Western European vs. Eastern European Responses to Mass, Unvetted, Muslim Immigration

"Eastern Europeans are responding very differently to the mass migration of Muslims into Europe than are Western Europeans... Poles are understanding their stance against mass, unvetted immigration as comparable to their stand against the Nazis and past totalitarian and genocidal invaders..."

Here is a very thoughtful article, with a long view of history, which considers the Eastern European Christian response to the Migrant Crisis and Islam.


Western European vs. Eastern European Responses to Mass, Unvetted, Muslim Immigration

By Danusha V. Goska

Frontpage Magazine via AINA � September 15, 2015

The sign reads "Kosciol Walczacy, Nie Kapitulujacy."
That means: "The Fighting Church, not the Surrendering Church."

Eastern Europeans are responding very differently to the mass migration of Muslims into Europe than are Western Europeans. Westerners who encourage mass, unvetted Muslim immigration insist that they are compassionate, tolerant, and ethical. They insist that Eastern Europeans and anyone else who resists immigration are bigots, xenophobes, without compassion and unethical, if not outright Neo-Nazis. Westerners are stereotyping Eastern Europeans as bigoted thugs whose opinions must be demonized, whose choices must be overruled, whose borders must be penetrated and whose demographics must be altered through coercion.

In this article I focus on three signs at the Warsaw anti-immigration rally of Saturday, September 12, 2015. Full understanding of these protest signs illuminates how many Poles and other Eastern Europeans view the current immigration. These protest signs will help to illuminate why many people, not just Eastern Europeans, oppose this immigration for and against mass Muslim immigration. The press estimates several thousand people took part in an anti-immigration demonstration in Warsaw. An estimated one thousand people marched in favor of immigration.

In August, 2015, Slovakia announced that it would accept only Christian, not Muslim, migrants. Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been outspoken in his resistance to mass Muslim immigration. "Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims ... This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity," Orban wrote in a commentary for Allgemeine Zeitung.

Western elites have an easy explanation for Eastern European resistance to mass Muslim immigration. Eastern Europeans have long been depicted as primitive, thuggish Neanderthals. Think of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire or the butt of any given Polak joke.

On September 12, 2015, The New York Times published an article by Rick Lyman entitled, "Eastern Bloc's Resistance to Refugees Highlights Europe's Cultural and Political Divisions."

Lyman's use of the anachronistic term "Eastern Bloc" consigns Eastern Europeans to membership in the long dead Warsaw Pact. The article raised the alarm against allegedly racist and intransigent Eastern Europeans, ghosts of the bad old days of the Cold War, who threaten the bright, new European order with their atavistic bigotry.

The Times acknowledged that mass Muslim immigration to Europe is a problem. The problem is not, however, that a staggering number of defiant illegal migrants committed to a very different culture, acknowledged by security experts to include an unknown number of potential terrorists, had overwhelmed Europe's ability to respond. No. the problem was Eastern European backwardness.

"The main impediment" to a successful response to mass Muslim migration is Eastern European's "rising xenophobia." "Powerful far right movements, nationalism, and racial and religious prejudice" are proof of "stubborn cultural and political divides that persist between East and West." "Sluggish," "corrupt" Eastern Europe betrays its "pledge of support" to "European values" like "cultural diversity, protection of minorities, and a rejection of xenophobia," according to The New York Times. Eastern Europeans are "wary of accepting racial and religious diversity." In contrast to tolerant and diverse Western Europeans, Eastern Europeans' "tradition of accepting culturally different refugees is very weak." Also, Eastern Europeans are whiners who see themselves as victims. They resent others who may have "suffered more than" they have.

Lyman's very brief, 1,500 word article struck a nerve. By Sunday evening it inspired 1,164 reader comments.

Comments that The New York Times selected as worthy of attention tended to agree with the Times' assessment: backward, bigoted, bad, old Eastern European Neanderthals were the problem. One of The New York Times highlighted reader comments condemned Poland as a land of "endemic bigotry and intolerance."

A very different story was to be found among the comments that readers themselves had voted for. In that section, one found voices contesting the Times' entire narrative.

One reader, Alexandra Ares, wrote,

"Former CIA Joshua Katz said today that the US should not agree to a quota for security reasons; that there must be a very thorough process of vetting; this takes time since many have burned their documents and bought fake passports; that we shouldn't bump up quotas because of political pressure. Even so Katz said we should expect that some of the Syrians we admit into the US might become terrorists in the long run. If our own CIA experts oppose quotas, why pressure less prepared Eastern Europe to take risks and act against their national interests and capacity of absorption? ... Unlike Western Europe, the Eastern bloc suffered hundreds of years of Muslim occupation and persecution of Christians and Jews. In Romania our Independence Day is when we kicked out the Ottoman Empire."

While writing the book, Bieganski, the Brute Polak Stereotype, I walked a tightrope. My thesis was that the West tends to stereotype Poles and other Eastern Europeans as racist thugs. I had to make this point while acknowledging that there are indeed some real racist thugs in Eastern Europe, as there are anywhere else.

The group hosting the several-thousand-strong, anti-immigration demonstration in Warsaw was the Oboz Narodowo Radykalny or National Radical Camp. The ONR is indeed a far-right organization. The contemporary ONR claims its descent from the pre-war ONR, founded in 1934 and banned by the Polish government. The original ONR supported anti-Jewish boycotts. One of the ONR's founders, Jan Mosdorf, was imprisoned by Nazis in Auschwitz and was murdered for helping Jews. That the leader of an overtly anti-Semitic group would be murdered by Nazis for helping Jews indicates how difficult it can be for outsiders fully to understand Polish history and politics.

I am not a supporter of the ONR. I am a supporter of the expansive Poland that embraces and celebrates Jews and other minorities. I live in the US and I cannot assess to what extent the participants in recent demonstrations were ONR supporters or merely opponents of mass immigration who had no other outlet for their concerns. I have watched raw footage of the demonstrations on YouTube posted by the ONR, who, one would expect, would want to boost their own presence. The vast majority of protestors who carry any sign are carrying Polish flags, not racist signs or the distinctive green flag of the ONR that features an upraised arm wielding a sword. I can report that the content on three of the signs tells me much about the hearts and minds of the Poles who oppose immigration. These signs are not racist. They must be understood.

First, it must be pointed out that those Westerners who support mass, unvetted Muslim immigration to Europe are not models of compassion, ethics, or tolerance. They have utterly cynical and selfish reasons for their support of this immigration.

One reason nations want desperate immigrants: workers to support extensive government welfare programs. On September 8, 2015, the Washington Post's Rick Noack attempted to explain why some European countries accepted, and others rejected, mass Muslim migration. In an article entitled "This map helps explain why some European countries reject refugees, and others love them," Noack employed a demographic map depicting birth rates. Some European nations are aging and losing population; some nations are young and their populations are increasing. The European nations whose populations are aging and shrinking tend to offer generous cradle-to-grave welfare benefits. Someone needs to work and pay into this system for the governments to continue to provide benefits. These European nations want desperate immigrants. Some European nations have steady birthrates, and, by comparison, don't provide such generous state-mandated welfare. These European nations don't want unvetted immigration.

Another reason some nations want immigrants: to improve their reputations. Those who embrace the current immigration believe that doing so broadcasts and certifies their status as secular saints. In the Guardian, Jonathan Freedland writes, "Mama Merkel has consigned the ugly German to history ... If history can offer a more dramatic turnaround in the perception, and perhaps reality, of a nation, then it's hard to think of it. Seventy years ago Germany was a byword for tyranny and murderous violence: the land of racial supremacism and unending cruelty ... Hitler, the Nazis and the apparatus of the Holocaust remain lodged in the global folk memory ... But now it will be remembered too as the place where in 2015 uniformed police greeted a trainload of exhausted Syrian children with soft toys."

There is a third reason that many Europeans interpret a Muslim immigration as to their benefit. Europe had been a predominantly Christian continent. Unvetted Muslim immigration will inevitably vitiate Europe's Christian character. Many ideological opponents of Christianity, from New Atheists to Marxist, see that as a good thing. See David Horowitz's 2006 book, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left.

