2,000 'ticking time bombs' in U.S. – and counting

• In Germany, following a wave of Islamic immigration, one political party is considering a call for shutting down all of the country’s mosques in a desperate bid to prevent terrorist attacks, rape sprees and other acts of violence and Muslim domination.
• In the U.S., President Obama marked the new year by visiting a mosque and has invested a great deal of effort to downplay the connection between Islam and terrorism, while leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has proposed temporarily halting all Muslim immigration.
• A growing chorus of U.S. politicians, pundits and scholars are calling for closer monitoring of U.S. mosques, the number of which has grown exponentially since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on U.S. soil.

Experts on Islamic terrorism are calling the estimated 2,500 to 3,100 mosques in America “ticking time bombs.”

Every state now has at least one. California and New York lead the way, each with more than 500 mosques, followed by Texas with just over 300.

As the number of mosques increase, so do acts of Islamic terror in the U.S.

FBI Director James Comey told Congress recently that his agency is stretched to the limit trying to keep up with nearly 1,000 active ISIS investigations in all 50 states, and that does not include probes tied to al-Qaida, al-Shabab or other Islamic groups.

While the FBI is able to foil the vast majority of Islamic terror plots, last year was particularly bloody with jihadist shootings in Chattanooga that killed five U.S. servicemen and another attack that took 14 lives at a Christmas party in San Bernardino.

Jihadist knife attacks at a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, and on the campus of University of California at Merced have recently injured at least a dozen others, some critically.

And everyone is jittery after what happened in Brussels, Belgium, last month.

Of the thousands of mosques in America, nearly 80 percent of them have been opened since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

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Flemish Nationalists Launch Islamwatch Website, Charting ‘Islamist’ Growth In Belgium

The Islamwatch website being launched today by Flemish nationalists aims to report, map and monitor the gradual ‘Islamisation’ of Flanders.

The populist Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest – VB) party is today launching the Islamwatch website in Belgium. The party is a member of Marine Le Pen’s political block in the European Parliament, the Europe of Nations and Freedom Group.

According to VB’s press release the aim of the new online platform is to monitor the Islamisation of the country through the submission of reports of such signs as a new neighbourhood mosque, active Islamic organisations, a newly-opened halal butcher’s shop, sex-segregated swimming, or veiled shop assistants and teachers.

“It is important that these facts are recorded and mapped,” said leading VB Member of Parliament Filip Dewinter (pictured), “that way we can see how the Islamisation of our cities and communities is evolving and growing to then respond appropriately.”

Mr. Dewinter also identified Belgium’s “open borders policy” and extremely lax attitude towards defending cultural values ​​and norms as reasons for terrorism in his country, adding:

“Without mass immigration no Islamisation, without Islamisation no Islamic terror.”

The website has been criticised by anti-racism campaigners, according to EurActiv. The European Network Against Racism (ENAR), which represents 150 groups from across the European Union (EU) described it as a “denunciation website” and said it was illegal under Belgian and EU rules proscribing discrimination and incitement to hatred. ENAR said:

“This is a deliberate call to hatred and stigmatisation of the European Muslim community, at a time when we urgently need to encourage dialogue and unity.

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Report: 1/3 of Iraqis believe US supports ISIS

Israel National News reports: “Anti-American sentiment in Iraq remains strong, a State Department report revealed this week, to the point of widespread belief in conspiracy theories.

One-third of Iraqis believe that the US ‘supports terrorism in general or ISIL [ISIS] specifically,’ the report, based on information from October and November 2015, reveals. About 40% believe that the US is ‘working to destabilize Iraq and control its natural resources.’

Overall, the US ‘image among Iraqis has fallen from 38% favorable in December 2014 to 18% in August 2015.’

Moreover, ‘conspiracy theories’ regarding the US’s involvement in Iraq run rampant throughout official media, the report noted. The State Department blamed the phenomenon on ‘active disinformation campaigns’ and lingering suspicions about US motives.

