Swedish missionary gunned down in Pakistan

(Courtsey:-fides.org)

The Lahore-based lay protestant remains in critical condition.
December 5, 2012


Lahore:
A lay Protestant Christian missionary was the victim of an attempted murder and is in critical condition in Jinnah hospital in Lahore, capital of the province of Punjab. Bargeeta Almby, 72, of Swedish nationality, was in her car when two armed men on a motorcycle approached and fired at heer repeatedly, hitting her in the chest.

The attack took place on Monday afternoon . The missionary has been working in Pakistan for over 38 years and, as local sources of Fides report, was fully integrated in the community. She is responsible for the social programs of a Christian Church, the Full Gospel Assemblies of Pakistan (FGA Church).

The Church is registered as a non-governmental organization, run by women, engaged in education and formation. Bargeeta Almby is responsible for an orphanage, works with disabled and poor children, runs a formation course in obstetrics and other technical subjects.

The police, who are looking into the case, are trying to determine the identity of the gunmen and the reason for the attempted murder. Pastor Liaquat Kaiser, head of the FGA Church, said that "it is a premeditated attack," recalling that the woman "had not received threats."

Marijuana sellers forced teens to convert to Islam in Switzerland

(Courtesy:-The Local)

Police have arrested members of a gang of Eastern European immigrants who used violence, intimidation and the promotion of Islam to control marijuana trafficking operations in the Neuchâtel mountains, cantonal justice authorities said on Thursday.

Three members were detained for questioning following the arrest of another ringleader in March, who remains in jail, the public prosecutor’s office said, while issuing an appeal to the public for more information to help permanently disband the group.

The gang, which calls itself the Jamahat, forced other young people to become Muslims as part of its operations, said officials.

The group peddled pot to adolescents from disadvantaged families in the cities of Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds, traditional watch-making centres,the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The group is made up of young Muslim men originally from such places as Chechnya, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia who recently stepped up their criminal activities, authorities said.

The group “is attempting to radicalize its activities by seeking to impose — by physical and psychological violence — a monopoly on the sale of marijuana in our region.”

Using menacing threats, the group’s members forced other young people to sign up for cell phone contracts and then seizing smart phones and other electronic gadgets obtained in the process.

These devices were then sold on the black market, largely in La Chaux-de-Fonds, authorities said.

Meanwhile, a large number of young people have run up large debts from phone bills running into the thousands of francs, according to the government information.

Some kids were forced to sign up for as many as seven different telecom contracts.

On top of this, victims were made to convert to Islam, often without knowing anything about the religion and in “blind submission” to the wishes of the Jamahat group, authorities said.

As part of the ongoing investigation, cantonal police are now seeking help from the public about the whereabouts of an underground parking lot, probably in La Chaux-de-Fonds, or the nearby region.

The facility is served by an elevator providing access to a basement with heating and different rooms with easy access for vehicles.

Anyone with information about such a structure is asked to call Neuchâtel police at 032  889 9000.

Lt. Sourabh Kalia-The forgotten story of Kargil's first hero and a tireless fight for justice

 

There are times when words simply flow.. Writing in such moments of extreme lucidity is sheer pleasure..This happened to me last evening. The news that triggered this was one of joy but tinged with a great deal of sadness – and lots of anger too.

This is the forgotten story of Kargil’s first hero and a tireless fight for justice. This is the sad tale of Captain Saurabh Kalia. Some of you may be too young to remember the name and it may fail to ring any bells at all. But the story of Capt. Kalia is a tragic story of a spineless government and an indifferent administration that has managed to keep a wound alive for more than 13 years.

That wound is of Dr Kalia and his family.

My first interaction with Dr Kalia was a truly moving and humbling experience, more than a year back. It was the consequence of a chain email that had found its way in my Inbox. That email left a deep impression on me. I tracked down Dr Kalia’s number and called him. What I heard that day angered me and made me ashamed in equal measure.

It angered me to see and realise the behaviour of a callous administration. It made me ashamed that most of us are silent spectators to the heartless indifference with which we treat most of our brave soldiers who die defending our borders..

The story of Capt Saurabh Kalia is brief but truly horrifying..

"On May 15, Lt Kalia along with five jawans – Sepoys Arjun Ram, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria, Bhika Ram, Moola Ram and Naresh Singh – had gone for a routine patrol of the Bajrang Post in the Kaksar sector when their patrol was captured by the enemy.
Lt Saurabh Kalia's body being carried by army officers at Palampur helipad

They were in their captivity for over twenty-two days and subjected to unprecedented brutal torture..

...The postmortem revealed that the Pakistan army had indulged in the most heinous acts; of burning their bodies with cigarettes, piercing ear-drums with hot rods, puncturing eyes before removing them, breaking most of the teeth and bones, chopping off various limbs and private organs of these soldiers besides inflicting all sorts of physical and mental tortures before shooting them dead, as evidenced by the bullet wound to the temple" [link]

Numerous letters by Capt Kalia’s father and others failed to move the government to pursue the matter in international fora and declare this horrific and brutal treatment of these men as a war crime. In disgust, Dr N K Kalia was forced to say: "I am ashamed of being an Indian. The country has spineless leaders"

Subsequent to my brief call with Dr Kalia, I received a deeply moving reply from him.

His truly heroic and lonely battle inspired me to seek ways in which I could help. That is how I came in touch with another remarkable soul – the indefatigable Jas Uppal. Jas is better known as the tireless spirit behind the campaign to free Sarabjit Singh and numerous other Indians illegally detained in Pakistan. She has been single-handedly fighting for the cause of Dr Kalia – and numerous others without any assistance from anyone (nor funding). Hers and Dr Kalia's has been a long and almost thankless fight.

Until yesterday – when the Supreme Court finally admitted a plea by Dr Kalia seeking the Court’s intervention in the matter so that the Union Government takes up his son's case at the International Court of Justice.

This man who served the country so honourably as a scientist – and whose pain only a parent who has lost a child in the prime of youth can begin to understand - has been reduced to making applications and requesting "help" from the government for his rights and justice. Hopefully this is a turning point in Dr Kalia's fight for justice.

I would like to end this piece with excerpts from Dr Kalia’s email, which is deeply touching & truly inspiring. I wish it is read and shared by a large number of people, especially youngsters – who may not be aware of the sad history of this case (I have his permission to share this publicly).

"Dear Shantanu Ji, Heartiest aashirvaad. Many grateful thanks for your phone-call & mail.

I often state that losing one Saurabh, though physically only, we got thousands Saurabhs all over the globe. They never let us feel alone even for a moment. The love, respect, honour showered on us by in-numerable persons in last over twelve years is overwhelming. You too are our Saurabh. Over 1.55 lac emails and more than 42,000 hand written letters apart from countless persons visiting or calling from India or abroad vouch for that. Certainly, we would have to take more births to repay all that.

Our sufferings and pains can never exceed to what brutal torture those six valiant sons of Mother India faced for over 3 weeks with Pak army. We get infinite inspiration and strength when we think so. In fact, Saurabh & his men made every Indian proud.

