Archive for February, 2010

Simple yet savory stroganoff starts with two cans of creamy mushroom soup. What a wonderful way to welcome the family home for dinner!

Prep Time: 20 min
Total Time: 5 hours 50 min
Makes: 5 servings (1 1/2 cups each)

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 lb boneless beef tip steak, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cans (18 oz each) Progresso® Vegetable Classics creamy mushroom soup
1/2 cup water
2 1/2 cups uncooked wide egg noodles (4 oz)
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, if desired

Directions:

1. In 3 1/2- to 4-quart slow cooker, layer onion, garlic and beef. Pour soup and water over beef.
2. Cover; cook on Low heat setting 5 to 7 hours.
3. Stir noodles into mixture. Increase heat setting to High. Cover; cook 20 to 30 minutes or until noodles are tender. Stir in sour cream. Garnish individual servings with parsley.

High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): No change.

Kitchen Tip

To save precious minutes in the morning, use minced garlic in a jar. You could also cut up the beef the night before and refrigerate.

Nutrition Information:

1 Serving: Calories 430 (Calories from Fat 220); Total Fat 25g (Saturated Fat 12g, Trans Fat 0g); Cholesterol 125mg; Sodium 880mg; Total Carbohydrate 29g (Dietary Fiber 1g, Sugars 6g); Protein 24g Percent Daily Value*: Vitamin A 15%; Vitamin C 0%; Calcium 8%; Iron 15% Exchanges: 2 Starch; 0 Other Carbohydrate; 0 Vegetable; 2 1/2 Lean Meat; 3 Fat Carbohydrate

From: Betty Crocker Recipes

READ: Job 29-31

If my land cries out against me and all its furrows are wet with tears, if I have devoured its yield without payment or broken the spirit of its tenants, then let briers come up instead of wheat and weeds instead of barley (Job 31:38-39).

With this, the words of Job are ended; he has nothing more to say. Baffled, questioning, tormented, yet unwilling to forsake God, he falls silent. What can we say about the trials, the pressures, and the riddles of our own life? Remember that Job at this point has learned that his theology is too small for his God. That is true for many of us.

We think we know the Bible, we think we have God boxed in, and we understand how He is going to act. And just as surely as we do, God is going to do something that will not fit our theology. He is greater than any human study of Him. He is not going to be inconsistent with Himself; He never is. He is not capricious, acting out of anger and malice. He is a loving God, but His love will take forms of expression that we do not understand.

Up to this point Job has had his faith in the rule of God, but now at last he has begun to reach out tremblingly to exercise faith in the God who rules. That is a transfer that many of us need to come to.

The second thing that we can see at this point in the book is that Job’s view of himself is woefully inadequate. He has been defending himself, and he has been remembering all his good deeds. We all do this, don’t we?

When trouble strikes we all tend to think to ourselves, “Why should this happen to me?” By that we mean, “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve been perfectly well behaved. Why should I be subjected to this kind of torment?” All this makes us realize that he and we also have little understanding of the depths of sin’s attack upon us and the depravity of our hearts. Jeremiah says,

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it” (Jeremiah 17:9)?

The one thing God teaches us by these pressures and problems of life is to understand that there are depths of sin within us of which we are not yet aware.

The third thing that we need to see is that his self-vindication explains the silence of God. Why does God not help this man? The answer is because he has not yet come to the place where he is willing to listen. As long as people are defending themselves, God will not defend them. There is a theme that runs all through the Bible: “As long as you justify yourself, God will never justify you.” And as long as Job thinks he has some righteous ground on which to stand, God’s silence remains. This is true in our lives as well. That is why Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount by saying,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3),

those who are bankrupt in themselves, who have come to the end. When we shut up and stop defending and justifying ourselves, God will rise to take up our cause. That is what we will see in the book of Job at the end; God will begin to speak on Job’s behalf.

Lord, help me to lay aside all my flaunting schemes for self-improvement and self-defense and stand naked before You, trusting Your loving grace to give me all I need,

This daily devotion was inspired by one of Ray’s sermons. Please read “The Wrong Of Self-Defense” (or listen to the audio file ) for more on this portion of scripture.

Dean Masters, owner of the Masters List

The Lord is my light and my salvation.

If he is yours, join us on the Masters List

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/masterslist

“Perilous Times and the Great Falling Away” – Pastor Dale Morgan, World News Net

By Marilynne L. Mellander
Guest Commentary
Posted: 02/27/2010 12:01:00 AM PST

A RECENT ARTICLE in the Religion & Ethics section of the Times — “Presbyterians see salvation by other faiths” — showed many in that Christian denomination believe there is salvation outside of Jesus Christ.

A 2007 Pew Poll was cited that found 70 percent of Americans “with a religious affiliation believe many religions can lead to eternal life.” The latter poll is not surprising because, as our current president stated, “America is no longer a Christian nation.” Federal laws such as the “hate crimes” bill make it unlawful to quote certain parts of the
Bible; in 2004 a Christian group was arrested in Philadelphia for preaching the Bible in public.

The politically correct concept of “tolerance” now extends to just about every group except Bible-believing Christians.

