Hell’s Angels Defending Denmark Against Muslims
Monday, April 27, 2009: While too soon for me to call it a civil war (some are), the violence in Denmark between muslims and the infamous motorcycle gang “Hells Angels” has been going on for months now. It is amazing that it is the Hell’s Angels who are standing up against the hordes of muslim immigrants. The government doesn’t seem to be willing to do it, somebody has to.
When handgrenades are being tossed into retaurants though, it is almost civil war status. Here is the link to the story at Atlas Shrugs:
Jihad Chronicles: Muslims Rioting in Sweden:
Monday, December 22, 2008- Muslims began rioting in Malmo Sweden this past week, in protest of a store owner who had been leasing space for a storefront mosque decided to use the space for something else. Apparently some Muslim Youths occupied the basement and refused to leave. The Police were called in and the rioting began. In the muslim world, when once a place has been occupied by muslims, they consider it to be muslim in perpetuity.
The muslim rioters are enjoying the same positive press coverage that the Pais muslims received a few years ago when they were rioting, i.e. the press is calling them immigrants and refusing to call them muslims. Here are some links to the story that the US media will refuse to cover:
atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/12/violent-muslim.html
The Religion of Peace Attacks NATO Convoy in Pakistan
Monday, December 8, 2008– Below is a link to a NYTimes op-ed that gives an excellent historical and economic background to the attacks in Mumbai and the unrest in India and Pakistan. It is really quite good and you should read it, however, the author missed the camel in the room. The one significant, glaring common thread in all the violence, unrest and wars from Israel and the Palestinians to the problems in India now, he missed! Islam. Islam. Islam. The root of the problem is not economic, it is not political, it is not ethnic, though all of those do contribute. The one factor common in all these problems is Islam. Islam starts the probelms with the Jews, with the Hindus and with the Christians.
www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/opinion/08kaplan.html?ref=opinion
Now here is a link to a story about a NATO convoy that was attacked INSIDE PAKISTAN and completely destroyed at least 96 supply vehicles. This is our main supply route to the troops in Afghanistan. There is no sea access to Afghanistan, it is landlocked. We can fly into Afghanistan over Pakistan and maybe over Turkmenistan. Will the US have to start using our troops inside Pakistan to secure the convoys? If you read the story you will see that some low level security guards from Pakistan were the security detail, and basically were outnumbered, surprised, and cut and ran. They probably had advanced notification of the attack and cut a deal with the rebels/insurgents/terrorists/whoever.
The bottom line is that since the attacks in Mumbai, the Afghanistan mission is going to be a whole lot tougher.
www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4B60AY20081207?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true
And here is a column that outlines the facts behind the Mumbai attack and shows the problem is in the Pakistani Military. The civilian government in Pakistan is fundamentally beholden to the military and much of the military is radicalized. Any way you cut it, we are likely to get entangled inside Pakistan because of our cross-border raids to get at the Taliban and Al Qaida and now from the south taking convoys of supplies through Pakistan to Afghanistan. It is going to get extremely complex very quickly.
Sunday, November 30– The death toll in Bombay-Mumbai is now about 300 and climbing. The attack was planned for over a year and their goal was to kill thousands. Thank God their plans were not carried out all the way. Here are the links:
www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2008/nov/28/mumbai-terror-attacks-pakistan
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/30/mumbai-terror-attacks-india3
Now in this next article notice that the reporter who observed the shootings at the train station says the gunmen acted like cool professionals while the Police, who were also armed, cowered in fear and refused to shoot back. Very typical of third world police! Also notice that the bad guys “fired from the hip” typical of third world military. I have watched Russian Army training films back in my Army days in the 1970′s-80′s and saw them trained to fire from the hip, and I have watched countless Arab/Third world/Terrorist types in news reels- firing from the hip. Thank God for the bad guys being idiots with guns.Americans and Brits are trained to shoot aimed, controlled fire from the shoulder. If the bad guys ever learn how to shoot you will see the casualties increase.
