The Death of the Reformation and Spread of Islam

 

The reformation of Christianity broke Christian faith from its ties to a corrupt Vatican and Papal excesses. One of the main differences and unanswered complaints against Rome was the selling of absolution to wealthy aristocracy thus allowing the Church to gain material gain for forgiveness of the sins of the most wealthy while the poor were left facing condemnation despite their hard lives and desperate need for an understanding Church. This was to prove to be a strange affair when now many Protestant churches are forgiving sins as a last resort to gain membership, a move the most religious blame for the death of their denominations and the currently swelling ranks of Evangelical churches which preach a return to Scripture and taking a literal interpretation of faith. A large part of the decline of the old Churches has been their evolutionary drift away from their austere origins and seeking new interpretations which often twist doctrine to the breaking point and many even further until their doctrine bears little resemblance to the origins of Christianity.

 

Christianity is far from alone in this as Judaism has also had its reformation though we just refer to them as the Reform and Reconstructionist Movements. The Reconstructionist Movement has been true to its name and built a form of Judaism which is more form and less Judaism and allows virtually any doctrine to be accepted through democratic vote. They are more of a political leftist haven wishing to have a claim of affiliation with Judaism which may have once existed but died long ago and now exists largely in name only. The Reform branch of Judaism can be viewed as including the branch of Conservative Judaism as their movement to the left politically and more permissive form of Judaism at a slower rate, but was in all reality the same smorgasbord cafeteria Judaism where you went through the Halachic Laws and chose the ones with which one was comfortable and discarded those which were considered onerous or simply too difficult. The Reform Movement permitted women ordained as Rabbis, mixed marriage ceremonies even having a dual role of Priest or Minister and a Rabbi officiating, and eventually Gay unions. The Conservative movement has reached these concessions in most congregations currently. The intermarriage and eventual loss of connection with Judaism and complete assimilation has come close to fruition for Reform Jews so much so that some congregations have begun a return to traditions and a stricter interpretation of Torah. This last gasp attempt to retain a sufficient attachment to Judaism is guaranteed to fail and the death of these two movements will arrive when their members, who wish for an actual and lived faith, will simply return to the Orthodoxy and the rest will have absolutely no use for their faith at all. The final straw will be acceptance of complete Bar/Bet Mitzvah Ceremonies done completely in a language other than Hebrew and the use of scripture in books in lieu of Torah Scrolls as the Torah Scrolls will be seen as a revenue business rather than a strict actualizing of tradition and the steadfast holding to tradition which predates history.

 

Just as traditions, Halachic stringency, community, and a holding to the word and original interpretations and applications of the law and of Torah of the Orthodoxy, especially as it currently thrives in the majority of areas in Israel and in its strongholds in the United States and Europe will be the only form of Judaism practiced in the world, so will the traditionalist branches of Christianity which will survive and will slowly reconnect, independent of Europe and possibly even independent of Rome and the Vatican, as Europe is about to be subsumed by Islam and Christianity erased from the landscape of Europe completely. The influx of the Syrian refugees and the terrorists implanted will be the ones who finally get to dictate the future of what was once the stronghold and bastion of Christianity, the Church and the seeding of Christianity throughout the world. The battle for the heart of Europe is in its closing chapters and Christianity in the Middle East and North Africa will die alongside each other in the next half century. What remains to be seen is whether the conquest of Europe will cause a reformation within Islam as it spreads over all of Europe and begins its march into Asia.

 

This will not be Islam’s first foray into the Far East. Islam needed some fierce troops to act as their shock troops when attack and taking their nascent faith out of Mecca and Medina into the Middle East against the remnants of Persia, Alexander’s Greece, Rome (the Byzantines), the remainder of ancient Egypt from the Polemic Egypt and the rest of the tribes across Northern Africa and against the impervious walls of Constantinople whose wall withstood everything thrown at them for over two centuries. The Christian stronghold held behind its walls, its impressive and unprecedented walls with the possible exception of Troy, Jericho, Jerusalem and China, hunkered down and secure but the siege cannons (see below) employed by Mehmed II were a match for any wall ever built, breached the walls and Constantinople was named Istanbul to the shuddering horror of Christians throughout Europe as it spelled potential doom. Meanwhile Islam had torn across Northern Africa and onto Spain only to finally be halted at Tours, France by Charles the Hammer Martel who routed the Islamic juggernaut turning back into Spain where they were finally vanquished by the Spanish Inquisition instigated and plied by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. The needed shock troops for the Islamic forces were tempted to join the Islamic armies. These troops were found with the spread of Islam into Indonesia around 1200s and the Philippines in mid-1300s. This provided the additional forces and shock troops which propelled Islam into Spain along with Berber troops who provided the main force for Islam in Western Europe.

