From the NYT:

A new wave of Iraqi Christians has fled to northern Iraq or abroad amid a campaign of violence against them and growing fear that the country’s security forces are unable or, more ominously, unwilling to protect them.

The flight — involving thousands of residents from Baghdad and Mosul, in particular — followed an Oct. 31 siege at a church in Baghdad that killed 51 worshipers and 2 priests and a subsequent series of bombings and assassinations singling out Christians. This new exodus, which is not the first, highlights the continuing displacement of Iraqis despite improved security over all and the near-resolution of the political impasse that gripped the country after elections in March.

It threatens to reduce further what Archdeacon Emanuel Youkhana of the Assyrian Church of the East called “a community whose roots were in Iraq even before Christ.”

Those who fled the latest violence — many of them in a panicked rush, with only the possessions they could pack in cars — warned that the new violence presages the demise of the faith in Iraq. Several evoked the mass departure of Iraq’s Jews after the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

“It’s exactly what happened to the Jews,” said Nassir Sharhoom, 47, who fled last month to the Kurdish capital, Erbil, with his family from Dora, a once mixed neighborhood in Baghdad. “They want us all to go.

And who is driving the Christians out? Somehow, the New York Times cannot find a way to pronounce the word. The entire article on religious persecution in Iraq uses the word "Muslim" once, referring to Iraq as "an overwhelmingly Muslim country" but without quite drawing the line between that and the persecutors. It talks about "daily threats" without identifying those making them.

Here's a video from the story:


Of course, this is hardly limited to Iraq. The NYT's Ethan Bronner noted last year that

[A] dwindling and threatened Christian population [is] driven to emigration by political violence, lack of economic opportunity and the rise of radical Islam. A region that a century ago was 20 percent Christian is about 5 percent today and dropping.

Even though he mentions "radical Islam" he is also reluctant to explicitly state that Muslim threats against Christians are driving them out, instead primarily blaming the economy and other factors.

But wouldn't the economy be equally bad for Muslims as well?

In fact, the only Middle Eastern country whose Christian population is increasing is Israel. This CAMERA report last year goes into detail on this phenomenon.

So why is the New York Times so reluctant to identify the persecutors of Christians? Why is it silent on the threats, verbal and sexual assaults, and land confiscation by Muslims against Christians?

(h/t MW)

After Natasha Shino heard about the killing of more than 50 Iraqi Christians in Baghdad last week, she knew she couldn't sit idly by.

"It just hit home," said the 23-year-old Assyrian Christian student who lives in the South Loop.

A minority in Muslim Iraq, Assyrians are Christian -- among the first people to accept the faith -- and do not consider themselves Arab. Forced to assimilate to Arab culture, many Assyrians have fled Iraq.

"We're going through a silent genocide," Shino said. "We are near extinction."

Worldwide, Shino and other young Assyrians have joined forces to organize rallies Monday calling on the American and Iraqi governments to protect Iraqi Christians.

Dubbed "The Black March" because protesters will wear all black, the Chicago rally will start at noon at the Thompson Center, 100 W. Randolph St. Thousands of Facebook members have said they plan to attend similar rallies in other cities. According to 2000 census data, there are approximately 16,000 Assyrians in Illinois. But local Assyrian leaders say there are closer to 100,000 in the Chicago area.

Organizers, like Shino, said they've reached out to people of all faiths, including Jews, Muslims and other Christian groups, including Chaldean Catholics who have common roots in ancient Mesopotamia, to stand in solidarity with the victims of an Oct. 31 attack on a Syrian Catholic Church in Baghdad.

Al-Qaida militants reportedly took 120 worshipers hostage during an evening Mass commemorating the church's anniversary. The attack ended with at least 58 people dead after security forces stormed the church. At least 75 were wounded.

At Mar Gewargis Cathedral, an Assyrian church more commonly known as St. George's in Rogers Park, on Sunday, the Rev. Paulus Benjamin called for parishioners to pray for peace. The church's liturgy is said in Assyrian, an ancient language with roots in Aramaic.

Dozens of churchgoers bowed and silently spoke with God.

Among them was Ayad Khider, who lost his 50-year-old cousin, Salah Gerges, a father of three, in the Oct. 31 attack. His cousin's wife was injured in the attack and is in critical condition, he said in Arabic through a translator.

"We pray that she will be OK because who will take care of the children?" said Khider, 51, a mechanic who lives on the North Side.

In a letter dated Nov. 1, Mar Dinkha IV, the patriarch of the Chicago-based Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East, demanded that the Iraqi government and the United Nations protect all Iraqi minorities.

Many at the church said they plan to attend the Monday rally to show support for their "brothers and sisters" still in Iraq.

"We are united with them," said Mary Yonan, 52, a teacher from the North Side. "We can be their voices here."

-- Becky Schlikerman

News stories about Christianity in the Middle East are usually negative.  The typical news story usually is a) the demographically stable Coptic Church is involved in street fights against the Muslim Brotherhood, b) Eastern Catholics and Orthodox from the Levant emigrating out of the region, or c) about the Assyrian and Chaledon Catholic churches being reduced in half in their native Iraq because of violence.  For many it appears that the sun is about to set on the 2,000 years of Christianity in the Middle East.

However, according to the National Catholic Reporter there is a hidden growth of Christianity in the Middle East.  The large presence of guest workers from Christian communities in India, Vietnam, Malaysia, and especially the Philippines are causing Christianity to reappear in places where it has been extinct.  Because the sheer mass of guest workers from other countries (Arabs in Qatar are the minority, for example) it is plausible that Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have either large Christian minorities or are even majority Christian.  Even Saudi Arabia has somewhere between one and a half to two million Christians.

There are two reasons why many demographers (and therefore people) have failed two register the Middle Eastern rise of Christianity: oppression/heavy control and the temporary/permanent debate.

Most Arabian countries heavily control Christianity and are like Qatar which allows one active Latin and Eastern Catholic church (I visited the Latin-rite church) however the main church is outside of Doha in the desert and it is not allowed to advertise its presence.  The United Arab Emirates allows the presence of the bishop for the Catholic apostolic vicariate of Arabia.  Saudi Arabia's on the other hand bans group practice of Christianity outright and its religious police seek out hidden masses.  This control of Christianity keeps it out of sight and therefore out of mind.  The control of the practicing of Christianity also extends to keeping these people out of censuses and official denials about the amount of Christians in country.  The regimes on the Arabian peninsula, including secular Yemen, gain legitimacy from keeping their countries Arab (which is sometimes used as a code word for "Muslim").  To recognize the rise of Christian non-Arabs would greatly harm the regime in the eyes of its Arab "native" subjects.

The term "guestworker" is loaded.  One taxi driver I had in Saudi Arabia was a "guestworker" who had lived in Saudi Arabia for over thirty years and had no plans to go back to his native country.  Meanwhile the Bengali pool lifeguard told me he had been in Doha for seven years and told me about his kids who go to school in Qatar.  These "guestworkers" are in country so long and are such a large portion of the population that they should be considered in any understanding of a country.  However, considering these people as temporary invalidates them on one's mental cultural landscape and demographic understanding of a country.

The rise of Christianity in the Arabian Peninsula does not equal the decline in the rest of the Middle East.  Ignoring the loss of historical tradition, many of the incoming Christians lack both personal and religious rights.  They also can be evicted at any time.  Until these Christians are given permanent status the rise of Christianity will be ignored and potentially reversible.

Bishop Andraos Abouna spent his lifetime working in the church, as priest for Chaldean Catholics both in London and in his native Iraq, where he served his flock throughout times of war and periods of ferocious sectarian attack. In 2002 he became the Auxiliary Bishop of Baghdad in the Chaldean Church – an offshoot of the Assyrian Church of the East – which accepted the authority of the Pope in the 16th century.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here on Wednesday that sacrilege of the Holy Quran in the US is a conspiracy masterminded by the Zionists.

Mar Narsai Benjamin was ordained as a bishop in Tehran by Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East Mar Khanania Dinkha IV.

Rick Francona--

Tariq 'Aziz was the former deputy prime minister of Iraq under Saddam Husayn. When I was in Baghdad as a liaison officer to the Iraqi Directorate of Military Intelligence in 1988, 'Aziz was also the foreign minister of the country and an integral part of the decision to accept U.S intelligence support during the last year of the Iran-Iraq War.

Some background might be useful. Tariq 'Aziz was born Mikhayl Yuhanna in a suburb of al-Mawsil (Mosul). As you can tell from the name, he is not an Arab, but an Assyrian, nor is he a Muslim - he is a member of the Chaldean Christian Church (affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church). Those two factors were partially responsible for his rise in the Ba'th Party Tariq Aziz; Photo Credit: United States Central Command Via Wikipediaand in the regime of Saddam Husayn. There was no way that a non-Arab Christian was going to pose a threat to the continued rule of Saddam Husayn. He himself could not assume the leadership position, and his gratitude for his position guaranteed loyalty to the dictator. 'Aziz's protestations to the contrary, Saddam Husayn was a dictator of the worst order.