www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article14086308.ece
Thursday, November 27, 2008– The Religion of Peace has made a series of well coordinated attacks in Bombay (Mumbai- don’tcha hate it when one of the world’s oldest, most populated cities changes its name!?), India. The high civilization of Islam proves it is compassionate like allah as its adherants use AK-47′s and hand grenades to convince yet more people to convert to islam. Here are some of the stories:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7751160.stm
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7751360.stm
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5241036.ece
They were looking for British and Americans to kill by the way. Aren’t we special! www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081127074146.zrytl8l7&show_article=1
And, oh yeah, if you were Israeli or Jewish, you got special treatment too:
atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/11/mumbai-muslim-t.html
blog.wired.com/defense/2008/11/coordinated-car.html
And it is good to know that the Al Queerda or al Qaeda adherents to the Religion of Peace are seeming to focus their forces in our good buddy, Pakistan. The Pakis have nukes+ballistic missiles+a bajillion adherents of the religion of peace. The Qaeda Queers want some of the Pakis nukes or help in making one. Merry Christmas to all you Westerners and Israelis. Here is a good piece:
blog.wired.com/defense/2008/11/al-qaedas-focus.html#more
And, for you holiday travelers in the NYC area, here are a couple of articles to increase your holiday cheer about the Al Qaeda plot near you:
wcbstv.com/national/nyc.subway.terror.2.874830.html
apnews.myway.com/article/20081126/D94MTJ480.html
Happy shopping! Again, let me repeat myself, if we would simply bomb a muslim city everytime they get out of line, this noise would cease. In war you have to do what it takes to win, or you lose. To try to settle for a draw, and allow a few bombings now and then is ridiculous. You hit us, we will hit you 1000 times harder. Big deal, you shoot up some of our citizens with AK-47s and bomb a train or two, we will send a flight of 36 B-52′s, B-1′s and B-2′s each dropping 48,000 lbs of bombs on AnyMuslimCity. If you want to win, and you want the terror to stop, that is how you do it. Anything less is sheer stupidity. Ditto with the stupid Somali pirates. Why is Mogadishu not a smoking crater yet? You want piracy to stop? Bomb them into submission, that is all they will ever understand.
Now that seems like a pretty intemperate thing to say. The reason I am convinced that is the only solution is that through the centuries Islam has always spread through the power of the sword and the coercion of conquest. The problem is Islam itself; the problem is the Quran. The fundamentals of the Religion of Peace include spreading the faith by three means: 1)converting us to islam, 2)Killing us, or 3)conquering us and enslaving us. The modern day muslims are using a very effective tool- they spread to Western countries with freedom of religion, they immigrate in huge numbers, then they have a huge birth rate. In two more generations they will rule Europe by default! Including England. In the meanwhile, the terrorists will use ANY means to defeat us. They know Westerners will only talk, talk, talk.
Well, President Bush surprised them when he responded militarily. I thank him for that. However, I would also suggest that his limited war approach will, in the long run, NOT WORK. At the end of the day you will have a peaceful and prosperous Iraq and Afghanistan which will remain muslim and will turn around and bite the hand that “liberated” them.
Many of you will say, “How can a Christian say we ought to bomb muslim cities?” I speak as a historian. We won the war with the Barbary Pirates (read: Muslim Terrorists of the 18th century) by bombarding and capturing Tripoli. We won WWII nt through negotiating with Hitler and Emperor Hirohito. We bombed them into submission until enough Germans and Japanese died to change their way of thinking.
Lessons From America’s First War with Muslims
Wednesday, August 6, 2008– Michael Medved gives us a wonderful history lesson in his column at Townhall today, taken from the War with the Barbary Pirates in the early 1800′s. He quickly summarizes the history and then gives us 7 excellent lessons from those wars. His effort at linking the grand history of America with the issues of today is well done and quite effective. Which is why history is not taught very well in America’s schools today, the educrats do not want young minds filled with the ideals of liberty that comprise our history. This column ought to be read by every American!
And here is a book at Barnes & Noble that I purchased and read a few years ago that tells the story of the war with the Barbary Pirates and gives an outstanding history of the muslims of North Africa and Turkey. It shows plainly that you cannot ever, ever, ever-never, compromise with Terror or with the muslim nations. They only listen to force. Negotiations with muslim states will never work. They must be westernized and forced to compromise with us. We are the tolerant ones, not them. I STRONGLY urge every American to read this book!
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Victory-in-Tripoli/Joshua-E-London/e/9780471444152/?itm=2
And here are a few more books on the subject from the Walker Library that you should consider.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Pirate-Coast/Richard-Zacks/e/9781401300036/?itm=4
www.amazon.com/Jeffersons-War-Americas-Terror-1801-1805/dp/0786712325
www.amazon.com/End-Barbary-Terror-Americas-against/dp/0195325400/ref=pd_sim_b_5
Folks, if we studied our own history as a nation we would be more united and resolute in facing the issue of the day, muslim terror.
Cartoons and Documentary Drive Muslims To Jihad
Saturday, March 22, 2008-In recent days Osama (bin missin’) bin Laden has made some routine threats against Western Europe for circulating the “Danish Cartoons” of Mohammed. Added to that is the imminent release of Geert Wilder’s documentary about the Koran which, it is reasonably projected, will further inflame the oversensitive and barbaric component of the Muslims worldwide.
I’m sorry, but if your religion leads you to get fightin’ mad and ready to kill people because of cartoons published in that very powerful and much feared country of Denmark, or if your religion causes you want to go to war with Holland of all places because of a 15 minute film documentary, then your religion is man-made, your faith is weak, your intellect is weak and your emotional maturity is stunted. Why not let your love prove your faith? Why not respond to criticisms with carefully reasoned arguments backed by good works? Why not enter the market place of ideas with a confident, mature attitude and present your faith in a positive manner instead of all of this anger?
