The
Christian Post reports that “The U.S. Army has removed a cross that was
prominently placed on the front of a chapel located at the remote base
of Camp Marmal in Northern Afghanistan. . . . [O]fficials said that
having a permanent sectarian image on the chapel violated army
regulations. . . . One soldier referred to the decision and the
regulation behind it as ‘a direct attack against Christianity and
Judaism.’”
This isn’t the first time Christianity has been an
issue in Afghanistan. Bibles translated into Afghan languages were sent
to a U.S. soldier at a base in Afghanistan. Here’s how
CNN reported the story in 2009:
Military
personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that
were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they
would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman
said Tuesday.
The unsolicited Bibles
sent by a church in the United States were confiscated about a year ago
at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan because military rules forbid troops
of any religion from proselytizing while deployed there, Lt. Col. Mark
Wright said.
Such religious outreach can endanger American troops and civilians in the devoutly Muslim nation, Wright said.
So
it’s OK to blow up stuff and shoot and kill Afghans, but it’s illegal
to share the gospel with them. We have traded bullets for the “gospel of
peace” (Eph. 6:15).
America has been compromising its Christian
heritage with Islamic nations for more than two centuries. It didn’t
work then, and it’s not going to work now. Europe abandoned its
Christian heritage long ago in the name of religious pluralism, adopted
secularism as a state religion, and if
demographic reports
are accurate will be Islamic in less than 50 years. Playing the
neutrality game is having an impact, and it’s not a good one. “Do not be
deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also
reap” (Gal. 6:7).
Soldiers during World War I were presented with
New Testaments that had Micah 6:8 inserted in them: “He hath shewed
thee, O man, what
is good; and what doth the LORD require of
thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy
God?” What our government understood in the early part of the 20
th century, it now rejects.
Many
secularists on the Right believe they will be able to change societies
by force forced democracy rather than the heart-changing effect of the
gospel. Secularists on the Left believe they will do it with reason and
science. Good luck with both extremes.
One supporter of the Afghan
Bible ban wrote the following to me after reading a short article I had
written making people aware of the story:
You
must be out of your mind! Any . . . conversion effort by the soldiers
would be considered an affront and negate much of the good work being
done over there. They would be considered “crusaders” and another proof
of this and play right into Al-Qaeda hands. Obviously you do not
appreciate the sensitivity of the situation and the necessity of walking
the line of neutrality. The best “sermon” is to do a good job, help
with the reconstruction, and police the country.
Jesus did a good
job, fed the people, and healed the sick and raised the dead, and He was
still crucified. Like in Jesus’ day, a few terrorists are keeping the
only thing that will transform the Middle East from the people.
It’s
not just soldiers who are denied the right to present the gospel in
Muslim nations. Just being a Christian in a Muslim nation
of which you are a citizen
can get you thrown in jail or worse. Foreign aid workers who have no
link to our military are under constant threat if it is perceived that
they might present the gospel. Christian minorities are persecuted on a
regular basis. Some have had their apartments searched for Bibles and
other Christian literature. Converting to Christianity can get a Muslim
convert the death penalty.We’ve
seen this type of persecution before, and it didn’t stop the spread of
the gospel. Peter and John were arrested “because they were teaching the
people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead” (Acts
4:2). They were on trial “for a benefit done to a sick man” who had been
made well (4:9). Even after seeing the healed man in their midst, the
religious leaders “threatened them further” (4:21). Even good works did
not persuade these religious leaders to embrace the gospel.
The
apostles later were arrested and put “in a public jail” (5:18) and given
orders to stop “teaching in this name” (5:28). Peter then utters the
classic response: “We must obey God rather than men” (5:29).
A
flogging couldn’t get them to stop proclaiming the gospel message
(5:40). And neither could executions, first Stephen (7:54–6) and then
James the brother of John (12:2). It didn’t take long before the gospel
became a threat to the political establishment of the day. Throughout
the period of Jewish persecution, the gospel was never compromised. Even
with the rise of Roman civil prosecution, the outward witness of the
church continued. The word neutrality was not in their vocabulary, no
matter what the bloody consequences. The world was changed by their
efforts.
The attempt to appease and mollify Muslims by America
muting its religious heritage has a long history. In 1797 a treaty was
made with the Islamic leadership of Tripoli that stated that “the
government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded
on the Christian religion.” Of course, this was false given the official
documents, charters, state constitutions, and calls for national days
of prayer and thanksgiving. But to appease the Barbary pirates and their
Muslim protectors, the statement was put in the treaty. Did it work?
No! Did the Muslim pirates stop kidnapping Christians from ships that
sailed near the coast of northern Africa because of the treaty? No! They
saw the accommodation as a sign of weakness and a lack of will. If
Americans were willing to give up the sacredness of their religion for
the promise of peace, then they would be willing to give up everything.
The pirates did not stop their pirating ways.
It did not take long
for American government officials to see that religious and other
concessions did little good to stop the piracy and kidnapping. America
had been paying ransom since 1785 for survivors of captured ships who
had been sold into slavery. This stopped in 1801 when the Pasha of
Tripoli broke the treaty because President Thomas Jefferson refused to
pay the Pasha’s demands for increased payments. The Treaty was
renegotiated in 1805 after the First Barbary War. There would be no more
compromises regarding the Christian religion with the Barbary
extortionists. The statement that “the government of the United States
of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion” was
removed from the 1805 Treaty. With a navy to back up the treaty, the
piracy stopped for a time and was finally stamped out in 1815 with the
Second Barbary War.
For years secularists have tried to use the
1797 Treaty with Tripoli as evidence that the founding of America had
nothing to do with the Christian religion. A more thorough study of the
Treaty and the history behind it tells a different story. One big lesson
of that history is that the United States government hasn’t learned
much since 1797 in dealing with radical Islam. Destroying “the sword of
the spirit” (Eph. 6:17) which is able to pierce “as far as the division
of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the
thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12) will only lead to
ongoing wars with bullets, missiles, tanks, and worse.
To learn the true story behind this controversial subject, download a FREE copy of the book
America’s 200-Year War with Islamic Terror: The Strange Case of the Treaty of Tripoli.
Chris
Christie is well-known for his viral, tell-it-like-it-is clips. It’s
part of the reason so many conservatives love him. And if they loved him
before, they will likely fawn all over him again when they see his
latest gem. During a press conference yesterday the New Jersey Gov.
lashed out at Obama over the failure of the debt supercommittee: “What
the hell are we paying you for?”
In
light of the "honor killings" trial that is making front-page headlines
in Canada, a pro-family leader is calling on the government to take a
good, hard look at who it allows into the country.
At
the dawn of his administration, President Obama opined: "A democracy
requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency."
Magical rays of white-hot sunlight emanated from his media-manufactured
halo. And then bureaucratically engineered darkness settled over the
land.
The
Muslim Brotherhood turned a prominent Cairo mosque into the site of a
hateful anti-Israel rally in Egypt Friday, with participants chanting
“Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, judgement day has come“ and vowing ”one day we
shall kill all the Jews.”
Kagan personally strategized, and her office lobbied to pass the
"Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (Obamacare) when she served
as President Obama's Solicitor General, making Kagan highly biased
today. 
An economics professor says the "Occupy Wall Street" movement and its splinter protests are confusing "wealth" with "income."
Boudreaux
also explains that the top one percent is volatile, pointing to an IRS
study of tax returns from individuals and households from 1996 through
2005.