Lynn Green

Tag: Muslims

  • Holy Land, Chosen People

    Holy Land, Chosen People

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    Surely no one who believes the scriptures can doubt that the establishment of a homeland for the Jews was a remarkable act of God. More amazing evidence of God at work in history is that any Jews survived until that event in 1948.  No race has been so targeted by concerted efforts to eradicate them throughout history, but they have survived!

    There is also no doubt that godly people prophesied that the people of Israel would be restored to their historical homeland. In light of that, some Christian leaders have stated that this drama is the central act of God in the end times. This premise must be examined in the light of the Scriptures. We must also ask whether or not God requires the Jews’ cooperation and obedience in order to fulfill his plans for them.

    To the latter question first. In Biblically-recorded history, God has always required their obedient response to His initiative. When they have hardened their heart, they have come under the heavy yoke of judgment time and time again. As a result, the scriptures came to interpret previous prophetic passages in terms of “remnant” –only a remnant will be saved.

    Is His promise unconditional in our time? Will He establish the Jews and save all of them because of their blood links to Abraham or because of their link to the state of Israel regardless of their willingness? If we believe that, we have several issues to face and think about in the light of what we know of God’s ways.  If God’s plan is to save them without requiring their cooperation then we must ask, is He going to save them according to their blood or according to their allegiance to the nation/­state of Israel?

    If it is according to blood, then how much blood do they need to have? That is a big issue for Jews and Arabs.  Some of the believers I have met in Bethlehem are quite sure that, though they are identified as Arabs, they have more Jewish blood than many of the Israelis on the other side of the wall. They believe that their ancestors were amongst the first Jewish believers and managed to stay in the land or return as soon as the Roman prohibition lapsed. When Islam came, they did not convert, but remained Christian through all hardships. Under successive Muslim regimes they blended in as best they could and, especially under the Ottomans, their Jewish origins were a distinct disadvantage and that part of their identity was lost. Some of them are sure they have more Jewish blood than the Falashas or many of the Russian “Jews” who are now flooding Israel.

    The Israeli courts are struggling daily to work out who is a Jew.  Is that important to God in His administration of the New Covenant?  If so, it runs against the current of so much of the New Testament that is explicit in its assertion that there is neither Jew nor Greek in Christ and salvation is for “whoever will”.  If salvation is according to blood, will people who have Jewish blood be saved whether or not they know about their blood line?  If an American living in England (by the name of Green) actually does have an eighth or sixteenth Jewish blood in him as he suspects, will he be saved more certainly than if he does not have that blood? Or is that not a sufficient percentage?

    What about the strict, observant Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem? He probably does not believe the state of Israel is God’s work.  In fact, he could be one of the many who thinks it is accursed because it is the construct of man and only the Messiah can create the new nation for the Jews. Perhaps (and this is very likely) his parentage is not fully Jewish. Perhaps most of his blood is Polish and Russian, with only a sixteenth or thirty-second of Jewish blood. Will he be saved or lost?  On what basis?  Perhaps because he thinks he is a pure Jew?

    This may seem to be hair-splitting, but if we introduce bloodlines, parentage and genetics into salvation, these questions are serious and unavoidable. That is one reason why the courts in Israel take it so seriously and argue about it interminably. For some of the lawyers and judges, it is not just a matter of citizenship in a modern nation-state; it is also a matter of election and salvation for eternity. I hasten to add that the majority of Israeli Jews do not practice any faith and have little or no sympathy for the religious dimension of their history. (The last time I checked the statistics, Israel counted a higher percentage of atheists than any nation other than Japan. I have no doubt that this fact is related to these two people’s suffering during the last century, but that is another subject.)

    One might also argue that we cannot know these matters of election as they are in the sovereign and mysterious will of God. But He is the God who says, ‘Walk in the light as I am in the light!’ He has made his way of salvation so clear that even a child can know it. We too easily use this argument when we have not done sufficient thinking and research into our ideas.

    Perhaps we think allegiance to the nation-state of Israel is more important than blood and parentage. Many Evangelical Christians around the world seem to think this is paramount. If salvation is in some way associated with Israeli citizenship, then we must think about the many Jewish/Israeli factions and see if all of them will be saved or only some of them. (I am not being facetious here. This is very important because it also impinges on the question of what it means to “bless Israel”).

