“What is happening in Iraq is a strange thing, but it is normal for Muslims, because they have never treated Christians well, and they have always held an offensive and defaming stand against Christians.” This is a statement of the reality of the system of dhimmitude as it exists in Islamic law to this day, and as it was applied against Christians in Muslim states for centuries. Predictably, the General Coordinator of the Islamic Work Front in Lebanon Sheikh Zouheir Al-Joaid accuses the bishop of “hate” for telling these unpleasant truths — apparently Islamic supremacists all work from the same playbook.
“Syriac Orthodox bishop: Muslims enemies of Christ,” The Daily Star, July 30, 2014 (thanks to Andrew Bostom):
BEIRUT: The Syriac Orthodox bishop of Mount Lebanon and Tripoli George Saliba Wednesday denounced Muslims as enemies of Jesus, accusing them of a history of violence and oppression against Christians.
“What is happening in Iraq is a strange thing, but it is normal for Muslims, because they have never treated Christians well, and they have always held an offensive and defaming stand against Christians,” Elnashra.com reported Saliba as saying in a radio interview.
“We are not calling for armament and war; we don’t have the capacities,” Saliba said. “We used to live and coexist with Muslims, but then they revealed their canines [teeth].
“They are the enemies of Christ and they do not differ from the Jews in terms of treating Christians.”
Actually the Jews in Israel treat Christians much better than they’re treated in any Muslim country, and the bishop should know this.
The bishop accused Muslims of centuries of violence against Christians, condemning the attacks on the Christians of Iraqi Mosul.
“[They don’t] have the right to storm houses, steal and attack the honor of Christians,” Saliba said. “Most Muslims do this, the Ottomans killed us and after that the ruling nation-states understood the circumstances but always gave advantage to the Muslims.”
Saliba also said Muslim generations are raised on bad feelings against Christians, saying this applies to the majority of Muslims.
“Islam has never changed, and Muslims have been educated on the bad treatment of Christians,” he said.
“We are not surprised by these behaviors, but we [put hopes] on some Muslims brothers who do not support such behaviors, despite them being a minority.”
According to Elnashra, the General Coordinator of the Islamic Work Front in Lebanon Sheikh Zouheir Al-Joaid responded to Saliba’s speech, condemning its content and accusing the bishop of hatred and ignorance.
“The bishop’s attack on Islam and Muslims tattles his bad and hateful background, and his ignorance about the religion that had supported Christians and their holy places for the long centuries of Islamic rule,” Joaid said Wednesday.
Joaid mentioned the major points of Saliba’s comments, stressing on the latter’s accusation that Muslims are the enemies of the Christ.
“These are defamation against Islam, its content and what the Quran said about our master Issa the Christ, peace be upon him.”
Joaid stressed that all moderate Muslim religious authorities and figures had condemned the fundamentalist Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria’s behavior and actions.
“What the terrorist ISIS has done to Muslims is much greater than what they did to others,” he said.
Joaid finally called on Saliba to present an apology for the content of his speech or to deny any wrongly reported elements of it.
Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi, the Kataeb party’s deputy head, had made comments similarly controversial to Saliba’s Saturday, in a speech condemning the attacks on the Mosul Christians.
“We are not embarrassed to raise the voice and publicly say: We have tried all forms of common life, common state, region and village; what have we gained from all these experiences since 1400 years?” Azzi asked, referring to the beginning of Islam in the seventh century.
“What they couldn’t get in the era of conquests, they are trying to get it in the era of revolutions,” he added.
“We will not allow them to get it and we will safe-guard our honor and dignity and [protect] the free Christian existence.”
Beagle says
“they do not differ from the Jews in terms of treating Christians”
I have found Jewish doctors to be far superior. Less camel urine, more science. Jews rarely try to blow up airports in the UK.
But seriously folks, this is dhimmitude on stilts. Sadly though, he just said Muslims are like Jews. Muslims will find it a deeply upsetting comparison likely to cause murderous rage.
“…but we [put hopes] on some Muslims brothers who do not support such behaviors, despite them being a minority…”
The tiny minority of non-extremists.
Jay Boo says
The article mentioned the difference and said
“and the bishop should know this.”
He is criticizing while simultaneously pandering in order to walk on a fine line of passive aggression.
Peter Buckley says
For a balanced view of Israel’s treatment of Christians, see Gatehouse’s recent article:
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4520/christians-israel
john spielman says
the bishop is correct in that islam is an antichrist religion because it denies the deity of Jesus, the only son of God.
I am a Christian and love Jews and stand with Israel. islam is not only an anti christ religion but according to Biblical scriptures, it is a doctrine of DEMONS because muhammed pbuh(perpetual banishment unto hell) listened to Satan masquerading as God’s archangel Gabriel and invented islam whose theology is opposite to the Truth.
zimriel says
Yohanan, your own last name reads as Ashkenaz to my eyes. . .
. . . takes one to know one, one might say :^)
Reality Check says
What a refreshing, politically incorrect statement! Unfortunately, it doesn’t come from anyone in power in the West!
Joseph says
This Orthodox Bishop said: “They [Muslims] are the enemies of Christ…”
He’s right, of course. The worst sin in Islam (“shirk”) is to “associate partners with Allah”. By identifying Christ as “the Son of God” and “God in the flesh”, Christians are committing this worst of sins, according to Muslims.
In Islamic theology, God is utterly “One” and “not three”. Islam separates God the Father from the God the Son and it declares that Jesus Christ is neither God in the flesh nor the Son of God. In this way, Muslims are theologically “the enemies of Christ”.
But, of course, Muslims are also the enemies of Christ because they never cease to wage war upon the Body of Christ, the Church. And this is evident to anyone who looks at the facts of history with an unbiased eye.
So, theologically Muslims are the enemies of Christ and historically Muslims are the enemies of Christ. Those are the facts, the reality of Islam’s relation to Christianity.
So, then WHY is the Catholic Church SO very silent about these facts and this reality? I go to holy mass every single day and I NEVER hear ANY priests speak about Islam as a threat to the Church or an enemy of Christ. EVER. And why do Catholic Church leaders actively work to SILENCE Catholic/Christian lay persons who attempt to speak the truth about Islam? Even Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Exhortation, “Evangelii Gaudium”, states officially that:
“Authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” [EG #253].
Read that quotation again slowly and try to imagine the depths of ignorance that it belies. Can it be that in 2014, with 1400 years of documented warfare of Muslims against Christians and the newly exploding modern Muslim persecution of Christians all over the world, that the HEAD of the Catholic Church could be THAT ignorant of the true nature of Islam?
Is that possible? Wow.
So, who you gonna believe: this Syriac Orthodox Bishop, who knows Islamic history and who lives under Muslim oppression or Pope Francis, who, with George Bush and Tony Blair, believes that Islam is a “religion of peace”?
Beagle says
“shirk”
This is a good point and mirrors other areas within Islam, wherein the more you study the texts the worse (or better if you are hot for murder) it gets. Christians are often considered “polytheists” by jihadis, though that falls outside the ordinary definition of polytheism one finds in the West and seems to contradict the rules concerning the “People of the Book.” This implicates many more open calls to violence against non-Muslims in the Quran, and not just Hindus.
