Bridge of Grace

The Group Antifa claims to be Anti-Fascist, yet they continually utilize fascist tactics such as breaking windows, beatings, smearing, & intimidation.  They are in truth becoming the very thing that they claim to fight.  On university campuses across the, radical Leftists urge boycotts and protests against conservatives speakers.  When they fail to get the speakers banned, they resort to shouting them down as they try to speak, they seek to deliberately disrupt the talks with public spectacles and disruptive actions.  Ironically, Hitler's Brownshirts in the 1920's did the exact same thing.  During the time before the Nazis had great political power, they resorted to harassment tactics against their opponents.  For example, Nazi Brownshirts would hound their opponents at German universities.  They urged Germans to boycott the talks of Jewish philosopher Theodor Lessing (who openly spoke out against Nazism from the beginning).  They shouted him down at his lectures, and their

On Jan. 27th Filipino Catholics went to the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Cathedral in Jolo, a city in the South Philippines.  Reports have revealed that 18 people lost their lives and dozens more were injured.  As of now, ISIS is claiming responsibility for the attack, and it is highly probably that they were responsible.  For decades, the nation of the Philippines has been fighting against Islamist insurgent groups who have been engaged in an ongoing war to take control of the South Philippines and establish a Sharia State in the region.  After the rise of ISIS in Syrian & Iraq, many Jihadist fighters answered the call to arms and went to the Middle East to join ISIS.  Now, many of the fighters are coming back to continue the Jihad against the Philippines.   Bombing of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Cathedral However, Filipino intelligence suggests that the true perpetrators were Abu Sayaff, and Islamist insurgency group that has been active in the region since 1991.  This group has com

On January 22, 2019, the Iranian regime sentenced Farhad Meysami and Reza Khandan to six years in prison.  In addition, the regime banned them from contributing to media and using social media for the next two years.  The regime convicted the two men of  "assembly" and "collusion" against national security and for "propaganda against the ruling establishment."  What was their real crime?   Fighting for women's rights in Iran.   Under Iranian Sharia Law, women have few rights, if any.   Women activists like Ayanz Anni Cyrus, who was forced into an abusive marriage against her will, raped, and beaten, knows this all too well.  When Anni Cyrus went to the authorities for help, she was turned away and told that her husband was permitted under Sharia to do this.  Iranian Law gives men total authority over women.  Women have no say in anything.  They're not even permitted to dress how they like.  This is what sparked the protests in Iran last Decemb

The Recently Convicted Couple Last week, a Federal Judge found Texas couple Mohamed Toure and Denise Cros-Toure guilty of enslaving an West African migrant girl for 16 years.  According to the courts, the couple brought the young girl over from the country of Guinea when she was five.  For 16 years they forced her to work as a domestic servant.  She had to cook, clean, and when she was old enough, work as a nanny for their children.  She was to leave the house without permission, forced to sleep on a bare floor, and doesn't even know how old she is as she was never told of her birthday.  The young girl testified that her owners regularly beat her with an electric cord and referred to as a "dog" and a "slave."   For years, the Toure's neighbors were clueless about what was  happening.  As a child, they kept her inside at all times, and when she was old enough to go outside and escort their children to school, the neighbors simply assumed she was the fam

In the year 2002, the movie "The Sum of All Fears" was released.  The plot of the movie was that a group of Neo Nazis sought to instigate a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, eliminating two major world powers, which would enable them to build a new Fascist State in Europe.  This movie was loosely based on Tom Clancy's best-selling book "The Sum of all Fears."  However, the the plot of the book was very different from that of the movie.   In Tom Clancy's novel, the villains are not European Neo Nazis, but a radical faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and former East German Communists.  In the novel, most of the Palestinian terrorists were agreeing to a lasting peace with Israel, which enraged the radical factions who were determined to annihilate Israel by any means necessary (as it's written in the Hamas Charter ).  They join forces with former East German communists who want to destroy both the U.S. (their lon

Imam Saad Askar For the Coptic Christians of Egypt, the 7th of January is the day that they celebrate Christmas.  It is supposed to be a time of joy for the Coptic community, but for the one Coptic Church in Egypt, it was a near tragedy.  As the Coptic Christians of the Church of the Virgin Mary and Abu Seifin in the Nasr City district of Cairo, Egypt were celebrating their mass, two students of Al Azhar University noticed a suspicious man carrying a case to the church.  They students alerted Saad Askar, the Imam of a local Mosque who alerted the authorities and shouted to the Christian congregation to leave the church immediately.   Members of the Egyptian military arrived in time to defuse two of the bombs.  Unfortunately, the third one detonated, killing bomb squad member Major Mostafa Ebeid al-Azhar.  Imam Askar's courageous action has put his own life in danger as the Jihadist terrorist are now threatening him.  However, Imam Askar defended his actions, stating that &quo

