Someone decided to follow Muhammad's orders yet again. "Pastor killed by gunman," from the Barnabas Fund, July 16 (thanks to Dumbledoresarmy):
A dynamic Christian pastor has died after being shot in the head as he was leaving church, in what is being seen as a bid to intimidate converts from Islam in the strongly Islamic republic of Dagestan.
Artur Suleimanov (49), himself a convert from Islam, was murdered by a gunman who approached and opened fire as the pastor got into a car outside Hosanna House of Prayer in the capital, Makhachkala, on Thursday 15 July. He died from his wounds in hospital around an hour later. Nobody else was injured in the attack. Pastor Suleimanov leaves behind a wife, Zina, and five children, the youngest of whom is twelve years old.
Mr Suleimanov's church is one of the largest Protestant churches in Dagestan. In a context where Christians face regular harassment and intimidation, his life had been threatened on several previous occasions.
Barnabas Aid has supported Christians in Dagestan, and our co-ordinator for the Former Soviet Union met Pastor Suleimanov a number of times. He said, "Pastor Suleimanov was a wonderful Christian brother and his shocking death is a devastating loss for the Dagestan church. He and the Hosanna House of Prayer church were very active in ministry and outreach in particular. We see his murder as an attempt to put further pressure on Christian converts in Dagestan."
The Russian Republic of Dagestan borders Chechnya in the turbulent North Caucasus. The population is 98 per cent Muslim, and the Church faces harassment and intimidation from various groups.
I fear for the safety of Anti-Jihadi Leaders. Leaders like Geert Wilders. They will be the targets of the Islamists.
There is only one Geert Wilders in this world on the horizon. Who will pick up the standard if he is fallen?
Christians that live in such hostile environments would be justified in carrying arms/weapons for self-defense.
I think Christians would not be sinning if they carried guns for self-defense in such hostile environments as in Islamic countries. And they would not be sinning if they end up killing their would-be murderers through acts of self-defense.
But it is another thing if such a right to self-defense would be protected by the very Islamic governments that tolerate, or even encourage and command, the murder of Christians and ex-Muslims.
Nonetheless, Christians and other non-Muslims have a right to defend themselves against any aggressor in any country, but particularly in Islamic countries. For that reason, they would be justified in possessing and carrying weapons for self-defense. If the Islamic governments won't protect them, they need to protect themselves from these Muslim savages.
We have to here this from the Barnabas Fund...to the MSM, this doesn't fit the narrative, so it doesn't qualify as news.
What would Muslims think if we Christians started assassinating Immans and burning Mosques. They are murdering priests who call for love thy neighbor and do on to others as you would have them do unto you. I am assuming then that Muslims are inviting Christians to live by their vows and treat Muslims as they treat us just as Muslims live by their vows to kill non-believers.
Non Muslim religions are UN-Islamic...
Living Stone - The 10 Commandments say "Thou shalt not MURDER and not thou shalt not KILL".
The Bible does not say you should allow yourself to be murdered so people who are being threatened with death in these countries would not be sinning to carry a weapon.
However saying that I have to point out he was ambushed and probably had no chance to defend himself even if he was armed.
Quran 5:8 Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among them in love to the believers wilt thou find those who say, "We are Christians": because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant.
It looks like the first part is holding up well, but the second part is ragged around the edges...
5:82
This story does not end with the pastor death. Will the church disband? With the husband gone how will his wife and childen survive and how? Will the family break up? Will the 5 children have enough support to resist the continued surrounding pressure to convert?
That's why the Barnabas Fund exists: to provide moral and physical support as needed, and *also* to lobby western governments to raise awareness of how Muslims treat non-Muslims in Muslim lands. Barnabas just ran a petition on the Apostasy Law in Islam, which will be presented to assorted parliaments around the Western world; basically as an educational measure, to get through our politicians' heads what kind of thing Islam is, that is, an organisation which kills those who leave or try to leave it.
"Thou shalt not MURDER" means don't commit homicide in the original, not kill as in kill a chicken. Self defence is not a sin. However, how are you going to defend agaist 98% odds. These Christians are the real Martyrs.
Jesus prophesied the coming of Mohammed.
"Self defense is not a sin. However, how are you going to defend against 98% odds. These Christians are the real Martyrs."
I know. I realize that. I guess it's a judgment call. Christians in hostile environments as in Islamic countries need to determine the chance of success of defending themselves. If the chance of success is low, then it may simply prove to be futile to defend themselves at all.
But if the chance of success of defending themselves is good, then they are justified to go for it if they want to, but they don't have to. Spilling their blood through martyrdom may in fact prove to be much more fruitful in converting Muslims to become Christians.
"What would Muslims think if we Christians started assassinating Imams and burning Mosques?"
What you are talking about are acts of aggression, not self-defense. Acts of aggression are sinful. Legitimate self-defense is not sinful.
"We see his murder as an attempt to put further pressure on Christian converts in Dagestan."
Christianization is inevitable. There is a mass exodus from Islam and no one can stop it.
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2010/05/dying-islam-lislam-mourant.html
Another Russian priest who was assassinated by Muslims last year - the Russian Orthodox Fr Daniel Sysoyev - was also an apostate from Islam, and one who had a successful ministry persuading *others* to apostasise likewise (his specialty - brave man! - was evangelising Chechens resident in and around Moscow, and I understand he'd baptised quite a few of them).
Pastor Suleimanova and Fr Daniel Sysoyev, the former assassinated by Muslim hit-men in Dagestan, the latter assassinated by Muslim hit-men in *Moscow*, had this in common: one Protestant, one Orthodox, they were both apostates from Islam and they both went on to further defy sharia by actively inviting other Muslims to do as they had done...and from all accounts, both of them were having some success in exorcising Islam and creating free human beings.
If Putin and Medvedev had any sense at all they would provide a squad of no-nonsense bodyguards (or else, bodyguard training for the most promisingly-muscular members of the congregation!) for all such persons - whether Christians like Orthodox Fr Sysoyev or Protestant Pastor Suleimanova, and let it be known that any Muslims found killing or threatening to kill or plotting to kill apostates from Islam, and threatening or actually killing those who encourage Muslims to leave Islam, will be punished most severely.
If they had any sense, they'd *state-sponsor* the dubbing into Russian (and other suitable languages, such as Tatar, Chechen, Uzbek, Tajik, Azeri, Kazakh, Kyrgyz) of all Fr Botros' hardest-hitting programs, and beam them into the most heavily Islamified portions of the Federation - and across the border into the '-stans' - 24/ 7.
The more of those Muslims resident within the Russian Federation who can be deprogrammed, brought to leave Islam, and taught a more life-affirming belief system, the better for the Federation.
I have never understood why Muslims feel it is ok to kill apostates. Where in The Quran is this ordered or permitted? I know they will probably use some hadith as evidence, but the hadith cannot be trusted as a source of law because isn't that the words and actions of the Prophet Muhammed and not God as theologically asserted in The Quran.
I seriously believe that is Muslims stopped following the hadith that much of the violence in Islam would decline.