Christians at Risk

[Adam's Apple]

Reynolds wrote this article to request that persecuted Christians be remembered in the prayers of other Christians.

Christians at Risk for Practicing Religious Freedom
By Becky Reynolds, The Indianapolis Star
November 13, 2005

The true story of a Pakistani teenager surprised me. Something about the story of this young woman facing religious persecution caught my attention and brought tears to my eyes. Zeba was only 12 when she was called into the study of her Muslim employer. He told her that based on her work and personality, she would make a bright and honorable bride for his son.

Muhammed handed her a copy of the Quran and a list of verses to learn from it. With fear, Zeba told him that she was sorry, but she was a Christian and would always be a Christian. Muhammed then knocked her to the ground and muttered, "You will learn." Over the next few weeks, whenever Muhammed and his wife spoke to her about reading the Quran, if she refused, she was beaten and called "a dirty Christian."

Zeba's mother learned about the beatings and went to the employer about it. Her mother never came home. The family later learned that Muhammed had beat her, left her in a heap outside his door and finally doused her with gasoline and set her on fire.

Is this a once-in-a-lifetime story of persecution? It is an extreme case, but not isolated. The Barna Research group estimates that in the 20th century more than 40 million Christians were martyred around the world. Furthermore, it is estimated that 200 million Christians today face persecution.

The Voice of the Martyrs, an interdenominational organization serving in more than 50 nations, defines persecution of Christians as "a situation whereby Christians are kept from obtaining Bibles or other Christian literature by either government practice or policy. Also included are government- sanctioned circumstances where Christians are harassed, imprisoned, killed or deprived of their possessions or liberties because of their faith in Jesus Christ and their desire to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience."

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the World Evangelical Alliance talk about three levels of persecution: disinformation, discrimination and persecution. This abuse can come from different places in society, but it is often practiced with impunity.

For full article:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051113/OPINION01/511130364...

 

[KarlMarx]

Three Christian girls on their way to school are deliberately beheaded in Indonesia by a band of Muslims and nothing happened.

Two Muslims are accidentally electrocuted while hiding from French police and 300 cities get torched. Furthermore, no Muslim cleric seemed to say anything to discourage the violence.

Which causes me to ask, WHICH one is the religion of peace?

 

[Hobbit]

Three Christian girls on their way to school are deliberately beheaded in Indonesia by a band of Muslims and nothing happened.

Two Muslims are accidentally electrocuted while hiding from French police and 300 cities get torched. Furthermore, no Muslim cleric seemed to say anything to discourage the violence.

Which causes me to ask, WHICH one is the religion of peace?

Ya know, I've seen that "religion of peace" bullcrap contradicted by the actions of Muslims so many times, I decided to research it. We all know the stuff about jihad, but the thing the Muslims always fall back on is the fact that the word "Islam" means, literally, peace. However, they don't tell the whole story. Linguistics is a funny thing. You know, the Eskimos have dozens of words that literally translate to "snow," though each word means a different type of snow (powdery, slushy, etc.). Well, Arabic has multiple words that literally translate to "peace." The nuances in the meaning of the word "Islam," however, cause it to more correctly translate as the variety of peace that immediately follows surrender. That's the goal of Islam, not the coexistant peace everyone thinks of, but the peace that would follow immediately after the entire world surrenders to Islam.

 

[The ClayTaurus]

Ya know, I've seen that "religion of peace" bullcrap contradicted by the actions of Muslims so many times, I decided to research it. We all know the stuff about jihad, but the thing the Muslims always fall back on is the fact that the word "Islam" means, literally, peace. However, they don't tell the whole story. Linguistics is a funny thing. You know, the Eskimos have dozens of words that literally translate to "snow," though each word means a different type of snow (powdery, slushy, etc.). Well, Arabic has multiple words that literally translate to "peace." The nuances in the meaning of the word "Islam," however, cause it to more correctly translate as the variety of peace that immediately follows surrender. That's the goal of Islam, not the coexistant peace everyone thinks of, but the peace that would follow immediately after the entire world surrenders to Islam.

You have a link to this definition of what kind of peace Islam stands for?

The Eskimos have many different words for snow most likely because they are surrounded by snow all the time.... it's interesting then, that Arabic has many words for peace, no? I wonder, of all the words for peace, how many of them are actual "peace" and how many are "peace after submission or surrender."

That would be an interesting study to see.

 

[Hagbard Celine]

Ya know, I've seen that "religion of peace" bullcrap contradicted by the actions of Muslims so many times, I decided to research it. We all know the stuff about jihad, but the thing the Muslims always fall back on is the fact that the word "Islam" means, literally, peace. However, they don't tell the whole story. Linguistics is a funny thing. You know, the Eskimos have dozens of words that literally translate to "snow," though each word means a different type of snow (powdery, slushy, etc.). Well, Arabic has multiple words that literally translate to "peace." The nuances in the meaning of the word "Islam," however, cause it to more correctly translate as the variety of peace that immediately follows surrender. That's the goal of Islam, not the coexistant peace everyone thinks of, but the peace that would follow immediately after the entire world surrenders to Islam.

Yeah, actually a lot of people don't know, but the word "Islam" means "submission" or "surrender" to the will of Allah.

 

[Annie]

Ya know, I've seen that "religion of peace" bullcrap contradicted by the actions of Muslims so many times, I decided to research it. We all know the stuff about jihad, but the thing the Muslims always fall back on is the fact that the word "Islam" means, literally, peace. However, they don't tell the whole story. Linguistics is a funny thing. You know, the Eskimos have dozens of words that literally translate to "snow," though each word means a different type of snow (powdery, slushy, etc.). Well, Arabic has multiple words that literally translate to "peace." The nuances in the meaning of the word "Islam," however, cause it to more correctly translate as the variety of peace that immediately follows surrender. That's the goal of Islam, not the coexistant peace everyone thinks of, but the peace that would follow immediately after the entire world surrenders to Islam.

Islam means submission. At least that is my understanding.