Islamic State: Militants 'kill 300 Yazidi captives'

BBC News reports: “Several hundred Yazidi captives have been killed in Iraq by Islamic State (IS) militants west of Mosul, Yazidi and Iraqi officials say.

A statement from the Yazidi Progress Party said 300 captives were killed on Friday in the Tal Afar district near the city.

Iraqi Vice-President Osama al-Nujaifi described the reported deaths as ‘horrific and barbaric’.

Thousands of members of the religious minority group were captured last year.

It is not clear how they were killed, or why this has happened now, says the BBC's Middle East editor Alan Johnston.

Many are reported to have been held in Mosul, the main stronghold of IS after the militants swept through large areas of northern and western Iraq, and eastern Syria in 2014.

Yazidis, whose religion includes elements of several faiths, are considered infidels by IS…”

Source

You're Free to Toke Up. But Don't.

With the recreational use of marijuana now legal in Colorado and Washington (and the Obama administration disinclined to enforce federal laws against it), it's only a matter of time before it is completely legal coast to coast to toke up. This is a great opportunity—not to use pot, but to reflect on the true nature of Christian freedom.

We at Christianity Today believe Christians are absolutely free to use marijuana (where legalized). And, when it comes to pot in our particular cultural context, we think it would be foolish to use that freedom.

Those who grew up with unhealthy legalism in their communities need to hear the apostle Paul's message: Strictures about what to consume or not consume are a sign that we are weak in faith, not that we are strong (Rom. 14:1–12). The one whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

So all things are permitted. But not all things are helpful (1 Cor. 6:12). The Christian's freedom is a gift that leads to serving others, with care, attention, skill, and singleness of heart. It's a freedom that willingly sacrifices easy pleasures in order to serve. And by that standard, it's hard to imagine that pot will be helpful any time soon.

Most ethical decisions, certainly those about food and our bodies, are made not in isolation but in the midst of culture and history—in a community of persons, and within a story. Consider alcohol, a toxic substance for which the human liver serves as a poison control center. Alcoholic beverages are part of many cultures, partly because before modern refrigeration, alcohol's toxicity to bacteria made such beverages far safer to drink.

But alcoholic drinks do not function the same way in every culture. If you are Jewish, you are part of a community with a low propensity to alcoholism. And you are blessed with a rich history into which is woven the gift of wine, one of the glories of human beings' cultivation of the world over millennia. If you are Russian, you are part of a community with a devastating, tragic history of addiction to vodka. What is permitted for a Christian in both cases may be the same. But what is helpful may be radically different.

In our North American context, what is the function of pot? It is associated with superficially pleasant disengagement from the world. It connotes a kind of indolence and "tuning out" that is not an option for people who want to become agents of compassion and neighbor love, not to mention its association with all kinds of immaturity. Are these the eternal truths of pot, the only possible way marijuana can be used? No. But these cultural realities are still relevant for the discerning Christian.

Then there is the question of how Christians' use of marijuana would affect those most susceptible to the idolatries of our culture. A great inequality of our time is between those whose affluence provides plentiful buffer zones for indulging in minor vices without major consequences, and those who are most vulnerable to consumer culture at its worst, tempted to depend on substances to numb the pain of lives robbed of dignity and meaningful work.

Why should Christians flaunt their freedom in matters of such grave consequence for the poor? It is hard to imagine a more direct application of Paul's admonition to the Corinthians: "Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak" (1 Cor. 8:9).

Christians despise no created thing. The marijuana plant is a part of a world that was declared good by its Maker every step along the way. But enjoying the world's delights, including its panoply of aromas, flavors, sights, and sounds, must always remain subordinate to image bearing lest it become idolatry. Image bearing involves relationship, so our use and enjoyment of creation should foster relationship. Image bearing invites us to deeper knowledge and mastery of the world, so our use and enjoyment should lead to deeper capacities and competence. Image bearing offers us gifts of attention and skill, the capacity to contribute to "the glory and honor of the nations" (Rev. 21:26).