Sacrificing for the Nation is not a new phenomenon. Over thousands of years, to safeguard our motherland & culture, honour of our mothers, sisters & daughters, sacrifices have been made. If we all hesitate to send our sons in army, who would defend theirs honour.

But what happened to these valiant soldiers is totally unacceptable. Personally, I feel it is not the question of Saurabh or his men but the dignity of our all men in armed forces, rather a National issue and this mine crusade would continue till I am alive. It is more shameful and frustrating when men in power promising me to take up this issue with Pak and also at international forums. Unfortunately, these were tall promises. Regretfully, I am fighting the callousness of our own system.

...I am afraid I would achieve anything but this humble endeavour would at least stir the conscience of common Indian and sensitize them. Sadly our Netas are more Internationalists than Nationalists. We have lost the very sense of National Pride, so common in several other Nations.

You please do read the article http://specials.rediff.com/news/2004/jun/07kalia.htm

Kindly visit us whenever convenient to you.  Yours affectionately, N K Kalia"

Please do share this tragic tale of Dr Kalia’s fight for justice with your friends…and please leave a comment here if you can help in any way in this matter and please take a moment to sign this petition. Thanks a lot. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat!

Dead Sea Scrolls: Threat To Cristianity?

(Courtsey:-EWTN)

Fr. William Most


The first scrolls were found in 1947. Other finds followed: in 1952 Cave 3 was found, including the Copper Scroll. The most important Cave for our purposes was Cave 4, discovered in 1954. About 20% of the scrolls were soon published, but the remainder were held out for 35 years. A 6 year campaign by the Biblical Archaeology Review, led by its Editor, Hershel Shanks, finally resulted in the liberation of the balance. Some photos came to Robert Eisenman of the Dept. of Religious Studies at State University of California at Long Beach in 1989, until 1990 when virtually all were released. Two years later, in 1991 the Biblical Archaeology Review published a two volume Facsimile Edition of all scrolls.

Soon Michael Wise, Assistant Professor of Aramaic in the Dept of Near Eastern Languages at the University of Chicago came into the work. Two teams, at both universities, set to work. In September 1991 the Huntington Library of San Marino CA made available to scholars its photos of all plates.

The result of the work of Eisenman and Wise was a controversial volume, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, published by Element Inc. in 1992. On p. 6 the authors claim that their volume contains what they consider fifty of the most important documents, reconstructed out of about 150 plates. 33 of the texts were in Hebrew, and 17 in Aramaic. Their volume gives an introduction to each text, a copy in Hebrew or Aramaic of the text itself, followed by some notes.

The volume is controversial. A four day conference on the scrolls was scheduled for the New York Blood Center for Dec. 14-17, 1992, reported in Biblical Archaeology Review March-April, 1993, pp. 63-68. Less than a week before the conference, 18 prominent scholars released a statement strongly attacking the work of Eisenman and Wise, charging, "unethical appropriation" of the work of others, of using unnamed publications in a "fraudulent manner," hiding from the readers the fact that some things had already been published. The special point of condemnation was the claim that Eisenman and Wise had used a text called MMT, which had been edited previously by Elisha Qimron, who said "they stole my work." The two authors claim they worked with knowledge of the work of Qimron but not depending on it. Now that text, MMT, was put together out of several fragments - resulting in a problem to know in what order to put them - Eisenman and Wise claim they worked independently, and did not depend on the edition by Qimron. But some time back a samzidat (bootleg) copy of MMT was in general circulation. It contained some misjoins of fragments - the same misjoins used by Eisenman and Wise. According to Biblical Archaeology Review March-April, 1993, p. 65 Wise could not give a satisfactory explanation of how he had the same misjoins as the samzidat copy if he really had worked independently.

Many scholars then boycotted the conference. But a sort of peace was made. The 18 signers of the statement were willing to "retract the statement and all it implies." Wise in turn in a published statement said he regretted the unintended impression on the degree to which some parts of the work were done independently of the work of others. He admitted indebtedness in part. According to the Biblical Archaeology Review report, on p. 65, Wise said that Eisenman is "an historian and not a paleographer", and was responsible chiefly for the interpretations of the texts.

The previous issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Jan- Feb. 1993, on pp. 60-61 carried a review of the same book by Alan Segal, Professor of Religion at Barnard College. Segal pointed out the controversial nature of the chief text, namely 4Q285, the so-called "pierced Messiah text". He said more than one interpretation of the text is possible. Eisenman and Wise explicitly admit that, on p. 29 saying one could read either that the Leader of the Community would put someone to death, or would be put to death. [more on this below]. Segal also said there was only one explicitly messianic passage, 4Q521, in the book, and it spoke of only one Messiah, whereas scholars have thought there were two Messiahs mentioned at Qumran. Segal lists three of these passages. Segal also says that Eisenman had moderated his earlier view in which he said that the early Christian church not only had the same beliefs as the Qumran community, but was identical with it. Later Eisenman said the early church was a successor to Qumran rather than identical with it. Segal adds that many of the texts were written a century or more before Christianity, and so Eisenman cannot easily claim that the Qumran community is the same as the community of James the Just [more on him later: cf. Acts of Apostles 15]. Eisenman and Wise reject palegographic evidence and the results of Carbon 14 on dating (p. p 12-13). Segal also said that what Eisenman said would misrepresent what we know of Christianity and also of Qumran. Eisenman held (p. 10) that Christianity sprang from a Zealot group in Palestine, and was later "Paulinized". Segal said such a view cannot be proved or entirely discounted. Segal also says that Eisenman and Wise never tell us just why they have put together certain fragments - for the texts are in fragments. As a result he concludes the book is,"one opinion among many. Clearly it is not the definitive statement."

A secondary, but important question, implied in some of the above is this: What was the nature of the community at Qumran? Several views were aired at the conference we have described: De Vaux, earliest explorer, had thought it was a sort of monastery of celibate Essenes. Donceels of the Catholic University at Louvain said it was a villa where wealthy people from Jerusalem lived during the winter. Norman Golb of University of Chicago thought it was a fortress, not a villa or monastery. Biblical Archaeology Review on p. 67 (March -April, 1993) reports that graves of women and children have been found there - at first sight a problem for the monastic interpretation but Josephus, Jewish War, 2. 8. 13 says there was another group of Essenes who agreed with the main group in everything except marriage: they did marry, to continue the views of the Essenes. Also, the Manual of Discipline, 1QS, surely sounds like a monastic rule.



Attacks on Christianity:

These began soon after the release of the first scrolls. Among others, W. F. Albright, a rightly esteemed scholar, did not say it openly, but left the impression at a meeting of the American Philological Association in Washington, that the scrolls might damage Christianity.