“Allah’s Cause” sounds innocuous until you realize it’s, after dawah, mostly violent jihad. But this realization took me months of reading jihad manifestos and looking up the passages in the Quran and ahadith quoted within, in addition to having to ignore virtually everything the mainstream media was saying about Islam in the early parts of the millennium and the end of the last.
And yes, this pope is a train wreck re Islam.
Uzoozy says
Spoken like a true Christian. No wonder the world Muslims are so upset.
Do not forget the Inquisition, for 800 years the Christians killed over 9 million non Christians, plus the 7 crusades.
One at a time
Joseph says
Spoken like a true Christian? Exactly. Because Christians speak the TRUTH. You Muslim devils, on the other hand, LIE because you are sons of your father, the father of lies, Satan himself. And of course the numbers you spout so blithely are evidence of your lies.
The fact are as follows:
1. The Inquisition lasted only 350 years, not 800.
2. MORE people were killed by Muslims in the past MONTH (Ramadan 2014) than in ALL 350 YEARS of the Spanish Inquisition combined. In the Spanish Inquisition, approximately 125,000 persons were interviewed and approximately 1.8% of those were actually killed. That’s approximately 2,250 people. In the past MONTH, Muslims have killed 2,429 people in service to their blood-thirsty demon-god, Allah. See the website The Religion of Peace dot com to verify every one of those deaths.
2. Here’s a tasty little morsel for my Muslim friend. Consider this fact:
Muslims make up 23% of the global population, but less than .5% of the Nobel Prizes in Science. Whereas Jews make up less than .5% of the global population, but they account for 23% of the Nobel Prizes in Science. It must really suck to be a Muslim, huh? You truly are “the worst of people”, huh? Even your hated Jews are SO much better than you.
3. Finally, the Crusades were – clearly and obviously for anyone who looks at the facts of history – an act of SELF-DEFENSE. After literally hundreds of years of Muslim aggression against Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, the Church called the first Crusade to DEFEND these Christian pilgrims from the attacks of the Muslims. And if [for you] the Crusades were such a horrible defeat for the Muslims, then learn the lesson and don’t pick fights with people who can kick your ass, huh? Kinda like Hamas is learning right now: they started a fight with Israel and now [as usual] Israel is thoroughly kicking their ass. Just like 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, etc. I guess after all the in-breeding, Muslims aren’t too bright though, huh?
So, yes, spoken like a true Christian. We speak the truth, while you Muslim devils lie, like your father, the father of lies. So suck it.
Champ says
Bravo, Joseph!! …wow I agree with WVinMN and I enjoyed watching you kick “Uzoozy’s” ass to the curb 😀
WVinMN says
Wow! I’ve witnessed a number of muslim scumbags get owned at Jihad Watch, but DAMN! What happened here just redefined ownership! Tuck your tail dog and limp your ugly ass back home!
Joseph says
Thank you, WVinMN.
SpiritOf1683 says
And Muslims murdered over 80 million Hindus in cold blood. Does the Hindu Kush ring any bells where Hindus were massacred by rapacious Muslims. Over 300 million have been murdered in cold blood by Muslims over the centuries in the days before machine guns made killing even easier. The US had its first taste of Jihad in 1786, and Muslim pirates emptied villages in Cornwall and Ireland by kidnapping their inhabitants and selling them on the slave markets in North Africa in 1625 and 1631, and butchered everybody in sight in Constantinople in 1453. Every peace liover is seen as fair game for being put to death by Muslim sadists. And we know the Jihad was beaten back in Spain and Portugal between 722 – 1492, and from Vienna in 1529 and 1683. Muslims are still sore about that more than 330 years on. You and your ilk are nothing but crybaby parasites – a stain and a drain on humanity, good at terrorism and sloth and nothing else, and it irks you that Israel has stood up to your fellow savages for these past 66 years.
JIMJFOX says
Spoken like a bloody idiot (sorry, muslim). Its customary for muslims to dream up any old stat and claim it to be fact, despite not knowing (nor caring) the difference between fact and fiction.
800 years… 9 million… hmmmm…..
St. Michael Defend Us says
There was 800 years of muslim occupation of Spain, you mixed that up with the Inquisition. There would never HAVE BEEN an Inquisition had there not been that occupation.
Angemon says
Uzoozy posted:
“Do not forget the Inquisition, for 800 years the Christians killed over 9 million non Christians”
Idiot. There were not 9 million non-Christians in Europe during the time of the inquisition. Even if you were to change your ignoRANT to say “9 million people” you’d still be wrong because meant that a large chunk of Europe’s population would have died, which was not the case. A more accurate number would be tens of thousands, and that’s a wort case scenario. In any case, the inquisition was more worried about heretic christians and false christians than with non-christians.
Jay Boo says
Joseph
I AM SUSPICIOUS
You claim to go to “holy mass every single day”
yet you explain the Trinity with calm verbatim from the Muslim perspective.
then you remind us
Christians are committing this worst of sins,( according to Muslims).
Are you willing to defend the Trinity from a Christian point of view?
Jay Boo says
Joseph
I am not questioning the facts of the Islamic point of view but your presentation
Jay Boo says
Trinity
Our planet Earth is mostly Water which has three forms, a type of trinity
Droplets of dew evaporate into thin air unseen and condense yet again way up high,
falling as snow to cast out dark of night and blanket against the noise of Satan’s lies.
Water, this essence of life has three forms, a trinity now and forever one the same.
Joseph says
Jay Boo:
Get help, Bro. Your posts are almost completely incomprehensible (that means that no one can even understand what you are trying to say). I don’t know if English is not your first language or what, but do me favor and don’t reply to my posts.
Joseph
Champ says
Joseph, Jay Boo is actually a very kind and thoughtful person with an artistic mind, and this is reflected in his creative writing style. Take care!
Champ says
Jay Boo, I don’t understand why you’re suspicious of Joseph, dear friend. He’s a Christian, not a muslim.
Champ says
Jay Boo …
You wrote:
You claim to go to “holy mass every single day”
yet you explain the Trinity with calm verbatim from the Muslim perspective.
then you remind us
Christians are committing this worst of sins,( according to Muslims).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I can sort-a see why you’re suspicious of Joseph if he’s stating this AS a muslim, but you needn’t be suspicious of him since he’s simply stating what *they* believe–not what he believes. Please read it again through that lense.
Champ says
Typo: I mean lens :-/
Jay Boo says
Hi Champ
I suppose you are correct considering Joseph’s other posts.
I did nor suspect that Joseph was a Muslim as much as a possible leftist Islam apologist in disguise. The inept phrasing used to describe the Trinity with calm verbatim from the Muslim perspective sounded eerily similar to a leftist agenda article on an anti-Christian (under the banner of atheist) website.
————————————-
Joseph said
“He’s right, of course. The worst sin in Islam (“shirk”) is to “associate partners with Allah”. By identifying Christ as “the Son of God” and “God in the flesh”, Christians are committing this worst of sins, according to Muslims.
In Islamic theology, God is utterly “One” and “not three”. Islam separates God the Father from the God the Son and it declares that Jesus Christ is neither God in the flesh nor the Son of God. In this way, Muslims are theologically “the enemies of Christ”.”
Jay Boo says
The use of the passive voice Islamic perspective is way to generous to Islam.
Champ says
Dear Jay Boo …thank you for explaining your reasons and they do make sense. Now I better understand why you were initially suspicious. Take care! 🙂
islamisdeath says
Leftist don’t care how they treat Christians ’cause they hate Christians too.