Is marijuana a cultivated celebration of the created world, one that enhances and sharpens image bearing in all its dimensions? Or does it merely substitute for the consolations and comforts of life lived truly and honestly before God and other people? In our cultural context, the answer seems pretty clear, and the way to true freedom is clear as well.

Andy Crouch is CT executive editor.

Source: Christianity Today

With Children in Foxholes

   

 

In America, I mocked politicians who plundered for votes by shaking hands and plopping kisses on baby’s plump cheeks. Who do they think they’re fooling? Now, after more than a decade of working in Sudan and South Sudan, I’d take those friendly baby-kissing politicians in a heartbeat.

In a region where armed forces drop bombs on the sick and helpless, the leaders don’t clean up their acts and put on a smiling face for elections, which took place last week in Sudan.

President Omar al-Bashir and the governing National Congress Party declined dialogue with the opposition, and he has shown no sign of ceasing the kind of violence that resulted in a 2009 indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur. He’s the first sitting president to face such charges.

Al-Bashir has continued his bombing campaign against the rebels, who say their recent offensive is an effort to support election boycotts. Verified attacks in February and March killed 10 people and injured 61 more, including 16 children.

I recently returned from a month-long trip to the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan, where the organization I lead, Make Way Partners, supports an orphanage for 450 children. In my 30 days on the ground, we only had three without bombs.

The day before I left, the kids gathered to sing one last round of songs to celebrate our time together. When they finished, they waited for me to give a final address, reminding them to obey their teachers, do their lessons, and open their hearts to the goodness of God.

Just as they settled down under their school tree to sit and listen, they shot right back up, whirring past me like dervish dust devils. I hadn’t even detected the sound before their stampede, but in the distance, the thunder of Antonov AN24s rolled toward us. The planes sucked up the blue space of sky over our orphanage.

I helped four-year-old Kaka up from being trampled by the bigger kids. I spotted 10-year-old Rabi, whose right leg was blown off by one of these same machines the year before. His single crutch propelled him up the hillside. The staff directed each child into a foxhole, where we stayed as Antonovs circled us for more than an hour.

When they passed out of sight, we called the children out to take shade under nearby trees. When the planes returned, we didn’t have to tell them to dive back in, the thunder told them for us. We had no water, and the 130-degree heat took its toll.

More Martyrs: ISIS Executes Dozens of Ethiopian Christians in Libya

Once again, ISIS has orchestrated and filmed the dramatic mass killing of African Christians who refuse to deny their faith.

This time, the approximately 28 men targeted by the Libya affiliate of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (also known as Daesh) were Ethiopian Christians. In February, the killing of 21 mostly Egyptian Christians drew widespread horror and fears of future massacres, but also led to Egypt's largest Bible outreach.

Describing the 30-minute propaganda video released Sunday, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) explained:

The exact numbers of victims in the latest incident cannot be confirmed. The video of the executions, entitled “Until there came to them clear evidence”, switches between a scene on a beach in eastern Libya, where an estimated 15 men in orange boiler suits are beheaded by masked militants in camouflage, and a scene in a desert area in southern Libya where similarly dressed Daesh members execute a similar number of men in black boiler suits by shooting them in the head. A subtitle refers to both groups of victims as "worshippers of the cross belonging to the hostile Ethiopian church."

The video also includes scenes depicting the destruction of churches in Syria and Iraq and condemns the doctrine of the Trinity as a form of apostasy. Prior to the executions, an English-speaking masked narrator dressed in black warns that "the nation of the cross" must either embrace Islam, pay the jizya tax or face death.

The New York Times reports more details on the video, as does CNN. Regarding how Mosul Christians were told to convert to Islam or pay a protection tax, the speaker in the video says, "The Christians never cooperated."

 

Continued

US Planes Uploading Arms Supplies at ISIS-Controlled Airports?

Top commander of the Iranian Armed Forces said the US military planes are making regular flights to and from airports ISIS-controlled cities to supply the terrorist group with weapons, money and foodstuff.