More recently, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, in The Dead Sea Scroll deception (Center for Biblical Studies, Pasadena, CA) said the reason for the long suppression of most of the scrolls was the Vatican, which feared grave damage to Christianity. Hershel Shanks, who led the fight to release the scrolls, and who is himself a very prominent Jew and editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, reviewed the book in Biblical Archaeology Review of Nov-Dec. 1991, pp . 66-71, even before the book was released in the U. S. He showed how utterly groundless the claim was, and said (p. 68) "the charge is hogwash" and "their central thesis is so badly flawed as to be ludicrous."

John Allegro wrote to John Strugnell, at the time chief editor in charge of the scrolls, who was considering becoming Catholic (p. 69): "By the time I've finished there won't be any Church left for you to join". Allegro had been a member of the scroll team, the only one to publish his work early. But he was an avowed agnostic. His book, The Sacred Mushroom, said Jesus never really existed, he was only an image developed by Christians under the influence of a hallucinating drug, psilocybin. Fourteen prominent British scholars repudiated Allegro's book in the London Times. The publisher then apologized for publishing the book (cf Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov-Dec. 1991, p. 68).

Again, Hershel Shanks commented that now the scrolls have been released, with much help from Catholic scholars, it was "without the slightest shake of or shock to the church's foundations."

But much more serious, because it seems to be so scholarly, is the attack made by Eisenman and Wise in The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered, of which we spoke above.

In their introduction they claim (p. 10) that probably the scrolls reveal "nothing less than a picture of the movement from which Christianity sprang in Palestine." According to Hershel Shanks, in Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov-Dec. 1991, p. 69, Eisenman (along with Baigent and Leigh) thought the Teacher of righteousness at Qumran was James, the "brother of the Lord." James, they thought was the leader of a militant Jewish sect, the Zealots, which was in the forefront of the First Jewish revolt against Rome. Shanks reports that Eisenman even thought Paul spent three years at Qumran, and was a secret Jewish agent! (Biblical Archaeology Review Nov-Dec. 1991, p. 69. Cf. also two other books by Eisenman, Maccabees, Zadokites, Christians and Qumran (Brill, Leiden, 1983) and James the Just in the Habbakuk Pesher (Vatican Tipographia Gregoriana, 1985.

Most basic in the thought of Eisenman and Wise is an alleged sharp contrast between James and Paul, which they often describe as a "mirror image", a complete reversal. On p. 11 they assert that "it is impossible to distinguish ideas and terminology associated with the Jerusalem Community of James the Just from materials found in this corpus." The Palestinian outlook they describe was (p. 10) "Zealot, engaging, xenophobic and apocalyptic". The mirror reversal movement, sparked by Paul was,"cosmopolitan, antinomian, pacifistic."

Their chief support comes from three, only three exhibits -and we note that their book claims to have picked out the fifty most important of the newly released scrolls (p. 6). But Wise, in an article with Tabor in Biblical Archaeology Review (Nov-Dec. 1992, p. 61) admits "references to any messiah at all are sparse" Here the three:

1) "The Messiah of Heaven and Earth : 4Q521 (on pp. 19-23 of Eisenman and Wise): It says that all things will obey God's Messiah. There is constant emphasis, they say, on the themes of the Righteous (Zaddikim), the Pious (Hassidim), and the Meek (Anavim) and the Faithful (Emunim). They compare especially lines 8 & 12 to the NT passage which cites Isaiah 61:1 (RSV): "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." In Luke 4:17-21 Jesus read this passage in the synagogue at Nazareth and added: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Eisenman and Wise add that parallel allusions confirm the relation of the sons of Zadok with the Zaddikim, and that 'naming' and predestination are major ideas in both the early parts of the Damascus Document and Acts, chapters 2-5.

Eisenman and Wise note there is only one Messiah spoken of in their text, while admitting that in some other places in the Qumran corpus there is mention of two Messiahs. The origin of the two Messiah idea seems to have been that Isaiah does speak of the Messiah as suffering, in chapter 53, while usual Jewish belief held that the Messiah would live forever. Hence later rabbinic literature sometimes speaks of two messiahs: Cf. Biblical Archaeology Review p. 82, n. 5. Oddly, the Jews overlooked Isaiah 53: 11-12 which speaks of a resurrection for the Messiah after he has died to atone for the sins of the rabbim.

COMMENTS: Yes, there are similarities between 4Q521 and the Gospel. But what of it? Both draw on a common source, namely Isaiah 61:1. The fact that both draw on it does not prove any connection whatsoever between the Qumran text and Christianity. (Cf. also Biblical Archaeology Review Nov-Dec. 1992, pp. 60-65).

2)The Pierced Messiah text: 4Q285 (Eisenman and Wise pp. 24-29):

This text does not use the word Messiah at all, but Eisenman and Wise assume that the word nasi, leader, means the same. Perhaps so. This text is the one on which many commentators, including Eisenman and Wise, place most weight for a connection to Christianity. But the trouble is that the text is very ambiguous, as all admit (Eisenman and Wise pp. 24-27).

The translation is a problem for two reasons: a) Does the fragment 7 in which it comes belong after fragment 6? (cf. comments on misjoins above). If so probably the nasi is put to death. But if the fragment 6 really belongs after fragment 7, then the nasi would be putting someone else to death. Eisenman and Wise admit both possibilities: p. 24. b)The key verb is in Hebrew hmytw. A problem is what vowels to add? It could be read as hemitu (hiphil perfect third plural), and would then indicate that they executed the nasi. But it could be read as hemito (third singular) - then the nasi would kill another male person. [Some scholars claim the vowels should be hamito not hemito: Biblical Archaeology Review Nov-Dec. 1992, p. 58, note **. Cf. also the report on a seminar by G. Vermes on this text, reported in Biblical Archaeology Review, July-Aug, 1992, pp. 80-82, and Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov-Dec. 1992, p. 58]. COMMENTS: No matter which way one reads the text, piercing or pierced, there is no problem for Christianity. A belief that a leader, probably the messiah, was killed or killed another—neither one—would not be so significant. We wonder what scholarship it is to rest a case against Christianity on so slender a reed. Geza Vermes (Biblical Archaeology Review Nov. Dec. 1992, p. 59) comments that the view of Eisenman and Wise along with Tabor, "would lead to an interpretation otherwise unparalleled at Qumran" We comment: What of it in any case? No problem at all for the origin of Christianity.

3) Works-Righteousness Texts, Eisenman and Wise pp. 180-200, 212-220: 4A394-98, 397-99, 266: These three texts speak of justification by works—which Eisenman and Wise claim is the mirror image of what Paul teaches. Really, Paul only seems opposite— he is not really opposite to James, if properly understood. Cf. Romans 2:6-13: "He will repay each on according to his works. . . not the hearers of the law will be just, but the doers of the law will be just."[Cf. next paragraph below]—Nor is there real support for the claim of Eisenman and Wise that the Qumran community is the same as that of James the Just, or at least, that the latter sprang from Qumran, and so Christianity is not at all original, and Jesus is no different!

