of America,” Israel Today, May 5, 2020: “William Gifford, an English poet and essayist, received a report that ‘In the rebellion of the Colonies, a member of that state seriously proposed to Congress the putting down of the English language by law, and decreeing the universal adoption of Hebrew in its stead.’ Some believe this was intended as a mockery of the mutinous colonists, but there is sufficient evidence to show that this was a very real and serious consideration. New England Puritans held a profound connection with Israel, the Hebrew language and the Jewish people. In their conviction that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, they held the original Hebrew in great reverence and of particular importance in interpreting and understanding Scripture. ... William Bradford (1590-1657) was a Puritan separatist who immigrated to the Plymouth Colony on the Mayflower in 1620. Bradford, who went on to serve as governor of the new colony for 25 years, taught himself Hebrew because he wanted to read the Scriptures in their original language. On his gravestone he had inscribed in Hebrew, ‘The LORD is the help of my life’ ... Their love of Hebrew led these early New England Christian ministers to develop relationships with Jewish rabbis. Rev. Ezra Stiles, who was driven out by the British in 1776 and immigrated to New England, struck up a close friendship with Rabbi Haim Isaac Carigal. ... With his knowledge of Hebrew, Stiles translated large portions of the Hebrew Old Testament into English. As did many Christian ministers at the time, he understood that knowledge of the original Hebrew was crucial to the proper interpretation of Scripture and even the basis upon which one could properly understand the New Testament as well. Credit is sometimes given to Stiles for proposing that Hebrew replace English as the official language of the newly forming United States. When Stiles was elected president of Yale University, he initiated a course in Hebrew as a freshman requirement. The Hebrew words Urim and Thummim worn on the breastplate of the High Priest, perhaps signifying ‘Light and Perfection,’ became part of Yale’s official seal along with the Latin Lux et Veritas (light and truth).”


DUTCH SUPREME COURT RULES THAT DOCTORS CAN EUTHANIZE ELDERLY WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT 

(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2020, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 

The following is excerpted from “Dutch Supreme Court Rules,” Reformation Charlotte, May 6, 2020: “If abortion against the unwilling infants still inside the mother’s womb isn’t bad enough, why not legalize abortion against elderly patients with dementia against their will? In a landmark ruling last month, the Dutch Supreme Court said that a doctor who committed euthanasia on an elderly patient with dementia while her family physically restrained her is not legally responsible for any wrongdoing. The Guardian reports: ‘Doctors in the Netherlands are able to carry out euthanasia on patients with severe dementia without fear of prosecution even if the patient no longer expresses an explicit wish to die, the country’s highest court has ruled. The supreme court’s decision followed a landmark case last year in which a doctor was acquitted of wrongdoing for euthanizing a woman in 2016 with severe Alzheimer’s who had requested the procedure before her condition deteriorated.’”


NINTH CIRCUIT COURT REVIVES CHURCH’S LAWSUIT AGAINST CALIFORNIA ABORTION INSURANCE MANDATE 

(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2020, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 

The following is excerpted from “Ninth Circuit,” Christian Post, May 15, 2020: “A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has revived a California church’s lawsuit against a state law mandating insurance coverage for abortion. Skyline Wesleyan Church of La Mesa sued the California Department of Managed Health Care over letters from 2014 stating that insurance companies could not limit abortion coverage. ... The [Ninth Circuit] panel vacated the earlier district court ruling in a unanimous decision released Wednesday, sending the case back to the lower court for further proceedings. Circuit Judge Michelle Friedland authored the panel’s opinion, concluding that ‘Skyline has suffered an injury in fact. Before the Letters were sent, Skyline had insurance that excluded abortion coverage in a way that was consistent with its religious beliefs,’ Friedland wrote. ‘After the Letters were sent, Skyline did not have that coverage, and it has presented evidence that its new coverage violated its religious beliefs. There is nothing hypothetical about the situation.’ The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm that represented the church before the Ninth Circuit, celebrated the panel’s decision. ‘The agency has unconstitutionally targeted religious organizations, repeatedly collaborated with pro-abortion advocates, and failed to follow the appropriate administrative procedures to implement its abortion-coverage requirement,’ said ADF Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus.”


