CANADIAN IMMIGRATION AND SHARIA LAW

Symbol of Sharia. crescent moon & Venus star

I said yesterday that Canada as a culture has made a perceptible shift to the Left and this is demonstrated with the election of the current Liberal federal government. The Liberal policy agenda became attractive to a majority. This government will make decisions from the Left of Centre on vital issues in 2016 and beyond. Furthermore I vaguely expressed apprehension about some issues and the choices to be made. Today I am expressing one specific area of uneasiness.

It is an Immigration and Sharia Law item.

BE READY FOR ANOTHER FRIGHTENING VIDEO

The Hassekeh province from which the hostages were taken on Monday, is inhabited predominantly by Assyrians, an indigenous Christian people who trace their roots to ancient Mesopotamians. Everyone in Syria knows this. These people have lived here for centuries. Up to150 Assyrian Christians were captured and abducted on Monday. Today is Wednesday here, and the expectation is that IS (ISIS) will release a video threatening the lives of these hostages, unless the U.S. led coalition halts airstrikes and withdraws combatants.

At least 3,000 Assyrians escaped to cities of refuge, but they lack necessities of life. In fact, 600 families are staying in St. Mary's Cathedral in al-Hasakah, Syria. The call has now come from activist groups to people all over the world to protect these Assyrians in Syria.

There is always more to a story than news stories in the West relate in a few paragraphs. Kurdish militias have controlled the northeastern region of Syria and the villages had for a long time been left alone. Lately however, the Islamic State fighters began to exert power. In early February, Islamic State fighters had demanded that crosses be removed from churches. Some Christians, not wanting to be victimized like northern Iraq’s Christians and other minority sects like the Yazidis who were singled out by the Islamic State, decided to take a more assertive role by fighting alongside Kurdish and other militias. For that reason in recent weeks, many villages changed hands as the Kurdish groups, some Arab Muslim factions and a Christian group called the Syriac Military Council joined forces against the Islamic State. When jihadists raided the village of Tel Hermez, driving out a local group called the Guardians of Khabur, who were protecting churches, Kurdish militias together with fighters from the Syriac Military Council entered the town, filming themselves retaking the area and leading away bound men they said were Islamic State members. This seizure of hostages appears to be retaliation by IS, yet it has a distinctly religious motivation.

BBC NEWS STORY - FEAR GROWS FOR CHRISTIAN HOSTAGES

NATIONAL POST STORY

NEW YORK TIMES

VANCOUVER SUN STORY

THE LATEST HORROR & FURTHER BAD PR

This is today's BBC Middle East News for  24 February 2015, "'Islamic State 'abducts dozens of Christians in Syria'"

At least 90 Assyrian Christians, men, women and children have been abducted by ISIS fighters who swept through a strong of villages along south bank of the Khabur River in north-eastern Syria during dawn raids on Monday. This is in Hassakeh province in Syria, where 40,000 Assyrian Nestorian Christians live, speaking Syriac, a form of Aramaic, the language of Christ.  Many Assyrians have fled Syria to escape extremist pressure to convert to Islam, to pay a religious levy or to face death.

Now tell me again that the conflict is not in any sense religiously motivated.

Furthermore, The group's aim is to establish a "caliphate", that is, a state ruled by a single political and religious leader according to Islamic law, or Sharia. As it seeks to move beyond its present confining borders of Iraq and Syria into Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine, it demands that all swear allegiance to its leader - Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai, better known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

ISIS is now commonly known as IS, and IS members are jihadists who adhere to an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam, considering themselves to be the only true believers. For them, the rest of the world is comprised of unbelievers who are seeking to destroy Islam, and that justifies IS attacks against other Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Beheadings, crucifixions and mass shootings have been used to terrorise their enemies. IS members have justified such atrocities by citing the Koranic verses that talk of "striking off the heads" of unbelievers, but Muslims have denounced them. Even al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who disavowed IS in February over its actions in Syria, warned Zarqawi in 2005 that such brutality loses "Muslim hearts and minds".

NOT EVERYONE AGREES WITH ME

My friend has written in response to my previous article on ISIS, now called IS. He takes exception to my piece, and I think that he misread me, and fails to understand what’s going on. He supports the inane comment by President Obama that dismisses IS atrocities as merely what bad people do. He wrote ...