Berq says
To me george Bush and tony Blair are two great stupit leaders of the west.And if this statement that The authentic islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence.is correct by the Pope Frances then I regard him one of them.Being a christian I love Israel because Paul write to Romans in the New testament CH,9,verse 2 :4.I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart,For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,those of my own race,The people of Israel.
Salah says
For those of us who still believe in the power of prayer:
Tomorrow, Friday, August 1st, Day of Prayer for Christians persecuted in Iraq, Syria and the Middle East
http://fssp.com/press/2014/07/august-1-day-of-prayer-for-christians-persecuted-in-iraq-syria-and-the-middle-
Dumbledoresarmy says
And we can pray for these Christian communities to be *completely* liberated from the dhimmi mindset, and for them to be completely liberated from the crippling spiritual affliction (or as our charismatic / pentecostal friends would identify it, “spiritual stronghold”) that is antisemitism…a good deal of it “absorbed” from the circumambient Muslims, and some of it, tragically, coming from the time Before Islam, being the legacy of certain post-apostolic Christian theologians who failed to realize that every time Christians lift their hand (whether actually or in the spiritual sense) to attack a Jew or the Jews, the blow turns out to have been struck against themselves also.
zimriel says
No religion can avoid “shirk”. If God is perfect and has no intercessor, He cannot but despise us. Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” made this clear.
Christianity is honest in the need for an intercessor, which it has in Christ. Pagans are similarly honest in asserting that only math can be perfect and that gods are imperfect. For agnostics, cf. pagans. I won’t presume to speak for Jews on this topic although I’d love to hear how they get around it.
Islam has a problem in that every single Khalifatu’llah from Umar to al-Saffah has had no choice but to associate his regime with Allah. So if you followed the caliph as your imam, you were associating him with God. Al-Mansur hedged it by calling himself “the caliph of the Prophet” but, not really.
/Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, “God’s Caliph”
dumbledoresarmy says
I support *all* who are threatened and assailed by Jihad.
Therefore, this weekend – wearing a Star of David in place of the cross I habitually wear, and a pretty blue and white scarf – I will be joining my Jewish brothers and sisters, and assorted non-Jewish Friends of Zion, at a pro-Israel rally in my hometown. I am hoping to be able to do some networking, and am looking forward to letting my Jewish Aussie fellow citizens know that there are those of us who see right through all the horrible nonsense and lies that are filling far too much of our media at the moment; and who are appalled and sickened by the rising tide of plain old Jew-hatred we see infecting our societies. I want them to know that they are welcome in Australia and that I am coming out to stand with them…and with their jihad-beleaguered ancestral homeland.
And I hope that any Aussie jihadwatchers here present who can manage to be in Sydney on Saturday 2nd August 2014 (which is tomorrow, Australian time) will be arranging to attend the march rally on behalf of Iraqi Christians (in particular, those who have just been driven out of Mosul in the clothes they stood up in), that will be held on that day. I would *love* to be there, but I just can’t.
More details here:
http://www.auscma.com/?p=2784
Australian Coptic Community Rallies for Iraq’s Christians
“We call on Australian Christians of all denominations, human rights activists, media, elected officials, and all individuals concerned about the welfare of Iraq’s imperiled minorities to attend this protest and rally in support of these beleaguered communities. We also urge people to raise awareness of the plight of Iraqi Christians and to communicate this protest to their friends, colleagues, sympathetic individuals, churches and other relevant organisations, whether through mass, meetings or online social media.”
dumbledoresarmy says
Re the utterly false equivalencing of Jews with Muslims, by this otherwise courageous and truthful church leader in Lebanon:
let us hope that other Levantine Christians who have learned better, who have learned the *whole* truth – I am thinking in particular of Brigitte Gabriel, who freed herself from the antisemitism she saw among her Maronite Catholic compatriots, and found herself overwhelmed by a deep love and respect for the Jews of Israel, and I am also thinking of the brave and wise Fr Gabriel Naddaf, in Nazareth in Israel, and of that formerly-Muslim but now Christian Magdi Cristiano Allam, author of a book called “Viva Israele” (Long Live Israel) – may move swiftly to rebuke him and set him straight, and to encourage him to repent, and to publicly apologise to Jews for having insulted them by falsely comparing them to Muslims.
dumbledoresarmy says
Archbishop Ignace Moubarac of Beirut knew better, in 1947.
He saw middle-eastern/ Levantine Jews and Christians as potential allies, friends and good neighbours to one another.
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/28942
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Archbishop Ignace Moubarac Of Beirut, In 1947, On “The Two Homelands”
Excerpt:
“Major reasons of a social, humanitarian and religious nature require the creation, in these two countries, of two homelands for minorities: a Christian home in the Lebanon, as there has always been – [and] a Jewish home in Palestine.”
…
“THE LEBANON DEMANDS FREEDOM FOR THE JEWS IN PALESTINE AS IT DESIRES ITS OWN FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE. ”
(Signed) Ignace Mobarac (Mubarak) Maronite Archbishop of Beirut.”
Let us pray that Ignace Mobarac’s vision may be, one day, fulfilled, per miraculum.
Israel firmly established as the Jewish homeland (with a minority of Aramaic/ Syriac Christians loyal to the Jewish state and content to enjoy civic and legal parity with the Jewish majority), and on its northern border, *allied with it in friendship and trade and mutual self-defence against jihad*, a Lebanon freed of Muslims and become a defensible refuge for Levantine and Mesopotamian Christians (who, like the Jews, represent the remnant of the pre-islamic indigenous nations and cultures of Lebanon, Syria and Mesopotamia).
Hey, if a Kosovo can be created for *Muslims*, why not a Muslim-free Mont Liban for Maronite and Syriac *Christians*?? (Are you listening, Vladimir Putin?).
duh_swami says
There is no excuse good enough for the evil behavior spawned by Islam. Death and destruction, and threat of death and destruction are its pillars. Christians are once again tasting Allah’s punishment for continuously forgetting part of Allah’s Message Quran 5:14. It’s all for Allah, ainit? Pathetic, sick, and dangerous…
Semeru says
Nothing unusual with what The Syriac Orthodox bishop George Saliba said
Here is a list of just a few christain who have show very anti Israeli sentiments
Nayef Hawatmeh, Greek Catholic Christian. He is the General Secretary of the Marxist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
George Habash, Eastern Orthodox. He founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Edward Said, Greek Orthodox Christianity. He argued for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Said was described by journalist Robert Fisk as the Palestinian people’s “most powerful political voice
Michel Aflaq, Greek Orthodox Christianity. Founder of the Fascist Ba’ath Party, that amongst other things party organized resistance against Israeli forces in Lebanon.
Jules Yusuf Jammal, Orthodox Christian. who allegedly killed himself in a suicide attack on October 29, 1956 during the Suez Crisis, in Egypt.
Considered a hero in both Syria and Egypt, he was decorated post-mortem by the two countries. He received the highest military medal by the Syrian government after his death. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser gave him the Egyptian military star. He also received the high honors by the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and the medal of St Peter and St Paul from the same church
Pope Shenouda III. His stance toward Israel was encapsulated by his words:
From the Arabic national point we should not abandon our Palestinian brothers and our Arabic brothers by normalising our relations with the Jews … From the church point of view, Copts who go to Jerusalem betray their church in the case of “Al-Sultan Monastery” that Israel refuses to give to the Copts.
dumbledoresarmy says
Nice try at a spot of “split the camp”, there, mohammedan, eh?