“We have received reports that the US planes visit the ISIS(-controlled) airports,” Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi told reporters on the sidelines of military parades held in Tehran on Saturday morning to mark the Army Day.
“The US shouldn’t supply weapons and money to ISIS and then apologizes and says that it has done a mistake. The Americans say that they want to confront the ISIS (but) we haven’t seen any practical measure but reconnaissance and surveillance operations,” he added.
Predicting that a cruel wave of terrorism will sweep Europe, the US and all mankind in the near future, Firouzabadi said all the world people, including those in the US and Europe, should try to fight against terrorism in defense of the right of living instead of providing them with weapons and huge sums of money that has made ISIS the best paid militant and armed group in the world.
“If the US is honest in its statements that it has not created the ISIS, it can fight against it easily and we hope that the US and British governments will fight against the ISIS even for the sake of their own nations,” he added.
In relevant remarks on Tuesday, Supreme Leader’s top adviser for international affairs Ali Akbar Velayati underlined that extremist groups, including the ISIS, were born and nurtured by the US.
“Today, we see extremist groups like ISIS which are the protégés of the Americans and do not see any difference between various Muslim sects and group and massacre everyone. They claim to be supporters of Islam but their behavior and actions are against their words,” Velayati said in a meeting with Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Abu Ahmad Fouad in Tehran.
He said the interesting point was that the members of the ISIS terrorist group showed no enmity towards the Zionist regime.
Also in March, Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said the recent capture of the US military advisers who were aiding the ISIS in Northern Iraq was a compelling proof that Washington had created the Takfiri terrorist group.
“The capture of the American advisers by the Iraqi army leaves no doubt that ISIS has been created by the US,” Boroujerdi told reporters.
He underlined that the American people who would never forget the beheading of their journalists by ISIS now blast Washington officials as the main culprits in the crime.
Last month, Iraqi Special Forces declared that they had apprehended several foreign military advisors of ISIS, including American, Israeli and Arab nationals, in an operation in Mosul in the Northern parts of the country.
The Iraqi forces said they had retrieved four foreign passports, including those that belonged to American and Israeli nationals and one that belonged to the national of a Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) member-state, from ISIS’s military advisors.
The foreign advisors were arrested in a military operation in Tal Abta desert near Mosul city.

Source: Fars News

MAHDI TO RETURN BY 2016, FOLLOWED BY JESUS? Mainstream Muslim Website Makes Official Announcement

It’s not only evangelical Christians who are sensing that something has changed in the world, and that we may be entering the very last days.

Muslims are also eagerly awaiting their messiah.

In the latest evidence of this messianic fervor, a mainstream Sunni Muslim website has decreed that the Islamic messiah, called the Mahdi, will appear this year or in 2016 and that the Muslim Jesus will return in 2022 to conquer the world for Islam.

DiscoveringIslam.org and the End Times Research Center have calculated that the “first phase” of the end of time will begin soon and lead to the “Day of Judgment” in seven years.

The estimates were derived from “the latest research” into numerical analysis of the Quran, Hadith, Arabic words and historical events,” according to DiscoveringIslam.org.

“The Messenger of Allah [sallallahu 'alayhi wa-sallam] informed the Companions of everything that would occur until the Day of Resurrection,” the website reports.

“Based on our numerical analysis of the Quran and Hadith, the official beginning of the End of Time and the coming of the Imam Mahdi will most likely be in 2015 (or 2016) and Jesus Christ (p) will come down from Heaven to Earth in 2022, in-sha Allah (if Allah is willing),” the website reported.

The Quran and the Bible put forth end-times narratives that are similar but opposite. The Bible’s antichrist, for instance, resembles Islam’s messiah while Muslims view the Jesus of the Bible as their antichrist or “Dajjal.” The Quran teaches that Jesus returns to earth but for a very different purpose – to “break the cross” and convert the world’s Christians to Islam.

Bible teacher Joel Richardson underscores the inverted end-time views of the two faiths in his New York Times-best-selling book, “The Islamic Antichrist,” and his documentary film, “End Times Eyewitness.”

Richardson is an expert in eschatology, or the order of end-times events, as presented in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. He points to Jesus’ warnings in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 that false teachers and false prophets would arise in the last days to deceive many.