Here are some links to the wild muslim stories of the week:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L20831963.htm
And here is a website that will show you the offending cartoons:
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/jyllands-posten_cartoons/
Thursday, January 24, 2008–A Dutch Lawmaker has put together a 10 minute internet film that will supposedly insult the Koran. He has a 24 hour a day police guard now and may have to flee Holland due to the anticipated normal muslim over reaction. Geert Wilders is the leader of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands and since 9-11 has been very outspoken in his views about the islamicization of Europe and the nature of the muslim religion itself.
Wilders has made the ten minute film because he believes Islam inspires people to act badly. Examples include the murder of Theo Van Gogh a couple of years ago who also made a movie that was deemed insulting to the “religion of peace”. Then there were the riots of 2005-6 over the Danish cartoon series depicting muhammed in a non-reverent manner.
The bottom line is that Islam has always been, and always will be a violent, expansionist, hateful religion that is barbaric and cruel. If the post-christian west does not wise up and figure out a way to peacefully stop the spread of islam, Europe will be lost. The Secular, materialistic West however, is so spiritually bankrupt, that I wouldn’t wager $1 on the west winning this long war. Yes we must begin to enact laws that will stop the spread of islam, but we must also wage the battle through ideas, art, culture and most importantly, in the spiritual realm. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only answer to the cruelty and hopelessness of both the atheistic west and the crazy muslim east.
Here are some links to the muslim news of the day:
http://martinstanford.typepad.com/foreign_matters/2008/01/dutch-braced-fo.html
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/080124-wilders-biography
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E3A6C5FE-3F1C-410D-B19D-F57BE14B4034
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/24/wdutch124.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/23/wafghan223.xml
You know I could keep on finding articles of muslims killing, torturing, rioting and now in America suing, because they got their feelings hurt over someone saying or writing something they disagreed with. But I would likely run out of my free 3 gig storage capacity here at wordpress. Here is a hint for any muslims out there, if somebody says or writes anything that you deem to be blasphemous, pray for that person, and seek to serve that person with love. That is how Christians are supposed to behave. Granted we fail time and again, but last I checked, we Christians have built a lot of hospitals and schools in muslim lands in an effort to serve them and demonstrate the gospel of Jesus.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008– The images of what I saw on 9-11 and the days following are permanently burned into my memory. I remember seeing Palestinians dancing in the streets with joy. I remember the deafening, overwhelming silence of American muslims. In the years since 9-11 I have learned about CAIR, the Council of American-Islamic Relations. In today’s edition of FRONTPAGEMAG (see link below or go to my blogroll) is an interview with Shawn Steel, former chairman of the California Republican Party. He has the honor of having been sued by the lawsuit happy muslims of CAIR who seem to hate the country they have chosen to immigrate to for whatever reason.
Read the interview for a very interesting perspective on Muslims in America:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=16A96710-333F-4173-93EA-5ED076087DFE
Why We Are At War, but not fighting jihad; Pakistan Update
Monday, January 7, 2008– This morning while checking out the news I came across a very good background piece on Pakistan in the New York Times. This very good article will give you a brief but excellent historical background to the problems they are experiencing today. One failure of the article in my mind, however, it that it does not link the problems in Pakistan with Islam. Why is India having quite a bit more success than Pakistan? Could it be that India is not Islamic?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/weekinreview/06burns.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview&oref=login
And here is an excellent book review from the NYTimes books section by Ayaan Hirsi Ali about Lee Harris’ new book, “The Suicide of Reason”. Here a few quotes:
“With few exceptions, Harris sees Islamic expansion as permanent. Although this point is arguable, he bravely attempts to make the case that the entry of Islam into another culture produces changes on every level, from political to personal: “Wherever Islam has spread, there has occurred a total and revolutionary transformation in the culture of those conquered or converted.”
In describing the imperialist nature of Islam, Harris suggests that it is distinct from the Roman, British and French empires. He views Islamic imperialism as a single-minded expansion of the religion itself; the empire that it envisions is governed by Allah. In this sense, the idea of jihad is less about the inner struggle for peace and justice and more about a grand mission of conversion.”…
“…the aim of Muslim culture, so different from that of the West, is both to preserve and to convert, and this is what enables it to spread across the globe.”
And here is the meat of what I want you to get from this review:
“…while left and right may disagree on the causes and the remedies, they both overlook the fanaticism inherent in Islam itself. Driven by their blind faith in reason, they interpret the problem in a way that is familiar to them, in order to find a solution that fits within their doctrine of reason. The same is true for such prominent intellectuals as Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama.Harris does not regard Islamic fanaticism as a deviancy or a madness that affects a few Muslims and terrifies many. Instead he argues that fanaticism is the basic principle in Islam. “The Muslims are, from an early age, indoctrinated into a shaming code that demands a fanatical rejection of anything that threatens to subvert the supremacy of Islam,” he writes. During the years that this shaming code is instilled into children, the collective is emphasized above the individual and his freedoms. A good Muslim must forsake all: his property, family, children, even life for the sake of Islam. Boys in particular are taught to be dominating and merciless, which has the effect of creating a society of holy warriors.”
