Everything They Label Us With, They Are Doing

Contemporary secular humanists and leftists are stronger than ever before, pressing on with their historically failed secular-socialist agendas, favoring relativism, multiculturalism and arbitrary life over the culture of Christ, who teaches the search for the absolute truth that creates an everlasting unity among people. They claim themselves to be patriotic and real lovers of their countries, yet no patriotism fits in with their relativist and arbitrary philosophy that knows no boundary between what is inherently good and bad. They lack solid ethics to defend freedom against repression, openness against particularism, tolerance against intolerance and equality against racism, but when it comes to their attitudes towards Christians and freedom fighters, who observe the ethics of Christ, they label them as simple-minded, intolerant, racist, fascist or as equal to Nazism. Yet the very things they label us with, they are guilty of doing. Using every available avenue in the media, or their work places, they point their fingers at their targeted people, demonizing them; a principle that has been in the service of terrorist ideologies and tyrannical regimes throughout the history of humanity and since the beginning of the last century with the rise of communism.

Russian Communists invaded their surrounding countries, changing their languages and the names of their residents in favor of Russian names, yet they labeled Christians the enemies of working class. In a similar way, Muhammad and his followers invaded surrounding communities and countries, and changed their national identities so that everybody had to speak and live in a Saudi Arabian way, yet called their opponents cruel and the enemies of humanity. The Quran legalized slavery — Muhammad himself had a black slave and Muhammad’s sincere followers have been having heartbreaking role models in enslaving Africans (and also over a million white Europeans) throughout the history of Islam. Yet when it comes to Christianity, Islamists call it “the religion of the slave trading white people”. First Christianity is not from the West, but from the Middle-East, and second, when slave trading whites exploited people they were going against the teaching of the Bible.

It is ironic that the freedom of those who oppose the secular-socialists’ and Islamists’ ideologies is increasingly limited, while the latter continue to raise their voices as the marginalized victims. Our universities have now become the hot-bed of socialism and other isms. Almost every sign of Christianity has disappeared in them, and still the dominant secular-socialists and their allies (i.e. Islamists) are victims!? This victim mentality is a show in making more followers, pushing upholders of truth and free speech back, pressuring them to give up.

What do we need to do in the face of this subtle deceit that has been costing our nations spiritually and socially? As Christians, what should our response be when these ideological guerillas have disgracefully targeted every aspect of our lives and want to silence us? How do we need to act in such a time when their deceits have penetrated the minds of even our top politicians and leaders who have passed laws to limit our freedom and demean our heavenly identity?

Christ is the response in every way in approaching this significant problem. Philosophically and doctrinally, He is the eternal God and the source of all truth so that through His counsel we can distinguish the difference between what is false and true. Morally and socially, He is the light of the world, exposes deceits, false beliefs and lawlessness, freeing people so that they can use His light for the freedom of others. Therefore, we should not keep silent since He has a response for every problem.

"If you keep quiet at a time like this … you and your relatives will die. What's more, who can say but that you have been elevated to the palace for just such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14).

Centralized Power Verses Freedom

Time and again, we have heard dictators and authoritarian ideologists claim that there is freedom in their countries. Yet we know from history that freedom and authoritarianism are the vessels of two opposing forces. The seventy years of centralized communist power left nothing but rubbles within every level of its societies, as did the Islamic dictatorship which not only blocked the door of progress to people but also diminished their moral character.

After the mullahs’ power broke out in Iran, they wanted to be masters over all things, even the things of which they held no knowledge. They seized businesses, made them governmental and appointed as leaders those who were loyal to them, but who also did not have the relevant knowledge or skill. For them (and Islam), obedience is primary, quality secondary. As a result, the distribution of products became government controlled, the economy failed, and the black market flourished.  People had to wait hours and days in lines in order to purchase their daily necessities. The more the mullahs gained power, the more people lost their strength for living and suffered in all aspects of life. Unemployment increased, while poverty and the daily struggle to find enough food to eat changed people’s attitudes. Corruption became widespread.