Okay, I said that I was in Iraq providing American intelligence to the Iraqi armed forces during the last year of the 1980-1988 Iran Iraq War. If Saddam was a "dictator of the worst order" as I describe him, then what were we doing as a country assisting him? For the long answer, I refer you to my book, Ally to Adversary An Eyewitness Account of Iraq's Fall from Grace (Naval Institute Press, 1999). In the "small world" category, when Tariq 'Aziz's house in Baghdad was raided by U.S. Army troops in 2003, they found a copy of my book in his library. I think I'll take that as a compliment.

The shorter answer - it was not about Saddam Husayn and Iraq, it was about the Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran. By 1987, the war had been raging for seven years and was a bloodbath on both sides. It was obvious to military analysts at both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency that if the war continued into 1988 and the Iranians launched their expected spring offensive, Iraq would lose the war. President Ronald Reagan decided that an Iranian victory in the war - and its repercussions in the region - were unacceptable outcomes for American foreign policy. He directed that the Defense Department begin providing intelligence to the Iraqis to make sure that Iran did not win the war.

To that end, another officer and I made our way to Baghdad overland via Kuwait and up the roads in southern Iraq crowded with military traffic. When we reached Baghdad, we met with the deputy director of military intelligence Brigadier Wafiq al-Samarra'i. (Al-Samarra'i defected to the West after Desert Storm and joined the opposition). We proposed to provide intelligence assistance to the Iraqis - it took a few days to receive an answer. The delay was the decision process involving Saddam Husayn and Tariq 'Aziz. They agreed and we began the intelligence support that - along with Iraq's deplorable use of chemical weapons - turned the tide of the war.

Recently, 'Aziz gave his first interview since his arrest. Not surprisingly, he claims that the West (read the United States and the United Kingdom) has misjudged Saddam Husayn. In his words, "He is a man who history will show served his country." He also said Iraq was now much worse off.

I guess that all depends on your perspective and who you ask.

The Kurds are certainly better off - there is no more t'arib, the Arabization program that forced them to use Arabic as their official language, resettled thousands of Kurds to the Shi'a south and thousands of Shi'a to the Kurdish north, no more chemical agent attacks such as that at Halabjah in 1988 in which thousands of Kurds died. We discovered later that the attack was a test of the weapons later used against Iranian troops. I guess if forcibly uprooting thousands of citizens or using them as human guinea pigs is serving your country, Saddam certainly served.

Despite the rhetoric of radical Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shi'a Iraqis are much better off without Saddam Husayn. It was the Shi'a youth that bore a disproportionate share of the casualties in the Iran-Iraq and Gulf wars. Before the overthrow of Saddam, they had little input into the political system that ran the country - now they hold the majority. The two men competing to form a new coalition government and serve as prime minister are both Shi'a - both had been persecuted (and one almost assassinated) under Saddam Husayn. I guess Tariq 'Aziz also considers that service to his country.

Perhaps some of the Sunni Arabs are not better off now that Saddam Husayn and the Ba'th Party are gone, but they probably deserve their fate. Other Sunnis, including the tribes in the areas north of Baghdad and south of the Kurdish area, are certainly better off.

All that said, Tariq 'Aziz is an astute man. He does agree with me on an issue that I have written about before - the withdrawal of American combat forces from Iraq based on a politically-imposed timetable rather than the security situation in the country. See my earlier piece, Differences in the Iraq casualty count - math or politics? Like me, he believes that pulling out combat units before the country is stable is a mistake, in his words, "leaving Iraq to the wolves."

Tariq, you have good taste in literature, to be sure, and you understand that a politically driven withdrawal date is a mistake, but your romanticized memory of the Iraq under Saddam Husayn defies reality. Maybe you can sell it to someone who never lived in Saddam's Iraq, but don't try to sell it to me - I saw what Saddam Husayn (and you) did to the country and its people. Of course, you still have 14 more years as a guest of the new Iraqi government to reflect on that.

Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona is a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, a veteran of the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars, and service in the Balkans. His assignments include the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency, with tours of duty in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, and operational duties in virtually every country in the Middle East.

During the last year of the Iran–Iraq war in 1988, Rick was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as a liaison officer to the Iraqi armed forces intelligence service, where he served in the field with the Iraqi army and flew with the Iraqi Air Force.  

Throughout the first Gulf War he served as the personal Arabic interpreter and advisor on Iraq to General Norman Schwarzkopf and later co-authored the report to Congress on the conduct of the war.  His is the author of  book, Ally to Adversary – An Eyewitness Account of Iraq’s Fall from Grace.

Following the Gulf War, Rick served as the first air attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria until 1995.  In 1995 and 1996, Rick served in northern Iraq with the Central Intelligence Agency, where he narrowly escaped an attempt on his life by Iraqi agents.  In 1997 and 1998, he served in the Department of Defense counter terrorism branch and led a special operations team in Bosnia that captured five indicted war criminals.

From 2003 through 2008, Rick was a Middle East military analyst for NBC News.  You'll find Lt. Col Francona online at http://francona.blogspot.com/

MORE FROM RICK FRANCONA'S BLOG OF FAME

Copyright © 2006-2010, Basil & Spice. All rights reserved

Many people in a crowded courtroom wept uncontrollably Friday for a 29-year-old Gilbert man and his killer, two men who had been friends since childhood and were members of the Valley's tight-knit Assyrian community. Ramsen Dadesho, 33, was sentenced to 22 years of prison, credited with 459 days served, on one count of second-degree murder in Maricopa County Superior Court by Judge Christopher Whitten for the 2009 shooting death of Rami Merza, 29, of Gilbert, after a four-hour emotional proceeding for both families. Whitten handed down the sentence moments after Merza's and Dadesho's family members spoke before the judge about what the men meant to their families including all six of Merza's siblings (five sisters and one brother), how the tragedy has destroyed both families and divided their ethnic community. Scottsdale police arrested Dadesho after a brief foot chase about midnight on March 22, 2009, moments after a worker servicing a restaurant on the northwest corner of Raintree Drive and Loop 101 heard gunshots and told police he saw Dadesho walking away from the car. A .44 Magnum was found in a bush about 20 yards from where Merza was shot inside his car as he apparently attempted to exit it. Dadesho had told police at the time of his arrest that he was in the parking lot that night to make a deal on 50 pounds of marijuana. But for reasons unknown, according to prosecutors, he shot Merza three times - once in the back, once in the neck, and a third time in the head. Merza was alive for about the first four minutes after he was shot the first time, according to authorities. Dadesho's defense attorney, Barry Mitchell said that dangerous drugs were in both men's systems. Police had discovered a small amount of marijuana in Merza's front pocket. Whitten cited mitigating factors for the sentence: Dadesho tried to hide the gun after shooting Merza, the murder was a product of impairment (due to the drugs in Dadesho's system), Dadesho was not truthful after his arrest, Dadesho used more violence than necessary to kill a person, and the killing caused great emotional harm to the victim's family. Dadesho, who entered into a plea agreement to second-degree murder in May, broke down and cried as family members pleaded for leniency. Dadesho was the last to speak before the judge. "I wished it were me instead of him," Dadesho said. "I'm sorry. I'm ready to take full responsibility for what I've done. I took a life and destroyed many lives." Both Merza and Dadesho had known each other since childhood, and both families knew each other. "It is very hard to understand," said the Rev. Shlioumn Koshoba of the Assyrian Church of the East in Phoenix. "This has divided the community." Merza's mother, Nonia Merza, who had immigrated to the large Assyrian community of Modesto, Calif. with her seven children from Syria in 1985, cried as she spoke to the judge about her slain son who told her he was going to move back to Modesto three days before he was killed. "We're a piece of each other," Merza said. "We have each other's hearts. Ramsen Dadesho took my spirit and my heart. What am I going to do?" Merza, who was described by his sisters as the "heart and soul" and "baby" of the family, had moved to Arizona from Modesto in 2007 to better his life and worked in sales at the Honda Superstition Springs dealership, family members said. He later tried to help Dadesho get a job shortly before Dadesho moved to Arizona from Modesto, where both familes are from. Earlier during the sentencing, all five of Merza's sisters and brother pleaded with the judge to give Dadesho the maximum sentence. Dadesho had earlier been charged with first-degree murder, but because of Merza's mother's failing health and not wanting to put her through a trial, the Merza family supported the plea deal, family members said. Merza lived with his older sister, Rita Suleiman, and her husband, Art, after he moved to Arizona. Suleiman said of her brother: "He had a heart of gold and a laugh that was infectious. If you needed money, he would take it away from himself and give it to you." Art Suleiman said, "Rami was not a drug dealer. He was a great person. We chose him to be the godfather of our children." Assyrians are a Middle Eastern Christian community without a territory, but many had immigrated to central California to become farmers because that is what they knew, Rita Suleiman said. About 8,000 Assyrians live in the Valley, according to the Rev. Shlioumn. "This has caused a separation in the community," Rita Suleiman said. "Assyrians are a very proud people who are very honorable, highly religious and educated. For an Assyrian to kill another one, that's inexcusable." Defense attorney Mitchell would not comment after the hearing and would not say whether he plans to appeal the sentence. Dadesho's father, William Dadesho, who testified earlier for his son, said of his son's sentence, "It wasn't fair. They portrayed my son as an evil man. I'm not condoning what he's done. He's a fine young man." Merza's mother, said of the sentencing, "Ramsen is still alive. He can eat, sleep and his family can still see him. But what about my son? I can't see him no more, I can't speak to him no more. It's not fair."

