Christianity Under Attack: Religious Freedom Protects It. Without it Many Die. May God Bless and Preserve America's Freedoms

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IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

by Larry Peterson

Countless articles, essays, blogs and so forth will be in print as we welcome in the New year of 2015. I’m not going to reminisce or wallow in what might have been or what should be. I just want to mention a family to you. Maybe you have heard of them, maybe not. Their names were Magdy Tawfiq, his wife, Sahar Rizk and their daughters, Catherine, 13 and two younger girls aged 10 and aged 9. Unlike Americans, these people did not have the Constitution of the United States of America in force to protect them. No, they were Coptic Christians (which is Catholic too) and they lived in Libya. They were our  Christian brothers and sisters in faith. They loved Jesus Christ and the message of Love and Hope and Salvation that He brought to all mankind. They believed as we do. Unlike us they are dead. They were brutally murdered because of their love and respect for the Son of God, Jesus.

Sahar and Magdy; July 20, 2000

Magdy and Sahar were married on July 20, 2000 and moved to Libya in 2001. Magdy worked at a Diabetes clinic in Sirte for two years and then  he began working with Sahar at the Jarf Health Center. People reported that Doctor Magdy treated all the people there regardless of having money or not and was beloved by everyone. They loved God, each other and tried their best to treat all people equally.

At 4:00 am on Tuesday, December 23, Doctor Magdy woke to knocking on the door of his building. He assumed it was a patient with an emergency needing immediate attention. When he opened the door he was greeted by armed masked men. They attacked him, handcuffed him and placed him in a chair. The family, living in fear after many threats from Ansar Al-Sharia, had become the target of cowardly, masked, gunmen who were taking their orders from the realm of evil.

The hooded demons went to the bedroom and shot Sahar dead. Then they took Doctor Magdy outside  and shot him through the head and chest leaving his crumpled body  handcuffed in a heap. Catherine’s 13-year old body was found outside of town. The two youngest girls were forced to watch the murders. They were left alive to tell the story and are now living with relatives. It is all so hard to even imagine what these kind, decent, innocent people have to endure prior to their actual deaths. The fear, the anxiety, the hopelessness must be beyond anything we here in America can ever fathom.

We live in America. They lived in Libya. We share the same faith, the only difference being we are here and they are there. Therefore, based on location, we live and they die. And how much  do we hear about these atrocities and the virtual elimination of Christianity throughout the Middle East and other parts of the world? We hear hardly anything. You and I can get up on a Sunday morning and head off to our  churches and none  of us is concerned about our safety. Not one of us worries about being murdered for believing in Jesus.

Yet, in other parts of the world on the very same day we are going contentedly off to Church, our Christian brothers and sisters, including children and babies, are being brutalized, raped, beheaded, burned, shot and hanged for believing exactly what we believe. Look at the wedding photo of Magdy and Sahar. The picture might have been taken in Milwaukee, or New York or maybe Atlanta or Dallas. If that had been the case then they would still be alive and this story would not have to be written, But the truth is evil is running rampant throughout the world and its primary target is Christianity.

ALL Americans should embrace with all their might the freedoms our Founding Fathers handed down to us, especially Freedom of Religion. Yet there are those who portray this freedom and Christianity as an affront to them. They do not like religion because it stands its ground against the forces of secularism. These Americans want to purge religion from the public square. They will even go to court to have a cross removed from somewhere they have decided should not have it. Those that do this are just selfish and self consumed for not respecting so many of their fellow citizens and for refusing to accept the fact that they are chipping away at the very freedoms that give them the right to  protest in the first place.

They might want to consider that the Islamist radicals want them dead too. If you are an American they hate you whether or not you are a Catholic, a Jew, or an atheist. They  hate anyone who is an American.  I wish they would look at the wedding photo of Magdy and Sahar. They did not have the freedom we have. They have been slaughtered.

As we embark on the journey that is the year, 2015, I would like to remember people such as Father Frans Van der Lugt, murdered by ISIS in March because he was a Catholic priest. He was 76 years old. Pray for Asia  Bibi, a mother of five, in prison in Pakistan for five years and waiting to be hanged. Her crime–“blasphemy”. She is Catholic and defended Jesus. Then there is Salem Matti Kourk who was hiding out in Mosul and went to find some food. He was captured by ISIS , beaten, murdered and his body left in front of the Church of the Virgin Mary, which ISIS had also destroyed.  Of course we cannot  forget the thousands of men, women and children kidnapped, murdered and mutilated throughout the year of 2014 by the evil ones who hate Christianity. Genocide against Christians is real.

I end this with a link to the story I wrote about “Little Christy”. If ever there was a picture that could show the face of evil in this world this blog has it. Let us celebrate our freedoms as Americans and fight to the bitter end to protect them. The alternative is beyond imagination.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015  May God’s Blessings be upon you

"Have We Christians Become the Victims of Hate Crimes?"