In Matt. 7:13,14 Jesus said, “Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction … narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

It’s clear the God of the Bible doesn’t allow this kind of “tolerance.”

Many so-called Christian pastors tolerate “easy beliefism” by not rebuking members who believe there is more than one way to salvation and eternal life.

However, Jesus states in the Bible: “I am the way, the truth, and the
life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” — John 14:6.

It always amazes me how people who call themselves Christians could believe you don’t have to put your faith in Jesus Christ to obtain eternal life.

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Note

Friend, please review my teaching on the Home Page of this website on the “Essentials of Eternal Life.” Scripture does proclaim that “Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE GOD.” See all of Hebrews 11.

It is all that simple. Do not let the devil tell you that “…you do not need faith to be a Christian.”

Listen: Faith without works is dead and works without faith is all flesh nd not of God. If there is no faith, there is no Christianity and only eternal damnation, folks. Believe me!

At the Judgment seat of Christ, many will come to Him wanting entrance into heaven and saying “Lord, Lord.” He responds, “I never knew you…depart from me and into the abys of hell and eternal damnation…” Not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will be saved and many will be cast into the abys of eternal hell and damnation, the second death.

Blessings,

Rev. Joe Diaz, RN, BSN
Founder, His Love Extended Ministries, International

“Perilous Times and Decaying Morality” – Pastor Dale Morgan
World News Network

From The Sunday Times

French teenagers grab free love at Pagan le Skins sex orgy

Skins Party near Rambouillet, France

Pagan Skins Party near Rambouillet, France

by Matthew Campbell in Paris

WHO could have imagined that the French, with their reputation for sophisticated naughtiness, would complain about being led astray by the boring old British?

Skins, a cult television series about a group of teenagers in Bristol, is being blamed for a French adolescent craze for debauched fancy dress evenings of sex. drinking and drugs.

From Marseilles to Paris, “le Skins party” is a rallying cry each weekend for thousands of teenagers, most from well-to-do families, who dress in masks and torn stockings to lose themselves in sex and drugs like the stars of their favourite programme.

The spectacle of drunken, drugged-up teenagers cavorting in little more than their underwear has stirred unusual angst in a country that prides itself on being broad-minded.

Talk of adolescent sexual free-for-alls in which girls are encouraged to kiss each other in the interests of “free love”, or show off their breasts while being filmed for display on the internet, brings a blush to the cheeks of their parents.

“I’m quite worried,” said Marie Laure Roland, an estate agent whose daughter, 17, is a Skins party fan. “Skins is giving our children ideas. I try to keep an open mind but these parties verge on the unacceptable.”

One commentator described Skins parties as “adolescent orgies” where participants risked death from excesses of alcohol and overdoses of drugs. The government is also alarmed as it tries to fend off criticism that it is doing too little to curb an epidemic of binge drinking.

Defenders of the Skins craze say that behaviour at the parties, where teenagers often kiss many others but seldom go further, is tame compared with what goes on in the clubs échangistes, or wife-swapping clubs, that are popular with the older generation.

Even so Michel Fize, a sociologist, sees Skins parties as an example of how pornography’s prevalence in modern society is changing the sexual behaviour of French youth. “We’re living in a pornocratic world,” he said, “where sex is everywhere, in thoughts, words, images and deeds. This is leading more and more young people into unconventional sexual practices.”

Le Figaro newspaper recently reported that “threesomes” were in vogue among the young and quoted an 18-year-old girl as saying that sex with a boyfriend and another girl was “a good way of spicing up your love life”.

For Skins devotees — the series takes its name from the slang word for cigarette rolling papers — the fuss about the parties is exaggerated.

“You ask what the idea is?” said Philippe, the 16-year-old son of a Parisian lawyer who boasts of being at the top of his class. “What’s the idea of any party? We like to cut loose and let ourselves go, just like in the series. The only ones who don’t understand are stupid old people.”

The party craze appears to have been inspired by a scene in the series in which a group of adolescents, some of them wearing clowns’ masks and other disguises, dance to a live band in an abandoned building in a forest. They are seen passing tablets of ecstasy to each other on their tongues. As the night wears on they begin kissing, fondling each other and throwing up.

Shown on Channel 4 in Britain, the series, which launched Dev Patel, the lead character in the film Slumdog Millionaire, to fame, has been on French television since 2007. The third season is expected to be shown later this year.

The parties began in France at private venues that were announced a few hours beforehand on Facebook, the social networking website. Now entrepreneurs have stepped in, turning the Gallic Skins craze into a lucrative industry.

Party organizers are offering Skins soirees in cities all over France. Most of the parties are held in nightclubs and teenagers pay up to £15 to get in. In Paris a Skins party is regularly held on a boat moored on the Seine, attracting the children of the bourgeoisie.

Some teenagers object to the way nightclubs have tried to take over the Skins party scene, saying only private venues can offer the correct atmosphere.

“We live in a society full of rules, control and conventions,” Ariel, a party-goer, was quoted as saying in Elle magazine. “Some people burn cars to revolt but we don’t hurt anyone. We stand for eccentricity and
free love.”

