THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
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.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
Where did Zoobia Shahnaz get her understanding of Islam? Is her mosque being investigated? Why not?
“Long Island Woman Sentenced to 13 Years’ Imprisonment for Providing Material Support to ISIS,” Justice Department, March 13, 2020:
Earlier today, in federal court in Central Islip, Zoobia Shahnaz was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment by United States District Judge Joanna Seybert for providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically more than $150,000 to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), and attempting to travel to Syria to join ISIS. Shahnaz pleaded guilty in November 2018….
As set forth in court filings and facts presented at the sentencing hearing, between March 2017 and July 2017, Shahnaz defrauded numerous financial institutions to obtain money for ISIS, including a loan for approximately $22,500. Shahnaz also fraudulently obtained more than a dozen credit cards and used them to purchase approximately $62,000 in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online. Shahnaz then made multiple wire transfers totaling more than $150,000 to individuals and entities in Pakistan, China and Turkey that were fronts for ISIS.
Shahnaz accessed ISIS violent jihad-related websites and message boards, and social media and messaging pages of known ISIS recruiters, facilitators and financiers. She also performed numerous internet searches for information that would facilitate her entry into Syria. Court-authorized search warrants executed at Shahnaz’s residence on Long Island resulted in the seizure of terrorist and jihad-related propaganda, including a photograph of a suicide belt of explosives and a night vision scope.
On July 31, 2017, Shahnaz was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, while attempting to board a flight with a layover in Istanbul, Turkey – a common point of entry for individuals travelling from western countries to join ISIS in Syria….
GREECE ERECTS MASSIVE CONCRETE BORDER WALL TO STOP MIGRANT INVASION
★★★ A NEW CONSERVATIVE AGE IS RISING ★★★
We’re going to take a look at the latest developments going on with Greek security forces who are holding the line for all of Europe at their Turkish border ……..and how even Greece’s new president, who was otherwise thought of as a liberal cosmopolitan, has fully embraced a nationalist populist commitment to defending the nationalist sovereignty of her nation; you’re going to love it.
ALEX NEWMAN: DUMBING DOWN YOUR CHILDREN~BEHIND THE DEEP STATE
The Deep State is dumbing down your children and they are getting dumber at a faster rate than ever before thanks to the government public school system. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), over two-thirds of 8th graders are not proficient in any of the core subjects (math, reading, writing, science, and history). The situation for high school seniors is even worse, as only one-fourth of high school seniors are proficient in math and one-third are proficient in reading according to the NAEP. For the sake of our children’s education and future success, it’s time to get them out of the public schools. More episodes on solutions coming soon!
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. Greearof 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.
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 nauseumrepetition 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.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”)—also known as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the largest terrorist funding case in U.S. history and a designated “terrorist organization” for nations allied to America—is again vehemently protesting my forthcoming appearance at the U.S. Army War College, urging the latter to “reconsider its decision and disinvite Ibrahim,” since my presentation will no doubt be “hypocritical, ahistorical and hateful.”
This, of course, is all déjà vu—a repeat of events from eight months ago. As CAIR itself notes in its latest press release, which appeared on February 21, 2020,
Last summer [June 2019], CAIR and its allies launched an online campaign highlighting Ibrahim's Islamophobic views and their negative impact.
Led by CAIR-Philadelphia and MPower Change, and supported by Community Responders Network, About Face, and Common Defense, the campaign drew more than 1800 signatures and received widespread support from its interfaith allies.
The referenced “petition” (see here) was essentially a hysterical screed; it claimed that if I, a supposed “racist” and enabler of “white nationalism”—despite my Egyptian heritage—am given a chance to speak before a supposedly already “racist” U.S. military, I would incite American servicemen to randomly start murdering Muslims both at home and abroad (see near the middle of petition).
In retrospect, it's interesting to learn now that this CAIR/MPower petition from last summer received a mere 1,800 signatures—despite its insistence that supporters sign it. By contrast, the much more reputable National Association of Scholars, which delivered a petition in my support to the White House, received three times as many signatures (5,349), many from well-respected scholars affiliated with numerous universities.
CAIR’s latest press release continues by boasting how,
Last year, the college postponed a similar speaking engagement with Ibrahim in response to widespread criticism [a false claim based on the paltry numbers above]. In response to postponement of his 2019 lecture, Ibrahim restated his bigoted claim that “Islamic terrorism and ‘extremism’ are intrinsic to Islam, and have been from its first contact with Western civilization in the seventh century.”
Yes, I restated this fact (not a “claim”) because it is true—whether or not CAIR whines, and whether or not I speak here or there. Temporal circumstances have no bearing on the articulation of transcendent truths.