Just as it is not true that Western Europeans who embrace unvetted immigration are saints, it is also not true that Eastern Europeans are primitive racist thugs and traitors to "European" ideals. A few signs at Saturday's rallies speak volumes.

One sign reads "Kosciol Walczacy, Nie Kapitulujacy." That means: "The Fighting Church, not the Surrendering Church." This sign is deeply resonant to me as a Catholic and as a Polish-American. My deep understanding of this sign, and my awareness that no Americans or Western Europeans I know would understand this sign without my explaining it to them, reveals a great gulf between how many in the West understand Christianity, and how many Eastern Europeans do.

People in the West have adopted secular, Christophobic interpretations of Christianity. Christians in the West hang their heads in shame and say, "Oh, I am so ashamed to be Christian. The Crusades ... the Inquisition ... so bad."

Western Europeans may look at Muslim immigrants and say, "These are the poor, sad victims we colonized. Let's prove how multicultural and compassionate we are by letting them in."

None of these approaches to Christian faith resonate for me as an American of Polish and Slovak descent.

The Inquisition? Poland's significant role during the Inquisition was as a tolerant "state without stakes" who invited in Jews, heretics, and indeed Muslims who had been exiled from other lands.

The Crusades? We were not major players in the Crusades. In fact, there was a Crusade against us, the Wendish or Slavic Crusade. I recently mentioned to a Catholic Facebook friend that images of crusading knights swinging their swords above their heads did not really excite or inspire me. I associate such images with the Teutonic Knights, whom the Poles had to fight for their own survival. I am mindful that Sergei Eisenstein exploited long Slavic memories of being attacked by the Teutonic Knights in his anti-Nazi propaganda film, Alexander Nevsky. Germans have long memories, too, and when they invaded Poland, they dismantled Krakow's Grunwald memorial to our defeat of the Teutonic Knights.

Colonization? We Eastern Europeans were significantly the colonized, not the colonizers.

A shamefaced, apologetic, hesitant Christianity? This has not been my experience of Christianity during my many visits to Eastern Europe from the 1970s to the 2000s. Rather, I have experienced something deeply beautiful and unforgettably inspirational to me: the fighting church, a church that stands shoulder to shoulder with people defending their home.

On my first visit to my mother's natal village in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, I met a Catholic priest who had been tortured by the Communists. In Poland, priests were tortured and murdered by the Nazis. Twenty percent of Polish priests were killed. Polish convents played a key role in saving Jewish children. Polish priests risked and often lost their lives to save Jews. Poles remember Stefan Wyszynski, a cardinal, who had been imprisoned by Communists. Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko was tortured and murdered by the Communists in 1984. I lived in Poland 1988-89 and participated in anti-Communist protests. I witnessed unarmed Catholic priests, with nothing but their courageous presence, protect demonstrators from aggressive riot police.

Poles and other Eastern Europeans have needed a "fighting church" because they have been embattled for so very long. Poles have long seen themselves as the Christ of Nations. We suffer and others benefit. Not so long ago, others acknowledged Eastern Europe's role in bearing the brunt of unending invasions from the east.

The fourteenth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica reads: "It is to the Slav colonization of the Russian plains and to the long Slav struggle with nomadic invasions from Asia that Western Europe owes her comparative freedom to develop a certain cultural unity. The role of buffer state was not voluntary, but the debt is nonetheless great, and the heroic struggle of the Slav races against repeated invasions, in hard climactic conditions, should command the respect and admiration of the world."

Eastern European nations, by necessity, had to take on invaders from the East. While we were fighting, dying, and facing enslavement, Western Europe benefitted from the bulwark we provided.

Poland was repeatedly attacked from the east, often by Muslims, including Turks and Tatars. Poles fought significantly in historic battles against Muslims, including the Battle of Varna, the Battle of Khotyn and the Battle of Vienna. These battles took place in Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Austria. Poles did not travel to Muslim lands to attack Muslims. Muslims traveled into Eastern European for their jihad. Malcolm X famously said of the African American experience, "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock landed on us." Eastern Europeans might say, "We didn't land on the Ummah -- the worldwide Muslim population. The Ummah landed on us."

Poles were among many Slavic people enslaved by Muslims. Between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, Muslims from the Crimea enslaved perhaps one million persons from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth -- as many as 20,000 human beings per year. The last major Muslim slave raid on these Slavic people occurred in 1769. Poles enslaved by Muslims did hard labor, or served as sex slaves.

1769 is a long time ago, you say. Poles should get over it. My friend John Guzlowski is the son of two slaves. His parents were enslaved by Nazis, not Muslims, but iconography on protest signs makes clear that Poles see resistance to one totalitarian invader as analogous to resistance to another. ISIS brags of taking Christians as slaves, while the world waits in vain for significant Muslim protest of ISIS atrocities.

Poles are not the only Eastern Europeans whose cultures enshrine unpleasant encounters with Muslims. Serbs once had to give their seven-year-old sons to Muslims for forced conversion -- the practice of devsirme. The Slovak poem Turcin Ponican by Samo Chalupka records Turks invading Slovakia. Perhaps my favorite cultural legacy of the constant wars between jihadis and Slavs is the 1880 Ilya Repin painting, "Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire." More famous, of course, is Vlad the Impaler, a Romanian leader dedicated to protecting Christians against Muslims, who gave his name to Bram Stoker's Dracula.

There is more to the sign reading "Fighting Church." During the Nazi occupation, the Polish Resistance called themselves "Polska Walczaca" or "Fighting Poland." Please note the similarity of vocabulary and construction between the anti-Nazi resistance "Polska Walczaca" and the anti-immigration sign "Kosciol walczaca." Poles are understanding their stance against mass, unvetted immigration as comparable to their stand against the Nazis and past totalitarian and genocidal invaders.

That understanding is echoed in the visual imagery of the flags many protestors carried: flags with an anchor formed by the letters P and W. This anchor was a symbol of the World War Two resistance.

These Poles, agree or disagree, see their church as a church that resists Western orders to capitulate -- to surrender -- to Islam. And they are placing their church in the tradition of those who fought the Nazis.

Another image draws in Poland's long history of resistance: the image of Jan Sobieski and the words "Przyszlismy, ujrzelismy, a bog zwyciezyl." This quote is attributed to Jan Sobieski. It is his Christian rewrite of Julius Cesar's famous quote, "Vini, vidi, vici." Cesar said, "I came; I saw; I conquered." Sobieski, a true Pole, was mindful of classical history. He was also a devout Christian. He said, "We came; we saw; God conquered," of his victory against jihadis at Vienna in 1683.

Poles have lived through much more history than many luckier peoples. As such, they are often difficult. They are not, though, especially intolerant, unethical, or lacking in compassion. They merely see the obvious problems with the current mass, unvetted migration. Few realize that Poland has hosted its own Muslim population for hundreds of years without major incident. The mainstream media outlets that are depicting Poles and other Eastern Europeans as intolerant Neanderthals are doing a grave disservice. The readers' favorite comments at the New York Times site suggests that they are fooling fewer and fewer people.

'Breaking of the Crosses' in Syracuse Part 2: The Sharia Doctrine against the Cross

The huge response to my recent post on the conversion into a mosque of a century-old Roman Catholic church in Syracuse, NY, gives us reason and opportunity to explore Islamic hatred of Christianity and the Cross in more depth. 

This well-researched article by Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project elaborates the sharia doctrine behind Islam's jihad against the Cross, and helps explain the significance of Muslims breaking and covering 10,000 crosses in Syracuse.

We will only see more such examples of Islam's jihad against Christianity and the Cross in the dark days ahead. This is truly a Sign of the Apocalypse.

Al-Qaeda Declares 'We Must Eliminate the Cross'

This follows sharia doctrine that says Christianity's ultimate elimination will be carried out by Jesus,who is really an Islamist.

by Ryan Mauro, The Clarion Project (originally posted April 27, 2014)

Senior Al Qaeda leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi recently appeared in a video made in Yemen during the largest and most dangerous gathering of Al Qaeda in recent years.

