A doctrine of course that would not be approved of by their own prophet Muhammad. Not even Pakistan’s Blasphemy law, under Penal Code section 295, would stand in approval by Muhammad, because it fails to promote religious tolerance, something that Muhammad preached. It is also a known fact that Muhammad openly respected the words and teachings that were within Christian and Jewish scriptures, and honored the biblical prophets of Christ and Abraham.

So what we see in Christian persecution is a group of extremist that really do not know the Koran as well as Muhammad’s true teachings. These groups of bullies remind me of Muhammad’s plight against the Quraysh, in that the Quraysh, not liking the new teachings brought upon them by Muhammad, felt threatened by those teachings. The Quraysh then decided to kill Muhammad because his ideals went against their own, in that they believed in several deities as opposed to one God, which Muhammad preached. The Quraysh was making good money off of sculptures of their many idols, and felt that there was no room for someone placing ideals into their customer’s head that may effect the bottom line…a profit. So they chased Muhammad out of his homeland but failed to catch him, because Allah concealed him and his followers in a cave that was covered by a large spider web. Years later, Muhammad eventually returned to his homeland with a sizeable Muslim army and defeated the Qurash.

After showing mercy to his foe, Muhammad’s former enemies began converting over to his beliefs and teachings of the Koran, not through force, but through his shinning example of exalting religious tolerance and brotherhood for one another.

Kind of sounds like the Christian story of Moses’ plight against the Egyptians and the parting of the Red Sea, Doesn’t it? Well my long awaited point was that the current Christian persecution today reminds me of this. We are definitely worrying the extremist over something so important, that they feel threatened to the point of committing terrorism and murder of innocent people. What are we going to take away from them, if Muslims begin to convert and Christianity becomes an equal majority? Why is it that Muslim extremist feel it is there duty to mix politics and religious beliefs, or the twisting of the Holy

Koran to serve their selfish purposes. God is not great! In the name of murdering innocents or when you slam a commercial airline into a building of innocent people, who are more concerned about earning a living for their families as opposed to whose God is greater. I personally feel that we are dealing with a group of illiterates that are making excuses wielding their bible, fueled by their own hatred, whose aware that they can currently get away with criminal acts. Yes! They are aware of this and supported. How so? By individuals in power like Nazir Akhter, a senior court justice in Pakistan, who publicly stated that “It is a religious obligation to kill the blasphemer on the spot without trial,” Hence fueling individual’s into opportunist at best, not martyrs for a cause. If they are considered Martyrs, can you tell me for what honor of remembrance they should be remembered?

Let’s take a closer look at Christian tolerance of these acts of unprovoked violence to this point. Understand that there have been a few Christian uprisings out of frustration of being consistently victimized, but nothing to the scale that we witness from Muslim extremist. And as we examine this, we should ask ourselves. “How do we protect ourselves, when the Governments fails to adequately suppress such acts of violence, even against other Muslim’s that do not adhere to extremist practices?

The latest news that came out of Nigeria was that on March 8, 2004, Muslim warriors axed a worshipping group of Christians inside of their church, to death. 48 people lost their lives in Yelwa for simple going to church. The attackers, some 400 armed Muslims, were chanting outside the praise, “Alla U Akhbar”, “God is great”.

January 2004, the Muslim Emir of Wase, an instigator in many of violence perpetrated against Christians, brought more than 500 Muslim families to an area to settle into towns and villages that were abandoned by displaced Christians. On February 11th, a request was made for the Muslims to remove themselves from those homes, at which time the Muslim delegation at the village responded by telling those concerned, that they were no longer interested in a peace process. Hence ending what peace and stability the area had enjoyed.

On February 20th, Muslims attacked a Christian Church, unprovoked arriving in 13 vehicles. The attackers beat the church guard down and threatened to burn down the building, until police subsequently arrived.

After Nigeria instituted the Shari’ah law, a twenty year old Nigerian women was forced to become a Muslim, after ten years of being a devout Christian, and was subsequently raped by her chosen husband. In the Punjab province of Pakistan, a pastor named Mukhtar Masih, 50, was murdered just minutes after leaving his home. The pastor was seated and waiting for a train when he was approached and shot at point blank range in the chest. The killing was ruled a grudge killing rather than a robbery, and was believed to have happened over the Pastor agitating Muslims within earshot of his load speakers, as he would often read biblical scriptures and prayers over such speakers to a large congregation of Christian residents.

Although I have only written several examples between two countries, Pakistan and Nigeria, The eleven countries listed on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s, “Countries of Particular Concern lists”, probably could fill volumes of shameless violations. All of the countries listed on the 2004 CPC reports: Burma, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), Eritrea, India, Iran, Pakistan, People’s Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam, are countries that have a systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations in regards to religious freedom.

So when the cry and pleas for help ring out from the suffering innocent, what can we do as Christians to help? How do we as Christians, answer those calls for help? And are we now to resort to self-protection

against a merciless group of criminals? Should we employ security for Christian churches with Knight Templars? Why Not! No one else seems to care.

NEXT WEEK ON CHAIN MAIL- The Shari’ah Law- An examination
Chevalier Lehman Smith
Knight Grand Officer- Scottish Knights Templar
SECRETARY- Priory of the holy angels