"Obama is quite right to say that ISIS has nothing to do with true Islamic beliefs. Although there are different branches of Islam, they all promote a moral and ethical code. He is quite right that you cannot tar all Muslims with the same brush, anymore than you can tar all Christians, or where would it end. Shall I blame you Ron for the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, or the denial of truth imposed on Galileo by the Pope. That good born-again evangelical Christian George W. Bush eagerly bombed and killed well over sixty thousand innocent Iraqi men women and children. He was supported by thousands and possibly millions of other bible belt zealots in the U.S.A. Has that got anything to do with true Christian belief. I too am sorry that Obama said that so many Egyptians were killed. He should simply have said so many people were killed. It was a terrible thing to do whether they were Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Egyptian, German or Inuit. Most religious believers tend to pick and choose the bits of their holy books that suit them at the moment. I seem to remember reading about some guy, who who advised people to take the beam out of their own eyes before pointing out the mote in their neighbour's eye. I think he was not a Christian, but an very orthodox Jew."

1. 
   with a few edits I replied the following … RonFebruary 24, 2015 at 2:12 PM

   That is a mistaken read of both Obama's remarks and my reason for finding them unacceptable. I would not have objected or wasted my time with the issue if Obama had simply said that ISIS does not accurately represent Islam nor is it true Islam. That's not what he said. He completely disassociated ISIS and its horror show from Islam and religion. That is not being truthful. Even if the ISIS interpretation of the Quran is grotesque, it is nevertheless for those distorted religious reasons that ISIS did what it, by beheading 21 Coptic Christians and by shooting and burning to death, 60 men, women and children at worship in a church. No one is saying that these atrocities should be laid to the accounts of moral, highly principled, spiritually minded Muslims. You do not, however, make that point by ignoring the religious intention of the perpetrators who base their actions on their sourcebook. And of course, such madness done to anyone, of any nationality or faith is wickedly appalling, but you purposely steer from ISIS's point. They did it to these 21 Egyptians because they were Christian and because after torturing them for days, they did not recant, repent and turn to Islam.
   
   On the other hand, I will disassociate George Bush's military assaults from anything to do with Christianity or my faith. The US military is not a Christian organization, nor is aligned with my Statement of Faith. No military action in our lifetimes by USA or Canada or a Coalition is conducted for Christian/religious reasons. 

OBAMA & UNDERSTANDING THE ISLAMIC STATE

That ISIS has nothing to do with Islam, is a reckless conception. Yet that is what President Obama has said. Nearly all Muslims reject the Islamic State. That's true. ISIS does not represent true Islam. That's true. But ISIS zealots are driven by a reasoned interpretation of Islam. Enough 'Wingnuts' reside in every state of the Union that the White House seeks to avert a horrid Islamophobic response at home. We are not in a holy war, so Obama said, "No religion is responsible for terrorism. People are responsible for violence and terrorism." Further, he terms the atrocities 'violent extremism,' when he should call it 'Islamist extremism.' That's what it is. ISIS doesn't deny this.

President Obama (Alex Wong/Getty)

It was disingenuous and disgusting when Obama deliberately described the 21 beheaded victims as "Egyptians", rather than 'Coptic Christians.' They were targeted precisely because of their association with the cross of Christ. Religion is very much at the heart of what is going on in the ISIS world. Americans should be able to count on their President having a clear view and honest acknowledgement that ISIS's Islam is a combination of a revived ancient puritanical Islam and some modern politicized Islam.  The President's disavowal does not serve inter-faith dialogue well, nor mutual tolerance. The Islamic State is unquestionably Islamic, even as it has attracted adventurists and psychopaths.

Graeme Wood has written an intelligent, meticulously researched article for The Atlantic Monthly March 2015 issue, entitled, 'What ISIS Really Wants'. I encourage you to read it.

THE BAYNE STORY IS LIKE AN ONION / 483

A story is usually a layered piece of literature, like an onion, once the peel is removed, you find one layer upon another. There are layers of meaning in the story of Paul and Zabeth Bayne and their four children. Each of us seeks to get beneath the initial layers which are so familiar to us, to see what lies inside the onion of this story.

A CALL TO PRAYER / Part 166 / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne/

'A CALL TO PRAYER'

JOIN THEM

On April 6th I mentioned that Paul and Zabeth Bayne, who are committed Christian people, have invited other people who believe in prayer, to join them in a distinctive prayer assembly.

It will happen between the hours of 8:00 AM on Friday April 16th and 8 PM Sunday April 18th.

That is, this invitation has been sent by them or by friends like me to our contacts all over the globe and during that large weekend window of time, wherever people are located, they will take some time to pray.

This is my invitation to you to join them.

Paul and Zabeth have suggested a few things for which people can ask God. Here they are.

