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1 Peter 4:1
Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.
Romans 8:36
For Thy sake we are killed all the day long.
The Early Church spread through the then-known world at a speed that has never been matched since. We might find the reason for it in the fact that the Early Church expected suffering.
M.W. Downey, M.A., says: “Stephen is martyred but Paul is converted and Christians go everywhere preaching the Word. James, the brother of John is slain with the sword. Paul is beheaded. Peter is crucified.
And soon the tiny rivulet of martyrs’ blood becomes a raging river. Within three centuries it was estimated that ten million souls were brutally killed.
But the gates of hell could not prevail. The Church went on. Amidst the faggots and flames and the fury of wild beasts, the saints sang their sons of triumph. The darkness could not extinguish the light. It never can. It never will.”
The Methodists spread from Britain to America, and such was the spirit of conquest and sacrifice that one writer tells us that of “the first 700 Methodist preachers to die in active service in America, one-third of them died before they were thirty-five years of age, while two-thirds of them died before they were able to render more than an average of twelve years of service!” It is no wonder that American Methodism grew by such leaps and bounds.
Catherine Booth, mother of the Salvation Army, said: “Trial reveals us to the world. As the greatest manifestation of God to the world was by suffering, so the most influential revelation of His people to the world has been by suffering. They are seen to the best advantage in the furnace. The blood of martyrs has ever been the seed of the Church.
The patience, meekness, firmness, and happiness of God’s people in circumstances of suffering, persecution and death have paved the way for the Gospel in almost all lands and all ages.
A baptism of blood has prepared the hard and sterile soil of humanity for the good seed of the Kingdom, and made it doubly fruitful.
The exhibition of the meek and loving spirit of Christianity under suffering has doubtless won thousands of hearts to its Divine Author, and tamed and awed may a savage persecutor, besides Saul of Tarsus. When men see their fellow men enduring with patience and meekness what they know would fill them with hatred, anger, and revenge, they naturally conclude that there must be a different spirit in them.
As may be expected, the spiritual children of such a mother were ready for sacrificial toil. Speaking of one Salvationist, A. Hocking says: “As may be expected he was a warrior. He said that Saints were not only Sons, but Soldiers. He claimed that the work of God moved slowly apace because there were not enough men and women prepared to get into a great big row for Jesus Christ. He looked upon himself as God’s crockery and – ‘If the Lord can afford to see His own crockery broken, then it’s His look-out, not mine.’ He walked with a limp which he received when he was lamed from handling by roughs after a service.”
Achievement still demands
The same unchanging price;
He dies with empty hands
Who makes no sacrifice. – Matthew Knight.
Reading : Acts 19: 21-41.
- Royal Purposes: E.F. & L. Harvey
Next Monday, May 2nd, Canadians are going to the polls for their third general election in five years. Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party have governed Canada since the 2006 election which made that party the largest party in the Canadian House of Commons, although a minority within that chamber. In October 2008, right before our presidential election, Harper received a larger mandate, though still with a minority in Parliament. Prime Minister Harper governs but he cannot enact real reforms without a majority in Parliament.
Harper and his party need 155 seats. Right now they have 144 seats. The Liberal Party is the strongest opponent of Harper right now. It has 77 seats in Parliament. Next is the New Democratic Party with 37 seats. The Bloc Quebec, or French separatist party, has 48 seats. Elections in Canadian ridings, or legislative districts, are “winner take all,” so that the candidate with the most votes wins the seat even if he does not have a majority of the votes. Out of these four parties, only the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party have governed Canada.
Unlike other parliamentary democracies, minority governments — governments in which the party in power does not command a majority, directly or through coalitions with other parties — are not unusual. Since 2004, the governments of Canada have all been minority governments. Stephen Harper and his party are urging Canadians to let the Conservatives really govern, and give his party a majority.
Might that happen? The pre-election polls are all over the map. Recent polls show a surge for the New Democratic Party led by Jack Layton. The NDP has moved from its historic role as the third largest national party (Bloc Quebec has votes only in Quebec). That surge may siphon off enough leftist votes from the Liberal Party to allow Conservatives to win a majority, but it might also give the NDP enough seats to actually push the Conservatives out of power, either by becoming the largest party (which is pretty unlikely) or reducing the Conservative plurality to below 2006 election levels.
