Raped and then Beheaded
While lots of us Christians in America were sipping our Starbucks today wondering if our 401k values were safe....other Christians were experiencing hell on earth.
Reports have emerged about the brutal killing of 12 Christians, including a 12-year-old boy, by the Islamic State in Syria.
The boy was the son of a Syrian ministry team leader who had started nine churches in Syria. The executions took place in village outside of Aleppo.
A spokesperson for Christian Aid said, “In front of the team leader and relatives in the crowd, the Islamic extremists cut off the fingertips of the boy and severely beat him, telling his father they would stop the torture only if he, the father, returned to Islam. When the team leader refused, relatives said, the ISIS militants also tortured and beat him and the two other ministry workers. The three men and the boy then met their deaths in crucifixion."
Eight other aid workers were separately executed for refusing to denounce their faith. In front of a crowd that was summoned to watch, two of the workers, women aged 29 and 33, were raped before all eight were beheaded.
Syria’s Christian’s population has decreased by two-thirds since 2011, when the conflict began. In Iraq, the Christian population, which numbered at close to 1.5 million in 2003 has shrunk to below 200,000 today.
"It is like going back 1,000 years seeing the barbarity that Christians are having to live under. I think we are dealing with a group which makes Nazism pale in comparison and I think they have lost all respect for human life," said Patrick Sookhdeo, founder of Barnabas Fund, a charity which helps Syrian Christians. "Crucifying these people is sending a message and they are using forms of killing which they believe have been sanctioned by Sharia law."
"For them what they are doing is perfectly normal and they don't see a problem with it. It is that religious justification which is so appalling," he added.
I'm reminded of the story of the Lutheran Church in Germany during the Holocaust of WWII.....the Jews were in trains heading to the death camps and would scream wildly as the train came by the church every Sunday morning at 11 Am. The church attenders were disturbed by all the screaming that they heard so rather than do anything about it, they simply played the organ louder and sang their hymns louder to drown out the noise of the screams.
"Oh Dennis, that's an awful story...our church would NEVER do such a thing!"
Really!! Our brothers and sisters are being raped, tortured, crucified and beheaded...and what is YOUR church doing about it? What is MY church doing about it? What are WE doing about it?
"Well Dennis, you would be happy to know that we just raised a bunch of money to install a coffee bar in our foyer so we can all get hot coffee and a sweet roll before we head into worship!"
So are we REALLY any better than those Lutherans in WWII Germany? Or are we just drowning out the screams that we REFUSE to hear from our brothers and sisters in Christ?
Hat tip to Guy B.
posted by dennis at
2:27 PM
6 Comments:
My church decided to build a 3 million dollar addition instead...
I would recommend you read the book "Lutherans Against Hitler: The Untold Story" before you make unfair statements like you did. Your arguments lose credibility when you make such ignorant statements.
http://www.amazon.com/Lutherans-Against-Hitler-Untold-Story/dp/0758608772
For decades, Lutherans have been accused of a passivistic response to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. In this careful analysis of original documents and the personal reflections of those involved in the church struggle under Hitler, Green seeks to set history straight. He identifies how Confessional Lutherans faced Nazi threats and survived to uphold the faith of Luther in the country of his birth. Green addresses both the successful statements against Hitler's regime, such as the Bethel Confession, and the divisive documents, such as the Barmen Declaration, that sundered any hope of a coordinated Lutheran, and indeed Christian, resistance to the Nazis. Readers also will discover the stories of courageous church leaders who prevented the Nazis from absorbing Lutheran Churches into the Reich Church.
Slow down Anonymous....I said "THOSE LUTHERANS" and nothing about "ALL LUTHERANS". As I think you will know there were 'good' catholics, good lutherans, and good atheists who all helped various Jews during their WWII persecution.
I have never accused any Lutherans of a passive response to Hitler. However I HAVE quoted Martin Luther on this blog and give him some credit for a share of Jew hatred and persecution....like this one; "Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer selfglory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and veheming his eyes on them."
Is it any wonder that MOST LUTHERANS that I know hold to REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY and believe that God is done with Israel and the Jews? Why....because they are deluded by these words from the founder of their faith.
"...but then eject them forever from this country. For, as we have heard, God's anger with them is so intense that gentle mercy will only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will reform them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them!"--Martin Luther
One more for you from Martin Luther...
"What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:
First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly and I myself was unaware of it will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.
Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God."
In your original post, you said "the Lutheran Church in Germany" and "those Lutherans" referring to all Lutherans in Germany during WWII. You made no attempt to discern between Lutherans WITHIN Germany at that time. You simply lumped them all together, carelessly. And in a sad way, you mocked the memory of our faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who lost their lives standing up against Hitler.
I was merely trying to let you know that not all Lutherans in Germany at that time cranked up the music (like today's contemporary praise bands). In fact, "those Lutherans" you refer to were Lutheran in name only, and completely detached from what the reformers had recovered (i.e. the gospel) and subsequently summarized in the book of Concord.
Also, not sure why you went off on the Luther rant above...it might surprise you that Lutherans don't subscribe to Martin Luther. Rather they subscribe to the teachings of Jesus Christ as taught in Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions (i.e. book of Concord). Luther is not the "founder of their faith".
I said I was reminded of the Lutheran church, which means ONE Lutheran church that happened to be along some tracks. Not sure why you assumed I was referencing ALL Lutherans in Germany.
Also the Lutherans THAT I KNOW seem to have bought into replacement theology...and it makes one wonder if it is tied to Luther's rant against Jews....which is what I said.
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