    Many of my Israeli friends are very worried about the hostilities with the Palestinians but confide that, if they did not have a common enemy, then they would destroy one another in civil war. The factions and resentments within Israeli society run very deep.

    Firstly, there are the mainstream parties. Former Prime Minister Rabin, of the Labor Party, was convinced that they had to negotiate an agreement of land for peace. Is that being loyal to Israel?  His assassin, a right-wing Orthodox Jew, was sure that Rabin was a traitor, so he killed his Prime Minister as an act of worship.  To many religious Jews he is a great hero to this day.

    Should Christians have blessed Israel by supporting its then elected government—or the assassin?  Who is the more loyal citizen?

    Now we have more conservative leadership, but they are still willing to negotiate land for peace. Should we support them?  Other parties are waiting in the wings having positioned themselves to take a hard line of no negotiating of land for peace.  Should we pray for them to come to power so they can force a violent showdown with the Arab world and their supporters? Is salvation connected to these political stances?  Some Christians seem to think so. They are most enthusiastic about those parties that seize land by any means and are thus really tough on the Palestinians. On the other hand, they are strongly opposed to the likes of Rabin, who seemed willing to exchange land for peace.  Is this related to issues of salvation and Shalom?

    What should we think about the strictly observant Orthodox Jews who used to be small in number but are growing fast due to very high birth rates and some conversions?  They are implacably opposed to the state of Israel because “God did not initiate it through the coming of Messiah”. They most often live in Jerusalem, existing on social security, refusing to work, studying the Torah and praying continuously, refusing military service, and producing very large families whereby they steadily grow in number and political influence. They claim a right to the land, but no allegiance to Israel, as it is currently constituted.

    It should be noted that, generally speaking, the Jews who feel most strongly about their divine right to the land also take the strongest stance against Jesus, the Messiah. Under the Labor government there was a measure of religious freedom.  Christian workers and Palestinian believers fared pretty well.  Under the conservative and religious governments, the numbers of Palestinian Christians declined dramatically due to highly restrictive security measures, forced unemployment etc.  In addition, the conservative governments have decided to withdraw hundreds of visas that have been granted to Christian workers over the decades.  Does this “de­-Christianization” of the Holy Land make any difference?  Should we “bless Israel” regardless?

    It seems somewhat absurd to think that personal salvation would be related to an Israeli citizen’s attitude towards the land, but if we set aside the relevance of eternal salvation to these issues, we still have to look more closely at what it means to “bless Israel”.  Whom should we bless?  We have lots of choice but, unfortunately, we cannot bless all the factions.

    Should we bless the Russian “Jew” who has managed to take advantage of the funding of Christian ministries to get to Israel on his way to a third country? All he wants is a better and more comfortable life and by “discovering” his Jewish ethnicity, he seems to be on his way.

    Should we bless the ultra-Orthodox Jew who hates the state of Israel and curses it daily, or the moderate Orthodox Jew who works in the government and is committed to ridding the nation of all Christians, who refuses citizenship to full-blooded Jews if they believe in Jesus as the Messiah?

    Should we bless the soldiers who man the checkpoints and daily humiliate Arabs because they are taught in their military orientation that Arabs are an inferior race? Or should we bless the soldiers who refuse to serve in the “occupied territories”? Should we bless the helicopter gunship pilots who carry out the assassination sorties, or the ones who have created such a stir because they refused to do so in light of the unacceptable casualties among noncombatants?

    Should we bless the Orthodox settler who carries an AK 47 and writes graffiti on the wall of an Arab family, “all Arabs to the gas chambers”?  Or, should we bless the Israeli father, who lost his beloved 14 year-old daughter to a suicide bomber, but who works for peace with his Palestinian friends in the “Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved Parents for Peace” movement?  (Their persuasive conviction is that a “land-for-peace settlement” is inevitable. They believe that will come only when the majority of people believe that the cost of peace is outweighed only by the cost of not having peace.  Currently they conclude, sadly, that the days of peace are still many thousands of lives away.)

    Or maybe we should bless the leadership of the Messianic Fellowship that meets at Christchurch, Jaffa Gate, who grieve over the pain of the Palestinians and believe that God will not bless Israel until it treats the “alien in the land” as the scriptures command?

    What does it mean to “bless Israel?”  Surely, out of all the options listed above, it cannot mean that we encourage the Israeli military to seize and occupy more land by any and every means.

