Send us your saline acid burned and scarred babies. As they lay there on the delivery table having suffered and survived a burning acid bath only moments before, and while they are sucking in their first breaths, looking up at the shadowy and blurred figure of the abortion doctor hovering over them with scissors; before you sever their life from them with your knives, send them to us. Let us show them the one side of the human experience they have never known; in a word, Mr. President; human love. Before you kill them, Let us hold them. If they die, before you place them in a plastic bag and throw them into a trash container, send them to us. Let us bury them in the soft earth of our farms or ranches. We will give them a decent burial, and we will hold them for a moment before placing them tenderly into the cold ground. We will speak a few words over their graves and grieve their parting. If they are alive, send them to us, we will try to comfort them. If they are burned, we will rub soft salve onto their skins. If they are blinded by the saline, we will lead them by the hand and teach them to read braille. If they are ugly and scarred, we will love them anyway, and show them that love is not due only to the beautiful and wanted, but is unconditional. If they are hungry, we will find a way to feed them, every one of them. And we will clothe them. Abortion doctors, and the presidents and senators that support them; send us your babies! We will find homes for them; big hearted, kind, selfless mothers and hardworking fathers, loving sisters and brothers. By all that is good and merciful and right or just in this world, stop treating them as if they were non-humans, as though they were non-persons, as if they had no right to life, no need for mercy, undeserving of even the smallest acts of human kindness, as though we as a people owed them no responsibility at all. Mr. President, send us your babies; because they are our babies, they are everyone’s babies. They are human; they deserve to be held and gloated over like we were; they deserve to be loved.

 Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglas on Slavery in America

Frederick Douglas and Booker T. Washington both condemned slavery, though the experience of Douglas as a slave had been more harrowing than that of Washington. Although Douglas made it clear he was a Christian, he condemned in the strongest possible language the religious practices of the south that allowed;

“The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister for the purpose of prostitution stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence…sundering husbands from wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers, leaving the hut vacant and the hearth desolate.” Frederick Douglas, Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas, Appendix

And yet Booker T. Washington said this;

“I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery. I have long since ceased to cherish and spirit of bitterness against the Southern white people on the account of the enslavement of my race. No one section of the country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and besides, it was recognized and protected for years by the general government (Supreme Court ruling, Dred Scott decision). Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter to relieve itself of the institution.

Then, when we rid ourselves of prejudice, or racial feeling, and look facts in the face, we must acknowledge that notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestor went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe. This is true to such an extent that Negroes in this country…are constantly returning to Africa as missionaries to enlighten those who remain in the fatherland. This I say not to justify slavery…but to call attention to a fact- and to show how Providence often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose.” Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, Ch.1

Both men were very aware that slavery existed in spite of the professed Christian religion, not because of it, despite the ranting of many an atheist or hip college professor. But, I have to admit that an atheist is free to rant anything he wants, whether true or false, because his religion has no intrinsic or extrinsic morals, no absolutes by which he needs to answer to. None the less, if nothing is true, you do wonder why they spend so much time condemning their forefathers and anyone else who doesn’t hold to their precarious world view. Ideologically, atheists can abort babies, enslave millions, and  eradicate other religions without apology and so they have done in China, Russia, North Korea, Cambodia, Viet Nam, the old Eastern European satellites and anywhere else they get in power.

But what do we do with Christians, who like their predecessors who learned to ignore the crime of slavery, have learned to ignore the crime of abortion and prenatal infanticide, while going about their own private lives? How can they think themselves above or better than those who became blind to the sins of slavery? The southerners had hard economic reasons to support the slave trade. They could claim that they often treated their slaves well and became quite attached to them. Booker T Washington was eyewitness to many partings of slaves and owners after the Emancipation and testified that both were in tears, not because of economic loss but because slave and owner had often become like family. And there was no government safety net to provide food, health or lodging for those 10 million freed slaves, though that fact may shock many a modern progressive. No government projects awaited them. Many churches and abolitionist organizations offered help but the vast majority of freed slaves made it on their own. In fact, according to Booker T. Washington, many slaves helped to support their masters after the war, sending them money from their jobs in the north. Such was the bond of affection that held some of them together and the generosity and sense of loyalty of many of the freed blacks.

