scottjacobsen

20 April, 2013

That's a Feature, Not a Bug

I was preparing a post along the lines of the above title, but then I found this, that states it all much better than I could, from

Reymond, Robert L. Contending for the Faith: Lines in the Sand That Strengthen the Church. Fearn, Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2005.:

The Arabic word translated “Islam” is etymologically related to the Hebrew word “shalom,” usually translated “peace.” But “peace” does not mean to most Muslim clerics in the Middle East what it means to the Westerner. To these Muslim clerics “peace” connotes “surrender” or “submission” to Allah, which means for them with respect to the non-Muslim world “placing their foot on their enemy’s neck.”

No Muslim scholar can truthfully deny that Muhammad taught that the faithful should “make war on the unbeliever …, and deal sternly with them” (Sura 66, “Prohibition,” verse 9; see also Sura 8, “Spoils of War,” verses 13–17, and Sura 9 [virtually a declaration of war against unbelievers], “Repentance,” verses 5, 14, 29, 112, 123). Muhammad himself, as he sought to propagate his religion beginning with his move to Yathrib or Medina (this move is called the Hegira) in September, AD 622, waged “holy war” (jihad) in the name of Allah against village after village in Arabia, finally entering his birth city Mecca in AD 630 as a conqueror and cleansing its chief shrine (Kaaba) of the 350 idols worshiped there. In other words, from its beginning Islam was spread by the sword. And the first four caliphs (successors) of Muhammad—Abu Bakr, Umar, Othman, and Ali—also drew the sword and conquered one land after another through Palestine and North Africa all the way to Spain, killing multiplied thousands as they did so and also establishing a tax system (the Dhimma) to subjugate those they did not force to convert.

While Christianity has had its misguided Crusades, its Spanish conquistadors, and has committed other misdeeds in the name of Christ, spreading Christianity by the sword has not been its normal mode of operation and was never its founder’s mode of operation. Yet in the last 100 years Muslim expansion still goes on apace by warfare. The Muslim Ottoman Turks slaughtered a million and a half Armenians in 1915–24 (a fact still ignored by much of the West). Today converts to Christianity are regularly executed in Saudi Arabia and tortured and murdered in Egypt. In the Sudan over two million Christians have been slaughtered and a million Christian children have been sold into slavery, all under the direction of the Islamic General Umar Bashir. In Indonesia Muslims have killed over three hundred thousand East Timorese Catholics since 1975. And Muslims in Palestine, Lebanon, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc., danced in the streets with joy while our widows and orphans mourned their dead on September 11, 2001. The late Hashemi Rafsanjani of Iran declared:

Every problem in our region can be traced to this single dilemma: the occupation of [modern Palestine] by Jewish infidels or Western imperialists … The everlasting struggle between Ishmael and Isaac … cannot cease until one or the other is utterly vanquished. (Cited by George Grant, The Blood of the Moon, 56)

And the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran stated:

Until the cry “Allah Akbar” resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle. There will be Ji’had … Islam is the religion of militant individuals.… Weapons in our hands are used to realize divine and Islamic aspirations. The more people who die for our cause, the stronger our Ji’had shall become … The governments of the world should know that Islam cannot be defeated. Islam will be victorious in all the countries of the world, and Islam and the teachings of the Koran will prevail all over the world … We have in reality, then, no choice but to destroy those systems of government that are corrupt in themselves and also entail the corruption of others, and to overthrow all treacherous, corrupt, oppressive, and criminal regimes. This is the duty that all Muslims must fulfill, in every one of the Muslim countries first, and then throughout the infidel West, in order to achieve the triumph of our revolution and to garner the blessing of Allah. (Cited from George Grant, The Blood of the Moon, 72)

