I recently wrote on these pages about the conviction by an Iranian court of naturalized American citizen Pastor Saeed Abedini, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in the infamous Evin prison for his Christian faith.  I have a great deal of affection for the wonderful people of Iran.  If you have been privileged to know Iranians, you will recognize that they are a warm, friendly, and kind people.  My affection for Iran began when I was in high school, as one of my best friends and classmates was Iranian, who often shared with me about Iranian culture and traditions.  After university, I even contemplated moving to Iran to study and work during the last years of Reza Shah Pahlavi.  Even today, I get occasional emails from his son, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.  After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini sought to create the world’s first modern state governed solely by Islamic law.  He believed that a more prosperous society could be created if the Iranian people and their government adhered to the Koran.  But 34 years later, the Islamic revolution has proven to be a terrible failure, and many Iranians are deeply disillusioned.  The growing poverty of the people, the brutal repression, the high level of inflation and chronic shortages of basic foods resulting from the mullahs’ mismanagement of the economy, the deep and pervasive corruption, the siphoning off of the nation’s great wealth for the Iranian nuclear program (why does a nation so rich with oil and natural gas even need a “peaceful” nuclear program?), and the growing threat of war, pains me deeply with the suffering of the Iranian people under the mullahs.  Further, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fostered unrelenting opposition to the state of Israel.  (Last Sunday, Ahmadinejad marked International Holocaust Memorial Day by calling on his fellow Moslems to band together to destroy Israel.  “Under circumstances that the corrupt, uncultured and murderous Zionists are occupying and killing oppressed people, we should not sit idly by,” Ahmadinejad said to the attendees at the 26th International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran.)  Although practically unnoticed, in the recent vote for statehood at the United Nations by the Palestinians, Iran joined the United States and Israel as one of the few countries to oppose Palestinian statehood.  Presumably, Iranian opposition to Palestinian statehood arose because it would lead to the recognition of Israel remaining in the Middle East, even while Iran arms and funds Hamas, Hezbollah, and other militant groups violently opposed to Israel.

Foreign visitors to Iran regularly report that almost every person they encounter is against the Iranian government and Islam.  A number of years ago, I mentored a young woman from Iran.  As a child, she, her siblings, and her mother moved to one of the Scandinavian nations, where they became Christian believers.  Ultimately, this young woman came to study in the United States.  During the summers, she would return to Iran to visit her family.  She told me her younger friends were so fed up with the mullahs that if they had a chance at some freedom, more than one-half of them would become Christians.

But what is mostly unknown is that today, Christianity is experiencing explosive growth in Iran.  Christianity in Iran long predates the rise of Islam (See, e.g., Acts 2:9).  But despite the severe persecution of Christian believers in Iran, the crisis is creating a great spiritual vacuum and deep hunger, and many Iranians are becoming Christ-followers.  Although there are hundreds of officially recognized churches in Iran, most Christians today worship in secret house churches.  President Ahmadinejad was so concerned about the growing house church movement in Iran that, at a meeting with 30 provincial governors in 2007, he declared that “I will stop Christianity in this country.”  However, the government crackdown has caused Christians to grow stronger in their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and bolder in sharing their faith.  One house church leader said, “God is testing our faith because He wants us to become more like Jesus.”  As a result of persecution, house churches now meet in smaller groups, and the government crackdown is actually having an opposite effect as Christians are traveling to other parts of Iran planting many more house churches throughout the country.  In fact, as one recent example, The Barnabas Fund, which supports Christians in Islamic nations, disclosed that approximately 50 Iranian Christians were arrested by police and national security agents who raided a house church meeting in Tehran on December 27^th.  Most were later released, but Pastor Vruir Avanessian was kept in custody, while his home was searched (and ransacked) by authorities.  Pastor Avanessian is an elderly man, and reportedly has kidney disease and requires dialysis every two days.  Reports indicate that since his arrest, Pastor Avanessian has been taken to the hospital only once.  So please pray for Pastor Avanessian that he either will be released or at least permitted to receive necessary medical care.

