Islamists have threatened a Christian Bishop in the Philippines… (H/T: UP Pompeii)

Philippine bishop reports receiving threat to convert to Islam

MANILA, Philippines (CNS) — A bishop in the southern Philippines reported receiving a letter threatening him with harm if he does not convert to Islam or pay “Islamic taxes.”

Such brazenness in a country where over 86% of the population is Christian, 9% is Muslim and the remaining 5% is divided among various groups such as: Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, animists and non-believers.

Even if those who sent these letters are no more than common criminals who use religion as a mere tool, the fact that they chose to represent themselves as Muslims is in itself significant. But Muslim brazenness does not stop there, unfortunately, this one is far from an isolated case! Remember the kidnapped and murdered Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, Mgr Faraj Rahho? What about the plight of Assyrian Christians in Iraq? What about the Sabian Mandaeans? Or the plight of Christians girls kidnapped in Nigeria by practitioners of the Religion of Peace? What about the treatment of Christian Copts in Egypt? Ot the threats against Western politicians like Geert Wilders or Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi? The list, gentle reader, goes on and on ad nauseum…

You may read the rest at: Freedom’s Cost

Claudia wrote yesterday about the highly discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.  Thus, we know how gays are doing with military matters, but how about other groups?  Say…atheists?

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Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, Britain’s only Asian bishop, says that the Church of England is failing in its duty to spread the Christian faith, particularly to adherents of Islam.  Moreover, Nazir-Ali, who was born in Pakistan, understands something about Britain that many of its citizens have forgotten, something Americans would also do well to remember, given our nation’s particular origins.

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Sununu for Veep?

Via Maria, Obama’s biggest general election liability: His bitter half

On the stump, she warmed up (or rather, berated) supporters by complaining about how her husband is an underdog even after he keeps winning primary and caucus after primary and caucus. With a scowl etched on her face, she bellyached that “the bar is constantly changing for this man.” Call the waambulance, stat.

Reminds me of Teresa’s shifting bar.

Embedding with the enemy

But in fact my religious beliefs are entirely separate from my political beliefs: the only connection is that I’m willing to buck the trend in both arenas.

Two posts on Israel at 60:
Via the Astute Bloggers, Israel at 60: The Hope,
After 60 Years, The ‘Lamp Unto The Nations’ Flourishes

Two suspicious Seattle ferry riders were “just businessmen”

Vote for Mamacita.

Japan has no kids

From the Terror Finance Blog-A PDF of the Comprehensive Survey of U.S. Efforts Against Threat Financing-MUST READ

Franco had better things to do with his time.

“The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind”

Platypus genetic code unravelled, which reminds me of Ogden Nash

I like the duck-billed platypus
Because it is anomalous.
I like the way it raises its family
Partly birdly, partly mammaly.
I like its independent attitude.
Let no one call it a duck-billed platitude.

Cross-posted at Fausta’s blog

The most popular book for Americans is the Bible, according to a recently released poll. After the Bible comes a more varied pick of novels, many of the fantasy genre.

Now, you can call me cynical, but having the Bible be the most popular book reminds me a lot of how “A brief history of time” was a bestseller. That it was an inmensely popular book doesn’t actually mean many people got past the first couple of chapters.

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Rabih Alameddine has a good point for the Los Angeles Times: in English-language newspapers, on TV, etc., people often refer to God, when talking about Islam or Muslims, as “Allah.” This while there’s a very well known English word for Allah, namely “God.” They’re one and the same. Allah = God, God = Allah. Why, then, do so many people use “Allah” in said context? (more…)

Decades of rumors can finally be put to rest; former US President Ronald Reagan was right, Mikhail Gorbachev is a Christian. In Soviet Russia, people were not allowed to practice their faith publicly (or privately for that matter). Gorbachev’s wife’s parents were both killed during World War II “for having religious icons in their home.” (more…)

Today Barack Obama delivered a strong speech about race and how, in his opinion, this country needs to reconcile its color issues. The man is an inspiring speaker, no doubt. But what of his substance? Do his ideas represent what is best for the future of this country? In some respects, perhaps.

In my mind today’s speech was most notable for what Obama said about American Christianity:

“that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning”

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Via Jihad Watch comes the news that Dutch public broadcaster the KRO (Catholic) has given up on a project that intended to prove that one can very well commit violence based on the Bible. The reason? “After extensive research, linking Bible quotations with real political events and acts of violence however produced an insufficient basis for a thorough journalistic production.” (more…)

Like many of you I’ve walked in and out of too many stores, spent too much money, wrapped too many presents, and stayed up too late to really enjoy this special day. Perhaps that’s what’s got me thinking, at this hour, about the real reason for the Christmas season.

