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

Meet Asia Bibi; A Catholic/Christian Mom Sentenced to Death for Being a "Blasphemer"

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IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

                                                               
by Larry Peterson
We are so blessed to be living in the Unites States of America. The freedoms we have enjoyed are beyond compare. Yet there are those Americans who will fight to have these very freedoms we enjoy stripped away to satisfy their own ideologies. How sad this is and what fools they are. Especially those who try to strip away religious freedom from those who disagree with them.

They call Christians  “intolerant” because Christianity stands against their preferred mantra of  hedonistic, secular “virtue”. I wish that some of these people would try to imagine what it is like for so many people who live in countries without these freedoms.  I wish they could get out of their own comfort zones, remove their shoes or sneakers, and try on the shoes worn by Asia Bibi.

When you slip into Asia’s shoes you realize that you are now a poor farm worker, the mother of five children and you worked in the fields harvesting berries. You are 44 years old and your husband is a brick laborer, a man who mixes the mortar and hauls it to the brick layer. You both work very hard and put in long hours to care for your children. You are also Roman Catholic. Your full name is Aasiya Noreen but you are better known as Asia Bibi. The country you live in is Pakistan.
You remember that hot, sunny day in June of 2009. You remember being out in the field working alongside the other women. They told you to go and fetch them water from the nearby well. (They are Muslim and you are a Christian. You are “beneath” their level and must do the menial tasks required). So you dutifully went to the well and pulled up the water. There was an old tin cup nearby and you picked it up, filled it with water and took a drink. You knew you were not allowed to drink from the same cup as the others lest you “defile” it and you made sure you did not. But by taking that simple sip of water the die had been cast.

Alas, using the dirty, rusted cup to drink from mattered not. A field hand angrily tells you that you are forbidden to drink the same water as a Muslim. You are already considered “unclean” because you are Christian. The other workers hurriedly gathered around you and started cursing you and your religion. Your faith must have been exploding in you because you defended it immediately. You summoned your resolve and remember saying, “I believe in my religion and in Jesus Christ who died for the sins of mankind. What did your prophet Mohammed ever do to save mankind.” WOW!

Later that day some of the workers reported to the local cleric that you had “insulted” Mohammed. A  mob came to your home, beat you and your family and you had to be rescued by the police. The police investigated your remarks and arrested you for the crime of “blasphemy”. Under the country’s Sharia Law you are not equal to a Muslim so what you had to say was only considered “half” as important as what they had to say.

Trying to defend yourself was an effort in futility. They hold you in a local jail for one year and then you are found guilty of Blasphemy. Your sentence is death by hanging. You are shocked and horrified and helpless. Your husband is sickened and your children lost inside themselves. You can do nothing. You are sent to prison and placed on death row.

It is now 2014. After a hearing that lasted a few hours, the Pakistani High Court upheld the verdict handed down in 2010. Your impending execution by hanging is affirmed. People and organizations around the world have been clamoring for your release. So far it is to no avail.

If you have had the guts to “try on Asia’a shoes” can you get a sense of what life might be like for Christians and others who have no religious freedom. Can you imagine what this Christian woman, the mother of five, must be feeling? She has been living in a dank, stinking hole for almost five years. The only visitor she can receive is her husband and a doctor. How disgusting and inhumane to do this to someone just because they have a different belief than you do. How reprehensible to vilify a wife and mom simply because she took a sip of water from an old tin cup. Is this what you want someday?

Asia Bibi is a human being just like all of us. She has family she loves. She has children she wants to hug and feed and nurture and tuck in at night and tend to their scrapes and runny noses. She is hard working, kind, and generous to her neighbors. She is not different than most other people. No different except for one thing. She is a Catholic in a Muslim world. Therefore, because of her “beliefs”, she is hated and despised.  In the highly “civilized” world of 2014 we are seeing more vicious and brutal murders of people who follow Christ than at any time in history.

Over 400,000 signatures have been collected on petitions asking for Asia’s release. Pope Benedict XVI called for the charges against her to be dismissed. These pleas have fallen on deaf ears. In fact, a Christian minorities minister, Shahbaz Bhatti and a Pakistani official, Salmann Taseer, were both murdered for defending Asia. Her family has gone into hiding because of all the death threats they have received. Finally, the word “on the street” is that if Asia is released she will be killed anyway.
Are you tired of walking in Asia’s shoes yet?

I will never understand Americans who “fight” to get rid of religious freedoms. If you do not like religion you do not have to participate in any of it. You are living in a country which accepts and promotes this kind of  freedom. The United States of America was NOT founded so people like you can destroy people who disagree with you. When you do that you are no different than those that want to hang Asia Bibi.  The only difference is you do not use a rope and a gallows as a weapon of choice. The weapon you use to destroy your fellow American “enemy” the U.S. Constitution. You have managed to turn it against itself to defile religious freedom. How clever you all are.

Many people around the world are praying for the safe release of Asia Bibi. Americans trying to destroy religious freedom in America might take pause and think of her also.  She has been imprisoned  for five years and is set to hang because she was a Catholic who took a drink of  “Muslim” water from an old ti
n cup. This could never happen in America. Or could it?