Saturday, February 16, 2013

African Muslims: The latest casualty in the war against Christianity, is a Tanzanian pastor who lost his head to an outraged Muslim mob

The incensed Islamic mob was demanding that all non-halal butcher shops and especially pork butchery, be forbidden. A group of Islamic youths, assaulted several Christians, including a butcher shop owner, using sticks and machetes. During the confrontation Pastor Mathayo Kachili, of the local Assembly of God Church, was beheaded. Besides the pastor's beheading, several other people were injured critically during the incident and taken to the local hospital in Buseresere for treatment. Christians in a small village in southern Egypt are rebuilding their lives and homes after hundreds of Muslims rampaged through their community firebombing houses and businesses, over rumors of a romantic relationship between a Christian and a Muslim. In Nigeria, Boko Haram, a group seeking to impose Islamic law on the country, picked out Christians in a small village, gathered them in a group before massacring them. 15 people died in the attack; many had had their throats slit. These are not isolated incidents as Muslim extremists attack other religions wherever the two meet, but Christianity seems to be singled out. According to a report named Christiana-phobia, by the think tank Civitas: The lion’s share of persecution faced by Christians arises in countries where Islam is the dominant faith. Between half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left the region or have been killed in the past century. “There is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands,” it claims. Violent oppression of Christians has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations, especially in Africa and the Middle East. In some countries it is government sanctioned violence that burns down churches and imprison parishioners. In others countries, groups and vigilantes take matters into their hands by murdering Christians and driving them out of regions they have called home for centuries. One Christian pastor in an affected country described the situation this way: “On the Christian side, strong emphasis is placed on the teaching of Christian love, patience, mercy and forbearance. But in such a situation one wonders what the future of Christianity and of the nation as a whole can be. Muslims believe that if they die in the course of a Holy War (or Jihad) they will go directly to heaven. We are dealing with a religious philosophy where war is a must! The whole weight of the challenge is now on our shoulders. Who can tell how successfully we will respond?” It seems, the Christian philosophy of turning the other cheek, is on the road to running out of cheeks to turn, in Muslim dominated countries. It seems that when it comes to tolerating other religions, the religion of “peace” isn't so peaceful.

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