What does this general election mean to us? Jack Layton is an old-style leftist who supports higher corporate taxes, increasing social welfare spending, supporting union rights, making environmental regulation tougher, defending gay rights, and supporting nice sounding international efforts. There is nothing “New” about the New Democratic Party at all. It is a mishmash of every failed policy of modern leftism.
Canadian business and conservative Canadians know what to expect with the “Grits” or Liberal Party. It has held power for most of the last twenty years. They also know Harper and his party, which has governed since 2006. The New Democratic Party, however, would pursue policies very much like Obama and his minions. Layton would try to use the public treasury to spend away every problem of life. Tax rates would jump. All the grim decline which has followed Obama’s policies would be replicated in Canada.
Should that matter to us? Yes, emphatically, it should. Canada under Harper has been one of the few bright spots; some might say the only bright spot, in the democratic West. The Canadian Prime Minister has been as clear in denouncing anti-Semitism as any Western leader, including our own Obama. The Canadian dollar is doing well. The public finances of the nation are good. Our neighbor to the north, our greatest trading partner and closest ally, has one of the largest economies in the world, and Canada is by far the largest producer of oil among the stable Western world. We take Canada for granted — we nearly always take Canada for granted — but Canada is a vitally important country to America.
Stephen Harper is from Alberta which produces vast amounts of oil, and he understands the petroleum industry. He is, by far, the Canadian political leader most sympathetic to free market solutions to problems like energy. Although a comparison to Texan George W. Bush is a big stretch, it is fair to say that Harper with a majority would do more than any Canadian in recent memory to expand oil production. A true Conservative majority in Parliament could also guarantee stability and growth in the Canadian economy. A prosperous Canada with a strong dollar producing as much oil as practicable would help the American economy significantly. Economic prosperity is not a zero sum game, particularly with nations like Canada which are closely connected to our economy. If Canada stays out of recession and keeps inflation low, we win too.
What if Harper loses power? What if Layton is the new Prime Minister of Canada? Almost certainly, investors and businesses with operations in Canada will see tax increases and regulatory burdens increase. If the Canadian dollar begins to weaken, then that will not help our public financial situation at all. Energy costs will rise and energy supplies shrink. We can expect more political correctness and less help in combating terrorism in our nation and, perhaps, a more porous border with Canada. We will also see in Layton yet another of those dreary dinosaurs whose sympathies lie first with our nation’s enemies, rather like the man sitting in the White House today. America, already, seems very alone in the world. If Harper loses, we will feel much lonelier.
Watch next Monday closely. No one, honestly, knows what will happen. It could be very good news or it could be very bad. But it will be very important to us.
Obama’s shrinking Mideast influence gives way to Iran’s growing clout
The fast-paced political earthquakes in the Middle East that we have been witnessing in recent weeks have one common denominator — President Obama’s influence in the region has shrunk to somewhere between a pittance and zero, while Iran’s has been bolstered across the board.
By his inability to shape events, Obama created a political vacuum that Iran’s theocratic rulers are filling at an accelerating pace.
Five examples should suffice:
EGYPT–The Egyptian revolution has led to a perceptible warming of relations between Cairo and Tehran. Once a bulwark against Iranian hegemonic ambitions, Egypt now is nurturing a warm detente with Iran — and the ayatollahs are only too happy to respond in kind. The Muslim Brotherhood, banned under Mubarak, is positioning itself as a major player in the new Egypt with an agenda bound to please Iran, while leaving Washington out in the cold..
LIBYA–When the “Arab Spring” erupted and spread to Libya, Obama was quick to posture that “Qaddafi must go.” But Obama applied no muscle to make this happen. Just the opposite. He insisted on a NATO intervention to be led by Britain, France, Italy and other alliance members, with the U.S. ”leading from the rear” in a strictly supportive role. Qaddafi hasn’t gone away.
SAUDI ARABIA–King Abdullah is furous at Obama’s quick readiness to throw Mubarak under the bus, leaving the Saudis bereft of their most important partner in resisting Iranian expansionism.