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The Muslim world went berserk over a 13 minute video that most of them had never seen but had, from what they had heard, offended the prophet Muhammad. So, by the thousands, they created mayhem, civil disobedience, and anarchy in 20 countries around the world and fiendishly killed our Ambassador to Libya and three of his American associates. The administration said it was a “spontaneous uprising”. The embassy issued a statement apologizing for offending  Muhammad in the video.  Wait a minute—it all started on the 11th anniversary of 9/11. Uh–oh–it was planned and Al_Queda was involved. So, after a week of  denials the administration admitted that it was, in fact, a terrorist attack. How about that. Time for a new approach.

So the President of the United States and his Secretary of State took $70,000.00 of taxpayer money and made a video apologizing to the Pakistani people for the video. The President said in the video, “We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others”. Secretary Clinton called the video “despicable and reprehensible”. As far as Libya is concerned, an intense investigation is under way and those that committed the crimes against the US will be brought to justice. I’ll bet those marauding Muslims are shaking in their sandals. To the point—

Taxpayer money has been used to make those apology ads to the Muslim world. What about the Christian world. I am one of those that total one third of the world’s population (like 2.3 billion) and over a billion of us are Catholic Christians. How come we can be  mocked and defiled and laughed at whenever someone feels like it?  How come our guy, JESUS CHRIST, who we BELIEVE  is the Messiah and the Son of God, can have His name publicly reviled and His very existence lampooned by the “intellegentsia” of the world? Is it because we are the peace loving folks, the ones who forgive others and therefore we are no threat to anyone? We are not about to blow you up or slit your throats? Is that it?

So what do we Christians get on the heels of the Great Muslim Apology by the President and the Secretary of State. We get “PISS CHRIST”. That’s what we get. This 1987 “work of art” by the”renowned” artist, Andres Serrano, famous for using urine and feces in his “art”, is what we Christians get. Something that was once branded as a “deplorable, despicable (where did we just hear that word) display of vulgarity” and was funded by the National Endowment of the Arts, is what we Christians get. On September 27 an exhibit of “Piss Christ”, which is a crucifix with the body of Christ on it immersed in Serrano’s urine, goes on display at the Edward Tyler Neham Gallery on upscale W 57th Street in Manhattan. Where is our apology video? You don’t think I am deeply offended by this attack on my deepest beliefs,  beliefs that for me and many are the core of our existence. Where is our apology video?

It seems to me that if taxpayer dollars can be used to apologize to those who hate us and want to kill us, and if taxpayer money can be used to fund so called “art” that is repugnant to so many (remember the statue of the Virgin Mary covered with feces at the museum in Brooklyn) then we Christians should get an apology from our government for taking our money and using it to fund programs and people that vilify us. Slowly but surely we Christians are the ones who have become the “victims of hate crimes”.

One final thought. Since the United States of America was, in fact, attacked again on 9/11 and on our own soil, I thought that maybe at every football game across America that maybe a moment of silence would have been held in honor of those Americans killed on the new 9/11. Not a PEEP—anywhere or from anyone.

Protecting Idiots–HAPPY 225th BIRTHDAY to our CONSTITUTION

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9/11 transformed us forever. Then, on the 11th Anniversary of 9/11, our embassy in Libya was attacked and   four people, including our ambassador, were murdered by extremists who hate us. Make no mistake, an embassy is a nation’s sovereign territory and those maniacs who attacked us may well have done it right down at Ground Zero or in Kansas, Oklahoma or in New Jersey. It makes no difference. It is simply a question of location. Today, Sept 17, 2012, it seems as if the world has gone mad. It seems that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Islamics hating America and everything it stands for. They hate all of  us Americans and everything we have and everything we believe in. They want to kill us.

There is a  great irony that confronts us today, September 17, 2012. It is the 225th birthday of the United States Constitution. This is our document. This is what outlined this “great experiment” in freedom. This is the anniversary of when people were given rights FIRST and the government was instituted to safeguard those rights. That is the governments purpose under the Constitution of the United States of America. We have been blessed.

Freedom of Speech is in the very First Amendment. You see, in America it is okay to be an idiot. You can say the dumbest, most insulting, degrading, condescending, vitriolic kind of stuff in America and the Constitution says it’s okay. You might get smacked in the mouth or taken to court but it is not illegal to be an idiot or even a moron. So what is going on this Constitutuon Day? Is there a stifling of free speech being attempted by the powers to be–the government that is supposed to look out for us. Are they doing it under the guise of virtue? Say it ain’t so.

It seems some idiot made a 13 minute video that mocked the prophet, Muhammad. Like I said, in America you can be an idiot. But now they are blaming the madness going on in the world, the violence, the destructiuon, the killings, the hate filled rhetoric, on this guy and his idiotic video. The government has him in custody, not for his safety, but because they want to blame someone for what is happening. This idiot did not make people go berserk all over the world. There has to be more to it.  Maybe generations of hatred instilled in a people looking for the least little excuse to plunder and pillage is bubbling over. Maybe the folks running amok are the idiots. Maybe our government should protect its own idiots like it is supposed to. Maybe we should never lose sight of who and what we are as a nation and protect those rights no matter what.

Thank you to James Madison, the 4th President of the United States and the “Father of the Constitution”. You did a marvelous job, Mr. President, absolutely marvelous. We owe you big time. (I wonder how many teachers in schools across the country even mentioned what today is)