CAIR continues:
Ibrahim's writings advance a discredited theory known as the “Clash of Civilizations” and argues that “Islam and the West” have been engaged in a centuries-long war. The lecture is based on Ibrahim's 2018 book “Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.” That book promotes the unsubstantiated thesis that Islam, since its beginning, has “terrorized the West.”
For the record, my lecture will revolve around my book, per the War College’s request—hence why CAIR regularly targets it. As such, here one must ask: if the book’s findings are so “unsubstantiated,” why does CAIR fear it so much? Does CAIR have such a low opinion of the intellectual capacity of the U.S. Army War College and its students, as to expect them to believe anything they are told, without adequate evidence?
Or could it be that CAIR is terrified at just how well-documented and substantiated the book’s thesis really is—so that, once made known, there is no rebutting it?
Rather tellingly, for example, in none of CAIR’s and its allies' long press releases and screeds—past and present—do they once highlight a certain passage or excerpt from Sword and Scimitar to support the accusation that it “is based on poor research.” The reason is simple: although long suppressed, the history presented in the book—and which will be presented in condensed form at the War College lecture—is ironclad, verifiable, and beyond well documented; with about a thousand end-notes, the 352-page book is heavily based on primary sources, many of which are Islamic, and from eyewitnesses.
And this history makes abundantly clear that—to reiterate my supposedly self-incriminating words—Islamic terrorism and extremism are intrinsic to Islam, and have been from its first contact with Western civilization in the seventh century. Think of the atrocities committed by the Islamic State but on an exponential scale—and for over a millennium—bombarding every corner of Europe, and even America, so that the latter’s very first war as a nation was with jihad-practicing Muslims.
Illinois Mayor Bans Firearms Using "Emergency" Powers: It Begins...
REID HENRICHS REPORTS
In this informative video, Reid Henrichs of Valor Ridge calls out Champaign, IL mayor. She is a tyrannical, idiotic, totalitarian, anti-Constitutional piece of filth libtard.
NRA NATIONAL ALERT:
CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS FIRST TO CITE "EMERGENCY POWERS"
outbreak continues to swirl, it is clear that anti-gun extremists and
elected officials will use fear of the unknown to advance their agenda to
undermine our firearms freedom. Not surprisingly, it didn’t take them
long to try and quietly pass and implement gun control schemes while
Americans are focused on ensuring the health, safety, and welfare of
themselves and their families.
Last week, an ordinance has passed in Champaign, IL, to empower the mayor to “[o]rder the discontinuance of selling, distributing, dispensing or giving away of … firearms or ammunition of any character whatsoever.” This action must be swiftly opposed and NRA members in the area have been alerted and are responding to the threat.
The ordinance in Champaign serves as a warning bell to law-abiding gun owners nationwide. We must be on high alert for any attempts to destroy the Second Amendment in jurisdictions throughout the country.
We don’t have to guess that when emotions are running high, some politicians will exploit the situation to overstep their bounds. We know this. We’ve seen it time and time again, including in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, more recently in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and even in a North Carolina city in the face of unusually harsh winter weather. This is hardly an exhaustive list of such abuses.
This is exactly why the NRA has supported legislation to prevent government officials from using their “emergency powers” as a pretext for disarming the citizenry.
In 2006, then-Congressman Bobby Jindal (R-LA) led the fight to protect America’s gun owners against these abuses by introducing H.R. 5013 in the House, a final version of which was signed by President George W. Bush in October of that year. Now codified at 42 U.S.C. § 5207, the law prohibits persons acting under color of federal law, receiving federal funds, or acting at the direction of a federal employee from seizing or authorizing the seizure of lawfully-possessed firearms during a state of emergency.
The majority of U.S. states now have similar laws to prevent state and local officials from using the exercise of their “emergency powers” as a pretext to infringe the right to keep and bear arms. And even in the absence of such laws, the Second Amendment still applies by its own force.
That’s why we are asking gun owners to be alert to any attempt to leverage the fear and uncertainty around the COVID-19 outbreak to assail Second Amendment rights. If you learn of any such attempt, please contact us immediately at nra.org, ILA-Contact@nrahq.org, or (800) 392-8683. If possible, please include a link or reference to the proposed bill or rule in question.
We will continue to monitor the situation in Champaign, as well as the rest of the nation and alert our members accordingly.
Now, more than ever, it is essential for Americans to work together to successfully resolve the current crisis that faces the country. Every person can play a part by keeping a cool head, staying informed with reliable sources of information, and following directives in your locality about hygiene and social distancing.
Rest assured that your NRA will do its part, too, by remaining vigilant against opportunistic actions against your rights and freedoms during this difficult time.