But it is time to come to the essential flaw in the work on Eisenman and Wise: The basic trouble is that they have bought the tragic mistake of Martin Luther, who thought Paul meant we can violate the law freely with impunity. So Eisenman and Wise call Paul's thought "antinomian" (p. 10).

Luther really was antinomian, Paul was not: Cf. Luther's Epistle of August 1 1521 (Luther's Works, American Edition 48. 282: "Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. . . . No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day."

This is really contrary to Paul as well as to James. In 1 Cor 6:9-10 Paul enumerates the chief great sins and sinners: "No fornicators, idolaters, or adulterers, no sodomites, or those who lie with males, no thieves, misers or drunkards, no slanderers or robbers will inherit God's kingdom." After a similar list in Galatians 5:19-22 Paul says, "those who does such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Luther of course wanted to say that if we once have faith, and so take Christ as our personal Savior, then these lines of Paul do not apply. The trouble is that Luther did not study to see what S. Paul meant by the word faith , he merely jumped to the conclusion that it meant confidence the merits of Christ apply to him. But even the Protestant Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Supplement, p. 333) knows Paul demands obedience in Rom 1:5, which the IDB explains as "the obedience that is faith". Similarly the standard reference, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, in the article on saved, salvation, does not even mention the foolish error of "infallible salvation. "It has no intellectual support at all! We underlined the word inherit. We are children of the Father. Children as such have a claim to inherit. They do not think they have earned that inheritance, yet know they could instead earn punishment, even disinheritance. This is in accord with the constant words of Jesus saying that God is our Father. And He also said (Mt. 18:3) "Unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." So Paul is fully in accord with Jesus. The Judaizers had said in effect: Jesus is not enough, you need the law too. Paul reacted by saying: "You are free from the law". But he meant only that keeping the law does not earn salvation, even though violations can earn punishment, as Paul said in the texts of 1 Cor and Gal cited above. Cf. also Romans 5:23: "The wages of sin [ what one earns] is death, the free gift of God [unearned] is eternal life." In 1 Cor 9:27 Paul said: "I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest after preaching to others, I may be rejected." In context, he was talking not about some extras as a few Protestant commentators claim without evidence, but about eternal life. He had been pleading for some time not to cause the eternal ruin of a weak person by way of scandal. Again, Paul tells his people in 2 Ths 3:14-15 to avoid all who do not live as he lives—and in 1 Cor 5:3-5 he excommunicates the incestuous man. Cf also Paul's great syn Christo theme: we are saved and made holy if and to the extent that we are not only members of Christ, but are like Him, e. g. , Rom 8:17,"we are heirs together with Christ, provided that we suffer with Him, so we may also be glorified with Him." (On that theme cf. also Rom 6:3, 6, 8; Col 3:1, 4; Eph 2:5-6.

Luther is not only simplistic, but even antibiblical in his claim that Scripture is obvious in meaning - he had to claim that so he could try to use Scripture against the Church. But Second Peter 3:16, speaking of Paul's Epistles said: "In them there are many things hard to understand, which the unlearned and the unstable twist, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Interestingly, 1QS6. 1 has the same system of fraternal correction as Mt. 18:16.

And James is not xenophobic, afraid of outsiders, nor as harsh as Eisenman and Wise, if one checks the penalties in 1 QS6. Nor is it true to say with Eisenman and Wise (p. 213) that James "imposed" a "purification" on Paul in Acts 21:20-25. Paul had just come to Jerusalem with a collection on which he had worked hard. James told Paul some said he was speaking against the law. (He had said in effect, they were free from the law - but in the sense explained above, which was as 2 Peter said, "hard to understand"). To quiet them, James merely asked, did not command Paul - for James had no authority over Paul - to go through a ceremony of the Nazirite vow with four others. Paul did that, for it was not wrong in itself. Jesus came to fulfill Judaism. Had not the Jews been so hostile to Christians and excommunicated them so early (cf. the persecution in which Paul joined in 36 AD), they might have retained many Jewish practices. In Acts 21:25 James summarizes the prescriptions of the Council of Jerusalem (from Acts 15) in which he himself had had a large part, and had agreed with Paul, and with Peter that gentile converts need not be circumcised and keep the law in general. As a concession to the feelings of Jews, the letter of the Council asked for 4 things, one of which was merely basic morality, to abstain from loose sex. We gather too that those who "came from James" to Antioch (Gal 2:12-13) after that Council could not have really been sent by James, for James had been a prime mover at the Council in deciding what we have just said. So those mentioned in Gal 2 came from the territory of James, not at his behest.

And how many things do the newly released scrolls have to compare to Christianity? As we noted above, Eisenman and Wise give us 50 scrolls, which they say are the best, the most important. There is precious little that is clearly related to Christianity, chiefly the Messiah of heaven and earth text - and the pierced messiah text, which is as they and all admit very ambiguous.

Conclusions: There is nothing in the scrolls to show Christianity came from Qumran or even is closely identical with it. Rather:

1) The evidence, is, as even Eisenman and Wise said, very sparse.

2) Most basically the claims by Eisenman and Wise, and similar persons, rest on following the tragic nd unscholarly error of Luther in misunderstanding Paul, as if Paul were easy (cf again 2 Peter 3:16).

3) We do get some help from the scrolls, but nothing so dramatic as is claimed. One major help is the far older virtually complete text of Isaiah. But it shows not very many differences from the text we had before, and these are not of great import. Cf. Harold Scanlin, The Dead Sea Scrolls & Modern Translations of the Old Testament (Tyndale, Wheaton, 1993). On pp. 126-32 Scanlin gives us nearly all the variations in Isaiah, 22 in all, none of them of major importance.

Bonus: Biblical Archaeology Review of March-April, 1993, p. 73, tells of "Dead Sea Scroll Predictions for 1993", as published in The Sun. Here they are: 1) A spaceship with voyagers from another planet will crash land "in the bosom of a mighty power", will bring greetings of peace from other universes and meet with lawmakers in U. S. Capitol. 2) Elvis' grave will be found empty. 3) Communication with the dead will be possible by new cellular telephones. 4) A vaccine will be found for the common cold.

Appendix: The November-December, 1994 issue of published the full text, in Hebrew and English, of a key, long-awaited scroll, called MMT, which stands for Miqsat Ma'ase Ha-Torah, meaning: Some Works of the Law. It had been held back, unreasonably, by scholars assigned to work on it, for about 35 years. The editor, Hershel Shanks, a prominent Jew, put over the actual text the heading: For This You waited 35 Years. He seemed irritated, and with reason. Qimron, the chief editor of that document sued Shanks in a Jewish court and won, claiming Shanks had previously published part of it without his permission.

How earth-shaking is this scroll? In one of two articles published in the same issue Shanks," MMT as the Maltese Falcon" -alludes to a famous movie. Shanks at the end of his article hopes future articles may clarify some things and adds if not, "the MMT may yet turn out to be mere bombast." He pointed out earlier in his article that we are not sure the MMT is one document or three. We do not know what literary classification to give to part of it, we do not even know if the fragments used for it have been correctly arranged. He also reports that a major Talmudic scholar, Ya'akov Sussman, in an appendix to the book in which the MMT is now published, said that what made the Qumran sect so different "was not religious doctrines. . . it was halakha [religious laws]."