Say hello to Divina & Tyler....they are such a beautiful couple and their wedding is filled with beauty, elegance and charm.....capturing all the beauty is Kate Webber of Kate Webber Photography......Kate's work is ALWAYS gorgeous....ALWAYS "magazine worthy".....and she is truly one of kindest ladies on the planet...she ROCKS......I'm excited to have her stop by today....let's check out all the beauty captured by Kate on Divina & Tyler's special day....Enjoy!

Divina shares their story with us......."Tyler and I met in while attending college and it wasn’t until six months before graduation that we really “hit-it-off” romantically.  After both moving to Southern California after graduation and living there for about 2 years, we to return to Northern California – San Francisco, to be exact.  Once back there, we got engaged!  We decided to marry in San Francisco because this is where I’m from and I had always wanted to marry at Grace Cathedral. It’s so beautiful and grand and majestic sitting atop Nob Hill. We wanted a big, formal, city wedding and when deciding where to host the reception, we fell in love with the ballroom at the Mark Hopkins, also on Nob Hill, and just a block from the Cathedral.  We wanted a very elegant, formal, over-the-top type of experience.

Being one hundred percent Assyrian definitely meant that our wedding ceremony was going to be very special and unique. We had my long-time priest, the priest who baptized me and my siblings, Rev. Ninos Michael of the Assyrian Church of the East, co-officiate the ceremony along with the Ven. Anthony Turney of Grace Cathedral, bringing in traditional Assyrian marriage ceremony elements, including special prayers and rituals, like the Crowning of the Bride and Groom, all of which were spoken in Assyrian. This was very important to me because of my heritage, but also because it would be a unique experience for many of our guests. We also had my sister, also a bridesmaid, sing “Ave Maria” as a ceremony interlude

We had both a band and a DJ. The band was particularly significant because they’re a well-known band from Davis, where Tyler and I attended college and first met. We spent many “date nights” out with friends, dancing to Cold Shot. They were loved by all, but only those who attended UC Davis really have a soft-spot for them!

We worked with our fantastic coordinator Kelly from A Savvy Event, and she had some fabulous recommendations for me in terms of vendors.  Kate Webber, our photographer,  really impressed me with her previous work, her kindness, and overall excitement about our wedding. Thanks to her, we’ve got some truly artistic and special photographs.  Flowers by Michael Daigan Designs – stunning work!  Our DJ, the well-known Sam Isaac of San Francisco and our band, Cold Shot, from Davis, CA were also great.  It all came together so well."

Style Team:

Photography: Kate Webber
Coordination:  A Savvy Event
Floral:  Michael Daigian Design
Venues:  Grace Cathedral & The Mark Hopkins Hotel
Dress:  SF couture designer: Jinza Couture Bridal
Linens:  La Tavola Linens
Band:  Cold Shot
DJ: DJ Sam Isaac

Kate, thanks SO much for stopping by today...it's ALWAYS a pleasure and we totally love all that  you do...Guys, head over to Kate's site to see more of her beautiful work and to Divina & Tyler, we wish you a lifetime of happiness and joy! 

Check back later guys.....more beautiful inspiration to share at the cafe...xoxo

By Mriana --

Excuse me for a few moments as I somewhat mirror “The Lorax” in this rant/essay and prepare to rumble with the Pentecostals and alike religious extremists.

When it comes to those crazed Rapturists and other extremists, the only thing that will descend from the clouds is a NUKE! Not some sort of god-man and in the end, the god they worship will be blatantly obvious to everyone. I have said this for years, but Wednesday tonight when I came home from work, I received something in my mailbox that confirms this even more- at least to me- due to their dangerous beliefs and even Tom Harpur and John Shelby Spong are not above saying there are dangers and consequences of Biblical literalism.

Most of the time, I immediately throw away such propaganda, but this one I thought I would save long enough to write about it and apparently anyone who wants to follow along with this flier can go to www.comingconflict.com . It appears to be the very same primitive tribal information I have in front of me. Welcome to Pentecostal Land, where you get propaganda that never should have had trees killed to begin with just to have it printed.

The front page of this flier says:

ISLAM VS. CHRISTIANITY The Coming Conflict

That statement might seem unsubstantial concerning my statement, but take a look at the pictures. This is their so called “I’ma Gettin’ Outta Here” mythology, Armageddon for Fundamngelicals, and not some sort of non-violent showdown debate. They have pictures of modern day military helicopters and the most telling feature is the cloud of smoke from a bomb. The players on the battlefield, in this modern day tribal thought and according to the first page of the flier are Barack Obama, the [Creepy] Pope, Ahmadinejad, and I think the final person is Osama Ben Laden. By the way, who is that oddly dressed White man, with a bit of a tan, on the back? (Click “location” on the website to see this strange White man - if you can find a link that works, like on the home page.) Ahmadinejad is darker and looks more Middle Eastern than that man.

All jabs against the design and art of the website and flier aside, there is NO prophesy in this, but rather it is a bunch of insane religious people trying to battle it out for the supreme religion and destroy this planet in the process. While trying to destroy this planet, they hope to see their god and they will, in the form of a nuclear weapon. I just hope I am not the female version of Charlton Heston who screams at the end of The Planet of the Apes (1968), “The bastards did it! You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you. Goddamn you all to hell. ”

Oh, but we are not done yet with this vulgar tribal violence. Turn the page and you see Is[is]-Ra-El is involved too, with some stupid fictional race to “I’ma gettin’ outta here!” Then there is mention of Revelations chapter 13 with “the Beast”, and of course that silly 666 deal. To top it off, they mention once again Islam v. Christianity,“suicide bombers, and “the quest for Paradise”. Both sides want to go to “Paradise”, but I will talk about that more after I lay out the disturbing war map, which boils down to nothing more than a twisted lateralization of literature.

The Bible alone is the “text book” for this brainwashing. How quaint. Not only that, they say one will understand a whole lot of things about Revelations and the Battle of “I’ma Gettin’ Outta Here!” after attending this psychologically damaging course. Well let me say, screw that, because I am going to explain it all in a way that hopefully makes a whole lot more sense than these war mongrels who want to make their “god” or “prophet” descend from the clouds. It is a more rational critique of this literature than what they propose and the emphasis is on rational and literature. If you do not like my interpretation of the literature that is fine, but do not go about trying to make your Jesus or Mohammad descend from the sky or you will find out that the real god/prophet you worship is nothing more than a nuclear bomb. However, I can promise you that my interpretation is far less violent and less harmful than any god believing person’s and makes a hell of a lot more sense.

First, Revelations is a genre of literature that was popular around the time that the so named author John wrote. There are many apocalyptic stories written around that time, not just “John’s” story. It is not prophesy. It is just a story full of allegory, symbolism, and metaphor, which happened to be chosen as canon in the Bible, while others were not.

The list of apocalyptic literature goes as such:

From “The Nag Hammadi Library”:
The Apocalypse of Paul
The (First) Apocalypse of James
The (Second) Apocalypse of James
The Apocalypse of Adam
Apocalypse of Peter

From “The Other Bible”:

The Apocalypse of Adam (Gnostic): The Revelations of Adam’s Origin as Told to His Son Seth. This book was also mentioned above, but this gives more details as to what the story is about.

The War of the Sons of Light With the Sons of Darkness- While not specifically called Apocalyptic, it fits the category of “doom and gloom”, which is what most Apocalyptic stories are about or more accurately, “Dooms Day Literature”. However, it is a story of good verses evil, just as Revelation is.