About:
While widely recognized today as a major political force and as America's foremost defender of Second Amendment rights, the NRA has, since its inception, been the premier firearms education organization in the world. Visit: www.nra.org
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
“Once a month, ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) pastors in the Southeastern Minnesota Synod gather to share educational resources and presentations related to faith….the Rev. Mark Johnson of First English Lutheran Church in Faribault invited the pastors in his synod to tour the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center mosque in Faribault. Johnson had visited the mosque before, with confirmation students, and connected with Islamic Center volunteer Bashir Omar to arrange the interfaith meeting Thursday morning. ‘I think that listening to and learning [Muslims’] values is one of the ways we get to know our neighbors,’Johnson said. ‘… We want to set an example by having this kind of gathering.'”
Also: There is some evidencethat Al Shabab is recruiting in mosques in Somali communities. According to court documents in the terrorism case against 14 Somali men in Minneapolis, some of the accused made phone calls to Somalia from a Minneapolis mosque “to discuss the need for Minnesota-based coconspirators to go to Somalia to fight the Ethiopians.”
Family members of the missing men have questioned whether theAbubakar As-Saddique mosquewas involved in recruiting Somali-American to fight alongside a radical Islamic group, Al-Shabaab, in east Africa…..allegations appear to be coming from individuals within the local Somali community. At least three of the missing men frequented Abubakar, but supporters of the mosque said the men also attended other local Islamic centers.
So did the Lutheran Church do its homework to find out who its “neighbors” were and what “values” they represented?
Given that the Evangelical Lutheran Church is also anti-Israel and considers Israel to be “occupiers,” and supports BDS and the Palestinian “resistance,” it should be no surprise that the ELCA has no interest in the truth about the jihad and the charade that the so-called “peace process” really is. Far too many Churches are of the same mind, while Christians are massacred by jihadists in Africa and the Middle East, and persecuted in the Palestinian territories.
On August 11, 2016,ECLA betrayedthe lofty goals expressed in that document by adopting resolutions calling on the U.S. government to end all aid to Israel, and embracing BDS (boycotts, divestment, sanctions) tactics. Claiming that Israel is an “occupying power” that does not recognize or adhere to international human rights standards, the decision was driven by the Lutheran Isaiah 58 group, with support from a coalition of anti-Israel organizations and activists, including Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
It is interesting to note that most of these pro-Palestinian Churches operate with charitable donations and claim to be apolitical, when in fact, they are highly political.
“Seeking common ground, Lutheran pastors visit Faribault Islamic Center,” by Misty Schwab, Faribault Southern Minnesota News, March 12, 2020:
Once a month, ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) pastors in the Southeastern Minnesota Synod gather to share educational resources and presentations related to faith.
This month, the Rev. Mark Johnson of First English Lutheran Church in Faribault invited the pastors in his synod to tour the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center mosque in Faribault. Johnson had visited the mosque before, with confirmation students, and connected with Islamic Center volunteer Bashir Omar to arrange the interfaith meeting Thursday morning.
“I think that listening to and learning [Muslims’] values is one of the ways we get to know our neighbors,” Johnson said. “… We want to set an example by having this kind of gathering.”
Two representatives of the Islamic Resource Group (IRG) — Executive Director John Emery and Chairman Rashed Ferdous — delivered a presentation to the pastors during their mosque visit. Based in St. Anthony, IRG largely provides these presentations to school teachers.
Emery, a graduate of Apple Valley High School, learned to speak Arabic as a translator in the U.S. Army. He converted to Islam as an adult and explained that IRG gives him a way to serve both the Muslim and Minnesota communities that have provided opportunities to him.
During Emery’s PowerPoint presentation, guests learned Muslim terminology and details about the religion’s teachings. For example, “As-salamu alaykum” means “Peace be with you” in Arabic. Emery explained that Muslims believe in a loving and merciful God who created all humans, and the word “Muslim” means “one who submits to God’s will.” Muslims believe Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God, said Emery, and believe Jesus was a prophet. Through the angel Gabriel, Muslims believe God’s last revelation to humanity was to the profit Muhammad
Muslims pray five times a day, and unless they are family members, men and women are not permitted to pray next to one another. They pray facing the northeast toward the Kabah, or center of the Great Mosque of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which they believe Abraham built. Many Muslims take pilgrimages to Mecca at least once in their lifetime, if they have the means to do so.
During Ramadan, a time of fasting and prayer, Muslims refrain from food and water from dawn until sunset. Ramadan begins April 24 this year, so Emery explained the period of fasting in Minnesota will start at about 4:20 a.m. and end around 8:30 p.m. this year.
Emery also explained two major holidays held in conjunction with Ramadan: Eid al-Fitr, which is the festival of breaking fast, and Eid al-Adha, the most important festival of sacrifice that involves fellowship, gift-giving and plenty of food…….