Most of these progressive Christians who view abortion as a secondary problem or necessary evil would never abort a baby themselves. They give the necessary lip service to the abortion trade- but no number of saline burned carcasses can deter them from voting for pro-abortion candidates who carry the flag of protected politically correct status, “I am against abortion, but I would never judge or take away a women’s right to kill her baby.” Just as the Supreme Court presumed the slave owner’s right to his own property, so do these culturally correct church goers presume the women’s right to the individual in her womb, to dispense of as she pleases. In this they differ in no way from the vast majority of Christians in both the north and south- most who viewed slavery in the same manner. Even Lincoln fumed at southerners who claimed he was an abolitionist; he steadfastly refuted that charge until shortly before the war, and then only when he realized war was inevitable.

Some of these culturally acceptable Christians are only alive today because their parents became culturally unacceptable Christians; and refused to abort them. This despite their own selfish desires, pressure from parents and doctors and a supreme court ruling that claimed to wash away the blood of their abortion with a legal ruling.

Like the grasshopper on the green leaf, they scorn those down in the dust, whose lives are still at risk. After all, you can’t see the aborted infants like you could the slaves in the south; lined up on the dirt roads in chains, with the scars from beatings clearly seen on their backs.. Some of those blacks, though, survived to see their liberation from chains, and went on to become teachers and speakers and even famous scientists, like Washington Carver. Some have even become presidents.

Very few aborted babies ever make it that far.

Yes, honestly I do think that atheists that go on about slavery are hypocrites, but what about those modern Christians that worship at two altars? One altar is to the Divine maker of the Universe whose moral laws are immutable and who made man in his own image- and the other is the great altar of cultural acceptance, from which they receive political correctness status and all its protections and blessings.

I wonder what Frederick Douglas would say about their “religion”?

What is your gender? Did Israel cause the original Palestinian refugee situation? Did Christianity spread in the same fashion as Islam? Did the so-called Enlightenment ever have any effect on the development of science, literacy or human liberty in Europe? Can you tell the story of modern China and leave the effects of Marxism and Mao out of the picture? Has the effect of environmentalist fads been negligible or  devastating  upon the poor, and has all the hype over carbon caused warming been empirically based? All this and more are part of the blitz in modern textbooks. Thinly disguised anti-Americanism. and a strong anti-Christian but pantheistic bent is rampant on today’s college campuses. Is it history or propaganda? Available at Amazon com.

Little Parliament on 14th July 1653.

 But thus far we may look back. You very well know, it pleased God, much about the midst of this War, to winnow (if I may so say) the Forces of this Nation; and to put them into the hands of other men of other principles than those that did engage at the first. By what ways and means that was brought about, would ask more time than is allotted me to mind you of it. Indeed there are Stories that do recite those Transactions, and give you narratives of matters of fact: but those things wherein the life and power of them lay; those strange windings and turnings of Providence; those very great appearances of God, in crossing and thwarting the purposes of men, that He might raise up a poor and contemptible company of men, neither versed in military affairs, nor having much natural propensity to them, ‘into wonderful success-!’ Simply by their owning a Principle of Godliness and Religion; which so soon as it came to be owned, and the state of affairs put upon the foot of that account, how God blessed them, furthering all undertakings, yet using the most improbable and the most contemptible and despicable means (for that we shall ever own): is very well known to you…

 Just a small snatch of a long speech…

 People living in urban environments are often impressed with all the new Asian and Eastern religions they encounter. And with the common and very aggressively taught view that all religions are essentially equal, they accept them like a new toy at Christmas, at face value. They feel enlightened and sophisticated as they observe or study the practices of these new religious immigrants to this country. But beware; what you see may not be what you get.

Even Catholicism goes through a metamorphous in America compared to how it is practiced in Latin America or much of southern Europe. In Mexico at least 90% or more of the churches I went into had wall to wall statues of wood or clay made in the images of the various saints. In front of each saint was a place to pray and a money box to place money in as you worshipped and sought aid from each of the saints. Search American Catholic churches and you would be hard pressed to find such a supermarket of various idols or mediators of any sort, even in neighborhoods populated by Mexican or Latino immigrants. You will find an occasional saint or statue of the Virgin Mary or the Virgin of Guadalupe, but not the pantheon which is normally found in the old country.

Religions tend to put on a different face when they arrive in new numbers into this nation and may appear far more innocuous then they really are. The Hindu people are a friendly people and very popular with many non-Christians or nominal Christians seeking new paths to spiritual enlightenment.

