Father Zakaria Botros has just been named World Magazine's 2008 "Daniel of the Year," something of a Christian equivalent to Time Magazine's "Man of the Year." I first wrote about the elusive Fr Zakaria here. The unedited World Magazine article is long but well worth the read, as it has many details -- such as the fact that each of Botros' weekly episodes are watched by nearly 60 million Arabic-speakers, the vast majority of which are Muslim.
"2008 Daniel of the Year Award," by Mindy Belz for World Magazine, December 13:
Botros has been hosting Truth Talk since 2003. The weekly show grew out of an internet chat room attended by thousands where the Coptic priest engaged Muslims on the inherent contradictions of their own religion and found that he was leading many to faith in Jesus Christ. As the geographic scope of the show has grown, so has its reach into the lives of Muslims. It is broadcast in Arabic, and this year began also to be translated for Turkish audiences and into Farsi to be aired in Iran.Father Zakaria, as he is known to millions, has won his enormous following not by borrowing from the toolbox of the televangelist. For someone whose ecclesiastical tradition began in a.d. 100, his tools are decidedly 21st century: satellite uplinks, Wi-Fi connectivity, a late-edition Vaio laptop that is with him at all times, and a trusted reference tool he refers to as "St. Google." He can spend 14-hour days on research for each show, and for this episode emailed the final script to producers at 4:30 a.m.
The result is less a preaching ministry and more like battlefield strategy. It's the late-in-life culmination of a conscious decision, Botros says, to move away from apologetics and toward what he calls polemics: "My program is to attack Islam, not to attack Muslims but to save them because they are deceived. As I love Muslims, I hate Islam."
Such conviction earns Botros a heady following—and serious enemies. Jihadist groups have reportedly posted a death threat worth $60 million against him. This year his name and photo appeared on an al-Qaeda website, seeking retribution for his teachings, which often depict Muhammad as less of a prophet and more of a womanizer. For his fearless determination in the face of his enemies, for his willingness to label Islam a false religion in a year when many Christian leaders have overreached in their quest for common ground with its worshippers, Zakaria Botros is WORLD's 2008 Daniel of the Year.[...]
One recent episode of Truth Talk, aired Nov. 21, cut to 20 separate clips, most of Cairo's respected Al-Azhar University Sheikh Khaled El-Gendy, to debate the age of Aisha when she became Muhammad's second wife...
In one clip El-Gendy argues that "the Quran is enough" and the hadiths on Aisha aren't needed. Another scholar cites a recent magazine article claiming she was a teenage wife. As Islamic authorities shout at one another onscreen, Botros calmly asks, "Are these holy books or not?" "If you are explaining her age based on a magazine article, what's your reference?"
On the set Botros alternates between a jovial Captain Kangaroo persona and a finger-pointing, cloaked authority figure who sets his face toward the camera and declares, "Everyone should question all these discrepancies." But Botros says he's not looking to leave Muslim viewers with only questions: He begins and ends each episode with prayer, he sometimes reads from the Bible, and he almost always brings on a guest who is introduced as a Muslim convert to Christianity.
In another recent episode titled "Was Muhammad a messenger from God or Satan?" Botros recites the characteristics of a false prophet by Sunni scholar Ibn Taymiyya, then lays down his book, looks into the screen, and says each of the characteristics cited by Taymiyya apply to Muhammad. He quotes Matthew 7 and asks viewers, "Does this sound like a real prophet to you? Remember: 'Ye shall know them by their fruits.'"
Botros told me in our first interview, "When I started to preach this way many or most Christians refused the style. They were afraid. For 14 centuries we [as Middle East Christians] are under the threat of the sword of Islam. So they were afraid and told me, 'They will kill us! They will destroy our houses!' But after I preached the gospel and spoke in this manner for years now, many of them now say, 'We are no longer ashamed of our religion when Muslims attack us.'"[...]
At the same time, emphasis on Muslim-Christian interfaith dialogue has grown. Last month King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia hosted a UN interfaith dialogue in New York, which was preceded by similar meetings in Madrid and at Yale, as well as a dialogue that included discussion of theological distinctives at the Vatican.
