Smuggler's Ransom is a short feature film by Cloud Ten Pictures

DID YOU KNOW that Cloud Ten has worked with “Voice of the Martyrs”? A special documentary about persecuted missionaries in foreign countries is on the DVD for our short feature film Smuggler’s Ransom. When you learn about the struggles and risks others have to endure to follow Christ, it makes you thankful for the freedoms we are still blessed with.

Every three minutes a Christian is being tortured in the Muslim world, and in 2009 more than 165,000 Christians will have been killed because of their faith, most of them in Muslim countries, according to One World Free International, a human rights watchdog group.

The group says that between 200-300 million Christians are being persecuted in the world, 80 percent of whom lived in Muslim countries and the rest in communist and other countries.

According to the Pew Research Foundation which conducted an exhaustive study over two years time involving 198 countries and 99.5% of the world’s population, some 70% of religions world-wide — especially evangelical Christianity — are targets of anti-Christian persecution.

Seventy percent! Think of it! One third of the countries surveyed have both a high rate of government restrictions AND a high rate of social restrictions. Of the sixty-four worst countries, the vast majority are Muslim, with the three worst offenders being Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

In Pakistan last month, three brothers, all Christian, went to a wedding hall to ask their Muslim employer to pay their back wages. The three were poisoned by their employer, who was enraged that Christians would demand their wages.

Two of the brothers died on the spot. The employer didn’t call an ambulance, but instead called the father to tell him his sons were dead.

In another incident, a group of Muslims shot their Christian friend dead last month on the outskirts of Karol village, Punjab Province. after saying they would spare his life only if he recanted his faith, according to the young man’s father.

A few other cases, drawn (with appreciation) from Bill Warner’s Bulletin of Christian Persecution:

December 30, 2009 Iraq: A Christian student is kidnapped at the University of Mosul. Over the past two months in Mosul four churches and a convent of Dominican nuns have been targeted in attacks, several Christian and Muslim homes have been destroyed. Five Christians have been murdered, others are victims of kidnappings.

December 31, 2000 Algeria: Nearly 50 Muslim members of a community in northern Algeria blocked Christians from holding a Christmas service on Saturday (Dec. 26) to protest a new church building in their neighborhood. Protestors also reportedly threatened to kill the church pastor.

January 4, 2010 Pakistan: Muslim mob wounds a Christian family. Assailants threaten to charge the mentally ill son with ‘blasphemy’ if the victims pursue justice.

January 8, 2010 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Two Malaysian churches have been attacked, leaving one badly damaged, in an escalating dispute over the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims.

January 14, 2010 Pakistan: Two Christians in Pakistan were recovering of their injuries of January 14, saying they were were shot at a wedding party for refusing to convert to Islam.

Assessment:

“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” (John 15:18-19)

I recall a discussion I was having one night with some acquaintances about Islam and how it is both a political and religious institution. The conversation was interesting and lively and quite friendly until somebody (me) introduced Jesus Christ into it.

Nobody seemed particularly uneasy about discussing Mohammed — my acquaintances called him the ‘Prophet Mohammed’ and one of them referred to the “holy” Koran although none of them were Muslims and had heard very little of Islam.

But the moment Jesus entered the conversation, the group’s mood changed from curiosity to animosity.

When previously discussing a belief system that motivates jihadists to commit unspeakable atrocities against strangers, I was peppered with questions.

When the conversation shifted to a belief system that motivates people to love one another as one loves oneself, I was hammered with insults. It was clear that my acquaintances knew even less about Christianity than they did about Islam, but that didn’t prevent them from forming hardened opinions about Jesus Christ.

They were willing to concede that Mohammed was a prophet without hesitation and didn’t even flinch at the concept of Allah. But they turned positively bitter at the concept of a loving God that gave His only Son to pay the penalty for their sins so they wouldn’t have to.

The contrast between the two views could not be expressed more eloquently than it was by former Attorney General John Ashcroft when he said, “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you.”

What is there about Jesus Christ that inspires such animosity, even in casual conversation? He doesn’t impose religious restrictions, He extends freedom from them. He doesn’t impose condemnation, He extends an offer of pardon.

But He is almost universally despised by the same folks who will jump at the chance to remind you that “Islam is a religion of peace and love that was hijacked by extremists and that most Muslims are as peace-loving as you and I.”

Without venturing an opinion on the truth of that statement, that only adds to the weight of the question, why?Why seek some spark of good in jihad while simultaneously recoiling at the very Name of Jesus Christ?

Nobody is ever neutral about Jesus Christ. Either they love Him or they hate Him. One doesn’t see the same ambiguity about Jesus one sees about Mohammed. Nobody really questions the existence of Mohammed. But there have been entire libraries of books down through the ages questioning the existence of Jesus Christ.

I believe that each human being has some form of — for want of a better term — a ‘god-consciousness.’ We know instinctively that there is a god of some kind out there, hence the thousands upon thousands of religions.

Some people dismiss this ‘god-consciousness’ as superstition and go through their lives unencumbered by any kind of religious faith. Others seek fulfillment of this ‘god-consciousness’ in a god that suits their temperament or existing worldview.

My observations are that such people can discuss religion and the various religious deities as dispassionately and with as much curiosity as did my acquaintances in the story I was relating, without necessarily pricking any nerves.

But the mention of Jesus Christ tends to set off ‘god-consciousness’ alarms that almost look painful when witnessed from the outside. Because Jesus Christ is not some religious icon, but the Son of the Living God ,when the enemy hears His Name, it infuriates him — that’s what I believe is reflected by the sudden change of disposition during such casual conversations.

Jesus Christ paid the penalty for sin and death on the Cross and is alive forever more. The enemy hates Him and he hates all that are His. The proof is in the pudding. Try it sometime in a discussion with a group of unbelievers. You can talk all night about religion and all the various deities. Then bring up Jesus Christ and see how quickly the mood changes.

Suicide bombings get a more fair hearing.

“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)

And that’s what they hate most of all.

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Post by Jack Kinsella of The Omega Letter – www.omegaletter.com