At last, somebody who acknowledges that the problem here is inherent to Islam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here is the link to the book review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/books/review/Ali-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=books
I might have to break the budget and purchase this book.
Saturday, January 5, 2008– As I have stated in various parts of this blog several times, the West must understand that in this War On Terror, we are fighting an enemy who believes this is a religious war and claims the Koranic tradition of Jihad. For us in the West to fail to recognize the inherent religious nature of this great, world-wide conflict is to limit our ability to wage war effectively. Let me phrase this another way, if we are serious about winning this war we must wage war, to some extent, on Islam itself since it is Islam that is at war with us.
This does NOT mean going out on a “Crusade” to conquer in the name of Christ. That is unbiblical and unchristian. We cannot force anyone to convert to Christ. But we must fight this war SPIRITUALLY, EDUCATIONALLY, CULTURALLY, and POLITICALLY as well as MILITARILY.
What does this mean? Here is a RADICAL concept that I have thought about since I first studied the Bill of Rights in High School. We may be at the point where we ought to possibly consider limiting the First Amendment Free Exercise of Religion clause to “Christian Religions” in a very broad sense. I believe that Islam is so spiritually, culturally and politically poisonous, that we must restrict Islam at lest temporarily. We must look at every single islamic country and tell them to open their borders to Christian missionaries, literature and broadcasts, give full and complete religious freedom to all religions, or they will not get anymore government aid from us. Not one more mosque will be built in America, not one more muslim immigrant to America, until the muslim world reforms and opens up.
I understand that any limitations on First Amendment rights are dangerous. But we are in a war for our very survival here. Just as Pres. Roosevelt arrested the Japanese people in America and placed them in internment camps during the war, we ought to restrict the importation and growth of Islam in our country for the duration of the war.
Now to the news that got me started today…Apparently the Pentagon has fired one of its key advisers in the war on terror over political correctness issues. Major Stephen Coughlin has been fired from his position with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Coughlin is a specialist on Islamic Law and extremism, and appears to have been let go because of a run in with a muslim aide to Deputy Secretary of Defense, Hasham Islam. Mr. Islam and Maj. Coughlin exchanged words in a conference some weeks ago as Mr. Islam objected to Coughlin’s strong views against muslim extremism.
See the story by Bill Gertz and reported by others with the links below:
http://www.gertzfile.com/gertzfile/InsidetheRing.html
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/
Why We Are At War
Wednesday, January 2, 2008– War is a terrible thing, it is essentially the opening of the gates of hell for a sneak preview and is one of the results of the fall of Adam. War is not, however, the worst of all possible situations. There are things that are worse than war. Living in slavery underneath the tyrants’ boots, being subjected to catastrophic terrorist attacks, being forced to worship a god who is no god or dying while your women are raped. (Now that last line was a bit harsh, but look at what happens when Muslims wage war and take over a place. I refer you to Darfur in the Sudan, or in the conflict between Muslims and infidels in the former Yugoslavia, or what happened when the Japanese conquered Nanking prior to WW2, or choose just about any communist takeover.) Sometimes war is forced upon you and to avoid the fight is allow gross injustice to prevail and get worse.
Many people, many fine Christians do not think the Iraq War is worth the fight. Many will say that Iraq did not have anything to do with 9-11 so we should not have invaded; they did not attack us. A lot of people abhor Pres. Bush’s famous “Axis of Evil” speech and his concept of the pre-emptive war. I personally believe the war was justified, but I do disagree with the President’s handling of the war. He was way too timid and he failed to expand the military to a sufficient size to do the job. He has consistently failed to recognize that this is a religious war, as proclaimed by our enemies. While the immediate problem is the terrorists, there is an underlying problem with the very nature of Islam that needs to be addressed somehow (note: I am not calling for a “crusade”; I absolutely disagree with the idea of waging war for Christ and forcing people to convert, which idea is nowhere taught in the New Testament.)
Here are some links to some columns that help express why we are at war.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110011063
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/we_sacrificed_4000_to_vindicat.html
And even though Patrick Buchanon is opposed to the war he does bring out some good points in this article:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/the_impotent_hegemon.html
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12312007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/year_of_wonders_254631.htm
Monday, December 31, 2007–Unfortunately it is historically quite typical of the news media to loudly proclaim when wars are going badly, but then fail to sound the trumpet when things are going well and improving. The Iraq War was going badly for a couple of years due to the Rumsfeld doctrine of having a small “footprint” in the Islamic countries of Afghanistan and Iraq. Admittedly, Turkey’s refusal of the use of their territory to transport the 4th division into Iraq back in ’03 was a major cause of the problem too, but the fundamental problems were that the Army was too small, there was a lack of adequate planning for what to do after the quick victory over the Iraqi military and a stubbornness by Sec Def Rumsfeld (and I personally liked the man and felt he had many admirable qualities).