    If it does, then what do we say to Daoud? He is a committed Christian who graduated from Bethlehem Bible College a few years ago. His family has about 100 acres (40 Hectares) of land near Bethlehem. Like many families I have met, they trace their ancestry in the region back more than 500 years. Unlike most in this oral society, they have documents that support their ownership of the land right back to Ottoman days. In spite of that, the Israeli Defense Force seized their land for “security reasons”.  What that means practically is that they are not allowed to return to their house or land to tend their olive trees or vines or graze their sheep.  But the recently-built settlement nearby, populated almost entirely by radical Orthodox Jews from New York and built deep within the West Bank region that is recognized by international treaties and the Oslo agreement as Palestinian land, can now requisition their land for new roads and houses. Should we tell Daoud that he has a right to go to the courts to keep that land?  The only court available to him is the Israeli court and they have already cost him more than the monetary value of the land as he tries to jump through their legal hoops.  Or should we agree with a very well known American evangelical who, upon hearing his story recently, replied that he and his family should have expected all this pain and trouble because they have refused to accept that they are living in the wrong place.  This man kindly explained that Daoud should accept God’s sovereign preference for the American Jew to own this land and that he and his large family should move to Jordan where they belong.

    So what does it mean to bless Israel?  Has God brought the Jewish people back to the land conditionally or unconditionally?  Clearly, I believe God brought them back under His conditions.  If they obey His ways and trust in Him, then He will bless them.  If they disobey Him, trusting in their own might and perpetrating injustice, then they will suffer judgment as they have before.

    I truly believe that God handed the returning Jews the opportunity “do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with their God.”  But, especially after the extraordinary, perhaps even miraculous, victory of 1967, they began to trust in their own power and have brought judgment on themselves. (Of course there were massacres of civilians and other atrocities as early as 1948, but they were relatively few.)  In these circumstances, we must bless Israel as Jeremiah did. He was loyal and loving enough to refuse to prophecy peace when there was no peace.

    I have spoken to many Arabs in the region who, for years, cherished a hope that a multi-racial democracy would thrive in Israel and that it might eventually become the core of a wider, regional federation of democratic states. As far as I can discern there is no remnant of that hope now. Without that hope, the future looks bleak in political and military terms. The cycle of vengeance and violence continues to escalate even though no one seriously believes that the problems will yield to more violence. Perhaps well-­meaning Christian “scholars of prophecy” have proposed the most extreme solution. They suggest that Israel must simply ignore international law and the opinion of the nations and deport the remaining Arabs. (One Israeli, a former war hero, scoffed, “Let them help us get the deportation trains ready!”)

    Any solution that promotes the forcible seizure of land and deportation of people only guarantees an endless supply of terrorists (or freedom fighters, depending on your perspective).

    Given all these considerations, we can be much more straightforward with the scriptures if we accept two principles. Firstly, though God brought the Jews back to the land, He has not authorized them to establish a racially exclusive state.  Their ethnicity does not exempt them from the ways of God, if anything, it makes them more accountable.  I believe God expects all nations to behave under the same overarching laws that have prevailed throughout history and more particularly after Christ. He blesses the nation that pursues justice and that makes no allowance for excluding people from citizenship based on racial or religious criteria. I believe God also has to judge acts of ethnic cleansing regardless of who perpetrates them.

    Of course many people point to the corruption of the Palestinian authorities or the wickedness of the Islamists, or the suffering of the Jews in history as justifications for their behavior. These are all true and important, so they should be taken into account, but they do not absolve the Israelis of their responsibilities to use their immense power much more carefully than they do.

    Secondly, I believe that we must take a firm stand as Christians that there is but one covenant and that is the one established by the blood of Jesus. We must guard against the risk of implying that there is another covenant for the Jews. Paul was at his most zealous and most likely to express indignation and anger when he was guarding the early Church against those who wanted to drag it back into the original covenant.  The scriptures are so clear that the covenant of laws and animals’ blood is finished in Christ. (Hebrews 8:13 is one of many scriptures that are explicit on this subject.) Paul was also clear that if you accept any part of the old covenant, you must accept it all. We do not want to do anything to imply that the Jews do not need Jesus. That would deprive them of their way of salvation.