Dhimmis, the lot of them; obediently toeing the Arab Muslim line. Did any of them ever critique the **Muslims**, or discuss **Muslim** oppression and persecution of Christians, to the extent that this current Syriac bishop has done??
BTW, Said and Shenouda are both dead, Said for quite some time by now (and significantly discredited in the eyes of anyone with a gram of intelligence) and irrelevant.
Habash was a Marxist, not a Christian in any meaningful sense of the word.
Hawatmeh also a Marxist, so presumably subscribed to their atheist view of the world??
Aflaq tried to do an end-run around Islam with Baathism…[EPIC FAIL].
Anyway, mohammedan, no matter what, I’ll bet good money that this Saturday a lot of Sydney jihadwatchers will be rallying on behalf of the threatened-with-genocide-by-MUSLIMS Iraqi Christians; and *then*, on the following day, Sunday, the *same* jihadwatchers will attend a rally on behalf of the jihad-beleaguered Jewish state of Israel.
Mazo says
@Dolores Umbridge
Firstly, there are both real Arab Christians, and Arabized Syriac/Coptic Christians who adopted Arabic languafe and culture.
There are genuine ethnic Arab bedouin Christians in Jordan descended from the Ghassanids and they have been both Arab and Christian before the time of the Prophet.
Then there are the Arabized Christians who originally spoke Syric and Coptic.
We see what you are trying to do here. Implying that all “real” Arabs are only Muslims and trying to deny the Arab Christians their real ethnic identity.
And secondly, hatred of Jews among Middle Eastern Christians has nothing to do with Islam. Their diskike of Jews has to do with traditional Orthodox or Catholic stances against Jews and it was they who imported blood libel from Europe to the Middle East.
The Jews sided with the Zoroastrian Sassanian Persian Empire against the Orthodox Byzantine Empire. That is when the Jews and Persians allied with each other to massacre Christians in the Middle East, and vice versa when Christians massacres Jews. They hated each other before Islam swept the region. That is why Jews were banned from Jerusalem by the Byzantines but let in by Khalifah Umar Bin Al-Khattab.
The Palestinians thenselves has supported Christians in other countries against Muslims. The PLO under Arafat trained the Armenian ASALA in Lebanon to assasinate Turks and revenge themselves for the Armenian Genocide. The ASALA killed Turkish diplomats and fought Israel in Lebanon. israel ln the other hand aided Turkey’s military and is still aiding Azerbaijan.
Yasser Arafat supported the Serbs, and he and Milosevic were friends. Arafat invited Milosevic to Palestine for Orthodox Christmas and Milosevic sent condolences on Arafat’s death. israel on the other hand threatened to arrest Milosevic.
Arafat called the Indian Hindu PM Indira Gandhi as his “sister”.
Mazo says
And umbridge, Semeru is not a Muslim, how many times does he have to remnd you fools? He doesn’t have to like Islam to criticize you fools, and he had criticized Islam.
Semeru says
See how DDA can not accept facts that Christians and non moslems are just as anti jewish as moslems
Above she tries to squirm away from the truth of anti jewish/Israeli sentiments.
The most laughable is her attempt to diminish Pope Shenoudas disgusting anti Israeli stance by saying he is dead.
DDA also puts the christian anti semitism down to dhimmitude, what a load poppycock
Can DDA explain how The Good Friday Prayer for the Jews, an annual prayer in the Christian, particularly Roman Catholic, liturgy, has anything to do with dhimmi, nope it is down to good old fashioned christian hatred to the killers of christ.
Catholics where pesecuting and burning christians on the stake while mohammed was still in his teens
638 C.E Toledo Stake Burnings
It is very interesting to note that the Barbarian Visigoth let the jews in peace, it was not until and things got really bad following the conversion of the Visigothic royal family from Arianism to Catholicism in 587
It even got worse, The Eighth Council of Toledo in 653 again tackled the issue of Jews within the realm. Further measures at this time included the forbidding of all Jewish rites (including circumcision and the observation of the Shabbat), and all converted Jews had to promise to put to death, either by burning or by stoning, any of their brethren known to have relapsed to Judaism. The Council was aware that prior efforts had been frustrated by lack of compliance among authorities on the local level: therefore, anyone — including nobles and clergy — found to have aided Jews in the practice of Judaism were to be punished by seizure of one quarter of their property and excommunication.
DDA (Walter Mitty) writes
Anyway, mohammedan, no matter what, I’ll bet good money that this Saturday a lot of Sydney jihadwatchers will be rallying on behalf of the threatened-with-genocide-by-MUSLIMS Iraqi Christians; and *then*, on the following day, Sunday, the *same* jihadwatchers will attend a rally on behalf of the jihad-beleaguered Jewish state of Israel.
No harm being optimistic
Semeru says
DDA proudly claims
“I’m an Australian. A practising Christian who worships and attends church within the evangelical strand of the Anglican communion.”
As I pointed out in an earlier comment there is some thing called “Good Friday Prayer for the Jews”
here is part of the catholic prayer used before 1955 .
Let us pray also for the perfidious Jews: that our God and Lord may remove the veil from their hearts; that they also may acknowledge Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Let us kneel. (Arise.) Almighty and Eternal God, Who dost not exclude from Thy mercy even the perfidious Jews: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of Thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, through all endless ages. Amen.
Then a similar pray from the Anglican, prayer ran like this:
O merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of any sinner, but rather that he be converted and live; Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
These prayers are not in use today, but still have influence
Again DDA is proud to tell us she worships and attends church within the evangelical strand of the Anglican communion.
Well DDA, what about the dhimmitude and anti semiism of your own congregation in Australia.
The National Council of Churches in Australia has asked its members to consider boycotting Israeli goods made in the Occupied Territories
“During its 7th triennial Forum last week, the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA) announced it will continue to add its voice to the call for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and condemning all acts of terrorism.
In solidarity with Palestinian Christians, the NCCA asks its member Churches and the wider Australian community to consider a boycott of goods produced by Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Rev Tara Curlewis, General Secretary of the NCCA said “We are asking the member Churches of the NCCA to consider boycotting particular goods produced in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It is hoped that such actions will liberate the people from an experience of injustice to one where a just and definitive peace may be reached.”
(The National Council of Churches constituent members include the Anglican, Antiochian Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Assyrian, Chinese Methodist, Coptic, Greek Orthodox, Indian Orthodox, Lutheran, Mar Thoma, Quaker, Roman Catholic, Romanian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox and Uniting Churches…and the Salvation Army.)
Champ says
Semeru,
Are you a strong supporter of Israel? Where exactly do YOU stand, eh?
Time to put *you* under a microscope and take your inventory …
voegelinian says
Semeru is correct on one level, incorrect on another: yes dhimmi Christians tend to be antisemitic (and other pathologies inherited from Islam); however what Semeru and Mazo fail to account for (as is their custom) is the Islam factor. When Christians are not deformed by Islam or PC MC, they are quite healthy politically, socially, philosphically, and spiritually.
I.e., what makes Middle Eastern Christians problematic is not their Christianity or the Middle Eastern provenance; it’s the Islam in their blood.
dumbledoresarmy says
Question.