The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles and the Acts of John- Peter, Paul, Andrew, and Thomas also had Apocryphal Acts, not just John.

Apocalypses according to “The Other Bible”:

The Book of Enoch
The Book of the Secrets of Enoch
The Sibylline Oracles
The Apocalypse of Baruch
The Apocalypse of Ezra
The Ascension of Isaiah
Apocalypse of Peter
Apocalypse of Paul
Apocalypse of Thomas
Christian Sibyllines
Hermes Tresmegistus: Poimandres
Hermes Tresmegistus: Asclepius
Hermes Tresmegistus: On God’s Bisexuality
The Book of Thomas the Contender
Trimorphic Protennoia
The Thunder, Perfect Mind

That list is just the tip of the iceberg for apocalyptic literature written between the approximate dates of 200 B. C. E. and second century C. E. Many of the stories were either destroyed or burned when the Great Library of Alexandria was burned down. Others were hidden by some wise people and in all honesty, we were lucky to find and salvage some of these stories, because these other stories show that The Apocalypse of John, AKA The Revelation to John, is just one more in a series of the genre of literature known as Apocalyptic writing. Such stories are hardly prophesy and are more in tune with Science Fiction writing than anything else.

Revelations in the Bible is a spurious manuscript compiled from much older texts, much like Mark wrote from other mythologies and Matthew, Luke and John followed his writing. On top of it all, this John is not any of the previous Johns found in the Bible and his book is of extreme antiquity. It dates back to 4000 years ago and supposedly relates to Mithraic legend of one of the early Zoroasters. Some, such as Jacolliot, claimed it was gleaned from Krishna/Christna even, but I am not going there with this essay. However, I will stick mostly with Egyptian mythology and save that for another time.

Also note that Jesus and Christ are used sparingly in the Book of Revelations. Supposedly this reveals that these names were interpolated long after the book was written. Whatever the case, the Book of Revelation is just a story and makes more sense based on symbolism, with the hero being the sun, the heroine being the moon, and the other characters being the planets, stars, and constellations with the stage being the sky, earth, rivers, and sea. All of this is based on Egyptian Astronomical mythology.

Yes, I hear the arguments now, including debate about even Acharya S., AKA D. M. Murdock, but she was not the only who has said these things. Gerald Massey has said them and both Robert M. Price and John Shelby Spong have hinted at some of these things. Be that as it may, I am going to explain it in a way that hopefully appears to be much more logical than those “I’ma Gettin’ Outta Here” people. To interpret the story metaphorically and allegorically makes far more sense than silly superstition.

Let us start with the most obvious of their statements- the Mark of the Beast or 666. This is numerology and not an actual mark. The number 666 was supposedly held sacred in goddess worshiping cultures as representative of female genitalia. When the goddess was vilified by the patriarch, she became “the Beast” and her sacred number “the Mark”. The mark, however, was not evil or bad in Judaism, as evidence by the story of Solomon. Rather, it was a sacred number. (Acharya) The Pythagoreans considered it a perfect number, because it divides the universe into equal parts.

In Egyptian mythology, the number 666 also corresponds to the sun rising at 6:00 A. M., reaching its height at around noon, and setting at 6:00 P.M. It could also apply to the three worlds in which the soul dwells, in ancient Egyptian mythology: Ta (earth), which exists from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M., Dwat (Netherworld), which is the world of laws and shadows, existing from 6 P.M. to midnight, and the heavenly kingdom, which exists from midnight to 6 A.M. (Seleem) Either way, we have a case of sixes and we see the morning star or the sun, Amen-Ra, represented by a circle, who has *no beginning, no end*, and no middle. When one understands this, Rev: 22:16 becomes clearer, because Lo and behold, Jesus identifies himself as the “morning star”:

“I Jesus have sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root of the offspring of David, *the bright morning star.* (RSV) Note that “Jesus” appears to be a probable addition to the text, just as the comment above suggests about “Jesus” and “Christ”.

Just as Osiris is equated with the “morning star” in the Coffin (Sp. 722) and Pyramid Texts (PT 519:1207a and 593:1636/M 206), so is Jesus. Horus was not only the sun but also the Morning Star, just as Jesus is being portrayed in Revelations.

One interesting note to make is that Lucifer, in the Old Testament, is also the Light Bearer and is associated with the Morning Star or Day Star, which is also Venus. Lucifer is not Satan, AKA Adversary from the Hebrew and Semitic term “Shaytan”, but the morning star. The name Satan was never applied to Lucifer in the Bible, not even in Luke 10:18 or Rev. 12:7-10. However, Lucifer is also often pictured as felling/descending from the clouds in that mythical story, in reference to his fall in Isaiah 14:3-20. The Latin word Lucifer is also used again in 2 Peter 1:19 for “morning star”. In the Latin Vulgate, Jerome translated "הילל בן־שׁחר" (morning star, son of dawn) as "lucifer qui mane oriebaris" (morning star that used to rise early) and in the The Septuagint Greek translation of the phrase uses the same interpretation of "son of dawn": ὁ ἑωσφόρος ὁ πρωὶ ἀνατέλλων (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer ).

The “bright morning star” is also found in Egyptian mythology and with that mythology in mind, I will take you back to Rev. 3:14:

“And to the angel of the church in La-odice’a write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.” (RSV and NKJV)

“Amen” in this statement does not mean verily, truly, or so be it. It is Amen Ra/Ammon/Amen. What we have here, is yet another version of Egyptian mythology set to Christian mythology. The sun god Amen Ra is now called God and taken as Jesus, who is part of the three in one. Thus, Jesus is both the sun and the Morning Star.

The number seven is considered perfect and is what the cosmos is supposedly built upon, not just in the Bible or the Egyptian texts, but in things outside the Bible too, such as the days of the week. In Revelations 5:6 Jesus is the lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. The horns signify power with the eyes being the sun, moon, and five inner planets. The elders are the 24 hours in the day and the four creatures/angels are the four corners of the earth. The seven seals are not from God, but from Ezekiel, who got it from the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Sumerians. The Seven seals are identical with the seven decrees of Ishtar and Innana. They are also the seven gates through which the Prince of Light must pass, representing the hours of the night.

I do not expect everyone to be following me completely and it is difficult to cover a whole work of literature thoroughly in a short essay. Some people may even be skeptical of this comparison to Egyptian mythology, but I continue to pursue the issue.

Still others may be asking about the seven plagues. These would be the seven bowls which contain the wrath of God on earth. These seven bowls are the seven powers. These seven powers cause the destruction of the world in Egyptian mythology. In Egyptian mythology, we have the seven stars which represent the seven human organs, seven glands, and the seven major countries of the world. Not to mention, there are also seven spirits whose power descends on the earth between the hours of midnight and 6 A.M. (Seleem)

The seven angels correspond to the seven hathors of the Egyptians who are seven beings who make decrees and of which the dead met on their journey through the seven spheres of the afterlife. The seven hathors are also the seven gates representing the night hours. The seven torches of fire or the seven branch lamp stand are the sun in the middle with the moon and five inner planets as satellites corresponding to the days of the week.

Finally, in chapter 13 we see the seven heads rising up from the sea with ten horns and ten crowns. According to Massey these “are the ten horns or powers of the solar dragon indicate a heaven in ten domains, ten islands, or ten circles of Ra, in the Ritual, which preceded the ultimate heaven in twelve divisions. This is intimated when “the tenth part of the city fell” as one of the ten divisions passing away in the course of precession.” In 13:11 we find another beast with two horns. According to Massey, “This was Sebek, who, under one type, was the crocodile, and under the other, a lamb.”

Humm… Sebek almost sounds like a Vulcan name in Star Trek. As I said before, Revelation is much like Science Fiction and I doubt Bob Price would disagree on that comparison.

Anyway, when this story is compared to Egyptian mythology, it makes more sense then it does with the interpretation of Rapture believing Evangelicals. Revelations is filled with many similar motifs in Egyptian mythology and is hardly prophesy. These various motifs can be found in other previous mythologies and has nothing to do with the second coming of Christ or even Mohammad, but rather was written to usher in a new age. This ushering in of a new age can also be seen when John the Baptist announces Rosh Hashanah in Matt 3:2. He is the personified shofar or trumpet of God. (Spong) He too is ushering in a new age and not actually talking about the end of the world. This Rosh Hashanah midrash in Matthew was taken primarily from Isaiah. (Ibid) Moses moved from Age of Taurus to the Age of Aries and in Matthew, John is ushering in the Age of Pisces or moving from the Age of Aries into the Age of Pisces. Revelations is also ushering in a new era, not prophesying the end of the world or the “Coming of the Messiah”.