But now, the Petraeus plan is having a very positive effect. The war is nowhere near being over, but it is going in the right direction. I remain somewhat skeptical that we can win this war with al qaeda, but neither do I think we will lose it. This may just be the new normal for the foreseeable future. While none of us should want this war, all should recognize the need for this world. To refuse to see the reality of what our Islamic enemies are doing, have done for the past 1300 years and hope to do in the future is to be naive and juvenile. We as Christians are not to be idealists who sit by and think the world is going to get better. While it is certainly wrong to wage a war of conquest where we try to forcibly convert people to Christianity, neither do we have to sit idly by and allow the false religion of Islam to conquer us. The bottom line here is that our war in Afghanistan and Iraq meets the criteria for a just war (though I know others disagree with me).
And by the way, just to show you my what stake I have in the whole matter- I was a US Army Infantry officer 1981-85 during the cold war, my dad was a US Army soldier in a scout platoon in WW2 in Germany in 1945, my grandfather was in the US Army in France in WW1 and received a purple heart, and finally, my youngest son has enlisted in the US Army to be an airborne infantryman and will be leaving in 1 month for basic training at Ft. Benning.
Here are a couple of news stories and columns about the war today:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071229135733.zfa5461f&show_article=1
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12312007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/year_of_wonders_254631.htm?page=0
Thursday, December 20, 2007– For the past several years I have been infuriated by the coverage of the Iraq War because the press and the democrats have so totally politicized the war, they have lost any hint of objectivity. Combine the politics of war with the ignorance of history and the instant gratification culture of the American people and you get a warped view of the war. In the following article by Victor Davis Hanson writing for the Claremont Institute, is a brilliant look at the mistakes of the Iraq War (and there have been many) but from a point of view that compares this war with past wars.
http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1500/article_detail.asp
Thursday, January 3, 2008– While I am not a gifted or vocational evangelist, I have done a fair amount of sharing the gospel, street witnessing (in my youth) and reaching out to the lost. I have dealt with many atheists, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the occasional Hindu, Hare Krishna and quite a few normal lost Americans. But I have only shared my faith with a couple of Muslims over the years. I worked in a place for a few years that had 2-3 Muslims and I got to know them and was able to share my faith some, answer their questions and engage in a little dialog. My experience with Muslims, then, is very limited.
Going to Muslim lands with missionaries is a pretty difficult endeavor because of their strict laws against Christianity, converting, even possessing copies of the Bible, let alone proselytizing. Add to the mix the current world wide political situation and the ongoing jihad and war, and you get a situation where it is very difficult to interact with Muslims anywhere.
I have stated elsewhere in my blog that I am for prosecuting this war with more vigor and with more means. I believe that we should immediately, like yesterday, cease all immigration from Islamic lands and put a stop to the construction of all mosques and Muslim schools in America until the Islamic lands open up to our missionaries and we can build churches and worship freely in their lands without official oppression or fear of the masses. This is prosecuting the war by other means. Our enemies have declared this war a religious war, a jihad, and we need to understand there is an undeniable religious aspect to this war. If we do not include this religious aspect, while our enemies do, we will be fighting at a serious disadvantage.
However, do not misinterpret me to mean that we ought to force people to convert. We cannot conquer in the name of Christ. That is anathema to Christianity and what the Bible teaches. But we can wage war, and like in Japan after WWII, write a new constitution and change their culture. The United States of America should take a bold stand for religious freedom everywhere we go. Freedom of conscience is a fundamental human right and if we are supporting, defending, liberating Muslim lands that do not recognize and defend freedom of conscience, then shame on us and we are playing to our enemy’s strength.
But, the likelihood of our State Department and Government following this plan is slim and none. So what do we do in the meanwhile? Share the gospel with the Muslims who travel to lands that do have some degree of religious freedom. If I could be the King of Southern Baptists, I would redouble our efforts at the Baptist Student Ministries on college campuses across the country to minister to muslim students. I think at Baptist Colleges and seminaries there ought to be a push to teach students Arabic, Chinese and Spanish so that we can adequately evangelize the people groups that are changing our world. (Similarly, in all of the military ROTC programs across the country there needs to be a mandatory language program using at least these three languages).
Well, here is a news story from Baptist Press about some missionary efforts to reach Muslims in Russia. This story is what got me going this morning.
http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=27107
Wednesday, December 26, 2007–In my blogroll at the bottom of this page is a link to Jihad Watch, a site I check nearly every day for news about the muslim world of terror. Today’s article by Robert Spencer is particularly worth your time. In this column Spencer shows how many muslim terror plots have come out during this Christmas season. Islam naturally does not recognize or revere any other religion’s holy days, and in fact sees those days as being an excellent time for an attack. Attacking your enemy on a day that he considers a holy day is a good psychological weapon. The NVA practiced that in the Viet-Nam War.