Do you hold dhimmi Christians to be **incurable**, or incapable of becoming free, either as individuals or as groups?
Talk like “the Islam in their blood” or “pathologies *inherited* from Islam” dangerously blurs the line between ideology – ideas in the head, which can be changed – and genetics, which cannot.
If you read Mark Durie’s “Liberty to the Captives” you would know that he holds that persons afflicted by the spiritual oppression/ obsession/ bondages of the dhimma *can* be freed; and you’d have to face, also, the fact that in his own personal, pastoral experience, he testifies to having *seen* people thus freed.
By the sovereign power of the grace of the God whom, in the last analysis, they have not denied; because although wounded, crippled, damaged, they have NOT wholly surrendered; they have not converted to Islam; they have clung to the Name of the Lord.
They are *not* Muslims. They are *wounded Christians*. Who, I think, can in many cases therefore be *healed*.
But then I guess you don’t think that is possible at all, because you don’t believe there *is* such a thing as an objectively-real personal God who can act, really *act*, in space and time and history, in individual lives, in relation to individual persons, do you?
voegelinian says
Only God knows if they’re curable. It’s not our problem. Anyone enabling Islam IS our problem.
EYESOPEN says
“The bishop’s attack on Islam and Muslims tattles his bad and hateful background, and his ignorance about the religion that had supported Christians and their holy places for the long centuries of Islamic rule.”
That would be almost funny if the truth for the last 1400 years weren’t so tragic. This scumbag is lying through his teeth. Unfortunately, too many in the world believe the lies. They will learn differently soon enough.
And oh, BTW, while the entire world is focused in upon what it refers to as Israeli “atrocities”, why has no one mentioned what has happened to the Christians in Mosul? Crickets…
AnneM says
At least this Syriac Orthodox bishop KNOWS that Islam is NOT from God, but rather from the DEVIL.
God Bless him.
AnneM says
Allah = Satan the devil.
alyn21 says
I have always found it difficult to sympathize with Christians in the Middle East due to their anti Jewish leanings. The comments made by this Syriac religious man is a good example of this.
I know these people lost their countries due to muslim invasion but they do not help themselves by attacking people who had nothing to do with their problems.
dumbledoresarmy says
Yes, it is terribly sad.
Antisemitism weakened them, even crippled them, “opening” them to the spiritual oppression and bondage that is dhimmitude.
And it was, of course, to the advantage of the Muslims for different groups of dhimmis – e.g. Jews, and Christians (and Christians of different traditions) – to hate and distrust one another, because then the Muslims could “divide and rule”.
My constant prayer for my middle Eastern brethren is for a mighty work of the Holy Spirit to liberate them from the spiritual sickness, or spiritual bondage, that is classic antisemitism; both the strain of it that they inherited from certain church fathers who, I think, went seriously wrong on certain points and also the Jew-hatred that is part of the atmospherics of any society dominated by Islam.
Wherever there is a spiritual weakness, Islam will seize upon it and make it worse.
happyboy says
John Spielman wrote:
“the bishop is correct in that islam is an antichrist religion because it denies the deity of Jesus, the only son of God. I am a Christian and love Jews and stand with Israel”
So what would you call the Jews who also deny the deity of Jesus? They don’t even recognize Jesus as a prophet (a thing muslims at least do). Are they also the Antichrist or the Children or Synagogue of Satan as the author of Revelation or the Gospel of John prefer to call them?
Angemon says
happyboy posted:
“They don’t even recognize Jesus as a prophet (a thing muslims at least do).”
Muslims recognize Jesus as a prophet, you say? Do they believe that Jesus is the son of God, died in the cross and came back from the dead?
Himalayan Pony says
It is more important to look into your own heart (happyboy) rather than others. “He (Jesus) saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?” Matthew 16:15. Each person has to give account for himself / herself. Who do you think Jesus is?
happyboy says
Mazo wrote:
“And secondly, hatred of Jews among Middle Eastern Christians has nothing to do with Islam. Their dislike of Jews has to do with traditional Orthodox or Catholic stances against Jews and it was they who imported blood libel from Europe to the Middle East.”
At last somebody on this blog talking sense. The Christians in the Middle East are still living in the Middle Ages, like the Muslims in the region also do. Most Christians in the ME can’t fathom why Christians in the USA have suddenly come to love Israel and the Jews wholeheartedly.
dumbledoresarmy says
Suddenly?
Newsflash.
Christians in the West, unlike those in the East, were not living for centuries under the iron yoke of Islam.
We can speak freely, we can *think*, we can read rethink and reflect on the whole of the Scriptures; and many of us in so doing, and not recently at that, came to the conclusion that Jew-hatred – rejection and condemnation and mistreatment of all Jews qua Jews, and the vile business of the blood libel, and blaming the Jews for “killing God” (as if orthodox Christian theology did not teach that ALL of us – yes, US, too – are saved by the self-offering of the incarnate Lord, so why pretend that the Jews are any more guilty of sin than the whole lot of us??) is simply WRONG.
Orde Wingate loved the Jews. He was in the 1930s, so that’s not “suddenly” or recent. James Parkes was a devout Anglican priest, and *he* was a Zionist and supported the Jewish state of Israel; and he knew exactly what the Muslims had done, throughout the period that they invaded, occupied, ruled and *ruined* the land of Israel and all other parts of the ‘Middle East”. And neither Wingate nor Parkes was the only one, they’re just the best known. A modern and very wise friend of Zion is the great French sociologist and lay theologian, Jacques Ellul.
Just because a really nasty strain of antisemitism has infected and poisoned the churches in the East, and the West too, for a long time – an antisemitism that i would say came *both* from the surrounding Muslim environment, *and* from elsewhere – doesn’t make it *right* for them to have that attitude. Sometimes one can be practising a grievous sin and error for a long, long time before one wakes up and realizes that is *is* wrong, and that it needs to be *repented of* and renounced.
Furthermore.
I will pray for, and try to help, my Eastern brethren when I see them being persecuted, oppressed, abused, robbed, raped and murdered by the Muslims. But if I hear my brethren saying evil, hateful and downright *crazy* nonsense about Jews, then I will *rebuke* them and tell them they need to *repent*.
dumbledoresarmy says
PS
I’m not an American, I’m an Australian. A practising Christian who worships and attends church within the evangelical strand of the Anglican communion. I was baptised Presbyterian.
And Orde Wingate and James Parkes were English and Jacques Ellul was French.
It isn’t just Americans who like and love Jews and like and *love* the life-affirming little Jewish state of Israel.
Jose Maria Aznar is Spanish and, I assume, culturally Catholic; and *he* is a friend of Israel.
Geert Wilders is Dutch, raised Catholic, an agnostic, and *he* is a friend of Israel.
Oriana Fallaci the Italian called herself a “Catholic atheist” and *she* was a friend of Israel.
The idea that it is only an American bible-belt redneck who supports Israel, is utter nonsense.
Champ says
“happyboy” wrote this in response to “Mazo” …
At last somebody on this blog talking sense.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wow you really are crackers if you think that Mazo is “talking sense”, lol!
And take your antisemitic tripe and Get Lost. No one here is interested.