Regardless of whether or not people believe there is Egyptian solar mythology involved in the Bible or even just rewritten mythology, especially in the Book of Revelations, the fact remains that Revelation is NOT prophesy. It is part of a genre of literature that was popular long ago and is nothing but a story full of symbolism, allegory, and metaphor. Personally, I get sick and tired of people making more out of the story than what it really is.

If people wish to live in a fairy tale world, that is fine, but do not re-enact the story by killing people and destroying the world in an effort to make your fairy tale come true. It is not going to happen, so… "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" or at least take your stinking paws off the “Truffula” trees and my mailbox. In the end, what you find is that your god is nothing more than a nuclear weapon and IF by chance you survive that, you just might find that you have been living your whole life by way of a story book and that god never existed. In my honest opinion, that is a sad way to live one’s life and is nothing but primitive tribal thinking people with modern day weapons, especially when there is absolutely no truth it. Such a combination of primitive tribalism and modern weapons is an extremely dangerous combination, because there is no heaven/paradise, no hell, and there will certainly be no second coming of any messiah or prophet. Revelations is pure mythology full of symbolism, allegory, metaphor, and nothing more. It is just one more piece of literature and not something people need to kill each other over to the point that they drop the “Big One”. It’s just a friggin’ story!

---

Sources for this short essay:


The Illustrated Egyptian Book of the Dead by Ramses Seleem
Notes from Acharya S. various works
Ancient Egypt- The Light of the World by Gerald Massey: http://hpb.narod.ru/Book11AncientEgypt.htm
A New Christianity For a New World by John Shelby Spong
The Nag Hammadi Library (found on Amazon)
The Other Bible (found on Amazon)
The Pagan Christ by Tom Harpur
Various brief discussions with Robert M. Price
As well as my own thoughts and opinions

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There's more to the city than its many iconic monuments. Our experts reveal their favourite places

Jason Goodwin, author

Sahaflar Carsisi (the book market)

In some ways, the book market preserves the atmosphere of the bazaar as it might have been two centuries ago, when merchants gathered by their trades, and the emphasis was not on foreign tourists. It occupies a courtyard between the Bayezid mosque and the Grand Bazaar, on the same site as the old Byzantine book and paper market. Overseen by a bust of Ibrahim Müteferrika, the first Ottoman printer, dozens of tiny bookstalls display shelves crammed with textbooks, novels, holy and foreign books. New and secondhand books in English jostle for space in the highly-recommended Dilmen Kitabevi bookstore, where a strong-minded reader in search of humour might look out for the almost-scholarly Sexual Life in Ottoman Society. Through the far gate, you'll find a tiny market for old coins – a history lesson in itself at this crossroads of continents.

Rustem Pasha mosque

It is hardly off the beaten track, but getting there is half the fun. Rustem Pasha mosque is a tiny gem squeezed into the bazaar, with its undercroft serving as shops and approached by a winding staircase. You come out on to a raised courtyard, quite unexpectedly – and no wonder, because this mosque was built with characteristic dexterity by Sinan, the great Ottoman architect, in 1563. It is one of the decorative wonders of Istanbul, sparkling with a magnificent array of true Iznik tiles, from the greatest period of the tile-maker's art: the rich red colours were perfected at this time, and then the recipe was lost.

Crimea Memorial church

Every great city needs its exceptions and its oddities; only the provincial city is monolithic. Turkey's secular nationalists have tried to reduce Istanbul to provincial status, by removing the capital to Ankara and frowning on the tradition of religious diversity in the city – including making life difficult for the Greek Orthodox Church, whose Patriarch lives in Istanbul. All the more reason for visitors to salute the kaleidoscope of Istanbul faiths. A tiny fragment in the mosaic of Istanbul's history, the Crimea Memorial church was designed by the English architect GE Street and built in 1858-68 on land donated by the sultan. It is a remarkable survivor from a period of rapid change, as the Ottoman Empire opened itself to western influences. Moribund by the 1980s, the Anglican church was reopened with the enthusiastic help of Assyrian refugees who found shelter here in the 1990s. Look out for Mungo McCosh's splendidly painted chancel screen, and the colourful Sunday congregation (Sunday mass is at 10am). If you appear nice enough, you may even get invited back to the vicarage by Father Ian Sherwood.

Jason Goodwin is the author of Lords of the Horizons; A History of the Ottoman Empire and of the Yashim series of novels, beginning with The Janissary Tree.

Husam Suleymangil, independent tour guide

Çinaralti teahouse, Çengelköy

If you want to escape the crazy traffic and touristy areas of the old city, board one of the public ferries to Üsküdar on the Asian side and wander north, perhaps visiting the Beylerbeyi Palace en route, then continuing on to Çengelköy. Çinaralti is a traditional teahouse on the waterfront where you can enjoy one of the most beautiful views of the old city under the shade of an 800-year-old plane tree (one of the branches is so old and low that locals had to lower the pavement to pass under it). Here the call to prayer mingles with the bells ringing from the Greek Orthodox church across the road. This is a wonderful spot to contemplate history, and if you are here at supper time, you can walk over to Iskele Restaurant at the ferry station where you will find some of the best fish in town.
Çarsi Ca. No:90, +216 553 7385.

Asitane Restaurant

If you visit the Chora Church museum with its beautifully protected 12th-century mosaics (a must when you are in Istanbul), I strongly recommend lunch next door where you can also explore the past – through your palette. The chef at Asitane scoured the archives for sultans' festival menus at the Topkapi Palace kitchen, and recreated recipes from the 15th to the 18th centuries. Stuffed melon, or stuffed quince in winter, are to die for. Jazz and classical concerts are held periodically in the garden.
Kariye Camii Sokak No: 6.

Church of St Sergius and St Bacchus

Otherwise known as the Little Hagia Sophia, this fifth-century church is today used as a mosque. It was built as an architectural draft for the main Hagia Sophia to test new ideas. In your imagination, if you bisect the building and put another dome on top of the two half domes, it would give you a small-scale replica of its big sister – hence the nickname. It is an easy walk from the centre of the old town. Make sure you visit the calligrapher's market just before the entrance on the right. You can order your name, or whatever you want to be written, in beautiful old Arabic script on the way in, and pick it up on the way out.

klasikkeyifler.org/English/toursa.html

Ilgın Yorulmaz editor, pukkaliving.com

Fazil Bey's Turkish coffee shop, Kadiköy Çarsisi market

As you pass the shopfront of Fazil Bey'in Türk Kahvesi, founded in 1923, you are drawn in by the aroma of fresh coffee roasted in an antique machine. Over years, we may have turned into a tea-drinking nation, but a good fincan (small cup) of coffee is still dear to our hearts, and "will be remembered for 40 years", as an old Turkish saying goes. Chocolate, vanilla, cardamom and mastic (a resin used in most Turkish-Greek desserts) flavours are local favourites. Drink it with a few pieces of lokum (Turkish delight) and make sure you try their delicious homemade lemonade, too.
Tarihi Kadıköy Çarçısı Serasker Cad. 1a, +216 450 28 70,.

Üsküdar Bit Pazari antique flea market

Üsküdar is an historically important and relatively conservative suburb on the Asian side, home to mosques, hamams and monuments from Ottoman times, and this flea market shows it. Inside the covered bazaar are 40 shops selling everything from bric-a-brac to statement pieces like the intricately carved marble basins. One shop to head for is Asir Antik, which specialises in iron, wood and stone work. Another favourite is Ridvan Tasçiogullari's tiny shop of antique locks and keys, right next to Asir. Mr Ridvan has spent a lifetime amassing his collection; travelling the country in search of the most unusual pieces.

Laundromat Boutique

Back on the European side, Laundromat is a newly-opened boutique in Galata-Beyoglu. Dubbed the Soho of Istanbul (thanks to a gentrification of the area), Galata is now very hot property. This concept store is a stone's throw away from historical Galata Tower and co-owned by designers Öykü Thurston and Yasemin Özeri. Thurston is a genius with felt, using this ancient fabric in amazingly modern ways to make eclectic shawls, mufflers and hats. Özeri's designs are timeless pieces, which remain hip no matter what. The shop showcases some other contemporary Turkish designers and changes stock every three months. Galatamoda, a local event featuring young and talented Turkish fashion designers, takes place regularly in the area four times a year.
Galid Dede Cad 93b, +212 249 98 92.

pukkaliving.com is a local's guide to Istanbul in Turkish and English

Oya Eczacibasi, chair, Istanbul Modern museum

Princes Islands

I take great pleasure in going to the Princes Islands, specifically Büyükada, where I spent most of my childhood. During the summer, I enjoy walking or cycling around the island, followed by a meal at one of the fish restaurants on the Iskelse. I also love walking up to Hagia Yorgi, where there is a church and a monastery. I adore having a cup of tea at sunset while enjoying the astonishing view.

