Continued from last week...
“Do not give any of your children
to be sacrificed to Moloch, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am
the LORD.”
What was so bad about Moloch that God commands in the Old Testament that
his worshippers should be obliterated from the face of the earth? Simple, Moloch
demanded child sacrifice. The murder of children seems to infuriate God. Just
ask the Germans who after the horrors of the 20th century, no longer seem able
to reproduce. (Total Fertility Rate in Germany: 1.4) It is also striking
to see that Jesus is infuriated in the New Testament by unkindness to
children.
“And they were bringing
children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them.
But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, ‘Permit the
children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God
belongs to such as these.’” (Mark 10: 13-14)
The God of the Old Testament didn’t tell the Israelites to slaughter
people because they weren’t the right religion. They were slaughtered for their
“abominations,” among which was child sacrifice. There is no general command to spread the
religion of Israel
by the sword.
There is no command in the New Testament to spread the faith by means of
the sword. I have told you about the idea of abrogation in the Quran that the
later more warlike verses written in Medina
cancel out the earlier more merciful verses written in Mecca. Christianity also has a kind of
“abrogation.” It is the opposite of Quranic abrogation. Jesus ends the Old
Testament practice of stoning, of revenge, of divorce and of the ban. These
things were permitted because of the “…hardness of your hearts” (Matt.19:8),
but no longer were they to be allowed. In the New Testament violence gives way
to mercy.
The president talks about the Inquisition and the Crusades. Has he really
studied them, or is he just making the same assumptions that most post TV
thinkers make? I have written extensively about the Inquisition, claiming it
was in fact a lifesaving committee! I don’t want to go into it all again. You
can find what I’ve said by doing a web search for “Rev. Know it all - Is the
History Channel correct about the evil Spanish ...” and
“Rev. Know-it-all - How was the Spanish Inquisition a real life saver?” As
for the Crusades, I refer you to an interesting YouTube presentation. Do a web search by typing in “Bill Warner,
PhD: Jihad vs. Crusades YouTube”. You will be amazed. The Crusades lasted for
about 200 years causing perhaps 20 or 30 major offensive battles fought by
crusaders.
Remember, the Crusades were defensive wars fought against an aggressor
who had been waging war on classical European civilization for hundreds of
years. Remember too, that Egypt,
Turkey, Syria, the Holy Land, Lebanon,
Libya and Tunisia were
the heartland of Christian civilization and had been thoroughly Christian for
around 400 years, much longer than the United Stated has even been a nation.
They were invaded by foreign aggressors from the Arabian
Peninsula who took away their most basic freedom, that of
religion.
The Crusades were wars waged when the threat of foreign invasion was at Europe’s doorstep and then they were waged only at the
request of those about to be swallowed by a foreign invader. The act that precipitated the Crusades was
the destruction of all the Christian places of worship in the Holy
Land and the persecution of the Christian population by Hakim, the
Fatimid Caliph of Egypt in 1009. Things improved slightly for the Christians of
Jerusalem until the Muslim Seljuk Turks conquered the city and forbad all
pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The First Crusade in 1095 was the response to
invasion and subsequent religious persecution.
The armies of Islam are still waging war on Christians 1400 years later.
In that period jihadists have waged at least 548 major offensive battles just
against classical Mediterranean and European
Christian society, with untold millions killed and at least one million
Christians taken as slaves to be sold in the Muslim world. This is a practice
that continues among Muslims in the Middle East and Africa
to this day. Captured Christian girls as young as four are sold by the current
Islamic Caliphate (ISIS) to buyers from
all over the Muslim world and it was possible until recently to buy a captured
Christian boy from southern Sudan for as little as $50. (Slavery Haunts Sudan CBS News 1/25/1999)
This sorry history does not include the jihadist battles fought in the
rest of the world. Take India
for instance, a land where there has been a Christian presence in coexistence
with Hinduism since the time of Christ.
Muhammad bin Qasim brought the armies of Islam to India in 712
CE, demolishing temples while slaughtering and enslaving masses of people.
Despite this, his superior, Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf urged him to be still harsher.
“Henceforth grant pardon to no one of the enemy and spare none of them, or else
all will consider you a weak-minded man.” Al Hajjaj commanded that men be
killed, and that children be imprisoned and retained as hostages. Qasim obeyed orders
and went on to massacre perhaps 16,000 of the defending forces of the town of Brahminabad.
…to be continued
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