Champ says
And I’m not buyin’ that “happyboy” is all that …Happy. How can anyone be “happy” who’s admittedly antisemitic, and who clearly embraces lies rather than the truth? They can’t.
happyboy says
“Edward Said, Greek Orthodox Christianity. He argued for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Said was described by journalist Robert Fisk as the Palestinian people’s “most powerful political voice”
Well, I don’t know if calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state makes Edward Said into a Jew hater. A more proper label would be a Christian Palestinian antisionist. Even if Robert Spencer and others seem to have forgotten that Jews coming from as faraway as Brooklyn (the most rabid jewish arab haters are usually coming from there) don’t have any qualms about stealing land from Christian arab like Said or Muslim arabs, Said and many other Christian arabs are not that eager to applaud the Brooklyn Jews
dumbledoresarmy says
If you think that any Arab Islamic state of “Palestine” (and given the relative numbers of the Muslims and the Christians, there is not way it would NOT be an “Arab Islamic State of Palestine”, if – which God forbid – you got your wish and Israel was destroyed and all the Jews killed or driven out again into exile) would be a good and safe place for Christians to live in – a better place for Christians to live in, than Israel now is – you are an ignorant fool, or else you are blinded by dhimmitude and by the pathological condition or evil spiritual stronghold known as antisemitism.
I dare you: read Bat Yeor, “The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam”. Read Mark Durie, “The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom”. And face reality: you’re a dhimmi, which means you are identifying with and flattering and making excuses for your *abusers*, namely, the MUSLIMS.
If you keep going like this, then you’ll be grovelling and flattering and denying the truth right up to the moment when the Muslims slit your throat, as they did to 2 and a half million Armenians, or drive you out into exile in your shirt like they’ve just done to the Christians of Mosul.
dumbledoresarmy says
And as for Edward Said, that lying charlatan (and complete dhimmi).
He may have been baptised a Christian but there is precious little evidence of any real fruit of the Spirit in his life.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/12/edward-said-lying-charlatan
And to complete the demolition job.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2006/05/fitzgerald-edward-said-hoist-by-his-own-petard
happyboy says
Could also mention another prominent Palestinian Christian who sits at the top of the PLO. Hanan Ashrawi (a women). She has no big love of the Brooklyn Jews in places like Hebron either. Not because they are Jews, but because they think that Yahweh has given them a licence to kick out any non-jew from the Holy Land. That certainly includes Christian Arabs also.
dumbledoresarmy says
Hanan Ashrawi is an Islamochristian, a crawling dhimmi who carries water for her mohammedan masters. I do not trust one word that comes out of her mouth, because she speaks for her Muslim overlords and says what they tell her, or what she thinks will please them. But I would hazard the guess they despise her and would kill her if it suited them.
*I* prefer the moral clarity and courage of non-dhimmi Christians like Brigitte Gabriel and Fr Gabriel Naddaf, or of ex-Muslim now-Christian Nonie Darwish and Magdi Cristiano Allam and Mark Gabriel. They defy Islam, condemn it as an oppressor of all non-muslims, and …they love and support Israel.
And why should not Jews live in Hebron? Why should not Hebron be part of Israel? It was the House of Israel that made Hebron a shrine, *not* the mohammedans.
Jews lived in Hebron long, long, long before Islam was ever invented, and long, long, long before Arab Muslims invaded then-ruled-by-Byzantines eretz Israel in the 6th century.
I observe you say nothing at all about the mohammedan pogrom against the ancient Jewish community in Hebron in 1929. Muslims did similar things, or worse, to the remnant holdout indigenous Jewish and Samaritan communities in eretz Israel – and to the *Christians* there, also – periodically throughout the entire history of the Muslim imperium.
happyboy says
Get lost? Because I am a Muslim? Dont know where he got that from. I have never been a Muslim nor will I ever be. What i know is that I have a lot lot more experience of the Middle East than ignorants like P Jihadski. He doesnt even know very basic Christian theology. Is he going to call the author of the book of Revelation or the Jesus who walks through the pages of the gospel of John “muslim scum” too because they dont seem too have been any big fans of the Jews?
dumbledoresarmy says
Yeshua of Nazareth *was* and *is* a Jew, the son of a Jewish mother. So were *all* his disciples.
He criticised *some* among his own people; following in the long Hebrew/Israelite tradition of robust self-critique that never exempted either priests or rulers from scathing rebuke. He did *not* condemn his *own* people per se.
As for Revelations, and the Gospel of John: read Jacques Ellul’s analyses of those texts, and get a clue.
I am quite familiar with those texts, and I do not draw from them a blanket and eternal condemnation of all Jews qua Jews. I have read the *whole* Bible and I believe God does not abandon His people. The Covenant is eternal.
How can you claim to love Jesus, the Jew whom you have not seen, if you are filled with hate for and rejection of the actual living Jews whom you see before you?
If you choose to regard a Jew qua Jew as your ‘enemy’, then you should make it your business to *love* and to *pray for* him whom you regard as “enemy”.
In any case, if you are a middle eastern “arab” Christian, then get a bloody clue: it is the MUSLIMS who have been persecuting and mass-murdering, oppressing, raping and robbing you for 1400 years. It is the *Muslims* with whom you should be rightly angry. It is the *Muslims* who are the Abusers, and they are doing it to you because the Quran, Sira and Hadith tell them to do it.
Middle-eastern Jews suffered the seven hells of dhimmitude in Muslim lands *just like* the Christians did. They’re not the Abusers; they, like you, are the Abused. Except that they seized their chance (witha lot of help from their returning kin of the diaspora), gained independence from Muslim oppression, reasserted their sovereignty in their ancestral homeland, threw off the chains of the infernal dhimma pact, and are **defending themselves**. And I, as a Christian, say “God bless ’em!” and I pray for victory for the IDF. If you had any sense at all, you’d be praying the same.
Kepha says
@HappyBoy & Dumbledore’s:
I am currently engaged in a bit of research into John, including his use of _hoi Ioudaioi_ in the Gospel and Revelation (no -s- at the end–I beg my Sister in Christ DDA and others to check the Bible).
An issue we have is that we–both those well-disposed to our Jewish neighbors and the Jew-Baiters– read the New Testament in an era in which “Jew is Jew and Christian is Christian, and never the twain shall meet”. But this was not the case in John’s day. Never forget that it is in John where the Christ-accepting Nathanael is called “An Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile” (Jn. 1:47), while in a discussion with a Samaritan woman, who immediately notices Jesus’ Jewishness (I suspect it probably had something to do with discrete details of dress, peyot, deportment, or beard back then), Jesus tells her that her religion is ignorant and “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). This renders the polemical use of “The Jews” as problematic, to say the least.
Moving to Revelation, given the context of the letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (Rev. 2-3) in which the phrases “those who say they are Jews, but lie” and “Synagogue of Satan” are used, it is far more likely to me that this applies primarily to early Christians who had found some way of compromising with either immorality or idolatry. Even as late as the end of the first century and the reign of Domitian (if, indeed, Revelation is that late), large numbers of Christians still thought of themselves as Jews, saw “Jew” as an honorable term, and even the Gentiles who were becoming Christians were seen as somehow “Judaized”. Among recent scholars, Daniel Boyarin, himself a Reconstruction Rabbi and professor of religious studies, sees John’s polemics in the Gospels as “within the family” (meaning, a Jewish in-house tiff).
