Remember: Christians in the West are not to speak of such things. To do so would harm the “dialogue”: “Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims.” — Robert McManus, Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, February 8, 2013.
“Jihadists seize Iraq monastery,” AFP, July 20, 2014:
Mosul (Iraq) (AFP) – Jihadist militants have taken over a monastery in northern Iraq, one of the country’s best-known Christian landmarks, and expelled its resident monks, a cleric and residents said Monday.
Islamic State (IS) fighters stormed Mar (Saint) Behnam, a 4th century monastery run by the Syriac Catholic church near the predominantly Christian town of Qaraqosh, on Sunday, the sources said.
“You have no place here anymore, you have to leave immediately,” a member of the Syriac clergy quoted the Sunni militants as telling the monastery’s residents.
He said the monks pleaded to be allowed to save some of the monastery’s relics but the fighters refused and ordered them to leave on foot with nothing but their clothes.
Christian residents from the area told AFP the monks walked several miles along a deserted road and were eventually picked up by Kurdish peshmerga fighters who drove them to Qaraqosh.
The Syriac cleric said five monks were expelled from Mar Behnam. Christian families in the area said there may have been up to nine people living at the monastery.
The incident was the latest move by the Islamic State, which last month declared a “caliphate” straddling large swathes of northern Iraq and Syria, to threaten a Christian presence in the region spanning close to two millennia.
Over the weekend, hundreds of families fled Mosul, a once-cosmopolitan city which is the country’s second largest and lies around 15 kilometres (10 miles) northwest of Mar Behnam.
They abandoned homes and belongings after IS fighters running the city issued an ultimatum for Christians to convert, pay a special tax, leave or face the sword.
Families who were forced on the road and leaders of Iraq’s Chaldean and other churches said Mosul was now emptied of Christians for the first time in history.
Jihadist fighters want to create a state based on an extreme interpretation of sharia — or Islamic law — and have targeted all minorities in the Mosul area.
Other groups such as Shiite Turkmen, Shabak and Yazidis have suffered even more than the Christians, who have largely escaped summary executions since IS swept the region in early June.
Mar Behnam is a major Christian landmark in Iraq and a site where the local community and pilgrims traditionally pray for healings and fertility.
It was built by Assyrian king Sennacherib II as a penance for having his children Behnam and Sarah killed because they had converted to Christianity.
Jovial Joe says
I am conflicted about this. On the one hand, of course our thoughts are with the Christian minorities who are being forced to flee and who certainly deserve our help. On the other hand, do we want to see IS do it’s worst and reveal itself for what it is – the truest expression of Islam?
Jovial Joe says
I agree. It is not the time for boots on the ground when the actions of IS are and will continue to be a propaganda boon for the counter-jihad.
gravenimage says
Jovial Joe wrote:
I am conflicted about this. On the one hand, of course our thoughts are with the Christian minorities who are being forced to flee and who certainly deserve our help. On the other hand, do we want to see IS do it’s worst and reveal itself for what it is – the truest expression of Islam?
…………………………………
Um—what? Islam has *already* revealed itself for the sanguinary horror that it is. I don’t want to see *more* victims for some sort of object lesson.
I’m sure it is not your intent, Joe, but his would be like cheerleading the Holocaust so that the world could see how bad Hitler was.
John C. Barile says
How many times shall this be repeated, before the world cries, “Never again?”
mariam rove says
mean while jihadists are running around murdering innocent Christians, Putin is running amok invading Europe and shooting down commercial airliners and what is Obama doing? Not a… thing. M
islamisdeath says
Actually he is eating a lot of bar b que and hamburgers.
Jan Fourowls says
Yes – Obama, the total sellout of the American people (with the exception of his Muslim friends).
John C. Barile says
I’m glad that the Kurdish Peshmerga controls Qaraqosh. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in the Kurdish Autonomous Region.
marc says
“Interfaith outreach in the caliphate: Islamic State jihadists storm 4th-century monastery, expel monks”
but hey, far more exciting, those damn jooooz are blowing up those peace tunnels in gaza.
Jan Fourowls says
It helps sustain us, when possible, to laugh in evil’s face so thanks for the witty comments here, to everyone making them.
Somebody commented on JW yesterday, as to a Muslima enjoying her gut-toting baby jihadist in training, “yes, they blow up so quickly.”