 

 

Great Turkish Bombard Siege Cannon
Utilized by Mehmed II in his Siege
and Breaking of the Impenetrable
Great Walls of Constantinople

 

 

After being blunted by Martel in France in Western Europe and at Vienna in Eastern Europe, Islam settled down and had its internal challenges. A war with the United States over the Barbary Pirates twice revealed that the young United States, even back in those early days, was fully capable of projecting power eventually settling as the Ottoman Empire. This final iteration ended during World War I when the Ottoman Empire chose to back the Austro-Hungarian Empire against the Allies resulting in the Allied European powers redrawing the borders and establishing new borders throughout Central and Western Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa. There are constant denunciations of the European colonialism in the Middle East and Northern Africa while the world is totally ignoring the thousand years of colonial occupations by the Arab powers which exploded from the Arabian Peninsula around 700 AD. Islamic nations were released from their colonial occupations between the 1920s through the earliest 1950s making the longest of colonial occupations to under half a century, a negligible timeframe when compared to the Islamic occupation, which when one thinks about it, continues despite the European marshalling after World War I.

 

Islam is awakening and started their new rise smashing against the nascent state of Israel over 1948 through 1949 and renewed aggressions in 1967 and 1973 while instigating terrorism from the 1920s through and continuing to this very day. Islam is taught that their warriors are invincible and must never face defeat as Allah cannot be defeated and any defeat is a form of shame on Allah inflicted by his believers. This has been the root of the war against Israel and the reason that no peace can be attained not because the Jews are refusing to sacrifice but because the Arab Islamists refuse to accept anything short of the annihilation of Israel and the complete and total victory of Islam against the Jew. The other problem is rampant though unrecognized anti-Semitism in the halls of power added to the fear of a resurgent Islam cripples the west and the United Nations from being a fair or honest arbiter which is why the pressure is always placed on Israel to sacrifice and provide tempting morsels until there are no morsels short of surrender of Israel itself left to give; yet the demand made even this day by United States Vice President Joe Biden is for more flexibility by Israel in giving even more where there is nothing left to give. The Presidency of Barack Obama has granted Israel one favor by their complete and total aggressiveness against Israel in their dealings and complete refusal in recognizing any right of the Jews to their homeland has been their laying bare the unadulterated aggressiveness to force Israel without any trace of Arab acceptance of the right of Israel to exist in any border and their and the rest of the world’s complete acceptance of the sacrifice of Israel on the alter of Islamic appeasement as if such would even in the slightest appease and soothe the savage beast. The reality is this complete and unadulterated desire to sacrifice Israel before the alter of Allah, the modern alter of Baal and the Arabic Moon god, has empowered Islam to believe that Europe itself, the stronghold of Christianity for two-thousand years is as fragile and weakened with no real faith or force from above and all but devoid of the graces from Heaven is an empty trampling shell ready for the onslaught by Islam and the complete surrender without so much as a fight as they are willingly inviting Islam to take the leading role in their future as they desire no longer to control their own destiny. The European people no longer care about the future as they have few if any children and have already surrendered their future to Islam and hope only that the chains of their servitude weigh lightly on their posterity leaving that as their only legacy.

 

