SUNDAYS TWO-CENTS WORTH: #43

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CHRISTIANITY

THE UNITED NATIONS ATTEMPT TO CRIMINALIZE CHRISTIANITY:

During the early years of the Church, Christians were viewed as criminals and faced persecution on a daily basis. They were tortured and executed by the thousands. Those who escaped execution were forced into slave labor for the rest of their natural and short lives.

This sorry state of affairs lasted until the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great. In the year 313 A.D., Constantine along with his co-Emperor removed all onuses from Christianity by the Edict of Milan. Christians were now free to worship openly. And by taking the personal step to convoke the first Ecumenical Synod (the Council of Nicea) in 325 A.D. he began the Roman Empire’s unofficial sponsorship of Christianity, which played a major role in the spread of the Christian faith.

Over the centuries, with the exception of some scattered countries, Christians enjoyed freedom of religion in relative safety. But there is a very good possibility that this could shortly come to an end, should certain elements within the United Nations have their way.

There are dozens of nations dominated by Islam that are pressing the U.N. to adopt an anti-“defamation” plan that would make Christians criminals under international law.

Christians around the world are being increasingly targeted and persecuted, for their religious beliefs, and one of the largest organizations within the U.N. is pushing to make the situation even worse by promoting anti-Christian bigotry. This anti-Christian discrimination is being camouflaged under the guise of a U.N. resolution called ‘Combating defamation of Religions’.

This sham of a plan has been submitted repeatedly to the U.N. since about 1999. It started out as a plan to ban “defamation” of Islam, but was later changed to refer to “religions”. It is now being pushed by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference nations, which have adopted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which states, “All rights are subject to Sharia law, and makes Sharia law the only source of reference for human rights.”

What is interesting is that in those nations that follow Islam, the practice today is to use such laws to protect and further Islam while giving justification to attacking religious minorities with severe penalties up to and including execution.

What should be most worrisome to Christians around the world is the fact that laws which are based on the idea of “defamation of religion” actually help to create an atmosphere of violence. Take the following incidents for example:

In Afghanistan, two months ago, an Afghan court following Sharia law sentenced a 23-year-old apprentice journalist to death simply because he downloaded an article from an Iranian website and brought it to his class.

An award-winning author in Canada, Mark Steyn, has been summoned to appear before two Canadian Human Rights Commissions on vague allegations of “subjecting Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt” for comments he made in his book, America Alone .

In Saudi Arabia a teacher was sentenced to three years in prison plus 300 lashes, for expressing his views in a classroom.

In the United Kingdom, police have announced plans to arrest a blogger for making anti-Muslim statements.

And here in the United States, a Muslim sued his internet provider for refusing to prevent participants in an on-line chat room from posting or submitting harassing comments that he felt blasphemed and defamed his Islamic religion.

Isn’t it interesting how Muslims can make derogatory statements against Christians and Jews and that is perfectly alright, but those of other religions dare not say anything against Muslims?

The instituting of domestic laws to combat defamation of religion in many countries often lead to arbitrary enforcement, with the targets being Christians, and in Muslim countries, violations are often punishable by death.

The Organization of Islamic States is making an attempt to pass and enact a resolution that is nothing more than blatant anti-Christian bigotry that if passed, would outlaw Christianity and make the proclamation of the Christian faith an international crime.

Bye-Bye