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This is the new morality of a people so into sensuality that their values are eroded. I would imagine that homoseuality/lesbianism figures into this scene as well?

God hates immorality friends!

Rev. Joe Diaz, RN, BSN
Founder, His Love Extended Ministries, International

College students urged: Trade Bible for Playboy ‘Religious texts are so appalling, you are better off having porn’*

By Drew Zahn

In the lobby of the University of Texas at San Antonio’s humanities building, a hand-drawn poster announces, “Free porn: Just trade in your holy books (Bible, Koran, Vedas) for porn.”

A student group at the university called The Atheist Agenda is reviving its Bibles-for-porn program, called “Smut for Smut,” for three days beginning March 1, according to a report from San Antonio’s KENS-TV.

“The idea is that religious texts are so appalling,” said Atheist Agenda group member Brian Talker in a 2006 interview with UTSA student publication The Independent. “They are so full of genocide, misogyny and ludicrous ideas that far overshadow any banal common-sense platitudes like loving thy neighbor, that you are better off having porn, which isn’t nearly as smutty.”

A current member of the group told KENS the program is also meant as a slap against religious leaders and the “hypocrisy” of their condemnations of pornography.

“They’ve been going and rallying against pornography for the longest time,” the unidentified student said, “and the disgusting, depraved acts that are within the Bible, Koran and Vedas completely outnumber any
[faults] of any pornographic image.”

Other students, however, have expressed outrage.

“As a Christian myself, I just take offense to it,” one student told the TV station.

“Did they really do that?” asked another. “It kinda made me want to cry, it really did.”

University officials have stated that the controversy over the poster and program boils down to protected freedom of speech.

UTSA spokesman David Gabler told KENS, “We are a marketplace of free ideas here at UTSA, and our students have all [the] constitutional rights afforded to all individuals in the United States.”

The Atheist Agenda, founded by students in 2005, launched its first Smut for Smut program in December of that year.

The then-president of The Atheist Agenda, Thomas Jackson, told MSNBC he thought the swap program presented a fair trade:

“Well, first of all, you know, pornography gets a lot of negative press, and it’s smut. A lot of it really is,” Jackson said. “And we wanted to make the comparison between that and the smut that is religious scripture, or a lot of it, you know. The stuff that says a woman is
worth half a man, the things that say, you know, you should beat children.

“These things aren’t acceptable in our society,” he continued, “and if pornography is not acceptable, then these things surely aren’t. At the very least, what we’re doing is trading something that’s very, very bad
for something that’s only moderately bad.”

In its first Smut for Smut campaign, the San Antonio Express News reports, the atheist group avoided legal problems by placing the explicit magazines in envelopes and storing them in a box under a table. Students also checked IDs to ensure recipients were 18 or older and gave instructions not to view the material in the commons area.

Also in 2005, a rival Christian group established their own booth across the plaza from The Atheist Agenda and offered materials denouncing negative effects of pornography use.

This year, opposing signs have been posted in the same campus lobby, immediately next to the “free porn” poster, and KESN reports websites rallying against the program have already drawn thousands of members.

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Note:

What about the civil rights and freedom of speech for Christian believers? Are they being one-sided? Our liberties and freedom to worship are being eroded yet smut is the order of the day! Bah humbug! Again, we were not promised a rose garden but thorns.

Hang in there brethren! Jesus’ return is imminent! Maranatha! Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Amen!

Rev. Joe Diaz, RN, BSN
Founder f Hs lOve Extended Ministries, International

The rise of Islamic extremism is putting increasing pressure on Christians in Muslim countries, who are the victims of murder, violence and discrimination. Christians are now considered the most persecuted
religious group around the world. Paradoxically, their greatest hope could come from moderate political Islam.

By SPIEGEL staff.

Kevin Ang is cautious these days. He glances around, taking a look to the left down the long row of stores, then to the right toward the square, to check that no one is nearby. Only then does the church caretaker dig out his key, unlock the gate, and enter the Metro Tabernacle Church in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur.

The draft of air stirs charred Bible pages. The walls are sooty and the building smells of scorched plastic. Metro Tabernacle Church was the first of 11 churches set on fire by angry Muslims — all because of one word. “Allah,” Kevin Ang whispers.

It began with a question — should Christians here, like Muslims, be allowed to call their god “Allah,” since they don’t have any other word or language at their disposal? The Muslims claim Allah for themselves, both the word and the god, and fear that if Christians are allowed to use the same word for their own god, it could lead pious Muslims astray.

For three years there was a ban in place and the government confiscated Bibles that mentioned “Allah.” Then on Dec. 31 last year, Malaysia’s highest court reached a decision: The Christian God could also be called Allah.

Imams protested and disgruntled citizens threw Molotov cocktails at churches. Then, on top of everything, Prime Minister Najib Razak stated that he couldn’t stop people who might protest against specific developments in the country — and some took that as an invitation to violent action. First churches burned, then the other side retaliated with pigs’ heads placed in front of two mosques. Sixty percent of Malaysians are Muslims and 9 percent Christians, with the rest made up by Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs. They managed to live together well, until now.