But Spencer goes beyond this Christmas season’s attacks (most of which were foiled by good police work) and shows how the muslims consider this to be a religious war. The Western politicians and media have bent over backwards to disavow the religious nature of this war, but they are only fooling themselves. I believe that any objective student of this war, when reading the statements of the jihadists and examining what the koran says and looking at the history of the conflicts between the West and the Muslims over the past 1300 years will agree that this war is 1) going to be a long war, decades, even generations; 2)religious whether we acknowledge it or not, and the sooner we acknowledge it the better off we will be.
Those in the West who do not practice any religion will object to this being a labeled a religious war. But wars must be fought with an understanding of the worldview of your enemy, else you miscalculate and misunderstand. The non-religious Westerners must acknowledge that our Western Civilization values are frequently deeply rooted in the Judeo Christian worldview besides the Greco/Roman and Germanic pagan values we have. Freedom of conscience and religious liberty are uniquely Christian in origin and are despised by our jihadist enemies. Equality between the sexes would be another value rooted in St. Paul’s writings and the Gospels. Our sexual permissiveness comes from our pagan past, however, but even amongst contemporary Christians there is a reluctance to enforce our morals on non-believers. This too is pointed at by our enemies as a part of their religious reasons for attacking us. Islam is an evangelistic religion that requires the whole world to submit to allah or be enslaved or killed. While Islam does send out missionaries, preachers, they also send out armies to forcibly spread their religion. There is no separation of mosque and state under Islam. Their desire, the command from allah, is to bring sharia law to all of us.
While the Clinton administration fought the jihadists as a crime problem, and the Bush administration has fought the jihadists as a military problem in addition to the crime problem, we still are not fighting them fully. This is a religious/cultural war of values that must be fought in the religious realm as well. We ought to be DEMANDING that countries like Saudi Arabia open their country up to religious freedom. Not one more mosque in America until Every muslim country in the world is open to Christian missionaries, Christian radio, etc. Not one more immigrant from a muslim country until their country is open to immigration from Christian lands.
Read the article I have linked below:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019318.php#more
December 18, 2007–I have not been able to return to my John Wyclif studies for a while, and do hope to go there again soon, but for now here is a fun piece from the WSJ about the anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet that circumnavigated the globe a hundred years ago. The point of the article is not just to remember this amazing accomplishment for a coal burning fleet, but to look at our present needs for a Navy. My youngest son, Luke, just enlisted in the US Army yesterday, thus becoming the 4th generation of Walker’s to serve in the Army. Though I am an Army vet, I am a supporter of all the military branches. I absolutely believe the US Navy is grossly understrength and needs to be back up to a 600 surface ship strength. Read the article and enjoy:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110011008
And here is a good security report from Bill Gertz, whom I read fairly often. People really ought to take advantage of these kinds of resources to stay informed. Gertz writes some seriously disconcerting stuff though, it can keep you up at night if you have no other worries.
http://www.gertzfile.com/gertzfile/InsidetheRing.html
Notice that Congress is just now getting interested in cyberwarfare. And notice the good article about the need for a stronger Navy to counter the China threat, which coincides with the artice from the WSJ above.
Friday, Nov.30, 2007……In GR Evans book, John Wyclif, I have already discussed the preface so now I want to turn to ch.1 “Going to Oxford”. Section i of Ch.1 is “From Yorkshire” and gives a slim family background to Wyclif. The Wyclif family is long associated with Yorkshire but is humble in its beginnings, with scant records. But this family was upwardly mobile with Robert de Wyclif being a freeholder, obtaining a knights fee by 1286 as well as having the advowson, the right to nominate the priest of the local church. A Roger Wyclif married his wife Catherine in 1319 and their son John (our John) was born about 10 years later, but there is no firm birth date in the records. John’s father presumably died by 1362 because John’s mother is recorded as bestowing the family living on to Robert de Wyclif in that year. Within the broader Wyclif family there were possibly 3 other clerics besides John.
