“Why should I feel any pain or trouble in cutting off the hand that was raised against the Holy Prophet?”

January 24, 2016 – by Robert Spencer

No one would dare try to explain to this poor boy why cutting off his hand was a ridiculous thing to do that has destroyed his life.

To try to do so would be ethnocentric, racist and “Islamophobic.”

One wonders, however, when reading this heartbreaking account, if the glories of multiculturalism and cultural relativism are really all they’re cracked up to be.

The BBC’s warning, “Some readers may find the details that follow disturbing,” is also a manifestation of the fix we’re in. The BBC wants to make the UK into a nation of children that can’t deal with unpleasant realities, and is completely dependent upon the state to take care of them.

That no one in the West has the courage to deal in the realm of ideas with the beliefs and assumptions that led to this poor self-made manco is a demonstration of our general childishness, weakness and pusillanimity.

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Muslim secretly films “warts and all” pilgrimage to Mecca, gets death threats

August 31, 2015 by Robert Spencer

“There is nothing kind about this process,” Sharma says of his pilgrimage to Mecca. “He calls his first experience at the Kaaba ‘probably the most violent night of my entire life.’” Those who are surprised by this have not been paying attention to the daily headlines.

“Islam is imploding upon itself right now and there’s a huge crisis,” he says, and adds that a reformation “is happening, but it is happening too slowly and we’re running out of time.” Yes. The global situation is rather like the ending of Rocky II, when Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed both collapse to the canvas, and the first one who can manage to get up will be the champion. The free world and the Islamic world are both, to use Sharma’s language, imploding upon themselves. Which one will get up first is anyone’s guess.

Meanwhile, the fact that Sharma has gotten death threats for his film illustrates yet again why reform in Islam is, while not impossible, prohibitively unlikely. Those who air unpleasant truths or discuss problematic aspects of Islam honestly, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, are targeted for destruction in various ways, while those who should be defending them stand by idly for fear of being charged with “bigotry” and “Islamophobia.”’

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Hindu Radicals Threaten to ‘Burn’ Indian Pastor Alive, Wipe Congregation From Town Following Church Attack

By Samuel Smith , CP Reporter – June 30, 2015|

A protester holds a placard during a rally by hundreds of Christians against recent attacks on churches nationwide, in Mumbai, February 9, 2015. Five churches in the Indian capital New Delhi have reported incidents of arson, vandalism and burglary. The latest was reported last week when an individual stole ceremonial items.

Following a mid-June attack on a Christian church in the Indian town of Attingal in Kerala state, Hindu radicals have threatened to wipe out a Christian congregation and burn the church’s pastor if they continue to worship and pray in there.

According to International Christian Concern, a U.S.-based Christian persecution monitoring organization, a mob of 200 angry Hindus surrounded the Reaching the World with Love Ministries Church in Attingal on June 14, while about 400 congregants were in the middle of their Sunday worship service.

As the large mob shouted loud Hindu chants, including “Bharat Mathaki” [Hail Mother India], the congregation’s pastor, known by the name Shiju, told ICC that 30 Hindus broke into the worship hall, charged at him while he was preaching and began beating him down and caused him internal injuries.

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Christian leaders in India protest recent spate of attacks after yet another incident

Barnabas Fund ^ | 05/12/2015|

Over 400 Christian leaders and social activists gathered together in Hyderabad, in India’s Telangana state, on 2 May, to hold a peaceful protest against a recent spate of attacks against Christians. The protest came in the wake of yet another brutal mob attack in the state, when at least 100 Hindu radicals stormed a Christian meeting shouting anti-Christians slogans and beating the believers with wooden clubs, iron rods, and knives.

Christians in India meet to pray together

First breaking the lights and sound system, the assailants then proceeded to attack the Christians who had gathered together in Pebber town, in Telangana state, at around 9.30 pm on 8 April. According to International Christian Concern, the Christians ran outside and into the bushes to hide from the attackers, but at least 15 were wounded, some of them sustaining serious injuries.

The believers had been concluding an event in which they had organised three days of open-air revival meetings from 6 to 8 April. Over 300 Christians from nearby villages had come especially for the event.

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Hindu nationalist denounces Mother Teresa for ‘ulterior motives’

By Dean Nelson, New Delhi – 24 Feb 2015

One of India’s most senior Hindu nationalist leaders was accused of stoking religious tensions after he denounced Mother Teresa and claimed her charitable works for the poor were aimed at converting them to Christianity.