If you believe in God the father and that Jesus was a part of him sent to Earth to do bring us back into a relationship with him then Christmas means more to you than a party with presents, food, family, and friends. For you Christmas is a celebration of the heart, a joyful, unrestrained response to the beginning of the greatest gift you will ever receive. Blessed are you who believe. I thank God for you. (more…)

Here’s an example of the sort of ideological boondoggles that today’s polarized, us-against-them power struggles produce on a regular basis here in the old U.S. of A:

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that government support for the InnerChange Freedom Initiative at Newton Correctional Facility – a program operated by Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministries — advances religious indoctrination at state expense.  Americans United brought the litigation against InnerChange on behalf of inmates, their families and taxpayers.

This is a fascinating ruling from the perspective of self-destructive domestic policy.

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The back and forth between Robert Spencer, author of “Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t“, and John Derbyshire is ancient history in terms of Net time. But the subject is still highly relevant. Derbyshire said this in his initial review of Spencer’s book:

I understand that this bogus equivalence must be very vexing to a committed Christian, but Spencer seems not to understand how wacky all religions seem to the irreligious. All religious faith, after all, depends on magical thinking. To people who eschew such thinking—people who prefer to ground their beliefs in the strict rules of evidence used in modern law and science—Mohammed’s flying through the air to Jerusalem on a white steed is no more preposterous than the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; and so, God’s instructions to us through Mohammed are no more or less likely to make us better or worse than his instructions through Christ.

Yet there is a profound difference between modern Christianity and the new Islam.

This difference, which Derbyshire and Spencer both understand fully, can be observed in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, et al, on any given day. Moreover, it was played out in front of a breathless world in Afghanistan while the Christian Korean aid workers were held hostage and, in two cases, brutally executed.

Given this, I wasn’t really surprised when a BBC article confirmed what had already been written about, namely that the kidnappers had used force against the Korean hostages to convince them to “convert to Islam”, at at gunpoint, no less:

“We were beaten with a tree branch or kicked around. Some kidnappers threatened us with death at gunpoint to force us to follow them in chanting their Islamic prayer for conversion,” said Jae Chang-hee.

“I was beaten many times. They pointed a rifle and bayonet at me and tried to force me to convert.”

…

Another of the group, Yu Jung-hwa, described how she thought she was going to die.

“The most difficult moment, when I had a big fear of death, was when the Taleban shot [a] video.

“All 23 of us leaned against a wall and armed Taleban aimed their guns at us, and a pit was before me.

“They said they will save us if we believe in Islam. I almost fainted at the time and I still cannot look at cameras,” she said.

That is, of course, one way to get someone to say the magic words. But it is no way to induce belief.

If you hang me by my feet with a rope over a pit full of hungry crocodiles and begin to saw away at that rope with your bayonet, then tell me that you’ll stop hacking at the rope if I’ll say that pigs can fly, guess what? I’ll say that pigs can fly. But when I’m back on safe ground reality hasn’t changed. Pigs still aren’t going to be doing much winging about, are they? And I wouldn’t care that I said they could. Shrug. Whatever.

So if any of the hostages did break down and, in their terror, repeat after the gunmen, what does it matter? That is anything but a conversion to Islam; it’s merely an instance of a person lying under duress, saying absolutely anything, even the most contemptible lie of all, to stay alive. It’s called doing what has to be done to survive, nothing more.

That this represents some sort of triumph is very telling about what lurks in the very soul of this thing called Islam, is it not?

It’s clear to me that it is. Out of respect for friends I’ll refrain from postulating that is has always been such. Spencer has his opinion so I’ll defer to his expertise.

The vast distinction between the two religions can also be seen in our own lives. This was brought home to me in a very personal way recently when my son came stumbling out of his bedroom an hour or so after being (supposedly) put to sleep. Blinking in the bright light he asked if he could be baptized into our church.

After questioning him for a few minutes my wife and I told him that he should talk to our pastor about the matter before making a final commitment. So he ran off to bed again with a smile on his face and I have to admit that I was amazingly happy at what had just happened. It had been perhaps the last thing I had expected.

Now here’s the payoff from this post.

After our pastor spoke to our son he found my wife and I and said, “I spoke to your son about being baptized and I just don’t feel that he’s ready to do that yet.”

There was some additional discussion, of course, and the pastor presented his reasons, all of which came back to the fact that he felt like our son didn’t yet have a full enough understanding of Christianity and the responsibilities he would have to bear to commit to following Jesus yet.

That was a hard thing to tell my son because he is convinced that’s what he wants to do. (But he knows that the real conversion takes place in one’s heart. What happens in the church is really for friends and family, not for God.)

Most importantly I’m proud of our pastor for having the integrity to do what was right instead of taking a shortcut in the unending quest to add another member to the roles.

Conversion at gunpoint vs. waiting until a boy is ready.

That’s a mighty big difference, isn’t it?

Cross-posted at Black Shards.