It’s a battle over a single word, but it’s also about much more than that. The conflict has to do with the question of what rights the Christian minority in Malaysia is entitled to. Even more than that, it’s a question of politics. The ruling United Malays National Organization is losing supporters to Islamist hardliners — and wants to win them back with religious policies.

Those policies are receiving a receptive welcome. Some of Malaysia’s states interpret Sharia, the Islamic system of law and order, particularly strictly. The once liberal country is on the way to giving up freedom of religion — and what constitutes order is being defined ever more rigidly. If a Muslim woman drinks beer, she can be punished with six cane strokes. Some regions similarly forbid such things as brightly colored lipstick, thick make-up, or shoes with clattering high heels.

Expelled, Abducted and Murdered

Not only in Malaysia, but in many countries through the Muslim world, religion has gained influence over governmental policy in the last two decades. The militant Islamist group Hamas controls the Gaza Strip,
while Islamist militias are fighting the governments of Nigeria and the Philippines. Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen have fallen to a large extent into the hands of Islamists. And where Islamists are not
yet in power, secular governing parties are trying to outstrip the more religious groups in a rush to the right.

This can be seen in Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Indonesia to some extent, and also Malaysia. Even though this Islamization often has more to do with politics than with religion, and even though it doesn’t necessarily lead to the persecution of Christians, it can still be said that where Islam gains importance, freedoms for members of other faiths shrink.

There are 2.2 billion Christians around the world. The Christian non-governmental organization Open Doors calculates that 100 million of them are being threatened or persecuted. They aren’t allowed to build churches, buy Bibles or obtain jobs. That’s the more harmless form of discrimination and it affects the majority of these 100 million Christians. The more brutal version sees them blackmailed, robbed, expelled, abducted or even murdered.

Bishop Margot Kässmann, who was head of the Protestant Church in Germany before stepping down on Feb. 24, believes Christians are “the most frequently persecuted religious group globally.” Germany’s 22 regional churches have proclaimed this coming Sunday to be the first commemoration day for persecuted Christians. Kässmann said she wanted to show solidarity with fellow Christians who “have great difficulty living out their beliefs freely in countries such as Indonesia, India, Iraq or Turkey.”

There are counterexamples as well, of course. In Lebanon and Syria, Christians are not discriminated against, and in fact play an important role in politics and society. And the persecution of Christian is by no
means the domain of fanatical Muslims alone — Christians are also imprisoned, abused and murdered in countries such as Laos, Vietnam, China and Eritrea.

‘Creeping Genocide’ against Christians

Open Doors compiles a global “persecution index.” North Korea, where tens of thousands of Christians are serving time in work camps, has topped the list for many years. North Korea is followed, though, by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, the Maldives and Afghanistan. Of the first 10 countries on the list, eight are Islamic, and almost all have Islam as their state religion.

The systematic persecution of Christians in the 20th century — by Communists in the Soviet Union and China, but also by Nazis — claimed far more lives than anything that has happened so far in the 21st century. Now, however, it is not only totalitarian regimes persecuting Christians, but also residents of Islamic states, fanatical fundamentalists, and religious sects — and often simply supposedly pious citizens.

Gone is the era of tolerance, when Christians enjoyed a large degree of religious freedom under the protection of Muslim sultans as so-called “People of the Book” while at the same time medieval Europe was banishing its Jews and Muslims from the continent or even burning them at the stake. Also gone is the heyday of Arab secularism following World War II, when Christian Arabs advanced through the ranks of politics.

As political Islam grew stronger, devout believers’ aggression focused not only on corrupt local regimes, but also more and more on the ostensibly corrupting influence of Western Christians, for which local Christian minorities were held accountable. A new trend began, this time with Christians as the victims.

In Iraq, for example, Sunni terrorist groups prey specifically on people of other religions. The last Iraqi census in 1987 showed 1.4 million Christians living in the country. At the start of the American invasion in 2003, it was 550,000, and at present it is just under 400,000. Experts speak of a “creeping genocide.”

‘People Are Scared Out of Their Minds’

The situation in the region around the city of Mosul in northern Iraq is especially dramatic. The town of Alqosh lies high in the mountains above Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. Bassam Bashir, 41, can see his old hometown when he looks out his window there. Mosul is only 40 kilometers (25 miles) away, but inaccessible. The city is more dangerous than Baghdad, especially for men like Bassam Bashir, a Chaldean Catholic, teacher and fugitive within his own country.

Since the day in August 2008 when a militia abducted his father from his shop, Bashir has had to fear for his and his family’s lives. Police found his father’s corpse two days later in the Sinaa neighborhood on the Tigris River, the body perforated with bullet holes. There was no demand for ransom. Bashir’s father died for the simple reason that he was Christian.

And no one claims to have seen anything. “Of course they saw something,” Bashir says. “But people in Mosul are scared out of their minds.”

One week later, militiamen slit the throat of Bashir’s brother Tarik like a sacrificial lamb. “I buried my brother myself,” Bashir explains. Together with his wife Nafa and their two daughters, he fled to Alqosh the same day. The city is surrounded by vineyards and an armed Christian militia guards the entrance.