And what laws! The very essence of pettiness over levitical purity, the same sort of things over which Our Lord often clashed with the Pharisees of His day. In that connection, we should mention that an article in Bible Review (same Editor) of June 1992 by L. Schiffman, "New Light on the Pharisees—Insights from the Dead Sea Scrolls shows us that the picture of the Pharisees which we had known in the Damascus Document—once thought to be rather late - is really the same as that of Qumran, since we now know that the full Damascus document was used at Qumran in the first century B. C. So the pettiness was there all right. Therefore the claims are false that the Gospels misrepresent Pharisees or that the clashes between them and our Lord did not really happen in His time, but later in the first century when Christians clashed with Jews.

We know this is true in other ways too. We see the great concern of the Pharisees for merits in a large work by A. Marmorstein,—The Doctrine of Merits in Old Rabbinical Literature (KTAV. NY. 1968). And Jewish writings, many of them close to the time of Paul and Jesus, can be read in J. Charleswworth (ed. ), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Doubleday, NY, 1983), vol I, pp. 539, 543, 544, 618, 619, 626, 638, 641, 878, 889, 890-99. Sussman in the article just mentioned said he was "astonished" by the similarity of the MMT with things in rabbinic literature, so that at one time he was even inclined to date the MMT a couple of centuries later during the rabbinic period. The Palestinian Targum on Dt 32. 4 even claims that God Himself spends three hours per day studying the Law, as if He were a Rabbi, for that was their chief occupation, and it made them holy, they thought.

When the first scrolls were released around 1950, irresponsible claims were made the Jesus was just the same as the Teacher of Righteousness in the scrolls, and so would be not be original. Now in this major text, MMT, we find according to Shanks, that the authors of the work on MMT, Qimron and Strugnell conclude we do not really know who is speaking or who is being spoken too. So much for the dreadful threat to Christianity! There are other texts that mention the Teacher of Righteousness, but nothing that would make one think Jesus was the same.

The other article in the same issue of Biblical Archaeology Review on the MMT is by Martin Abegg, "Paul, 'Works of the Law' and MMT." He says Paul was really attacking the kind of theology espoused by MMT. But that theology really centers on levitical purity. Now of course Paul did reject the old purity laws. But Abegg adds something significant, he says that Paul was not duelling with mainstream Judaism but with the theology of a sect, "that ultimately defined Christianity." This is shocking. He seems to have in mind the same unfortunate mistake made by Eisenman and Wise, of which we spoke above. But that mistake rests on the wrong notion that Christianity was at first just a works-righteousness community at Jerusalem, under James the "Brother of the Lord". That of course is not true. We have an Epistle of James from that period, which may be by the same James, but it does not deal at all with levitical purity matters, but with solid theological and moral principles. And as we showed above, Paul did not reverse James, unless one adopts the great error of Martin Luther in interpreting Paul.

VHP to support Leh bandh against forcible conversions of Buddhists

Jammu, Octo Oct 28 (IANS) The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Sunday announced its support to a call for a shutdown of Leh Monday. The civil society of Buddhist-majority Ladakh has called for a strike to protest the "forcible conversion of Buddhists by the Muslims".

Twenty-six Buddhists of Zanskar tehsil in Kargil district allegedly converted to Islam last month.

VHP state president Rama Kant Dubey said: "Forcible conversions of these Buddhists in Zanskar area of Kargil were done at behest of the Muslim community, against the wishes of Buddhists. There is criminal silence of the administration against the people who compelled the Buddhists to embrace Islam. It shows the connivance of the administration."

Dubey questioned why no action was taken against officials despite a protest lodged by the VHP and the Buddhists of those areas.

According to Muslim community leaders, "a few Buddhist families in Zanskar in Kargil district converted to Islam of their own free will without any force or coercion last month".

This led to communal tension in Zanskar. Both communities clashed last week resulting in damage to property and injury to protestors. The administration had to impose a curfew Oct 24.

Rohingya Muslims flee Myanmar unrest as death toll rises

(indianexpress.com)

A new wave of sectarian violence in western Myanmar has left five people dead and dozens injured in recent days, triggering another exodus of Muslims to emergency camps, officials said today.

Hundreds of homes have been burned in the fresh outburst of unrest in Rakhine state, where Buddhist-Muslim clashes have killed at least 95 people since June and displaced tens of thousands, according to the authorities.

"At least five people have been killed and about 80 people injured in four days since October 21 in four townships," said Rakhine state spokesman Myo Thant.

Houses were also torched in another town today morning, he told AFP by telephone from the Rakhine state capital Sittwe.

"Soldiers are now helping to provide security," he added.

Tensions remain at boiling point across Rakhine state with a curfew in force in many areas, while tens of thousands of Muslim Rohingya languish in basic camps.

Hundreds more Rohingya have arrived in the state capital Sittwe by boat this week to seek shelter in the camps.

The UN refugee agency estimated that more than 1,000 displaced people had reached Sittwe in recent days.

"Many more are supposed to be on their way," said spokeswoman Vivian Tan in Bangkok. "These people are all coming to the IDP (internally displaced person) camps close to Sittwe, which are already overcrowded."

About 75,000 people are estimated to be uprooted in Rakhine state, mostly Rohingya.

There have been a series of protests by Buddhists in Myanmar against the stateless Muslim group, long considered by the United Nations to be one of the most persecuted minorities on the planet.

Myanmar's 800,000 Rohingya are viewed as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh by the Myanmar government and many Burmese -- who call them "Bengalis".

But Bangladesh has turned away Rohingya fleeing the violence.

The bloodshed has cast a shadow over widely praised reforms by President Thein Sein, including the release of hundreds of political prisoners and the election of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to parliament.

Rights groups fear that the real death toll may be much higher than the official toll.

Sharia courts ‘as consensual as rape’, House of Lords told

(telegraph.co.uk)

MUSLIM women in Britain are being forced to “live in fear” because of the spread of unofficial and unregulated sharia courts enforcing Islamic rules, the House of Lords was told.

One study estimated that there are around 85 Sharia bodies operating in Britain Photo: Paul Grover

By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor

 20 Oct 2012

Rulings by informal religious “councils” and tribunals are sometimes no more “consensual” than rape, peers were told.

The warnings came in the first ever full Parliamentary debate on the subject in the UK.

Baroness Cox, the independent peer and Third World campaigner, last year tabled a private member’s bill in the Lords setting out plans to rein in a network of unofficial self-styled “courts” which apply Islamic principles.

One study estimated that there are around 85 Sharia bodies operating in Britain, although there is no official estimate.

They include legally recognised arbitration tribunals, set up primarily to resolve financial disputes using Islamic legal principles but which have taken on a wider range of cases.