1. Pray for God's Will to be done and His Sovereignty and His Purposes to be made clear in their family.
2. Pray for wisdom, understanding and patience as they wait upon God and His timelines to be fulfilled.
3. Pray that God’s Love and Tenderness will be made evident in their children's daily lives.

You can read their own Facebook invitation and even indicate there your intention to be part of this effort. At Facebook just search for ‘A Call to Prayer’.

My own personal invitation to people is going to 150 churches in BC, AB, SK, MAN, and ON among whom I served for several years.

For Love and For Justice / Part 130 / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

Heritage of Faithfulness

Paul and Zabeth Bayne are people of faith. You do not need to share their faith to appreciate that they are individuals who stand for something in which they believe. When I mention 'belief' I am not now even speaking about their protestation of innocence and their advocacy for justice. I am writing about their personal belief in a supreme being who manifested an earthly presence in the person of Jesus Christ the Son of God. That is formulaic for Christianity. The Baynes are Christian believers. It shouldn’t require an apology. Within our tolerance conscious society we have developed a remarkable ability to accept diverse faith systems yet curiously view Christian devotees as eccentric or odd. You and I both know that this is unreasonable and they deserve the latitude we apportion to others.

To demonstrate to you what I see when I look at the Baynes and to forecast what I believe will be the ultimate outcome of this trial, I will sketch a scenario that Paul and Zabeth do not even want to envision.

I will be glad to put this campaign to bed and that will be when Paul and Zabeth put their three children to bed in their own beds in their own home. That is what I sincerely believe will be the outcome.

If by some horrific stroke of poor judgement, this court ruled against the Baynes and awarded the children to MCFD, here is what I believe will eventually result. If the Baynes never have their children returned to them, setting aside possibilities of further legal pursuits or emotional crashes because of crushing disappointment, here is what I visualize for the Baynes. Paul’s and Zabeth’s faith will not capsize and sink. Paul and Zabeth will work at something that pays the bills but that will not be their compelling reason for living. They will be encouragers to other hurting people, providing references and resources and networking among broken hearted folks. And years will pass and children will mature and become adult. And whether or not in foster or adopted homes they are ever exposed to Christian beliefs, they will want to find Paul and Zabeth. And those children will not be disappointed with what they discover. In fact, what those children will uncover will be all the hopes and dreams that Paul and Zabeth held for their children, the memories of a few fleeting years together long ago, the fire of their devotion to serving others in all the intervening years. They will find that these parents spent their lives cheering on others, encouraging the weary and inspiring people to be true and strong. Those children will find their parents’ footprints so deeply set that following will be easy and desirable. Theirs will be a heritage of faithfulness.

It is because they are this kind of people now, that they should have their children returned to them and they will have their children returned to them.

Zabeth and Paul Bayne – Part 29 – The Bayne Campaign for Justice

HELP THEM TO HOPE

I have told you before that Paul and Zabeth are people with a personal faith in God and are committed Christians. Faith plays a role in coping with heartache as great as theirs has been and still is. In fact they would say that without a belief that Someone beyond this realm is looking after their life and their interests, they would despair. Almost everyone in an elected or hired position of authority that might influence this case and to whom they have appealed, has declined, or not answered, or found a conflict of commitments or protocol. But they truly believe that God has introduced into their lives some people who are vitally interested in helping them and who can speak for them to present a reasonable claim for the return of their children. Further, they believe that this agony has extended this long for purposes not yet revealed but that far exceed the expectations of the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

They say that they must purposely entrust their children to God’s care each day and they are comforted in knowing that so many people are praying for them and their children. If not for this comfort they would be overcome with worry not only for the children’s present emotional and physical well being but for the ultimate outcome of this hard passage in their lives. They admit to losing hope or composure at times when they have to say goodbye yet again or they pass a room where the children might be.

They have told me. “We have made each visit with our children one that contains Bible story time, prayer before snacks, prayer before we part, encouraging them to talk to Jesus when they are afraid, lonely, wanting to come home, etc. Time is so short and we do see evidence of the foster homes set of ethics and values. What we had wanted for our children in training as well as in preserving their innocence and growth feels so threatened, but again we have given our children to the Lord to care for and He does watch over them. We will continue to do all we can to foster their love for Jesus and their trust in Him to bring them home.”
While you sip your coffee today, please go to the petition page to sign for them, and send this link to your friends.
Please Don't Hesitate to Sign this Petition. Click the Link below..

"Bayne Campaign for Justice Petition"
Join the growing number of people who are signing a petition to have the children returned to Paul and Zabeth. It's free and takes less than a minute of your time. Please sign your full name, even though the anonymous option is offered. The name counts.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Baynekids?e