Richardson believes Muhammad is one of those false prophets. But the religion he founded, Islam, must be taken seriously because 1.4 billion people believe in its teachings, which are apocalyptic and getting more so, Richardson said. In fact, it’s impossible to understand what inspires and motivates Islamic radicals such as ISIS or al-Qaida if you aren’t familiar with their eschatology.

But it’s not just the radicals who believe in the Islamic teachings about the apocalypse, he said.

“It is frequently claimed that those who believe these things are but the tiny minority of radicals,” Richardson told WND. “But what the (Discovering Islam) article reveals, is that even many mainstream Muslims now believe that the last days are upon us.”

What is this Shemitah business all about? Sign up for WND’s free e-book primer on the significance of the seven-year biblical cycle that affects the world’s economies, the rise and fall of empires and more.

Many Muslims across the globe see the unfolding events in Syria and Iraq as proof that the prophetic traditions of Islam are coming to pass and will soon lead to the return of the Muslim Jesus and the Mahdi.

As previously reported by WND last October, an influential Turkish Muslim media personality and prolific author, Adnan Aktar, said he expects the Mahdi to appear in Istanbul.

Aktar said the Mahdi will communicate with spirit beings called the djinn, who will help Muslims prevail throughout the world.

ISIS expects a major battle to occur near the Syrian city of Dabiq between the soldiers of Allah and the “Romans,” who are seen as the leaders of the infidel Western powers fighting alongside apostate Muslims. Some analysts have said ISIS could be trying to hasten this battle by goading the U.S. into putting boots on the ground in Syria.

According to the Islamic view the soldiers of Allah will win this battle, ushering in a period marked by the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel and the dominance of Muslims globally.

Check out Joel Richardson’s two ground-breaking books, “The Islamic Antichrist” and “Mideast Beast,” which have won acclaim from Bible scholars the world over and led many to reconsider the view that the Antichrist will arise out of Europe.

“Even if none of these things are true, there is power in prophecy, and the sense of divine endorsement that this empowers many with will have horrific consequences in the days ahead,” Richardson said. “When Christians think about Jesus warning of the rise of false prophets in the last days, we often think of false voices within the church. No doubt, we have plenty of such voices, shouting ‘peace and security,’ ‘all is well,’ ‘thrive and prosper,’ etc. But rarely do many Christians think of the false prophetic traditions of Islam that are misleading a large segment of mankind.”

As novelist and filmmaker Joel C. Rosenberg recently noted, the greatest danger to the world is not merely radical Islam, but apocalyptic Islam.

“In Tehran, our own president has just agreed to allow the single most apocalyptic regime in the earth to attain nuclear weapons,” Richardson said. “Never before has the term ‘existential threat’ been so real.”

Read more at here

'ISIS Destroyed Christian Civilization and the World Watches'

Israel National News reports: “Waiting in an aid line outside Lebanon's capital Beirut, Assyrian Christian Francie Yaacoub remembers the well-stocked home she left behind in Syria as she fled advancing Islamic State (ISIS) group jihadists.

‘We left behind a house full of everything. Why do we now have to stand at the church door?’ she asked quietly as she waited to receive aid at the Assyrian diocese of Sid al-Boushriyeh, reports AFP.

She is one of hundreds of Assyrian Christians who have arrived in Lebanon in recent weeks after ISIS jihadists stormed their villages in Syria's northeastern province of Hasakeh.

Members of Lebanon's Assyrian community, many of them related to those who fled Hasakeh, are doing their best to welcome the new refugees, but the displacement has left them traumatized.

Yaacoub, in her fifties, now lives in a small house with her son, husband and five other Assyrian refugees. Her family fled their village, Tal Nasri, during a terrifying ISIS bombardment last week.

‘We left in our pajamas. My son walked barefoot, we left without our shoes on,’ she said. ‘The shells were falling all around us...We had to flee because the safety of your children is the most important thing.’

