There is a lot of noise at the moment about the Commonwealth Games. The festival — together with a local soccer team beating West Ham in a friendly — is on the front page of the herald, followed by publicity of the two acceptable wars: accusing the Russians of covering up or interfering in the investigation of the Malaysian flight Mh-17 and blaming Israel for killing civilians Hamas cynically uses as human shields.
But no one is talking about Mosul. Except in the blogosphere. No one is talking about the extinction of a 2000 year old Christian community. And no one is prepared to confront the slow Islamization of the West, as these barbarian fanatics subvert us by using our courts against us.
It is fairly clear that when the Wahabite fanatic gains control there are no courts but Sharia, and no religion but Islam, and no peace, but instead the whip and the sword.
After being issued an ultimatum from ISIS in Mosul, some of the city’s last Christian families have fled, only to be robbed of their last possessions at ISIS checkpoints. Friday at noon was the deadline for Christian families to meet ISIS’s demands: Convert to Islam, pay an anachronistic Islamic tax for non-Muslims known as jizya, leave Mosul, or be killed. But the day before the final exodus, Christians were informed jizya was no longer an option. The order came to convert, leave, or die.
Gathered along an unlit street on the edge of Hamdaniyah, a majority Christian town on the outskirts of Mosul, large, well-dressed families of refugees from Mosul shared their stories in their only remaining set of clothes, trying to make sense of what had happened. According to the Iraq-based Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, whose field office was receiving internal refugees in Hamdaniyah, 1,500 Christian families have fled Mosul in the last four days. They were the last of the last.
Those families leaving from the checkpoints on the eastern side of the city were harassed and robbed of their possessions but ultimately allowed to leave Mosul with only the clothes on their backs and possibly cab fare. All families who fled on the last morning reported having money, belongings, jewelry, and even documents stolen from them. Women had crucifixes torn from their necks.
But they are deluded in their doubling down on the hallucinations of that rapist, murderer and slaver Muhammad. The hope of the nations is not Islam. It is Christ. We are commanded to be gentle, not because we are weak but because we are merciful, as Christ is merciful.
But we should not be quiet, and we should not remain silent in the face of evil.
We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
Christ the Hope of Jews and Gentiles
For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,
“Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles,
and sing to your name.”And again it is said,
“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.”
And again,
“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
and let all the peoples extol him.”And again Isaiah says,
“The root of Jesse will come,
even he who arises to rule the Gentiles;
in him will the Gentiles hope.”May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
(Romans 15:1-13 ESV)
Within the West, we have lived all to long to please ourselves: indeed feminism is women saying they have the right, indeed the duty, to be selfish, to ignore their children and the men they love in their search for spiritual awakening and true freedom.
They are seeking joy, not understanding it is ephemeral.
This hedonistic impulse makes cowards of us all. We are afraid to say truth because of the cost. They are not prepared to stand with those who are right, because the fashion is currently to support fascists — from the barbarians in Mosul to the barbarians in the White House.
We have to do our duty. We have to call what is happening in Iraq what it is — a pogrom. We have to call what Hamas is doing a series of war crimes — Israel has a much right to hang every leader of that quasi state as the Americans did at Nuremberg.
And if the left call this Islamophobia, so be it. I fear that poisonous snake, which is a reason to ensure it becomes rapidly dead.
But to any Islamist, any Muslim who comes here I have one thing to say: your religion is false, your soul is in peril, and you need to turn instead to the hope of all nations, which is Christ.
For when we stop saying this we stop doing our duty, both as individuals and as a Church.