Comments on: A review of Religion of Peace? By Robert Spencer.

By: Jonathan Sarfati

Jonathan Sarfati — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 21:29:04 +0000

I just read Spencer’s book for myself. It is excellent and demolishes the absurd “religious equivalence” view of the various misotheists. Listening to them, one would think that Christian homeschoolers are more dangerous than Islamofascists who fly jets into buildings and blow up buses with Israeli schoolkids.

It’s also important that more people know of the links between Islamofascists and Nazis during WW2. This includes the direct link of Arafat to one of the best buddies of Hitler and Eichmann, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php.

Jonathan Sarfati, Brisbane

By: david skinner

david skinner — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:08:39 +0000

Dear Bernard, Thank you for your encouraging post. In 1970 I emigrated to Australia as one the last of the “ten pounders“ (the cost of the air fare). It was then that I was found by God and promptly found myself teaching out in the sticks of NSW. There in a small country town called Young I joined my first church whose composition was, for the most part, made up of large, farming families. Though not without their own problems, they will remain indelibly on my memory as models of salt and light within the community. The contrast between them and the already, cynical Britain, that I had just left, could not have been greater.
David Skinner, UK

By: Bernard Tibbs

Bernard Tibbs — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:35:58 +0000

Dear Bill, David and Fellow Respondents

I have recently ordered my copy of ‘Religion of Peace?’ by Robert Spencer. Has anyone read it yet? I’m looking forward to doing that in several weeks time, when my copy arrives!

David, I have looked through your websites on Prayer and Needs in Britain. It never has been easy, as you acknowledge, to get out, like your friend Lewis is doing, and meet people, and interest them with the things of the Gospel. I will pray that you will be able to gather around you a small band who will support you in initiating such projects.

My Tibbs forebears came from Barnstaple to Exeter in Devon, and I have a relation from Poole in Dorset whom I have met in Kent. Our common forebear was Lewis Wellard. I know from talking to them, what it is you are finding about the difficulties of getting churches to get out and do this work. May you see God raising up many small bands of Christians, praying in your villages, towns and cities, to turn Britain back to the Lord Jesus Christ. They will, when they see his many glories displayed before them. And there will be many, many dear Muslim folk in this number, as there must be already I believe.

Some websites that might be an encouragement for British Prayers from Australia that we like to call, ‘the Great Southland of the Holy Spirit’: (1) One Million Aussies Praying: http://www.wassup.info/ONE%20MILLION%20AUSSIES%20PRAYING%20ebulletin%20No%2010%20July%202007.pdf (2) Australian Prayer Network: http://ausprayernet.org.au/

And have you heard of ’30 Days Loving Muslims Through Prayer, September 13th through October 12th 2007 (Ramadan)’: http://www.30-days.net/? Included on the website is a free download of a PDF file for children praying. I’m encouraging my children and grandchildren to start doing this while they are still young!

Blessings on each one of you.

Bernard Tibbs, Wollongong, NSW

By: Ewan

Ewan — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 11:55:19 +0000

I think David Skinner very accurately sums up where we are at in the West re our societal problems and the state of the church. One of the aspects that caused me to become somewhat disillusioned with much of contemporary Christianity (but not biblical Christianity) is an attitude of what some have called a “superficial triumphalism” whereby the tendency is to always to view the church and the world through rose-coloured glasses and to never acknowledge that the world around us is becoming darker and that the church could possibly be to blame.

Ewan McDonald, Victoria.

By: James Forsyth

James Forsyth — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:38:12 +0000

Thanks Augusto Zimmermann for your thought-provoking comments re: democracy and Christianity.

I may need to have a rethink.

Blessings, James Forsyth

By: david skinner

david skinner — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:39:23 +0000

Bernard, bless you, but we are not all evangelists and I would encourage you to evangelise whilst you still have the freedom to do so. Time is running out. It is true I am filled with depressing thoughts but British society is depressing. Jeremiah, John the Baptist and the minor prophets were not exactly the life and soul of the party either! It seems to me that it is the Christian who is precisely the one not prepared to deny what is going on around them or stick their heads the sand. Francis Schaeffer, when asked how he would tell someone the gospel, replied that he would spend something like fifty five minutes depressing the pants off the hearer and then five minutes with “but God.” Although I live in a very beautiful part of England, Dorset, it is spiritually very dark. I have a friend, Lewis, an ex-policeman, twice divorced, who was a nasty bit of work but whom God touched dramatically, just over a year ago. His gift is evangelism and daily he paddles off to the local supermarket to share the good news with this or that stranger, but the church gives him no encouragement. I think this is because it has links with the local council and does not want to upset the “relationship.”