Kanlica

I sometimes go to this village on the outskirts of Istanbul to savour the famous Kanlica yogurt, made from a mix of cow and sheep's milk and served with sugar sprinkled on top of the creamy skin. Sitting at one of the small cafes by the seaside, I admire the view of the Bosphorus. It's an ideal location to escape the city.

Basilica Cistern

With its vast forest of columns that fade into the darkness and its enchanted atmosphere, Basilica Cistern is one of Istanbul's leading tourist attractions. The only one of the city's ancient cisterns to continue serving its original function – as a reservoir of the Great Palace – until fairly recent times, Basilica Cistern testifies both to the richness of decoration prior to the sixth century and to the changes that transformed the city two centuries after its founding. Today the space serves as an extraordinary setting for a variety of activities and has a cafe. It inspired Jennifer Steinkamp's computerised animation Eye Catching, which belongs to the Istanbul Modern collection, and is currently on view there at the cistern.

Esen Boyacigiller, Editor-in-chief, Time Out Istanbul

Maybeshop

Part design shop, part art gallery, maybeshop features a collection of items created from recycled objects by Turkish designers. Located in Istanbul's home-furnishing shopping centre, Address istanbul, here you will find old Turkish ottomans reconstructed into modern chairs, a new take on the traditional Turkish tea glass, reimagined fez caps in bright colours, karma sutra rings designed by Sadi Tekin, old Turkish records shaped into bowls and even Turkish coffee glasses.
Akin Plaza K.3, Sisli 34382 (+90 212 320 95 61)

Beyaz Firin Erenköy

Beyaz Firin is my absolute favourite place to have breakfast. Located on a side street close to Caddebostan shore on the Asian side, this bakery has endless delicious options: simit (Turkish bagel covered with sesame seeds), pogaça (pastry filled with cheese, dill, potatoes and olives), börek (Turkish phyllo-dough pastry filled with either cheese, spinach or meat), quiches, bread topped with eggs and sucuk (Turkish beef sausage), pastries, filled wheat lavas and more.
Bagdat Caddesi, Yener Sokak, No:9, Kat: 1/2, 34728 Kadiköy.

Babylon Club

This live music venue is the heart and soul of Taksim, the party district previously known for its grungy bars that's suddenly becoming popular among the chichi crowd. This venue has been home to the biggest visiting musical acts (Broken Social Scene, Uffie feat. DJ Feadz, Nouvelle Vague, Tortured Soul and Patti Smith) as well as local Turkish acts. What's so great about this venue is the fact that it has a capacity of maybe 500 maximum so the vibe is always quite intimate. The bartenders also know what they're doing and can prepare bona-fide cocktails (unlike most bartenders in the citywho wouldn't know the difference between a Bloody Mary and Cuba Libre). It's hardly a hidden gem, but Babylon is music in Istanbul.
3 Sehbender Sokak, Asmalimescit, 80040.

MaNga, Turkish rock band

Umut Ocakbasi restaurant

Food is a major part of our lives and we love an ocakbasi (grill house), which is an essential and traditional part of our culture. This one is very close to Taksim, where we usually hang out. It has a proper indoor grill and serves great meat. The restaurant has four floors and a terrace. It's busy, but the atmosphere is always friendly. It's also one of the best places for drinking raki.
Hasnun Galip Sokak No:4, Istiklal, Beyoglu (+90 212 245 50 05)

Peyote bar

This is one of our favourite music venues, situated in the historic backstreets of Nevizade in Beyoglu. Its eclectic music policy, spread across three floors, pulls in an alternative, friendly and lively local crowd. Many well-known Turkish artists launched their music careers in this bar, including us, so it is our special place. We love the terrace on the roof, great for after-show drinks.
Kameriye Sk No:4 Balıkpazarı, Beyoglu (+90 212 251 43 98).

Bosphorus boat tour, Ortaköy pier

If you want to check out Istanbul in a short time, take a Bosphorus boat tour. They depart from all over, but we recommend taking the boat from Ortaköy pier as it's another cool part of Istanbul, a bit like Camden. It has boutique shops, arty stalls, tea houses and plenty of historical sights. From the boat you can see Istanbul, east and west, in its full glory: wooded hills, dilapidated waterside villas from another era, sleek modern homes, the occasional palace and castle, and much more. This is not just a tourist activity; we locals do the tours, too, especially on Sundays.
From the pier near Ortaköy mosque.

MaNga won MTV's Best European Act in 2009 and will represent Turkey at this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

Peter Sommer, owner of Peter Sommer Travels

Caferaga Medresesi

Tucked down a narrow cobbled lane, a stone's throw from the Hagia Sophia, is this oasis of calm among the frenetic hum of old Istanbul. A small sign is the only clue to a rudimentary cafe housed in a medrese (religious school) built in 1560 by one of the greatest of Ottoman architects, Sinan. The cells or classrooms surround a shady, cool little courtyard. Home also to a Cultural Foundation, you can delve into workshops on traditional handicrafts and music while supping an ice-cold drink.
Next to Hagia Sophia. Caferiye Sok, Sogukkuyu, Cikmazi, No:1 Sultanahmet.

Mosaic museum

It took me several attempts to find the Mosaic museum. It's only a couple of hundred metres from the Blue Mosque, but it's well and truly off the tourist radar. I've had the place entirely to myself each time I've visited. Almost hidden in a 17th-century bazaar full of carpet shops is a portal into the epicentre of Byzantine Constantinople. Metal stairs take you down to the remnants of a mosaic pavement from the imperial palace, built by the Emperor Justinian nearly 1,500 years ago. Stretching for a couple of hundred metres, it depicts a host of wildlife, fauna, and figures in colourful, enchanting detail – the biggest, most splendid mosaic surviving from the period.
Near Sultanahmet Square, Arasta Bazaar.

Peter Sommer Travels offers archaeological tours and cultural gulet cruises in Turkey.

My illustrious true Christian brethren,

This question is for you, and not for any of the heathen element within the fora of Yedda.  Thereby, the satanist community, which is ABSOLUTELY anyone who did not accept Jesus and his KJV 1611 Christian Bible, is asked to stay off this topic and find something more appropriate, like a children's Christianity forum where they can be very simply explained how they will burn in the Lake of Fire upon their untimely demise.  The pagan element that will attempt to respond to this question will be duly ignored, or will be made a fool of in the comments to their unwanted and ignorant responses.

Relative to the question at hand, my Christian brethren, I present to your attention this short sermon by a colleague of mine, Reverend Elias.  The true Christian will appreciate any input you may provide as to make it more useful in achieving our goals, of which you all know off from reading your KJV 1611 Bibles.

____________________________________________________________

 

At times I've engaged in debates with some Mooslim gentlemen, with some amusement, as it is instructive to recall that, in a country under Sharia law, there would be no such debates. Any questioning of their hocus-pocus would be followed by death in a number of barbarous ways, as it is throughout the contemporary Near East.

There is little point in discussing Islam with the followers of Moohammedanism, as the live in fear of the wrath and retribution of their peers and would not dare to acknowledge the Truth and the Way that is God. I shall therefore, for the use of those visitors that know not, provide a little background on this unusual cult.

Islam was founded by an illiterate Arab camel trader called Moohammed, who saw hallucinations of Satan while suffering from severe dehydration in the deserts of Nejd. These he mistook for visions of God, and excited his fellow nomads with his jabbering zeal.

When asked to produce a book of scripture, such as both Jews and Christians possessed, he realized his mistake. Fearful of the wrath of his spurned adepts, he had written a crude simplification of the Holy Bible, with the morality and divinity replaced with the law of the vendetta. This is now to be found in both the Koran and the Quran.

Bouyed with success, this fakir married a wealthy woman and embarked on a career of conquest, plunder and oppression not seen in the Orient since the days of Pharaoh. His own personal life was a swift descent down the chute of depravity, culminating in the taking of a child, Aisha, as his concubine. For this a Christian country would have imprisoned him, but in the nightmare world he had created this made Mohammed a prophet and source of emulation to his bigamous tribe. At least he did not toy with young lads, which at this stage put him slightly ahead of the Papists.

On his death, the Mooslim world split into warring factions, with the defeated Shia limping off to Persia, where they developed the bizarre hybrid with Zoroastrian devil-worship that plagues Iran to this day.

From their Babylonian Babel of Baghdad, the triumphant Sunni surveyed the wreckage of Near Eastern civilization that they had wrought. Christian Egypt lay in ruins, and the churches of Jerusalem and Damascus were supplanted by mosques. So much for a religion of peace and tolerance.