LEBANON–The influence of Hezb’allah, a terrorist Iranian surrogate, has been steadily rising on Obama’s watch — despite a lot of hollow denunciations from the White House and the State Department. In fact, Hezb’allah now is the dominant political force in Lebanon. Obama’s generous investments in trying to build up the Lebanese Army have boomeranged.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE–Obama’s greatest diplomatic disaster. When Obama came into office , he waded promptly into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, claiming that he could succeed in fairly short order where his predecessors struck out. Tipping the balance against Israel, he insisted that Prime Minister Netanyahu order a total construction freeze in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as a precursor to resumption of peace negotiations. Palestinian President Abbas had no choice but to insist on the same pre-condition. But Netanyahu, citing a history of previous negotiations without pre-conditions, wouldn’t go along. Obama belatedly realized that he had blundered and tried to walk back his rash demands on Israel. That in turn infruriated Abbas, who rightly felt that Obama had left him twisting in the wind — and said so publicly in a sharp rebuke to Obama. Instead of heeding Obama’s agendato for a negotiated peace, Abbas left Obama in the lurch and opted instead for getting the UN to recognize unilaterely Palestinian statehood.
Finally, Abbas completely distanced himself from Obama by cutting a reconciliation deal with Hamas, another terrorist surrogate of Iran. Riding high, Tehran immediately blessed the Fatah-Hamas “unity’ agreement, brokered by Cairo’s new power elite, as “the first achievement of the Egyptian revolution.” Hamas immediately vowed there would be ”no recognition, no negotiations” with Israel with Hamas sharing power.
Wherever one looks at the Middle East map, Obama’s star is dimming and Iran’s keeps glowing ever brighter, an Obama legacy bound to haunt Washington for years to come.
Call them “born again” undecideds: Republicans exploring bids for the presidency in 2012 have ramped up their religious fervor and sharpened answers to questions about faith in an effort to court social conservative voters in key early primary states.
“I believe in God. I am Christian. I think the Bible is certainly, it is ‘the’ book,” real estate mogul Donald Trump told the Christian Broadcasting Network last week after catapulting to second place in a poll of unofficial GOP presidential contenders.
But as voters begin to scrutinize the lives of a wide-open field of unofficial GOP presidential contenders, several personal histories might raise red flags in some religious circles.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s transition from the Catholic Church to evangelical Protestantism in the 1990s after marrying his wife, Mary — a move he explains in his book “Courage to Stand” as an effort to “merge my faith and my church life” — could hurt his appeal among some Catholic primary voters, several Catholic political activists said.
“To the degree that Catholics know about Pawlenty’s conversion, they won’t like it,” ABC News political contributor Cokie Roberts said.
Meanwhile, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich might have curried favor among Catholics with his high-profile conversion to the church two years ago, leaving his Baptist roots behind. Some observers believe the shift, which came as he also sought public forgiveness for his marital infidelity, could also help him among Christians in general by demonstrating that he has been spiritually reborn.
“Newt’s conversion could affect his candidacy in an indirect way by helping him explain some of his decisions,” Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote.org, said of Gingrich’s three marriages and confessed affair with a hill staffer, who later became his wife.
Trump has also been put on the spot by Christian evangelicals for his two failed marriages. “I’m a very hard worker, and I’ve always said it’s very difficult for a woman to be married to me because I work all the time,” he told CBN’s David Brody when asked to explain why they failed.
And then there’s former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, which stunted his bid in 2008, and could remain a touchy subject with religious conservative voters in 2012.
“Mormonism for most conservative Christians who have read about Mormonism, who have investigated it, would be in a different category,” said Chuck Hurley, president of the Iowa Family Policy Center, who has begun sizing up the potential nominees making swings through the state. “I have met people who call themselves Mormon that I think are pretty biblically orthodox, but the deeper you look into the roots and tents of Mormonism, the more divergence you find.”
Religious leaders in Iowa and South Carolina, where evangelicals wield significant influence in caucuses and primaries, praised the leading likely candidates for their testimonies of faith and orthodox positions on issues such abortion and same-sex marriage.
But when it comes down to picking a nominee, they say, they’re really looking for genuine religiosity, which may be a problem for some Republican hopefuls who’ve stumbled along the road to Damascus.
