Iran arrests ten more Christians from "house church"

Once again, their attempt at showing who's boss is ultimately a display of weakness. There have been other recent actions against house churches, and if this is the "national security threat" they need to distract themselves with while committing economic suicide over their nuclear program, that speaks volumes. Of course, the "security" angle is ultimately a pretense for enforcing Sharia's own denial of freedom of conscience; apostasy from Islam is a "security" crime against Sharia.

In either case, the mighty Islamic Republic shows itself to be insecure and unstable in its reaction to ten people praying in a private home. "Ten Iranian Christians arrested at a prayer meeting," from Asia News, February 10:

Tehran (AsiaNews/Agencies) – More Christians are arrested in Iran. On Wednesday, plainclothes agents raided a house and arrested 10 people who had gathered for prayer service. All 10 detainees were transferred to an unknown location. The authorities refused to give the families any information in this regard.
Although precise details are still not available, Mohabat News reported that a man called Mojtaba Hosseini, 23, was among the people arrested. He had been arrested on 11 May 2008 with eight other people on charges of converting to Christianity. Security officials had asked him to renounce his faith and collaborate with the Intelligence office.

Mohabat News notes that the latest incident is part of a crackdown against Iran’s tiny Christian community. Converts are especially targeted.

The authorities have also forcibly closed churches where services are held in Persian (Farsi), Iran’s national language. In other churches, the Intelligence Ministry imposed the requirement of keeping out Farsi-speaking people
For this reason, Christian converts are forced to meet in small numbers in private homes. For the authorities, they are tools and spies for the West.

As we have jokingly suggested for other such cases, someone should also leak the information to the Iranians that a man of Jewish background has entered the country and has a habit of joining in "wherever two or three are gathered" in such settings. The headlines, again, would be priceless: "Ayatollahs desperate to find Jesus."

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Cole | February 11, 2012 10:26 AM | Reply

Taken to its full extent - Islamic teaching or instruction is antithetical to human nature and respect for others.

Its a failed idea - the idea is that a Muslim must be at war or keep a war 'frame of mind' against others.

Others - in Islam simply being those who 'do the things which are forbidden'.

[Everything else is an excuse, colonization, oppression, George Bush.]

So that if a person leaves it - it is like leaving a military encampment.

Of course in Islam's case, it is to join with or to act like - the others.

The severity of the belief system - means that leaving it becomes - treasonous.

Where each Muslim is meant to be on the front line.
[Where you are supposed to fight against the others as well as show them your exemplary example...]

But there is one problem with perpetual wars - human nature.

Islam is also in a war against people's better nature.

If someone is good to you - it is a pretty powerful thing - you want to be good back. And wonder why you have to think unkind thoughts about this person.

What the so-called 'true' moderates have done, is to remake Islam in their own image. They put aside the bunker mentality - and choose the things out of Islam they like.

But it is not Islam -

So that some people want to be free of it all together. And instead, pin the framework of how want to live by, under this new religion. In Christianity - you can 'love' - and have respect for other people. In Islam these ideas would be spooky. To love 'the others' - is simply crazy talk in Islam.

The spread Christian ideas is a threat to Islamic governments - like spring is to winter.

Thomas Pellow | February 11, 2012 12:48 PM | Reply

On Iran, the right lesson is Hitler, not Mao"

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/882/on_iran_the_right_lesson_is_hitler_not_mao

Kepha replied to comment from Thomas Pellow | February 11, 2012 2:34 PM | Reply

Having Mitteleuropisch and Chinese family connections, I think it isn't "Hitler or Mao", or "Hitler, not Mao" ,misses a point. Both men were very similar, and both have great and horrible lessons to teach Iran.

If Mao led China to look inward, things might have been a lot different and a lot more dangerous had Mao enjoyed victory in Korea and the Taiwan Straits Crises of 1949-59; or had Viet Nam been a slightly more easy win for the Communists. In the same vein, resolute Western responses to Hitler's demands of Czechoslsovakia might have caught an unready Wehrmacht, and might have forced Hitler towards a more prudent course. Military success, after all, can be a very intoxicating thing for a rising power.

Similarly, I'm not so sure that Ahamdinejad and Khatami are so crazy that they think they can get away with a major assault on Israel or some Gulf State while there's an American nuclear umbrella in place. If some US leader explicitly warned Iran that it could see a number of strategic Iranian military and population centers annihilated in nuclear smoke should it (or its proxies Hizbullah and Hamas, to up the ante) go too far out of line, even Mr. Mad-Monkey would probably reckon that not even the 12th Imam would come out of his well to save him.

dumbledoresarmy replied to comment from Kepha | February 11, 2012 11:13 PM | Reply

Kepha

Islam wasn't even a blip on psychologist M Scott Peck's radar when he wrote his book on human evil, 'People of the Lie'.

(Interestingly, starting out as a secular psychologist, Peck's discovery that real spiritual evil - as opposed to simple illness, which also exists - pushed him back toward Christianity).

And he states - going by bitter experience with certain of the cases he encountered in his practice as a psychologist - this:

"I would still envision it was my initial task to rescue “Bobby” from his [evil] parents {example given earlier in the chapter} and I would still resort, as I did then, to the use of temporal power.

"I have learned nothing in twenty years {since that case} that would suggest that evil people can be rapidly influenced by any means other than raw power.

"They do not respond, at least in the short run, to either gentle kindness or any form of spiritual persuasion with which I am familiar."

It should be noted that when M Scott Peck says 'evil people', he *means* EVIL people.

And his description of the way such people operate - his attempt to delineate what they are like, based on certain bruising (and frightening) experiences as well as on some hard thinking and reading in an attempt to make sense of those experiences - meshes eerily with the things that, in this site, we have learned about Islam: how it works, and how it encourages people to behave.

dumbledoresarmy replied to comment from dumbledoresarmy | February 11, 2012 11:16 PM | Reply

A small correction to the above.

"(Interestingly, starting out as a secular psychologist, Peck's discovery that real spiritual evil - as opposed to simple illness, which also exists - pushed him back toward Christianity)" should read

"(Interestingly, starting out as a secular psychologist, Peck's discovery that there is real spiritual evil - as opposed to simple illness, which also exists - pushed him back toward Christianity)."

gravenimage | February 13, 2012 8:18 PM | Reply

Mohabat News notes that the latest incident is part of a crackdown against Iran’s tiny Christian community. Converts are especially targeted.
...........................

Increasingly, the above disturbing paragraph could be written about more and more stretches of Dar-al-Islam.

Christians—*especially* Muslim apostates—are undergoing more and more oppression and worse in the Muslim world.

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