Tacit State Approval

Bashir’s family members aren’t the only ones who came to Alqosh as the series of murders in Mosul continued. Sixteen Christians were killed the next week, and bombs exploded in front of churches. Men in passing cars
shouted at Christians that they had a choice — leave Mosul or convert to Islam. Out of over 1,500 Christian families in the city, only 50 stayed. Bassam Bashir says he won’t return until he can mourn for his father and brother in peace. Others who gave up hope entirely fled to neighboring countries like Jordan and even more to Syria.

In many Islamic countries, Christians are persecuted less brutally than in Iraq, but often no less effectively. In many cases, the persecution has the tacit approval of the government. In Algeria, for example, it takes the form of newspapers reporting that a priest tried to convert Muslims or insulted the Prophet Mohammed — and publishing the cleric’s address, in a clear call to vigilante justice. Or a public television station might broadcast programs with titles like “In the Clutches of
Ignorance,” which describe Christians as Satanists who convert Muslims with the help of drugs. This happened in Uzbekistan, which ranks tenth on Open Doors’ “persecution index.”

Blasphemy is another frequently used allegation. Insulting the core values of Islam is a punishable offense in many Islamic countries. The allegation is often used against the opposition, whether that means
journalists, dissidents or Christians. Imran Masih, for example, a Christian shopkeeper in Faisalabad, Pakistan, was given a life sentence on Jan. 11, according to sections 295 A and B of Pakistan’s legal code, which covers the crime of outraging religious feelings by desecrating the Koran. A neighboring shopkeeper had accused him of burning pages from the Koran. Masih says that he only burned old business records.

It’s a typical case for Pakistan, where the law against blasphemy seems to invite abuse — it’s an easy way for anyone to get rid of an enemy. Last year, 125 Christians were charged with blasphemy in Pakistan.
Dozens of those already sentenced are on death row.

‘We Don’t Feel Safe Here’

Government-tolerated persecution occurs even in Turkey, the most secular and modern country in the Muslim world, where around 110,000 Christians
make up less than a quarter of 1 percent of the population — but are discriminated against nonetheless. The persecution is not as open or as brutal as what happens in neighboring Iraq, but the consequences are
similar. Christians in Turkey, who numbered well over 2 million people in the 19th century, are fighting for their continued existence.

It’s happening in the southeast of the country, for example, in Tur Abdin, whose name means “mountain of God’s servants.” It’s a hilly region full of fields, chalk cliffs, and centuries-old monasteries many. It’s home to the Syrian Orthodox Assyrians, or Aramaeans as they call themselves, members of one of the oldest Christian groups in the world. According to legend, the Three Wise Men brought the Christian belief system here from Bethlehem. The inhabitants of Tur Abdin still speak
Aramaic, the language used by Jesus of Nazareth.

The world is much more familiar with the genocide committed against the Armenians by Ottoman troops in 1915 and 1916, but tens of thousands of Assyrians were also murdered during World War I. Half a million
Assyrians are said to have lived in Tur Abdin at the beginning of the 20th century. Today there are barely 3,000. A Turkish district court threatened last year to appropriate the Assyrians’ spiritual center, the 1,600-year-old Mor Gabriel monastery, because the monks were believed to have acquired land unlawfully. Three neighboring Muslim villages had complained they felt discriminated against by the monastery, which houses four monks, 14 nuns, and 40 students behind its walls.

“Even if it doesn’t want to admit it, Turkey has a problem with people of other faiths,” says Ishok Demir, a young Swiss man with Aramaean roots, who lives with his parents near Mor Gabriel. “We don’t feel safe here.”

More than anything, that has to do with the permanent place Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Catholics and Protestants have in the country’s nationalistic conspiracy theories. Those groups have always been seen as traitors, nonbelievers, spies and people who insult the Turkish nation. According to a survey carried out by the US-based Pew Research Center, 46 percent of Turks see Christianity as a violent religion. In a more
recent Turkish study, 42 percent of those surveyed wouldn’t accept Christians as neighbors.

The repeated murders of Christians come, then, as no surprise. In 2006, for example, a Catholic priest was shot in Trabzon on the Black Sea coast. In 2007, three Christian missionaries were murdered in Malatya, a
city in eastern Turkey. The perpetrators were radical nationalists, whose ideology was a mixture of exaggerated patriotism, racism and Islam.

Converts in Grave Danger

In even graver danger than traditional Christians, however, are Muslims who have converted to Christianity. Apostasy, or the renunciation of
Islam, is punishable by death according to Islamic law — and the death penalty still applies in Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Even in Egypt, a secular country, converts draw the government’s wrath. The religion minister defended the legality of the death penalty for converts — although Egypt doesn’t even have such a law — with the
argument that renunciation of Islam amounts to high treason. Such sentiments drove Mohammed Hegazy, 27, a convert to the Coptic Orthodox Church, into hiding two years ago. He was the first convert in Egypt to try to have his new religion entered officially onto his state-issued identity card. When he was refused, he went public. Numerous clerics called for his death in response.