What can we do for our fellow Christian believers in Iran?  Please pray for them that they will be faithful notwithstanding the fierce persecution they face.  And for my readers who have a gift for intercessory prayer, I would encourage you to also pray for the Iranian government.  Even though President Ahmadinejad is in the final months of his presidency, please pray that he has a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ.  Just imagine how that would change that country, and our world.  Jeremiah 49: 37-39 is an interesting prophecy in which the God of Israel promises to establish His throne in Iran.  This is astonishing because Iran is the only nation, other than Israel, where God states He is going to set His throne.  That would certainly look like a miracle, wouldn’t it?  But unimaginable, amazing miracles have happened before.

It was reported this past weekend that Reverend Saeed Abedini, a naturalized United States citizen born in Iran, was sentenced to eight years at the notorious Evin prison in Iran, the infamous prison that houses many of Iran’s political prisoners and prominent Christian leaders.  Arrested this past summer, he endured painful beatings while in custody awaiting trial, and had been told that he “will hang” for his “faith in Jesus.”  The 32-year-old father of two was convicted for “threatening the national security of Iran.”  In his defense, Pastor Abedini said that he had gone to Iran to establish an orphanage, and was not preaching Christianity.  Except for one day, Revolutionary Court Judge Abbas Pir-Abbassi, known for his harsh sentences, barred Rev. Abedini and his attorney, Naser Sarbazi, a Moslem human-rights lawyer, from his hastily-called trial that began on January 21^st.  Iranian Revolutionary Courts are not known for their transparency, but prosecutors presented evidence that Pastor Abedini created “a network of Christian house churches” starting in 2000, the year he left Islam for Christianity.  Further, Iranian prosecutors alleged that Pastor Abedini intentionally “sought to sway the minds of Iranian youth by turning the youth toward Christianity and against Islam, the official religion of Iran.”

Pastor Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh, posted this account of her husband’s day in court on the “Pray for Pastor Saeed Abedini” Facebook page:

Saeed was able to share from the Bible to the Judge and say that he was not a political person and had no political intentions, but he was a follower of His Lord Jesus Christ. There will be no more hearings and the formal charges and sentences will most likely be announced next week according to his lawyer in Iran. There seemed to have been moments when the judge was moved by Saeed’s testimony. Please continue to pray for the Judge and Saeed’s release and his return back to our family.

Judge Pir-Abassi convicted and sentenced Pastor Abedini to eight years in prison.  However, given the importance of this trial and the fact that Pastor Abedini holds United States citizenship, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei would likely have had to approve the long sentence.  Following the sentence, Naghmeh, was quoted Sunday in the British newspaper, The Mail, “With today’s development, I am devastated for my husband and my family.  We must now pursue every effort, turn every rock, and not stop until Saeed is safely on American soil.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and the State Department have both called for Pastor Abedini’s release, though the Iranian government has ignored the request.  However, the State Department issued its call for his release only after 49 members of Congress sent letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging the United States to apply diplomatic pressure on Iran to force Pastor Abedini’s release.   Interestingly, Iranian officials had previously indicated that they planned to release Pastor Abedini, so the news that he was sentenced to eight years in a harsh prison came as a shock to his family and supporters.  Please pray for Pastor Abedini and his family during these difficult times.  If you and your church wish to let Iranian officials know your views regarding Pastor Abedini’s harsh sentence, please contact the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations at the following address (the United States has no formal diplomatic relations with Iran, and therefore, there is no Iranian embassy in Washington, D.C.):

The Honorable Mohammed Khazaee
Ambassador and Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
622 Third Avenue, 34^th Floor
New York City, New York 10017
Telephone: 1.212.867.2020
Fax: 1.212.867.7086
Email: iran@un.int

Nadia Mohamed Ali, an Egyptian widow, was born into a Christian family.  As a young woman, she married Mohamed Abdel-Wahhab Mustafa, a Moslem, twenty-three years ago.  She and her husband had seven children.  After her husband died, Nadia applied to change her religion back to “Christian” on the government identification form for her and her children.  She sought this change starting in 2004 through 2006.