I do a great deal of writing to my MP, the Queen and Members of Parliament, but rarely do I get a reply and even then it is a standard letter that is designed simply “to put one to bed”. I also keep updating an epistle (8,500 words) that I give to my relatives and friends. The aim of to this is take them by the hand and open their eyes to the danger they and society are in and then to tell them the solution – Jesus Christ. This does not work because there comes a point in my epistle that challenges them too much and they want to detract or distract, like the Samaritan lady at the well. The other objection is that they are too busy with the cares and distractions of this life.
Maybe I just need filling with the Holy Spirit ?
Bernard I would be very interested to hear more of what you are doing – especially this piece centred around John’s Gospel.
Finally, people can only repent if they have something to repent of. Much of conversion in the west seems to be: “Come to Jesus and He will sort your life out” rather than “Repent, Take up your cross and follow me.”
Prayerlessness in the Churches is, I believe, of the root causes of out ineffectiveness. A church never rises higher than its (corporate) prayer life.
God Bless you in your work Bernard.
David Skinner, UK

By: david skinner

david skinner — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:56:47 +0000

I have just read Jonathan Sarfati’s comment above and ploughed through his link on the open letter to Paul Hill, convicted and executed for murdering an abortionist, by leading Reconstructionist Gary North, 1994.

This, linked with the statistics I have displayed above indicates one of many ways (economic collapse, climate change, famine, anarchy) that God’s judgement on our nations will possibly manifest itself. We Christians, let alone the unsaved, have become so conditioned by western rationalism that the idea of God ’s eminence (as it says in Acts 17, “God is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being, ”) seems to be a flight of fancy and for which only a dose of real life (switch on the tele, or a trip to the local supermarket) can dispel.

Bernard, I don’t know how to answer your question: What signs of hope do I personally see coming out of Britain? At present, the picture is one of increasing pain and anarchy http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/6961551.stm

The labour government denies that there is any problem at all and can only speak of how “successful and diverse” British society has become. On the one hand it has taken over the absolute, moral conscience of the nation by introducing one piece of godless legislation after another, that forces the population to act immorally, and then, when things go wrong, it retreats into the shadows and points the finger of blame at parents and teachers, the very group it has consistently undermined and airbrushed out of existence.

I see no hope whatsoever from the present, morally bankrupt, British government. But God has raised the black churches who are leading the way, not only in the world-wide Anglican Church, but calling the nation(s) to prayer with the Global day of Prayer events:
http://www.eauk.org/frontpagearchive/gdop.cfm
http://www.unitedbyone.co.uk/mobile/default.aspx?group_id=27079&article_id=80296.

When our churches become primarily boiler houses of prayer, instead of weekend therapy centres, then we will see God acting. 2 Chronicles 17:13-15: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.”

David Skinner, UK

By: Bernard Tibbs

Bernard Tibbs — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:57:03 +0000

Thanks David for your response about our TFR being well below the 2.1 replacement level. As a happily married 70+ Year Old, I can’t affect the TFR personally, except by getting out amongst my children and grandies and compassionately and excitedly living out the truths of the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures with them … and doing the same amongst people wherever I belong or go.

I acknowledge the Mohler remark. No real surprise there. Barren worldviews lead to barren wombs, but this does not drive me personally to doom and gloom, as it appears to be doing to you David. For me, the Judaeo-Christian Worldview is ‘no barren worldview’. It simply needs to be practised! And, can I encourage you, I am getting out there, not just amongst my family, but my 1300 member suburban church and my 300,000 city and my state contacts in NSW and Australia and the World to proclaim by word of mouth, by written articles on the Web, by life, and by however else I can find, the truths of this one and only workable worldview.