Nevertheless, in spite of the words of the Koran, Muhammad’s own military actions, Islam’s bloody history, and such declarations as the two just cited, Western political leaders are representing Islam to their people as a religion of peace and affirming that such Muslim clerics as I just cited are “radical Muslims” who have simply “hijacked this great and beautiful religion”! But Muslim authorities know very well that the Koran prescribes jihad as the obligation of every able-bodied male and that Islam from its inception in the seventh century to the present has sanctioned war and conquest as means of advancing Islam. The truth of the matter is that Islam is a religion of war, literally a killer religion. So in spite of what President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and every major news agency asserts, the true nature of Islam is jihad, and the Muslim clerics in the West who say otherwise either do not understand their own faith (they are called “folk Muslims” by Middle Eastern Muslim clerics) or are purposefully attempting to conceal from the gullible Westerner the true nature of Islam.

The West cannot defeat the Muslim world by the sword. Only Reformed churches, using the spiritual tools God has made available to them (see 2 Cor. 10:3–4), can defeat Islam, for the real problem is one of the human heart and only Jesus Christ can change the heart of Muslims.

10 October, 2012

Why don’t we talk about these?

Since the postwar 1940’s and 50’s, which saw the rise of the parachurch movement, there has been a great emphasis on Christian unity. Much of this unity, however, has been at the expense of two important Christian doctrines, which are both God’s gift to His church: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. For example, the late Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ and author of the famous, Four Spiritual Laws, doesn’t mention baptism or the Lord’s Supper until book six of his 10-part series on Christian growth. Even then there is no teaching on baptism, but rather these questions:

“Ordinances of the Church
What do you believe baptism accomplishes? (Matthew 28:19) Who is eligible for baptism? What was the significance of your baptism?
What is the meaning of the communion service? (I Corinthians 11:23-26)
How do you prepare yourself to observe the Lord’s supper?”

He does suggest that one be baptized:

“Take the initiative; call the pastor of a nearby church where Christ is honored and God’s Word is preached. Make plans to start this week and to attend regularly. If you have not already been baptized, plan to be baptized as an outward expression of your identification with Christ.”

As far as I can tell, he never defines baptism as immersion, sprinkling, or pouring; and since much of his audience consisted of lapsed church goers, one who always thought that sprinkling was the way to go would have no reason to think otherwise. In all of his training material and evangelistic writings, I found no theology of baptism or communion, no Biblical teaching on the meaning or significance of these two ordinances. As well, their statement of faith is silent on this subject.

It’s not my purpose to pick on Campus Crusade for Christ (now CRU), or any other particular organisation; I simply want to point out a trend among some of the most influential evangelical leaders in the second half of the twentieth century to discount doctrines that might seem “divisive.” Many, if not most, parachurch organisations sought to be trans-denominational and both baptism and communion are often denominational distinctives, and therefore deemed divisive. In the name of Christian unity, and for the sake of “working together,” it was decided not to discuss them further. This tendency is also evident in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Organisation.

Problem is, how do we preach the Gospel together without discussing the human response to the Gospel (baptism), or the means of grace God gives us to fellowship with Himself (the Lord’s Supper)?

Looking back, it seems to me that in the rush to unite Christians, the unity achieved was a pretend one. I would venture that most of the early leaders of parachurch evangelistic associations had strong views on both baptism and the Lord’s supper, but lived in “two worlds,” the church, and the parachurch. The latter has largely won the day among conservative protestants in the West, which might help to explain the weak and individualistic nature of Western Christianity. It also seems that this pragmatic unity came from outside the church, not from within. With the wild success of the parachurch movement in getting things done, doctrinal authority was transferred from the church to the parachurch. If successful parachurch organisations believed that, for the sake of unity, baptism and communion were not to be seriously considered, who could argue? In fact, arguing against such success could easily be seen as reactionary.

But keep in mind that Christ established a church (Matthew 16:18) and not an organisation of the likeminded, it might be good to continue to contend for Biblical truth, expressed within the context of the church of Christ.