Al Qaeda recently released a video of a large meeting in Yemen showing senior leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi preaching, �We must eliminate the cross� and explained that, �The bearer of the cross is America.�

Al-Wuhayshi was referencing sharia doctrine about the ultimate elimination of Christianity at the hands of the Islamist version of Jesus. It couldn�t be clearer: Their jihad is not about Western foreign policy. It�s about global conquest.

The Al Qaeda leader�s comment is important because it displays the end goal of even the �moderate� Islamists who insist that sharia governance is tolerant to Christians and Jews because it does not require a change in faith.

In truth, the system is designed to contain Christianity and Judaism and minimize their sustainability, but even this modicum of acceptance is not permanent.

Mainstream sharia doctrine holds that Jesus was not crucified or resurrected, but instead ascended to heaven. According to the doctrine, one day he will return to defeat the Islamic version of the Antichrist, which is called the Dajjal.

IslamWeb, a website that honors Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef al-Qaradawi, states in Fatwa 82061 that �the first people to follow him [the Dajjal] will be the Jews.� The Antichrist will be on earth for 40 days and then Jesus �will come down from heaven and kill him.�

IslamWeb Fatwa 124824 says Jesus will �break some crosses and command people to do the same�... 

The objective is to make Christians accept that their interpretation of Jesus is wrong and to convert to Islam.

Islamist teaching about the Dajjal foments anti-Semitism and depicts Jesus as someone who -- alongside the Muslims -- will fight the Jews. Islamic scholar Imran Nazar Hosein preached in 2011 that the Dajjal will have an army of 70,000 Jews from Isfahan, Iran �externally appearing to be Muslims.� Egyptian Sheikh Mahmoud al-Masry says the same thing, adding that the Dajjal will be born to a Jewish woman in Isfahan and reign from Jerusalem.

IslamWeb Fatwa 124824 says Jesus will �break some crosses and command people to do the same� and will also �prohibit keeping them.� The objective is to make Christians accept that their interpretation of Jesus is wrong and to convert to Islam.

OnIslam.net, a website where Muslims can ask Islamic scholars questions, says Jesus �will declare himself as a prophet of Islam, coming to correct his message and to unite all the believers under the banner of Islam.� Jesus will then abolish the jizya, the mandatory tax paid by non-Muslims under sharia governance.

This prophetic absorption of Christianity into Islam is what is envisioned by the United Muslim Christian Forum, an Islamist terrorist front group, when it talks about bringing the two religions together into a single bloc.

Sharia will be the only government and Islam the only faith. The Reliance of the Traveller, an authoritative Sharia manual endorsed by Egypt�s Al-Azhar University (the highest school of Sunni learning) and the Muslim Brotherhood-linked International Institute of Islamic Thought, says in section 09.8:

�After his [Jesus] final coming, nothing but Islam will be accepted from them [Jews and Christians], for taking the poll tax [jizya] is only effective until Jesus� descent�The coming of Jesus does not entail a separate divinely revealed law, for he will rule by the law of Mohammed��

IslamWeb Fatwa 82052 explains that Jesus will

�implement Islamic rules, and He will fight against the present Idolatrous Christianity. The most correct evidence shows that he is still alive, has not yet died, after Almighty Allah rescued him from the guilty Jews.�

Sharia doctrine further explains that Christians who convert at this time will go to Paradise. As for Christians and other non-Muslims who did not live for this prophetic time, they will be judged one day by Jesus. Anyone who ever lived and heard the message of Islam and did not convert will have Jesus as a �witness� against them on the Day of Judgment, according to Fatwa 82052.

These fatwas reference the hadith, or the collection of narrations about Mohammed�s life, as the source for their determinations. Muslims often disagree about the authenticity, interpretation and correct application of the different hadiths, but the top sharia scholars are united in their beliefs about Jesus� role in prophecy and his destruction of crosses.

The Islamist offensiveness at the sight of a cross comes from these teachings about Sharia. Since they believe Jesus finds it so offensive that he will one day break the crosses, these Islamists believe they are commanded to likewise be offended by Christianity and the symbol of the cross in particular.

There is disagreement among Islamists about when Christians are acceptable targets, but Islamist terrorists like Al-Qaeda can cite authoritative Sharia rulings to show that attacks on Christianity are permitted before Jesus� descent from heaven.

A worldview that says �we must eliminate the cross� cannot be changed by political [or religious] dialogue...

When Islamists destroy crosses or talk of destroying the cross, they are emulating the anger they believe Jesus has towards the cross. They are acting as they believe Jesus would if he were on earth today. This is the source for al-Wuhayshi�s statement that �we must eliminate the cross.�

This is also why Christian girls in Egypt are having their necklaces with crosses broken. It is also why Islamists in Libya destroyed a cross (along with the gravestones) at a gravesite for British soldiers who died there fighting the Axis powers.

Section o9.8 of Reliance of the Traveler states that a caliph (the leader of a caliphate) �makes war upon Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians� after first giving them a chance to convert or submit to sharia governance and agreeing to pay the jizya. Some Islamists argue that the resurrection of the caliphate is required for this war to commence, but that�s not exactly a reassuring qualification.

The Distinguished Jurist�s Primer by Ibn Rushd was published by the Qatar-based Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization and endorsed by a list of prestigious Islamist scholars including Qaradawi, members of Al-Azhar and the Qatari government. Section 101.1.7 of the Primer states, 

�The Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting the People of the Book, excluding the (Qurayshite) People of the Book and the Christian Arabs, is one of two things: it is either for their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizya.�

Islamist terrorists like Al-Qaeda who target Christians and Western civilization believe they are doing the work of Allah and, ironically, Jesus. A worldview that says �we must eliminate the cross� cannot be changed by political dialogue and foreign policy alterations.

 _______

Ryan Mauro is the ClarionProject.org�s National Security Analyst, a fellow with the Clarion Project and is frequently interviewed on top-tier TV stations as an expert on counterterrorism and Islamic extremism.

ISIS Jihadist converts to Christianity after seeing Jesus in his dreams

In a word, YES!

There are numerous instances of Muslims throughout the Islamic world being converted to Christ through dreams and visions. Fr. Daniel Byantoro, head of the Indonesian Orthodox Mission, was himself strongly moved to follow Christ by a dream. 

The story below about an ISIS jihadi converting to Christ serves as a sign for hope, that the Lord Himself can and does reach out to touch the hearts of Muslims, even among the most bloodthirsty zealots, and leads them to repentance. It proves the Lord's love truly extends to all people. 

But this does not absolve Christians from doing all we can, both by presenting a vibrant witness through our grace-filled lives, as well as by sharing the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with our Muslim neighbors.

Notice how, in the story of this jihadi's conversion, it was not only the dreams, but it was also the witness of the Christian whom he killed, who gave him a Bible moments before he was martyred, which proved the truth of the Gospel to the ISIS jihadi.

Another powerful witness certainly having an effect on Muslims is how families of Christians martyred by Muslims are forgiving their attackers and praying for them to come to know Jesus Christ and be saved from hell. The witness, the prayers, and the dreams and visions are all combining to draw many to the Lord.

Fr. Daniel Byantoro provides some very helpful thoughts on how one may go about sharing the Gospel with Muslims in an excellent interview conducted with him by Road To Emmaus. We should also keep in mind the fervent example of New Priest-Martyr Daniel Sysoev of Moscow, who publicly debated Muslims and was eventually killed by an extremist Muslim group, because he had led over 80 Muslims into the Orthodox Church, including several hard-core Wahhabis.

Let us therefore have hope!


via REPORT: ISIS Jihadist converts to Christianity after seeing Jesus in his dreams
by Mary Chastain, Breitbart News � June 15, 2015

ISIS slaughters Christians and destroys churches while they establish their caliphate in Syria and Iraq. But one militant reportedly converted to Christianity after �a man in white� appeared in his dreams.