Indeed, when the simple Mongol pastoralists reached Baghdad - then, as prior to the American attempt to liberate Mesopotamia, the centre of world evil - they were so appalled by its depravity that they sought to destroy every trace of the city and sow its sod with salt, so that the simple Assyrian peasantry might start life anew.

Sadly, this respite was brief, for the Papacy sabotaged the first wars for the liberation of the Holy Land, just as it has tried to do the same with the second war that the Godly President Bush was leading. The valiant Crusaders were driven from the Levant by Venetian treason and the efforts of Saladin- a Kurdish Yezidi diabolist whom the craven Mooslims seek to claim as one of their own. Until our days, evil has been the portion of those tormented lands.

Mooslim imperialists in Andalucia sought to destroy Christian culture, only to fall before the sword of the Spaniard - that "mighty warrior" who could not best the unarmed Dutchmen, or beat the savage Aztecs and Incas without resort to guile.

Apologists for the Mooslim cult claim that in Spain its satraps preserved the learning of the Ancients for posterity. In fact, it was Hebrew scribes and some false Jews who preserved the writings of Plato and Aristotle, for what they are worth, while their Muslim masters gorged themselves on Seville oranges and shashlicks .

The few military triumphs of these flabby ignoramuses have been under the stern leadership of the Turk. The preferred weapon of the Arab is now as before a drugged, abused child with bombs strapped to its quivering little body.

All the rest is flummery.

Yn gywir,

Rev G Elias (MA)

__________________________________________________________

 

My fellow true Christians, I will eagerly await your response to the Godly enlightenment provided by Reverend Elias' review of the Moohamedan's faith.

 

Brother T

Topics: christianity, religion & spirituality

Spare a thought -- and perhaps also a prayer -- for Iraq’s beleaguered Christians, who yesterday observed the somber Feast of the Holy Innocents. Perhaps nowhere else does this particular occasion cut closer to the bone: In Iraq, Christians mourn their friends, the most recent martyrs for the faith, on the same day that Christians around the world are called to remember the Church’s very first martyrs, the infants slaughtered en masse in Bethlehem on Herod’s orders after the birth of Jesus.

Today is also an appropriate time for all Americans, believer and unbelievers alike, to consider their moral responsibilities toward an invisible minority caught up in a forgotten war. After all, one of the unintended -- and unacknowledged -- consequences of Iraq’s liberation in 2003 was the swift and ongoing demise of Iraq’s ancient Christian communities. While this tragedy was unforeseen, it was by no means unforeseeable, if only U.S. policymakers had paid due attention to Iraq’s complex religious landscape and recent history. Worse yet, U.S. officials have deliberately refused to take any steps to safeguard Iraq’s persecuted Christians -- or even to acknowledge their plight -- for fear of being seen as aiding unpopular and unfashionable religious minorities.

This policy of malign neglect helps explain why so few Americans are even aware that Iraq still remains a rich ethnic and religious mosaic beyond the simple tripartite division of all Iraqis into three warring tribes: Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. Fewer still are aware that Christianity in Mesopotamia dates from the mid-first century, when local tradition holds that the Apostle Thomas (the same doubting Thomas who appears in John’s Gospel) founded what became the Church of the East, the only enduring Christian community formed outside the borders of the Roman empire during apostolic times. Thomas’s mission predates the arrival of Islam by six centuries and serves as a needed reminder that early Christianity was an essentially Eastern phenomenon.

Today, the vast majority of Iraqi Christians share common roots in the Church of the East, which split into two branches in the 16th century, one Roman Catholic (Chaldean) and the other essentially Orthodox (Assyrian). Both churches worship partly in Arabic and partly in Aramaic, the same language that Jesus spoke. Smaller Christian denominations include Syriac Christians (mainly Roman Catholic, but also Orthodox), Latin Rite Roman Catholics and other historic Middle Eastern churches (mainly Orthodox and Armenian), and some Protestants (mostly Anglicans) and Evangelicals.

It was not so long ago that Iraqi Christians belonging to all these churches played a unique and vital role in the common life of modern Iraq. Their contributions, both institutional and individual, once formed an irreplaceable part of the fabric of Iraqi life. And their contributions in turn played a wholly disproportionate role in relation to their actual numbers in an overwhelmingly Muslim society.

On the one hand, there was a web of church institutions -- schools, hospitals, clinics, and orphanages -- that served all Iraqis regardless of faith. Of these, none was more prominent than Baghdad College, a remarkable Jesuit preparatory school for boys that turned out a disproportionate share of Iraq’s political and cultural elite between 1931 and 1968. As with most other church schools, fully half the student body were Muslim. Even today, 40 years after the American priests and seminarians were expelled and all private schools nationalized in the wake of the Six-Day War, Baghdad College’s legacy endures.  In the December 2005 parliamentary elections, three of the four leading candidates for prime minister (all Muslims, of course) were former students. So too are many other distinguished Iraqis, such as Kanan Makiya, whose 1989 classic Republic of Fear shattered the wall of silence around the Baathist dictatorship. Yet this one school’s splendid example is by no means a strictly Iraqi or purely historical phenomenon, as Christian schools continue to educate an outsized share of local Muslim elites in places as diverse as Egypt (Gamal Mubarak) or Pakistan (the late Benazir Bhutto).

On the other hand, there was and remains individual Christian witness to values that are in notably short supply in Iraq nowadays, especially respect for one’s neighbor regardless of faith and willingness to resolve disputes without recourse to violence. These particular values are ones their Muslim neighbors most often acknowledge and admire, as I learned while living and working as a Catholic seminarian in Jordan a decade ago. And they are precisely the same ideals Pope Benedict XVI cited in his annual Christmas message on Saturday:

How can we forget the troubled situation in Iraq and the little flock of Christians which lives in the region? At times it is subject to violence and injustice, but it remains determined to make its own contribution to the building of a society opposed to the logic of conflict and the rejection of one's neighbor.

Yet these same values have made Iraqi Christians easy targets for Sunni and Shiite extremists and common criminals in the utter collapse of law and order that followed the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Unlike their Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish neighbors, Iraqi Christians have no private militias, no powerful foreign patrons -- and no fighting ideology like the political Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood or its Shiite counterparts. They are thus the only group in Iraq without blood on their hands, holy innocents caught up in an unholy war.

Last year, I wrote about how practically every Christian neighborhood, parish, or family was repeatedly forced to pay protection money (jizya) to avoid exile, murder, or forced conversion to Islam. These evils were universally justified by their perpetrators on the basis of the same Koranic verses dealing with subject peoples, but they were seldom if ever publicly denounced as a perversion of Muslim faith by Iraq’s influential Muslim clergy.

This year, Iraq’s dwindling Christian communities are still being targeted on the basis of their faith. That is especially the case in Mosul, long the most lawless and violent place in Iraq. By an unhappy coincidence, Mosul is also located in the ancestral heartland of Iraqi Christianity, and is thus the last refuge (short of exile) for Christians fleeing targeted violence in Baghdad, Basra, and other places.

Mosul is therefore a target-rich environment. In December alone, at least seven churches, convents, and schools have been bombed, claiming dozens of lives, including the latest holy innocent, an eight-day-old baby girl. Iraq’s central government deserves credit for dispatching some 3,000 additional police after a similar spate of bombings and attacks in October, but their presence has brought little improvement as Christians continue to flee Mosul for overcrowded and underdeveloped villages such as Qaraqosh in the adjacent Nineveh plain. Meanwhile, the situation around Kirkuk, also in northern Iraq, remains nearly as dire for Christians caught up in the Arab-Kurdish struggle for control of the area’s oil fields.

While the Iraqi government has belatedly taken some modest steps to ease the suffering of Iraqi Christians, the U.S. government’s consistent policy of studied and shameful indifference forms rare common ground between the Bush and Obama administrations. It is an indelible stain on American honor that two administrations did nothing to assist, much less protect, a beleaguered religious minority. Such was not the case in the Balkans a decade ago, when the Clinton administration came to the aid of embattled Muslim minorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo with decisive military force in similar circumstances. In Iraq, however, America’s unmet moral obligations were and are the direct consequence of the security vacuum arising from the American-led destruction of Saddam’s Republic of Fear.

When pressed by religious-freedom advocates, Bush-administration officials invariably ducked responsibility by claiming that overall security improvements, beginning with the 2007 surge, would trickle down to Iraq’s most vulnerable and helpless minorities. The Obama administration takes the same hands-off approach in October’s annual State Department report on religious freedom: “The ‘surge’ by the Multinational Forces in Iraq, in coordination with Iraqi Security Force operations, reduced the overall level of violence in the country; however, significant effects were slow to trickle down to the country’s minority communities.” But the real reason for inaction, as several senior Bush-administration officials admitted to me off the record, was that being seen to help Christians was simply too controversial at home and in the Muslim world. It was a matter of scarce political capital better spent elsewhere, I was told.