“We will not just go by what they say and what we see,” Hurley said. “It’s much more important what they really, really believe. Do they walk the talk.”
Hurley said he recently spent nine hours one-on-one with possible presidential contender and Tea Party favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. And while he wouldn’t comment on the appeal of her potential candidacy at an early stage, he said she set the bar high for meetings with other prospective candidates seeking to do well in Iowa.
“It’s going to boil down for a lot of people to whether they think a candidate is genuinely committed to faith,” said Steve Scheffler of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. “Do they have a deep faith, did their religious principles also guide their public policy decisions in the past?
“I’m encouraging people not just to ask the generic questions on the social issues, but actually come up with tough questions so they can’t just tell you what you want to hear,” he said.
Religious conservatives admit that measuring religiosity is subjective, but offered a litany of factors beyond denominational labels and church affiliation that they find important, including regular public references to devotion to Jesus Christ, a record of moral personal behavior, scrupulous worship attendance and powerful adult spiritual conversion stories.
“For some people, the labels might be a factor,” Tom Chapman of the Iowa Catholic Conference said, “but I think more importantly they’re looking at the person … and here in Iowa, they expect a retail-type campaign that allows them to meet the person at some point.”
The biggest hurdles may be faced by the two potential Mormon candidates — Romney and outgoing U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman. Thirty-five percent of Americans from across the political spectrum said in 2007 ABC News-Washington Post poll that they’d be less likely to support a presidential candidate who’s a Mormon.
But experts say that sentiment could be changing, similar to a shift in public opinion toward Catholicism and politics that has evolved since more than 50 years ago.
“There’s no systematic evidence that Americans have moved beyond their aversion to Mormonism, but my intuition is that it might be less problematic for Mitt [Romney] the second time around,” said John Green, an expert on religion and politics at the University of Akron and senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
And, Green said, while stances on economic and social issues have historically trumped specific religious affiliations in GOP primaries, a particularly large field of more than five candidates could mean denominational differences will be in play.
“In states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, which have significant conservative Catholic populations, it’s possible religious affiliation alone may make a small difference,” Green said. “If you’ve got five or six candidates or more, then very marginal changes within these religious voting blocs could be the difference between winning or losing a primary.”
No faith community was left undamaged by the 2008 recession, a new survey reveals.
More than half (57 percent) of congregations across the spectrum – including evangelical, Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, and Baha’i – were negatively impacted, according to The Hartford Institute for Religion Research. But perhaps what is more notable is that the financial health of congregations has been in decline long before the downturn even hit.
Hartford’s survey, released Wednesday, found that the percentage of congregations reporting some or serious financial difficulty more than doubled to nearly 20 percent in the past 10 years. And those saying that their financial health was excellent dropped from 31 percent in 2000 to 14 percent in 2010.
The recession only exacerbated their economic situations, said David Roozen, director of The Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
Roozen believes the poorer financial health of many churches is tied to declining membership, particularly among more traditional congregations.
“It seems like over the last decade we’ve moved into an era of … kind of an erosion (not a drop-off), certainly of traditional American religious beliefs and practice,” he observed.
And evangelicals aren’t exempt. Roozen noted that many evangelical groups have also been seeing slowed growth.
Congregations being hit the hardest, he said, are ones that are less willing to change.
“If we’re in a time of change overall … and you need congregations to continue to thrive, you probably need to be thinking about how we can adapt to the changing world,” he commented to The Christian Post.
The report, entitled “Holy Toll,” found that Reform and Conservative Judaism congregations are in the worst financial health compared to other religious groups in the U.S. Around 40 to 48 percent of those congregations reported “some/serious” difficulty while only 17 percent said they were in good or excellent financial health.
Other groups struggling include mainline Protestant groups. Around a quarter of those from the United Church of Christ, The Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Christian Reformed Church, Unitarian Universalist congregations, and Orthodox Christian churches said they are in some or serious difficulty.
Meanwhile, faith groups faring well with more than half reporting good or excellent financial health include those from the Baha’i tradition – where members meet in houses and have volunteer leadership, Roozen noted – as well as the Churches of Christ, Mennonite Church USA, Muslims, and the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Half of nondenominational churches also said their economic situation was good or excellent. Nondenominational churches were also among the least likely to report some or serious financial difficulty, with only 10 percent saying they’re having a hard time.
