Kenneth Cragg on Apostasy (Rida, Irtidad) and Islam as a prison

A faith which you are not free to leave becomes a prison, and no self-respecting faith should be a prison for those within it.

Kenneth Cragg

(qtd. in Pikkert, Peter. 2008. Protestant Missionaries to the Middle East: Ambassadors of Christ or Culture? Hamilton, Ontario: WEC Canada. p. 134.)

Kenneth Cragg on Islam and self-idolatry

Kenneth Cragg, one-time asst. Anglican bishop in Jerusalem, is a giant in the field of Islamics and religious dialog. Here is great quote:

The urge to go forward in the custody of revelation with the patterns of authority familiar to this world [that is, the use of political and juridical coercion--AD] may easily miss the measure of the human problem, then length of men's self-idolatry, the chronic pride and defiance of the Divine, the insistent autonomy of mankind.

Kenneth Cragg
Christianity in World Perspective

Converts from Islam perscuted in W. Europe

Yep, in Western Europe. The press doesn't like to talk about it though bc it is an inconvenient truth.

[...]A few weeks ago, an immigrant from Iraq was knifed in the Dutch town of Rolde by another immigrant from Iraq. The victim was a former Muslim who had converted to Christianity; the assailant was a Muslim who took offense. Though similar events recently occurred in Rotterdam, Zutphen and Hengelo, the Dutch media prefer not to report them, the documentary said.

A former Muslim, who wished to remain anonymous because of the danger, told Dutch television that after his conversion to Christianity his car had been bashed with iron bars and stones thrown through the windows of his house. In one incident a Turk tried to assassinate his sister who had become a Christian. An asylum seeker from Iraq was told by the police to move to an undisclosed location. A Moroccan girl was also advised by the authorities to relocate.

One Christian convert received a telephone call from the local imam who threatened him with Koran verses calling for the death of apostates. “I am afraid, not just for myself, but also for the lives of my wife and children,” he said. Muslims who become Christians and subsequently try to convert others take serious risks, the police has warned. Nevertheless, many Muslim converts feel it to be their Christian duty to tell their family and friends of Jesus’ love for them.[...]

Read it all HERE.

Child marriage and divorce in Yemen

A sign of hope that this cruel process will perhaps not cease, but at least become less common in Yemen--one of the least developed countries in the entire world. Also, it's one of the countries with the highest birthrates in the world. Over three times more children per woman are born there than in any of the countries of West, last I heard.

A narrow path leads up from the mountain town of Jibla, through century-old houses, and turns into a mud track before reaching the door of Arwa's home.

The nine year old child lives with her parents and six brothers and sisters in a humble, two-roomed house overlooking the mosque built by her namesake, Queen Arwa, who ruled Yemen 900 years ago.

She knows nothing of wealth and power but, in her own way, she has helped make history.

Arwa is the youngest of three Yemeni girls who recently went to court complaining they were married against their will and asking for divorce - an astonishing display of defiance that has prompted the government to review its law on early marriage. [...]

From the BBC. But let me also point out that the official law of Yemen hardly matters at all. It is a country ruled according to the will of the local elder, that is, it is much more of feudal society than a centralized, modern nation state. So even if the law is changed it will matter little. But still, every little step helps.

Pray for Yemen.

13-yeard old rape victim sentenced to death under Islamic Shari'a

Note that this took place in a STADIUM:

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.

Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.

Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13. [...]

From CNN.

Somalia is both the most Islamic nation in the world (measured by % of population) and the most lawless nation in the world.

American Elections abroad

OK, this is from the uni where I am working on my PhD in Scotland. It's quite fascinating to see how interested other folks are in the US elections:

Obama Vs McCain Food Fight
After much Wikipedia based research our top chefs have developed a range of pizzas and burgers to honour the history of these two great Americans. From Monday 27th October you can support your candidate through the medium of Pizza in KB House or Burger in [the Student] bar.

The Obama
The Hawaiian influences will come through strong in the range, with a grilled chicken breast burger delicately topped with pineapple. Plus a ham and pineapple pizza with a Chicago style sweet bbq sauce.

The McCain
A man of the deep south, with a touch of latin influences. A burger topped with real bacon, Monterey jack cheese and smothered in spicy bbq sauce. With the pizzas covered in chorizo sausage, fresh chilli and another dose of Monterey Jack cheese.

The Results
For election results night, [the student union] will be open all night long for the election results on the big screen, with highly caffeinated drinks available once the bars close at 3am. Then just before the US has their say, we will announce the student choice for President of the free world.

Ha! Which one sounds better to you? I they both sound good, but would probably go with the The McCain because I like anything with beef that is also spicy.

Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa and Slavery

In his polemic against Islam, Richardson advances an interesting theory. He wonders why sub-Saharan Africa was not Islamized given that N. Africa and the Horn of Africa had been Islamized for many centuries by the time that the Christian missions and later the AIC's started winning millions upon millions of converts in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

His answer is that the Muslims were all slavers, given that the Quran clearly endorses slavery (and in fact has an entire chapter called The Slaves) and that the Prophet himself owned slaves, they only were able to Islamize the black Africans with whom they worked to enslave other Africans.

Had mullahs opposed slavery instead of condoning it, they could have ranged freely from Timbuktu almost to Cape Town, opening mosques and establishing Islamic school in the region. In short, they could have Islamized all of Africa, not just a fringe above and below the Sahara and on the coast of Zanzibar. (Richardson 203)

Secrets of the Koran by Don Richardson.

Doing theology today

I read this and it reminded me of writing/reading theology today. From the genius and slightly-weird Lewis Carrol:

`So here's a question for you. How old did you say you were?'

Alice made a short calculation, and said `Seven years and six months.'

`Wrong!' Humpty Dumpty exclaimed triumphantly. `You never said a word like it!'

`I thought you meant "How old are you?"' Alice explained.

`If I'd meant that, I'd have said it,' said Humpty Dumpty.

Yes, the Virgin Mary needed a savior

A common confusion I run into. Not that it makes the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception entirely palatable:

Another misunderstanding is that by her immaculate conception, Mary did not need a saviour. On the contrary, when defining the dogma in Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX affirmed that Mary was redeemed in a manner more sublime. He stated that Mary, rather than being cleansed after sin, was completely prevented from contracting Original Sin in view of the foreseen merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race. In Luke 1:47, Mary proclaims: "My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour." This is referred to as Mary's pre-redemption by Christ.

From, of course, Wikipedia.

Sleepless in Tehran

From the ineffable Thomas L. Friedman:

Have you seen the reports that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is suffering from exhaustion? It's probably because he is not sleeping at night. I know why. Watching oil prices fall from $147 a barrel to $57 is not like counting sheep. It's the kind of thing that gives an Iranian autocrat bad dreams.

After all, it was the collapse of global oil prices in the early 1990s that brought down the Soviet Union. And Iran today is looking very Soviet to me.

From HERE.

Allam to BXVI: Islam is not inherently good

Someone telling the truth to the Pope about Islam? And disagreeing with a high-placed Cardinal? What's going on these days?

...Allam told Pope Benedict he specifically objected to Cardinal Tauran telling a conference in August that Islam itself promotes peace but that "'some believers' have 'betrayed their faith,'" using it as a pretext for violence.

"The objective reality, I tell you with all sincerity and animated by a constructive intent, is exactly the opposite of what Cardinal Tauran imagines," Allam told the pope. "Islamic extremism and terrorism are the mature fruit" of following "the sayings of the Quran and the thought and action of Mohammed."

Allam said he was writing with the "deference of a sincere believer" in Christianity and as a "strenuous protagonist, witness and builder of Christian civilization."[...]

France: it's the new Lebanon

Ya rrab! Philip Jenkins sure sounds Apocalyptic when he says stuff like this. And note that he speaks of a shrinking wealthy population and growing poor one. Um, Pakistanis in the UK? N. Africans in France? Turks in Germany? Sounds like most of Europe to me:

I have an image in my mind from Lebanon. I don't know how many of you remember some of the images of that war but some of them were so much from a science-fiction fantasy. The key battle in Beirut in 1976 was the battle of the Holiday Inn, and you have the battles of the hotels, when Shiite militias finally put enough cannon in the Ramada to take out the Holiday Inn. Sometimes I wonder if something like that might be a face of civil conflict in Europe. However, I would be most alarmed not where you necessarily have a growing population or a shrinking population, but where a growing poor population meets a shrinking rich population. That to me would seem to be a Lebanon in the making.

And we know how the Lebanese story is ending: the Christians lost.

Muslim Youth Bulge meets Fertility Collapse in Europe

Philip Jenkins predicts that Europe is the "most potentially troubled area of the world."

The most important thing I would like to add to the discussion has to do with troubled areas of the world. I think we might be missing the most important potentially troubled area of the world, Europe, because what you have there is a classic Lebanese situation of a youth bulge population colliding with a youth collapse situation. If you want to understand just how dramatic the youth collapse is in Europe, think about this: why has Europe in the last 10 or 20 years not produced mass anti-immigrant movements, mass paramilitary forces or violent militias directed against immigration? The answer is that the sort of teenagers and young adults who would be expected to form those groups--the skinhead militias--aren't there.

So European politics increasingly represent this clash between, as I say, a youth bulge population and a youth collapse population and I would suggest that the potential for conflict, if anywhere, is there. One of my hobbyhorses where I would underline the greatest single danger of recruitment to the radical Islamist cause is the prisons, the most dangerous sources of recruitment and propaganda.