Many today continue to insist that Jihadist terrorism is not a world-wide problem, that it's mostly confined to the Middle East, and that it's only a handful of "crazy fringe groups" that engage in it.  However, is this really the case?  The 9/11 attack showed the world that they were capable of launching a massive attack right in the heart of our country.  The ongoing attacks in Europe and the Jihadist wars being raged in Africa and the South Philippines illustrates that  this is not a "Middle East Phenomena."  However, we don't need to look at what's happening since 9/11 to see that Jihadist terrorism is a world-wide problem, we can simply look at what has happened in the Third Week of January, 2019. This week in Syria, four Americans (a Green Beret, a former Navy Seal, & two Language Specialists) were killed by an ISIS attack.  It seems that despite being driven back on all fronts, ISIS is very much capable of continuing attacks through the

Dr. Olywasayo Ajiboye On Jan. 17, 2019, Dr. Oluwasayo Ajiboye, the founder of  Mission Africa International , spoke on behalf of the Christian community of Nigeria in Washington D.C.  Dr. Ajiboye has spent years helping Christians and others fleeing the ongoing violence in Northern Nigeria.  Throughout this region, Boko Haram & their Fulani militant allies have been waging a war to create an Islamic Caliphate that not only encompasses Northern Nigeria, but will with time expand to neighboring nations and span through Sub-Saharan Africa.  They want to do in Sub-Saharan Africa what ISIS tried to do in Iraq and Syria, and they are willing to slaughter anyone who stands in their way.   Christians are especially targeted.  To the Jihadist militants, the Christians are  infidels, enemies of Allah, and no presence of Christianity can exist in their Sharia State.  As the Christians are driven out, the militants bulldoze down their homes and churches, they want to eradicate all presence

One of the most significant episodes of the New Testament was the conversion of Paul the Apostle.  Prior to his conversion, Paul was a highly educated Jewish Pharisee by the name of Saul.  Believing the followers of Jesus to be dangerous heretics, Saul launched a violent campaign against them.  However, God had other plans for Saul.  In a remarkable turn of events, Saul had a powerful encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, and became not only became a follower of Christ, but he became one of the New Testaments greatest evangelists.  Paul was the first persecutor who became a believer, but he was not the last.  Throughout the course of history, former persecutors of the faith all over the world have become believers.  One amazing case that I read recently was that of former al-Qaeda terrorists, a man by the name of "Ahmed." In the early 1990's Ahmed was a poor young man in his early 20's.  He was frustrated by his ongoing poverty, Ahmed sought refuge with a gr

Eighteen-year-old Rahaf al-Qunan is fighting for her life.  A native of Saudi Arabia, Rahaf fled from her family in Kuwait and flew to Thailand in the hope of being granted asylum in Australia.  Though in truth, Rahaf is willing to go to any country where she can be given a simple right, the right to live.  The reason she lost this right in Saudi Arabia is because she made a simple, yet dangerous choice: she left the Islamic Faith.   Sharia Law, which is derived straight from the Qur'an and Hadith literature makes the punishment for Apostasy very clear.  There is a consensus by all four schools of Sunni Islamic Jurisprudence (i.e. Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, & Shafii as well as classical Shiite jurists that anyone who is considered to be an apostate from Islam must be put to death.  In many cases, when the state does not carry out this law, the members of society will take matters into their own hands.  There have been numerous cases all over the world of Muslims being killed

In a world where issues divide societies and plague our moral conscience, many seek to try and decide how to enact mutually acceptable compromises that will satisfy both parties.  In many instances, when an issue divides a society, the compromise that many propose is the "Pro-Choice" compromise.  In this, they simply assert that every individual has the right to make their own conscience decision on what they should do, and it's best to just leave it at that.  However, is that always the right choice?  Let us take the issue of slavery as an example.   In the mid 19th century, the issue of slavery was coming to the forefront of America politics.  This issue was being debated over by states, Congress, even the Supreme Court.  Many of those in the Democratic Party supported what we would call the "Pro Choice" compromise, in which each state or even community makes their own decision over whether or not to have slaves.   However, one must ask, would our societ

Louisa Vesterager Jespersen of Denmark and Maren Ueland of Norway were brutally murdered by ISIS supporters while hiking in the Mountains of Morocco.  There are many in the world who blame the ISIS ideology for their deaths, but in truth, the West also has to share this blame.  This is because our Western education systems, media, and society as a whole is deceiving us into following the ideology of cultural relativism, which is "the belief that and individual's beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture, rather than judged against the criteria of another."  Unfortunately, this is creating a society where we fail to distinguish between being "culturally respectful" and discerning what is morally right, and what is morally wrong, and understanding that these moral absolutes must always be upheld, regardless of what society or culture we live in.    When I read about how these two girls were killed, I could

For many centuries, war has been waged in the name of faith.  All throughout the world, this is still on ongoing epidemic.  Many of the colonists who first came to America came to try and and escape from religious persecution, and when our Founding Fathers signed the Constitution, they understood the danger of state-enforced religious and therefore wrote the First Amendment in their efforts to promote religious freedom and protect the rights of all people to worship in peace, regardless of their religious affiliation.  However, over the years I often asked myself: "What did the founders of the various faiths of the world have to teach about interacting with those of different faiths?" As I examined the scriptures, I have learned that each teacher had differing views on this subject.  In the Gospels, Jesus boldly proclaimed in John 14:6 that he was the way, nobody came to the Father except through him.  He urged his Disciples to preach his message of salvation to all nati