Most people introducing Hinduism to interested bystanders won’t mention all of the practices of this cult or its history in India. They won’t tell you that it was an English Queen, Victoria, who outlawed the practice called “suttee”, the burning of the wives during the funeral services of the husbands. Surviving widows were routinely burned alive on their husband’s funeral pyre during burial services. And while Victoria outlawed the practice, it still continues in India, though covertly and in smaller numbers, as does the practice of infant sacrifice.

They usually won’t discuss the connection between Adolph Hitler’s Aryan practices and those of Hinduism either. The caste system in Indian Hinduism starts at the top with the Brahman and descends to the bottom, the untouchables, based largely on skin color; the darkest at the bottom. Dwelling on this major aspect of Hinduism would not be conducive to converting the bored and brain washed American seekers who are temporarily blinded by the mysticism and interesting hats and clothing of the Hindu people.

The Swastika is an Ancient Hindu symbol; but not one you will see displayed prominently on most Hindu temples in America. Hitler’s religious values were founded solidly on Darwinian evolution and Hinduism; there is not much conflict between the two.

Sometimes enlightenment is not what it appears to be and while embracing a broad outlook towards different religions can give the appearance of sophistication as well as a sense of moral superiority; it’s often nothing more than the adoption of a socially acceptable mindset based on indifference to, or ignorance of, reality. I think they call that education in this country.

Walter Raleigh, courtier to Queen Elizabeth and captain of her guard, privateer, importer and exporter, veteran of many wars fought on the seas with cutlass and cannon, and on the land fought with musket, pikes and horse, explorer of Guiana, the Orinoco River and the Carolinas, politician, farmer with estates in Ireland and England, chemist and pharmacist, a much sought out mineral assayer, a friend to the South American Indians, who brought the first potato and tobacco to England; a man for all seasons. After Elizabeth’s death he was locked in the Tower by King James who would eventually execute him.  While he awaited the king’s will in the prison, he turned historian and theologian. He gathered over 500 books and manuscripts and undertook to write the history of the world, from Adam and Eve on up. He finished sixteen hundred pages before he lost his head; King James took offense with his commentary on the government of kings, though that was not the reason Raleigh was executed.

Most people don’t realize it, but one of the reasons James commissioned the King James Bible was because he was offended by the Puritan commentary in the Geneva Bible; he thought they had a little too much flare for individual rights and freedoms. James liked big government and frowned on those who promoted individual rights.

400 years have passed since Raleigh sat in the tower writing the book. Here in this excerpt from his lengthy preface, translated from the old English by yours truly, Raleigh gives us one of the reasons why he chose to write a history while imprisoned in the Tower of London; the importance of history itself and its value for contemporary men. He says that history tells us about the beginning of the earth and;

“How it was covered with waters, and again repeopled: How kings and kingdoms have flourished and fallen; and for what virtue and piety GOD made prosperous, and for what vice and deformity he made wretched, both the one and the other. And it is not the least debt which we owe to history that it has made us acquainted with our dead Ancestors; and, out of the depth and darkness of the earth, delivered us their memory and fame. In a word, we may gather out of history a policy no less wise than eternal; by the comparison and application of other men’s long past miseries with our own like errors and ill deservings,

But it is neither from examples, the most lively instructions, nor the words of the wisest men, nor the terror of future torments that have yet to wrought in our blind and stupefied minds so to make us remember that the infinite eye and wisdom of GOD does pierce through all our pretenses as to make us remember that the justice of GOD requires no other accuser than our own consciences; which neither the false beauty of our apparent actions, nor all the formalities  which (to pacify the opinions of men) we put on; can in any, or in the least cover us from his knowledge. And so much did the Heathen wisdom confess, not yet qualified by the knowledge of a true GOD. If any (says Euripides) has in this life committed wickedness and thinks he can hide it from the everlasting gods, he thinks not well.”  p. 17, preface to History of the World

“But the judgments of GOD are forever unchangeable; neither is he wearied by the long process of time, and inclined to give his blessing in one age, to that which he hath cursed in another.

Therefore those that are wise, or whose wisdom,  if it be not great, yet is true and well grounded; will be able to discern the bitter fruits of irreligious policy…” p. 18, ibid

Raleigh thought that through history we could relive the lives of our forefathers, the good, the bad and the ugly; and thus avoid repeating the mistakes they made while making use of those courses of action which profited them. Raleigh was greatly concerned at receiving the blessing of God, while at the same time avoiding His wrath. We might laugh at the author here and find him naïve, but he would have returned the favor with a guffaw of his own and informed us that faith in a self-forming universe is not a new concept but an ancient pagan one. He would have insisted that the creator God of the universe has made himself plain through the things he has made; his universe, and that men that refuse to recognize that are without excuse.