    Therefore, Jews must come to Christ willingly, from the heart. Just as God pled with them through Hosea, He still pleads with them today. He will not do a “will freeze” on them. When Paul writes about all Israel being saved, it must be interpreted in the light of all the other scriptural explanations of “Jewish-ness” being a matter of the heart, not of the flesh.  As a result, we do not have to try to make the scriptures and providential history conform to some unique and exceptional interpretation of Romans 11. There is no doubt that Paul had a revelation about God blessing the Hebrew people again and that their salvation would be a blessing to the nations.  But we cannot take the liberty of concluding that means eternal salvation on the basis of blood or some relationship to the land.

    In the final analysis, there is no straightforward scriptural evidence that God intended issues of race or land to carry over into the new covenant. Given the fact that the ideas of divine right to land or election by race both produce strife and violence in human history, we would need overwhelming evidence from Jesus and the Apostles to accept those ideas as part of the New Covenant.

    Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets. As He says in Matthew 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Paul gave his strongest warnings when dealing with those who attempted to carry the parts of the First Covenant over into the New Covenant. Personally, I am convinced that also includes First Covenant prophecy.  We cannot assume that any Old Testament prophecy carries beyond its fulfillment in Jesus unless it is explicitly restated in the New Testament. A careful reading of Old Testament prophecy will confirm that it was all destined to fulfillment in Christ.  The promise for a son of David to sit on the throne forever is a prime example.

    So why do these ideas about the land and racial election prevail? Historically, they tend to arise quite regularly, usually as a part of some “end times” focus by some faction of the Church.  They usually also include speculative interpretations of prophetic passages and some effort to identify key players—such as the Anti-Christ or the two end-times prophets. In fact, they usually result in violence in the name of Jesus (as the Crusades did) or some disastrous proclamation of the date of the end of the world.  I believe they are part of an historical thread of deception.  When the Church becomes preoccupied with end-time scenarios and conspiracy theories such as the “Left Behind” novels or The Late Great Planet Earth, they forget the central issues of living Christ-like lives and demonstrating God’s love to the lost.  They quit planning for the future and often adopt a survival mentality. As a result, the momentum of the coming of the Kingdom is slowed or even reversed.

    When this environment of end-times speculation grows strong, it also usually results in the marginalization of the essential teaching of Jesus.  Occasionally I receive correspondence from Christians who believe that we are wasting our time or even disobeying God’s purposes in our time by reaching out to Muslims (of course many of them felt the same about communists a couple of decades ago ). That thinking completely eclipses Jesus’ teaching about peace-making and love of enemies. But, it is logically consistent with the idea that land and race are relevant in the New Covenant.

    Those of us who do take the commands of Jesus at face value must be very thoughtful before we accept land and race as part of God’s plan for redeeming humankind.  When we do, we add some really unsavory political dimensions to the gospel.

    In addition, when we take that gospel to any of the one billion Muslims, we are asking them to accept and support the behavior of a political/military construct that has demonstrated that it is just as fallen and corrupt as all the others.  I do not believe anyone can be a mature Christian whilst nurturing racial or political hatred in his or her life.  Many Muslims, especially Arabs, have a deep and irrational hatred for Israel.  That must be confronted.  But we have no justification for going to the other extreme and requiring unconditional loyalty to a human political/military construct.

    So, I recommend that we cling to a simple gospel with Jesus at the centre, avoiding a focus on speculative end-times theories.  Let’s put the Great Commission and the gathering of the Church from every tribe, tongue, people and nation first, with Jesus, his example and commands as our ultimate example.

    Lynn Green.

  • Seismic Shifts in the Middle East

    Seismic Shifts in the Middle East

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    Even though I have been travelling to the Middle East since the 1970s and have watched many changes taking place, I am astonished at the pace of change in the last few years.  I have been in the Gulf States and Egypt the past couple of weeks and have come back with the assurance that the prayers of countless intercessors are being answered  to a degree that I could not have  imagined.

    In Dubai I was with the YWAM family who are scattered around the Gulf area.  They are Chinese, Egyptians, Iraqis, Filipinos, Indians, Afghans, Brazilians, Germans, Danes, Brits, Americans, and so on.  I was so encouraged by the unity of believers in this part of the world, which is the heart of Islam, and by the number of traditional Christians who have become genuine followers of Jesus, as well as those who have been called from all over the world to minister in the Middle East.