Prior to the advent of the parachurch movement, many Christians were sadly divided over doctrine. These debates, however, rather than being ignored or shuffled off to a few obscure journals, need to be brought to light. The parachurch movement created an apparent unity, but this unity has, in the long run, weakened the faith. Many Christians could, earlier in the last century, define and defend their understanding of Christian doctrine. This includes their understanding of baptism and communion. Today, after being taught for decades that these issues are unimportant, the comprehension of these truths has passed. But so has the appetite for Christian teaching, for Bible knowledge as a whole. What we might be left with is a unity to preach a Gospel that we know less and less about, which reduces all Christian truth to “believe God and be nice.” But without Biblical teaching, “believe” “God” and even “nice” make no sense.

I don’t want to see Christians attacking one another, but with the level of Christian knowledge available today (whether that knowledge is apprehended or possessed is another matter), is it not possible to find unity on the Bible’s terms rather than on an organisation’s “best practises”?

12 September, 2012

An Explanation of Islamic Rage | A Self-Repost

I wrote this in April of 2011. Seems apropos now.

The Koran was recently burned by a Florida pastor, Terry Jones. In response, UN aid workers were attacked and killed in Afghanistan. This has become a predictable outcome when some Muslims are aggrieved. A few years ago, Danish cartoons, some with pointed messages, some quite benign, and some created by Imams to create even greater outrage, caused widespread protest, rioting, and bloodshed.

Real or perceived slights to the Koran or to the prophet Mohammed are often met by violence, rage, rioting and murder. Many times, it is a Christian or a Christian community that is attacked. This is greatly due to the fact that in the Islamic world, it is (incorrectly) assumed that the West is Christian, and thus, if the crime of desecration occurred in the West, it was a Christian action.

For the Christian, there is an apologetic value in Islamic rage. By apologetic, I don’t mean that this is a chance to apologise for the foolish behaviour of the burners of the Koran. If you didn’t burn the Koran, you are not responsible and have nothing to apologise for or feel ashamed of. This is not a case of guilt by association. By apologetic, I mean that Islamic rage is itself a strong argument against Islam. I do not advocate creating more rage-provoking incidents; this will happen easily enough. What I do wish to point out that this kind of response to criticism betrays a fundamental weakness in Islam. I believe that systems that are false and untrue will have faults that are un-healable.

I think I understand the rage. It is the rage of impotence. Allah does not act: for all the greatness attributed to Allah, he does nothing in the face of insult. Allah does not fend for himself, or protect himself, but depends upon his followers for vengeance. Every unanswered insult against Allah is a sign, a proof, of his non-existence. In the face of insults against Allah or Muhammad, what other response can there be except rage.

If someone takes a crucifix and places it in a jar of urine, it is awarded a spot in an art gallery (this has happened). Why don’t Christians riot, destroy, and kill? For one thing, we aren’t disappointed that God didn’t show up to take some vengeance, because this isn’t what He told us to expect. Look at Matthew 13:24-30, and you will notice that judgement is future.

A parallel to Islamic rage may be found in the defeat of the prophets of Ba’al (1 Kings 18). But before I continue, I wish to make it clear that I do not find a parallel between Elijah and Terry Jones. I have little to say of him. While much has been said about Jones, and less, significantly, about the Islamic response.

A showdown between 450 prophets of Ba’al and Elijah resulted in the total defeat of queen Jezebel’s prophets. As you read the account, you will be struck by the pitiful hopelessness of their cause. Try as they might, their god did nothing. There was no voice, no action, no sign at all that any of their cries were heard. Ba’al, whom they expected to avenge himself, was silent. But God answered Elijah’s prayer. He then commanded him to slaughter the prophets of Ba’al. The text is clear: the prophets of Ba’all failed because Ba’al failed: there is no Ba’al. He is false, a lie, a fiction. But he was the religion of the nation. So what’s a queen to do? When Jezebel heard of Elijah’s role in their massacre, she said, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow” (1 Kings 19:2). Then, as now, impotence and defeat gives birth to rage.