LOOKING FOR CHRIST’S RETURN THE MARK OF A TRUE CHRISTIAN 

(Friday Church News Notes, May 22, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 

“I believe it is a mark, that every true believer should be continually at,--to live so as to be ready to meet Christ. ... It is vain to tell me that a man may be a very good man, and yet not be ready for the kingdom of Christ. I deny it altogether. I say that every justified and converted man is ready, and that if you are not ready you are not a justified man. I say that the standard I put before you is nothing more than the New Testament standard, and the Apostles would have doubted your religion, if you were not looking and longing for the coming of the Lord. ... Yet a little while and the last sermon shall be preached,--the last congregation shall break up. Yet a little while and carelessness and infidelity shall cease and pass away. The believers among us shall meet with Christ, and the unbelievers shall be in hell. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand” (J.C. Ryle, Coming Events and Present Duties, 1879). “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Hebrews 9:28).

CARDINAL VINCENT NICHOLS, PRESIDENT OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS' CONFERENCE OF ENGLAND & WALES, CELEBRATES RAMADAN AT HOME

CARDINAL VINCENT NICHOLS, PRESIDENT OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS' CONFERENCE OF ENGLAND & WALES, CELEBRATES RAMADAN AT HOME

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/05/cardinal-vincent-nichols-president-of-catholic-bishops-conference-of-england-and-wales-celebrates-ramadan-at-home; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 

purposes:

Once again, as always, the outreach goes only in one direction. Yet no matter how many times this outreach fails, useful idiots such as Cardinal Nichols eagerly keep doing the same things over and over again, hoping for a different result.

“Leave them; they are blind guides. And if a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” (Matthew 15:14)



“Cardinal Celebrates Ramadan at Home,” by Jules Gomes, ChurchMilitant.com, May 8, 2020:


WESTMINSTER, England (ChurchMilitant.com) – Britain’s leading prelate is being slammed for “appearing to deny Christ” after celebrating “Ramadan at Home” while telling Catholics it would cause “scandal” to reopen churches at present.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW), joined in the Iftar ritual breaking of the Ramadan fast at sunset on Wednesday, for the fourth year in a row.

Because of the Wuhan virus pandemic, Nichols, who hosted a Ramadan Iftar meal at Archbishop’s House in 2017, was forced to partake in the Islamic ritual meal at home while joining Muslim, Protestant and Jewish leaders in an online celebration.

“For a prelate of the Catholic Church to participate in the ritual of a religion that is so fundamentally anti-Christian and that deceives billions of souls about the divinity of Christ, runs the risk of appearing to deny Christ,” Catholic journalist and popular British author Nick Donnelly told Church Militant….

“The entire incident epitomizes the malady of the Western world,” Islamic scholar Robert Spencer told Church Militant. “The broadcasting of the Islamic call to prayer, World Hijab Day, and #RamadanAtHome all stem from the same impulse: The intelligentsia has adopted the idea that Muslims are a special class that warrants consideration above and beyond that given to other citizens. As that is the status of Muslims under Sharia (Islamic law), the implications are ominous.”

“What these Christian leaders who participated in #RamadanAtHome will ultimately find is that their Muslim partners in this multicultural endeavor have no intention of reciprocating their generosity and hospitality,” Spencer observed.

“Whether or not those Muslims participate in the endeavor, the Islamic imperative is to subjugate Christians under the hegemony of Islamic law. These Christians are already halfway there,” the author of bestseller The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS warned….

APOSTASY: LUTHERANS PRAY TO MOTHER GOD FOR HELP, JUST LIKE ROMAN CATHOLICS

LUTHERANS PRAY TO MOTHER GOD FOR HELP

BY DAVID CLOUD

SEE: https://www.wayoflife.org/friday_church_news/21-19.php; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 

purposes:

LUTHERANS PRAY TO MOTHER GOD FOR HELP 

(Friday Church News Notes, May 8, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 

On April 28 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America posted a prayer tweet addressed to “Mother God,” asking her to “raise us up to salvation ... so we may share the sweetness of your holy word with all the world.” This was one of the ELCA’s #Bread4theday Twitter posts. The ELCA is the largest Lutheran denomination in America, and it is obviously apostate. The ELCA Publishing House has printed countless volumes which promote unbelief. For example, in 1988 an ELCA book by Ragnar Leivestad, entitled Jesus in His Own Perspective, goofily claimed that Jesus never invoked for himself a special position and did not claim messianic titles. The World Council of Churches, of which the ELCA is a member, is filled with mother goddess worship. ELCA women participated in the WCC’S “Re-imagining Conference” in 1993 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Star Tribune reported that “throughout the conference worship experiences will celebrate Sophia, the biblical goddess of creation” (Nov. 3, 1993). On Sunday morning, the conferees joined together in repeating a prayer to their female goddess, including these words, “Our maker Sophia, we are women in your image. ... With the honey of wisdom in our mouths, we prophesy a full humanity to all the peoples.” At the WCC’s Seventh Assembly in 1991 South Korean Presbyterian Chung Hyun-Kyung evoked a female Holy Spirit (Religious News Service, Mar. 5, 1991). The WCC publication No Longer Strangers, a joint project with the Lutheran World Federation, which includes the ELCA, suggested that God be addressed as “The Source, Lady of peace, Lady of wisdom, Lady of love, Lady of birth, Lord of stars, Lord of planets, Mother, Home, Presence, Power, Essence, Simplicity.” Consider the poem “Bakerwoman God,” which is to be used in church services: “Bakerwoman God, I am your living bread. Strong, brown, Bakerwoman God ... Put me in your fire, Bakerwoman God ... Break me, Bakerwoman God. ... Bakerwoman God, remake me.” The hour is very late, folks!

