Moshe ;-)

Submitted by Maggie4Life (Australia), Oct 4, 2006 at 01:13

Moshe,

you took my request, should I say demand, far too seriously ;-). It was a demand in kind because the Jihadists have been demanding that we either convert to Islam or die.

However, I do respect the response that you have given with regards to what I have said, and yes you have brought up some good points. So why should I dare to demand that Muslims become Christian? My initial response to your question happens to be... why not? I am a Christian. I believe that Jesus is the Anointed One, that is the expected Messiah. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He rose again from the dead so that we would no longer have to suffer from the long term consequences of sin.

My dear brother, Jesus and his Apostles were all Jews. Jesus came to reform the Jewish faith because at that point in time the people were being stifled as a result of all the restrictions and laws that had been placed upon them. What is worse, is that those responsible for these restrictions were the ones who were behaving as hypocrites, and that behaviour culminated in the death of Jesus Christ. No matter what my fell Christians state, I certainly believe that Jews remain my older brothers and sisters in Christ. You may not personally believe in Jesus Christ because you have not been given the opportunity to study all of the New Testament in the detail that is required in order to make that conversion. For the time being that does not matter at all, because what is more important is that you live as one who is righteous according to your faith in God.

I am presently studying St. Paul's letter to the Romans. We are really only at the beginning of the study, and the course itself will be far too short to grasp all of the concepts that were expounded by a man who was a member of the tribe of Benjamin, and also a Pharisee prior to his conversion to the Christian faith. This one letter is very rich because it explains why we believe that we too, are the descendants of Abraham - for Abraham was justified or made righteous before God because of his faith in the promise that God made to him. As a Jew, you are also a descendant of Abraham because of your own faith. However, the difference between us happens to be the imposition of the Jewish Precepts. Circumcision places us under the law of Moses, and that would mean having to keep all of the precepts of Judaism. What St. Paul has stated is that Gentile Christians (such as myself) do not need to be circumcised because as true descendants of Abraham the law of God is circumscribed on our hearts. This is not an easy concept to grasp, and as an adult I am struggling to come to grips with the teachings in this letter.

A major concept or teaching of Jesus is the summary of the 10 commands into two commandments:

1. Love God;

2. Love your neighbour as yourself.

This is the one thing that Jews and Christians have in common. We accept the 10 commands as being laws of God. The essence of these commands is Love. The Sermon on the Mount was a treatise on how we should be living in the world so that the blessings that we seek are answered. Jesus repeatedly told us: "Do not be afraid". The Gospel message itself is a message of salvation. This is a salvation that is not of this world, but it pertains to our eternal destiny. In other words the message of Jesus was always a message of love (charity), faith and hope. This is a direct contrast to the message that came from Mohammed as it is recorded in the Koran.

I feel certain that there are millions of Muslims around the world who are in fact well intentioned, and who, through God's grace, do in fact want to get closer to God. However, if they were to follow everything in the Koran then they would turn into monsters, just like the Jihadists in Mohammed's time, and like the Jihadists who continue to terrorize, Christians, Jews, other Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and others. This call to commit murder in the name of God is not holy. It goes against everything that I have learned that is within the Scripture pertaining to our Loving, Merciful and Just Father in Heaven. Most of these Muslims have become "secular", and they are in need of some form of spiritual guidance. They will not get such guidance in a mosque because the imams keep spewing all sorts of hatred in their speechings. If they turned to Judaism then they would get some assistance in the way of spiritual guidance.

However, Muslims are not allowed to convert to either Christianity or Judaism. A Muslim who converts becomes an Apostate, and the punishment for such action is death. This will be carried out, even if it is necessary to produce trumped up charges against the Christian. I fear that is what happened in Indonesia during the past few weeks when the Christians were killed after being found "guilty" of the trumped up charges over riots that were started by Muslims, not Christians in Ambon province.

You and I both know and understand God's Justice. We should also know that there are two sides to the coin of God's Justice, and that those who do wrong to others will in the end pay for their crimes against humanity. However, we are called to invite those who are responsible for the violence and terror to consider their actions and to repent to God, for they have offended God above everything else. However, their minds are so clouded that they do not understand that their actions of rioting, burning buildings and cars that do not belong to them, burning down churches and synagogues, threatening to murder the head of the Catholic Church, threatening to murder Robert Spencer, and yes also threatening to murder Robert Redeker the philosophy teacher, are severe offences before God. They seem to have no knowledge of the Psalms, let alone the content of the Book of Wisdom, the Book of Proverbs, the Books of Isaiah, as well as the other prophets. Their religious education is therefore very lacking.

My demand was meant to be tongue in cheek, for these are the buffoons who have been issuing almost weekly threats to the leaders of the world, demanding that they convert to Islam or accept the consequences. I decided to respond by making the counter-demand.

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