Botros believes such rapprochement can succeed only for a short time. But he says his methods won't work unless the motive is "nothing else but love." Despite his confrontational style, he says: "I am not against Muslims although I am against Islam as a false religion. I don't want to disgrace Muslims but to expose Islam. My ultimate intention is to glorify God and to save people, especially Muslims. Muslims are victims. Muhammad deceived them as he himself was deceived by Satan. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the best prophet, that the Quran is the only proper book from God, and Islam is the only religion from God. Muslims are in bad need to be saved from these false beliefs."
Botros is fairly sure he'd be dead by now if it weren't for the virtual universe in which he operates. Were he to make these kinds of statements on a street in almost any Islamic-dominated country, he would be hauled into court on charges of insulting Islam, where a guilty verdict could lead to his being killed. His broadcasts are aired from an undisclosed studio and he is strict about keeping his whereabouts out of public light. More positively, he discovered as he neared his 70s that with some tech-savvy, he could reach Muslims with Christian teaching in a way not possible in nearly 50 previous years as an active priest.[...]
Is your heart always in the Middle East?" I ask. "Yes," Botros replies, "in the Muslim world always." Botros grew up in a Christian family in Alexandria. Muslim attackers killed his older brother when he was a young teenager. "Instead of anger against Muslims, the Lord saved me from that. I had pity on them." In his last year of high school he had a Muslim teacher who regularly challenged him for worshipping "a dead God." Botros said he realized, "If I answered him from the Bible it would be no good. I had to read the Muslim books and the Quran itself." Throughout his university years, he said, he read all the teachings of Muhammad as a way to answer Muslim questions about Christianity.
"This is a problem for every Christian in Egypt: He faces a fight for his faith in the schools. So I started to write what I had learned about Islam and how to answer questions about Christianity. I wrote them in books and started to publish them, small books. These were apologetics, defending our faith," he said...
Twice authorities jailed him for preaching the gospel to Muslims, once in 1981 for one year, and again in 1989. A judge sentenced him to life in prison but ordered him released on the condition of forced exile: He had to leave Egypt and never return. By that time he had ministered in Cairo for over 30 years but moved to England with his wife, where he ministered in a Coptic church for 11 years before he said he "retired" to begin the television and internet ministry.
"What do you fear?" I ask.
"Fear? I fear nothing," says Botros. "My dictionary does not contain the word fear. I believe in God and I believe that the epistle of Ephesians says we are created in Jesus Christ for a plan, which was engaged from the early beginning. No one can cut it, and when it is completed no one can continue it."
Father Boutros is my hero. I would wear that $60 million bounty as a badge of honor, as I'm sure he does.
David: “I am all peace, but when I speak, they are for war,” (Psalms 120:7).
Yeah, he deserves the David Award, as well as the anti-dhimmi award.
From the samples I've seen of this guy, I'd say that he tells it like it is. I particularly liked the one where he referenced 9:29 and said that he didn't want to be subjugated as an Infidel.
He's the sort of smart, down-to-earth no-nonsense person needed to turn things around - or upside down.
Free speech will kill Islam.
Fr Botros puts to shame all those "christians" all over the globe whoo are bending backwards to find "common ground" with the muslims. Can you imagine Moses the prophet finding "common ground" with the Canaanites? Can you imagine Peter, Paul, John and James finding "comon ground" with the pagan romans?
There can't be no comon ground between Truth and falsehood.
Fr Botros is on the right travk, by the Grace of God. Souls are being saved from the torment of hell, and for that, heaven rejoices!
I wish more christians were like Fr Botros, either in real life, or even by internet as he does.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the Biblical Daniel, he was a prophet in Babylonia who was thrown into a lion's den by King Cyrus for refusing to worship the Babylonian gods.
He was so steadfast, kind and brave, that, far from being devoured by the lions, he befriended them. King Cyrus was so impressed that he had Daniel released, and issued a decree enjoining reverence for "the God of Daniel". He helped free the Jewish people from slavery in Babylonia.
