Christian communities in Middle East will ‘die out’

Experts say Christian communities in Middle East will ‘die out’ unless urgent action taken.


With attacks against Christians on the rise in majority-Muslim nations in the Middle East, experts say the future of Christianity in the region is gravely threatened.

From the most restrictive countries to the more open ones, Christians are facing an uphill battle for survival in a majority of Middle Eastern countries. In the last ten years and especially in recent months, attacks against churches and Christian populations in Muslim lands have reached crisis proportions.

In almost every majority-Muslim nation in the Middle East the situation of Christians is worsening, according to Paul Marshall, senior fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute.

“You are seeing more of this violence across the board….You get governments which may be relatively secular, like Egypt. But the opposition is Islamist,” Marshall told The Daily Caller. “[Governments] want to look like they are defending Islam too. So [countries like] Egypt do not effectively protect its Christian communities.”

More substantial Christian communities, such as the Copts in Egypt, will likely have more of a chance for survival, Marshall said. Those countries in which Christians are already significantly out-numbered will likely see their Christian population vanish unless the violence against them is brought to an end.

“In a lot of the other countries [besides Egypt and Lebanon] where you have smaller [Christian] communities — Morocco, Nigeria, Turkey, Iran — at the moment, the fear is those communities will continue to diminish. It is parallel to Jews about fifty years ago,” said Marshall. “These communities are beginning to go and in a couple of decades, unless the situation changes, you’ll just have remnants of communities. They will die out.”

While avoiding Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis, David Brog, executive director of Christians United for Israel, said he believes Islamists see the fight against the West as also an opportunity to purify their lands of religious minorities — namely Jews and Christians.

“It’s not just about Jews or Israel. What’s unfolding is a struggle between the West — Israel and the United States, Jews and Christians — against this strand of militant Islam. We’re all in this together,” he said.

Marshall noted that the Islamists are not only trying to purify the region of Jews and Christians but all of the various religious minorities.

“We use these monolithic terms like Muslim and Arab and so we miss the minorities even though that part of the world has as many minorities as else where,” he said.

While Marshall said the decrease in tolerance for Christians and other religious minorities is not directly linked to American actions in the Middle East, he does believe that American actions are used as an excuse for attacking Christians who they identify as an appendage of the “Great Satan.”

“In terms of the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, those are used by radical groups, terrorist groups, as justification for attacking Christians — eventhough the local Christians did not invade Iraq, they have been their for 2,000 years,” he said.

Brog told TheDC that unless governments step in there is little doubt that the presence of Christians in the region will dramatically taper off, leaving behind a negligible population.

“For every Christian killed, you’re going to see multiples fleeing for their lives. Thus I fear unless governments step up — particularly the governments of Iraq and Egypt — the violence will continue and the exodus will continue and we will see some of the oldest Christian communities on earth disappear,” Brog said.

Nina Shea, an international human-rights lawyer, concurrs.

“Unless something happens fast there is not going to be a future for Christianity in the Middle East,” she told TheDC.

But while governments may have a humanitarian obligation to step in, Daniel Pipes, founder and director of the Middle East Forum, told TheDC that Christian institutions that have shied away from the conflict in the past, such as the Vatican, would do well to step in.

“I think it is more a matter for Christian institutions, in particular the Vatican, which is always concerned that if it makes noise things will get even worse,” he said.

Pope Benedict XVI briefly touched on the issue in his yearly “State of the World” address last week. Benedict spoke about the intolerance toward Christians throughout the Middle East and the world — calling on those in power to act to help Christians fighting for survival.

”Looking to the east, the attacks which brought death, grief and dismay among the Christians of Iraq, even to the point of inducing them to leave the land where their families have lived for centuries, has troubled us deeply. To the authorities of that country and to the Muslim religious leaders, I renew my heartfelt appeal that their Christian fellow-citizens be able to live in security, continuing to contribute to the society in which they are fully members,” he said.

The fact that Christians are being forced out of Muslim lands at this moment in history is “particularly ironic,” according to Pipes.

“I think the future is bleak,” said Pipes, “and it comes at a particularly ironic moment when the Muslim populations, in the traditional Christian world, are burgeoning. It is not just in terms of numbers, but they are demanding rights [in the West] and so it is almost a mirror reflection of what is going on in traditional Muslim countries.”

Source: Daily Caller

Tucson Shooting Victim: 'There Would Be Torture and Then an Ear Necklace...'

James Eric Fuller, 63, who was shot in the knee, had told The Post on Friday, the day before his arrest, that top Republican figures should be tortured -- and their ears severed.

"There would be torture and then an ear necklace, with [Minnesota US Rep.] Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin's ears toward the end, because they're small, female ears, and then Limbaugh, Hannity and the biggest ears of all, Cheney's, in the center," Fuller said.

Also on Friday, Fuller stopped by the home of gunman Jared Lee Loughner and told a neighbor he was going to forgive the shooter, The Associated Press said.

