www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Be alert to Islamic culture as seen on TV

This is far better than the drivel one gets on American TV. Take a look at what's popular in the Arab world and especially how they view us.

http://memritv.org/

Dan L

Dear Dan,

From the little of the particular interview I read, all I can say is that I personally find no logical stream of thought in anything said.

I have always thought that the lack of logic is nothing short of demonic.

Thanks.

May our Lord God wake Christianity up to the threat we face, may He unite us in spirit and voice, may we fall down before Him in united earnest prayer for our sins, and may our eyes see and our ears hear, before it is too late.

In Christ,
Alice

Dear Dan,

Your calling attention to this exposes you as the Christian crusader that you are.

Keep up the good work!

+ In Hoc Signo Vinces!

Alex

Professor Alex,

I give a hearty Byzantine Catholic "Amen" to your observation.

Alice,

I add a hearty "Amen" to your observation as well. Most of the items are frightening and should awaken all of us. Some, though are humorous. Type in the word "Jinn" and see what I mean.

If we didn't believe Bat Ye'or's warnings about dar al Islam and dar al Harb then at least listen to these very categorization given by Muslim leaders on their own TV. Wake up. There is no middle ground.

Dan L, your area Catholic Crusader

How's this? We didn't do a thorough enough job at Lepanto, and will most certainly have to fight the Muslim extremists again for our very survival.

I have always been befuddled by those who have been convinced by false teachers - or who have convinced themselves - that God will reward them for killing innocent people and for killing themselves in the process. That isn't the one true God you and I worship. They have to be really desperate and confused to believe what they do.

My priest had an interesting bit to say about on Sunday in light of what happened in London and with regard to what is wrong with the beliefs of those who do such things. I certainly am quite tired of people referring to what happened in London or Madrid or Beslan or Moscow or New York or DC as a "tragedy." That's the wrong word - it gives too much credit to the perpetrators.

What happened in those places were evil, premeditated and subhuman/inhuman acts initiated by creatures who chose to give up their humanity, who have rejected God and who possess no sense of ethics or morality as a result. Violence is all they know and they seek to re-make "god" in their own image. And they have somehow convinced themselves that this re-made "god" will reward them for their bad choices with bawdy pleasures. Eek. There are soooo many things wrong with that.

Let us pray for them - that they find their way to the truth and to the one true God who wants His children to walk in the way of peace.

Islamists and other extremists will only pause and ponder when you meet them with equal force and, sadly, violence!

That's the experience we have had in my native country.

Amado

Has anyone watched the program 30 Days? It follows the same format as the movie "Supersize Me" - person(s) are immersed in something for 30 Days - like eating McDonald's fare morning, noon and night! A recent episode involved a Christian man living with a Muslim family for 30 days in an area of Michigan which is heavily populated by Muslims. His journey began by donning Muslim attire, leaving his family behind, flying to his destination (yes, he had to go through an airport dressed like that!) and meeting his host family in a mosque. All in all it was very interesting. He had MAJOR issues with praying with them - I think he said "� we worship a different God�"; he did, however, attend the obligatory times of prayer (like the one at 5am!). He read the Koran, talked with spiritual leaders, observed their customs, ate their food, etc. All the while He was very alert to NOT wanting to do anything which would dishonor Christ - for example, although he was learning Arabic in order to participate/understand the prayer service at the Mosque, he had a big problem with having to recite that Mohammed is Allah's prophet. At the end of the 30 days, he is shown participating in the prayer service at a mosque - praying WHILE HOLDING A CROSS IN HIS HAND (I'm sure he omitted recitations contrary to his Christian faith).

My mention of "30 Days" is by no stretch of the imagination an unconditional endorsement of the program! The program, like the movie, is flawed from the beginning. For example, in "Supersize Me", the guy eats (whether he actually physically hungry or not) 3 meals a day from McDonalds; he unconditionally orders a heftier version of the meal if the person taking his order asks if he wants to "supersize". He also avoids any physical exertion. He is shown vomiting while trying to finish a meal because it's just too much food. He gains weight, his (bad) cholesterol , blood pressure, etc become dangerous. Does overeating and being lazy prove that McDonalds (the "target" of this expose) is evil? Nope. To be fair, the movie brings out some good points about making "healthy choices" - the value of nutrition/exercise at home and in the schools.

Likewise, the 30 Days of living like a Muslim lacked one major flaw - the "experiment" was carried out in the USA - a nation with government which guards freedom of religion and does not enforce - at gunpoint - religious conformity to any one faith (although founded by Christians as a Christian nation, the fathers of the USA did not want to create a government which enforced the teachings of any one church - many fled the state/church in England for this very reason). The Christian fellow "spoke his mind" on the program; how would he have fared in a country which is dominantly Muslim? Would he not be warned to watch what he said - especially if he said anything in opposition to Islam/Mohammed? Would he have been able to go to the mosque, attend a prayer service and hold a cross in his hand?