The polemics found in John (and elsewhere in the New Testament) are best understood as one more step in the ancient Israelite tradition of “prophetic lawsuit’; rooted far more in a familiarity with the Hebrew prophets that in the separation of church and synagogue. John was an “anti-Semite” or “Jew-baiter” if and only if Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Micah, Amos, several of the Psalmists, the writers of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and Moses himself were “anti-Semites” and “Jew-baiters”.
Sure, I truly and sincerely disagree with those who deny that Messiah has come (as with those who say he is only man). Yet, as a firm believer in original sin and salvation by grace, I see the death of Jesus Christ on the cross as something in which we all–Jew, Greek, Roman, Ethiopian, Barbarian, Scythian, male, female, slave, free, African, Far Eastern, Amerindian, etc.–are not only culpable in and of ourselves; but, through faith, beneficiaries of its atoning character and of the resurrection that followed it three days later. Since I have always confessed that Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate”, I do not see Jewish culpability for the death of Christ as any greater than that of the Gentiles (everybody else, in biblical usage).
BTW, I will also echo what dumbledoresarmy says. I’m not sure I’ve read what Jacques Ellul wrote on John, but I’ll make a note to look it up. He was, after all, my fellow Calvinist; and I thought his little book on Jonah quite profound.
dumbledoresarmy says
Kepha
do you read French? Ellul’s major work on Judaism and Christianity is his book “Ce Dieu injuste? Theologie Chretienne pour le peuple d’Israel”, in which he examines a whole series of New Testament passages, including the ‘synagogue of Satan’ line that you have mentioned, above. Unfortunately, it has not yet – so far as I know – been translated into English. It is in many ways an expansion and deepening of the chapter in his book ‘Un Chretien pour Israel’ (which also, alas, has not been translated into English, so must be read in French), which chapter is entitled “de foi”, with subsections “gospels and epistles”, and “theologie”.
Kepha says
DDA: I read French badly, and not as well as I read Chinese or Koine Greek. However, giving it a workout would probably be in order. I’m bothering the dickens out of my local library with inter-library loand requests, so a couple more wouldn’t be any worse.
Champ says
Dear Kepha …
You wrote:
Since I have always confessed that Christ “suffered under Pontius Pilate”, I do not see Jewish culpability for the death of Christ as any greater than that of the Gentiles (everybody else, in biblical usage).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oftentimes I refer to “Got Questions” for answers to tough questions regarding our Christian faith, and your above comment compelled me to provide you with a more thorough look at what God’s word has to say on the subject …
Question: “Who was responsible for Christ’s death? Who killed Jesus?”
Answer: The answer to this question has many facets. First, there is no doubt the religious leaders of Israel were responsible for Jesus’ death. Matthew 26:3-4 tells us that “the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, assembled together to the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas. And they consulted so that they might take Jesus by guile and kill Him.” The Jewish leaders demanded of the Romans that Jesus be put to death (Matthew 27:22-25). They couldn’t continue to allow Him to work signs and wonders because it threatened their position and place in the religious society they dominated (John 11:47-50), so “they plotted to put Him to death” (John 11:53).
The Romans were the ones who actually crucified Him (Matthew 27:27-37). Crucifixion was a Roman method of execution, authorized and carried out by the Romans under the authority of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who sentenced Jesus. Roman soldiers drove the nails into His hands and feet, Roman troops erected the cross and a Roman solider pierced His side (Matthew 27:27-35).
The people of Israel were also complicit in the death of Jesus. They were the ones who shouted, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” as He stood on trial before Pilate (Luke 23:21). They also cried for the thief Barabbas to be released instead of Jesus (Matthew 27:21). Peter confirmed this in Acts 2:22-23 when he told the men of Israel “you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death” Jesus of Nazareth. In fact the murder of Jesus was a conspiracy involving Rome, Herod, the Jewish leaders and the people of Israel, a diverse group of people who never worked together on anything before or since, but who came together this one time to plot and carry out the unthinkable – the murder of the son of God.
Ultimately, and perhaps somewhat amazingly, it was God Himself who put Jesus to death. This was the greatest act of divine justice ever carried out, done in “the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23) and for the highest purpose. Jesus’ death on the cross secured the salvation of countless millions and provided the only way God could forgive sin without compromising His holiness and perfect righteousness. Christ’s death was God’s perfect plan for the eternal redemption of His own. Far from being a victory for Satan, as some have suggested, or an unnecessary tragedy, it was the most gracious act of God’s goodness and mercy, the ultimate expression of the Father’s love for sinners. God put Jesus to death for our sin so that we could live in sinless righteousness before Him, a righteousness only possible because of the cross. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
So we who have come to Christ in faith are guilty of His blood, shed on the cross for us. He died to pay the penalty for our sins (Romans 5:8; 6:23). In the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” the director, Mel Gibson, was the one whose hands you see actually driving the nails through Christ’s hands. He did it that way to remind himself, and everyone else, that it was our sins that nailed Jesus to the cross.
http://www.gotquestions.org/responsible-Christ-death.html
Take care! 🙂
Kepha says
You’ve spared me the necessity of posting a theological lecture of my own. 🙂
Semeru says
Very nicely spotted Kepha
DDA the devout christian writes Revelations</b. and gets it wrong, yet Happy Boy who is accused of being a moslem writes Revelation
thsu getting it write
Very telling, shouldn’t DDA know that It’s the Revelation of St. John, shortened to Revelation.
dumbledoresarmy says
Observe the postings by assorted mohammedans, above.
Unmitigated ugliness. (Triggered, most likely, in a frantic attempt to prevent people from thinking about what the bishop has said about historic and contemporary Muslim abuse of Christians, an abuse that is systemic, rooted in Muslim canonical texts).
Bottom line: the Syriac Orthodox bishop in Lebanon is *right* about Islam and Muslims, and *wrong, wrong, wrong* about Jews, and specifically, wrong about the modern Jewish state of Israel, which is the *only* state in the so-called “Middle East” within which Christians are as free and safe as they are in any majority-Christian country in the western world.
It is perfectly possible for a person to be right about one thing and wrong about another, at the same time.
So I can agree with the bishop about Islam and *disagree* with him, indeed, as a fellow-Christian, *rebuke* him for his false equivalencing of Jews with Muslims.
dumbledoresarmy says
Observe the two main mohammedan apologists and sand-throwers, the mazo and the semeru, busy tag-teaming in postings that are suspiciously similar in style and content. Note, too, the puerile playground-level use of turnspeak/ insult that is displayed when one of them sees fit to call me “dolores umbridge”.
Memo to anyone new to this site and this subject: I advise you to go right back up to the top, *now*, and slowly re-read the posted article with Mr Spencer’s accompanying comments.
Because if the mohammedans are so anxious to obscure or distract from or to water down or get you to disbelieve or dismiss what the bishop said about Islam, then what the bishop said about Islam and Muslims is *important*.
There are few things that make Muslims so angry as the smallest hint of insubordination or critique from someone that they thought was a meekly submissive grovelling dhimmi. The flurry of muslim activity in this thread is therefore very, very telling.
dumbledoresarmy says
Over at the New English Review, one Hugh Fitzgerald’s brief but incisive take on this Syriac Orthodox bishop in Lebanon. (Hugh used to post here a lot, some years ago, and was responsible for many featured articles).