Gina Fadely, the director of Youth With A Mission Frontier Missions (YWAM), told The Voice of the Martyrs Radio Network one of their workers met a former ISIS fighter who murdered Christians, but converted after a dream:

�He told this YWAM leader that he had begun having dreams of this man in white who came to him and said, �You are killing my people.� And he started to feel really sick and uneasy about what he was doing,� Fadely continued. �The fighter said just before he killed one Christian, the man said, �I know you will kill me, but I give to you my Bible.� The Christian was killed and this ISIS fighter actually took the Bible and began to read it. In another dream, Jesus asked him to follow him and he was now asking to become a follower of Christ and to be discipled.�

�So who knows. Perhaps this man will be like Saul in the Bible that persecuted Christians and he turned from that persecution of the early church to become the Apostle Paul who led it,� Fadely added. �God can turn it around.�

Fadely is speaking about St. Paul the Apostle, who was known as Saul before he converted. He used to persecute the followers of Jesus and some texts claim he enjoyed it as much as the ISIS fighter enjoyed murdering Christians. On his way to Damascus to persecute more followers, he is blinded by a light and hears a voice. From Acts 9:1-9:

1 Meanwhile Saul was still breathing threats to slaughter the Lord�s disciples. He went to the high priest
2 and asked for letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, that would authorise him to arrest and take to Jerusalem any followers of the Way, men or women, that he might find.
3 It happened that while he was travelling to Damascus and approaching the city, suddenly a light from heaven shone all round him.
4 He fell to the ground, and then he heard a voice saying, �Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?�
5 �Who are you, Lord?� he asked, and the answer came, �I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
6 Get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you are to do.�
7 The men travelling with Saul stood there speechless, for though they heard the voice they could see no one.
8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing at all, and they had to lead him into Damascus by the hand.
9 For three days he was without his sight and took neither food nor drink.

The jihadists cleanse areas within their caliphate of anything they deem un-Islamic. Tombs and shrines are wiped off the map while non-Muslims are forced from their homes. For the first time in 2,000 years, not a single Christian lives in Mosul, Iraq�s second-largest city and one of the earliest homes of Christianity. They destroy libraries and implement strict Islamic curriculum in schools. People must follow Sharia law. The terrorists also post pictures and videos of beheadings and public executions. They recently beheaded 21 Coptic Christians in Libya.

Kevin Sutter, another YWAM leader, told the show that an Arab leader said many Muslims are losing faith in Islam.

�Many people are now following Jesus but they keep it quiet,� he explained. �They haven�t gone public about it. They even have church in their own home, they�re watching, they�ll serve communion to one another as they�re watching TV.�

In March, apologist Nabeel Qureshi told The Christian Post dreams are significant to Muslims:

�In Muslim cultures, generally speaking, people don�t see themselves as being able to commune with God. Communion is a very Christian concept and the idea that Christ has torn down the veil � in a lot of cultures the veil is still up. In Islam, for example, people don�t expect to have God talk back to them personally, as the Holy Spirit isn�t living in them. They ask God for guidance through dreams; that�s like the one way that Muslims expect to hear from God,� Qureshi explained. 

�For someone to reach out and ask, �God, can you tell me about you?� Or, �If you�re Jesus, can you show me a dream?� That�s not strange at all� That�s kind of what Muslims do,� he added.

Armenian Muslims Living in Turkey are Returning to Christianity

�Descendants of the Armenians who were forcibly converted to the faith of Prophet Muhammad have started realizing the significance of their nation�s history, and now they are returning by the dozens to their ancestral faith in Christ the Savior.�

Pravoslavie � May 21, 2015

(Istanbul, May 19, 2015)   

Armenians living in Turkey � descendants of the Christians who embraced Islam � are returning to the faith of their fathers in great numbers, reports the Linga news portal.

According to the famous Agos Armenian weekly newspaper published in Istanbul, the cases of conversion of Armenian Muslims to Christianity, which are becoming more frequent, indicate that they (Armenians) have preserved their ancestors� faith deep in their memory.

Specifically, it has been reported that on Saturday, May 9, clergy of the Turkish Church of St. Stephen baptized twelve Dersim Armenians. The latter, having learned about their true origin, accepted the Gospel message at once. Also most of the newly-baptized who joined the Armenian Church have decided to bless their family life by the sacrament of a Church wedding.

In the experts� view, this event is just one example of a large number of conversions of Turkish Armenians� descendants from Islam to Christianity: thus, Dr. Georgette Avakian in her interview with the portal noted that �descendants of the Armenians who were forcibly converted to the faith of Prophet Muhammad have started realizing the significance of their nation�s history, and now they are returning by the dozens to their ancestral faith in Christ the Savior�.

�There are many such examples. One case of particular resonance recently took place in Jerusalem, when a group of Turkish Muslims of Armenian origin came to the Holy Land in order to be baptized there in the Metropolis of the Armenian Apostolic Church. And that they fearlessly announced this in public is already extremely significant,� Avakian said in conclusion.

Gone is the Glory of Constantinople�

"... but the glory of the Christians shall not end so long as they hold fast to faith in Jesus Christ and carry Him with them wherever they wander, wherever they are taken, wherever they settle. Jesus alone is their glory."

by Fr Georges Massouh, Notes on Arab Orthodoxy � May 2015

OCP Media � May 19, 2015

Jesus announced that the worship of God is not tied to a specific place as God is not contained by space and He cannot be bound in an exclusive place toward which those who want to be in His presence must pray or make pilgrimage. Thus when the Samaritan woman asked Him, �Our fathers worshiped on this mountain (Gerezim in Samaria), and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship,� Jesus answered her, �Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father� the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth� (John 4:20-23).

God is present in every place and there is no place on the face of this earth from which God is absent. God is present where His people gathers in His name. The Apostle Paul affirms this when he says, �I shall dwell in them and walk among them. I shall be their God and they shall be My people� (2 Corinthians 6:16). God is a wanderer who does not settle in one place. He does not require people to come to Him in a specific place. He comes to them whenever they call upon Him and seek Him.

In this context, Saint Basil the Great (d. 379) comments on Jesus� words to the Samaritan woman and says that worship is no longer tied to a specific geographical location since the Holy Spirit has become the �place of worship�. Christ also is the place of worship and the Gospel of Saint John clearly speaks of the end of worship in the temple of Jerusalem since Jesus Himself is the new �temple� and there is no need for a temple built in a city or on a mountain.

When the Jews asked Jesus for a sign, He answered them, ��Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up� � But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them� (John 2:18-22). Jesus came. He became man. He destroyed death. He fulfilled the prophecies. He abrogated Judaism. He ended exclusivity. He rejected being closed off. He fought racism. He established a new covenant. He made everything new.

Therefore Christianity does not believe in holy lands as opposed to non-holy lands. All the earth is called to holiness through the effort of those living upon it to sanctify themselves. Holiness belongs to humans, not to land. Man, not dust, is holy. Man � not mountains, not lakes, not rivers, not plains � is called to eternal life. Man � and not any other created thing � is the image of God, called to be His likeness. Man is the highest value, for the sake of which God created everything, not vice versa.

However, Christianity is a religion that believes in the incarnation and thus in the connection between faith and bearing witness and the local church which exists in a specific geographic space. The Epistle to Diognetus affirms the connection between these two things. This epistle was composed in the late 2nd century by an unknown Christian author for a pagan named Diognetus who held an important position in the Roman Empire and had asked the writer for a letter to explain Christianity and Christians and especially to explain the God of the Christians, how they glorify Him, and why Christians do not fear dying for their faith. The style of the Epistle shows that its author was a cultured person skilled in the Greek language and rhetoric in addition to theology.

The Epistle says, 

For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind either in locality or in speech or in customs. For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, neither do they use some different language, nor practice an extraordinary kind of life�  

But while they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians as the lot of each is cast, and follow the native customs in dress and food and the other arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship, which they set forth, is marvelous, and confessedly contradicts expectation. 

