Kidnapping brings unwanted attention to Afghan Christians

UPDATE: Today, August 28, 2007, The Associated Press (in the Charlotte Observer) reports:

Taliban agree to free S. Korean hostages
AMIR SHAH
Associated Press Writer

GHAZNI, Afghanistan --
The Taliban agreed Tuesday to free 19 South Korean church volunteers held hostage since July after the government in Seoul pledged to end all missionary work and keep a promise to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

The South Korean government has agreed to cease all missionary work. However, these church volunteers were not missionaries, they were doing aid work. (S. Korea had already said they were withdrawing their troops by the end of the year.)

Of course, this capitulation makes it a certainty that the Taliban will kidnap more hostages. If a strategy works....

UPDATE: The Associated Press reports that at least one of the hostages has been brutally murdered:

Korean hostage killed by Taliban

By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jul 25, 4:19 PM ET

Afghan police discovered the bullet-riddled body of a South Korean hostage Wednesday as the Taliban released eight other captives who were taken to a U.S. military base, officials said.

Because of a recent spike in kidnappings — including an attempt against a Danish citizen Wednesday — police announced foreigners were no longer allowed to leave the Afghan capital without their permission.

The male South Korean victim was found with 10 bullet holes in his head, chest and stomach in the Mushaki area of Qarabagh district in Ghazni province, the region where 23 South Koreans were kidnapped last week, said Abdul Rahman, a police officer.

A police official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation, said militants told him the hostage was sick and couldn't walk and was therefore shot.

More....

This hostage, reported to be a male pastor, is now a martyr for Christ. Shed no tears for him. Remember, Jesus will reward him for this with a crown following the rapture, but pray for his family.


Original Posting: The following article is from The Independent, a British newspaper (thanks to Michelle Malkin for bringing this article to my attention):

Kidnapping brings unwanted attention to Afghan Christians
By Chris Sands in Mazar-e-Sharif
Published: 24 July 2007

The kidnapping of South Korean church volunteers by the Taliban has sparked vigils in Seoul, and shone the spotlight on Afghanistan's small, underground Christian community.

In Mazar-e-Sharif, home to one of Islam's most revered shrines, Ahmedi, 33, says he would be killed instantly if his faith were exposed. In this staunchly traditional society, conversion from Islam remains reviled by many Afghans - and by government officials.

"If the war had not happened, if the Americans and foreigners had not come to Afghanistan, we would not have this freedom and we would not have this office," says Ahmedi, who was fearful of giving his full name.

The "office" is a community centre set up by a Christian charity, and Ahmedi is one of 100 or so Christians living in the northern city.

Rumours abound here that many aid organisations are used as a cover by foreigners to indoctrinate people into Christianity. And in Ahmedi's case, there is an element of truth - he converted from Shia Islam three years ago after meeting an American evangelical. Now his wife and four children are also Christian, and he is the priest of a local church. He has even helped convert other Afghans.

The 23 South Koreans were kidnapped last week at gunpoint from a bus in Ghazni province, and belong to the Saemmul Church in Bundang, which says they are working as volunteer nurses and English teachers.

However, boasts from some evangelical church leaders in South Korea about unofficially sending missionaries to Afghanistan has muddied the water between Christian volunteers doing humanitarian work, and those whose primary mission is to seek converts overseas.

In Mazer-e-Sharif, a recent convert called Abdullah recalled how his family reacted when he revealed his change of faith. "When I received Jesus, I went to my house and I didn't say prayers any more like other Muslims," he said. "One night my father asked me to get up and pray, but I told him I can't. He asked me why, and I told him I was a Christian. He started to fight with me."

Abdullah's parents have come to accept his religion, but his oldest brother continues to ostracise him, and most other people do not even know he has converted. "If I go out and say I am a Christian they will curse me, hit me and kill me," he said, matter of factly.

Last year Abdul Rahman, a Christian convert, was arrested by police and threatened with the death penalty until the Italian government offered him asylum. His case is cited by many Afghans as evidence that President Hamid Karzai is a puppet of foreign powers.