This was Daniel's reply to King Cyrus:
""My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt."
The image of "Daniel in the Lion's Den" seems very apt for Father Botros.
Here is one of my favorite paintings of Daniel in the Lion's Den, by British artist Briton Rivere (1840-1920):
http://www.christcenteredmall.com/stores/art/rivere/daniel-in-the-lions-den.jpg
Y'all can't see me, but it you could you'd be shocked to see me jumping around like a madman, yelling with glee! Fr. Botros is the Robert Spencer of Europe!! What a relief to read about this energetic, fearless man who loves God, loves Muslims and hates Islam! Let's have more of his activities in JW - as long as it doesn't harm him. I'm going to forward the article to many!
And that reminds me, are we "infidels" using our influence to convert any Muslims?
GRAVENIMAGE, the pic of Daniel shows his fearlessness. Another painting which I can't identify as clearly as you did, shows Daniel looking up into the heavens (praying, I bet) with his back towards the lions. Turning your back on the enemy may not always be a good idea, but I think Daniel refused to be frightened by the beasts, refused to look at them or see them as life threatening. He knew, as Fr. Botros does, that "God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." (2 Tim 1:7) The power is in refusing to be afraid!!!
Wow, powerful stuff. Thank you.
Raymond, thanks for continuing to tell us about this guy. It's very encouraging.
Muslims are the first and worst victims of Islam.
Threatened with murder if they want out of the cult.
Islam is lame.
Great post this is encouraging. FR Boutros is a modern "Athleta Christi"
All of us - even those who are not Christians - can support Fr Zakaria's ministry financially.
Those who are Christian have something else they can do as well: we can pray, pray, pray, and we can tell our parish priests, parsons, ministers, etc., about Fr Zakaria's work.
The moment Mr Ibrahim and Mr Spencer brought him to our attention here at jihadwatch, I wrote his name into my prayerbook. He's right at the top of my 'intercessions' list.
Something I'd like to see: Fr Zakaria in conversation with Mr Robert Spencer.
Because I get the strong sense that Spencer, too, is motivated by love: he loves non-Muslim civilisation and people, but he also loves those wretched human beings who are trapped inside the black cloud of Islam, and would like nothing better than to see them set free.
"The result is less a preaching ministry and more like battlefield strategy."
From the article.
Pope Benedict XVI should take a look at this guy's methods and strategies. Given the Catholic Church's enormous resources, surely it could mount a similarly inspired 21st Century response to Islam.
I would be very interested to see Father Botros allowed to speak in front of an assembly of Political leaders from all over the Western World and their Church equivalents.
I would be more than interested to see just how they would answer him.
I would be more than very interested to see this debate broadcast live all over the Western World(and Islamic World come to think of it) so that everyone and I mean everyone would have to watch it without fail.
Now wouldn't that be a sight for sour eyes? It would be wonderful to see our politicians and Church leaders be made to look the morons they are as Botros tells it to them straight with them having nothing to say in return as their really is no counter-argument to what he preaches.
Maybe we should all think about a petition to demand that Botros speaks(along with Robert Spencer et al) to the masters, hell bent on our Islamisation!
Very Lincolnesque. One can hate the sin without necessarily hating the sinner. Good man. Brave man.
""Fear? I fear nothing," says Botros. "My dictionary does not contain the word fear. I believe in God and I believe that the epistle of Ephesians says we are created in Jesus Christ for a plan, which was engaged from the early beginning. No one can cut it, and when it is completed no one can continue it."
print this on business cards and just start leaving them around...
And why is this man not up for Time's Person of the Year? When's that Barbara Walter's interview?
Angry American wrote:
GRAVENIMAGE, the pic of Daniel shows his fearlessness. Another painting which I can't identify as clearly as you did, shows Daniel looking up into the heavens (praying, I bet) with his back towards the lions. Turning your back on the enemy may not always be a good idea, but I think Daniel refused to be frightened by the beasts, refused to look at them or see them as life threatening.
................