On the cultural front, things went downhill and thousands of young people were absorbed into the Revolutionary Guard (Sepah’e Pasdaran) and to the Correcting Religious Guard (Basijis), which were established to Islamize the country and ensure that everybody lived according to Islamic principles. What was envisioned before the Revolution for younger people had now become a lifestyle for many of them to persecute fellow citizens. These young religious guards terrified, tortured and killed people in public places in order to extinguish any desire for opposition. People started to think that their best days were in the past, the kingdom of the Shah, to which any hope of return was impossible.

Many pro-democratic Iranians broke down morally, and gave up the courageous life because of the mullahs’ ferocious acts of terror. Some were even gradually absorbed into the mullahs’ regime in order to secure their survival from social or political deprivations. Furthermore, they began to say that they were wrong about the mullahs; that they had found the truth and now aimed to uproot the remnants of Western culture in Iran. They themselves started to preach against their own former doctrines, blaming and persecuting democracy-minded people with words like "Zionist", "Western Agent", and so on. One of my own followers turned out to have become one of my persecutors after I was put into prison.

Due to fear, people separated themselves from any who were in opposition; even from one who was once in opposition, but still had not sought the pardon of the mullahs. Some of my followers and friends never contacted me again after the mullahs’ occupation and behaved as strangers when they came face to face with me in the street. They did not want to expose their families to risk.

This is what happens under an authoritarian and self-centered government: society’s moral characters fade away, some become persecutors of others in exchange for money or position, and other citizens forget that they need to uphold and take care of each other no matter the cost. When a country falls into the hands of a power-thirsty sect, or group, or an individual, every other thing falls into the wayside, including morality and national coherence.

None of these moral failures mattered to the dictatorship of the mullahs in Iran. Despite all the chaos, to this day they still twist the truth, defend their actions and equate their rule with "social justice", "compassion" and “freedom”, labeling others as “immoral” and “enemies of freedom”.

Jesus, who is mighty in power and knowledge, never takes advantage of His might to strip people of their choices. He is mighty, not to enslave people, but to prepare the way for them to come out of captivity, become His intimate friends (John 15:15), and build a free community. He knows that lack of choice leads communities to chaos and hostility. No leader in the world had an intimate relationship with his followers as Jesus had with His followers. He humbled Himself in order to inspire a loving leadership in those who listened to Him so that they could in turn become humble, loving, good moral examples and a blessing to others. For Jesus, the most powerful must be a servant to all:

But Jesus called [His disciples] them and said, You know that the rulers of the nations exercise dominion over them, and they who are great exercise authority over them. However, it shall not be so among you. But whoever desires to be great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be chief among you, let him be your servant; even as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:25-28).

Pray that I may declare it fearlessly (Eph.6:20b)

The sworn enemies of the Gospel do not give up. We, therefore, must expect to be bothered, confined, imprisoned, persecuted and killed. They persecuted and killed the One who revealed the glories of heaven. If they are so against the Prince of Peace, obviously they will act the same towards His followers.

What we can do in the face of all the above pressures in this world?

Every person in the world can only make one of two choices:  follow the Prince of absolute Peace, Love, Truth, Justice and Holiness; or follow His sworn enemy.

We are full of excitement that we have a new identity in Christ and are able to stand for His absolute Peace, Love, Truth, Justice and Holiness and hold them as the standard of our lives, no matter how angry His enemies will be. We have solid reasons to be excited; our sins are forgiven; we are free and have the hope of glory.

On the other hand, the enemies of Christ are chained by their man-made traditions.  Sadly they are not able to see their bondages. This means it is not easy to talk to them. Some of them are full of anger and are even taught to practise anger and avoid listening. The Lord has chosen and called us to deal with these very hard ones. Please hold us firm in your prayers so that we might be always able to remember our identity in Christ and declare His saving message fearlessly.

Why are you so determined to kill?

