For several years the liberal media has had a double standard for Islam and Christianity. On the one hand, they go the extra mile to respect Islam. On the other hand they malign, mock and defame the Christian faith shared by the majority of Americans. Comedy Central is a major blasphemer.

On the international front, the persecution of Christians is almost standard fare in some countries. Christians are dying for their faith in Pakistan, Nigeria and the Middle East and fanatical Muslims are doing it with impunity.

We may have hated Saddam Hussein for the way he ran Iraq, but he did prevent the open persecution of Christians, which changed dramatically after he died. Iraq's Christians, markedly fewer in number following attacks on their minority community, are increasingly fearful in the face of a rise in sectarian tensions after the withdrawal of US troops. Estimated to number more than one million before the US-led invasion of 2003, living primarily in Baghdad, the main northern city of Mosul, and the disputed oil hub of Kirkuk, some two-thirds of the population is estimated to have fled with more continuing to leave the violence-wracked country. Anglican Canon Terry Waite has documented the slaughter of Christians in Iraq by Muslims and says the small population of Christians could be eliminated totally in time. As violence against Christian minorities continues in Mosul, Iraq, Carl Moeller of Open Doors USA worries that the U.S. has turned its focus away from these persecuted Christians as the U.S. no longer has a military presence in the Middle Eastern country. Kurdish Christians who follow Christianity live mostly in the Kurdistan region away from Shiite and Sunni Muslims. There they are protected.

In Egypt, Christians enjoyed a good deal of protection under President Hosni Mubarak. Since his departure, the Copts are being persecuted and killed with all Christians facing an uncertain future in that country. This is even truer as the new president, Mohamed Morsi, is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (Hezbollah). While he has promised security for Christians (embassies are secure he says), it is by no means certain in the long run. Christians make up only 10% of Egypt's population, a very vulnerable minority. Egypt's Christian population is the largest in terms of absolute numbers in the greater region of the Middle East and North Africa. Now they are threatened with extinction.

In Syria, yet another dictator has been a protector of Christians even though it is a virtual police state. If the rebels finally win there is no guarantee that Christians will be left alone. An evangelical woman journalist Elizabeth Kendal who has traveled extensively in Syria wrote that the West has long known that the Syrian opposition was being infiltrated by international jihadists....... In April 2011, the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch and all the East warned that fundamentalist Muslims were calling for Jihad, Christian villages were being attacked, and churches receiving threatening letters. Who will stop international Islamists from establishing little emirates in towns they control, where sharia will be enforced and from where Christians will be forced to flee? Christians in Syria face an uncertain future and some Christians fear radical Islamists have been swelling rebel ranks.

When author Salmon Rushdie wrote his famous (or infamous book) The Satanic Verses, a Fatwa was placed on his head and he was marked for death. Though it was lifted years later, one doubts he feels totally secure travelling the globe.

The recent 17-minute very amateurish mockery of Mohammed by a Coptic filmmaker sparked international outrage and already touchy Muslims used it as an excuse to kill Americans (who are mostly Christians) in several countries. One gets the impression that militant Islamic youth are just waiting in the wings looking for an excuse to mount a campaign against Christians wherever they can be found. All they want is a trigger.

"We should all be appalled by the Muslim attacks on American Embassies and the killings of an ambassador and American staff personnel. And, on the 9/11 anniversary. Muslims used an amateur video attacking their prophet as excuses to throw bombs, kill innocents and hurt those trying to help bring their societies from the Stone Age to the present," opined US columnist Harry Covert.

In Pakistan, a nation whose Constitution provides for fundamental rights, which include freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly, Christians are barely tolerated when it comes to Pakistan's minority communities especially where conversion is concerned. You convert from Islam to Christ and you can die. The US annually sends $10 billion dollars to prop up a corrupt regime that apparently didn't know that Osama Bin Laden was hiding in their midst and, some say, under government protection. Christians, often children are being persecuted, churches torched while the US Govt. is strangely quiet. The chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, Wilson Chowdhry, said that the current blasphemy laws were "a recipe for injustice, corruption and repression", and that merely "the threat of a blasphemy accusation is a potent weapon."

In Israel, the number of Christians has plummeted to 2.1% in the last few years because of the persistent animosity and hatred of Christians by both Muslims and orthodox Jews. There are about 155,000 Christian citizens of Israel which is less than two percent of its 7.9 million people. About three-quarters are Arabs, and the others arrived during waves of Russian immigration over the past 20 years. They are split between Catholicism and Orthodox steams of Christianity. Tens of thousands of Christian foreign workers and African migrants also reside in Israel.

Muslims are quite public in their hatred of Christians while Jews do it more carefully, mindful of the massive influx of tourist dollars and a protective American foreign policy that keeps them from being pushed into the Mediterranean Ocean. Israel may have nuclear weapons, but they are useless against Palestinians crowded onto the West Bank and Gaza. A two state solution has been on the table for years, but no one seems ready or willing to pull the trigger.