Incredibly, many Iraqis believe the US created ISIS to plunder Iraqi oil, as John Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stated to ABC News…”

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Christian student expelled from university for quoting Bible on homosexuality

ChristianToday.com reports: “A married Christian student with four children has been expelled from his university because he wrote a post on Facebook opposing gay marriage.

Felix Ngole, aged 38, was asked to leave the University of Sheffield [UK], where he was in the second year of a Masters in social work.

He is to appeal against the decision, which came after members of the faculty decided he might have ‘caused offence’ to some people for expressing support for Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk jailed after refusing to issue same-sex marriage licences.

In the comments on Facebook profile, which were not visible to anyone outside his circle of friends, he quoted Leviticus in support of biblical teaching on marriage and sexual ethics.
The post was brought to the attention of the faculty at Sheffield. Following a Faculty of Social Sciences ‘fitness to practise’ committee hearing, he was advised he has been ‘excluded from further study on a programme leading to a professional qualification’ and is ‘no longer recognised as a University student’.

This was because the committee believed that he ‘may have caused offence to some individuals’ and had ‘transgressed boundaries which are not deemed appropriate for someone entering the social work profession.’ His action would have an effect on his ‘ability to carry out a role as a social worker,’ the committee said…”

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China will become the most Christian nation in the world

February 25, 2016 By Chad Dou and Mark Ellis

Megachurch in China

Within 15 years, China should become the country with the most Christians in the world, according to a study.

Fenggang Yang, of Purdue University, predicts that China will reach 224 million Christians by the year 2030, as quoted in the UK Financial Times.

“By my calculations China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon,” said Yang, an expert in sociology and author of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule, in the UK Telegraph. “It is going to be less than a generation. Not many people are prepared for this dramatic change.”

The explosion of Christianity in China will upend the traditional Christian powerhouses of the world. In 2010, the U.S. had around 159 million Protestants, and many observers say congregations are in decline.
As part of a possible passing of the baton, China is now sending missionaries – especially to North Korea.

Celebrating Christmas Eve in Beijing

“The number of Christians is extremely underestimated (in China) intentionally because the increase of religion would reflect negatively on government officials.” said Yang.
Currently, there are about 100 million Christians in the world’s most populous nation, which eclipses the 86.7 million-strong membership of the ruling Communist party, according to the Financial Times.

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When girls get raped at 14 by tribal custom, there is an urgency for the Gospel in these remote Peruvian villages

By Mark Ellis

The Evangelista arrives at Santa Elise

It is still warm in the early evening as Pastor Ricardo Hidalgo Rojas edges his aging, flat-bottom boat “Evangelista” into the tiny village of Santa Elise. Children crowd the banks of the Yucayali River, a tributary of the Amazon, a five-hour boat ride from Pucallpa.

Of the 350 Shipibo people inhabiting this primitive village of thatched roof, single room houses, 60 are now followers of Jesus thanks to Pastor Ricardo. In the next four days, he and a team of high school students from Laguna Beach, California will complete the construction of a simple church to accommodate the growing ranks of Shipibo believers.

Pastor Ricardo (right) with two new Shipibo pastors

The need for the Gospel is great in the smaller, more remote villages in the Amazon River basin that follow animistic tribal customs. One of those traditions includes men raping young women when they reach 14-years-old as an initiation into womanhood. In the cities, the perpetrators would get arrested for this, but these villages are beyond the reach of government laws.

Pastor Ricardo says his mother’s prayers inspired his call to this ministry. “Since I was little, she prayed, ‘God, I don’t want a place for my children in this world; I want a place for my children in your kingdom.”

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Muslim sees Jesus in dream, finds a peace beyond ‘morphine’

 Muslim sees Jesus in dream, finds a peace beyond ‘morphine’
March 1, 2016
 By Mark Ellis

 Husain* grew up in a region with some of the hardest spiritual ground in the world for Christianity to penetrate – yet God always finds ways to soften stony hearts and bring deeply satisfying peace to his children.
It seems this young Muslim man had become dissatisfied with Islam, according to a blog post on the Frontiers USA website. After a Christian TV program got Husain’s attention, he contacted the network for more information.