FRANKLIN GRAHAM & EVANGELICALS JOIN PRO-LGBTQ ACTIVIST, ANTI-TRINITARIAN FOR "CHRISTIAN CONCERT"

FRANKLIN GRAHAM & EVANGELICALS JOIN PRO-LGBTQ ACTIVIST, ANTI-TRINITARIAN FOR "CHRISTIAN CONCERT"

SEE: https://reformationcharlotte.org/2020/04/20/franklin-graham-evangelicals-join-pro-lgbtq-activist-anti-trinitarian-for-christian-concert/;  

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 

purposes:

Sunday night, several prominent Evangelicals and Christian bands joined together with a host of false teachers and charismatic in a show of “unity” for the Hope Rising online concert. Among them were the well-known and respected Evangelist, Franklin Graham, along with a handful of somewhat respected modern contemporary Christian bands such as Casting Crowns who teamed up with several hopelessly lost false teachers.

Of the worst of them were not only anti-Trinitarian T.D. Jakes and serial blasphemers like Cody Carnes and Kirk Franklin, but also the pro-LGBTQ gay activist, Kristin Chenoweth. Chenoweth has been dubbed a “longtime ally of the LGBTQ community” by GLAAD and other pro-gay groups.

GLAAD reports that during an emotionally-charged acceptance speech for a GLAAD entertainment award, Chenoweth said, “I want to encourage many people of all faiths to come forward and stand with me, even if you don’t believe in Jesus the way I do. He did teach love. Not just tolerance, but acceptance.”





That Franklin Graham and others would think that it is in any way acceptable to put their name and seal of endorsement on the same event as these wicked deceivers is unfathomable. Graham, who is revered as one of the world’s most notable evangelists has a serious problem with compromising the gospel to promote his version of ecumenical unity.

What accord do believers have with unbelievers? What accord does light have with darkness? This is the rhetorical refrain of Paul in 2 Corinthians 6. The answer is none. Is Graham a believer? We are not called to stand in unity with these people, we are called to purge these people from among us (1 Corinthians 5:13).

DAVID CLOUD'S "WAY OF LIFE" RECENT ARTICLES

DAVID CLOUD'S "WAY OF LIFE" 

RECENT ARTICLES

SEE: https://www.wayoflife.org/friday_church_news/21-15.php;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 

purposes:

PASTOR BLAMED THE 1918 FLU EPIDEMIC 

ON THE CHURCHES 

(Friday Church News Notes, April 10, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In 1918, Pastor John Quincy Henry of First Baptist Church in San Francisco, held an outdoors meeting and blamed the churches for the Spanish flu epidemic. He said, “[Churches] have been lamentably weak in moral and spiritual leadership and have not yet risen to the august occasion confronting them. Our churches have become conventional, cowardly and worldly. Not only the people, but the churches must repent their sins, and when they do the plagues will cease” (The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia). The situation hasn’t changed in nearly 100 years. The bottom line today, as then, is that America needs to repent of her wickedness before God, and that is doubly true for the churches. Radical political action and multi-trillion dollar national debts will not solve America’s ills, because the fundamental issue is her terrible sin against the God that has shown her such light and mercy. And the very root of it all is the apostasy, corruption, compromise, worldliness, and lukewarmness in the churches. And that includes the majority of the most staunchly conservative, evangelical, “fundamentalist,” Baptist! From my perspective, most Bible-believing churches in America are lukewarm at best. One pastor wrote to me recently as follows: “Will independent fundamental Baptist pastors cancel their services and keep their church doors closed if this goes on for months? If they do, I believe that their people will get so used to watching church online that they won't see the need to assemble together as a real church.” I replied, “I would say that if church members would stop attending church because of a few week’s closure, they shouldn’t be church members in the first place. That isn’t a regenerate church membership. And this is truly the fundamental issue--the sad spiritual state of the vast majority of so-called Bible-believing churches.” I believe that the promise of God to Solomon at the dedication of the temple has a proper application to God’s people in America today. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). What happens in God’s house dramatically affects the White House. It’s high time to exchange a frivolous, fun and games entertainment program with a thin veneer of religiosity, for a program of serious prayer, serious Bible study, serious Bible preaching with exegetical substance and plain reproof and rebuke, serious holiness, serious separation from the wickedness of this fallen world, serious pilgrim Christianity, serious Christian living in the homes, being serious about the fathers being the heads of the homes and the mothers being the keepers of the home, serious about putting God’s will before economics, serious training of children and discipling of youth, and above all, serious about a regenerate church membership!

