Peanut Gallery: Here is another excellent interview with a Muslim-background believer sharing her experiences as a woman…. from Dallas Theological Seminary.
Tag: Islam
Living and ministering in the Middle East – Conversion and Persecution – Westerner’s most common misconceptions about Islam
Peanut Gallery: Special thanks to agnus dei for bringing this important podcast from Dallas Theological Seminary to our attention.
In the first video, Dr. Darrell Bock interviews Rev. Fikret Bocek and “Anna” about their experiences living and ministering in the Middle East, including their experiences with coming to Christ out of a Muslim context, religious persecution and cultural engagement.
For more interviews please click on this link –
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-table-podcast-audio/id586379713
Living and Ministering in the Middle East
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Conversion and Persecution in a Muslim Setting
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Westerners’ Most Common Misconceptions about Islam
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The Silent Tragedy of Child Marriage – Re-Blog / Robert Spencer
The Silent Tragedy of Child Marriage
By Robert Spencer
May 20, 2013 – 8:00 am
“Since this is not negated later, we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl.” — IslamOnline.Com
Last Friday, an Afghan journalist named Mustafa Kazemi posted on Facebook a harrowing story about an eight-year-old girl in the Khashrood district of Nimruz province in Afghanistan, who was sold off into marriage to a mullah in his late 50s, and who bled to death on their wedding night.
It was one of many such tragedies in a land that little notes nor long remembers such deaths. An eight-year-old girl sold into marriage and dead after a brutal sexual assault that her body could not withstand is no more noteworthy than a pack animal that collapses under a too-heavy weight. It’s time and money wasted, that’s all. Forget about it. Get another one. Continue reading “The Silent Tragedy of Child Marriage – Re-Blog / Robert Spencer”
Please pray for Christians in Turkmenistan – World Watch List #19
PERSECUTED CHURCH in TURKMENISTAN – World Watch List #19 (Open Doors)
“Caucasus and Central Asia”
Population: 5.2 million (95,000 Christians)
Main Religion: Islam
Government: One-party state
Source of Persecution: Dictatorial paranoia/Organised corruption
The state exerts strict control in order to avoid the emergence of any independent economic, social or cultural groups – which includes churches. All unregistered religious activity is illegal and the government uses the ‘Council on Religious Affairs’, police and the secret services to keep the church under surveillance. The frequency of raids, even on registered churches, has increased and obtaining registration is nearly impossible. Formal religious education is almost totally banned, as are all religious publications.
PLEASE PRAY:
- For Muslim-background believers who face more problems than other Christians, including physical attacks
- That government officials will be willing to register churches
- Give thanks that Pastor Ilmurad was released from prison in 2012; he must now report to the police each week.
PERSECUTION DYNAMICS
Turkmenistan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It is very rich, mainly due to large gas fields, but the riches only benefit a small minority. Muslim-background believers face pressure from both their families and the community. All Christians are treated with mistrust yet Muslim-background believers face significantly more problems in this regard, including being physically harmed.
All unregistered religious activity is strictly illegal and registering a church is nearly impossible. The Russian Orthodox Church faces less problems in this regard. Formal religious education is almost totally banned and all religious publications are forbidden. Former President Niyazov’s book ‘Ruhnama’, which links Turkmen identity with Islam, continues to have an influence and is reportedly still used in school and university curricula. Arbitrary treatment, raids, fines and court charges will go on as long as the ruling elite perceives every group it cannot control as a threat to their absolute power.
ANECDOTAL REPORT – Begjan Shirmedov
A group of about six officials – two of them in police uniforms – raided Begjan Shirmedov’s home in Dashoguz in the North of Turkmenistan on Sunday 23 September. They arrived during a house meeting of his Baptist congregation, Path of Faith Church, attended by about 15 church members.
The officials told them that religious activity without state registration is illegal. The believers replied that they have been attempting to obtain registration in vain since 2004.
Police searched every room in the house and confiscated all Christian literature and CDs. When they asked where the literature had come from, family members insisted they had collected the books over many years as they have been Christians since the mid-1990s.
About 15 church members, women and children included, were taken away to be questioned. According to a Forum 18 report “Begjan Shirmedov was dragged out of the house by his collar”. Begjan is 77 years old, an elderly man who according to the Turkmen tradition should be treated with more respect. “They treated an elderly man like a tramp in front of his wife, his children, church members and neighbours without fear of having to answer for their actions.”
Meanwhile the other church members were fingerprinted and questioned about their religious activity. Later that day they were released.
The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News
By Raymond Ibrahim Published May 07, 2013 / FoxNews.com
Link to original: The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News.
A mass exodus of Christians is currently underway. Millions of Christians are being displaced from one end of the Islamic world to the other.
We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world, much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian, came into being.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.” In our lifetime alone “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.”
Ongoing reports from the Islamic world certainly support this conclusion: Iraq was the earliest indicator of the fate awaiting Christians once Islamic forces are liberated from the grip of dictators.
In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million. Today fewer than 400,000 remain—the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when countless Christian churches were bombed and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.
The 2010 Baghdad church attack, which saw nearly 60 Christian worshippers slaughtered, is the tip of a decade-long iceberg.
Now, as the U.S. supports the jihad on Syria’s secular president Assad, the same pattern has come to Syria: entire regions and towns where Christians lived for centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings, all in compliance with mosque calls telling the populace that it’s a “sacred duty” to drive Christians away. Continue reading “The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News”
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