Recently there was an attack on a well-known Trappist Monastery in Latrun, outside Jerusalem. Vandals burned a door and spray-painted anti-Christian graffiti on the century-old building with the words "Jesus is a monkey." Suspicion has fallen on extremist Jewish West Bank settlers or their supporters, who are believed to be behind a series of attacks in recent years on mosques, Christian sites and even Israeli army property to protest moves against settlements.

"Sadly, what happened in Latrun is only another in a long series of attacks against Christians and their places of worship," Catholic leaders said. "What is going on in Israeli society today that permits Christians to be scapegoated and targeted by these acts of violence?"

American tourists and journalists, myself included, have experienced visceral hatred by orthodox Jews in East Jerusalem having been spat at and mocked as stupid goyim. Of course any criticism of Israel is immediately greeted with cries of anti-Semitism or xenophobia.

Daniel Pipes, writing for the Middle East Quarterly, says that at the present rate, the Middle East's 12 million Christians will likely drop to 6 million in the year 2020. With time, Christians will effectively disappear from the region as a cultural and political force. As one report puts it, "there are more Palestinians living in Bayt Jala in Chile than in Bayt Jala [on the West Bank] itself." Along similar lines, Prince El-Hassan bin Talal notes in this issue that "there are today more Christians from Jerusalem ... living in Sydney, Australia, than in Jerusalem itself."

The real issue in all these Middle East countries is the total rejection by Islamic leaders of anyone who converts to the Christian faith. Furious reprisals occur, torture and death awaits such persons, including women and children. In most cases, the means of execution are extremely cruel.

Christianity, which originated in the Middle East, was the major religion of the region from the fourth century until the Saracen Muslim Conquests of the 7th century. Christians today make up 5% of the population, down from 20% in the early 20th century.

MUSLIMS

Are we seeing a clash of civilizations between Islamic world and the West? Many think so. Peter Apps writing for Reuters believes that for those who believe in a clash of civilizations between the Islamic world and Western democracy, the last few weeks must seem like final confirmation of their theory. Even those who reject the term as loaded and simplistic speak sadly of a perhaps catastrophic failure of understanding between Americans in particular and many Muslims.

The outrage and violence over a crude film ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad, points to a chasm between Western free speech and individualism and the sensitivities of some Muslims over what they see as a campaign of humiliation.

There seems no shortage of forces on both sides to fan the flames. The tumult over the video had not even subsided when a French magazine last week printed a new cartoon showing the prophet naked.

The video, while offensive, is clearly a grotesque over reaction that in part is being whipped up by radical Islamists in the region for their own ends. It also shows the depth of misunderstanding between the cultures, Apps wrote.

A militant attack in Libya that killed the US ambassador and three others has since spread to more than a dozen countries across the Middle East and Asia.

Many Americans see those regions as an inexplicable source of terrorism, hostage-taking, hatred and chaos. In Europe, those same concerns have become intertwined with other battles over immigration and multiculturalism.

The very countries in which Washington helped facilitate popular-backed regime change last year - Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen - are seeing some of the greatest anti-West backlash.

Saudi Arabia might be a key oil producer and occasionally invaluable ally, but analysts say some rich Saudis, if not the government itself, have long funded and fueled Islamist and Salifist extremism and perhaps also Sunni-Shi'ite tension.

President Obama and Mrs. Clinton apologized to Muslims for the shabby video, but did not express an equal outrage at the slaughter of Americans.

JEWS

American Christian support of Israel, largely by fundamentalists and not a few evangelicals, is that it is built on a false theological foundation - namely pre-Millenial Dispensationalism - a view that holds that the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. The fact that the state of Israel's existence has everything to do with the Balfour Declaration and nothing to do with the Book of Ezekiel seems lost on them.

A small coterie of Jewish American intellectuals like David Horowitz exploits American fundamentalists (like John Hagee) even though he and his ilk have no use for their wacky theology. The argument is that any friend of Israel is a friend of mine. American Christians believed the cry of the late Jerry Falwell who said God would punish America if America ever abandoned Israel. The notion that God will bless them that bless Israel and curse them that curse Israel (Gen. 12:3), has nothing to do with the rise of the modern state of Israel. It is a great sound bite but it is off center historically and theologically.

Hosea Ch. 2: 2-4, records, “For she is not my wife, and I am not her husband,” it was a formal announcement of divorce of God from His people Israel. Would God really divorce His people? Yes, actually he would and did. The problem is that Israel made light of her relationship with God. Even as God pursued her as a nation, she forsook his love for her. Her idolatry led her to adultery. There came a time when he announced that his marriage relationship with Israel ended. God’s interest today is in Jews as a people wherever they might be and not a piece of real estate.