Under President Morsi and the new Islamist constitution, when the conversion came to light, two weeks ago, a criminal court in the central Egyptian city of Beni Suef sentenced Nadia and her seven children to fifteen years in prison.  (How about that for swift justice?)  Even the government clerks who assisted her in changing her religious status on the identification cards years ago were sentenced to prison (though those who hired the government clerks were not sentenced to prison, at least not yet).

Over the past year, I have warned that the Moslem Brotherhood government of Egypt is extremely bad news for Christians in that nation.  Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, commenting on Nadia’s story, observed:

Now that Sharia law has become an integral part of Egypt’s new constitution, Christians in that country are at greater risk than ever.  This is another tragic case that underscores the growing problem of religious intolerance in the Muslim world. To impose a prison sentence for a family because of their Christian faith sadly reveals the true agenda of this new government: Egypt has no respect for international law or religious liberty.

Samuel Tadros of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, was quoted by Fox News that conversions like Nadia’s have been common in Egypt in the past, but “is a real disaster in terms of religion freedom” under the new Sharia-based constitution.  As a result, Mr. Tadros notes, “Christians in that country are at greater risk than ever.”  Requests for comment about this case from the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C., were unanswered.

Franz Kafka, in his novel The Trial, tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a faraway and inaccessible governmental authority, where the nature of the crime was never revealed to the arrested man.  Kafka’s protagonist couldn’t believe what was happening to him because he “was living in a free country, after all, everywhere was at peace, all laws were decent, and were upheld.”  Of course, this is not what Nadia and her children are facing in the Kafkaesque Egyptian Sharia, where she and her children do not live in a free county, and where there is no peace, and the laws are increasingly indecent and inequitable.

My readers know that Egypt is the recipient of billions of dollars of annual aid from the United States, and with much more coming in the next few months.  Notwithstanding Egyptian President Morsi’s harsh (and foolish) rhetoric about President Obama being a liar, and the Israeli Jews are descendants of apes and pigs, President Obama is sending a “gift” of 200 Abrams tanks and F-16 fighters to Egypt.  Why are these weapons being sent?  According to a State Department spokesperson, the Obama administration seeks to “maintain a strategic partnership with Egypt that enhances the security and peace of the region.”  Please let your congressional representatives know that you oppose providing taxpayer, foreign aid to countries that persecute Christians, including those with which the United States has a strategic partnership.  And if you wish to contact His Excellency, Mohamed M. Tawfik, Egypt’s Ambassador to the United States, you can telephone him at 1.202.895.5400, or email him at embassy@egyptembassy.net.  I am sure he will enjoy hearing from you.

Today, January 22, 2013, is the 40^th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that established a woman’s constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy through abortion.  In its decision, the Supreme Court deemed abortion to be a fundamental right under the United States Constitution.  Much has been written about this topic in Touchstone and Salvo, and on this blog, along with countless other books and articles about the heinous atrocity of infanticide through abortion.  Accordingly, on this 40^th anniversary, I can only offer the following prayer:

Our Loving Heavenly Father, Who makes all people in Your divine image, You teach us in Your Holy Word that Your glory is evident in the faces of Your little ones whose angels continually look to You, have mercy upon us.  As a nation, we have turned our backs upon You for we have not only tolerated, but permitted, violent acts that shed the innocent blood of more than 3,300 unborn children each day.  In our nation, whom You have blessed so clearly and abundantly, we permit abortion to be legal in all 50 states, through all nine months of pregnancy, and for any reason.  We beg Your mercy and forgiveness upon us.  As a nation, we have not considered little ones who are about to be born as worthy of life, but have rather discarded them like trash beneath our feet.  Father in Heaven, we plead for Your mercy upon us.  Over the past forty years, we have not held the lives of tens of millions of unborn children as sacred to You, but rather, our nation has put them to death as a matter of convenience in order to pursue our selfish interests.  For this bloodshed, each of us and our nation ought to be condemned and judged for their innocent blood is upon our hands.  The innocent blood of 52 million aborted unborn children has polluted our country, and our shores are drenched with the blood of the unborn; our cities and towns, and our high places of government, are dripping red with the blood of the innocent.  We beg You to have mercy upon us.  Because we who love You did not raise up an outcry against this monstrous sin, we too have become guilty through our silence and our complacency.  We, who are in your Church, who are called by Your Holy Name, have loved our pleasure and our comfort far more than we have loved our neighbors and Your Holy Word.  We deserve your judgment, O Lord, for we are without excuse.  Father, we cannot say that we know not what we do.  Yet your Holy Word teaches us that the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ is our only hope.  It is only through Christ that we may dare to approach You and beg for Your mercy upon us, and to heal our land of its great and abhorrent sin against You and the innocent.  Father, today we pray for those who advocate for abortion.  Open their eyes, Lord, that they may see that they are ending a life.  We pray for those women, including many in our churches, who have had an abortion.  We pray, too, for those of us who, as men, have encouraged women in crisis and the mothers of our unborn babies to have an abortion, or to have paid for an abortion with our blood money.  We pray that, as Your Holy Scriptures teaches us, in Christ, we have forgiveness of sins if only we come humbly to You and ask for Your forgiveness.  Please forgive us and heal our land.  Father, we pray that the day will come when the innocent blood of children will be shed no more in our land, that the halls of government shall honor Your righteousness, and our courts shall be occupied by godly men and women who truly love justice and righteousness.  For we ask this through the precious and holy Name of Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who lives and reigns with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, forever and ever.  Amen.