Mohan Bhagwat, leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu nationalist group which nurtured India’s prime minister Narendra Modi as a young man, said Mother Teresa’s service for the poor “would have been good” but was done with an ulterior motive.

“It used to have one objective, to convert the person who was being served into a Christian … if this is done in the name of service, then that service gets devalued”, he said.

His comments were made amid growing concern over attacks on churches in India and a continuing campaign by Hindu nationalists to pressurise those who have converted to Christianity, Buddhism and Islam to “come home” to their previous Hindu faith. Many of those who have converted are poor “untouchables” who are persecuted in Hinduism’s caste system.

Narendra Modi tried to calm the tensions earlier this month when he condemned religious violence and emphasised India’s traditional tolerance.

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Christians in India Face Unprecedented Wave of Attacks as Hindu Nationalists Grow Bolder Under New Government

January 25, 2015 – Matt Waterson, NEWS CONSORTIUM Catholic Online

In 2014, India saw a wave of violence towards Christians that left five dead, including one 11-year-old child. Another 7,000 people experienced other persecution that year, a new report from the Mumbai-based Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) revealed.

The Christian Persecution Report revealed that another 300 clergymen or leaders of Christian communities were victims of violence.

Most of India is Hindu, but there is also a large population of Muslims, Sikhs and Christians — largely Catholic. In recent years the country of more than a billion has seen a sharp turn towards nationalism and fundamentalism, and those who do not fit the Hindu Indian profile are being targeted for violence or discrimination.

In an interview with ucanews.com, CSF’s general secretary, Joseph Dias spoke the reason this disturbing trend has arisen.

“Some right-wing forces have become active since the pro-Hindu Bhartiua Janata Party took over the reins of the country.”

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India court Sharia trumps ban on child marriage

December 6, 2014 – by Robert Spencer

Islamic apologists in the West routinely deny that Muhammad married a child or that Islamic law sanctions child marriage. Stories like these show that they’re lying. In reality, few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage. Islamic tradition records that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, was six when Muhammad wedded her and nine when he consummated the marriage:

“The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)” (Bukhari 7.62.88).

Another tradition has Aisha herself recount the scene:

The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, “Best wishes and Allah”s Blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah”s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. (Bukhari 5.58.234).

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Controversy over ‘Reconversions’ in India Leads to Proposal to Outlaw Conversions

NEW DELHI, January 6, 2015 (Morning Star News) – A Hindu nationalist drive to “reconvert” non-Hindus over the Christmas season foundered, but protests against the campaign led to an unexpected consequence: a proposal to ban on all conversions except “reconversions” to Hinduism.

During an Advent season that saw the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi propose a “Good Governance Day” on Dec. 25 to divert attention away from Christmas, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu proposed a ban on all religious conversions – not just “forced” or “fraudulent” ones.

Naidu floated the proposal with the supposed goal of quieting the growing din over conversions to minority faiths and alleged “reconversions” to Hinduism, though Christian leaders believe it came at least in part to appease Hindu nationalists upset at the government effort to distance itself from the “reconversion” campaign.

While no legislation has been drafted, voices within and outside of parliament supported the proposal by Naidu – who said he was a proud member of the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – which would brazenly violate religious freedom provisions in India’s constitution.

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Indian MPs protest forced conversions of Muslims and Christians

Ruth Gledhill – 23 December 2014 – Christian Today

Members of the Indian parliament have protested against forced conversions of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism.

Opposition MPs accused the prime minister, Narendra Modi, of failing to stop the conversions. The parliament’s upper house had to adjourn because of the protests.

Conversions are legal in India but must be done without force, fraud or inducement.

The BBC reports that Hindu groups close to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party had organised several ceremonies in recent weeks. Weeks ago in Agra, more than 50 Muslim families became Hindus. And in Gujarat last weekend, about 100 Christians were reported to have become Hindus.

The groups responsible insist the conversions have been voluntary and argue the converts are merely returning to the faith of their forefathers that their families abandoned centuries before. The conversion ceremonies are called “ghar vapasi”, which means “returning home”.

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As World Turns Its Back on Israel, a Surprising Ally Emerges in India

BreakingIsraelNews ^ | 23rd December 2014 | Lea Speyer

With the EU moving farther away from its traditional support of Israel, it seems as if the Jewish state is finding a new ally in an uncommon place.