And his wanting you to be a partaker of that knowledge was one of the primary reasons why he penned this book while awaiting the King’s pardon or the executioners axe.

Is it the lack of more government gun control or the reality of over 56 million abortions that is cheapening the value of human life in the American culture?

And it isn’t just guns or abortions that have killed people in new ways and increasing numbers in the last 50 years, is it? How about the number of drug related deaths since the early sixties? Let me list a few for you;

Hugh Sporrer- Heroin overdose, age 22

Robin Balleau- Heroin overdose, age 17

Colin Post- Murdered in drug deal- age 25

Mike Sirotey- clubbed to death-drug related¸ age 28

Bruce Van Alstyne- drug suicide, age 19

Denny Door- Heroin overdose, age 19

Randy Como- (almost got me murdered in a drug deal) Heroin overdose, age18-19

Hugh Wheeler- Insane asylum drug related, age 18

Gilbert Carranza- murdered in drug deal, age 26

This is a short list of personal friends who died or were put in an insane asylum due to the explosion of cultural change which took place in the sixties. I could make it a lot longer, believe me, if I wanted to think about it for a while, but it’s been over 40 years and I would rather not go over all that territory again. These were all friends, people I partied with, or, in the case of Sporrer, Door and Van Alstyne, very close friends, surfing buddies that I grew up with and in the case of two of them, practically lived at their houses at times. They were not “bad kids”; they were the sons of school principals, senators and people in the top echelon of the radio industry. Robin Balleu was voted most popular in Jr. High; Denny Door was listed as one of the hottest young surfers on the coast of California. But they’re dead.

The culture, the new hip enlightened culture, told them they could turn on, tune in and drop out; the media pasted ex-Harvard academic Timothy Leary’s words all over magazine covers and headlines. And if God was dead, as the new paganism claimed, why not? They dropped out alright, into six foot deep graves. And that wasn’t the only new phenomena that hit the prosperous and spiritually sloppy post-war culture of the fifties; scores of us went to jail and prison for drug charges, theft and robbery, all drug related and from families with no history of crime or drug use.

A few of these boys came from rougher neighborhoods and cultures where drugs and single parent homes were already becoming prevalent; but most came from middle to upper-class homes and two parent families. How many young men from such families died of drug overdoses before 1963? How many went to prison?

And then there were the new and very enlightened views on sex, what kind of toll did they take? I had at least one personal friend who died of HIV in the eighties. He was a young black friend of mine who made sexual advances on me when I was 16. I decked him. But he was not a bad kid; he was kind hearted, loved literature and never bothered me again. But thousands of others like him died of HIV, while the culture, through the media and academia continues to push new views of gender that say, “hey, it’s all good, the biblical moral code that guided the western nations for two thousand years was an invention of very imaginative sheep herders and fun hating old white men- if it feel good, do it.” In our boring old pre-sixties Christian culture, people didn’t die from HIV, did they?

And all this free sex had one very obvious result that none of our enlightened academic scholars seemed to expect; babies. Unwanted and unplanned for babies. No problem; they handled this kind of thing in ancient Rome long before our modern times, we can do the same thing; Kill them. Infanticide and abortion had been outlawed for over two thousand years in the Christian nations; life in the womb was considered sacred, babies like all humans were thought to have been formed in the image of God. Not anymore.

At what point does it become ludicrous for an incumbent president who personally refused to sign a bill to protect infants who survive the saline abortion “technique”, and who adamantly insists that 56 million dead pre-natal infants are simply the process of “reproductive rights” in action, to bemoan the deaths of kindergarten students in a horrible massacre? If human life has been ruled to have no value inside the womb, how much value can it have outside the womb?

The value of human life becomes arbitrary; professors at Yale discuss and argue over “personhood”. Now, since 1973, you can be a human and not be a person.

Dead babies; dead young men from drugs; dead young men from free gender choice; dead marriages; if it feels good, just do it. Right.

We had no real gun control back in the fifties. I used to walk on Zuma beach in LA County with a Ruger Bearcat 22 pistol strapped on my hip when I was 10 and no one thought much about it. Crimes like the killing sprees in the public schools didn’t happen, though we had plenty of guns and very few gun laws. Guns do not cheapen the value of life; abortion does.