The report is part of the larger FACT (Faith Communities Today) 2010 national survey. Results are based on responses from over 11,000 congregations across faith traditions, and the multifaith national sample is proportionate to the actual U.S. religious demographic, Roozen noted.
Commenting on the overall report, Roozen observed that the recession is just “the latest stressor in a decade-long trend toward ministry being more challenging.”
“There’s no question that religion overall in the United States is being stressed on many accounts. So it just makes ministry more challenging and that will likely continue,” he said.
For all but five to 10 percent of the congregations, challenging financial times are likely to pass, he noted.
Already, one in 10 congregations said they have begun to recover from a dip in income due to the recession. And over 40 percent are now stable or increasing financially, the survey found.
The keys to financial recovery, the survey suggests, include high spiritual vitality, higher attendance, avoiding “serious” conflicts, and more openness to change – particularly, changing a congregation’s worship style.
Another key, Roozen pointed out, is a clearer sense of vision or purpose.
“You need to be focused and you need to have the congregation focused. If you have a vague or very outdated vision and purpose, then there’s no place to rally the congregation,” he said.
For the third time in just the past few years, and the second time in 2011 alone, Christians have been attacked and killed, allegedly by Muslim mobs, over a disputed election result across Africa’s vast expanses.
Reports coming both from International Christian Concern as well as The Barnabas Fund reveal that the latest massacres have happened in Nigeria.
There, a recent election saw a Christian candidate picked over a Muslim challenger.
Similar situations developed earlier in both Kenya, where President Barack Obama campaigned for the Muslim challenger, and in Ivory Coast, where a Christian president re-elected and confirmed by his own nation’s election procedures was removed from office and replaced by a Muslim challenger at the behest of the United States and the United Nations.
In Nigeria, Muslim rioters killed more than 100 Christians and burned more than 40 churches yesterday “in response to the election of Jonathan Goodluck, a Christian, as president,” according to ICC.
“The Muslim attackers allege that the election was rigged and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim presidential candidate, is the rightful winner. Yet, impartial observers have called this election the fairest in decades,” the organization said.
It cited a report from a Commonwealth election observer who said, “The elections for the National Assembly and the presidency were both credible and creditable and reflected the will of the Nigerian people.”
The ICC reported the full extent of the casualties and damages isn’t readily available.
“The casualties could be much higher as the attacks took place over many of the 12 Muslim majority states in northern Nigeria,” the organization reported. “The situation is beginning to calm since security forces were deployed and enforced a 24-hour curfew.”
But it said minority Christians in those Muslim-majority areas “have faced repeated bouts of violence and discrimination” and “tens and thousands of Christians have been killed” over the years.
“We are very saddened by the violence against Christians and their property in northern Nigeria,” said Jonathan Racho, ICC’s regional manager for Africa. “Disputes over elections shouldn’t have been allowed to lead to religious violence against Christians.”
Officials with the Barnabas Fund echoed his concerns.
“The Red Cross is reporting that many people have been killed, hundreds injured and thousands displaced,” the organization reported.
The circumstances in Ivory Coast were similar. There, the re-elected Christian president was taken into custody just days ago as the French military intervened on behalf of a Muslim candidate.
There, Muslim candidate Alassane Ouattara took over from Christian incumbent Laurent Gbagbo after the U.N. and the U.S. demanded the change.
Gbagbo had remained in office after he was declared the winner by the nation’s own constitutional election process, which had determined there was voter fraud in the Muslim regions of the nation, and that fraud gave the initial election result that Ouattara had won.
“Supporters of the two men are split broadly along the country’s geographical, ethnic and religious divide. The predominantly Muslim north largely backs Ouattara, a Muslim from that region, while support for Gbagbo, a Christian, comes from the mainly Christian south. As forces loyal to Ouattara have fought to install their man, Christians, who are associated with Gbabgo, have been particularly targeted; imams have reportedly called on Muslims to attack Christians,” the Barnabas Fund report said.