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CBN on the Frontlines: ISIS Launches Gas Attack in Iraq

SINJAR, Northern Iraq -- The Iraqi Kurds have been fighting for almost two years to push the Islamic State out of northern Iraq. Recently they retook the city of Sinjar near the Syrian border in a bid to cut off ISIS supply lines to Mosul
But ISIS is fighting back, launching a chemical weapons attack against the Kurdish Peshmerga.

On Thursday, the jihadist army fired 19 chemical rockets into the front-line positions of Sinjar. Over 100 people - mostly Peshmerga - were sickened.
"This is why we can not come back," one man said. "ISIS is still close enough to kill us in many ways. And now they are using chemical weapons. Please help us push them back far away, please stop them."


Eliya, Karen FBR Medic helps Kurdish chemical casualty in Sinjar, Feb. 25. Chuck Holton, CBN News.

When the Islamic State pushed into northern Iraq in 2014, most of the ethnic Yazidi residents of the area were forced to flee. In November 2015, Kurdish Peshmerga forces were able to recapture a portion of what they'd lost, including Sinjar, a city that was once home to half a million people.

Continued: CBN News

'Risen’ Movie Raises Old Hollywood Trope — Unbeliever Meets Jesus

“Faithful Viewer” is an occasional feature in which RNS reporters plumb religion and spirituality in film, television, books, music and other forms of popular culture.

An unbeliever in the midst of an existential crisis meets Jesus and has a conversion experience. High-mindedness — not high jinks — ensues.

Audiences have seen this old Hollywood trope before: in “Quo Vadis,” (1951),  “The Robe,” (1953), “Ben Hur” (1959). And now in “Risen,” opening Friday (Feb. 19), a month before Easter.
And while a lot has changed in the nearly seven decades since the first of these “come to Jesus” movies, the core plot mechanism of “he-of-little-faith meeting the ultimate man of faith” remains.
Why the resurrection of such an old narrative device, minus the sequined costumes, wigs and Max Factor makeup, which have been replaced by whips, scourges and buckets of blood (thanks, Mel Gibson and “The Passion of the Christ”!)?

“I think the idea of being carried through the narrative of Christ, from his Crucifixion to the Resurrection and the Ascension, through the eyes of nonbeliever allows us to come at this from a soft angle,” said Joseph Fiennes, the British actor who plays unbeliever Clavius in “Risen.” “Clavius represents the everyman. We’re all on a hunt, theological or not. We’re all on some form of investigation or discovery.”

In “Risen,” Clavius is a high-ranking Roman soldier who, as the right-hand man of Pontius Pilate (an excellent Peter Firth), has a front-row seat at the Crucifixion. With his own eyes he sees Jesus dead and buried in a sealed tomb. So when the body is missing and reports of Jesus sightings come in, Clavius turns into the most skeptical of detectives, looking for the corpse.

Instead (SPOILER ALERT!) , he encounters a very much alive, very jolly Jesus (“Yeshua,” in this film, played by Cliff Curtis). From there, let’s just say Clavius makes some changes in his life.
The end.

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If 'The Bachelor' is a Strong Christian, Why is His Faith Hidden on the Show?

Ben Higgins is the most famous software salesman in America. The six-foot-five graduate of Indiana University loves children and the Chicago Cubs. He also stars on this season's The Bachelor. And he is a strong evangelical Christian.

 

You wouldn't know the last fact from watching the show, however. 

 

According to Slate's Ruth Graham, Higgins makes his faith clear—he blogs about Jesus, quotes Christians on his Instagram, and wears a tattoo of Proverbs 16:3. But the show's producers blur or minimize his commitment to Christ, so viewers get only a glimpse of generic religion as they follow his story. And they don't know that Ben plans to abstain from sex until he is married. 

 

Why is his faith so secret on the show? I could not find any information about the personal faith of Mike Fleiss, the show's producer. But his goal for The Bachelor is clear: to attract as many viewers as possible. Fleiss says the average Bachelor sleeps with three women each season. This is clearly part of the show's allure. 

 

Unfortunately, biblical morality doesn't draw an audience.

 

Continued.