It’s so unspeakably evil, so unbearably sad otherwise, of course we have to crack jokes with our words to face it.
Walter Sieruk says
What are people going to wake up to the folly of even the Idea of having any worthwhile interfaith meeting with the clerics of Islam. Those non-Muslim who even try in engage in this hoax and also engaging in actions of foolishness. It’s all rigged on the side of Islam. For the Islamic doctrine of deception of non-Muslims by Muslims [Taqiyya]is still in effect. The result of such “interfaith meetings” will be at its very best actions of extreme futility. At the worst the outcome of these kinds of meetings will be a total disaster.
islamisdeath says
I know several people who have been to those taqiyya fests. They come out thinking islam is just like Christianity and that the muslims believe in Jesus and are really our brethern in faith and that frankly it would be just fine to convert islam since it’s just a version of christianity anyway.
I kid you not!
Jan Fourowls says
The devil’s working overtime …
And yes, you’re right, the Islamic conversion missionary teams are engaging in super-taqqiya on this big-city USA.
Because so many young people in seeker-friendly megachurches long on fun and short on Bible have not been encouraged to read their Bibles, and they correspondingly sure don’t want to bother reading a Quran, it is very easy for Muslim taqiyyah-tacticians to mislead them.
Jan Fourowls says
… Especially when their pastors from the pulpit have talked about their Muslim leadership peers who decry the “hate crimes” against Muslim mosques (probably only Muslims burning down their own places of satanic worship because I don’t ever remember seeing a successful prosecution after real evidence against anybody who burned down a USA mosque) , or their pastors have talked about going to the mosque to pray “jointly” with the Imam who will read the Quran “jointly” with the Bible, or their pastors have had a sermon about the “religious significance” the Muslim month of Ramadan, on and on, the apostasy keeps growing.
Jan Fourowls says
Re: Muslims “burning down their own …” It’s exactly the same kind of victim-playing sympathy card taqiyya tactic that Hamas is doing in Gaza — human shields and threatening terror against its own soldier-citizens if they don’t stay put, damn it, as good little human shields.
AnneM says
I would just say that the “god” allahs is simply the devil in truth.
Richie says
A 4th century Christian monastery? I have no doubt Muslims will soon destroy the building
Daphne Donges says
Or else they will convert it into a Mosque.
Transmaster says
I wonder what things would be like if we had left Saddam Hussein in power?, I wonder…………….
Jan Fourowls says
It has long been part of Christian prophecy that some would become martyrs in this life, and that we should all watch and pray to escape the coming horrors of evil’s last stand. (Source, the Bible: Revelation 6:9-11, Luke 21:36.)
This report, like all similar reports, brings the hope and prayer for those involved to escape Islamic persecution. It’s so very sad to know about so very many people being on the receiving end of Muslim evil done for Islamic religious reasons. Without my vastly different (better, true) faith and its foretaste of eternal joy and daily blanket of comfort, I would be devastated. That is the reason I so often write about how knowing Jesus Christ and the related dispensation of the Holy Spirit, living in me, is my inspiration to keep going forward and taking constructive actions in hopes of stemming this evil tide of Islam in whatever ways God can use me to do so — and the reason I share the hope of my experience with others. We’re all free, at least while not living under Sharia law, to take what we like and leave the rest.
Seeing the quote in this article from Bishop McManus reflecting the current Chrislam apostasy of the Roman Catholic church as led by its quisling Pope so many good Catholics had such high hopes for, I am very grateful to be a Southern Baptist instead. At my church the pastor is clear that Islam (which by the Quran denies the Father and the Son) and its adherents are antichrist. 1 John 2:22. The pastor and I agree to disagree that I have a different opinion (no surprise), as do many Southern Baptists (male and female), on the entirety of the new testament biblical record and the arguably limited scriptures by which the SBC (S. Baptist Convention) in its gender politicking limits pastoring and deaconing to males. Social reality in a fallen world is that few churches succeed at getting men to participate unless the head pastor is male, so I understand the political reasons.