They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners; they bear their share in all things as citizens, and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign.

Gone is the glory of Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians. Gone is the glory of Constantinople, the great capital of Orthodoxy. Gone is the glory of Cappadocia, Nicea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Smyrna, Rusafa and Palmyra� but the glory of the Christians shall not end so long as they hold fast to faith in Jesus Christ and carry Him with them wherever they wander, wherever they are taken, wherever they settle. Jesus alone is their glory.

Source:

William Kilpatrick: Insulting Religion

"Because Islam has consistently proven itself to be an enemy of Christianity, 'less Islam' is an idea that Catholics [and Orthodox] need to seriously consider... It�s very much in our interest to sow the seeds of doubt about Islam in the minds of Muslims."

Another excellent article by one of the keenest Christian critics of Islam. I consider Kilpatrick's writings to provide a framework for the Orthodox Church in how to deal with the threat of Islam to the Church.  Not merely "Radical Islam," but Islam itself.

More articles by William Kilpatrick:

• Needed: A New Church Policy Toward Islam
• Taking the Islamic Challenge Seriously
• Has the Church in the US Succumbed to the Charms of Islam?

Insulting Religion
by William Kilpatrick, Crisis Magazine � May 13, 2015
Thanks to Raymond Ibrahim
Cartoons not in original article; compiled by Creeping Sharia.

We often hear it said that it is simply wrong to insult the faith of 1.3 billion Muslims. Why, then, isn�t it wrong to insult the faith of 2.2 billion Christians? It�s done every day, and sometimes the insults are hard to take. Christians are understandably upset when art exhibits feature crucifixes immersed in urine or portraits of Mary covered with dung.

It doesn�t require a Ph.D. to figure out why the secular word condemns insults to Muslims but countenances insults to Christians. It�s because the latter won�t come after you with machetes and assault rifles. If Islam were truly a religion of peace, it�s likely that most secularists wouldn�t give a fig about Muslim sensitivities.

Still, having themselves been the target of religious insults, Christians can sympathize with Muslims when their religious sensibilities are assaulted. It follows that many Christians will have scant sympathy for the organizers of the recent Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in Garland, Texas. Christians wouldn�t like it if atheists exhibited unflattering cartoons of Christ. To be consistent, they should also protest when the founder of Islam is similarly caricatured. That seems to be the general line of argument advanced by critics of the exhibit.

Looked at in a larger context, however, there are good reasons to argue that the event organizers did the world a service�and that includes the Muslim world. Granted, the cartoons will offend many Muslims. Judging by a sample on the Internet, some are of questionable taste. On the other hand, several of the cartoons are well-executed and make valid points about Muhammad.

The winning cartoon from the Garland, Texas 'Draw Muhammad' contest, by Bosch Fawstin.

But what is the context that could possibly justify subjecting Islam�s prophet to the same kind of treatment that is administered daily by political cartoonists to various political figures? Well, for one thing, Muhammad is also a political figure. More accurately, he is a military political leader. I use the word �is� advisedly. For many Muslims, he is as present now as he was to his seventh-century followers. In Islam, he is considered to be a man for all time�the most perfect man who ever lived. Muslims of every generation are expected to model their behavior on his. And for the last ten years of his life, Muhammad�s main preoccupation was warfare. For many Muslims, he is not just their prophet, he is also their commander-in-chief.

According to Islamic scholars, the world is divided into two spheres: the House of Islam and the House of War (all territory that is not controlled by Islam). Islamic tradition holds that peace will only be achieved when the House of War is brought under the rule of Islam. Thus warfare or the support of warfare is a perpetual obligation�although the obligation can be temporarily suspended when Islam is militarily weak.

The larger context in which the Muhammad art exhibit must be evaluated is that Islam is at war with us. Not every Muslim is, of course. Many Muslims, like many Christians, simply ignore those religious obligations they find inconvenient. However, because a great many Muslims do take the warfare obligation seriously, so should we. The reason we don�t is that we are still locked into the sixties-era belief that war is always optional. Back then, it was considered the height of sophistication to ask, �What if they gave a war and no one came?� But a much more pertinent question is this: �What if they gave a war and only one side showed up?� The answer is that the side that shows up usually becomes the winning side.

The same applies to ideological wars. The side that fails to realize that one is in progress ends up the loser. The event in Garland was essentially a battle in an ideological war�one that we are losing because we are scarcely aware of its existence. In places where Muslims make up only a small minority of the population, the preferred method of warfare is the stealth operation: the gradual and piecemeal acquisition of power and influence. In Europe, the UK, and the U.S., Islamist groups apply steady pressure on local communities to accept first this and then that aspect of Islamic culture and sharia law. The initial requests seem moderate enough: halal menus in schools, Islam-friendly textbooks, hijabs in hospitals, and sharia courts to adjudicate Muslim family matters. And then suddenly, after the softening-up process is well-advanced, it�s �You must comply with our laws about depicting a prophet.�

This is the battle that the organizers of the cartoon event are fighting. Ultimately, it�s a question of whether or not sharia law will be allowed to trump the First Amendment. And �ultimately� is not that far in the future. In Europe and the UK, the courts, the media, the churches, and public officials have already self-censored themselves into a state of semi-dhimmitude.

The keynote speaker at the Garland event was Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament. Wilders, who has been under police protection for eleven years, has firsthand knowledge of the culture wars in Europe. His key message is that Islam is winning because Western cultures are cooperating in their own overthrow�particularly by silencing those who dare to speak out about Islamization. He is one of numerous Europeans who have been dragged through the court system (for many years in his case) for the crime of defaming Islam.

Wilders began his talk with the observation that �Islam has declared war on us, on our Judeo-Christian civilization. Islam wants to rob us of our freedoms and liberties.� If you don�t agree with that, then the rest of what he said will seem unnecessarily harsh. Here are some excerpts:

If we fail, we will be enslaved. So the only option is to defend our freedom with all the energy we have. 

Let us de-Islamize our societies! 

Fortunately, there are Muslims who do not live according to Islamic commands. But there is no moderate Islam. 

The less Islam, the better!

You can see why Wilders lives in a safe house and is accompanied by a Dutch security detail wherever he goes. But if he is correct about the current situation�the ideological war against Judeo-Christian civilization�then his recommendations make perfect sense. If it is in the nature of Islam to wage war against non-Muslims, then it stands to reason that if you�re not Islamic, you should want to reverse the Islamization process.

�The less Islam, the better� is one of those unthinkable thoughts that we need to start thinking about. It�s not an expression of animosity toward Muslims (Wilders has been clear on this), but rather a recognition that Muhammad�s law will always be a threat to freedom until, as Churchill put it, �the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.� A world without Islam does not mean a world without Egyptians or Saudis or Iranians. But if we are at war with a dangerous ideology, why wouldn�t we want it to fail�that is, to lose its power as a motivating force?

Because Islam has consistently proven itself to be an enemy of Christianity, �less Islam� is an idea that Catholics need to seriously consider. Catholics have been conditioned to unthinkingly celebrate the world�s �rich� diversity of beliefs. They should also recognize that there are dangerous diversities that ought to be discredited. As I wrote in a previous column, �Church policy toward Islam should be geared toward � undercutting Islam�s faith in itself.� In other words, it�s very much in our interest�and in the best interests of many Muslims�to sow the seeds of doubt about Islam in the minds of Muslims. The place to start is with Muhammad�the man from whom jihadists draw their inspiration.

How do you undercut faith in Muhammad? As I suggested in my series on Church policy toward Islam, the best method is desensitization. Muslims need to get used to the idea that their prophet can be criticized (and Western opinion-makers need to learn the same lesson). Because of who he was and what he did, Muhammad cannot stand up to too much exposure�which may be the underlying reason why it is forbidden to depict him.

That was an essential element of Wilders� talk. �Depicting Muhammad,� he said, �is an act of liberation:�

Let us hold similar exhibitions all over the free world. From Canada, to Australia, to Europe � So let us expose Muhammad. Let us show the world what Islam truly is. And let us support Muslims like Bosch [Bosch Fawstin, the winner of the cartoon contest], who wish to leave Islam and liberate themselves from fear.