There is a Robert de Wyclif mentioned in a letter from John of Gaunt in 1373 and we know that John Wyclif will also be associated with John of Gaunt later in the story. Evans concludes, “This was a busy and influential family, then, climbing the ladder of preferment and patronage, adding to its wealth, making influential friendships, possibly already possessing a useful fund of goodwill with John of Gaunt….But the John Wyclif whose life we are exploring was decisively ‘formed’ not in this family context, but by his time in Oxford.” (p.16)
ii.”Wyclif arrives in Oxford”. For the next few chapters Evans gives us a pretty detailed examination of Oxford and the process of becoming educated in late medieval England. While she brings Wyclif in to the story, there just is not much documentation or evidence about the man Wyclif. Her efforts at describing the culture of Oxford that made the man are justified but certainly leave us a bit empty. The town of Oxford was a market town and had a wall, inside of which were 13 parishes with churches and 4 large churches as well. John may have been a student at the Queen’s College as a boy.
iii. “The academic craft”. Evans emphasizes that Universities were recent innovations in medieval culture, existing for less than 200 years at Wyclif’s time. Evans perhaps over reaches when she writes, “We shall see how ambition grew in him while he was getting his degree and after.”(p.19). This section describes the rise of the university as being the result of the demand by students interested in the tangible benefits an education offered. “The driving force in their beginning in the twelfth century was student demand…The man with a higher education might aspire to high office in the Church…Or he might enter the…state civil service…The student hunger for high level teaching had encouraged the multiplication of such ‘Masters’…allowed students to pay fees to those they themselves chose to be their teachers.” (just a side note here…what if students today got to choose their teachers in the universities?) Though Evans does not use this language, I would say that this is almost like the free market where the consumer demand brings about an increase in supply of teachers who then compete with each other for students. Evans summarizes (p.20) “The result, for most of the twelfth century, had been a libertarian atmosphere in which students could largely do as they pleased…Students had a reutation for drunkenness and also for never having enough money….” (Hmmm, some things never change!)
Evans tells us that universitas is another word for gild and that the masters in the craft of scholarship set and maintained their own standards and protected their craft jealously. Oxford was granted the privilege of being a corporation by 1231 wich made the body of Masters a legal entity. The scholars were also members of the clergy so the Church hierarchy was also quite involved in the school.
iv. “Town and gown”. Evans criticizes Foxe’s Book of Martyrs’ assessment of Oxford at the time of Wyclif, saying that the state of religion at Oxford ws not lethargic as Foxe claims. She points out that the story of Oxford includes a lot of antagonism between the school and the town. There were actual brawls and riots between the townspeople and the scholars and students of Oxford besides the expected political fights over tax assessment. The townspeople looted and burned some of the halls of the school and some students and scholars were killed in the worst of the conflicts in 1355. After this incident the bishop placed the whole town under an interdict and King Edward got involved. What this shows for the story of Wyclif is that he attended a school that merited the protection of Church and King.
In Wyclif’s days at Oxford it was common for the scholars to overstate the “good ol’ days” and estimate that there used to be as many as 30,000-60,000 students, compared to the 3-4,000 of their day. Keep in mind that the Black Plague had swept through England in 1348-9.
v. “The religious orders in Oxford”. The basic idea Evans communicates in this section is that there was an ongoing tension between the monks and friars on one side and the ‘seculars’ on the other. The religious orders sent students to Oxford with more support than other students received, and there was a continual recruitment of students to join the religious orders which caused further resentment.
vi. “The practicalities of student life”. Evans discusses the various halls of Oxford that offered living arrangements for the students but says, “In Wyclif’s time it was not yet a requirement that scholars should live in approved communities, and many poor scholars could not afford to live in a hall. We do not know what Wyclif himself did. Evans finishes the chapter with brief discussions of the costs of attending school at Oxford. Students paid for the compulsory lectures, fees to the lecturer, a fee to graduate, and of course textbooks. Books in those days were hand copied and were extremely expensive.
In summary, Evans gives us an exceptional, detailed look at life in Oxford in the late medieval period. I was particularly amazed at the antagonism between the school and town and at how similar the school experience of today is with that of Wyclif’s day.
Tuesday, 11-27-2007 Although this part of my blog is to be primarily church history I am going to throw in some other history as well, at least until I can get a US History page going and a Western Civ page up. I was at ISI yesterday, and took a cool history and culture exam. Here is the site, see how you do. My score was a 93%.
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx
You can find the ISI home link on my sidebar.
Monday 11-26-2007 Currently Reading: John Wyclif-Myth & Reality by G.R. Evans, IVP Academic:Downers Grove, IL. 2005 (320pp). I began this wonderful book on Nov. 1 in response to the annual Reformation Celebration at my new church, Redeemer Church, in Fort Worth. Pastor Tim Presson and friend Travis Bennett have been leading reformation celebrations for about 10 years. Prior to coming to Redeemer Church about 3 yrs ago, Tim was pastor of Grace Community Church in Glen Rose, TX. Travis is a layman who loves the Lord, the Word and church history as well as reformed theology. Tim and Travis invited me to help with some of the preparations for the reformation celebration and this got me back into the study and read mode that I had not been able to do for a few months. In order to help prepare myself better for next year’s celebration I have started a reading program beginning with this book by Evans on John Wyclif. I started reading it before I started this blog so I am already through chapter 5. But what I may try to do is go back and summarize each of the chapters here. I find that if I write on a subject I will wrestle with it a bit more and am more likely to retain something.