    I was particularly surprised to meet Afghan workers. They were a couple who came to Christ as a result of the living witness of a Korean family in Kabul. Before they were married, the young man followed Jesus but his fiancée hadn’t decided to do so at the time.  Their lives were soon under threat by the Taliban who gave notice that they were going to bomb their home. Three times they had to leave their house at short notice, moving to a new location and leaving everything behind.  Finally this dear young woman, mother of three little girls, thought she would put God to the test, so she prayed for protection as a Muslim and saw no change.  Then she prayed for protection in the name of Jesus.  In a dream that night she saw her house surrounded by huge angels and knew that she was safe.  In the long run they felt that they should go to another country.  So miraculous provision and visas opened to them in the Gulf area and they are now discipling many others from Afghan, Persian and Tajik backgrounds.  One of the other leaders there says he has rarely seen anyone as fruitful as this young couple.  Again, this far exceeded my expectations.  When I was first in Kabul in 1970, the only known believers were a handful of blind people.  (The government did not object to a Christian helping the blind because they were social outcasts.)

    One of the most memorable moments in this trip was when an Egyptian leader said, “We have been praying for revival and God sent us ISIS.”  That may sound quite strange to many, but the rise of extreme Islam and the revelation of its cruelty and inhumanity has been a major reason for disillusionment and a hunger for change.  No one can accurately estimate the number of people who have turned to Christ in the last few years.  Some people would say millions; others would say no, it’s more like hundreds of thousands. But any figure needs to be seen in context—there were almost no Muslims deciding to follow Jesus until about twenty years ago.

    I could tell you many exciting stories like the South American who is a football coach in one of the least reached nations where visas are very hard to get, but the government has welcomed him with open arms.  There were so many encouragements during my days there!  Amongst them was the fact that many of the workers are under the age of 30 and are putting roots down for the long term.  Several of them have just finished two years of language school.  I was impressed with their commitment but also with the bubbling life that was evidenced amongst them.

    I had a little more than a day at home before I left again, this time for Egypt.  I have been to the Western Desert many times and I am always uplifted by the experience because, for more than 17 centuries it has been one of the world’s great spiritual centres.  Monks from the Western Desert took the gospel to Ireland.  Then, in the dark ages, monks in Ireland and Egypt kept the light of the gospel alive.

    There were understandable security implications for people from so many nations gathering there, even though great efforts were made to keep the numbers down.  When it was first planned, we learned that the Chinese wanted to bring 4000 and the Egyptians figured as many as 12,000 would come if the gathering were open.   When the security implications were considered, we made the event available by invitation only.  As a result, we were only about 1,000.  (But we believe more open events lie ahead.)  Around 3-400 of the thousand were Chinese, then about 300 Egyptians with the remainder coming from around 30 other nations.  The theme was the Isaiah 19 highway:

    23 In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. 24 In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing[b] on the earth. 25 The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

    As usual with these events, it is very hard to describe the significance of it.  I will do my best to explain that below.  What anyone would have experienced is an almost unique sense of family love between believers from so many different nations.  That led to a clear sense of spiritual authority for proclaiming that the Egypt to Assyria highway is open!

    I will try to explain a little more clearly:

    It is rare for followers of Jesus to gather from so many nations with only one purpose—to worship God together and then believe and obey anything he says.  When we do that, it seems that His priority is to prepare the Church, the Bride of Christ.  He does that by leading us to tear down the walls that divide us.  Nationality, race, language, culture and religious traditions all serve to separate us; but all those become insignificant when we focus on Him.  A powerful sense of love pervades and the usual gulfs between us disappear.  In that atmosphere, we are able to talk about sensitive subjects, such as Jews and the land of Israel, different views of the second coming of Jesus and different perspectives on current politics and events.  But the love and unity prevail even when we have different opinions on these important subjects.

    We must all be familiar with what Jesus said to his disciples, “This is how everybody will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other.”  I have always understood that to apply to us as individuals and I am sure it does.  But recently I realized it could equally apply to nations or races or any groups that are traditionally divided against one another.  When Koreans, Chinese and Japanese believers love one another, it is a powerful demonstration that the good news about Jesus is supernatural and a powerful force for good.  The same would be true between Germans and French and British, or Israelis and Arabs.  I am convinced that such love has spiritual power.