Abortion, free sex and the “anything goes” view of gender being espoused in our halls of academia have cheapened sex and they cheapen the value of life.

Some people think I live in the past. They say “you read too much, too much history, you’re out of it, man, you live in the past”.  Not really. I read history to live in the past, its true. But I want to live in the past only so I can understand the present and have a small hint of the future.  The  problem is that the same people live in a culture bubble, they are totally wrapped up in the tiny slice of history they live in now; the computerized and sexualized hip post sixties culture. And they have no counter balance for it.

They think the sixties were cool. I don’t. They almost killed me and they destroyed millions of others. And I think if my dead friends could speak they would agree with me.

The killings in the kindergarten are not a political problem, big government can’t handle it; government really is not God. The killings are just one more symptom of a spiritual and morally staggered society. And our government supported schools, by implementing what is really an atheist worldview replete with historical revisioning and manipulation of scientific data are fueling the idea of a universe without a god and thus, without absolute values.

Government may not have caused the problem, but it is helping to support the worldview which did. If we fail to recognize what the disease is, all the hand waving, great emotional speeches and increased government control and accompanying spending will prove futile. It gets old listening to many of the democrats use the dysfunction fueled in part by their by their very liberal (moral) policies, to erode our native liberties and at the same time increase the power and size of the federal government. Our forefathers warned us that our constitution was written only for a highly moral and religious people;

“[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor

“Liberty and justice simply cannot be had apart from the gracious influences of a righteous people. A righteous people simply cannot exist apart from the aspiration to liberty and justice. The Christian religion and its incumbent morality is tied to the cause of freedom with a Gordian knot; loose one from the other and both are sent asunder.”Gouverneur Morris, from biography by James Carter Braxton, 1911, p. 101

People and presidents with Marxist leanings have a hard time understanding that.  Government is limited and not omnipotent; God is omnipotent and his moral standards are universal, eternal and unchanging. He blesses what he says he will bless and He curses that which he warned he would curse.

I am alive today, but I began to turn towards god in a LA County jail cell forty years ago. Gilbert Carranza’s brother is alive today also, and he turned towards god after his brother and our mutual friend’s death (Tony Matola, shot in bar fight) thirty years ago.

I am going to suggest an extremely unhip and archaic answer to our deteriorating culture; let’s start to turn back towards the one true God of our forefathers as found in the Scripture. It worked for Nineveh, it would work for us.

I would like to acknowledge all of my secular college professors, men and women, the good, the bad and the ugly. Many of them were quite good at what they did, and more then a few were far more fair minded then their textbooks were and acknowledged the biases or mistakes or omissions as I brought them up. Very few were simply mindless propagators of the status quo; though many had become so used to it they were no longer so aware of the climate they were in.

Even in classes where some heat from friction became obvious, even online, almost every one of them responded like professionals. I think I came to like the honest ones who couldn’t hide their rancor at some of my challenges and challenged me back as well or better than the rest. To them and even to the writers of some of horrendous textbooks or the statements made in them or those that were omitted because of bias, I give my thanks. They challenged me and gave impetus to the learning process. Solo Deo Gloria.

“We must go to them with the propaganda of atheism, for only this propaganda defines the place of man in the universe…” Trotsky

“Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.” Jesus Christ, John 8:32

Two opposite points of view. One claims to be able to free humanity though the knowledge of the living God, the other through the acceptance of propaganda. One rests entirely on faith in the works and words of God as unfolded in the Sacred Judeo-Christian Scriptures from Moses in the Torah through John in the New Testament. The other, the propaganda of atheism, rest entirely on faith in a Darwinian worldview, the universe created itself from nothing, for no reason. Everything is up for grabs, there is no God.

The Marxists made that clear;

“Darwinism is the forerunner; a preparation for Marxism…Marxism is the application of Darwinism to human society.” Trotsky, The Tasks of Communist Education, 1922

 Our universities were almost all founded on the premises of the Christian faith. Modern science had its foundation and birth in Christian Europe and the founders of almost every major scientific field and discipline pursued science as way to see the finger prints of God.

Things have changed just a little.  In China, Mao put it this way;

“We will substitute materialism for idealism and atheism for theism.”“Examples of Dialectics”, in, Selected works of Mao Zedong. vol. 8

 One faith; that of the biblical God of Moses, claims it can only be received by a heart prepared by God, through the working of the Holy Spirit. The other side is content with a confession of faith at the point of a gun, or the threat of becoming a social and economic outcast. One side talks of truth, the other uses the word propaganda. Our forefathers insisted that it would be impossible to have a free nation without a moral and religious (theistic) people, Marx, Stalin and Mao insisted it would be impossible to have an equal and prosperous society without the abolition of the knowledge of God.