“The country’s electoral commission announced Ouattara as the winner of the November poll – with 54 percent of the vote – and this result was backed by the United Nations. But Ivory Coast’s Constitutional Council, the body that certifies election results in the country, declared Gbagbo the winner based on valid votes cast. It annulled results in seven northern regions amid reports of electoral irregularities.”
In Ivory Coast, there was a massacre of between 800 and 1,000 people “who were seeking shelter at a Christian mission compound in Duekoue,” according to Barnabas Fund. The attackers reportedly were “descendants of immigrant Muslims … loyal to Ouattara.”
It was in 2007 when the election battle – and massacres – developed in Kenya.
Then-Sen. Barack Obama campaigned for now-Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, a Muslim. Obama barnstormed on behalf of Odinga, the socialist who hails from the same tribal heritage, the Luo, as Obama.
Appearing with Odinga at campaign stops, Obama gave speeches accusing the sitting Kenyan president of being corrupt and oppressive.
Then on Aug. 29, 2007, Odinga signed a secret Memorandum of Understanding with Muslim Sheikh Abdullah Abdi, the chief of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya. In exchange for Muslim support, Odinga promised to rewrite the Kenyan constitution to install Shariah as law in “Muslim declared regions,” elevate Islam as “the only true religion” and give Islamic leaders “oversight” over other religions, establish Shariah courts and ban Christian proselytism.
Even with strong Muslim backing, Odinga was beaten in the December 2007 elections. He then accused the incumbent president of rigging the vote and allegedly incited his supporters to riot. Over the next month, some 1,500 Kenyans were killed and more than 500,000 displaced – with most of the violence led by Muslims, who set churches ablaze and hacked Christians to death with machetes.
Odinga eventually ended up as prime minister in Kenya through a power-sharing arrangement that was installed in an effort to appease those who were rioting.
Amid the unrest now sweeping the Middle East, Israeli government and security officials are quietly discussing an unusual strategy that would pass the Palestinians’ political future off to Jordan. With the odds of a negotiated two-state solution at an all-time low, former Defense Minister Moshe Arens, Knesset Member Arieh Eldad, and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin resurrected the “Jordan is Palestine” model for regional peace.
Israeli officials fear that a Palestinian Intifada could break out on both sides of the Jordan River, and they seek to make it as much a Jordanian problem as an Israeli one.
In February, Human Rights Watch, the world’s self-proclaimed defender of minority rights, produced a 60-page report entitled, “Stateless Again: Palestinian-Origin Jordanians Deprived of their Nationality.” The paper details how Jordan deprives its Palestinian citizens of West Bank origins their basic rights, such education and healthcare. The report received scant attention back then. But the problem of Jordanian Palestinians, amidst growing unrest in the Hashemite Kingdom, has put the issue back on the front burner.
Israeli analysts worry that if the Jordanian government is to become more representative, it is possible that the country’s 72% Palestinian population could effectively take control. Jordan, in effect, could become “Palestine.”
The notion of a Palestinian controlled polity in Jordan is not new. From the war of Israeli independence in 1948 through the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli politicians on the Left and Right advanced a policy of “Jordan is Palestine.” While defending Israel from Arab aggression, they proposed that Jordan become the Palestinian homeland. Israeli officials proposed various scenarios for a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation that fused the East Bank and West Bank of the Jordan River under one administration.
However, it is not as simple as that. Dan Schueftan, author of A Jordanian Option, correctly noted in 1986 that such an arrangement would be dependent on Israeli-Jordanian relations and how the two parties view potential threats from the Palestinian populations in their midst.
Inseparable security needs
To be sure, in the years after the Six-Day War, the Jordanian monarchy was wary of the Palestinians. Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat challenged the sovereignty of the country in 1970. After that, the kingdom had blocked the flow of Palestinians from the West Bank into the East Bank in order to preserve the kingdom’s Hashemite political structure. To a certain extent, the Jordanians renounced all claims to the West Bank in 1988, backed the creation of the Palestinian Authority in the early 1990s, and then made peace with Israel in 1994 in an attempt to prevent further flooding of Palestinians into their country.