According to The Hindu newspaper, India is considering moving away from supporting the Palestinian cause at the UN, Indian government sources said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking to move his foreign policies regarding the Palestinians to a state of abstention, the two sources claimed.

“Like other foreign policy issues, the Modi government is looking at India’s voting record at the United Nations on the Palestinian issue,” one of the sources explained. The second said that only an “administrative nod” would be needed to confirm the new policy.

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Millions of Dalit Christians In India Forced to Choose Between Their Faith and Government Benefits

December 30, 2014 – International Christian Concern

The term “Dalit” is a term used in India to describe people from Hinduism’s lowest caste. Forced into poverty for generations from the India’s Caste system, the people from this caste used to be called “Untouchables,” but for the most part, that term died out with the British Empire. Today, an estimated 25 million Dalits across India have converted to Christianity, but are forced to choose between openly out their faith and a government benefit program that gives benefits only to Dalits coming from select religious backgrounds.

This choice has significantly affected the constitutional right India’s citizens have to freely choose a religion for themselves. It also has left millions of Dalits to have to decide between choosing to follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior and receiving government benefits that have the ability to take their families out of poverty. All added up, this discrimination has affected the official appearance of India’s religious landscape.

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Amid Hindu Faithful, Baptist Pastors Proclaim ‘Jesus Died for All of Us’

January 02, 2015 – Baptist Press – Rolan Way

A group of Southern Baptist pastors squeezed their way into a small area with crowds of Hindu faithful to watch the ritual slaughter of goats at the Kali temple in Kolkata, India. Those with cameras were swatted with batons by temple security guards adamant the group not capture images of the beheadings.

That scene, combined with earlier scenes of idol worship and ritualistic cleansing in other South Asian cities, was a clear reminder of why these pastors — which included Fred Luter, who was Southern Baptist Convention president at the time — had journeyed there. The Old Testament was played out right in front of them, real and tangible, even brutal. But they had come to tell South Asians that the fulfillment of the Gospel in Jesus changed everything — for all.

“We as believers, we understand that the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God — [our] Lord Jesus Christ dying on the cross — is the best and is the only one sacrifice that has been done in history,” said Humberto Gonzalez, minister of First Euless en Español, a Spanish-speaking ministry of First Baptist Church in Euless, Texas. “So we don’t have to kill more animals. Jesus died for all of us.”

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India gang rapes: Police fired over hanged girls

Friday, May 30, 2014 – By Dan Wooding – Founder of ASSIST Ministries

Following on the heels of the shocking case of a 25-year-old pregnant Pakistani woman who was allegedly stoned to death on Tuesday, May 26, 2014, by her own family in front of a Pakistani high court – for marrying the man she loved, comes the equally shocking news that Dalit girls who were gang-raped and hanged in an Utter Pradesh village.

In the first case, Farzana Parveen, who was three months pregnant, was killed before a crowd of onlookers in broad daylight front of the high court of Lahore, in what the family called an “honor killing.”

Police official Naseem Butt said the 25-year-old had married Mohammad Iqbal, with whom she had been engaged for years against the will of her family.

However, in an amazing twist to the story, Britain’s Daily Mail is reporting that the husband of the pregnant Pakistani woman has admitted he murdered his first wife to be with her.

“Today, the victim’s husband confessed he killed his first wife so they could marry – and revealed that Farzana’s older sister was also murdered by her family in an ‘honor killing,’” said the Daily Mail story.

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India’s Christians fear rise in persecution under BJP

17 May 2014  |  Cath Martin – Christian Today

After the BJP’s historic election victory this week, Christians in India have mixed feelings about the future and how the country’s new leaders will impact on freedom of religion.

The last week has been a massive turnaround for the once struggling opposition party that suffered defeats in the last two elections.

Taking them to victory was the charismatic Narendra Modi, who International Christian Concern reports has feigned ignorance about past Hindu nationalist attacks on minorities.

There are serious concerns among Christians, with one pastor, Ronald John, telling ICC the “persecution of Christians will increase under the BJP-led government”.

“Christians already are gripped with fear and concern over the election results. Hindu nationalist groups will take advantage of the situation and use it to attack churches and members of the Christian community,” he said.

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