I�m not saying that cartoons are the best method of going about the desensitization process. As I said in my previous pieces on the subject, I would prefer approaches that are less confrontational. But the cartoonists have done us a favor. By breaking the ice, they make it easier for others to follow up with more exposure of Muhammad. This could be done with books, articles, documentary films, TV specials, and, yes, pictorial representations of Muhammad. If you want �less Islam,� you want more pictures of Muhammad and more discussion about him. Cartoon contests may not be the ideal way to open the discussion, but if Islam and its prophet are put beyond discussion, we are all put in danger.

We can take some lessons on desensitization from the various media attempts to undermine faith in Christ. They do it, not with cartoons, but with supposedly disinterested investigative reports aimed at raising doubts: How much do we really know about Jesus? What do the Hidden Gospels reveal? Have archaeologists found the tomb of Jesus? And so forth.

I�m not suggesting that we use dishonest and underhanded tactics. Fortunately, it�s not necessary to resort to sly innuendo when asking questions about Muhammad. That�s because all the bad news about him is recorded in detail in the standard Islamic sources�the Koran, the Sira, and the Hadith. Many Muslims have only a scant acquaintance with these sources, but they know that they can�t discount them as unreliable. As Muslims find out more about the life of Muhammad, many will become disenchanted. And, as Islam scholar Raymond Ibrahim has observed, disillusionment about Muhammad is one of the main reasons that Muslims leave Islam.

One of the chief obstacles to initiating a campaign of desensitization is the Church�s semi-official stance on Islam. Church leaders are so committed to the path of genteel dialogue and discussion that they can�t seem to imagine any other approach. And whereas Wilders believes that Islam is an enemy of Judeo-Christian civilization, many Catholics seem to be acting on the assumption that Islam is a part of Judeo-Christian civilization�as though an attack on it is an attack on us.

For example, following the shooting in Garland, Texas, L�Osservatore Romano decried the event as �blasphemous.� Blasphemous? The last time I checked, Muhammad was not one of our prophets. Why is the Vatican newspaper running interference for him? And why did they do the same in 1989 after the publication of Salman Rushdie�s unflattering portrayal of Muhammad in The Satanic Verses?

Do Catholics have a vested interest in protecting Muhammad�s reputation? In shielding Islam from criticism? In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis said that the right way to respond to �episodes of violent fundamentalism� is to remember that �authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.� Statements like this are well-intentioned, but they have the effect of letting Islam off the hook whenever violence is committed in its name. Why do Catholics have this habit of taking the side of Islam whenever its honor is called into question?

The answer, I think, is that Church authorities are working under the assumption that religion is on the whole a good thing, and therefore Islam must, on the whole, be a good thing. In line with this assumption, theologians and catechists tend to focus on those aspects of Islam that resemble Christian beliefs and practices. By the same token, beliefs and practices that diverge significantly from Christian ones are dismissed as unrepresentative aberrations. Ever since Vatican II, the Church�s policy has been to emphasize the things it supposedly holds in common with Islam�belief in one God, veneration of Jesus and Mary, a shared moral code, and the like.

This may prove to be a formula for disaster. Consider some of the downside. The more the Church identifies with Islam, the more it will be identified with Islam in the eyes of the world. Does the Church really want to be identified with a religion that assigns an inferior status to women, that kills apostates, and countenances female genital mutilation and honor violence?

Declarations of solidarity with Islam need to be reconsidered. So also should the notion that we must respect other people�s religious beliefs. Up to a point, yes, we should respect other faiths. But there are many aspects of Islam that go beyond that point. Islam was founded by a man who murdered, raped, enslaved, and pillaged. Why should we respect him or refrain from depicting him? If we respect and abide by that Islamic prohibition, then, as radio host Rush Limbaugh asked the other day, �why wouldn�t Americans have to respect and obey Islam�s laws and punishments regarding gays and women?�

As I wrote in a recent piece, the attempt to avoid those things that provoke Islam puts us on a slippery slope. The people killed inside the Lindt Chocolat Caf� in Sydney weren�t drawing cartoons, they were simply unbelievers. The Jews killed inside the kosher market in Paris had done nothing to provoke Islam�except for being Jews. More to the point, numerous Catholic beliefs and practices are provocative to Muslims, and are severely curtailed or forbidden in Muslim countries. Meanwhile, thousands of Christians have been killed simply for the provocation of being Christian.

The Church needs to reexamine its relationship with Islam. Instead of looking for opportunities to express esteem and respect for Islam, it may be time for the Church to look for opportunities to distance itself from Islam. Instead of looking for ways to be less provocative, the Church needs to be more proactive in proclaiming the message of Christ and doing what it can to undermine the destructive message of Muhammad. Catholics should strive to do this in a non-confrontational manner, but this will not always be possible.

_____

William Kilpatrick taught for many years at Boston College. He is the author of several books about cultural and religious issues, including Psychological Seduction; Why Johnny Can�t Tell Right From Wrong; and Christianity, Islam and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West. He is also the author of a new book entitled Insecurity. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Catholic World Report, National Catholic Register, Aleteia, Saint Austin Review, Investor�s Business Daily, and FrontPage Magazine. His work is supported in part by the Shillman Foundation.

Mark Durie: "They ARE the Reformation"

"Christianity has undergone its reformation, so why not Islam? The European reformation took centuries: why wouldn't an Islamic reformation also take time?  Isn't it all a matter of time?"

See also: Raymond Ibrahim: Islam�s �Reformation� Is Already Here�and It�s Called �ISIS�

By Mark Durie � January 4, 2010

On December 1, 2009, Wafa Sultan and Daniel Pipes debated whether and to what extent a 'moderate' Islam is possible.  Although both are opponents of Islamic radicalism, on this question they did not agree.

Wafa Sultan argued that Islam is Islam, pure and simple, and there can never be such a thing as 'moderate Islam'. On the other hand, Daniel Pipes argued that the answer to radical Islam must be moderate Islam: Islam can be moderated, and the effort to support Muslim moderates is both necessary and worthwhile.

The two participants in the debate are as contrasting a pair as one could imagine.  The ex-Muslim Wafa Sultan is undoubtedly a powerful voice in her native Arabic, and even in English she is impassioned and speaks with a memorable turn of phrase.  In contrast, Daniel Pipes is measured and softly spoken, carefully and persistently making his case.  He challenged her to explain what practical solutions she could offer to the challenge of radical Islam.  She challenged him to show the results produced by his promotion of moderate Islam.

I commend the debate to readers, not because one party won the day, but because the speakers were addressing important questions, which will exercise many minds for years - perhaps generations - to come.

My concern here however is to focus on an important comparison between medieval Christianity and present-day Islam, which was raised by someone in the audience, who asked:

I will suggest that this [radical Islam] is not that different from Christianity at the time of the crusades, which was a very belligerent religion compared to what it is today.  So look at that in terms of the evolution of a religious doctrine, and how long does that take?

The questioner went on to speculate whether the acceleration of change, which we see in the world around us, could allow a reformation of Islam to happen more rapidly than happened with Christianity.

On countless occasions over the years I have heard this comparison: Christianity has undergone its reformation, so why not Islam? The European reformation took centuries: why wouldn't an Islamic reformation also take time?  Isn't it all a matter of time.

This line of thinking arises from a world view which looks at ideologies through the lens of 'progress' or 'evolution', shaped by a kind of Darwinism.  The underlying presupposition is that human societies evolve as time passes, progressing and becoming more humane and more advanced.  

Clearly not everyone in the West works from this assumption, but many do.  As recently as the 1960's, it was even fashionable among Western secularists to believe that religion had had its day altogether. Many announced that God was, at last, 'dead'.  The death of God was widely  regarded as one of the positive benefits of progress.