A couple of weeks ago, a Chaldean-American friend of mine raised the issue of American responsibility for the plight of his brothers and sisters at a public forum convened by a mid-level State Department official. According to the Detroit Free Press, this official “said he couldn’t comment on whether Iraqi Christians were hurt by the U.S.-led war.” “I can’t answer that,” he said. “Let’s leave that to the historians.”

On the same day that my friend was try to get a straight answer from the State Department, more than 120 Christian leaders met in Baghdad to issue yet another urgent plea for targeted security assistance and development aid. Similar pleas for equally modest measures have long fallen on deaf ears, not least in Kurdish-controlled areas, where the treatment of Christians seeking refuges leaves a lot to be desired.

Meanwhile, the plight of Iraq’s surviving Christians worsens. In churches around the world today, Christians will hear the passage from Matthew’s Gospel (2:13-18) that recounts the slaughter of the holy innocents and ends with these words of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah:

A voice was heard in Ramah,
sobbing and loudly lamenting:
it was Rachel weeping for her children,
refusing to be comforted because they were no more

The time is fast approaching when Iraqi Christians are no more.

-- John F. Cullinan, a regular NRO contributor, has written frequently about Iraq’s religious dynamics since 2003.

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The ongoing Christian flight from the Middle East was high on the agenda of the Vatican’s secretary of state, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, when I met with him recently in Rome.

The lengthy exodus of ancient Christian congregations from the greater Middle East’s last redoubts of religious pluralism is accelerating. Terrorism, conflict, and the rise of intolerant Islamism are to blame, Vatican officials explain. There is a real fear that the light of Christian communities that was enkindled personally by the apostles of Jesus Christ could be extinguished in this vast region that includes the Holy Land.

This trend could be reversed or at least halted, but probably not without Western help. Thus far, the rapid erosion of Middle Eastern Christianity has drawn little notice from the outside world.

Pope Benedict XVI, however, is planning a special synod of Roman Catholic bishops next October to discuss this crisis and to promote greater ecumenical unity in the Middle East. The hope for the synod, as reported by the Catholic news agency Zenit, is that “new generations must come to know the great patrimony of faith and witness in the different churches” of this region.

The greater Middle East, of course, holds profound theological significance for all Christians. Broad Christian engagement may be the best hope for the survival of these ancient Middle Eastern churches -- the Copts and Chaldeans, the Maronites and Melkites, the Latin Rite Catholics, the Armenians, the Syriac Orthodox, the Assyrian Church of the East, and others.

Evangelical Christians are gaining thousands of converts in the Middle East, and millions of Christians have migrated within the region. (Asia News reports that today there are more Syriac faithful in Saudi Arabia than in Turkey and Syria combined.) However, these populations are relatively small and isolated and are usually forced to live as “catacomb Christians,” suppressed in their witness and compelled to worship in secret. The same is true of Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, and other more recent arrivals, who must keep a low profile, especially since Saudi Arabia’s state textbooks started teaching that the Christians’ schools, colleges, and clinics are signs of a “new crusade.”

Encompassing the land in which the mysteries of Christian salvation were fulfilled, this region should be a particular focus of Christian reflection during this holy season. But Christians and non-Christians alike should take note for worldlier reasons as well. As citizens of the free world, whose core civilizational values bear the imprint of Christianity (even if the European Union refuses to acknowledge this fact), we should all be concerned.

The disappearance of living Christian communities would signal the disappearance of religious pluralism and a moderating influence from the heart of the Muslim world.

Christians, numbering about 15 million, are the largest non-Muslim religious minority left in the Middle East. The Jews, the ancient Zoroastrians (sometimes known as “magi,” three of whom visited the Christ Child), the Mandeans (who follow John the Baptist), the Bahai, the angel-worshipping Yazidis, and other, smaller groups -- all have joined the exodus, and for the same reasons.

Within our lifetime, the Middle East could be wholly Islamicized for the first time in history. Without the experience of living alongside Christians and other non-Muslims at home, what would prepare it to peacefully coexist with the West? This religious polarization would undoubtedly have geopolitical significance. So far, official Washington has not taken this under consideration.

However, there is something ordinary citizens can do. They can become better informed and they can give support in a variety of ways. I want to highlight three Christian leaders who desperately need and deserve our support. Each from his unique perspective is working directly to sustain Middle Eastern Christianity: a scholar promoting regional openness, human rights, and respect for women from relatively free Lebanon; a bishop reinvigorating Christian communities and culture in repressive Egypt; and a priest working just to keep Christians and others physically and spiritually alive in terror-wracked Iraq.



The first, Habib Malik, the Lebanese scholar, articulates why Middle Eastern Christianity should matter to the West. Malik, a lay Roman Catholic, exemplifies Christians’ mediating role as a cultural bridge between East and West, interpreting religion, customs, and languages from the one world to the other. (His e-mail address is info@fhhrl.org.) He is the founding director of the Foundation for Human and Humanitarian Rights—Lebanon. He also preserves the legacy of his late father, Charles Malik, one of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Father and son are both prime examples of the Christians’ moderating influence, as Habib describes it:

The existence of settled, stable, prosperous, and reasonably free and secure native Christian communities in the Middle East has served in many instances as a factor encouraging Islamic openness and moderation, creating an environment of pluralism that fosters acknowledgment of the different other.#...#In Lebanon, before the outbreak of war in 1975, Muslim communities lived with their Christian counterparts in a free atmosphere of mutual respect. The fruits of this coexistence are evident today, even after so many conflicts, among educated classes of Lebanese Sunnis and Shiites, who stand out in the broader Arab Islamic context as full-fledged examples of modernity in every way. Islamic moderation is strengthened when Muslims live with confident co-national adherents of communities that respect women, do not condone suicide bombing or religious domination, are compatible with liberal democracy, defend personal and group rights, and are comfortable with many features of secular life.

The second of these men, Bishop Thomas (e-mail: usanaphora@yahoo.com) of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, faces personal risk because of his work to breathe vitality into his long-suppressed church. The region’s largest Christian group, Copts are under pressure from the government and from Islamist civilians. Copts inhabited Egypt before it was Arabized and Islamicized in the seventh century (the word “Copt” is derived from “Egypt”), but now Copts can’t study their language in the public schools, and they are forced to study Islam. They are generally not permitted to build churches. The government tends to withhold justice from Christians who are the victims of extremist attacks. In response, Bishop Thomas’s work includes establishing Coptic schools and educational programs. He built the Anaphora Farm and Retreat Center, north of Cairo, to preserve the dying Coptic language and the arts and traditions of the monastic communities of the Church’s desert fathers, who lived there 1,500 years ago. The following is an excerpt from Bishop Thomas’s speech at the Hudson Institute last year, which prompted over a hundred denunciations and death threats in Egypt’s government-controlled media and mosques:

I grew up memorizing the Quran, and a lot of the Hadiths, hearing the stories of the history, how the Islamic troops were victorious. And we have to study that and we have to write it in our exams and we have to praise it. Nowadays, the media has the same style and, wherever you are, you hear Quranic reciting. It shouts everywhere, and this is part of the pressure that people are living with. Even though we are facing a lot of hardship, still we are not weak because, simply, truth is strong, love is strong, hope is strong, and that enables the Christians in Egypt to continue.

The third man, Canon Andrew White, is witnessing in the most dire circumstances. The 45-year-old Anglican priest, afflicted with multiple sclerosis, voluntarily gave up his prestigious post at Coventry Cathedral to minister in Iraq. Since 2003, he has negotiated hostage releases, reconciled Sunnis and Shiites, operated free medical clinics, and supported Baghdad’s eight remaining Jews. White is the pastor of St. George’s Church, an ecumenical congregation he established for the remnants of Baghdad’s Chaldean, Syriac Orthodox, and Assyrian communities. Scores of his congregation have been murdered, and White himself was featured on a sectarian group’s “wanted” posters. He was once bound and beaten by security police.

I received a letter from him on October 25, which said in part, “I am very sorry to tell you that the two major bomb explosions in Baghdad this morning have done serious damage to the church compound.#...#Outside the church, at least 132 people were killed and over 600 injured. Destroyed fragments of their bodies have been thrown through windows of the church.#...#Many of our staff and church members remain unaccounted for. Lay Pastor Faiz and I have been trying in vain to reach them by telephone. Today was a terrible day for us. But even in the blood and trauma and turmoil, there are things for which we can, and indeed must, praise our G-d.”

To help these three leaders is to help struggling Middle Eastern Christianity -- and to help the free world while we’re at it. Please reach out to them.

-- Nina Shea is the director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.

 

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