To a certain extent Jerusalem has long looked to the Hashemite monarchy to maintain stability and security on both sides of the river. Both Amman and Jerusalem, in fact, recognize that their security needs are inseparable. Jordan has benefited from the periods of relative quiet and prosperity in Israel. Accordingly, Jordanian security forces have been increasingly involved in the West Bank, where they conduct joint training sessions with Palestinian forces. It has been a win-win-win situation for Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians.
The problem now is that Jordan’s traditional power centers are unhappy with the rise of Palestinian influence in the country. Tribal leaders resent Jordan’s Queen Rania, born in Kuwait to a family with roots in the West Bank, for her vocal advocacy of the Palestinian cause. In fact, 36 tribal leaders recently published their objections to Rania’s position, fearing that it will accelerate a slow Palestinian takeover of the kingdom.
With hopes fading for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this seemingly far-flung notion may become the last, best option. The problem is that it could embolden Palestinian radical groups, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, which derive much of their power from disillusioned Palestinians in the West and East Banks. With the rise of such groups in Jordan, the peace agreement between Amman and Jerusalem would be in peril.
Nevertheless, as uncomfortable as it might be for Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians to admit, the Jordanian option might be the best one they have.
Welcome to the Before It’s News Daily Featured 5 Stories. Each weekday we deliver the most important and interesting alternative stories to your inbox. Be the first among your friends and colleagues to get the scoop on the stories everyone should be talking about today.
CONTRIBUTOR: BARRACUDA. The release of President Obama’s long-form birth certificate only fanned the flames of skepticism. Before It’s News was flooded with stories dissecting the document’s questionable characteristics. BARRACUDA covers the top 20 conspiracy theories already circulating…
CONTRIBUTOR: WASHINGTON’S BLOG. Three astonishing videos capturing the monster tornado that ripped through Alabama yesterday leaving at least 128 people dead…
CONTRIBUTOR: BARRACUDA. A new paper demonstrates that consuming genetically modified (GM) food leads to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice. Researchers reviewed data from 19 studies and found that parameters including blood and urine biochemistry and organ weights were significantly disrupted in the GM-fed animals…
CONTRIBUTOR: SHTFPLAN. Do you have enough larder to feed your family and some friends if grocery stores ran out of food? How about several assault rifles and a few thousand rounds of ammo? Solar panels, a water filter, medical kits, bug-out bags, fire starters, tents, sleeping bags, some junk silver and reserve gasoline?…
CONTRIBUTOR: WASHINGTON’S BLOG. Severe storms and tornadoes moving through the U.S. Southeast dealt a severe blow to the Tennessee Valley Authority on Wednesday, causing three nuclear reactors in Alabama to shut and knocking out 11 high-voltage power lines, the utility and regulators said…
Two Muslim extremists in Somalia on Monday murdered a member of a secret Christian community in Lower Shabele region as part of a campaign to rid the country of Christianity, sources said.
An area source told Compass two al Shabaab militants shot 21-year-old Hassan Adawe Adan in Shalambod town after entering his house at 7:30 p.m.
“Two al Shabaab members dragged him out of his house, and after 10 minutes they fired several shots on him,” said an area source who requested anonymity. “He then died immediately.”
The militants then shouted “Allahu Akbar [God is greater]” before fleeing, he said.
Adan, single and living with his Muslim family, was said to have converted to Christianity several months ago. Area Christians said they suspected someone had informed the Islamic militants of his conversion. One source said that a relative who belonged to al Shabaab had told Adan’s mother that he suspected her son was a Christian.
“This incident is making other converts live in extreme fear, as the militants always keep an open eye to anyone professing the Christian faith,” the source said.
Two months ago there was heavy fighting between the rebel al Shabaab militants and forces of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), in which the TFG managed to recover some areas controlled by the rebels. Al Shabaab insurgents control much of southern and central Somalia.
With estimates of al Shabaab’s size ranging from 3,000 to 7,000, the insurgents seek to impose a strict version of sharia (Islamic law), but the transitional government in Mogadishu fighting to retain control of the country treats Christians little better than the al Shabaab extremists do. While proclaiming himself a moderate, President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed has embraced a version of sharia that mandates the death penalty for those who leave Islam.