There is also a network of informal Sharia “councils”, often operating out of mosques, dealing with religious divorces and even child custody matters in line with Islamic teaching.

The bill, which had its first full debate yesterday, would make it a criminal offence for such bodies to style themselves as courts or those chairing them to pose as judges.

It would also limit the activities of arbitration tribunals and explicitly require them to uphold equality laws including women’s rights.

Baroness Cox told the House of cases she had encountered including a woman who had been admitted to hospital by her violent husband who had left her for another woman but still denied her a religious divorce so she could remarry.

Another woman was forced to travel to Jordan to seek permission to remarry from a seven-year-old boy whom she had never met because she had no other male relatives, she said.

A third who came to see her was so scared of being seen going in that she hid behind a tree whole another told her: “I feel betrayed by Britain, I came to this country to get away from all this but the situation is worse here than in my country of origin."

Baroness Cox said: “These examples are just the tip of an iceberg as many women live in fear, so intimidated by family and community that they dare not speak out or ask for help.”

Meanwhile Baroness Donaghy added: “The definition of mutuality is sometimes being stretched to such limits that a women is said to consent to a process when in practice, because of a language barrier, huge cultural or family pressure, ignorance of the law, a misplaced faith in the system or a threat of complete isolation, that mutuality is as consensual as rape.”

Lord Carlile, the legal expert, was among those backing the bill but the Bishop of Manchester urged caution arguing that it could end up “stigmatising those individuals in communities it is aiming to help”.

And Baroness Uddin, the first female Muslim peer, said it would be viewed as “another assault on Muslims”.

Lord Kalms, the businessman, claimed that self-styled Sharia courts had already reached far beyond mediation to areas such as criminal law.

“To my knowledge, none of these cases has ever received police attention or investigation, and this is a scandal for which the police, among other authorities, must be held responsible,” he said. 

US court rules-Fort Hood shooting suspect can be forcibly shaved

(Fox News)



Oct 19, 2012 5:00 AM EDT
A U.S. Army appeals court ruled Thursday that the suspect in the Fort Hood shooting that killed 13 people can have his beard forcibly shaved off before his murder trial.

The U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals' opinion issued Thursday upheld the military trial judge's decision to order Maj. Nidal Hasan to appear in court clean shaven or be forcibly shaved, according to a release from Fort Hood.

Hasan has said he grew a beard because his Muslim faith requires it, despite the Army's ban on beards.

The court also ruled that Col. Gregory Gross, the trial judge, properly found that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not give Hasan the right to have a beard while in uniform at trial. The court specifically upheld Gross' previous ruling that Hasan did not prove his beard was an expression of a sincerely held religious belief. The appeals court said that even if Hasan did grow a beard for a sincere religious reason, compelling government interests justified Gross' order requiring Hasan to comply with Army grooming standards.

The appeals court also upheld previous contempt of court findings against Hasan. Starting in June, he showed up to court for pretrial hearings with a beard six times, and was fined $1,000 for each instance.

Hasan's attorneys have said they will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which means Hasan's court-martial remains on hold.

Hasan, 42, faces the death penalty if convicted in the 2009 attack on the Texas Army post that killed 13 and wounded more than two dozen others.

US Army Bows to Islamists, Sacks Lt. Colonel

(RadicalIslam.org)

Thu, October 18, 2012
by:  Meira Svirsky




Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley’s career has been effectively destroyed by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, various complicit members of the Pentagon and the military and, most of all, political correctness on the part of the U.S. government.

Col. Dooley, who was awarded the Bronze Star, the fourth-highest combat decoration, is a West Point graduate and highly rated armor officer who served in Iraq, Germany, Bosnia and Kuwait. He was, until recently, the instructor of a course to fellow officers on the dangers of radical Islam at the Joint Forces Staff College (part of the National Defense University).

His downfall came at the hands of 57 Islamic groups who began complaining a year ago that the U.S. military and intelligence counter-terrorism training instructors and materials were anti-Islam.

Included the group of complainers was both CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America). Both CAIR and ISNA were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Terror Funding Trial, largest ever terror-funding trial in U.S. history. Both are listed by the Muslim Brotherhood -- whose publicized doctrine is to destroy American from within -- as two of it “working organizations.”

As a direct result of the complaints by the Islamic groups, the U.S. government instituted broad, sweeping reviews and eventual purges of its counter-terrorism training materials. Islamic groups were allowed into the FBI and other institutions to approved or disapprove the materials. The Pentagon complied with the review, as did all of the branches of U.S. armed forces.

At that time, the Pentagon found no fault in any of its courses or instructors. Col. Dooley’s course, which he began teaching in 2010, had been taught the same way since 2004. All the material for the course was approved by the university. In his evaluations from last year, Col. Dooley was referred to as a superb officer.

Yet changes were being made. Representatives
Dooley in combat
 from the government, including John Brennon, the chief counter terrorism advisor, instituted new terminology in the "War on Terror." No longer were Al Qaeda fighters called "Islamic extremists;" they became simply “extremists.” Gone was any mention of the ideology driving their "extremism."

The Islamic groups also demanded that employees who promoted (in their opinion) "biased" training about these "extremists" be "effectively disciplined."

However, Col. Dooley’s course was not singled out until close to six months later when one of his students lodged a complaint to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. It was then that Col. Dooley’s course was suspended. Ironically, the complaint was not even about Col. Dooley, but about a guest lecturer he had brought in.

The guest lecturer had been talking about "what if" scenarios, a common way the military strategizes: Envision a potential scenario and figure out how to deal with it.

In this case, the guest lecturer asked what would happen if Islamic extremists gained control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and began destroying U.S. cities. How should the U.S. respond?

The faculty handbook at the university where Col. Dooley was teaching his course says that students and faculty are to express opinions "free of limitations, restraints or coercion by the university or external environment."  Further, it states that "no subject or issue is considered taboo."

In a particularly telling passage, the handbook says that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (i.e., Gen. Demsey) directs the university to "establish a

climate of academic freedom within the university to foster thorough and lively academic debate, and to examine national security issues. To continue to craft the best possible national security policy for the United States and offer the best possible advice to U.S. leaders and students, the faculty of the university must be free to examine policy from all viewpoints."

Still, a new review of the government’s counter-terrorism training materials and instructors was ordered by Gen. Dempsey on April 24, 2012. At a press conference the next day, a spokesman singled out Col. Dooley and told reporters that his course was "inflammatory."

Gen. Martin Dempsey

In May, an internet site called Wired "broke" the story about the government’s focus on Islamic terrorists in their counter-terrorism training materials. They had obtained some of Col. Dooley’s course materials and accused him of advocating a "total war" against Islam.  In the article, Marine Lt. General George Flynn, Gen. Dempsy’s deputy for joint force training, told Wired that Dooley’s course was teaching that "Islam had already declared war on the West. It was inflammatory."

The site published a briefing by Col. Dooley in which he said, "Political Correctness is killing us: How can we properly identify the enemy, analyze his weaknesses, and defeat him, if we are never permitted to examine him from the most basic doctrinal level?"