Christmas is celebrated in Eastern Europe, Russia and the Central Asian republics on January 7^th.  This time difference between the December 25^th Christmas celebration in western Christianity is the difference between the more modern Gregorian calendar and the older Julian calendar.  Those who still use the Julian calendar thus celebrate Christmas in early January.

In eastern churches, it is a holy day, and churches invite many to come to worship and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is also true in the relatively fewer churches in Uzbekistan, one of the former Soviet republics.  However, the time leading to and culminating in Christmas is also the time when governmental authorities in Uzbekistan increasingly persecute Christians.  Although Uzbekistan is officially a secular state, as it arose from many years of communism, it does have strict religious laws that severely limit all religious activities.  Thus, it is one of the most restrictive countries for religious freedom.

Recent news reports have stated that Uzbeki police detained eighty church leaders in a raid at a ministry training conference.  Police confiscated the Bibles and Christian books of those in attendance, which were later destroyed by court order.  What was their crime?  People in Uzbekistan are only allowed to worship “in registered places specifically set up for religious purposes.”  Presumably, they would also have to be governmentally approved places.  Four of the leaders of the conference were charged with serious criminal offenses, such as violating the procedure for holding religious meetings, carrying out unauthorized religious activities, and teaching religious beliefs without government permission.  Four of the primary ministry training conference organizers are appealing their heavy fines (which is more than one year’s average salary in Uzbekistan), but few expect any relief from the appellate court.  A church leader from Tashkent recently stated that the persecution and arrest of Christian believers has been on the rise since September 2012, and peaked at Christmas.  The church leader also observed that even authorized, registered churches in Uzbekistan face harassment and a number of pastors have been fined substantial sums.  Email and telephone requests for comment on these arrests by Uzbek government officials have not been returned.

Please pray for our fellow Christian believers in Uzbekistan.  And if you want to contact His Excellency, Ilhom Nematov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the United States, you can reach him at 1.202.530.7283 or 1.202.887.5300, or you can email him at info@uzbekistan.org.  I am sure he would enjoy hearing from regular American Christians about the persecution of Christians in his country.  He might not get to speak to many at the cookie-pushing, cocktail receptions on Embassy Row in Washington, D.C.

As we approach the second inauguration of President Barack Obama, few of my readers will remember the presidential inauguration for President Dwight D. Eisenhower on Tuesday, January 20, 1953.  Sixty years ago, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Frederick Vinson administered the oath of office to President Eisenhower.  President Eisenhower took his oath on two Bibles: one used by President George Washington at the first presidential inauguration on April 30, 1789, in New York City, and the one General Eisenhower received from his mother upon his graduation from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1915.  The Washington Bible was opened to II Chronicles 7:14, which reads: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”  His West Point Bible was opened to Psalm 33:12, which reads: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.”