360-DEGREE VIRTUAL REALITY TOUR OF JERUSALEM FREE OF CHARGE FOR EASTER 

(Friday Church News Notes, April 10, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem has produced an amazing 360-degree virtual reality tour of iconic sites in Jerusalem. It is called Holy City 360 and has been released for free viewing from Passover through Ramadan, April 9-24. The tour examines the sites today as well as in ancient times. As I write this report on April 4, I can only see the teaser clip, but it gives an idea of how powerful these presentations are, whether or not you have been to Israel. They are multi-faith in perspective, so one cannot expect Biblical truth, but the photography alone is invaluable. The music might be a little intense, but it can be turned down. https://www.tod.org.il/en/holy-city-vr/


IDAHO GOVERNOR SIGNS 

“FAIRNESS IN WOMEN’S SPORTS ACT” 

(Friday Church News Notes, April 10, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Rev. Graham Praises Pro-Biology Idaho Law,” CNSNews.com, Apr. 3, 2020: “On Monday, Mar. 30, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed into law the ‘Fairness in Women's Sports Act.’ The law basically says that any sports program affiliated with the state, such as public school teams, public university teams, and sports associations teams will be defined for biological males and biological females. A player’s sex will be determined by their anatomy or their genetic/chromosonal identity. ‘Athletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open to students of the male sex,’ reads the new law. ... Commenting last year in the Washington Post about transgender ‘women’ in female sports, All-American track athlete Doriana Coleman and tennis champion Martina Navratilova, said, ‘The evidence is unequivocal that starting in puberty, in every sport except sailing, shooting, and riding, there will always be significant numbers of boys and men who would beat the best girls and women in head-to-head competition. Claims to the contrary are simply a denial of science.’” A companion Idaho bill requires that public documents use a person’s biological sex. The bills were passed and signed in spite of massive pressure from the LGBT lobby and from national corporations that threatened punishments.


JACK VAN IMPE’S PASSING 

(Friday Church News Notes, April 10, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Somehow we missed the passing of Jack Van Impe on January 18 at age 88. He started his preaching career in the late 1940s as an evangelist with Youth For Christ. Called “the Walking Bible,” he could quote more than 10,000 Bible verses. In July 1995 he said he had read 10 thousand books in his lifetime. From the 1950s to 1980, he conducted revival crusades attended by more than 10 million. In early 1973, before I was saved, I attended a Van Impe evangelistic crusade at a church in Tampa, Florida. One of my pagan buddies had a believing sister who invited him to the meeting, and he asked me to come along. I was put off by the musical showmanship, and when Van Impe gave away expensive study Bibles to those who brought the most visitors, I thought to myself, “This is why they invited us!” After I was saved, I heard Van Impe speak at Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, if I remember correctly. Van Impe was closely associated with Jerry Falwell and moved in “fundamentalist” circles. At the 1976 World Congress of Fundamentalists in Edinburg, Scotland, Van Impe said preachers are “to contend with false religionists in order to show them the error of their way.” But by the early 1980s, Van Impe had changed direction. In his 1984 book, Heart Disease in the Body of Christ, Van Impe maligned fundamentalists as unloving and called for ecumenical unity between all Christians. He republished it in 1991 under the title Sabotaging the World Church. Not surprisingly, since the flow of the ecumenical river is always Rome-ward, he was soon praising the pope. He said: “Let’s forget our labels and come together in love, and the pope has called for that. I had 400 verses on love. Till I die I will proclaim nothing but love for all my brothers and sisters in Christ, my Catholic brothers and sisters, Protestant brothers and sisters, Christian Reformed, Lutherans, I don’t care what label you are. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another.” On his September 29, 1992, television program, Van Impe “praised Pope John Paul II, calling him a ‘great’ man and telling his audience that they ought to ‘thank God’ for such a courageous religious leader.” In 1993, Van Impe published Startling Revelations: Pope John Paul II, a video that presented the pope as a defender of the faith! Van Impe continued to praise the pope until his death, even though he had devoted himself wholly to Mary. Van Impe is yet another illustration of the truth of 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.” Van Impe specialized in speculative prophecy in his weekly television program Jack Van Impe Presents (co-hosted by his wife Rexella) and his magazine Perhaps Today. His video A.D. 2000 - The End came near to setting a date for the Lord’s return. He suffered a lot in the last 15 years, total knee replacements, cancer, stomach ulcers, a severe sepsis attack, triple by-pass surgery, and a broken hip.