Social secular reality is tokenism at best in top leadership positions for women (and virtual slavery by virtual house arrest for women under Islam). In Christianity some point to 12 Jewish male apostles of Jesus in a time like all times of fallen humanity and relatively dominant maleness in social leadership; I point to an unnamed Samaritan woman as an uncredited apostle who was the very first to successfully carry the gospel message to others who “then believed” after Jesus talked to her (unheard of in that culture!!!!) as a woman at the well, and the equally unnamed woman who was so significant to Jesus in the priestly function of anointing His head that He directed that what she did be retold “in memory of her” wherever the gospel is preached. (Source, the Bible: Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, John 4:4-39.) Not that male pastors tend ever to preach that sermon! Oh well. I love Jesus all the more because of what He did and does that merely mortal males can’t or won’t.
None of the above except 1 John 2:22 is an essential of the faith of the good of following Jesus Christ versus the evil of following Muhammad/Allah. This is my invitation to readers of JW who have questioned Christianity really having a place for them. I have decided not to quibble over SBC political decisions because it is a particular S. Baptist church that has supported me in the good God-given power to face and overcome evil. If you’re a woman understandably annoyed about the SBC’s politics (which sometimes make the news), individual S. Baptist churches have creative titles and internal licensure as ways to put women into all positions other than those called senior pastor or deacon. You’re welcome to visit; there tend to be S. Baptist churches throughout the U.S. and they will likely agree with any regular JWer about the evils of Islam.
God help us all.
dumbledoresarmy says
There are things that we can do.
The religious among us can pray.
The further step (and prayer is not exclusive of action, it tends to animate and clarify action) is to support aid-and-advocacy groups such as The Barnabas Fund who provide help to the displaced and suffering Christians. The more resources they have, the better they may be able to assist people to flee, find temporary refuge, and get to points where they can apply for refugee status, etc; and survive, in the sense of just getting basic food, water and medicines.
And all of us can write to our elected representatives in our respective countries and urge that these poor, persecuted, threatened-with-genocide Christians from Iraq and Syria, should be given *absolute priority* – fast-tracked – in our refugee / asylum seeker admissions. At the very least, if we persist, then some among our politicians will begin to realize that Islam is dangerous, precisely because they keep on getting letters about Muslims attacking Christians (and other non-Muslim minorities) in one part of the world after another.
making sure that these stories are shared in our churches, if we are churchgoers, is also important. Forward these reports to our clergy. *Demand* that groups such as the Christians in Syria and Iraq – and the christians in Northern Nigeria, and people like Meriam nee Ibrahim/ Mrs Daniel Wani with her husband and kids, and the Christians in Pakistan (notably Asia Bibi) – be put at the top of the “Intercessions” list. 1/ they get prayed for 2/ it raises awareness. For in conversation with one’s clergy and fellow parishioners, the source of the persecution – common-or-garden Islam, Islam straight out of Quran, Sira and Hadith – can be identified.
The hard part is to remember to persist, and persist (like the widow with the judge, in the parable) and never, never give up.
xavier says
Hi all:
It’s long overdue but the west should send its special force soldiers and instruct the Christians to become soldiers and then unleash them when the time’s right.
At least there won’t be any blue on green incidents; the Christians would make formidable fighters and would be as lethal as the Jordanians (in comparison to other Arab fighting forces)
With all the military gear that’s been confiscated in Afghanistan and Gaza a transfer the equipment to the Christians.
xavier
Jerry says
Israel should offer shelter for Iraq and Syria Christian Refugees.
Israeli Christian Arabs are slowly seeing the light and increasingly join the IDF.
They also, percentage wise, are the best academically educated people in the Middle East, especially as doctors, dentists, lawyers and accountants.
Israeli Druse have already been distinguishing themselves in battles in defence of Israel for generations. Brigadier Raslan Alian commands the Elite Golani Brigade ans was wounded in Gaza but have already returned to service. His brother is a Lt. Colonel serving with the Elite Givati Brigade.
Even Israeli Beduin Moslem Arabs have been serving in the IDF and mainly protect the Sinai border.
Israeli Arabs serve on the bench of the highest Israeli Court, manage hospitals and some are members of parliament.
But the Leftist “Multiculturalists” and the Jihaddi Islamists propagandists try to convince us that Israel is and “Apartheid State”
Jerry says
La Allah Illah YAWE ueMohammad bin Sharmutta bint Jinn RasoullShaitan