Yaacoub's family was not alone - thousands of Assyrians have been forced to abandon their villages along Hasakeh's Khabur river since ISIS jihadists began an attack there in February.

The group has seized at least 11 of the 33 Assyrian villages in the region, and kidnapped more than 200 members of the ancient Christian sect, which numbered around 30,000 in Syria before the war…”

Source

UN Report: ISIS May Have Committed Genocide

Israel National News reports: “Islamic State terrorists may have committed genocide in trying to wipe out the Yazidi minority in Iraq, the UN said Thursday in a report laying out a litany of atrocities, according to AFP.

ISIS ‘may have committed all three of the most serious international crimes - namely war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide,’ the United Nations human rights office said in a statement.

The agency published a horrifying report detailing killings, torture, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers by the group.

All of these crimes, it said, were violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and some may amount to ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘war crimes.’

The report, which is based on interviews with more than 100 witnesses and survivors of attacks in Iraq between June 2014 and February 2015, especially highlights brutal ISIS attacks on ethnic and religious groups, including Yazidis, Christians, Turkmen, Kurds and Shia.

ISIS, which controls a swathe of territory in Iraq and neighboring Syria, launched ‘a series of systematic and widespread attacks’ on the Yazidi minority's heartland in the northern Nineveh province last August.

According to the report, the attacks appeared intended ‘to destroy the Yazidi as a group,’ which ‘strongly suggests’ ISIS is guilty of ‘genocide’ against the Yazidi.

In numerous Yazidi villages, men and boys over the age of 14 were rounded up and shot, while the women and girls were abducted as the ‘spoils of war.'…”

Source

Malaysia Under Pressure to Implement Sharia Law Including Impalement and Crucifixion

ChristianToday.com reports: “Calls by Malaysia's Islamist opposition party for strict Islamic law that includes amputations and stonings is symptomatic of a drift to more conservative Islam in politics and could further strain relations in the multi-ethnic country.

The push by the Islamist Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) for the laws, known as hudud, also threatens to split a fragile opposition coalition that has been challenging the long-ruling Muslim party and its allies.

The disparate three-party opposition alliance that includes PAS won the popular vote for the first time in Malaysia's history in a 2013 election.

While the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and its partners still won the most seats, they are more determined than ever to hold on to power which they have enjoyed since independence in 1957.

In February, the opposition alliance's leader, Anwar Ibrahim, was jailed for five years on a sodomy charge he said was cooked up to finish him politically and foil the opposition challenge…’

Source

The Drop Box: The Compelling Story of Saving Babies

The Drop Box, released by Focus on the Family and showing in various cinemas nationwide, is a stunning, compelling true story about Pastor Lee Jong-rak of South Korea who saves babies.

Together with his wife - and with the help of other loving Christians - Pastor Jong-rak works tirelessly day and night to take care of the abandoned babies that are dropped off in what is called "The Baby box" - a drop box where birth-mothers can place their babies and know they will be cared for and loved.

Jong-rak's journey begun through the birth of his own and his own handicapped son who, in essence, becomes the icon and centerpiece of the entire story.
Many of the babies who are dropped off are handicapped in some way of other, whether Downs syndrome, physical handicaps, or premature, they share complex issues.
But those issues do not hinder the outpouring of love and care Pastor Jong-rak and his team give them.

Pastor Lee with children. They quickly become members of a large family where love reigns.
Focus-on-the-Family partnered with Kindred Image and Arbella Studios to bring us The Drop Box with the purpose of not only sharing a beautiful true story, but of hopefully touching hearts to the core to choose life and to care for children.

The film highlights the need for global orphan care, adoption, and post-adoption support.
The Drop Box also shines a light on the deep love of God, the love that never forgets any child, the love that compels those who are open to it to act radically so others may see the Light.
Pastor Jong-rak is such a person - one who acts with radical love, no matter what it costs him.

Look for the film in a local theater, and be sure to bring a large box of Kleenex. You'll need them. The film is not the best cinematic production - some cartoon drawings interspersed in the documentary and a lot of sub-titles to read - but the story is so powerful, so life-changing, you hardly notice.

See more at: here