THE WORLD PASSETH AWAY 

(Friday Church News Notes, April 10, 2020, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15-17). The verb “passeth” is present indicative middle. The present tense is a continuous tense. So the world is passing away. The indicative mood “asserts something which is occurring while the speaker is making the statement.” So the world system is passing away at this time. The middle voice tells us that the world is passing away “by an action acting upon itself or concerning itself.” So the world is being passed away. We know that the world is not passing itself away, and we know that the god of this world is not passing it away. Rather, it is God who is passing the world away. He holds the reins. He is using this present world system for His eternal plans and glory, and it will be finished exactly when God decides, to be replaced by Christ’s kingdom. The prophet Daniel described the end of this present world system. In the dream given to Nebuchadnezzar, it was depicted as a great image of a man representing the ruling empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome (Da. 2:31-35). Daniel’s interpretation explains that Rome continues in various forms until the return of Christ, at which time the world system will be crushed and replaced with Christ’s righteous kingdom. “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Da. 2:34-35). Bible commentator Robert Lenski says, “The world is now in the act of passing away. It is its very nature not to last. Its doom is overtaking it. Its glory is fading, its flowers are withering, its promises are failing, its hopes are crumbling. Isa. 14:11. ... Does the siren voice of the world tickle your ears? Hear the word of truth: ‘The world is passing away!’ The bank is breaking, it was never solvent--will you deposit in it? The foundation is tottering, it was never solid but only sham--will you build on it? The mountain is rumbling, quaking, it was never anything but volcanic, ready to blow off its head at any time--will you build your city there?”

ILLINOIS: CIRCUIT JUDGE CANDIDATE TIED TO GROUPS WITH HISTORY OF LINKS TO MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD & HAMAS

Azam Nizamuddin on Fethullah Gulen and Hizmet (aka the Gulen Movement)

SEE OUR PREVIOUS POSTS ABOUT GULEN: 

https://ratherexposethem.blogspot.com/search?q=GULEN

TEACHES AT A CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY!

Azam Nizamuddin is an activist and an attorney. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Theology at Loyola University of Chicago. He teaches courses on Islam, and History of Islamic Thought. He has previously taught at Elmhurst College in Illinois. He lectures on Islamic theology and law, and on Islamic civilization to churches, synagogues, civic organizations across the country. "My general view of the Hizmet Movement is that it is one of the leading, I would say, Islamic movements in the world today. It's also one of the leading global spiritual and social movements in the world because of its impact, not only within Turkey but also in various Muslim countries in central Asia and now today in North America as well." "I think the Gulen, or Hizmet, Movement represents Islam by, on the one hand, maintaining a strong connection to and being rooted in the Islamic primary sources, such as the Qur'an and the Prophetic teachings, but, at the same time, not neglecting the world around it. And, I think that Fethullah Gulen promotes Islamic values, Islamic teachings without necessarily rejecting the world and rejecting the West, and I think that's a very important and innovative development of the past 100 years of Islamic thinkers." "I think that the Hizmet Movement draws its inspiration and teaching from Said Nursi who, in the early 20th century, argued that religion and science are compatible; that the science that the West has promoted since the late 17th and 18th century, particularly Post-Enlightenment, has permitted people to develop but at the expense of faith and morality, and I think Said Nursi argued that you can have faith, morality and science together. And I think the Hizmet Movement, and in particular Fethullah Gulen, draws from those teachings and has that engaged in very positive aspects of promoting education."

ILLINOIS: CIRCUIT JUDGE CANDIDATE TIED TO GROUPS WITH HISTORY OF LINKS TO 

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD & HAMAS

BY HESHAM SHEHAB

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/03/illinois-circuit-judge-candidate-tied-to-groups-with-history-of-links-to-muslim-brotherhood-and-hamas; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 

purposes:

On February 25, the Chicago Tribune  endorsed the president of the Muslim Bar Association of Illinois, Dr. Azam Nizamuddin, the Democratic candidate for the position of Circuit Judge in Dupage County, Illinois.