For example I have a nearly 4 Year Old Project well advanced in John’s Gospel that addresses his concepts of ‘Worldview’ and ‘Discipleship’, that I believe has much to offer my fellow worldlings to lure them with the allure of ‘Who Jesus Is’ out of their skeptical questioning against ‘Who Jesus Is’, to becoming questing believers after the truth of ‘Who Jesus Is’.

David, I contend that in not too many years time, if the Lord Jesus spares me, I will with my own eyes see ‘the good fruit’ (Isaiah 5, John 15) from this project alone, influencing hundreds of thousands of lives, certainly the 330,000 Muslim people in Australia’s lives, positively turning them around to experience the ‘good eternal life’ he offers them … just from John’s Gospel … but then also from other texts in the Bible.

So David, what is your personal response to such personal challenges as this? I encourage you David, ‘Will you please go back to my questions and give me some of your personal responses of hope from Britain?’ Bill’s pointing us to Spencer’s new book is a good starting point for ideas. I could suggest others, but will eagerly wait yours first.

Bernard Tibbs, Wollongong, NSW

By: david skinner

david skinner — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:58:21 +0000

Augusto and Bernard, forgive me for butting in here with something I have just read from http://www.albertmohler.com/. Scroll down to Why the Baby Bust?:
“In the Summer 2007 edition [Jewish year 5767], assistant editor Noah Pollak deals with the reality of the European baby bust. Pollak deals first with the demographic reality. As he explains, the average number of children a woman will bear (known as the total fertility rate, or TFR) must be stable at 2.1 just to maintain the size of a nation’s population. The baby bust is evident in the fact that the TFR is just 1.89 in France. In Spain the TFR is just 1.1 — a birth rate the editors describe as in a “free fall.” Taken together, Europe’s total TFR is just 1.38. What does this mean? It means that European nations will soon face the reality of fast-falling population levels — levels that will threaten social stability, economic security, and a host of other social goods. Economic security depends upon a stable or growing population. But economic security is not the only issue at stake – not by a long shot. Many observers believe that growing Muslim birth rates and immigration rates, coupled with a decline in the Christian population, will mean an Islamic future for Europe.”
David Skinner, UK

By: Bernard Tibbs

Bernard Tibbs — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:27:54 +0000

Thank you Bill. We certainly need to hone up on our individual grasp of ‘the three worrying trends which make this book necessary’. And we need to learn to bring the specifics of Spencer’s analysis into the general understanding and common usage of the average Judaeo-Christian Biblically believing individual and church community. We need to discuss such questions as:
1. ‘How might our way of life as Australians be different if everyone worshipped Islam’s Allah instead of Judaeo-Christianity’s Jehovah LORD Jesus Christ?’ ‘Is not worshipping Judaeo-Christianity’s Jehovah LORD God far superior?’
2. ‘Why are many women in the Secular Humanist West converting to Islam? Why are they missing out on the far greater life outcomes of Judaeo-Christianity?’

Your remarks Bill ended up bringing the issues to the personal level, ‘And Spencer reminds us that Islam means submission, and that all people are to be the slaves of Allah. Jesus made a radically different claim: “I no longer call you slaves … But I have called you friends.” (John 15:15)’ You are to be applauded Bill for your final remark, where you signalled, ‘ … and it is time that these distinctions are heralded, instead of being covered up by the Christophobes and the appeasers of Islam’. These are the two totally contrastive, conflictual positions that all of the humanisms (and I would respectfully place Islam here), and Judaeo-Christianity lead to, that of ‘slaves’ or ‘friends’.

Now, if I was up for a decent wager on who the majority of Australians might seek to worship as the supreme being, what money differentials would you offer me on Allah and Jesus? But why then would the majority of people in Australia put their money where their mouth is and offer vastly different odds to yours?

My questions to David Skinner of the UK are: What signs of hope do you personally see coming out of Britain, for Christians, like yourself, redressing your perception that “Isaiah Chapter 5 sounds frighteningly like today”? Must we as individual Christians be fearful or allow spiritual paralysis to grip us, personally and corporately? Or is ‘another present’, leading to ‘a different future’ offered to you, for realising as the Church in Britain? Finally, does John 15 have anything to say about such a vine that produces bad fruit, that suggests practical steps to be taken in Britain?’ What you say could have great influence on what many Christians in Australia need to know!

Bernard Tibbs, Wollongong, NSW.