The idea of progress is not simply a concept - it has become part of the warp and woof of our everyday language.  We speak of ideas, policies and practices as 'backward' or 'regressive', 'progressive' or 'advanced'.  Time has become a yardstick to measure the ever-improving character of human social order.  It is the embedding of the idea of progress into our everyday language which gives credibility to the question "Can Islam not undergo its own reformation too?"

But do societies really tend to evolve, becoming more and more advanced?  Do social institutions inevitably improve with time?  Is progress more than just an idea - is it a law which governs the history of religions?

I find it very difficult, looking back over the ethical wreckage of the 20th century, to subscribe to the presupposition of progress. The worst atrocities of the past 100 years were perpetrated by regimes which held up an ideal of social evolution, and which were motivated by a vision of human progress.  One recalls, for example of the careers of Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot.  Such shameful monuments to 'progress' as National Socialism and Communism do not inspire confidence that human societies and ideologies can and must improve with time.

There is another problem with comparing today's Islam with pre-Reformation Christianity, and this has to do with the meaning of 'reformation' itself.  It has become accepted by many thinking people today that 'reformation' means some kind of softening, a 'moderating' process.  Indeed a manifestation of 'progress'.  This far from the truth.

Throughout the whole medieval period the idea of reformation (reformatio) was prestigious, and many reform movements chased after this ideal   Reformation meant going back to one's roots, and just about everyone agreed that this was a Good Thing.  For medieval Christians, a reformed Christianity meant being more Christ-like, more apostolic, and more Pauline.  Wealthy St Francis read Jesus' words about giving away one's possessions to feed the poor, so he followed this teaching, and many flocked to join him.  Thus the Franciscans were founded as a reform movement.  

St Francis was a radical reformer. He was not inspired by a vision of making Christianity more moderate and progressive.  What moved him was a desire to follow the Jesus of Gospels.  

Likewise Luther recalled the words of St Paul about freedom in the letter to the Galatians - 'for freedom Christ has set us free' - to exort the German Nobles to claim their own freedom from ecclesiastical authority.

The European Reformation - so often invoked in comparisons with Islam today - was driven by a desire to re-form Christianity a second time,  taking it back to its roots.  It sought to move ahead by going backwards.  Its inner logic had nothing to do with the modern idea of progress or the Darwinian concept of 'evolution'.  The Reformation was not a 'progressive' movement in the modern sense, but one which sought to 'regress', renewing the example of Christ and his apostles.  

This is why Luther and other reformers encouraged believers to read their Bibles for themselves, in their own native tongue.  Luther regarded it as the duty of every Christian to be constantly renewing their own faith from the original sources.  LIke St Francis, Luther was a Christian radical.

It is true that some changes brought in by the European Reformation had a moderating effect on Western intellectual life. There developed a greater emphasis on freedom and individual responsibility, for example. The Protestant work ethic was one bi-product of this emphasis. Yet these developments did not take place out of a desire to develop a more moderate form of Christianity, but because they they were regarded as conforming more to the  Bible.

Therefore, according to the core meaning of 'reformation' - a return to one's roots - reforming Islam  would mean making it more Muhammadan.  An Islamic reformation would produce a religion which is closer to the Koran, and above all, closer to the example and teaching of its founder.  

The hankering of some Westerners after an Islamic reformation begs the question of what would it mean to be follow Muhammad's example more closely?

As it happens, such a movement has been underway for more than 100 years, and is in full swing today.  It is what we know today as Islamic radicalism. The ideal of an Islamic reformation has produced, among many other results, the global jihad movement, the push for sharia revival and reimplementation of the Caliphate. This is what a desire to revive the example and teaching of Muhammad has led to.

There are two two main reasons why renewing the example of Muhammad leads to Islamic radicalism. 

One is that Muhammad combined within himself the offices of king, judge, general and religious leader, thus unifying politics, law, the military and religion.  To follow his example means creating a theocratic political order, where the laws of the land are controlled by Islamic theology.  In contrast Christian tradition has always distinguished the secular from the ecclesiastical, based on the older Hebrew religious distinction between priests and kings.  This feature of medieval Christianity - the distinction between religion and politics - was severely criticised by famous Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun.  Muslim thinkers had always regarded it as one of the key weaknesses of Christianity.

The second reason why renewing Islam leads to radicalism is that many of the harsher elements of Islamic law - such death for apostates, stoning adulterers, cutting off the hands of thieves, enslaving one's enemies, and killing non-believers - are firmly grounded in Muhammad's example.

Australian Muslim Waleed Aly was entirely correct when he said Islam has already had its Reformation, and the outcome has been Islamic radicalism:  

Still, Western calls for an Islamic Reformation grow predictably and irrepressibly stronger, while those familiar with the Islamic tradition easily observe that radical and terrorist groups such as al-Qa'ida and the Taliban, cannot be cured by Reformation for the very simple fact that they are the Reformation. [People like us: how arrogance is dividing Islam and the West, p.xv].

For those today whose world view is shaped by the ideal of progress, and look out upon Islam peering through the frame of Western assumptions about 'backwardness', 'progress' and 'evolution', Waleed Aly's insight can be difficult to grasp.  Yet it is essential that it be understood and appreciated.  

In today's world, if what is needed is more moderate manifestation of Islam, then the very last thing that could ever accomplish this would be an Islamic Reformation.

Raymond Ibrahim: Islam�s �Reformation� Is Already Here�and It�s Called �ISIS�

The �Islamic reformation� some in the West are calling for is really nothing less than an Islam without Islam � a �reformation� that would slowly see the religion of Muhammad go into the dustbin of history.

See also: Mark Durie: "They ARE the Reformation"

by Raymond Ibrahim, May 7, 2015

The idea that Islam needs to reform is again in the spotlight following the recent publication of Ayaan Hirsi Ali�s new book, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now.  While Ali makes the argument that Islam can reform�and is in desperate need of taking the extreme measures she suggests to do so�many of her critics offer a plethora of opposing claims, including that Islam need not reform at all.

The one argument not being made, however, is the one I make below�namely, that Islam has already �reformed.�  And violence, intolerance, and extremism�typified by the Islamic State (�ISIS�)�are the net result of this �reformation.�

Such a claim only sounds absurd due to our understanding of the word �reform.�  Yet despite its positive connotations, �reform� simply means to �make changes (in something, typically a social, political, or economic institution or practice) in order to improve it.�

Synonyms of �reform� include �make better,� �ameliorate,� and �improve��splendid words all, yet words all subjective and loaded with Western connotations.

Muslim notions of �improving� society can include purging it of �infidels� and �apostates,� and segregating Muslim men from women, keeping the latter under wraps or quarantined at home. Banning many forms of freedoms taken for granted in the West�from alcohol consumption to religious and gender equality�is an �improvement� and a �betterment� of society from a strictly Islamic point of view.

In short, an Islamic reformation will not lead to what we think of as an �improvement� and �betterment� of society�simply because �we� are not Muslims and do not share their first premises and reference points.  �Reform� only sounds good to most Western peoples because they naturally attribute Western connotations to the word.

Historical Parallels: Islam�s Reformation and the Protestant Reformation

At its core, the Protestant Reformation was a revolt against tradition in the name of scripture�in this case, the Bible.  With the coming of the printing press, increasing numbers of Christians became better acquainted with the Bible�s contents, parts of which they felt contradicted what the Church was teaching.  So they broke away, protesting that the only Christian authority was �scripture alone,� sola scriptura.

Islam�s current reformation follows the same logic of the Protestant Reformation�specifically by prioritizing scripture over centuries of tradition and legal debate�but with antithetical results that reflect the contradictory teachings of the core texts of Christianity and Islam.