As a lawyer with twenty years of experience, adjunct professor of theology, and interfaith activist, Nizamuddin may sound like the perfect candidate for the job, but his background also raises some concerns.

In 2015, Nizamuddin was appointed general counsel and deputy executive director of North American Islamic Trust, Inc. (NAIT). Nizamuddin also serves as Chief Compliance Officer for NAIT’s for-profit subsidiary, Allied Asset Advisors (AAA).

NAIT describes itself as “a waqf,” the historical Islamic equivalent of an American trust or endowment, serving Muslims in the United States and their institutions.

NAIT was established in 1973 in Indiana by the Muslim Students Association of U.S. and Canada (MSA). The Muslim Students Association was founded in 1963 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Brotherhood members dominated its founding and leadership, according to former U.S. Muslim Brotherhood Executive Committee Masul (leader) Zeid Noman, in taped lecture acquired by the FBI.

In 2004, the Chicago Tribune reported on NAIT’s  role in an effort by Muslim Brotherhood members to successfully seize control of the once moderate Bridgeview Mosque, now known as the Mosque Foundation.

In 2007, the Justice Department designated NAIT as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist financing case in America history, US v. Holy Land Foundation, which resulted in convictions and imprisonment of several US-based Hamas terrorist leaders.

Court records detailed how money flowed through NAIT financial accounts to Hamas. In the same exhibits from the trial, the Justice Department lists NAIT among “members of the US Muslim Brotherhood,” alongside NAIT’s parent organization; the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

Nizamuddin was also a sponsor of Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)-Chicago’s 8th Annual Banquet.  CAIR is strongly connected to the Muslim Brotherhood according to federal prosecutors and was also listed among “unindicted co-conspirators and/or joint-venturers” in the Holy Land Foundation case along with NAIT.

In CAIR, ISNA and NAIT’s repeated appeals to the U.S. government to remove its name from the co-conspirators list a federal judge ruled the government had provided “ample evidence” at trial for tying CAIR, ISNA and NAIT to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR has subsequently been blacklisted as a terrorist group by the United Arab Emirates.

Nizamuddin also served as the co-chair of the Interfaith committee of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC), which was co-founded by former NAIT Chairman and Muslim Brotherhood leader Bassem Osman. Osman remains the president and portfolio manager of AAA.

But Nizamuddin has connections to other Islamist-linked organizations outside of those historically affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood as well. Nizamuddin served on the board of directors and as general counsel for the Niagara Foundation, a charity associated with Turkish Islamist cleric Fetullah Gulen.

In a 2013 Facebook post, Nizamuddin described Gulen, living in exile in the U.S., as “the most important peace advocate and religious leader you have never heard of.” In 2014, Nizamuddin did a video praising the Gulenist movement. While Gulen poses as working for world peace and democracy, U.S. State Department cables, divulged by WikiLeaks, described the Turkish preacher as “a ‘radical Islamist’ whose moderate message cloaks a more sinister and radical agenda.”  In Turkey, Gulenists were known for their extended penetration of police and judiciary services, prior to a purge of the judiciary following the 2016 coup attempt.

Gulen’s U.S.-based charities, including the Niagara Foundation, have been accused of serving as fronts for a campaign of influence by offering all-expense paid trips for state and local lawmakers, and former Niagara Foundation Executive Director Kemal Oksuz was convicted for his role in a scheme to illegally fund a congressional trip to Azerbaijan, as part of an effort to influence lawmakers.

Nizamuddin’s affiliations with both Brotherhood-linked groups like NAIT as well as Gulen-linked groups is interesting, since American Brotherhood groups have increasingly sided with Turkish authoritarian president and Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his campaign to suppress Gulen’s movement after the two, previously allies, had a falling out.

Nizamuddin’s associations with groups linked to terror finance and influence-peddling should raise genuine concerns for Dupage county voters. Voters have a right to ask to what extend Nizamuddin shares the Islamist views of the groups he is affiliated with, and whether these views will impact his position on the court, if successfully elected. This is especially true given his connection to a group with a documented history of political corruption. Will media outlets identify these connections for voters, and ask Nizamuddin how these affiliations will affect his role on the bench, if he should be elected?

Hesham Shehab is a Research Associate for the Middle East Forum

"NEIGHBORLY FAITH"-A "THIRD WAY" TO BEFRIEND MUSLIMS?