The question is no longer how far into Europe Islam will spread nor whether or not the Churches of Europe including the Vatican itself will survive; all are already surrendered to Islam and the toll in blood and treasure the sole remaining variable. The hope of the West and Christianity must be to save the treasures of the museums, art galleries and the Vatican vaults by removing them to safe keeping be that the United States, Canada, South America or wherever the society is still resilient and holding sufficient faith that they will not fold before Islam in quiet remission as Europe appears prepared to submit herself. The question to pose to Europe is whether they feel that their societal history and the greatness which went before is worth saving. If the Europeans believe that their history has any value today then they must necessarily be prepared to make not only a sacrifice to preserve it before the ravages of Islam as displayed so graphically by the Islamic State, but also find a belief around which to rally and find the means of restoring both a next generation and the desire for the continuing generations after that into the future or there will be no European museums of art, literature, sculpture and her grand cathedrals will be disembodied from all things Christian and Islam will literally paint the entire last twelve centuries of Christendom from the pages of history with a sweeping of the continent removing every last vestige of Christianism. The Reformation, which was designed to restore and defend Christianity from what they saw as the defaming of the religion of Christ which they accused the Pope and the Cardinals of the Catholic Church, will now end with the loss of unity of Christendom and be a contributing factor to the death of Christendom in Europe. There are those who complain that had only Christianity had not fragmented in the reformation, then Christianity would today remain unfragmented and stand a chance of withstanding the coming onslaught of Islam and perhaps may have preserved political core strength which would resist inviting masses of Islamic refugees within the halls and gates of Europe. Perhaps a unified Church might have held the societies within its halls and adapted such that retaining a Europe which retained sufficient pride, valuing and love of European history and the valuable contributions in art, music, literature and religious thought that they desired to continue the traditions to the next generations, something requiring a next generation.

 

The real crippling of Europe is that lack of a following generation of native Europeans which has left Europe in the start of a downward spiral where the next generation will have less population than the current generation and in all to many nations far less leading to an unrecoverable trend from which Europe, and any society, cannot recover without unparalleled leadership. Such leadership is not represented by the likes of Angela Merkel or unfortunately any of the current national leftist leaders. Can Europe be saved or has Europe fallen in silent surrender brought on by the current generations live for today, who cares about tomorrow selfish attitude. The question is bordering on asking how long will Europe survive before surrendering to Allah as has every Muslim since the Seventh Century, not whether Europe will fall. What a sad ending to such a noble past, the likes of Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Nobel, Curies, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Chaucer and Bach amongst so many others from such a rich history and additionally those who excited the imaginations of the founding fathers of the American colonies when crafting a new nation of the United States, Locke, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Hume and Rousseau amongst others. For such a history to fall and be erased and vanquished forever will be a sin beyond compare throughout known history. The loss will be painful to watch but we may all live long enough to experience these horrific death throes of Europe and hopefully witness an epic struggle saving all that which can be readily moved to safer climes as less than an all-encompassing effort would be a crime laid atop that sin of the death of all Europe. This is one time we pray we are completely wrong and Europe awakens in time to save themselves, and this prayer had best be heeded by the United States and any other Western nation whose population currently relied too heavily on immigration, legal and otherwise.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Islam and the Future of Representative Governance

 

There have been far too many public figures drinking so much of the Islamic propaganda Kool-Aid that there are those who have come to honestly believe that Islam is peace and compatible with representative democratic republic governance. They honestly believe that the world’s majority of the one and one-third Billion Muslims want to coexist with everybody else working to better the world through mutual respect and tranquility without any threats to our way of life. Even a cursory examination of the realities of the Quran, the two faces, the strange manner in which it is compiled with the shortest verse first and with them slowly ascending in size with the largest verse last so that the youth can work at their own pace learning by rote the shortest leaving the really long verses last and not compiled by date or subject. We wrote a short and concise description of the two faces, the early ones from Mecca and the later verses from Medina and the mood, situation and outlook which affected Mohammad’s outlook and authority in our article Which Quran, Mecca or Medina? The description touches on the basics but if visits are any indication, then it does fulfill that challenge. Should Islam actually achieve their goal of world conquest and unifying all Islam under one sole, unique and declared pure Quranic Code and the Earth’s population all under one Supreme Imam under Sharia, no elections, only religious courts and no varying religions with one religion, one result and no freedom as only submission to Allah through Allah’s representatives chosen by a council of elder Imams whose decisions are not subject to doubts or questions. Everyone will know and understand the Five Pillars of Islam It will be ‘What part of Submission do you not understand?’

 

 

 

 

The most basic difference between the two is where Western governance allows for multiple choices, occasionally more than the two main parties though infrequently, Islam would make such a choice either a meaningless decision the Imam would instruct the congregants for whom to vote or the candidates would have been chosen by the clerical hierarchy thus making any vote meaningless; but even this situation would seldom arise as there would be no government as is understood in the Western World. In Islam the rules of law and the punishments are prescribed by the Quran and no other can exist except as to do as the clerics define actions on the Sharia.