Mazar-e-Sharif is home to the shrine of Hazrat Ali, a cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Mohamed. According to Ahmedi, there are also two large churches and a number of smaller ones in the city, all hidden inside houses and offices.

Meanwhile, a group of foreign missionaries continues to work in the area and in other northern provinces. Taliban militants say the South Korea church volunteers are in good health, but they have threatened to kill them unless Seoul withdraws its troops from Afghanistan and the Afghan government releases Taliban prisoners. Yesterday the deadline for their lives was again extended.

Despite the dangers they face, Afghan Christians refuse to give in to the fear that they will be found out. "If I am afraid I will never receive Jesus," said Abdullah.

Where is the outrage over this kidnapping and threatened execution of these 23 South Korean missionaries in the mainstream media? Even Fox News is barely covering this story.

It is encouraging, though, that the Gospel can win converts to Jesus even in the face of severe persecution. Pray for these missionaries, and all of the brave souls preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Islamic lands.

The Samson Option

Hal Lindsey and I share the same concerns about the Middle East. He obviously has access to much better intelligence sources than I, and articulates his concerns very well. Here is his latest, from The Hal Lindsey Report:

The Samson Option

Last week, WorldNetDaily reported a stunning admission from a Syrian official. He said that Syria had "learned from the Hezbollah experience last summer and we can have hundreds of missiles hitting Tel Aviv that will overwhelm Israel's anti-missile batteries."

He claimed Syria has "proof" Israel is also readying for a war. "We hear about special Israeli trainings to take Damascus. We see that Israel is re-establishing bases of the Israeli army in the Golan that are unusual and not needed except for war. We believe the Israeli government has an interest in confronting Syria to rehabilitate its image of losing to Hezbollah."

The WorldNetDaily report also says that Damascus believes newly-installed Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a former prime minister, "wants to prove he is a military expert." This information is perfectly in line with the official statements made by both Bashar Assad and Mushen Bilal to several major Arab newspapers.

Furthermore, London's Daily Telegraph reported June 25 that Tehran was establishing a missile defense shield for Syria. Iran is also preparing to ship sophisticated military hardware, including "dozens of medium-range Shahab-3 and Russian-made Scud-C missiles, together with Scud-B missiles."

Syria recently test-fired two Scud-D surface-to-surface missiles that have a range of about 250 miles. This puts virtually all of Israel's population centers within range. Analysts say the planned Iranian arms shipment to Syria may be coordinated with the delivery of advanced Russian fighter jets.

Syria is also known to be producing non-conventional warheads, including those containing VX gas for delivery via the new longer range and more accurate Scuds. All Israel's cities are within range of these missiles. Most of them can be reached in less than three minutes. Syria is gambling that Israel's performance in the Hezbollah war of June 2006 means that it has seen all Israel has to offer.

Apparently, Bashar Assad now believes Israel can be beaten. Assad is miscalculating. In the event Syria launches a gas attack on Israel, it's a virtual certainty that Damascus would be instantly obliterated by Israeli nuclear weapons.

The thought of being gassed evokes a visceral response among Israel's Holocaust survivors and their descendants that Damascus wildly underestimates. Israel has more than 400 nuclear weapons in hidden silos in various places within its borders, as well as at least two submarines in the Mediterranean that are launch capable. And you can be certain that in the event of a massive WMD attack by the Syrians, Israel will respond in kind.

There are two particular codes used by Israeli Defense Forces when planning worst-case scenario responses. One is called the "Masada Option." Masada was an ancient fortress taken by the Romans following a three-year siege. Just before they were overrun, the defending Jews committed suicide rather than be captured.

The other code term, "The Samson Option," refers to Samson, who said just before he pulled down the house of the Philistines on himself – and them – "Let me die with the Philistines." Judges 16:30 records it this way: "Then Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines!' And he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people who were in it. So the dead that he killed at his death were more than he had killed in his life."

That's pretty clear imagery. Israel will not just meekly fade away into destruction. And it certainly won't die alone, even if it has to destroy itself in the process of nuking the Middle East.