The same day the Wired story broke, Gen. Dempsey excoriated Col. Dooley at a press conference, referring to him as "the individual."

At the press conference, Gen. Dempsey said, "It was just totally objectionable, against our values, and it wasn’t academically sound … academically irresponsible."

One month later, a general on Demspey’s staff at the Penatgon ordered Dooley to be removed as an instructor "for cause." The university was ordered to produce a negative officer evaluation report on Dooley.

In the military, this is known as a "career ender."

Dooley hired Richard Thompson, president of the non-profit Thomas More Law Center, to represent him in an appeal against the negative report.

In an interview with the Washinton Times, Thompson said the Pentagon is trying to appease the Muslim Brotherhood.

"What happened here was this whole idea of political correctness deterred the ability of our military to speak frankly about the identity of the enemy. Once you allow political correctness to overwhelm our military, then we are really going to have an impact on our national security," Thompson is quoted as saying.



The Times reports that the negative officer evaluation report, issued on August 29, prompted two Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee to send a letter to Gen. Dempsey last week asking why such harsh action was taken.

The newspaper obtained a copy of the letter which read, "Since [the Depart. Of Defense] had already directed [National Defense University] to cancel the [course], and LTC Dooley was then relieved as its instructor, we would like to know why the [Defense Dept.] was compelled to further discipline LTC Dooley by jeopardizing his reputation and his future in the service. It is our understanding that LTC Dooley did not violate any established University practices, policies or [Defense Dept.] regulations to merit a negative [officer evaluation report]."

The letter was signed by Reps. Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla) and Duncan Hunter (R-Ca).

Further, Thompson told the Times that Dooley had made it clear that the presentations were not official U.S. policy. Thompson also said that he is considering filing a civil suit in the U.S. District Court against Gen. Dempsey.



Meira Svirsky is the content coordinator of RadicalIslam.org, the former managing editor of The Daily Texan and the former editor of UTmost magazine.

Over 2500 women converted to Islam in Kerala since 2006, says Oommen Chandy

(India Today)

September 4, 2012 | 13:45 IST

HOME

Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy

The shrill debate over love jihad is back again following a spate of recent incidents. On June 25, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy informed the state legislature that 2667 young women were converted to Islam in the state since 2006.

On June 27, the state high court ordered the Kozhikode City Police Commissioner on June 27 to probe an alleged case of "love jihad" in which a 20-year-old Hindu girl eloped from a hospital in Kochi with a Muslim boy after the girl's parents filed a habeas corpus petition. On July 19, Deepa Cherian (31) a former Christian housewife converted to Islam was arrested for allegedly delivering SIM cards to a key terror suspect languishing in prison.

Chandy gave the figures related to conversions in state legislature as a written answer to an unstarred question raised by K K Latika, a CPI(M) legislator. According to Chief Minister a total number of 7713 persons were converted to Islam during 2006-2012 as against 2803 conversions to Hinduism. Interestingly he said no statistics was available as to the number converted to Christianity during the period. Among those converted to Islam during 2009-12, as many as 2667 were young women of which 2195 were Hindus and 492 were Christians. As against this number of young women converted during 2009-12 to Christianity and Hinduism were 79 and two respectively.

Chief Minister said there was no information regarding the original religions of women who converted to Hinduism and Christianity.

However Chandy said that there was no evidence for forced conversions in the state and the fears about love jihad were baseless. "We will not allow forcible conversions. Nor will we allow to spread hate campaign against Muslims in the name of love jihad" said Chandy in response to Lathika's demand for inquiry into forcible conversions.

Hindu and Christian groups are up in arms again repeating their long-standing demand for a thorough investigation into the phenomenon of "love jihad" in which Muslim youths allegedly lure young women from other communities to convert to Islam feigning love.

"Love Jihad in Kerala is part of global Islamisation project" said Global Council of Indian Christians. In 2009 Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) had stated that more than 2600 young Christian women were converted to Islam since 2006. KCBC's Vigilance Commission for Social Harmony had called Christians to be on guard against the phenomenon.

Rahul Eswar of the Kerala's Hindu Parliament, an umbrella organisation of various Hindu groups called for an immediate inquiry into the phenomenon. "The state police's attempt in 2009 was to suppress facts about this phenomenon. This will lead to communal flare-ups. Forced conversions undertaken by Islamists will be cited by Hindu fanatics to establish their legitimacy" warned he.

Organisations like BJP, Hindu Aikyavedi etc too have called for inquiry and lambasted the state government's policy to whitewash the issue under pressure from Muslim League. Hindu groups have pointed out growth in Kerala's Muslim population rate has been double that of Hindus and Christians. Hindus, Muslims and Christians form 55, 25 and 19 percent respectively in Kerala's population of 3.33 crore.

Cherian, a former Christian housewife was arrested in Kochi for allegedly providing two SIM cards to V Noushad - her boyfriend according to the police - who is interred in Ernakulam sub jail in connection with a drug peddling case. Naushad allegedly handed over the cards to T. Nazir suspected to be a top Lashkar-e-Tayeba operative in South India who also is languishing in the same prison in connection with a number of terror cases including the bomb blasts in Bangalore.

According to the police Cherian who was in Dubai with her husband and children had become friendly with Noushad who was working as a bus driver there. She allegedly left her family and returned to India with Noushad subsequently and got converted to Islam. According to police Noushad is suspected to have faked involvement in a narcotic case in order to get lodged in the jail and assist Nazeer who is alleged to have made many international calls using the SIM card.

"Love Jihad" had kicked up much dust in 2009 in Kerala and Karnataka after Hindu groups like Hindu Aikyavedi and Sree Rama Sene began campaign against alleged attempts to lure young women by Muslim youths feigning love and using them for immoral or terror activities. The issue acquired serious attention when the state high court ordered asked the police to inquire into the allegations related to love jihad. This followed the complaints filed by the parents of two Hindu college girls saying their two Muslim college mates had cheated them into converting to Islam by promises of love. But the state police after investigation had informed the court that though there were complaints about attempts to convert by feigning love that there was no evidence for the existence of an organisation named love jihad in the state. After this the court withdrew its order to inquire into the issue.

In another case in 2009 Karnataka Police too had informed the Karnataka high court that there was no evidence for the prevalence of love jihad in that state. This led to the fizzling out of the campaign by Hindu and Christian groups about the phenomenon in both states.

Muslim groups condemned the repeated attempts to spread hatred against Muslims in the name of a non-existent love jihad. Muslim League, second largest constituent in the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) government has strongly denied occurrence of any forced conversions.

"Love Jihad is a myth being perpetrated by interested groups to vilify Muslims. How can any one use force in a state like Kerala where all religions, media and civil society in general are so vigilant? The conversions could be voluntary or the result of inter-religious marriages" said Abdurehman

Randathani, MLA and League's secretary.