As with Christianity, throughout most of its history, Islam�s scriptures, specifically its �twin pillars,� the Koran (literal words of Allah) and the Hadith (words and deeds of Allah�s prophet, Muhammad), were inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of Muslims.  Only a few scholars, or ulema�literally, �they who know��were literate in Arabic and/or had possession of Islam�s scriptures.  The average Muslim knew only the basics of Islam, or its �Five Pillars.�

In this context, a �medieval synthesis� flourished throughout the Islamic world.  Guided by an evolving general consensus (or ijma�), Muslims sought to accommodate reality by, in medieval historian Daniel Pipes� words,

translat[ing] Islam from a body of abstract, infeasible demands [as stipulated in the Koran and Hadith] into a workable system. In practical terms, it toned down Sharia and made the code of law operational. Sharia could now be sufficiently applied without Muslims being subjected to its more stringent demands�  [However,] While the medieval synthesis worked over the centuries, it never overcame a fundamental weakness: It is not comprehensively rooted in or derived from the foundational, constitutional texts of Islam. Based on compromises and half measures, it always remained vulnerable to challenge by purists (emphasis added).

This vulnerability has now reached breaking point: millions of more Korans published in Arabic and other languages are in circulation today compared to just a century ago; millions of more Muslims are now literate enough to read and understand the Koran compared to their medieval forbears.  The Hadith, which contains some of the most intolerant teachings and violent deeds attributed to Islam�s prophet�including every atrocity ISIS commits, such as beheading, crucifying, and burning �infidels,� even mocking their corpses�is now collated and accessible, in part thanks to the efforts of Western scholars, the Orientalists.  Most recently, there is the Internet�where all these scriptures are now available in dozens of languages and to anyone with a laptop or iPhone.

In this backdrop, what has been called at different times, places, and contexts �Islamic fundamentalism,� �radical Islam,� �Islamism,� and �Salafism� flourished.  Many of today�s Muslim believers, much better acquainted than their ancestors with the often black and white teachings of their scriptures, are protesting against earlier traditions, are protesting against the �medieval synthesis,� in favor of scriptural literalism�just like their Christian Protestant counterparts once did.

Thus, if Martin Luther (d. 1546) rejected the extra-scriptural accretions of the [Roman Catholic] Church and �reformed� Christianity by aligning it exclusively with scripture, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab (d. 1787), one of Islam�s first modern reformers, �called for a return to the pure, authentic Islam of the Prophet, and the rejection of the accretions that had corrupted it and distorted it� (Bernard Lewis, The Middle East, p. 333).

The unadulterated words of God�or Allah�are all that matter for the �reformists,� with ISIS at their head.

Note: Because they are better acquainted with Islam�s scriptures, other Muslims, of course, are apostatizing�whether by converting to other religions, most notably Christianity, or whether by abandoning religion altogether, even if only in their hearts (for fear of the apostasy penalty).  This is an important point to be revisited later.  Muslims who do not become disaffected after becoming better acquainted with the literal teachings of Islam�s scriptures, and who instead become more faithful to and observant of them are the topic of this essay.

Christianity and Islam: Antithetical Teachings, Antithetical Results

How Christianity and Islam can follow similar patterns of reform but with antithetical results rests in the fact that their scriptures are often antithetical to one another.   This is the key point, and one admittedly unintelligible to postmodern, secular sensibilities, which tend to lump all religious scriptures together in a melting pot of relativism without bothering to evaluate the significance of their respective words and teachings.

Obviously a point by point comparison of the scriptures of Islam and Christianity is inappropriate for an article of this length (see my �Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam� for a more comprehensive treatment).

Suffice it to note some contradictions (which naturally will be rejected as a matter of course by the relativistic mindset):

• The New Testament preaches peace, brotherly love, tolerance, and forgiveness�for all humans, believers and non-believers alike.  Instead of combatting and converting �infidels,� Christians are called to pray for those who persecute them and turn the other cheek (which is not the same thing as passivity, for Christians are also called to be bold and unapologetic).  Conversely, the Koran and Hadith call for war, or jihad, against all non-believers, until they either convert, accept subjugation and discrimination, or die.

• The New Testament has no punishment for the apostate from Christianity.  Conversely, Islam�s prophet himself decreed that �Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.�

• The New Testament teaches monogamy, one husband and one wife, thereby dignifying the woman.  The Koran allows polygamy�up to four wives�and the possession of concubines, or sex-slaves.  More literalist readings treat all women as possessions.

• The New Testament discourages lying (e.g., Col. 3:9).  The Koran permits it; the prophet himself often deceived others, and permitted lying to one�s wife, to reconcile quarreling parties, and to the �infidel� during war.

It is precisely because Christian scriptural literalism lends itself to religious freedom, tolerance, and the dignity of women, that Western civilization developed the way it did�despite the nonstop propaganda campaign emanating from academia, Hollywood, and other major media that says otherwise.

And it is precisely because Islamic scriptural literalism is at odds with religious freedom, tolerance, and the dignity of women, that Islamic civilization is the way it is�despite the nonstop propaganda campaign emanating from academia, Hollywood, and other major media that says otherwise.

The Islamic Reformation Is Here�and It�s ISIS

Those in the West waiting for an Islamic �reformation� along the same lines of the Protestant Reformation, on the assumption that it will lead to similar results, must embrace two facts: 1) Islam�s reformation is well on its way, and yes, along the same lines of the Protestant Reformation�with a focus on scripture and a disregard for tradition�and for similar historic reasons (literacy, scriptural dissemination, etc.); 2) But because the core teachings of the founders and scriptures of Christianity and Islam markedly differ from one another, Islam�s reformation is producing something markedly different.

Put differently, those in the West calling for an �Islamic reformation� need to acknowledge what it is they are really calling for: the secularization of Islam in the name of modernity; the trivialization and sidelining of Islamic law from Muslim society.  That is precisely what Ayaan Hirsi Ali is doing.  Some of her reforms as outlined in Heretic call for Muslims to begin doubting Muhammad (whose words and deeds are in the Hadith) and the Koran�the very two foundations of Islam.

That would not be a �reformation��certainly nothing analogous to the Protestant Reformation.

Habitually overlooked is that Western secularism was, and is, possible only because Christian scripture lends itself to the division between church and state, the spiritual and the temporal.

Upholding the literal teachings of Christianity is possible within a secular�or any�state.  Christ called on believers to �render unto Caesar the things of Caesar [temporal] and unto God the things of God [spiritual]� (Matt. 22:21).  For the �kingdom of God� is �not of this world� (John 18:36).  Indeed, a good chunk of the New Testament deals with how �man is not justified by the works of the law� for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified� (Gal. 2:16).

On the other hand, mainstream Islam is devoted to upholding the law; and Islamic scripture calls for a fusion between Islamic law�Sharia�and the state.   Allah decrees in the Koran that �It is not fitting for true believers�men or women�to take their choice in affairs if Allah and His Messenger have decreed otherwise. He that disobeys Allah and His Messenger strays far indeed!� (33:36).   Allah tells the prophet of Islam, �We put you on an ordained way [literarily in Arabic, sharia] of command; so follow it and do not follow the inclinations of those who are ignorant� (45:18).

Mainstream Islamic exegesis has always interpreted such verses to mean that Muslims must follow the commandments of Allah as laid out in the Koran and the example of Muhammad as laid out in the Hadith�in a word, Sharia.

And Sharia is so concerned with the details of this world, with the everyday doings of Muslims, that every conceivable human action falls under five rulings, or ahkam: the forbidden (haram), the discouraged (makruh), the neutral (mubah), the recommended (mustahib), and the obligatory (wajib).

Conversely, Islam offers little concerning the spiritual (sidelined Sufism the exception).

Unlike Christianity, then, Islam without the law�without Sharia�becomes meaningless.   After all, the Arabic word Islam literally means �submit.�  Submit to what?  Allah�s laws as codified in Sharia and derived from the Koran and Hadith�the very three things Ali is asking Muslims to start doubting.

The �Islamic reformation� some in the West are calling for is really nothing less than an Islam without Islam�secularization not reformation; Muslims prioritizing secular, civic, and humanitarian laws over Allah�s law; a �reformation� that would slowly see the religion of Muhammad go into the dustbin of history.

Such a scenario is certainly more plausible than believing that Islam can be true to its scriptures and history in any meaningful way and still peacefully coexist with, much less complement, modernity the way Christianity does.