Christianity, Islam, and America

I blogged last week about my upcoming mission trip to Tanzania, Africa. I am leading a group of three other men to assist IMB missionary, Scott Ward, as he endeavors to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to an unreached people group in the Pare mountains.

What I did not mention last week is that although the Pare people are new to Christianity, generations ago, Islam came through the area and converted the population. The vast majority of the people we will encounter will tell us they are Muslim. BUT the reality is that Islam has left them spiritually bankrupt and empty and they are essentially only cultural Muslims. This means they are ready for Jesus! And that begs a critical point in mission work. All other systems of belief, Islam included, lead to despair, emptiness, lack of fulfillment, fear, and I could go on and on. Only Christianity offers hope, love, forgiveness, and life.

Yet, amazingly Christianity in the United States is more than ever the target of ridicule and persecution. We are seeing a dangerous shift in attitudes about various religions in America. While Christianity is under attack, virtually every other religion and belief system gets a pass…or an endorsement.

As I have already blogged about in detail, Islam is on the move. We already have the immigration issue where Muslims are moving into western countries in great numbers and reproducing in great numbers. They are threatening to seize the culture just through sheer population domination. But now we have the words of our own elected leader. President Obama declared in Turkey back in April that we Americans "do not consider ourselves a Christian nation…." And then just two weeks ago in Cairo, Egypt, President Obama asserted to the world that if you considered the number of Muslims in our country America is "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."

These two statements by themselves are shocking but taken together they are frightening. You see, as the leader goes, so go the people or a nation. Let's put this in perspective.

Carrie Prejean states in the Miss USA pageant that she believes that marriage is between one man and one woman. Period. Now remember, she was asked what she believed. Her opinion was solicited. Carrie Prejean is a Christian and she expressed a Christian position on marriage. The result? This woman has been beat to a pulp in the media. She has been cut open and roasted on the fire. And the attacks continued unabated leading to the loss of her crown as Miss California.

This same media that mercilessly skewered a Christian, virtually ignored the MAJOR news story of Private William Long who was gunned down in front of an army recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas two weeks ago. In fact, Charles Gibson of ABC news and Katie Couric of CBS news said not one word about the shooting. That's right…not a word. It was totally and completely ignored by the ABC and CBS news departments. Could the reason have something to do with the fact that the shooter was a radical Muslim performing an act of Jihad and proclaiming proudly to the AP that more attacks are on the way?

And while ABC and CBS totally ignored a religiously motivated shooting on US soil of an America solider by a Muslim extremist, they have run ad nauseum, story after story proclaiming the injustice of three Muslims terrorists (responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans) who were water boarded THREE YEARS AGO.

As the leader goes, so go the people…or a nation.

It is open season on Christians, and Islam gets the official pass…and even an endorsement.

Our President has said so…

Blessings,

Jeff