    A lot has been said about spiritual warfare and the Ephesians passage is well known:

    “The warfare we’re engaged in, you see, isn’t against flesh and blood.  It’s against the leaders, against the authorities, against the powers that rule the world in this dark age, against the wicked spiritual elements in the heavenly places.”

    Over the years, we have sought to wage this warfare in different ways.  Sometimes it seemed as if our efforts were futile and missing the mark.  However, when we gather as we did in Egypt (and have done in many other nations over the past five years) we know, beyond doubt that territory is being taken for the Kingdom of God and the “powers that rule this world” are on the run.

    A major factor in this spiritual power is the Chinese.  That part of the Church has been refined through suffering and they have a level of commitment and zeal that is too rare.  In addition, it just seems that God has decided to give them a gift for praying for the birth of new things in the Kingdom.  It is as if they are spiritual midwives.  In these gatherings, they worship will all their hearts and then pray and travail in the Spirit with all their hearts and new ministries or relationships or other breakthroughs occur.  Their spiritual leadership is indispensable and they have made covenant commitments to stand with both Arabs and Jews for the sake of the Kingdom.

    One final important point on this subject:  One of our good friends from Israel said, “The destiny of a nation is to be seen it its redeemed minority”, and Paul wrote that all things will be brought together in Christ.  That cosmic destiny is demonstrated when we worship together and love one another across the usual divides.  When people from different nations, races, social and educational backgrounds find genuine love and unity in Jesus, the King, it gives us a foretaste of the Kingdom to come.

    This has already been long, but I have to mention one more bit of encouragement.  I was visiting a friend whom I have known for about 30 years and, to my amazement, I discovered that he had a friendship with the man who has been announced as the next King of Saudi Arabia.  This Crown Prince has been in the news recently because he paid a world record for a painting—over $450 million for a Da Vinci depiction of Jesus.  That in itself is amazing!  Muslims do not approve of any pictures of people or animals.  Why would he risk the wrath of fellow Muslims?  More importantly, though, was the news I read last month.  Crown Prince Salmon was reported as saying that Saudi Arabia was no longer following strict fundamentalism.  He said they were breaking with their Wahhabi version of Islam and embracing what we would call moderate Islam.  So I asked my friend, “Do you know him well enough to know if this is a sincere change?”  He said, “Yes, I have a warm and growing friendship with him and he means it.”

    Yes, these are seismic shifts.  What will the next few years bring?  I know better than to try to make a prediction, but I am certainly eager to see it unfold!

    Lynn Green.

  • Reconciliation of Christians and Muslims

    Reconciliation of Christians and Muslims

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    In April, 1096 AD, Christians left from the cathedral in what is now Cologne, Germany and walked across Europe bringing many tears of sorrow to the eyes of many Muslims in their path. They called it a Crusade. Exactly 900 years later, on Easter Sunday, 1996, about 150 Christians left from the same cathedral to begin a second walk across that same route, but this time they brought wide smiles and tears of joy to many Muslims.

    Their first stop was a Turkish Mosque. The leader, Lynn Green of YWAM (Youth With A Mission) read an apology to the gathered Muslims apologizing for the atrocities of the Crusades.

    The Muslims broke into spontaneous, load applause for a long time. The leader of the mosque, the Imam, joyfully exclaimed, “When I heard the nature of your message, I was astonished and filled with hope. I thought to myself, ‘whoever had this idea must have had an epiphany, a visit from God himself. It is my wish that this project should become a very great success.”

    That same Imam later told a participant that many Muslims were beginning to examine their sins against Christians and Jews. He said that their example would encourage them how to act in a similar way about the sins of the past. He promised to tell the other 250 mosques in Europe.

    One participant told this writer that as they came into Istanbul, the chief imam of the city came out to greet them with open arms. In an excited voice, he shouted, “Welcome! No Christian has ever come to apologize to us in 1000 years! You are the first. We welcome you!

    Others report Turkish policemen weeping when they heard of this apology. This was a common reaction by many Muslims to this request for forgiveness from the itinerant Christians who walked the entire route of over 2000 miles in rotating shifts of several dozen at a time. About 2,000 Christians from 27 countries participated in this walk wearing T-shirts and caps that say “I apologize” in Arabic or Hebrew.

    About 500 participants reached Jerusalem on July 15, 1999, the 900th anniversary of the killing of about 60,000 Jerusalem residents and the destruction of the city.