On Saturday, Fuller was carted away for a psychiatric exam after disrupting the town hall meeting by taking a photo of Tucson Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries and shouting, "You're dead!"

Source: Fox News

Rush Caller Goes Nuts over Limbaugh's Tone

Glenn Beck reveals his "darkest moments"

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Obamacare targeted to get shot down in House.

WASHINGTON -- The new Republican-controlled House of Representatives is certain to vote Wednesday to repeal President Barack Obama's health care reform. The Democratic-controlled Senate is just as certain to let the measure die.

Republicans and Democrats adopted a more civil tone without angry shouts as they debated the repeal legislation on the House floor Tuesday just 10 days after the shooting rampage in Arizona that left a Democratic congresswoman wounded and lawmakers of both parties stunned.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking Democrat, said he expected that "members will heed their own advice and will address the issues in a way that will deal with them on the merits." In the past, he added, too much of the public debate was "about incitement rather than informing, about making people angry, disrespecting the ... point of view of the other side."

The House vote had been slated for last week as the Republicans' first order of business -- a campaign promise that helped them regain the majority in the lower chamber. But action was put off after the attack on Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot through the head. She is hospitalized in serious condition but six others who attended her meeting with constituents in Tucson, Arizona, were killed. They include a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.

Now, the House vote is back on after more than a week of national soul-searching and questions about whether the brutal tone of the political dialogue helped fuel the deadly attack in Arizona.

While most politicians agree that the heated rhetoric had gotten out of hand, little has changed in narrowing the deep partisan divide on such key issues as the health care reform legislation.

The measure that Obama signed into law last March extended health care coverage over a period of four years to 32 million Americans who now lack it, and reshaped the way most Americans receive and pay for medical treatment. The signing followed a year of intense political battles and marked a victory that eluded presidents stretching back almost half a century.

Obama said Tuesday that he is willing to work with Democrats and Republicans to improve the health care law but warned that lawmakers shouldn't "go backward" and repeal the measure.

In a statement, Obama said Americans deserve the freedom and security of knowing insurance companies can't deny, cap or drop their health care coverage when they need it most.

The House action to repeal the law is merely symbolic given that the Senate will not even take up the measure and that Obama is certain to veto it should it somehow pass through Congress. But it does signal the beginning of the Republican effort to chisel away at the law through attempts to deny funding for parts of the legislation as they go into effect in the coming years.

An Associated Press-GfK poll taken earlier this month finds Americans almost evenly divided on the law. The poll found that 40 percent of those surveyed said they support the law, while 41 percent oppose it. Strong opposition to the law stands at 30 percent, close to the lowest levels registered in AP-GfK surveys dating to September 2009.

As for repeal, only about one in four said they want to do away with the law completely. Among Republicans support for repeal has dropped sharply, from 61 percent after the elections to 49 percent now.

Dissatisfaction with the law stems in part from a powerful campaign by Republicans and the conservative tea party movement to portray it as further intrusion into citizens' private lives by the federal government. Some insisted the new legislation amounted to socialized medicine, even though parts of the law were lifted from a Republican plan drawn up in the 1990s.

In some extreme cases, opponents falsely claimed that the legislation would set up so-called government "death panels" to decide when to end treatment for elderly patients.

Others object to it on the basis that it's too expensive, especially given the spiraling U.S. deficit.

Now, Republicans are warning the health care reform law will cost 650,000 U.S. jobs if it is not repealed. Experts debunk that claim as a creative use of statistics from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

What the CBO actually said is that the impact of the health care law on supply and demand for labor would be small. Most of it would come from people who no longer have to work, or can move to less demanding employment, because insurance will be available outside the job. Under the previous system, most Americans got their health insurance through work.

The Obama administration released a study Tuesday saying repeal of the existing law could threaten between 50 million and 129 million nonelderly men, women and children with denial of affordable health insurance because they have pre-existing medical conditions. The administration built its estimate on changes in the law that already have taken effect or might take effect by 2014.

House Republicans issued a point-by-point rebuttal that said the administration's claim was vastly overstated and accused Democrats of "scare tactics."

Source: Fox News

New European Union school calendar omits Christian holidays

A 2011-2012 school calendar published by the European Union has omitted Christian holidays, while continuing to note important Jewish and Muslim celebrations.

The European Union has printed three million copies of the calendar which will be distributed free-of-charge to students who request them.

Former French politician and government minister, Christine Boutin, wrote in her blog Jan. 11 that the calendar leaves out Christianity, “the religion practiced or recognized as forming the cultural assembly of our ‘old’ continent.”

Boutin is a consultant for the Pontifical Council for the Family, as well as president of the Christian Democratic Party in France. She went on to lament that Christianity has “fallen into the limbo of collective ignorance.”

While Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter are missing from the calendar's pages, days commemorating “Sikh Baisakhi-Day, the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday, the Muslim holiday Aid-el-Kebir,” remain in place,” Boutin continued.