Angry American, you may be thinking of this marvelous print by J.B. Pratt:
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/BRGPOD/57681~Daniel-in-the-Lions-Den-Mezzotint-by-J-B-Pratt-with-Hand-Colouring-Posters.jpg
This is probably the most famous painting of Daniel in the Lion's Den, by Peter Paul Rubens--however, it focuses a bit more on the threat to Daniel than on his grace or bravery:
http://www.znanje.org/i/i21/01iv07/01iv0703/daniel-lions-den_B.jpg
The more I learn about this man, the more respect and admiration I have for him!
I have so much respect and admiration for this guy. I will pray to God for his protection and success.
I love all 3 of the "Daniel in the Lion's Den" paintings posted (links).
Very inspiring.
The Pope needs to invite Father Zakaria Botros to Rome and have his people learn his methods to bring about a real change at bringing down islam. Father Zakaria Botros is a living saint and needs to be around for a very long time.
If there's one thing Islam cannot tolerate it is an open debate of its theology and its founder, Mohammad. Its very survival depends on killing anyone that critizes it or tries to leave it.
That's why people like Fr Zakaria Botros are so badly needed to shed the light of truth on the dark and twisted world of Islam.
Most Muslims are never exposed to anything that might amount to truth about what they are taught from birth onward. Their minds are closed and nailed shut and kept that way by the Islamic societies they are raised in.
We need more people like Fr Zakaria Botros to bring light into the darkness that Muslim peoples live in.
Fr Zakaria Botros deserves all our prayers.
Father Zakaria Botros has just been named World Magazine's 2008 "Daniel of the Year," something of a Christian equivalent to Time Magazine's "Man of the Year.
And my vote for anti-dimmi 2008
Send him money. He is one of the greatest threats to Islam.
From the article, about Fr Zakaria's program:
"It is broadcast in Arabic, and this year began also to be translated for Turkish audiences and into Farsi to be aired in Iran."
Turkish. Farsi. Excellent. Pray that this seed-sowing will bear fruit 100-fold.
If the wider Infidel world had any sense at all, both governments and churches - and by the churches I mean the Orthodox and the Catholics as well as the Protestants - would be hard at work getting that program accurately translated and dubbed, ASAP, into other major languages of the Islamosphere, as well: for example, 1. Urdu 2. Muslim Bengali 3. Bahasa Indonesian/ Malay 4. Swahili 5. at least one Berber language 6. Chechen 7. Albanian 8. Hausa 9. Fulani...I can think of others, but those strike me as 'strategic'.
(I hope Fr Zakaria is training up lots of people to carry on the work - he's not getting any younger).
All right; completely OT. Maybe it's 'cause it's late on a Saturday night, and I just didn't want to stay down where reading DW/JW take me, and I just had to turn away and Google "laughing at Islam" for relief.
So, not to hijack the thread, but have a chuckle along with me:
It was announced today that the local climate in the UK should no longer be referred to as English Weather.
There's plenty more to bring one up a bit here.
When reading about Daniel in the lion's den, don't forget the story about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego...and Christ with them in the fiery blastoven.
What a remarkable story. It's inspiring and gives me hope. This guy needs to speak to the scores of Christian ministers and priests who serve to apologize for Islam and criticize us who take on Islam.
This guy deserves a lot of support for his work. I'm sure the web is the only way this can be done, otherwise he would be dead by now. The world wide web is one of the West's greatest threats to Islam. The only thing the Muslims use it for is either jihad activity or porn. I can't see them gaining any converts that way.
Wanna bet that Botros will NEVER get the Nobel Peace price?
Anti-dhimmi of the century! History will look back at this man and treasure him. The Socrates of our age.
There is still good in the world. We are still loved by God.
Why don't the bozos on 60 minutes interview him?
May his bright light spread to all parts of the bleak world known as Islam and awaken the sleeping numbskulls of the Western world.
What a courage this Father has.
Leaders of the West can learn from him.
Coming directly to the point, not the political correct talking, what is getting us nowhere.
In Europe, were they have in their governments
Christian groups, who always paccify the Islam Religion, should listen to Father Botros.
May be that way they can safe Europe from Islam.