Many Christians are appalled at how both American Jews and Israelis think Christians are stupid and ignorant. The US annually gives the Israeli Government $3 billion and their Prime Minister lectures the US on what should be our foreign policy in the Mideast. If God is going to get suddenly angry with America because it does not support Zionism this begs the question, what about America's rampant materialism, its high divorce rate and the abortion mills that have taken more than 50 million lives, is God not angry about those issues? If you do support Israel find other grounds, but don't use bad theology to get there.

Mitt Romney's abject obeisance before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might win him millions of American fundamentalist votes but Israel's persistent rejection of the only Jew who really matters is a blot on its national character. The truth is the billionaires of Zion are laughing up their sleeves at the goyim.

From a New Testament perspective, the answer as to who is Israel today is that true Israel is neither Jews nor Israelis, but believers in the Messiah, even if they are gentiles.

GAYS & HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR

When orthodox Christians rose up and said homosexual behavior is contrary to God's laws and God's word, and gay behavior (and later gay marriage) could not be honored, homosexuals cried foul. Thus began the most sophisticated public relations campaign in the history of this country to change sexual mores. It began with the Board of Directors of the American Psychiatric Association removing homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in the 70's. This had nothing to do with the scientific evidence but a fiercely waged public relations campaign.

The PR campaign triumphed with a US president announcing he was for gay marriage. In the intervening years, mainline liberal protestant churches have fallen all over themselves to accommodate sodomy in the name of inclusivity and diversity. It has been one the most spectacular victories in the Culture Wars that has turned whole churches, friends, families and neighbors upside down and on each other.

With a blitzkrieg like approach that is stunning in its speed and breadth, pansexualists have swept nearly all opposition before them. Opponents of sodomy now face teams of lawyers ready and willing to kill free speech in the name of a deadly behavior. It is now being promoted in schools as merely an alternative lifestyle and anyone who offers reparative therapy for homosexuals is branded as a hatemonger. Christians who uphold Christian mores will soon go to jail because they oppose homosexual behavior. Free speech is slowly being eliminated.

It virtually has in the Episcopal Church with other churches and groups following. Witness the vilification of the Boy Scouts of America who oppose homosexual behavior. Episcopal Sodomists like activist layman Louie Crew and Bishop Gene Robinson and lesbian bishop Mary Glasspool are held up as icons of change and God's loving embrace of their lifestyle. Liberal and revisionist Episcopal bishops wet themselves groveling before them looking for approval.

Free speech is slowly being destroyed in America coming from many different quarters. Is it any wonder then that Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, had this to say, "I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square."

HOLLYWOOD

Actors and producers, most of whom are irreligious, stomp on Christianity at every available opportunity especially in the area of Christian mores. Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic outburst notwithstanding he touched a nerve in a lot of people. Fornication and homosexuality are uniformly accepted in "family" shows like Two and Half Men and Glee dumbing down sexual purity and virginity and openly mocking those who would attempt to be chaste.

They mock Jesus and Mary at any and every opportunity while any negative or pointed criticism of Scientology, the religion of choice for many Hollywood actors, is met with lawsuits. Jewish Hollywood moguls long ago decided that it would help them make more money if the general public viewed films as being "Christian." In fact, they personally wanted to blend in with the Gentile community. Thus Samuel Goldfish changed his name to Goldwyn and Cecil B. de Mille insisted that he was a Gentile until his death when a Rabbi officiated at his funeral. Every single one of the original Jewish developers of the movie industry divorced their Jewish wives and married beautiful Christian starlets. This includes Louis B. Mayer, Samuel Goldwyn, Jack Warner, David O. Selznick and Harry Cohen. They gave orders to the numerous Jews they made "stars" to change their Jewish names to Christian sounding ones.

Their effect on Western mores, on how people behave is coming home to roost with more broken marriages, more broken lives and with more psychologists and psychiatrists running around trying to fix people up...too little avail.

Malcolm Muggeridge once observed that they [the Jews] never quite make terms with life - which also is liable to make them highly destructive. Two great destroyers of Christian civilization are Marx and Freud; the one replaced the gospel of love by the gospel of hate, while the other undermined the essential concept of human responsibility.

Marxism destroyed more than 30 million in Europe. Freud can rightly take credit for being the godfather of the AIDS pandemic.

If he were alive today, Muggeridge would add Ayn Rand to the list, a Russian Jewish atheist who has done more damage to the economics of the West, eulogizing greed, selfishness and individualism, despising the poor, and confirming the nobility of the super rich. It was, in part, her philosophy that brought about the economic crash of 2008. She stands in stark contrast to everything Jesus taught. She swept aside any notion that we are our brother's keeper and that we should be concerned with the "least of these" as Jesus urged. When Jews lose their religion they become the worst of all tyrants.

CHRISTIANS

Christians are held to higher standards...turn the other cheek, get crucified if need be. This is what, at the end of the day, makes us so successful. In death we often speak more than in life. Our testimony is of the crucified One, as St. Paul writes (1 Cor. 1:23) "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles." And to that short list you can add secularists, Hollywood actors and celebrities, liberal politicians, Jews, Muslims, Gays and America's intellectual elite.

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