"NEIGHBORLY FAITH"-

A "THIRD WAY" TO BEFRIEND MUSLIMS? 

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2020/newsletter20200316.htm;  

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 

purposes:

LTRJ Note: As we were preparing to post this letter to the editor that came to us recently, we came across Christian radio host Janet Mefferd’s Twitter comments about Southern Baptist Convention president J.D. Greear’s involvement with a “Neighborly Faith” event on March 5th titled “Hope in the Current Age: A Conversation on Christianity and Islam.” Mefferd stated, “Before Greear’s interfaith dialogue, 64% of Christian attendees felt “positive” about Islam. After, 76% of Christians “said their attitude toward Islam was more positive than before!” Way to go, SBC. Is this what it means to be “missional?” Mefferd asks the question, “Southern Baptist pastors and laymen: Is it OK w/you that all these SBC leaders are pushing Christian-Muslim ‘interfaith dialogue?’ Is this why you are part of the SBC?”

Dear Lighthouse Trails:

Could you please check this out? I am stunned by what I have heard and read about this new group of people called: Neighborly Faith.

Neighborly Faith urges evangelicals to find a :”third way” to befriend Muslims:






There are many evangelical Christians getting involved with this, and it is scary when you realize how far this movement has come in a very short period of time.

I just haven’t seen Lighthouse Trails say anything on this movement, and it is really moving quickly into so-called Christian colleges and other places as well.

I see absolutely nothing good coming from this movement, and believe me it is not going to go away either. It’s the speed of the movement and what this group is saying we as Christians should be doing that put a cold chill down my back.

Thank you for reading my e-mail, and I hope you will check this out.

My concern is that the Lord says we are not to go after other gods, and the Islamics/Muslims do not have the same God as we do. Many Christians, from what I’ve read, are being told and are believing that we do indeed share the same God. I know we do not, and I know you know that too.

M.J.

Related Articles:

“One World Religion: Pope Francis Signs Historic Covenant With Islam”

The Call for Unity at the Price of Truth

Letter to the Editor: Pope Francis to Launch 2020 “Global Educational Alliance” for a “New Humanism” and “New Universal Solidarity”

___________________________________________________________

SEE ALSO:

https://religionnews.com/2019/11/06/neighborly-faith-urges-evangelicals-to-find-a-third-way-to-befriend-muslims/

INTERFAITH DIALOGUE "ICON" OMAR SULEIMAN: SHARIA SUPREMACIST, ISLAMIC JEW HATER

"ISRAEL-BASHING IMAM" DELIVERS RAMADAN OPENING PRAYER AT HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

VIDEO:

INTERFAITH DIALOGUE "ICON" OMAR SULEIMAN: SHARIA SUPREMACIST, ISLAMIC JEW HATER 

 Another example of the dangerous willful blindness of our politicians and religious leaders.

BY ANDREW G. BOSTOM

SEE: https://cms.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/interfaith-dialogue-icon-omar-suleiman-sharia-andrew-g-bostom; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 

purposes:

Imam Omar Suleiman gave a U.S. Congressional invocation May 9, 2019, and just participated in a high profile “inter-faith dialogue” event Thursday March 5, 2020, at North Carolina State University, with J.D. Greear of  the Southern Baptist Convention. Both the Democrats who invited him to “prayerfully” address Congress, and Mr. Greear, were willfully blind to the good Imam Suleiman’s open espousal of Sharia supremacism, and traditionalist Islamic Jew-hatred.

Suleiman has defended Sharia’s hadd punishments for adultery [stoning] and theft [amputation], advocated for both “societal Sharia” and a Caliphate, so that Sharia could “be applied in totality,” and even defended Muslim concubinage and sex-slavery (and see this compilation of video clips, embedded below).  He is also a virulent Muslim Jew-hater, who proudly lauds Islam’s Antisemitic canon, in particular, the Koranic epithet (Koran 5:60) for Jews as “apes and pigs.”

Suleiman’s intense canonical Islamic Jew-hatred was elaborated at length during a 5-part, nearly 6-hour 2012 lecture series, “Lost Chronicles of Bani Israel,” still available online (video extracts embedded below).

In prelude to his discussion of Allah’s “very dramatic action” against a particular group of Jews—transforming them into apes and pigs [Koran 7:166, and 5:60]—Suleiman elucidates what characterizes most Jews—past as prologue—with Koranic indelibility:

“The majority of the people we are talking about obviously, to take lessons from them, we’re not gonna focus on those few good people, few bright spots, but rather focus on mistakes that they [i.e., most of the Koranic Jews] make.”