Copts make up the largest Christian community in the Arab world and around 8 million Egyptians belong to the Coptic Church. They’re barred from high government positions, diplomatic service and the military, as
well as from many state benefits. Universities have quotas for Coptic students considerably lower than their actual percentage within the population.

Building new churches isn’t allowed, and the old ones are falling into disrepair thanks to a lack both of money and authorization to renovate. When girls are kidnapped and forcibly converted, the police don’t intervene. Thousands of pigs were also slaughtered under the pretense of confining swine flu. Naturally all were owned by Christians.

The Christian Virus

Six Copts were massacred on Jan. 6 — when Coptic celebrate Christmas Eve — in Nag Hammadi, a small city 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the Valley of the Kings. Predictably, the speaker of the People’s Assembly, the lower house of the Egyptian parliament, called it an “individual criminal act.” When he added that the perpetrators wanted to revenge the rape of a Muslim girl by a Copt, it almost sounded like an excuse. The government seems ready to admit to crime in Egypt, but not to religious tension. Whenever clashes between religious groups occur, the government finds very secular causes behind them, such as arguments
over land, revenge for crimes or personal disputes.

Nag Hammadi, with 30,000 residents, is a dusty trading town on the Nile. Even before the murders, it was a place where Christians and Muslims mistrusted one another. The two groups work together and have houses near each other, but they live, marry and die separately. Superstition is widespread and the Muslims, for example, fear they could catch the “Christian virus” by eating together with a Copt. It comes as no surprise that these murders occurred in Nag Hammadi, nor that they were followed by the country’s worst religious riots in years. Christian shops and Muslim houses were set on fire, and 28 Christians and 14 Muslims were arrested.

Nag Hammadi is now sealed off, with armed security forces in black uniforms guarding roads in and out of the city. They make sure no residents leave the city and no journalists enter it.

Three presumed perpetrators have since been arrested. All of them have prior criminal records. One admitted to the crime, but then recanted, saying he had been coerced by the intelligence service. The government
seems to want the affair to disappear as quickly as possible. The alleged murderers will likely be set free again as soon as the furor has blown over.

More Rights for Christians?

But there are also a few small indications that the situation of embattled Christians in Islamic countries could improve — depending on the extent that nationalism and the radicalization of political Islam
subsides again.

One of the contradictions of the Islamic world is that the best chances for Christians seem to crop up precisely where a major player actually comes from the political Islam camp. In Turkey it is Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, a former Islamist and now the country’s prime minister, who has promised Turkey’s few remaining Christians more rights. He points to the history of the Ottoman Empire, in which Christians and Jews long had to pay a special tax, but in exchange, were granted freedom of religion and lived as respected fellow citizens.

A more relaxed attitude to its minorities would certainly signify progress for Turkey.

URL:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,680349,00.html

From: World News Net

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Beloved, Jesus said that we (Christian believers) will be hated by all men. He did not indicare who will hate us by religion or groupings just that we will be hated.We see this to be true when we read this report and hear news of religious persecution going on more and more. It is not fair because they (Moslems) have freedom of religionwhereas we do not nordo our brethren in Moslem countries

I was stationed in Turkey in 1973. I met the son of a Turkish Air Force General with whom I developed a keen friendship. I invited Mohammed to my apartment in Ankara, the Capital city of Turkey for dinner one evening which he honored. We need to realize that proselyting is expressy forbidden in most if not all moslem nations.

Mohammed and I began to share and compare our religious beliefs (mine is by faith, his is by the rules and regulations of Islam). Then we came to the topic of salvatrion and I was talking about how that Jesus came to die on the cross to save us and that I became a follower of Christ by faith. He wanted to know more so that opened the door to deeper revelation of truth! (PTL) I then asked him what provision the Quoran ( or Koran) has for salvation for an eternity and he could not answer that. I knew he would not be able to because there is n provision for salvation in the Quoran but rather a lot of suppositions. I could have been reported as proselitysing to the courts and be imprisoned indefinitely but when Mohammaf asked a question, he had a right to the answer(s)! So he got his answer an he then fell onto his knees on my kitchen floor and gave his heart to the Lord! Glory hallelujah! I heard through the grapevine that he became a Christian and is now under religious persecution!

The rewards will be free-flowing when we get to Heaven after death or in the Rapture! But asa long as we are on earth and worship our God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, we WILL be persecuted. This will also be one of the biggest condition for death uner the AntiChrist who will soon be here if he is not already here.

The Toman Catholic Pope jas been pushing for a one-world Government. Either he is the antichrist or he is preparing the way for the AntiChrist.

So do not be afraid. We are mandated to spread the Gospel and make disciples of ALL men. We are also promised the presence of the Lord Jesus with us! Amen!

Practice your Christian faith if you are a Christian believer knowing that your reward(s) will be in Heaven. If you are not a Christian and are reading this, plese kow that God loves you and that is why He sent His Son to prepare the way for our salvation. Hatred on earth because of our faith is nothing to be compared to the glory and rewards that will come to us Gloryland! Hallelujah!