C.S. Lewis spoke of people being "Gospel inoculated" - exposed to enough of the Christian faith to make them immune to evangelism. In my opinion, Islam is this idea carried out on a large scale. In the day's of it's inception, Mohammed observed and incorporated what he had learned from his own culture, Judaism and Christianity into this anti-Christian system. Did he take the praxis and deduce the theology? For example, the theology of icons is sound as is devotion to the Blessed Mother. Did he observe veneration or rather, abuses and deduce worship/idolatry? Did he see icons of Mary, devotion, prayer requests to her and deduce "goddess" or "part of the Trinity"? I have wondered "Why, Islam? after all Christians had brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the those areas". The apostle Paul had to warn (repeatedly!) the Galatians to not become ensnared again in a yoke of bondage after experiencing the freedom that is in Christ. They were formerly in the "touch not, taste not" externals of religion. Perhaps this is what happened? While it's impressive to read of the pillars of Islam - the many times of prayer, etc, I don't think that they will embrace the Gospel because we can out "wow them" with our own set of devotions/rubrics. What???!!! After all, the apostle Paul - a Pharisee of Pharisees - whose external piety would make the best of us all look like "spiritual wimps" counted his whole Brownie point system of salvation as dung/trash. Think of where his zeal ultimately led him - persecution of Christians. The difference - he met the Living Lord Jesus Christ. Our salvation is rooted and grounded - from beginning to end - in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Washed, cleansed and made free to truly love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves. We are given the Holy Spirit so that we may also be made holy and a Bride ready for the Groom. Freedom to be who we have always been meant to be - God's own Holy Spirit crying out the most affectionate word a child has for a father - Abba! Now, am I against the externals of the faith? No way! Things are to be done decently and in order; God is not the Author of confusion. Our worship is to be Heavenly and beautiful. Our Lord alone is worthy of the extravagant perfume we pour forth ("�Thine own of Thine own have we given Thee�"). Islam, like Ishmael, is the son of the bondwoman (I say this by application/extrapolation - I know the primary meaning by the blessed apostle Paul is to Jerusalem "below" vs. Jerusalem "above", Ishmael was born BEFORE Isaac, whereas Islam came AFTER Christianity, etc - Gal 4:22-31), while we are sons of the free - children of promise in Christ. No matter how many prostrations, pilgrimages, etc Ishmael may have performed; they did not move him one inch closer to earn the right of being the heir, the child of promise. However, there is hope - something called ADOPTION �

May the Lord use our lives to point to Him - to show the true love, joy and freedom we have in Christ to those who slavishly just "go through the motions" - and long for freedom.

Dear Friends,

We should take care to read the lives of the New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke . . .

These saints and witnesses to Christ lived under the same conditions that many Christians live under in Islamic and other countries.

That the roster of New Martyrs and Confessors is somehow filled with no room for more - that is a delusion of modern Christians!

It could happen here and we could ourselves be called upon to witness for Christ, if it is His Will, before all kinds of powers of this world.

Alex

Dear Dan,

This is a repost of something I posted on another thread on this forum a few days ago about the London attacks. I don't know if you saw it.

Sincerely,
In Christ,
Alice

Woody, Alex, and Alice,

Right you all are. I'm often astounded by the reaction of some even on this forum to the clear teaching of Islam that they consider the world to be rightfully theirs. As such their expansion will not cease until they have converted or conquered the world. Christendom has been infected with similar attitudes from time to time throughout history but never on the scale of Islam and Islam throughout history. They have not developed out of it.

We may well be called upon to face martyrdom. Will we be ready? Will we shirk* our duty?

Dan Lauffer

*A play on a word which means in Arabic "idolatry".

Dear Prof. Dan,

The patron saint of Bucovina, where my mother is from, is St John the New Martyr of Suchava.

He was a businessman who was reported to the Turks for having offended Islam.

And the only way he could get out of that situation was to profess Islam, which he refused.

Three days of torture followed, including the infamous beating of the soles of the feet with sticks until blood spurted from the toes . . .

He was finally beheaded.

In Winnipeg, the Cathedral of St John of the Ukrainian Orthodox is named for him, including the street name too.

Alex

What you have said is true, and some people are just blind to it. I can't find another reason. But I do think that if Christians had actually lived and practiced their faith, Islam would have been defeated centuries ago. I believe bad Christians have done more harm than anything.

Personally my feelings about radical Islam are often characterized by ambivalence. On one hand I'm outraged by there unpunished atrocities committed against Christians in places like Sudan, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines etc, not to mention what they've already done in the not so distant past in Armenia, Cyprus, Asia Minor and other places. On the other hand though, I can't condemn Moslem clerics when they refer to our Western society and America as perverse and Satanic. I think too many of us have reached a certain level of comfort with abortion, euthanasia, sexual perversion, promiscuity and immodesty that Moslems simply will not tolerate. To give a prime example of this put the words "Little Black Book" "Brookline, Massachusetts" into search engines and see just what is being done with our tax dollars. Ordinarily I'd post a link, but I don't wish to be remembered as the guy who posted the most disgusting link in the history of the Byzantine Forum. After reading it you may be at a loss for words the next time an Islamic cleric calls us the Great Satan.

Dear Lawrence,

While I do NOT disagree with you about our culture being perverse in many ways and even having promoted that perversion to other countries, (through Hollywood, etc.) I do not think that has anything to do with the reestablishment of the Caliphate or taking Rome. (Read my above post), nor do I think it gives radical Muslims a right to want to convert Christianity or to put the flag of Islam on the White House....(as stated by an Islamic leader/spokesperson from London on cable news a couple of days after 9/11).

In Christ,
Alice