Suleiman then invokes two Koranic depictions [Koran 2:96 and 2:88], bolstered by an illustration from the canonical hadith [Bukhari Volume 4, Book 55 Prophets 615] which demonstrate their inveterate worldliness, “dunyā,” and resultant deceit.

They had an unusual love for the life of this world and the head [source] of [their] every mistake is loving this life too much and hating death. So we find that all of the trickery [deceit], and all the mistakes that they [the Jews] made stem from their love of dunyā [earthly concerns]”

Referencing the Koranic narrative from sura 7 [7:163–7:166] about the Jews deceitfully laying out nets to avoid “Allah’s” prohibition against actually fishing on the Sabbath, and also citing Koran 5:60, Suleiman provides these details:

Allah says, ‘We told them to become apes,’ [7:166] Allah transformed them, this group of people that took that action into apes and pigs [5:60]…which means their external appearance became apes and pigs, and the idea here was that the people were trying to make Allah out to be a fool, but Allah instead transformed them into animals…The prophet [Muhammad] tells us that these people, which were a village, not the entire Bani Israel, this was a group of Bani Israel, that Allah, after he transformed them, they lived three days as an example to all other people. The older ones were transformed into pigs and the young ones into apes.

Following a brief excursus on why it is inaccurate to refer to contemporary Jews as “sons of apes and pigs,” Suleiman references a hadith [cited by the great legist/philosopher Ibn Rushd, “Averroes”, and here] which illustrates yet another example of Jewish deceit, and the appropriate response of Muhammad’s youngest wife Aisha, who condemned her Jewish interlocutors as brethren of apes and pigs.

She [Aisha] called them brothers of apes and pigs—she didn’t call them the sons.

This usage, “brothers of apes and pigs,” Suleiman maintains, is appropriate for most Jews, given their inveterate Koranic predilection for deceit, endeavoring “to take Allah for a fool.”  Indeed, according to the earliest sacralized, pious Muslim biography of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq just before subduing the Medinan Jewish tribe Banu Qurayza, Islam’s prophet invoked this striking Koranic motif for the Jews debasement, addressing these Jews, with hateful disparagement, as “You brothers of apes.” Ibn Ishaq’s account further maintains that, upon their surrender, Muhammad himself beheaded between 600 to 900 of the adult Jewish males of the Banu Qurayza, and enslaved their wives and children.

Dehumanizing Koranic references to Jews as apes (or apes and pigs) were used explicitly for polemical incitement to large scale, annihilationist pogroms against dhimmi Jewish communities in Granada (within mythically “tolerant” Muslim Spain) during 1066, Baghdad and its environs, proliferating into Iran, at the end of the 13thcentury, and southern Morocco at the close of the 15th century. Echoing Muhammad—and Omar Suleiman—present era ad nauseum repetition of these Koranic epithets for incitement of Muslim Jew-hatred by three year-old Muslim children, to Sunni Islam’s Papal equivalent Al-Azhar Grand Imam, has also included then Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir’s  vitriolic call for an annihilationist jihad against Israel during a speech delivered at the headquarters of the ruling Islamic party in Khartoum, broadcast live by Radio Monte Carlo on April 5, 2002:

Let us prepare ourselves for the decisive battle against the Jews, those apes, pigs, and worshippers of calves. This should be a decisive battle…There will be no peace with the Jews…This battle is the battle, and this jihad is the jihad.

Ultimately, Omar Suleiman’s 2012 discourse on the Jews is blunt in directing his canonical Islamic Jew-hatred, especially the requisite “humiliation,” at the state of Israel, and all Jews who support its right to exist.

“We ask Allah to humiliate this Israel, the way that Allah humiliated Bani Israel”

These unwarranted invitations extended to Imam Sulieman illustrate the ongoing, disgraceful failure of those politicians and religious leaders the disingenuous Suleiman engages. Simply put, such non-Muslim “leaders” are devoid of the intellectual honesty and courage required to identify the canonical Islam which animates Suleiman’s Sharia supremacism and Jew-hatred, views which a vast expanse of the world’s Muslims have been educated to share. 



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SEE OUR PREVIOUS POSTS:

https://ratherexposethem.blogspot.com/2017/07/google-bows-

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https://ratherexposethem.blogspot.com/2019/05/israel-bashing

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https://ratherexposethem.blogspot.com/2019/02/muslim-rep-

rashida-tlaib-to-speak-along.html