Following his oath of office, President Eisenhower commenced his inaugural remarks as follows:

My friends, before I begin the expression of those thoughts that I deem appropriate to this moment, would you permit me the privilege of uttering a little private prayer of my own.  And I ask that you bow your heads:

Almighty God, as we stand here at this moment my future associates in the executive branch of government join me in beseeching that Thou will make full and complete our dedication to the service of the people in this throng and their fellow citizens everywhere.  Give us, we pray, the power to discern clearly right from wrong, and allow all our words and actions to be governed thereby, and by the laws of this land.  Especially we pray that our concern shall be for all people regardless of station, race, or calling.  May cooperation be permitted and be the mutual aim of those who, under the concepts of our Constitution, hold to differing political faiths; so that all may work for the good of our beloved county and Thy glory.  Amen.

President Obama has indicated that he will also use two Bibles at his second inauguration.

On these pages, I recently wrote about Andrea Hernandez, a 15-year-old sophomore at a science and engineering magnet school in Texas, who was threatened with expulsion for failing to wear a school-mandated RFID spychip tracking badge.  (Here is the original blog).  Ms. Hernandez equated the use of the spychip and continuous monitoring by school authorities with the “mark of the beast” spoken of in Revelation 13:16-17.  As a result of her failing to wear the spychip, she was suspended from her high school, and went to federal court winning a preliminary injunction to continue her studies without the tag until a final decision was made by federal Judge Orlando Garcia.

Judge Garcia, a Clinton appointee, issued his decision earlier this week, and ruled against Ms. Hernandez, saying that if she is to stay at her high school, then she must wear the spychip.  The school district, recognizing that Ms. Hernandez was an otherwise serious student who is not disruptive, offered to allow her to wear the student identification badge without the chip.  However, Ms. Hernandez presumes that such an “accommodation” would cause her to violate her integrity.  Otherwise, Judge Garcia ruled that if she refuses to wear the spychip, then she can transfer to a new school.   Judge Garcia wrote, “[Ms. Hernandez’s] objection to wearing the Smart ID badge without a chip is clearly a secular choice, rather than a religious choice. . . The accommodation offered by the district removes [her] religious objection from legal scrutiny all together.”

Ms. Hernandez, through her attorneys at the Rutherford Institute, said she will appeal Judge Garcia’s decision immediately based upon violations of her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.  Interestingly, it is a basic principle of American jurisprudence that government officials may not scrutinize or even question the validity of an individual’s religious belief, not matter how non-mainstream or even absurd it might seem to a non-believer.  In this case, Judge Garcia, by declaring that Ms. Hernandez’s objections to be a secular choice and not grounded in her religious beliefs, ironically placed himself as the ultimate arbiter of what is or is not “religious” to Ms. Hernandez.

In the meantime, what is clear is that Ms. Hernandez has been penalized and discriminated against by school officials who object to her sincerely held religious beliefs, by being forced to participate in the district’s spychip program.  I went to high school a number of years ago, but in my generation and at my high school, few of us would have worn the spychip in protest, whether Christian or not.  I will continue to monitor this interesting story as developments warrant.

The recently enacted American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (“ATRA”) that ended the so-called fiscal cliff limits the amount people can claim for charitable deductions.  The new limitations are highly technical, but presently apply to individuals making $250,000 or more, and married couples making $300,000 or more.  Some tax analysts have noted that the limitations on charitable giving will vary depending upon individual circumstances.  Thus, as one example, taxpayers in high-tax states, such as New York or California, may find their charitable deductions as valuable as in prior years, whereas taxpayers in low-tax states, such as Texas and Nevada, will find that their charitable deductions cost considerably more.  Nevertheless, ATRA is expected to garner our nation’s federal government tens of billions in additional tax revenues.  However, nonprofits in the United States fear that such limitations on charitable giving will cost nonprofits billions each year.  According to Philanthropy News Digest, the new cap on tax deductions for charitable giving could potentially reduce annual giving by up to $7 billion a year.  This comes on decreased giving resulting from an economy with lackluster growth, high unemployment and even higher underemployment, increased costs of gasoline (average increases of 25% per year over the past four years), and significantly higher food costs, which cost the typical American family many thousands of additional dollars per year.  At the very least, organizations that rely upon charitable giving might be prudent to plan for potential decreases in charitable giving in 2013 and the foreseeable future.