If you are afraid, it is the devil intimidating you so you will not make a decision for Christ. Know that his time to roam the earth is coming to an end very soon and he will try to dceive all men while he can but he is a liar and the “father of lies” according to the Word. Please read John 10:10. Also, please go to my Home Page and read the “Essentials of Eternal Life” for an in-depth look at the claims of Christ and what we can do to be signed, sealed and delivered! You can be saved and absent from the body when you are a Christian is to be present with the Lord in Heaven or hell for all eternity.

Finally, we need to be “wise serpents but harmless as doves!” according to Jesus. This is how we get along in a predomitately moslem country or region wherever it might be.

God bless you!

Rev. Joe Diaz, RN, BSN
Founder, His Love Extended Ministries, International

My Husband and I are homeless right now. He lost his job. And everything has gone down hill. We lost our 3 boys to the Foster Care system. And we are desperately trying to get them back. But, until we can find a home for the kids and us we have to wait. And we miss them so much. I feel like someone has ripped out our hearts. We are nobody without our kids.

If there is any help that you can help us out with, We greatly appreciated it.

Thanks
Annie

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VERSE:

God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. – 2 Timothy 1:7

THOUGHT:

Power! We like that concept. When it is godly power, might does make right because godly power is accompanied by love and self-discipline. These three together make a person’s life effective, constructive, and corrective. Live life to its fullest: not as a closet Christian afraid of standing true and firm, but one
who lives by God’s power, shares God’s love, and displays God’s virtues.

PRAYER:

Holy God, you are without compare in your majesty and might. I have no right to come into your presence and yet you have invited me here by your love and your grace. You are my Rock, my Fortress, and my strength. I depend upon your guidance and your mercy to sustain me through my storms and reclaim me from my stumbles. Holy God, you are without compare and I worship you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

From World News Net

TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 23 (UPI) — An Israeli archaeologist’s discovery of fortifications in Jerusalem that she says date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and the government’s plans to include two West Bank shrines as part of Israel’s national heritage has incensed Palestinians.

The Palestinians say they see this as a new plot to scupper their dream of an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Palestinian protesters have clashed with Israeli police in Hebron after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that the two fiercely contested sites in the West Bank would be included in a $100 million plan to restore national heritage sites.

These are the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb on the outskirts of Bethlehem, 12 miles north of Hebron. The Hebron site has been a source of conflict for decades. Jews call it the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the Bible says the patriarchs Abraham, Issac and Jacob were buried with three of their wives. The site is also sacred to Muslims, who also revere Abraham. They call it the al-Ibrahimi Mosque.

In 1994, a hard-line Brooklyn-born Jewish settler, Baruch Goldstein, shot to death 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers in the shrine. He was beaten to death by those who survived the slaughter but remains an
iconic figure for Israel’s far-right.

Hard-line settlements have grown up around the city, where a few hundred militant settlers maintain an enclave heavily protected by Israeli troops amid a Muslim population of 160,000. The settlers converted part of the al-Ibrahimi Mosque into a synagogue.

The tomb of the Jewish matriarch Rachel stands in an Israeli enclave in Bethlehem, revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus. It’s surrounded by a 24-foot-high concrete wall.

“We strongly condemn this decision which yet again confirms the Israeli government’s determination to impose facts on the ground,” declared Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator.

Netanyahu said the sites must be preserved by the state because they show Israelis owned the land in ancient times, a key element in Israelis’ claim that they have a legitimate and historical right to the West Bank, which they call by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria.

The Israeli government appears to be seeking to elevate the heritage issue, possibly to counter growing international outrage at Israel’s continued occupation and its invasion of the Gaza Strip a year ago in which 1,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed.

In recent weeks, hard-line settlers, who vowed they will never abandon the West Bank under any peace agreement with the Palestinians, have become increasingly aggressive amid U.S. efforts to halt settlement activity as a means of reviving the long-stymied peace process.

On Sunday, 80 settlers stormed into the biblical town of Jericho seeking to pray at two ancient synagogues there even though the area is under Palestinian control. Israeli troops removed the settlers.

Right-wing activists vowed Monday they would go on entering Jewish sites in Palestinian areas as part of a campaign to reclaim areas of the West Bank — even as Defense Minister Ehud Barak promised to stop them.

But it is the discovery of the ancient stone fortifications in Jerusalem by Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar that is likely to cause the biggest storm in the unfolding conflict over both sides’ claims to historical
legitimacy as possessors of the disputed land.

Jerusalem is the flash point. It is the emotive center of the territorial dispute and has become one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues, possibly the most intractable, in the entire peace process.

Both sides claim the holy city as their capital. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and declared the reunited city their eternal capital.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they are driving to proclaim. They claim the Israelis, who are building settlements there, are driving Arabs out to eradicate the Palestinian presence.

Mazar claims her discovery establishes that Jews possessed the city in the 10th century B.C., as described in the Bible. However, other experts maintain that biblical references regarding the existence of an Israelite monarchy in Jerusalem in that period is largely mythical.

Mazar, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, described her find Monday as “the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel.

