You know, the blog It’s a Paul World posted a pointer to the article, “‘Apostate’ Girl’s Father: The Unreported Story” on the American Thinker blog. This is the story of Rifqa Bary, who decided to convert to Christianity and fled her home from nearby Columbus, OH to Florida because she feared her father would kill her for converting. It’s heart-wrenching, really.
The mainstream media, once again, has failed to report all of the facts, though. The parents were declared “indigent” by the Florida court and appointed attorneys. This in spite of the fact that both parents had high-end work, and Rifqa’s father dissolved his business just days after she ran away (possibly so he could flee after killing her).
Rifka said it herself: "In 150 generations of my family no one has known Jesus. I am the first one. Imagine the honor in killing me. There is great honor in that. Because if they love Allah more than me, they have to do it. It’s in the Koran…They have to do this. They just have to. Either they do that or they send me back to Sri Lanka. There’s an asylum there where they put people like me, like, think I’m crazy."
It just got me thinking. All of the world’s religions have blood on their hands, but only a few in the modern world have the mindset of conquest mixed with the worship of deities. In fact, most modern dictatorships are pretty anti-religious or even atheistic.
Islam seems to be the one remaining so, at least for now. Consider, though, the backlash of 9/11 in some areas. Muslims, even innocent ones, were sometimes vilified. Segments of US society banded together for a short time. Could some event caused by professing Muslims cause a religious reaction in Europe? Could something occur by a group of Jihadists to cause the Catholic machine to rev up and finally take control?
Let me just repeat that Islam is not alone in that it has had a violent history, but it is different for now because it is actually religious teaching that persuades many to violent action. Sad but true. Even sadder is that Satan will once again stir the pot and cause nations to war against each other in religious zealotry and try to eradicate the true followers of Jesus Christ. Something to keep in mind this Atonement weekend.
Are there other differences in Islam? Well, actually, it appears that there are. Some have gone as far to criticize it as “Satan’s religion”, but I think we in the COG understand that all religions that are not the true religion are Satan’s religions. But, there are some unique characteristics that make it stand out as such in the minds of some observers.
- Love. It is not true that “love” doesn’t occur in the Quran. The Quran teaches you to love Allah (2:165). Where does it say that Allah loves people? It speaks of “mutual love” (29:25) between Allah and man, and that’s it! 20 times, we see conditional love displayed by God towards people based upon what they do and not who they are (ex., God loves those who are just and judge rightly). However, 22 times we are told that “Allah loveth not”.
- Submission. The word “Islam” means to submit. Men submit to Allah, women submit to men and children submit to parents – in that order. As a result, sons have a tendency to not take orders and threats from their mothers seriously.
- Marriage. Marriages are often arranged, and are considered about on par with a business transaction. There may or may not even be a ceremony.
When you think about how Allah’s love is conditional, wives must submit to husbands and how marriages are pretty much just contractual arrangements, you can see how easy it is for abuse of women to occur. In fact, love takes a secondary seat to just about everything in the Islamic view.
Contrast that with the Christian God’s love. He loved the world so much to send His Son to die for our sins even before we come to repentance. God comes to us to bridge the gap. Allah expects man to cross the divide.
I have no doubt that it is the influence of Satan that makes love take a secondary role, while the true God inspired the Apostle John to write, “For God is love” (1Jn 4:8b).