Which faith is being actively promulgated in American, European and Australian public schools today? The answer to that question shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Evolution has been easily falsified by the fossil record, by existing zoology, by genetics, by the basic laws of science. Yet only one idea is taught in schools, and it’s taught in such a way that it can easily be seen to be an ideology taught by methods of indoctrination. Propaganda. Evolution, the motivating force behind Hitler, Stalin and Marx and Mao, is being taught exclusively in public schools and colleges just as it was and still is taught in the Marxist countries.

The goal of the German Socialists (Nazi’s) and of the Bolsheviks and the Communist Chinese was to eliminate the idea of the existence of God from the schools and all of society, what are we doing that is any different? Stalin and Lenin outlawed prayer in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 20th century and we did it in America in 1963.

Atheism is the rule. And, why? Why did all the communist dictators want to remove the idea of god from the people? Why is atheism so essential to the new world order and the goal of a one world government?

It’s really very simple; if man can give rights, he can take away rights. If man is the source and definer of human rights, there are no real, defined essential human rights. Man then has no intrinsic value coming from a source outside of himself. Under man’s rule, apart from the acknowledgement of a Creator God, there are no “unalienable rights”. And there are no real moral “rights and wrongs”. The government becomes God, but not the unchangeable source of righteousness found in the Torah, Tanach or New Testament.

Not the source of liberty cited by our forefathers of the faith who established and made this country the greatest nation in the world for a century or two.

You don’t think so? Take a look at the human rights in China, The USSR, and Cuba or in any Marxist communist nation. Good luck with that.

This book is going to take a look at the way in which secular colleges in America treat theism in general and Historical Christianity in particular. Not only do we want to see if theism is attacked; we want to ask is it attacked fairly with good arguments.  And we want to find out if atheism and secular beliefs are attacked with the same vigor. We want to see if our secular colleges are institutions of education or indoctrination.

What better way then to examine many of the common textbooks that the average student will buy with his or her own money today. Some of these books were those I was actually assigned when I was attending a secular college. And they will be approached fairly, I discovered, like in anything else, not all books were equally bad or good.

But even though I had no allusions about what I would find in a “secular” college, I was often shocked at the level of bias. I shouldn’t have been. Hopefully this series will help others prepare for and understand the level of hypocrisy in our modern education establishments.

They are not neutral for the most part. They are seminaries for a left wing atheistic world view, though there are many good professors, even atheists, who do labor to keep their biases in check, when they are aware of them. To those professors and to the Christian professors who labor in such a “secular” environment, this book is dedicated.

Available in amazon kindle at amazon com, see link also on books available page

Introduction: What would you do if you knew there were people living in terrifyingly hostile circumstances, enduring horrific tortures and imprisonments, and children being brutalized – all because somebody refused to recant their Faith? What would you do if that was you living in those circumstances? An intercessor is one who intercedes – literally, to intercede for somebody; to stand in the gap for someone else and defend those who cannot defend themselves. I know a great intercessor that has stood in the gap for people victimized for their faith – he was even a victim himself. His name is Richard Wurmbrand, and I humbly ask that you consider him this year’s winner of the annual “Intercessor Award”.

1. Who is Richard Wurmbrand?

1. Born in 1909, died in 2001
2. Romanian Christian Pastor
3. Imprisoned during the Stalinist regime for refusal to compromise his faith
4. Endured many tortures and brainwashings through two prison terms in 14 years
5. His family suffered as well
6. Eventually escaped with his wife Sabina to America after 1964 amnesty and bail.
7. Ministry was founded by Wurmbrand in 1967
8. From website: “[VOM] is a non-profit, inter-denominational Christian organization dedicated to assisting the persecuted church worldwide.”[1]
9. The Wurmbrands traveled the world to share their story and raise awareness of the Christians that suffer for their faith.
   1. Wurmbrand himself testified to Congress to tell them of his – and others’ – treatment in the Communist prisons
10. VOM provides medical help, food, clothing, and other necessities to victims and their families
11. VOM helps protect and defend those in danger of imprisonment or death for sharing the Gospel of Christ
12. VOM supplies bibles and other evangelistic material and outreaches to regions all over the world
13. Runs a huge prison ministry which allows believers throughout the world to write letters of encouragement (in their native tongues) to those in prison suffering for their bold stand in the Faith.
14. Richard Wurmbrand, through Voice of the Martyrs, has universally raised the awareness of the suffering and trials people face every day throughout the world for their Faith.
15. To fellow Christians, this is a plea to intercede, like Pastor Wurmbrand, for our brethren overseas in any way possible
    1. Hebrews 13:3 – “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.”
    2. Please pray for those who suffer – not just for their safety, but that their oppressors will have a change of heart and accept Christ as their personal savior.
    3. Please pray for the families of the victims.
    4. Consider getting involved with the prison ministry, donating to Voice of the Martyrs, or getting active in the missionary field overseas for yourself.
16. Violence and hatred of this kind should not be tolerated or accepted by any of us, and it is important to be aware of how prevalent it still is today.