"It reminded of the racist propaganda in the US some time ago against blacks who were accused of luring white women. It is an attempt to demonise the Muslims" Umer Tasneem, Muslim scholar and English professor at the Calicut University. He smells a rat in Chief Minister Chandy, a Christian, not revealing the statistics of conversions to Christianity. "Why only conversion to Islam evokes emotions? Conversions to other groups are seen spontaneous".

Eswar too says Christians still lead in organising conversions. "A single major evangelist in Kerala has officially admitted of receiving more than Rs 1000 crores last year as financial contributions from abroad. Pentacoastal Missions in Kerala have converted lakhs of persons in last 5 years giving allurements" says Eswar.

According to top sources in police as many as 15 lakhs have been converted to Christianity in the last 20 years as per official statistics provided by the State Converted Christian Corporation. "Muslims have only two institutions and Hindus only one who have the authority to convert. But every Christian church has this right" said a top police official.

According the Christian Persecution Update, a website run by Bangalore-based Christian group, Cherian was only the latest victim of Love Jihad also called Romeo Jihad, a global project by Islamist groups to lure women from other communities feigning love to make them accomplices in immoral or terror activities.

"It is a serious issue. We should seriously address it so that no tension is created in Kerala between communities" warned Fr Paul Thelakat, spokesperson of the Syro Malabar church, the largest Catholic church.

Myanmar Government blocks Muslim support group

Monks lead protests against OIC opening an office.
October 16, 2012

 


Monks led protests in Yangon and other cities yesterday (photo by Daniel Wynn) Yangon:
The government yesterday said it would not allow the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to open an office in Myanmar following protests by thousands of Buddhist monks and laypeople.

The Information Ministry cited the office of President Thein Sein in an announcement yesterday that said a new office run by the Saudi-based organization would be “contradictory to the aspirations of the people.”

Monk-led protests were held in four cities yesterday, including Yangon, marking the latest tensions between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar. This follows deadly rioting in Rakhine state in the west of the country, which started in June.

State press had said previously that the OIC would open a temporary liaison office in Myanmar so it could carry out humanitarian work in minority Muslim Rohingya areas of Rakhine, where hundreds of homes were burned to the ground during the violence.

Monks in Yangon shouted, “OIC, get out” during a protest march between Shwedagon Pagoda – the most revered Buddhist site in Myanmar – and the City Hall. Similar protests were held in Mandalay and Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine.

“We don’t want to have anything to do with the OIC, which is an Islamic organization,” said one Buddhist monk protesting in Yangon. “We are worried that its presence will create more racial and religious violence in our country.”

The OIC, which strongly condemned the recent violence between Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar, includes 57 member countries and seeks to be the voice of the Muslim world.

Creation of Bosnian Muslim State Led to Ethnic Cleansing of 440,000 Catholics

(Courtsey:-FP Magazine)

October 14, 2012 

In the late 90s the trendy thing to do was to agonize over the fate of Bosnian Muslims and all the terrible horrors that the PoorMuslims (TM) were experiencing in Sarajevo. Ethnic cleansing was the word of the day and the Serbs were the new villains of the hour.

Steven Spielberg even managed to make the ultimate liberal thriller, The Peacemaker, starring  George Clooney racing against the clock to stop a Serb terrorist from launching a nuclear attack on New York City. (This proved to be a very timely film to make in 1997. Four years before Muslim terrorists (Shhh they don’t exist) launched a real attack against New York)

NATO carved out a Bosnian Muslim state by bombing a bunch of Serbian Christians, civilians and non-civilians, Billy Clinton didn’t really care. And ethnic cleansing became an actual thing… just not ethnic cleansing of Muslims. Mohammed’s last command to his followers was to drive the Jews and Christians out of Arabia. And as Muslims have expanded their reach, they have religiously been keeping their unholy prophet’s command.

Christians are massively leaving post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina amid mounting discrimination and Islamization, according to a new report released Friday, October 12.

There are just 440,000 Catholics left in the Balkan nation, half the prewar figure, the group said.

Puljic reportedly complained that while dozens of mosques were build in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, no building permissions were given for Christian churches.

“The cardinal already waits 13 years on permission to build just a small church,” Church in Need said.  Authorities so far refused to return hundreds of nationalized church buildings, despite a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights to do so, according to Christian officials.

But that is what you get when you create another “moderate” Muslim state. Muslims may demand the right to build mega-mosques in London, Tennessee and right next to Ground Zero, but they don’t reciprocate. Islam has no notion of human rights… only Muslim rights.  Or rather the rights of Muslim men over all sorts of inferior types like women and non-Muslims. Create a Muslim state and you get discrimination against non-Muslims. It’s how the religion works.

In published remarks, Van Rompuy made clear that giving Bosnia-Herzegovina a “European perspective”, the code word for eventual European Union membership, “is the only way to overcome the crisis”.

How has the European perspective worked out for the millions of Muslims in France, Germany and the UK?

Are Muslims getting a European Perspective or are Europeans getting a Muslim Perspective? 

US judge explains decision on anti-Islam ads in Metro

(wjla.com)

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge who ordered D.C.'s public transit system to put up pro-Israel ads that equate Muslim radicals with savages said Metro officials voiced reasonable safety concerns but failed to consider other alternatives when they delayed displaying the messages.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer issued a 17-page opinion Friday explaining an earlier decision that ordered Metro to display the ads, which were proposed by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, an advocacy organization harshly critical of Muslim radicals and run by blogger Pamela Geller.

The judge's initial ruling came without explanation last week in a one-page order.The group contracted to display four 43-by-62 inch dioramas on subway platforms with the message: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."The same ads began running last month in some New York subway stations, and after Collyer's order, went up in a handful of Metro stations this week.Metro officials had delayed putting up the ads, with officials saying they were concerned the messages could provoke hostile reactions and violent disputes in light of the tumultuous response in the Middle East last month to the video, "Innocence of Muslims," which denigrated the prophet Muhammad.The organization sued, prompting Collyer's ruling.Collyer said she was sympathetic to Metro officials' safety concerns and agreed that the transit system "certainly presents a compelling government interest in the safety of its passengers and employees."But, she said, Metro officials erred in being "too open-ended" in postponing the placement of the ads, a delay "not tied to the waxing or waning of anti-American sentiment or danger and not based on any objective evaluation of necessity." That decision restricted the group's First Amendment rights more than was necessary.

She also said Metro had failed to consider displaying the messages in locations other than the subway station platforms and could have distanced itself from the ad's messages by placing its own disclaimers alongside the anti-jihad ads.

"While, indeed, the contract was for advertising in the illuminated dioramas on subway platforms, a content-neutral and less restrictive answer to concerns about disputes on the platforms would surely have been to put the ads elsewhere in one of (the transit system's) numerous other advertising venues," Collyer wrote.

Also on Friday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations announced its own advertising campaign on Metro in response to the anti-Muslim ads.

One of the ads quotes the Quran: "Show forgiveness, speak for justice and avoid the ignorant."