Al Shabaab was among several splinter groups that emerged after Ethiopian forces removed the Islamic Courts Union, a group of sharia courts, from power in Somalia in 2006. Said to have ties with al Qaeda, al Shabaab has been designated a terrorist organization by several western governments.
On Jan. 7, a mother of four was killed for her Christian faith on the outskirts of Mogadishu by al Shabaab militia, according to a relative. The relative, who requested anonymity, said Asha Mberwa, 36, was killed in Warbhigly village when the Islamic extremists cut her throat in front of villagers who came out of their homes as witnesses.
She is survived by her children – ages 12, 8, 6 and 4 – and her husband, who was not home at the time she was apprehended. Her husband and children have fled to an undisclosed location.
Four hundred years after it debuted as the first widely distributed Bible for the English-speaking world, the King James Version of the Bible still holds a place of distinction among Americans, according to a new survey by LifeWay Research.
The poll, conducted to mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Version (KJV), found that more than half of all American adults (62 percent) own a KJV Bible.
Among those who read the Bible regularly the percentage of KJV owners is even higher. A full 82 percent of Americans who read the Bible at least once a month own a KJV. Sixty-seven percent of American adults who own a Bible have a KJV.
Published in 1611 under the direction of England’s King James I, the KJV has wielded significant influence over both religion and language among English speakers, generating now-common phrases such as “fight the good fight,” “reap the whirlwind” and “feet of clay.”
“Christians believe that God’s Word is truth and that truth is conveyed through language — thus translations have always been integral to the spread of Christianity,” said Scott McConnell, director of LifeWay Research. “It is hard to overstate the influence of the KJV not just on language and idioms, but because it brought the Word of God to English-speaking peoples in the first widely available format.”
When asked to indicate whether five specific statements had been their experience with the KJV, many Americans respond positively to: “I have found the language to be beautiful” (31 percent) and “I have found the language to be easy to remember” (23 percent).
The experience of some is less complimentary, responding, “I have found the language to be hard to understand” (27 percent) and “I have found the language to be outdated” (16 percent).
More than a quarter of adult Americans (27 percent) indicate they have never read the KJV for themselves. An additional 4 percent did not feel any of the statements matched their experience and 4 percent “don’t know.”
Women are more likely than men to own a KJV, with 72 percent of women who own a Bible having a KJV copy compared with 62 percent of men.
Age is also a significant factor related to KJV ownership. While 76 percent of Americans 55 years and older who own a Bible have a KJV, 67 percent of those ages 35 to 54 own a copy. For those under 35 years old, the percentage owning a copy drops to 56 percent.
Younger Americans also have less experience reading the KJV. Thirty-five percent of those under 35 have never read a KJV. Twenty-nine percent of those between 35 and 54 have never read a KJV along with 19 percent of those 55 and older.
However, the lower readership among young Americans does not seem to indicate that they have more difficulty understanding the language than their older counterparts. Only 21 percent of those under 35 say they find the language “hard to understand,” compared with 31 percent ages 35 to 54 who say the same and 28 percent 55 and older.
Readers of all generations find the KJV’s language beautiful. However, Americans in the South are more likely to say they “have found the language to be beautiful” (44 percent).
OWNING AND READING THE BIBLE
When all translations are included, 89 percent of American households own at least one Bible, with the average household owning 4.1 Bibles.
Yet there is a significant gap in Bible ownership between those who read the Scriptures regularly and those who do not. Americans who read the Bible at least once a month own an average of 5.8 Bibles while those who read it less than once a month own an average of 2.2.
Women own an average of 4.7 Bibles compared with 3.6 for men.
Approximately half of all adult Americans (53 percent) indicate they personally read the Bible once a month or more. There are fewer non-Bible readers ages 55 and older than in any other age group. Eighteen percent of those age 55 and older never read the Bible, whereas 26 percent of Americans 35 to 54 and 28 percent of those under 35 never read it.
Women are more likely than men to be Bible readers, with 60 percent of women and 46 percent of men reading the Bible once a month or more.
“The power and inherent truth of Scripture comes from having God as its author,” McConnell said. “One’s willingness to engage the Bible determines its effect upon a life. Numerically, Bible ownership is similar to the percentage of Americans who indicate they are Christian. But owning a Bible and reading it are two different things.”
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