The Christian Democratic Party in France called the omissions “unacceptable” and has filed a petition asking that the calendars not be distributed as printed, but that students be given versions that include Christian holidays.

“The role of the Christian religion in the shaping of Europe is an undeniable historical fact” that the European Union cannot omit. To do so would be to “instruct students while denying that a particular religion has greatly contributed to the foundation and unity of Europe,” the organization said.

The petition states that the Christian religion is “the first of all religions in Europe. It is therefore unthinkable that it be denied, as it has great importance for the lives of all.”

For more information, visit: http://www.agendaeurope.fr

Source: Catholic News Agency

Doubt Darwin!

Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution is one of the most dangerous ideas ever entertained by the Western World.

The idea that the universe, our world, and even life have arisen spontaneously out of nothing removes the need for a Creator. Without a Creator, then, there is no judge of what is right and what is wrong. Ultimately, man himself as the pinnacle of evolution can decide what is right in his own eyes. The Nazis, led by Adolf Hitler, were staunch evolutionists and believed that one "race" of man was more superior than another. This lead to attrocities the world will never forget.


We wonder why we have an epidimic of drug use, school shootings, suicide, and depression among our youth. Could it be that they have been told they are nothing more than evolved pond scum with no real purpose in life?


We encourage you to visit our sister site, CreationRevolution.com, to read the latest scientific evidence which supports the Bible's history of Creation.

The Left Continues to Falsely Link Conservatives to Loughner

On CNN's "Reliable Sources," Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank defended a recent column where he admitted even if there is no evidence that Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck inspired Jared Loughner to shoot Congresswoman Giffords, criticism of Palin and Beck is still deserved because "both are finally being held to account for recklessly playing with violent images in a way that is bound to incite the unstable."

Best Natonal Anthem Ever?

Jim Cornelison is so skilled at performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" before sporting events that the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks hired him to do it full-time. The Chicago Bears, knowing when they have a good thing in town, invited Cornelison to sing the national anthem before today's NFC divisional playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks. To say the least, he didn't disappoint:

Reince Priebus elected Republican National Committee chairman

Reince Prebus (left) and Michael Steele.

WASHINGTON – Wisconsin Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus was elected chair of the Republican National Committee on Friday, defeating four other candidates — including incumbent Michael Steele — in the seventh round of voting.

Priebus never trailed in the voting, slowly building on his tally until he surpassed a majority of the 168 voting members.

State party chair since 2007, Priebus helped Wisconsin Republicans win back the governor's office after eight years, unseat three-term Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, and pick up two congressional seats in 2010, success the party hopes he can replicate on a national scale.

"A state that was totally black and blue is now totally red," Wisconsin GOP committeeman Steve King said in a nominating speech.

His immediate task will be to shore up the finances of a party that, despite success at the ballot box, is deeply in debt heading into the 2012 presidential election cycle.

"I'm going to start working right now," Priebus said after securing victory.

Steele, the gaffe-prone former lieutenant governor of Maryland who was elected as chairman in January 2009, dropped out of contention after the fourth round of balloting.

"I think the party is ready for something different," an emotional Steele said as he addressed party stalwarts earlier at the Gaylord Hotel in National Harbor, Maryland. "At this time I will step aside for others to lead. But in so doing I hope you all appreciate the legacy we leave."

Priebus had actually helped Steele win two years ago, and worked closely with him during his term.

Steele failed to attract much support after his surprise decision last month to seek another term. A leading reason was enunciated as the meeting convened earlier, when the RNC's treasurer announced that the party remains more than $20 million in debt.

When he won the chairmanship, Steele represented a change that even party insiders wanted after eight years of President George W. Bush. Running as an outsider, he was elected days after President Obama took office. Supporters saw him as a charismatic speaker who could give the party a new, more diverse image.

But perceptions of Steele as an articulate messenger proved mistaken, as he stumbled into a series of verbal gaffes that never really ended. Last summer, his description of the conflict in Afghanistan as "a war of Obama's choosing" horrified Republicans who backed the effort and remembered its origins under Bush. He suggested last winter that Republicans would not succeed in taking over the House, a view that left many in the GOP fuming.

Management problems at party headquarters in Washington also drew increasing, and unwanted, attention. Steele's chief of staff and another aide were dismissed after nearly $2,000 in RNC money was spent at a sex-themed West Hollywood nightclub. A falloff in contributions from big donors gave critics another target.

Other candidates included Ann Wagner, a former national committee official and U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg under Bush; Maria Cino, a longtime Republican strategist; and Michigan committeeman Saul Anuzis.

Cino had the support of new House Speaker John Boehner, who held an event with RNC members to boost her bid Wednesday night.

As the new chairman, Priebus will be tasked with helping the party get back on secure financial ground and focusing its efforts on supporting the party's nominee in 2012, presumably against Obama.

Source: LA Times