Of course, Christians should give tithes and offerings, whether tax deductible or not.  A tithe is defined as 10 percent of gross income.  Many of my readers are aware that the Bible teaches about multiple tithes and offerings, and we see in Malachi 3 that God encourages charitable giving to God.  Malachi 3 is important as it affirms that just as there are physical laws that govern the physical universe, there are also financial principles that govern our financial universe, including the principle of sowing and reaping.  St. Paul reaffirms this in II Corinthians 9: 6, when he writes in the context of giving: “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”  But most importantly, it is the attitude of our hearts that God is looking at, and we must never forget God loves those who are cheerful givers (II Corinthians 9:7).

I have often heard people say that Christians have no obligation to tithe because we are under grace, rather than under the Mosaic law.  Perhaps you have heard that as well.  The Mosaic law, of course, did not provide eternal life for those who attempted to keep it (see Galatians 2:16, and 3:21-22), or else Christ’s death on the cross for us would be unnecessary.  However, as Christian believers, we have received eternal life by the unmerited favor of God, even though we do not deserve it, and could not possibly earn it.  So, we should have an even greater motivation and a higher standard for stewardship of our possessions than for those under Jewish law.

Thus, in 2013, echoing the words of Joshua 24:15, as for me and my household, we will continue to give to Christian groups affirming Christian values (including the Fellowship of St. James, which is responsible for the publication of Touchstone and Salvo, and this blog), and to churches working to serve the poor, and that seek to fulfill the Great Commission of St. Matthew’s Gospel, 28: 18-20.  I don’t want to merely give to get from God, but it does make me happy to have God consider me a cheerful giver, whether the IRS gives me a tax deduction or not.  It just might require a bit more sacrifice on my end, but in light of Christ’s love and sacrifice on our behalf, is that really too much to ask.

Adolf Hitler published his two-volume Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”) in 1925-26.  It was both his autobiography and political ideology, and Hitler proclaimed his hatred of both Communism and Judaism, argued that Germany needed to expand eastward into Czechoslovakia and Poland, and stated that the future of Germany lay in the acquisition of land in the East at the expense of the Soviet Union.  He further intimated that he had a master plan for the extermination of Jews.  When he became Chancellor in 1933, he began to implement governmental policies that he had clearly articulated in his book, and did not seek to “move to the center” after he became Chancellor of Germany.  In fact, Winston Churchill, writing in Volume I of The Second World War, observed that Mein Kampf “was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.”  Indeed it was.  The result was the decimation of Europe, and the deaths of tens of millions of persons, including a number in my family.

A video recently released by the Middle East Research Institute (“MEMRI”) features Egypt’s President Morsi saying that Arabs and Moslems do not benefit from interacting with the descendants of apes and pigs in Israel, and further called Americans “enemies” and calls for a boycott of United States goods.  Among the other pearls of his wisdom are the following:

This [Palestinian] Authority was created by the Zionist and American enemies for the sole purpose of opposing the will of the Palestinian people and its interests.

As to the efficacy of negotiating with Israel, President Morsi opined as follows:

Either [you accept] the Zionists and everything they want, or else it is war. This is what these occupiers of the land of Palestine know – these blood-suckers, who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, the descendants of apes and pigs.

And President Morsi, speaking in the style of Mein Kampf, observed:

We should employ all forms of resistance against them. There should be military resistance within the land of Palestine against those criminal Zionists, who attack Palestine and the Palestinians.  There should also be political resistance and economic resistance through a boycott, as well as by supporting the resistance fighters.  This should be the practice of the Muslims and the Arabs outside Palestine.  They should support the resistance fighters and besiege the Zionist wherever they are.  None of the Arab or Muslim peoples and regimes should have dealings with them.  Pressure should be exerted upon them.  They must not be given any opportunity, and must not stand on any Arab or Islamic land. They must be driven out of our countries.