2. Voice of the Martyrs

3. Why It Matters

Conclusion: Despite all that he went through, Richard Wurmbrand still loved those who persecuted him. In his book, Tortured for Christ, Pastor Wurmbrand describes in gruesome detail some of the horrific events him and fellow prisoners endured at the hands of the Communists; but he also records how he did not see an evil man, but a man doing evil things. He longed to see them won for Christ – and his love had a significant impact on many of his tormentors. Many who tortured Wurmbrand and other Christians even became Christians themselves, and ended up joining them in the same cells they were once torturing from. Wurmbrand is not alone. Countless testimonies of those who have been imprisoned but now released, recount their love for their captors and oppressors, despite the terrible things they were doing to them. They do not despise their experiences in prison – instead, rejoicing for the opportunity it gave them to try their faith and learn to love more like Christ Jesus even there. Powerful is the love of this Christ – truly these men and women have found something much greater than anything their tormenters or circumstances could thwart.

 Considering the great awareness that Pastor Wurmbrand has brought to us, of those who suffer and are killed for their unwavering Faith in Jesus Christ, and the ministry that he has started which provides invaluable aid and resources to victims and their families, I believe Richard Wurmbrand is the most deserving candidate to win “The Intercessor Award” of 2012.

Chapter Four

 Myth: The Religion of Christianity spread in the same fashion as Islam; mass invasions, forced conversion of the resident peoples, followed by Dhimmi-like subjugation

  “ Although we discuss Islam and Islamism later in this chapter, it is important to point out here that Islam, like Christianity, was for centuries routinely spread by forced conversion, to save souls but also often for the purposes of political control” (1)

The above citation is from a popular textbook used in a nearby state college and clearly states that both Christianity and Islam spread in the same manner, the text clearly implies that the patterns of propagation of both religions were parallel. To their credit, at least the book admits that forced conversion was routinely part of the Muslim conquering process, an admission often avoided in the secular world.

According to the text, then, the apostles Peter and Paul and the rest of the disciples of Jesus gathered armies and proceeded to invade the surrounding Roman occupied neighboring lands, full of Jewish and pagans of every sort, conquered them and then forced them to convert or become like Dhimmi, just like the Caliphs of Islam and Mohammad himself had done.

It does make for an interesting story, but one which is so decidedly false that it is a wonder that anyone, even in today’s historically bereft society, would actually believe it.

The first question we have to ask is; where is the history of this period of invasion and conquest by the apostles of Christ? It certainly is not in the Bible. And for the first three to four hundred years of Christianity, prior to the adoption of Christianity by Constantine, there is no record of Christian warriors invading Roman provinces or India or China or anywhere else. In fact, as every reader I’m sure knows, the history is really quite the opposite; Christians were routinely thrown to the lions or burned at the stake by Roman soldiers on orders from their superiors. In fact all of Rome was lit up at night by the burning bodies of the followers of Christ during the reign of Nero. And this kind of persecution continued under later emperors like Diocletian.