The church of England realy needs to listen to Father Botros.
Islam is the enemy. The followers of islam will come and go, but islam remains. It must be the focus of the battle, it must be exposed. Islam itself must be look at with cause for each action taken by it's mislead followers.
This Father Botros understands that Mo did receive the revelation from "allah", and that Mo was mislead by satan. It was not made up, it was forced down his unwilling throat, until he bowed, until he was taken over. The followers of islam have been mislead by the lies of satan, to become his army.
A army that he will have need of. Beware followers of islam, your time is short. Use what is left to find another way, another path.
"As I love Muslims, I hate Islam."
- Father Zakaria Botros
Concise, and a model for us all.
LUTHER WAS RIGHT ON TARGET ABOUT ISLAM:
Martin Luther, having spent the majority of his life lecturing on the Old Testament, derived his understanding of the origin and nature of Islam from Daniel 7 and Daniel's dream concerning the four beasts. In Daniel's vision, each beast represented a kingdom with the last beast signifying the Roman Empire.
In fulfillment of Daniel 7:20, Luther identified the origin of Islam with the small horn which had displaced the kingdoms of Egypt, Greece, and Asia and who makes war against God's people. The nature of the Islamic faith can be understood by the human eyes of the beast which represented Islam's sacred book, the Qur'an, containing only human wisdom. The mouth signified the many blasphemies that the prophet Muhammad uttered against the Christian faith.
In a letter to Nicholas Hausmann, Luther made the further identification of Gog with the Muslim and Magog with the pope, the former being the external or worldly enemy of God's people and the latter being the spiritual or ecclesiastical enemy of Christ and His Church. These two enemies of God, and of His people, possessed the same origin in time with the establishment of papal primacy to Boniface III in 606 A.D. by Phokes and with the appearance of the Muslims in 621-632 A.D.
God even loves Ipso Facto.
'Wanna bet that Botros will NEVER get the Nobel Peace price?'
.............or to address the UN.
This priest is great! I searched him on youtube. I watched the video: "Zakaria Botros Ten Demands". Here, for your reading pleasure is a partial transcript -
Zakaria Botros’ Ten Demands
1. Strike out all the Koranic Verses that deny the divinity of Jesus and the revelation of God in him.
2. Acknowledge that Jesus is the spirit and word of God as they truly believe without hiding this fact.
3. Strike out the Koranic verses and Hadiths that incite to kill Christians.
4. Strike out the Koranic verses and Hadiths that incite to terrorism and oppression in all their forms.
5. Demand number five was not discussed in this video.
6. Stop the attack on Jesus and the Holy Book in mosques and in all the media.
7. Give people and Muslims the freedom to choose their religion and the freedom to express their belief.
8. Abolish the punishment for apostasy, stop torturing people who convert to Christianity, and stop imprisoning or even killing them.
9. Formal apologies must be made by leaders throughout the Arab world for the murder of Christians in countries invaded by Islam.
10. Leaders throughout the Arab world should make formal apologies for the insults directed against our faith throughout Islamic history.
He goes on,
The viewers may say, “Is this priest crazy, or what? {Chuckle} These demands could only be made by an insane man…To strike out Koranic verses…Does this make any senses? What is he going on about? OK, if you cannot change (the Koran), why are you asking us to change our beliefs? Why do you demand that we say what you say, or else – the sword?
(Al-Halabi) says: “If the Prophet wanted an available woman… in other words, an unmarried woman, a widow, or a single woman -…he was allowed to enter her…I don’t like to use the word I-n-t-e-r-c-o-u-r-s-e, without her guardian and without witnesses. Without witnesses. …and against her will. Against her will. If he desired a married woman, her husband had to divorce her for him. And if he desired a servant-girl, her master had to give her to him. He can even marry off the woman to whoever he wants, against her will. “
*typepad alert - 5th try*
"9. Formal apologies must be made by leaders throughout the Arab world for the murder of Christians in countries invaded by Islam."
They should go further and demand that they get their "40 acres and a camel".
STRIKE OUT OR ADD NEW VERSES
Richard: "... To strike out Koranic verses ...Does this make any senses?"