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/55542
Friday, 1 August 2014
Syriac Orthodox Bishop On Muslims As “Enemies Of Christ”
Semeru says
Can DDA enlighten us about the National Council of Churches in Australia anti Israeli stance by supporting BDS
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/07/syriac-orthodox-bishop-islam-has-never-changed-and-muslims-have-been-educated-on-the-bad-treatment-of-christians/comment-page-1#comment-1095946
dumbledoresarmy says
Observe the nit-picking mohammedan above, gloating and thinking he has a gotcha!! because Kepha noted that I had made a very, very small error as to the precise name of a book of the Bible that is, in fact, a book that I first read all the way through when I was about fifteen, and that I have re-read any number of times since, **including in the original Greek**. And a good few passages from which I happen to know by heart.
Nota bene: it is that kind of thing that marks the mohammedans as “accusers”.
Accuse, accuse, accuse, accuse.
They invented Alinsky’s tactics long before Alinsky came up with them.
In fact, strikes me that our current lot are attempting exactly those tactics with certain of the regular posters here, including myself.
And as for his snide remark about the Australian Council of Churches: they don’t speak for me. I don’t consult them every day to find out what I’m supposed to say or do.
IF they support BDS – and that is the first I’ve heard of it, because as I said, **I don’t hang with bated breath on every word they say** – then they’re fools, dhimmis, and useful idiots and they will get called out on it, not only by me but by plenty of other Aussie Christians of all descriptions.
I was at a very large meeting of my denomination not long ago and there was *nary a word* said about BDS, nor has there been anything in our regional church newspaper, neither in any articles nor in the “letters”, so I’m assuming it’s not exactly getting much general interest from our lot.
dumbledoresarmy says
There are antisemites within the Anglican Communion, as there are everywhere, both within and without the Church. But there are *also* publicly-declared Friends of Israel within the Anglican Communion.
http://www.anglicanfriendsofisrael.com/
And for the information of the Accuser, above, who has sought to make much of the old Good Friday prayer; since its use was abandoned in 1955, that means it went out of use 8 years before I was born, and thirty years before I began regularly participating in specifically Anglican worship services, all of which used the updated rather than the pre-1955 prayer book.
Persons whose experience of Anglican worship in Australia *began* post-1955 would not even be aware of the old prayer’s existence unless they went delving into historic liturgies (which most people don’t). At least three generations of people have been raised on the *new* form of the liturgy by now, so the influence of the *old* form, especially of a prayer used only once a year, can hardly be very great by now.
But observe, yet again, the obsessive energy with which the mohammedans attack, and accuse, and deflect, and distract; and their interest in “splitting the camp”, in stirring up trouble between Jews and Christians, or between Christians of different backgrounds, or to attempt to make trouble even between different jihadwatchers, in sneaky, subtle ways.
The more divided and confused is the Camp of the Infidels, the easier it is for the mohammedans to pick us off, one by one.
The Ummah is swift to profit from and capitalise on pre-existing divisions in the Camp of the Infidels, which it will always attempt to make worse (it has *no* interest whatever in the healing of breaches and if it sees any hint of an approaching rapprochement between previously-quarrelling subsets of Infidels, it will move quickly to try to wreck it) and it is also swift to try to *create* new divisions wherever it can.
dumbledoresarmy says
Apologies to the general reader.
I should have double-checked. I see that 1955 in the dementor’s posting above refers to a point in *Catholic* liturgical history, not Anglican.
I have had a look around but cannot find the exact date at which the Anglicans *in Australia* (as opposed to anywhere else, which is pretty much irrelevant) decided to drop – which they did, at some point, and not recently – the old form of that particular Good Friday petition.
What I do know for certain from my own experience is that the two pretty typical and average congregations with which I have worshipped every Sunday for the past thirty years did not use the old form at any point during that period.
dumbledoresarmy says
The two Australian marches and rallies that were held today (Saturday August 2 2014) in Sydney, NSW, and in Melbourne, Victoria, in support of the persecuted Christians of Iraq, appear to have gone off very well, with large numbers of people taking part.
http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/assyrian-christians-protest-in-sydney-city-against-silent-genocide-taking-place-in-iraq-and-syria/story-fnii5s3y-1227011070149?nk=4c4112d7b41644260a3496131ad37801
Assyrian Christians protest in Sydney city against ‘silent genocide’ taking place in Iraq and Syria
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-02/iraqi-christians-stage-protest-in-sydney-against-isis/5643410
Australian Iraqi Christians stage protest against religious persecution in their homeland by ISIS
The news reports only mention those from the Assyrian emigre community as participants, but I know for a fact that the Copts also attended in solidarity; the Coptic Bishop Suriel addressed the Melbourne rally; and there were Christians, known to me, from other traditions – including Anglicans – who attended as well. Both rallies were publicised ahead of time by the Bible Society in Australia, so I expect Christians from many different backgrounds would have been present.
Bill says
“They (the Muslims) do not differ from Jews.” This is a (sadly) typical statement and thought from many Eastern Rite Christians. It is thoroughly anti-Jewish. A cursory look will reveal that, as I said, this type of sentiment (i.e. anti-Jewish) is widespread and typical among Eastern Rite Christians.
The solution first, is for the Christians, to sincerely apologize to Jews for the centuries of abuse and murder perpetrated against Jews in the Name of Jesus.
Secondly, Christians must reject Replacement Theology and believe the Scriptures that teach that God loves and will be forever faithful to Israel and that God is Zionist. Zionism is God’s idea. Israel is God’s idea.
Third, Christians must express Christian charity, solidarity and deference to the Jews and Israel in particular. It is Israel and Jews who are on the firing line fighting the enemies of God and the abusers of humanity.
I am an evangelical Christian and believe that Y-shua is the Messiah and believe that He is the only answer for the world and for any individual, Jew or Gentile. Because I believe in Jesus I love Israel.
Jay Boo says
Bill what the hell are you doing here?
Bill who describes his viewpoint as evangelical Christian has decided to toss out a claim that “this type of sentiment (i.e. anti-Jewish) is widespread and typical among Eastern Rite Christians.”
His one comment here choses to focus solely on the outspoken bishop’s placating one-liner “They (the Muslims) do not differ from Jews”
Note: …Bill ignored The bishop’s many criticisms of Muslims such as:
“but it is normal for Muslims, because they have never treated Christians well”
Instead the clever equivocator Bill offered to this statement:
The solution first, is for the Christians, to sincerely apologize to Jews for the centuries of abuse and murder perpetrated against Jews in the Name of Jesus.
Jay Boo says
Whenever any commenter begins or ends with —
“I am a (fill in the blank)”
be very suspicious
bill says
Mr. Jay Boo: The fact of widespread anti-Jewish sentiment among Eastern Rite Christians (an indisputable fact) does not nullify the widespread anti-Jewish sentiments among Protestants, including sadly, Protestant evangelicals, the Church I love and am indebted to (also an indisputable fact) or Roman Catholics. This article is about a Syriac Bishop. The statement cited is anti-Jewish. I have no other motive than to call the Church to repentance regarding the Jews. It is good that the Bishop speaks out about Islam. It takes a lot of guts to do so when you (as he is) surrounded and threatened by a majority of Muslims. I tip my hat to this Bishop. However, we must support Israel and the Jews. It is necessary to condemn Islam. It is also necessary to support Jews and Israel.