PAUSE AND TAKE A DEEP BREATH: My heart goes out to the Americans who are disappointed and even fearful about the results of the recent elections, esp. re: our President-elect. (I certainly remember the angst I felt after the results of the previous 2 Presidential elections.) But 2 Tim. 1:7 instructs us: ”God has not given us a spirit of FEAR, but of power, love, and sound mind.” I believe a sound mind would cause us to look at the things that cause us to fear and to determine if they are truly based on ideas we should fear or just false presumptions we might have or lies we have bought into. As regards President-elect Trump, I agree that I was turned off often by how he expressed himself during the campaign. But note that during his lifetime in the public eye, he was not known to express himself in those ways. In resorting to his showmanship skills during the election campaign, he wrongly used crude expressions to stir up the crowds who he was addressing. I urge you to notice his more humble demeanor when he accepted victory early Wed. morning. I believe those were the expressions of a man who was sobered by the reality of the awesome responsibility he had just been presented. I choose to be HOPEFUL that our next President will govern differently than how he campaigned. I am also HOPEFUL that he will implement many of the good ideas he’s presented, though not necessarily in all the ways he proposed. I encourage those who are fearful to look at the underlying philosophy behind the proposals he has made. We can never be sure of what a new leader will really do until he takes office and so we need to at least give the man time to govern. We must remain PRAYERFUL and HOPEFUL that he will govern with a different temperament than he campaigned. And no matter how we feel about things right now, Donald Trump will be our new President. So I urge all to PAUSE AND TAKE A DEEP BREATH and to be PRAYING for our country’s new leader and his team of advisers, now and throughout his Presidency. As with any leader, he deserves that much from every American. - Stan
WHY MOST OF THE 81% OF EVANGELICALS VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: A friend send me this video message by Tommy Tenny the day before the election. It is almost an hour long but it is excellent. If you are still not familiar with the issues of concern to many Christians at this time, I invite you to please take time to view this; I only wish this kind of message could be heard in all pulpits. Video: The Continental Divide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwTAQpYhkug
"Christians ‘Under Caesar’s Sword’ - RESPONDING TO WORLDWIDE PERSECUTION" - By: Eric Metaxas| Breakpoint.org: November 17, 2016; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/30119 [AS I SEE IT: I heard recently that the subject of Christian persecution in the world is rarely heard of from the pulpits of churches in the West. I have a hard time understanding this shameful neglect to recognize the hardships of fellow brothers and sisters around the world. I've heard that Jews - who we all know have experienced great persecution throughout their existence - have become vocal in speaking up for Christians being persecuted around the world, and yes, it seems even more vocal than Western Christians. I don't know about you, but that seems very wrong. My question is: how long will the Church in the West be so silent about what is happening to their brethren around the world? - Stan]
WHY MOST OF THE 81% OF EVANGELICALS VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: A friend send me this video message by Tommy Tenny the day before the election. It is almost an hour long but it is excellent. If you are still not familiar with the issues of concern to many Christians at this time, I invite you to please take time to view this; I only wish this kind of message could be heard in all pulpits. Video: The Continental Divide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwTAQpYhkug
"Christians ‘Under Caesar’s Sword’ - RESPONDING TO WORLDWIDE PERSECUTION" - By: Eric Metaxas| Breakpoint.org: November 17, 2016; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/30119 [AS I SEE IT: I heard recently that the subject of Christian persecution in the world is rarely heard of from the pulpits of churches in the West. I have a hard time understanding this shameful neglect to recognize the hardships of fellow brothers and sisters around the world. I've heard that Jews - who we all know have experienced great persecution throughout their existence - have become vocal in speaking up for Christians being persecuted around the world, and yes, it seems even more vocal than Western Christians. I don't know about you, but that seems very wrong. My question is: how long will the Church in the West be so silent about what is happening to their brethren around the world? - Stan]
One hundred years ago, one-third of the population of Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, was non-Muslim. It was home to hundreds of thousands of Jews and Christians. Today, Istanbul, now the capital of the modern state of Turkey, is less than one percent non-Muslim.
This did not happen by accident. What’s more, the same forces that turned one of Christianity’s great cities into a virtual Christian-free zone is still at work throughout the world. These processes and possible Christian responses to them are the subject of an important new project, “Under Caesar’s Sword,” and a short documentary by the same name. The project is a joint effort of the University of Notre Dame and the Religious Freedom Center of the Berkley Center at Georgetown University. The goal of the “three-year, collaborative global research project” is to investigate “how Christian communities respond when their religious freedom is severely violated.”
Note that I said “when” not “if” their religious freedom is severely violated. As the project’s website tells visitors, “today Christians constitute by far the most widely persecuted religion.” It cites a study by The International Society for Human Rights, which states that Christians are “the victims of 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world.” Christians are also “the only religious group that is persecuted in all 16 of the countries highlighted as egregious offenders by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2012.”
All told, a Pew Research Center found “that between June 2006 and December 2012, Christians faced harassment and intimidation in 151 countries, the largest number of any religious group.”
If you’re a regular BreakPoint [reader], some of these dismal numbers should be familiar to you. What won’t be as familiar are the faces and voices behind the numbers. Nor will the localities featured in the 26-minute documentary.
The stories told by “Under Caesar’s Sword” take place not in ISIS-controlled Syria or Iraq, but in Turkey and India, two ostensibly non-sectarian democracies. In India, Christians who’ve been harassed or worse by their Hindu nationalist neighbors, have to file complaints at police stations festooned with Hindu idols covered in garlands and other offerings. Not exactly the stuff confidence in the legal system is made of. In Turkish-controlled Cyprus, all evidence of that island’s rich Christian heritage, which began with Paul’s companion Barnabas (check out Acts 4), is being systematically eradicated.
As the film tells us, “Everyone agrees that we’re seeing religious cleansing, ethnic cleansing on a massive scale” in parts of the world.
So how are Christians responding? As an Indian Christian leaders says in the film, “The first response [to the harassment and persecution] is prayer . . . We do not retaliate, we do not respond as possibly other communities would do.” It’s not only Indian Christians who have foresworn retaliation. As Daniel Philpott of Notre Dame noted, this is, with very few exceptions, the standard Christian response to persecution, harassment, and humiliation.
What’s more, Christians have not only foresworn retaliation, they are reaching out to their non-Christian neighbors in the hope that these neighbors will see them as fellow Indians or fellow Turks and understand the deep roots of Christianity in those countries.
This important effort deserves our support. Come to BreakPoint.org to view the documentary and to learn more about our brethren living under Caesar’s sword.
[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]
RESOURCES
"Under Caesar's Sword" - Project website - http://ucs.nd.edu/
"Worldwide Persecution of Christians: Open Doors 2016 Watch List" - John Stonestreet | BreakPoint.org | February 2, 2016; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-search/entry/13/28813
"Christians in the Muslim World: Growth and Persecution" - John Stonestreet | BreakPoint.org | October 4, 2013; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-search/entry/13/23999
"An Ironic Ecumenism: The Global War on Christians (part 2)"- Eric Metaxas | BreakPoint.org | December 3, 2013; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-search/entry/13/23970
The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution
- John L. Allen, Jr. | Image Publishing | March 2016; http://www.colsoncenterstore.org/product.asp?sku=9780770437374
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