It does! But maybe a more feasible way is to add new and more peaceful verses:
"Let no one of you say that he has acquired the entire Koran, for how does he know that it is all? Much of the Koran has been lost; thus let him say, 'I have acquired of it what is available'."
- Ibn Umar al-Khattab, 7th-century companion of Mohammad and 2nd Muslim Caliph.
As an agnostic I don´t know if God loves me, but the possibility cannot be ruled out. ;-)
Richard: "... To strike out Koranic verses ...Does this make any senses?"
Nope. I'm just typing Zakaria's words for you all to read. I love his passion but realistically I would have to tell him:
1. give it up
2. ditto
3. yep
4. yep
5. uh
6. rhetoric
7. yep
8. totally must happen, simply human rights
9. ain’t going to happen
10. ain’t going to happen
Please DONATE:
http://www.fatherzakaria.net/
I am not Jewish, but if the Ten Demands of dear old Botros do not include erasing the Quran'ic attacks on the Jews, then he left out something. We Christians owe much to the Jews - where would we be without the wonderful foundation of the Old Testament? Even Jesus loved the Scriptures. He just went a step further!
(Thanks gravenimage for the Rubens painting. The other one left me chilled (maybe it was the nudity haha) although I know the artist meant well.)
GRAVENIMAGE- sorry, it was the Pratt painting that I love. Rubens didn't appeal to me.
There are many instances that Koran deceived Muslims because the ulema and the muslim scholars are deceived themselves.
have you heard of these:
1. that muhammad raped a 12-year old girl to be his wife?
2. that muhammad "received" the divine revelations of koran from a catholic priest inside various caves?
3. that kadidja, muhammad's first wife was a Catholic?
4. that muhammad, the "prophet of peace" was a serial killer?
and many more...
that's why the results of his schizophrenic tendencies were what we see in the fruits of islam of today..Christian persecution everywhere.. he commanded every muslim to believe him "en toto" and to kill unbelievers in allah's name.. and every stupid ulema is wary of these "divine" command..and we must be very aware that the ultimate goal of islam is to subjugate the world by converting everybody to become muslims and believe the atrocious and distorted commands that are "divinely written" in the koran..please dig into your geographical and contemporary news references to have a wider picture of things happening..from southeast asia to thailand to south asia to the middle east to africa to europe and to the americas. don't you see the pattern?
questions:
1. if the suicide bombers go to heaven as martyrs of allah, why do the ulema such as that Jemaat Islamiya cleric in Indonesia first become one? he must wear his suicide vest and belt all the time in case allah commands him to blow himself up in allahs name..they must show this ultimate example to their deceived followers that every martyr must die in the name of allah..but they are hypocrites..like politicians, they pose as if they hold the world in their hands but actually use their followers' ignorance and idiocy for their own grand designs..to hell with these muftis and ulema and who are pretenders to God's Word - who only see the world through their own horse blinds!!
2. the koran says that martyrs go to heaven when they die and be with seven virgins forever..holy smoke! they make heaven like The Strip in LV with the whores and good food and good living (or dying or dead?)..what a convoluted divine revelation..
3. why did muhamad marry more than a dozen women and only allowed his followers to marry up to 4? he's a hypocrite who reserves the best slice of the pie for himself while his followers salivate and titillate in frustration..yum yum..
4. islamic tracts distributed throughout the middle east show the lineage of the Lord Jesus and muhammad being compared to show that they both are at the same divine level as descendants of Abraham..since when did muhammad approached the level of God? My foot!
muhammad could be the REAL APOSTATE!!! (is ahmadinejad with his nukes not far behind? just kidding..)
so we must spread the love of the Lord Jesus Christ to all muslims we know..it's the only way to free them from the bondage of lies and deception. like what Fr. zakaria is doing right now. remember, THE TRUTH WILL SET HUMANKIND FREE..AND THE TRUTH IS JESUS CHRIST (John 14:6), OUR LORD OF LORDS AND OUR KING OF KINGS! HALLELUYAH!
cheers for the Christmas season..
aj