It seems that right from the Preface Evans is interested in getting past the legends that have grown up around Wyclif and going to where the evidence actually leads. She in no way approaches the level of the deconstructionists, nor does she seem to be a negative revisionist of a favorite hero of the English. But she is up front and honest about the evidence for Wyclif: “Wyclif’s story begins with half-obliterated footprints. The evidence that has come down to us is full of gaps and uncertainties….There is barely enough to allow us to put a face to him…almost no surviving letters and no memorials from devoted personal friends….Wyclif had no Boswell to record what he said; there is no equivalent of Luther’s Table Talk….On the other hand, we know a good deal about the Oxford in which Wyclif spent most of his life….”
As I have read through the first 5 chapters I can certainly attest to the fact that Evans does not have much to work with about Wyclif specifically, she spends about 99% of the time writing about Oxford and the education environment and requirements. This does give valuable background to the Wyclif story, but the reader needs to understand that there just is not much about Wyclif in the historical record prior to his maturity and his dealings with the government and controversies with the Church.
Evans’ main idea is this, “The perspectives given to things by religious factionalism are not merely a phenomenon of the modern world. They bedevilled Wyclif’s story in his own day and they have coloured the way he has been seen since. The case which was put for the highly coloured Wyclif by the enthusiasts of the sixteenth century, and after, must now be looked at in the context of the evidence, before we can decide whether to declare him still in any sense the ‘Morning Star of the Reformation’ ” (all quotes are from the Preface, pp.9-11).
Here is some information on the book from CBD:
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=28356&event=1008SPF
And here is a negative review and some ordering information from Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0830828354?filterBy=addTwoStar
Here is another somewhat negative review of Evans’ conclusions while remaining positive about the book as a whole:
http://www.walkingtogetherministries.org/FullView/tabid/64/ArticleID/16/CBModuleId/401/Default.aspx
Pope Brings Back Gregorian Chant and Baroque Music. 11-23-07
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/20/wpope120.xml
Thanksgiving Thursday, November 22, 2007
I have always loved history and remember some of the church history stories of famous Baptists from my childhood. I heard about Roger Williams, Lottie Moon and Bill Wallace in Training Union or during the various missions programs. In school I fell in love with American history and then world history. Consequently when I went to OU I ended up with a BA in history taking a wide variety of classes including American Intellectual History under Dr. David Levy, Ancient History under AJ Heisserer and Russian History under Dr. Tobias with a smattering of European History as well. As a soldier I read a lot of military history as well.
In seminary I took some extra classes in Church History, but I must confess, after seminary I just did not read much in Church History; my interests lay in American, Ancient, and Military history. As a pastor I studied in the Old and New Testaments, Theology and Apologetics more than anything else. Church History sat on the shelf. I did make some efforts at promoting the Reformation at my church during October for a few years and attempted a Reformation Celebration in the mid 1990s, but the folks just were not interested. Back on the shelf goes Church History.
In January-May of this year I was a substitute teacher at a local Christian school teaching WesternCiv/Church History and Government/Economics. This was a wonderful experience as Church History came alive for me in a way it never had before. I learned so much about Western Civ, Church History and Government that my old thirst for these subjects was re-awakened.
In February of this year I left the church I had pastored for 15 years and began attending Redeemer Church in Fort Worth/White Settlement. This church is a Southern Baptist Convention church, but it is thoroughly Reformed in doctrine and practice. Pastor Tim Presson wrote his D.Min. thesis on Jonathon Edwards, loves Church History, and has led his churches in an annual Reformation Celebration for the past 10 years or so. Travis Bennett, a friend of Tim’s from many years ago in a different church, has joined Redeemer and helped Tim with the annual Reformation Celebration like he did at their former church. Travis has studied Reformed Theology and History for many years, is an accomplished artist, and has done an outstanding job in collecting, drawing, and managing all kinds of stuff pertaining to the Reformation of the 16th century.
This last October Tim and Travis asked me to help prepare for the Reformation Celebration so I got the opportunity to do some research and a little bit of writing and organizing for this wonderful event held on October 28th. Being included in this kind of endeavor was very encouraging to me and brought about some needed healing in my soul and renewing of my mind. Now, because of God’s grace to me, I am once again able to read and study with a newfound love for Church History.
This blog will allow me to cultivate some much needed discipline in serious study and will hopefully sharpen some mental tools I have allowed to get rusty. In the next couple of days I hope to figure out how to post some Reformation Summaries, brief 2 page summaries of some key Reformers and events. I will make an effort at writing some reviews of the books I am reading on the Reformation in the near future, and I will soon be starting my personal preparations for the 2008 Reformation Celebration at Redeemer Church Fort Worth with an emphasis on the English Puritans.
While the Hells Angels are not a christian group by any streach they are a group of men dedicated to what they believe in and willing to die for what they believe in. I know several former Angels who a now dedicated christians, pastors, teachers and youth leaders. Please pray for all the bikers to find Jesus.
Daryl Turner
June 16, 2009