 

In an Quranic governance any elected governance would be simply adding a layer of people who have been vetted by the real power, the leading Islamic clerics such that any candidate who is permitted to seek such power must be vetted by the leading clerics such that the only candidates in any election have already proven themselves to be truly an extension of the religious order and as any law is passed by the governance must then be vetted for its final form by an assembly of experts whose power is absolute such that any candidate permitted to run for office in the so-called, open and free elections are simply a rubber stamp extension of the clerical regime which is selected and not elected and where the true power lied in reality and thus one would be under a clerical dictatorial governance and no truly elected governance can exist under Sharia, the basic legal structure of any governance in a true Islamic State.

 

Within Islam there is no provision for any State or governance outside of the Sharia. Many in the Western World refer to Sharia as Sharia Law because they see Sharia as a set of man-made religious codices which are to be interpreted such that they fit within the legal framework of the State while there is no such need for such an interpretation in an Islamic State as Sharia is also the legal code for the State and the religion becomes the State. Judaism and originally Christianity had recognition for a State governance which may disagree with religious text; the most glaring example is in the case of women choosing whether or not she desires to have a child and her avenues permitted by law for her to choose from in this area. The original answer to the question posed to Jesus over which tax should be considered as legal for the State to take as versus what religious demands which were man-made institution of taxation when his reply was said to have been, “To Caesar what is Caesar’s and to Hashem what is Hashem’s” noting that one has obligations to the state just as he has obligations to Hashem and one is obliged to keep the laws of man up until they break the laws of Hashem as put forth in the Commandments in Torah, which happened all too often as if the States were making laws directly the converse of Halacha and Jewish Laws. Examples of such which have started once again in Europe and even the United States are laws against circumcision calling it a mutilation of genitalia; Shechita, the laws of Kashrut; laws against teaching Torah; and other such laws which are all too often passed in order to force all Jews to become criminal in their daily behavior. Islam under Sharia goes one step further in that it denotes those worthy of such to be Dhimmi which is a class of lower citizenry who are not permitted to be before the courts except as a defendant who is not even given the right to speak before the court in their own defense even before sentencing, and the alternative of conversion or death. Even should one be classified as a Dhimmi and pay the Jizya, a special and often onerous tax non-Muslims must pay, there will come that day when such status is revoked and then it becomes convert or death or often both where you convert and then are summarily executed for your sins against Allah while a Dhimmi. As is obvious from the last section, Sharia is a complete governing set of rules which all followers of Islam are instructed to spread throughout the lands and defined lands which must become Islamic as any land where any Muslim’s foot, does not require both feet, has graced with its treading. For those unfamiliar with some of the degradations and dehumanization even of their own progeny, here is a quote from a recent statement made by Palestinian Authority Minister of Women’s Affairs, Haifa Al-Agha, who stated, “Minister of Women’s Affairs Haifa Al-Agha…noted the Palestinian woman’s uniqueness, which differentiates her from the women of the world, as she receives the news of her son’s martyrdom with cries of joy.” This was how she was quoted in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the PA official newspaper as translated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) and reported in Arutz Sheva thankfully as this made it more easily noted without viewing the dozens of PMW articles released each day (we reserve reading those on a slow news day along with CAMERA and MEMRI).

 

Islam will become triumphant even where there exist Constitutions or complete bodies of law given sufficient time. In any democracy or republic where the will of the people is used to elect their representatives or directly make the laws, the Muslims will be patient, if we are lucky, and simply bide their time meanwhile bringing in relatives and having large families and intermarrying which under Sharia any person who marries a Muslim the children must be raised under Islam and become good little Muslims. Muslims will ignore the laws of the land and take more than one wife, often a non-Muslim so as to deplete the number of women available to have children in other or no religious upbringing, and once back in their Muslim neighborhoods there is no law of the State, there is only Sharia. Once the woman is brought to meet the family they will never see the outside world again without great amounts of planning and sheer luck (for a gripping story of one woman’s struggle to reach what she would have called humanity as she had married a charming Muslim man and went to meet his family in Afghanistan and then the horrors began An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir by Professor Phyllis Chesler and an excellent book to read and take a taste of a world many of us do not believe can exist in the modern world.) Many people in the Western society have absolutely no idea of exactly what Sharia is. They mistakenly and at their own peril believe it is all about religion and can exist within a governance and not be in conflict and believed by its adherents to supercede the laws of the land and that could not be further from the truth. The truths are viciously and nerve-gratingly the opposite of all you have known.