Does anyone have a sound solution for a hostile person or religion? Is anyone other than Christ the solution? The biblical response is "No", and the Bible gives a reason for it.

The purpose of Christ's revelation in reaching out to the nations was first to reconcile them to God (John 3:16; 2Cor.5:18) which is called "salvation", and  second to reconcile them to each other (Col.1:20) which is called "peace". We see that spiritual newness is the base for political and social peace and tolerance:

He (Christ) himself is our peace, who has made the two (Jews and Gentiles) one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility (Eph.2:14).

The unifying mission of Christ is unique and perfect and no one or religion in the world is able to unite the nations with one another and with God as Jesus does.

He said to those who were determined to kill Him:

"... you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word....If you were Abraham's children, then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father does....you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him" (John 8:37,39-41,44). 

“But, if you give room to my words in your heart, I will set you free from killing and hostility, and then you will become the true children of Abraham; "Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous" (1John 3:12).

 For Jesus, only people who are strangers to God can be hostile toward others. His plan in coming to this world was to set people free from hatred, hostility and killing and to make them friends of one another. We can confess that we are his living examples who have been freed from hatred and hostility. The glory of freedom belongs to Him our Lord, but to no one else (Acts 4:12).

Why are they so angry?

We hear from many quarters that the boys who were suicide bombers in England were angry about Great Britain’s (and others’) presence in Iraq and that they had no choice but to commit suicide and kill their fellow citizens, in order to push the British Government to withdraw from Iraq.

From my perspective and personal experience of radical Islam, they acted as suicide bombers because of their own spiritual imprisonment – a result of their beliefs that gave them no choice but to commit this act, regardless of world events happening around them. If they were free in spirit they would not do things like killing  fellow citizens, which is exactly the thing they accuse others of doing.

Let us go back a few years. Why did angry radical Muslims choose to live and not use suicide bombing to kill any of Saddam’s people, when Saddam killed thousands of Kurds and invaded Kuwait and Iran caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Muslims? How can they now argue that they had no choice except death because of Iraq and Afghanistan are occupied by Westerners?  What does this mean?  Are Muslims who die under cruel Islamic regimes different in the minds of these suicide bombers from  Muslims who die under non-Islamic regimes?  Are not all Muslim lives equally valuable? What makes these radical Muslims capriciously hostile to the West?

They justify their actions in accordance with their beliefs about a country’s ruler. For them, authoritarian Muslim rulers, who actively oppose Israel and the West, are simply better than the leaders of democratic non-Muslim nations.  This discrimination has its root in the centre of their beliefs and values. Unjust actions perpetrated by one Muslim nation against another are seen as ‘ethical’ in their value system, but any conflict between a Muslim nation and a non-Muslim nation is abhorrent, regardless of the issues involved.

While I was a radical Muslim, I remember that I never cared for the rights of people in Christian Cyprus, but cried for the Muslims in Islamic Cyprus; I praised the invasions of Muhammad and his followers that brought about the spread of Islam, but I hated the crusaders who aimed to release their own religious site from the occupancy of Muslims.  My faith was based on a capricious god who had a dualistic belief; the act of sacrificing one's life to kill others is good when it is done against non-Muslim nations but bad when the conflict is between two Muslim nations.

When Jesus is in my life, my moral and ethical values do not change with the wind.  Instead, I have a solid, holy, just, free and peaceful foundation and my political, social, moral and ethical values are not relative and always changing.  As the Gospel of Christ says, “…if the root is holy so are the branches” (Rom.11:16). 

We praise Jesus who through His grace has planted a holy root in our lives that grows branches having the same nature.  Nothing could change the heart of a hostile Muslim except Jesus.  In the same way, if we introduce radical Muslims to Jesus, Jesus will transform them from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and they will be able to share in this holiness together with us (Acts 26:18).  Their major problem is not political or social issues, as if through only political and social reforms we might help them to avoid upset and discrimination in this world. Their problem is fundamentally spiritual and they need a sound, true and holy belief to change their hearts.