Thursday, December 8, 2016

Twisted "Christian love" is really hatred

In my previous post I was hoping to find a way to help the Muslim refugees that wouldn't put the nation in danger.  You can't love one neighbor while putting another in danger by that love, that would in fact be hating your neighbor.  This is of course what all the "sanctuary" churches are doing, hating Americans while "loving" illegal aliens. 

That's the Catholic churches.  Now I'm hearing that Methodist churches in Texas are turning themselves into sanctuary churches to accommodate the Muslim refugees, adding some teachings from Islamic sources to their sermons, turning their buildings over to the refugees, taking down crosses and other Christian symbols and effectively making them into mosques.  The scripture comes to mind that describes the "abomination of desolation standing in the holy place."  That was first of all shown by the Protestant Reformers to refer to the Pope, who is the Antichrist who sits in the temple of the living God, the people themselves who identify as Christians.  But Islam in a Christian church fits only too well.

I suppose the Methodists think they are showing Christian love to the Muslims.   In fact this is the opposite of loving your neighbor.  It's not loving the Muslims because it keeps them in bondage to their false ideology, when they desperately need to hear the gospel of salvation by Christ.  And it is not loving your American neighbors because the ultimate aim of Islam is to convert or subjugate all nonMuslims and bring the entire world under "Allah." 

But we're seeing the reversal of Christian values all over the place these days, love for hate and hate for love, good for evil and evil for good.  Islam is an ideology that hates "infidels" even if many Muslims are peaceable at any given time.  I've read enough about Islam to know that it is a totalitarian ideology whose agenda is to rule the world.  That doesn't mean individual Muslims are pursuing that agenda, but they can become tools of their ideology in spite of themselves, by being indoctrinated in their mosques and in exclusively Muslim communities. 

So it is to me a really difficult task to figure out how to live out Christ's love to them.  I've often thought that missionaries to Muslim countries must start out with a mindset to possible martyrdom -- in fact the certainty of martyrdom -- certainly a well-developed dependence on Providence and a massive support group of prayer warriors, but first and foremost a willingness to die to get the gospel to the Muslims.  You would think that the refugee situation would make missionary work a lot easier, and I suppose it does in many ways, but not if we are obligated to bring great numbers of them into our country.

If they are already in the country then it seemed to me that churches and Christians should be sure they are not isolated in Muslim communities, have a chance to hear the gospel and receive genuine Christian love.  The idea would be to live out our Christian calling toward both Muslim and American neighbors, by reducing the threat of Islam if possible.  Christians have been responding to the refugee problem in many ways already.  Perhaps the most effective is the ministries that take Bibles to them in their refugee camps, to those who are hungry to hear it and there are many. 

Turning Christian churches into mosques, or Muslim-friendly deChristianized sanctuaries, is in fact hatred:  hatred of God, hatred of Christians, hatred of Americans, and hatred of Muslims.

Perhaps there are some Christians out there who are willing to do the self-sacrificial service I was contemplating in the previous post.   THAT would be loving Muslims.  But being a friendly resource is also a service, and a lot more feasible, as the email I received suggested.