    Here is the text of that historic apology:

    Nine hundred years ago, our forefathers carried the name of Jesus Christ in battle across the Middle East. Fuelled by fear, greed and hatred, they betrayed the name of Christ by conducting themselves in a manner contrary to His wishes and character.

    The Crusaders lifted the banner of the Cross above your people. By this act, they corrupted its true meaning of reconciliation, forgiveness and selfless love.On the anniversary of the first Crusade, we also carry the name of Christ. We wish to retrace the footsteps of the Crusaders in apology for their deeds and in demonstration of the true meaning of the Cross.

    We deeply regret the atrocities committed in the name of Christ by our predecessors. We renounce greed, hatred and fear, and condemn all violence done in the name of Jesus Christ.Where they were motivated by hatred and prejudice, we offer love and brotherhood. Jesus the Messiah came to give life.

    Forgive us for allowing His name to be associated with death. Please accept again the true meaning of the Messiah’s words:”The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” As we go, we bless you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ

    font – http://www1.cbn.com/reconciliation-christians-and-muslims

  • Are We Being Misled?

    Are We Being Misled?

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

    President Obama has very carefully avoided speaking about Islamic terrorism and has repeatedly stated that “we are not at war with Islam!”  But the Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, recently said,

    ‘France has been struck very much at its heart by terrorism—jihadist terrorism and radical Islamism, because let us call things like they are.”

    (Read the whole article, it is worth the time:  http://www.wsj.com/article_email/sohrab-ahmari-frances-anti-terror-free-market-socialist-1425080405-lMyQjAxMTA1NjI5ODcyOTgzWj)

    What’s going on?  Who is trying to mislead us?

    I don’t really think Mr Obama is attempting to deceive us, but he might be under-estimating our ability to understand the divisions within Islam.  It is not really that complicated until you attempt to get into the detail, but we don’t need to for our purposes here.

    I also want to give him the benefit of the doubt, given his responsibilities and who he has been meeting with.  He recently hosted a summit meeting on terrorism and gave his most comprehensive speech right after it finished last week.  He made a very strong point of saying that we are not at war with Islam and that this is not about religion.  For that he received repeated applause from those who had just emerged from the summit with him.

    I have been in meetings like that.  In fact my Reconciliation Walk team hosted symposia with all the senior religious leaders in Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem.  Some years later, I was at the Common Word event at Yale University.  These were each very interesting and helpful, but I have to admit that only the people we call “moderates” turn out to events of this nature.  I met some really interesting people at these meetings and made friends that have lasted for years.

    On several occasions at these events, when the subject of violence and terror came up, I heard the confident assertion, “that is not Islam”.  These were the moderates speaking.  They come from very different schools of interpretation from those who identify with ISIS or Al Qaeda or Al Shabaab or Boko Haram or the countless other violent splinter groups that we have yet to hear from.

    We can understand that position.  For example, I was born into a Pentecostal church.  This was a movement that exploded into view in the first decade of the 20th century and by 1912 had been rejected by the Roman Catholics and all the main Protestant denominations.  The Protestants met together and decided that the movement was demonically inspired, so not worthy of the name “Christian”.  The Pentecostals defended themselves by quoting the Bible and claiming that they were more Biblical than the others.  A hundred years later, Pentecostalism is accepted as part, a very large part, of the Christian faith.

    I appreciate those Muslims who are revolted by the violence of ISIS and I am sympathetic when they say, “that is not Islam!”  But the self-appointed Caliph of ISIS, a man with a PhD in Islamic Law, will refute that claim by quoting the Koran and Muslim traditions.  He and his followers will confidently claim that they are the only true Muslims because true Islam requires territory and people ruled by the strictest interpretation of Sharia and presided over by an all-powerful Caliph.  That is what they now have in parts of Iraq and Syria.

    So, back to the question:  Is President Obama attempting to mislead us?  No, I don’t think so.  He just wants us all to be clear that Muslims are not our enemies.  There really are a lot more peace loving Muslims than violent ones.  However, he inadvertently misleads us when he says the terrorists are not Muslims.  We cannot say that and it doesn’t help to try.  These  violent groups are comprised of people who are convinced that they are living out the mandate of the Prophet Mohammed more accurately than any people on earth.

    We are not at war with Islam and we are not at war with all Muslims, but some Muslims are definitely at war with us!