Christ allowed himself to be nailed to a cross; though he said he could have called down an army of angels at any time he chose. And the apostle Paul made clear that the life of an Apostle of Christ was not divide and conquer but rejection and persecution. He said;

“To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless…when we are cursed we bless, when we are persecuted we endure it, when we are slandered, we answer kindly. To this day we are the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.” 1 Corinthians 4: 10-13

Nor did Christ ever lead an army or give orders to any of his disciples to do so. I defy anybody to come up with a history of rampant Christian conquests and forced conversions anywhere for at least the first three hundred years of the faith. Both the bible and secular history (Roman documents) are clear about the first 300 years of Christian history; the spread of the faith through the preaching of the word and salvation by faith in that word is a history well attested and unassailable. We will talk about some forced conversions by Christian political and military leaders in this chapter that occurred much later in history; but what about the first three hundred years and the sacrifice and slaughter of all those Christians and the apostles? Do those years and the history of the spread of the gospel in the New Testament count for anything? I should hope so. It was during that period that the vast majority of Christendom, both Latin and Greek, was evangelized and came under Christian teaching.

The first three hundred years of the spread of Islam tell a completely different story. When Mohammad began to lead his first raids against Jewish towns and Arab villages indifferent or hostile to his message, most of the surrounding world was part of Christendom, from North Africa through the Mid-East and into most of Europe. As Mohammad grew more affluent and powerful he was able to build a large army and soon conquered all of Arabia and forced all of the Bedouin tribes into a unified submission.

Having been so successful in Arabia, Mohammad himself led his armies into Syria and Persia before he died. Within the first hundred years the Muslim armies had conquered all of North Africa, the Middle East (including Syria, and Persia and Palestine) Cyprus and most of Spain. In the next century they conquered Sicily, Corsica, Crete and the southern part of Italy. Historians may quibble as to why the Muslims decided to invade all the surrounding lands with armies; but no one argues about the way they spread Islam and the Muslim culture to these lands; they used the sword.

The word of Allah was not spread by small groups of itinerate preachers, Christianity was. Christianity in its inception spread like wildfire despite persecution. Islam spread like wildfire by means of coercion and the sword. In Cyprus they slaughtered tens of thousands of Christians. In North Africa the inhabitants put up a desperate and brave defense led by a bold Jewish woman, but eventually Islam dominated and brought Dhimmi to the Atlas Mountains.

All though it could be argued that parts of the Koran don’t support forced conversion of the “People of book”, Islam has usually followed the example set by Mohammad rather than the more pacific statements of the Koran. Besides, as sociologist and scholar Rodney Stark has pointed out, the Muslim didn’t view offering captured infidels the “free choice” of conversion to Islam as a forced conversion. And this was the routine process approved of by practical Muslim theology. (Stark)

Charles Martel forced conquered Germans to be baptized in the name of the trinity and to denounce the worship of Satan during his wars with the Saxon tribes. And during the crusades forced baptism was sometimes demanded as terms of surrender to cities under siege. After the Muslim held city of Acre surrendered, King Richard and King Phillip demanded the defenders be baptized, but when the so called “converts” were released they immediately rejoined the army of Saladin. On seeing this, Richard realized the demand was futile and stopped the provision from being enforced. (McLynn)

The account of the Viking evangelist Thorvald gives us a view of the reasons why some went on pilgrimage and how forced conversion might have been viewed in general during the years preceding the first crusade. Thorvald was an Icelandic Viking, a convert to the Christian faith in the late tenth century. Being filled with zeal for the gospel of Christ, he became an evangelist, but one with a few rough edges left over from his Viking career. He became enraged when two men he had shared the Gospel with mocked his faith and he promptly slew them. He slew another man for criticizing his preaching. Deeply grieved by his lack of grace and self-control he made a pilgrimage to the distant holy land to atone for his sins.

Compare this to the Muslim history given us in the Hadith of Ikrima;

“Some unbelievers were brought to Ali {the fourth Caliph} and he burnt them. The news of this event reached Ibn ‘Abbas who said… “I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah’s Apostle, “Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him.”  Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57

Note that even the ex-Viking raider from far off Iceland in 990 AD knew that slaying those who rejected the faith was falling short of the grace of Christ and required atonement while the followers of Islam saw the killing of those who resisted the will of Allah as routine and acceptable behavior.

Forced conversion was not the norm in medieval Europe that it was in Islam. Unbelief has never been tolerated in Muslim countries and this attitude shapes the way modern Muslim nations view the tiny nation of Israel. They cannot and will not tolerate or accept the presence of a non-Muslim nation existing in the midst of the Muslim Middle East, unless forced to.

The statement in the textbook suggesting that “Islam, like Christianity, was for centuries routinely spread by forced conversion”, implying the two religions started and spread in the same manner betrays the anti-Christian bent of our halls of learning and is clearly a myth.

(1)   “Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context.” 6th ed. Paul L. Knox & Sallie A. Marston, editors. Pearson, 2012.