 

To test that last thought, the fact that the Muslims will set up a mini-state under Sharia and completely ignore the laws of the land in which they reside, all one need do is talk to people you know or can get an introduction to meet who take commuter light rail, buses or other above ground mass transportation what it is like as they pass through an almost completely and strictly Islamic area of the city where the Sharia is the law of the land. These unfortunates get to experience something akin to Professor Chesler got to feel the entire twenty-thousand-ton load of oppressions, degradations, subjugations and generally dehumanizing treatment which is why we suggest her book as after reading that and perhaps then following her editorial works one can get a taste, a glimpse behind the curtain. There are other memoirs written by people who got to witness the world beyond Islam and tell of their harrowing escapes and the complete awe and gratitude they have for the lives we all take pretty much for granted, there are two more books we recommend;

 

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Because They Hate by Brigitte Gabriel

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

 

The Ninth of Av is our Tribute and Remembrance of the Temples and their Destructions

 

Please forgive me if I get preachy or seem overly sentimental but that is what even the name Jerusalem means to me. Additionally to the destruction of both Temples, the First Temple by the Babylonians and the Second Temple by the vindictive Romans who did all in their power to render unto the Jews the same dispersions that ended Carthage, and the sin of the spies and all the other calamities tied to the Ninth of Av (Tisha b’Av), I add my sister’s passing exactly a week after the ninth. This year the Ninth of Av is observed has been pushed one day to the Tenth as such sorrows must not be expressed on the Sabbath conditions permitting. The Ninth of Av has become the collection date where some liberties are suspected such that every ill and evil edict or calamity of every sort is claimed to have some reference to the Ninth of Av. Some of the horrors which fell on this fateful day include the expulsions from England on July 18, 1290 CE, expelled from France on July 22, 1306 CE, and from Spain the edict of expulsion was signed on March 31, 1492 CE, and the Jews were given exactly four months to put their affairs in order and leave the country which fell on July 31, 1492 CE, all the Ninth of Av. Then there was the sin of the Golden Calf, August 15, 1096 the start of the Crusades and the killings Jews often suffered succumbing to the blades of the Crusader knights who had not previously killed in order to desensitize them to killing such that they would not hesitate in battle and thus be killed before they served the charge of the Church. Start of World War I was August 1–2, 1914; SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for “The Final Solution” on August 2, 1941; on July 23, 1942 (Av 9, AM 5702), began the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka, all dates coincide with the Ninth of Av. Modern events which land close to the Ninth of Av were AMIA bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 and injuring 300 on July 18, 1994 and Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, also known as the “Disengagement plan”, “Gaza expulsion plan”, or Hitnatkut, August 15, 2005 both fell on Tenth of Av. Needless to add that numerous other calamities were rumored or simply had memories re-date events to bring them into line with the Ninth of Av but even without fudging dates there are probably numerous other events throughout Jewish history where lesser horrors fell on the Ninth of Av and as such individual services of these groups would include their individual commiserations.

 

The observance of the Ninth of Av itself is a fast day spent in remembrance of historic calamities, some self-imposed but most disasters thrust upon the Jewish people, some times to all or the majority of all Jews and other times to large enough communities that we all remember and mourn and others only affecting a smaller community which we all remember but the singular community bears a special lament. Any way your congregation or community grieves over the mutual and individual historic injustices, expulsions, transgression and pogroms we must also hold that hope that for all our families will soon spend the next Ninth of Av together living in our own ancient lands rebuilding the Temple for the final time and soon return to lives as Torah spells out and this time can we please remain true remembering every Ninth of Av what has stormed our people when we strayed and were dispersed as punishment for our transgressions. May your fast lay easy upon you.

 

Temple Institute concept for what building the Third Temple in modern day Jerusalem would appear like from a distance with modern buildings of Jerusalem in the background. May their vision and this concept figure become fact and fulfill our desires for unity and a single Temple and House for Hashem in our midst. May this dream be fulfilled before the next Ninth of Av so our lament will be lessened.

 

Beyond the Cusp