You can view the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mXnbgsg9DM

The Egypt of President Morsi is the recipient of billions of dollars annually of United States foreign aid, and later this month, the Obama “Administration” is planning to donate F-16 fighter jets and 200 new Abrams tanks to Egypt.  (No, I am not making this up!)  Of course, an Egyptian Sharia dictatorship on Israel’s border, armed with American weapons, could cause mischief to Israel and the United States, and could be used against the Egyptian people should President Morsi face a Syria-style revolution.  It is only President Obama who can now rescind the delivery of fighter jets and tanks to Egypt.  Interestingly, Fox News reported that a spokesperson at the U.S. Department of State declined to say whether the deal was being reviewed, but said the Obama “Administration” seeks to “maintain a strategic partnership with Egypt that enhances the security and peace of the region.”  With that, I suspect that President Morsi will get his free jets and tanks thanks to those of you who pay taxes.  If you are as uncomfortable about this as I am, please let President Obama know your views.  The main number to the White House is 1.202.456.1414.  As the President continues his vacation in Hawaii with his family, I would suggest that you contact the President’s Chief of Staff, Jacob Joseph “Jack” Lew.  I am sure he would be happy to leave a message from you for the President.  More importantly, as we are commanded in Psalm 122:6, please pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Happy New Year everyone!  I was having dinner recently with a few friends.  One of the couples, who are devout Christian believers, lives in an Islamic state where there is severe persecution of Christian believers.  During our meal, he invited me to come to visit and minister in his adopted country.  I don’t know whether I shall ever be able to do so.  It’s not that I am afraid to go, even though I have to admit that I do not even look forward to going to the dentist for a cleaning.  Nevertheless, as Christian believers, we recognize that being in God’s will is always safer than being outside of God’s will.  However, since the dawn of 2013, I have read of some terrible atrocities from Islamist extremists.

In one example, the British newspaper Mail reported yesterday that six female aid workers and a male physician were murdered by Taliban gunmen in Pakistan on January 1st.  What was the reason that the seven aid workers were murdered?  The killings sought to stop their work in administering polio vaccinations.  Police reports indicated that most of the women killed were between 20 and 22 years of age.  The murder of these aid workers comes after nine other health workers died in a series of attacks two weeks ago.  Those nine health workers also were part of the national polio vaccination drive in Pakistan.

The most recent murders took place in an area about 45 miles northwest of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.  Their aid agency ran a school and a dispensary in the area, and helped vaccinate children against polio.  The aid agency has now instructed its 160 other staff to suspend their work following the murders.  For those of us for whom polio is a distant memory, we forget that this disease can cripple or kill within hours of infection.  Prior to the development of the Salk and Sabin vaccines in the 1950s, children and teens would suffer terribly from the disease’s effects.  In the 1952 polio epidemic in the United States, more than three thousand died, and over 21,000 were left in some form of serious paralysis.  Even today, there is no known cure for polio.  Pakistan is one of the three countries where polio is still endemic, and has the highest rate of new cases in the world (followed by Afghanistan and Nigeria).  Last summer, the Taliban commander warlord, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, banned polio vaccinations in North Waziristan tribal area just days before 161,000 children were to be inoculated against the disease.

I don’t know exactly why the Taliban desires polio to spread in Pakistan.  Of course, vaccination was not used in the 7^th century.  Perhaps it was because the Obama “Administration” used a polio vaccination campaign as cover to kill Osama bin Laden.  Perhaps it would have been more prudent for the Obama “Administration” to keep the details of the OBL raid secret (as they are capable of doing with the facts surrounding the September 11, 2012, attacks on the Benghazi, Libya, facility, or the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scheme).  Of course, if I were mildly cynical, I would remember that there was an election coming up at the time.  But Obama could have avoiding endangering the lives of many children in Pakistan, and now, the Obama “Administration” has given the Taliban an excuse to distrust anyone involved in polio vaccination campaigns.  Of course, the Taliban said that they did not carry out those murders.  However, according to the Mail, Taliban leaders have repeatedly denounced the polio vaccination programs as a plot to sterilize people or to spy on Moslems.  Of course, it is the women and children of Pakistan who are the true victims here.  They have no voice, and no means or hope of escaping these barbaric Taliban monsters.  Yet we are encouraged by the words of the Lord Jesus, who taught us in St. Matthew’s Gospel, 18: 10: “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”  Please pray for the women and children of Pakistan.