It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction.”

Update: 8.8-magnitude earthquake hits central Chile; tsunami warnings issued for Hawaii, Australia, South America

By EVA VERGARA
The Associated Press
Saturday, February 27, 2010; 9:00 AM

SANTIAGO, Chile — A devastating magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, shattering buildings and bridges, killing at least 78 people and setting off a tsunami that threatened every nation around the Pacific Ocean – roughly a quarter of the globe.

Chilean TV showed devastating images of the most powerful quake to hit the country in a half-century: In the second city of Concepcion trucks plunged into the fractured earth, homes fell, bridges collapsed and buildings were engulfed in flames. Injured people lay in the streets or on stretchers.

Many roads were destroyed and electricity and water were cut to many areas.

There was still no word of death or damage from many outlying areas that were cut off by the quake that struck at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. EST, 0634 GMT) 200 miles (325 kilometers) southwest of Santiago.

Experts warned that a tsunami could strike anywhere in the Pacific, and Hawaii could face its largest waves since 1964 starting at 11:19 a.m. (4:19 p.m. EST, 2119 GMT), according to Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Tsunami waves were likely to hit Asian, Australian and New Zealand shores within 24 hours of the earthquake. The U.S. West Coast and Alaska, too, were threatened.

A huge wave swept into a populated area in the Robinson Crusoe Islands, 410 miles (660 kilometers) off the Chilean coast, President Michele Bachelet said, but there were no immediate reports of major damage there.

Bachelet said the death toll was at 78 and rising, but officials had no information on the number of people injured. She declared a “state of catastrophe” in central Chile.

“We have had a huge earthquake, with some aftershocks,” Bachelet said from an emergency response center. She urged Chileans not to panic.

“Despite this, the system is functioning. People should remain calm. We’re doing everything we can with all the forces we have. Any information we will share immediately,” she said.

Powerful aftershocks rattled Chile’s coast – 21 of them magnitude 5 or greater and one reaching magnitude 6.9 – the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

Bachelet urged people to avoid traveling, since traffic lights are down, to avoid causing more fatalities.

The airport for Chile’s capital of Santiago airport was shut down and will remain closed for at least the next 24 hours, airport director Eduardo del Canto said. The passenger terminal suffered major damage, he told Chilean television in a telephone interview. TV images show smashed windows, partially collapsed ceilings and pedestrian walkways destroyed.

In Concepcion, nurses and residents pushed some of the injured through the streets on stretchers. Others walked around in a daze wrapped in blankets, some carrying infants in their arms.

The epicenter was just 70 miles (115 kilometers) from Concepcion, where more than 200,000 people live along the Bio Bio river, and 60 miles (95 kilometers) from the ski town of Chillan, a gateway to Andean ski resorts that was destroyed in a 1939 earthquake.

The quake also shook buildings in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires, 900 miles (1,400 kilometers) away on the Atlantic side of South America.

Marco Vidal – a program director for Grand Circle Travel who was traveling with a group of 34 Americans – was on the 19th floor of the Crown Plaza Santiago hotel when the quake struck.

“All the things start to fall. The lamps, everything, was going on the floor. And it was moving like from south to north, oscillated. I felt terrified,” he said.

Cynthia Iocono, from Linwood, Pennsylvania, said she first thought the quake was a train.

“But then I thought, oh, there’s no train here. And then the lamps flew off the dresser and my TV flew off onto the floor and crashed.”

“It was scary, but there really wasn’t any panic. Everybody kind of stayed orderly and looked after one another,” Iocono said.

In Santiago, modern buildings are built to withstand earthquakes, but many older ones were heavily damaged, including the Nuestra Senora de la Providencia church, whose bell tower collapsed. An apartment building’s two-level parking lot also flattened onto the ground floor, smashing about 50 cars whose alarms and horns rang incessantly. A bridge just outside the capital also collapsed, and at least one car flipped upside down.

The quake struck after concert-goers had left South America’s leading music festival in the coastal city of Vina del Mar, but it caught partiers leaving a disco. “It was very bad, people were screaming, some people were running, others appeared paralyzed. I was one of them,” , Julio Alvarez told Radio Cooperativa in Santiago.

Bachelet said she was declaring a “state of catastrophe” in three central regions of the country.

She said Chile has not asked for assistance from other countries.

Several hospitals were evacuated due to earthquake damage, she said.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center called for “urgent action to protect lives and property” in Hawaii, which is among 53 nations and territories subject to tsunami warnings.

“Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated. It may have been destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicenter and could also be a threat to more distant coasts,” the warning center said. It did not expect a tsunami along the west of the U.S. or Canada but was continuing to monitor the situation.

The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on May 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and left 2 million homeless. The tsunami that it caused killed people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines and caused damage to the west coast of the United States.

It was the strongest quake to hit Chile since a magnitude-9.5 temblor rocked southern Chile in 1960. Together with an ensuing tsunami, it killed at least 1,716 people.

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Associated Press Television News cameraman Mauricio Cuevas in Santiago and Sandy Kozel in Washington contributed to this story.