I once encountered Ariel Sharon in the Knesset in the late 1970s. I asked him if Israel still had a Masada Option. He boldly announced, "No longer 'Masada Option' – now 'Samson Option.'"

Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir almost used that "Option" in the first days of the Yom Kippur War, when it appeared they were going to be overrun. Dayan gave the code for its use when he told Prime Minister Meir, "Arm the doomsday weapons, the Third Temple is about to fall."

War with Syria threatens to bring all nations of the Middle East into direct conflict with Israel – even the supposedly moderate state of Jordan. Jordan has never recovered from the defeats it suffered at the hands of the Israelis, particularly in 1967, in which it lost both the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

All of these events may well be setting up a prophecy that I have pondered for over 40 years. Isaiah predicts a catastrophic end to Damascus that I do not believe is part of the final war of Armageddon. It appears to be a regional conflict that will occur shortly before the anti-Christ is unveiled.

Damascus is the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth. It has never been destroyed despite being besieged and captured many times in history. Its existence reaches back to the dawn of history.

Yet Isaiah predicts in a series of oracles concerning ‘the last days’ that Damascus will suddenly be obliterated and cease being a city forever. Over 2700 years ago, Isaiah foresaw this terrible event, “An oracle concerning Damascus: ‘See, DAMASCUS will no longer be a CITY but will become a heap of ruins.’” (Isa. 17:1 NIV)

Isaiah makes two statements about the destruction Damascus that indicates an instantaneous event. First, Isaiah says, “The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, and royal power from Damascus …” (17:3) This refers to Damascus, which is in part of land allotted to Ephraim. The Hebrew word “disappear” used in this context means a sudden, total annihilation.

Isaiah’s second description of Damascus’ destruction predicts, “In he evening, sudden terror! Before morning, they are gone! This is the portion of those who loot us (Israel), the lot of those who plunder us.” The great city of Damascus will “disappear” in a night. And it is the Israelites who will do this.

Another important part of this prophecy is that it will occur at a time when some calamity hits Israel, “In that day the glory of Jacob will fade; the fat of his body will waste away.” (Isa. 4) This indicates some kind of terrible, physical attack.

Here is where I believe all of this could be headed. Israel is going to be hit with WMDs from Syria that will kill a great number of Israelis. Israel will immediately implement the “Samson Option” against Damascus – totally obliterating it. This will cause the Muslim nations to back off out of fear of also being hit. It will also throw the world into a state of such fear that it will set them up for the anti-Christ’s arrival with a superhuman plan for peace and freedom from war. With his satanic powers, he will convince the world that the only hope is a one-world government under his leadership.

According to my sources, there are fully armed Israeli aircraft sitting on the runway of Jezreel Valley IDF base with pilots in the cockpits on 24 hour alert. Normally, these aircraft are stored under ground. These planes can be over Damascus in 180 seconds from take off.

Syria is playing a very dangerous game, and is being urged on by Iran. If just one-missile hits Israel with the deadly VX gas, the ‘Samson Option’ will be instantly implemented.

Never in history have any of these events occurred. More than that, at no time in recorded history were any of these things even possible. But Israel can now fulfill these prophecies with the nuclear weapons it possess.

Never before have all the causative factors of this event been present at the same moment in history.

But today, they are the only logical conclusion if current events continue along their current path. It's a terrifying scenario, but to those who trust that these signs point to the imminent return of Christ for His Church, it is, nonetheless, an exciting time to be alive.

I emphasize his last sentence.

Old Testament figure named on 2600-year-old tablet

This is one more instance of the Bible being proven historically accurate:

Old Testament figure named on 2600-year-old tablet

By Dalya Alberge in London

July 12, 2007 01:00am
Article from: The Australian

THE British Museum yesterday hailed a discovery within a clay tablet in its collection as a breakthrough for biblical archeology - proof of the accuracy of the Old Testament.

The cuneiform inscription in a tablet dating from 595BC has been deciphered for the first time - revealing a reference to an official at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, that proves the historical existence of a figure mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah.

It is rare evidence in a non-biblical source of a real person, other than kings, featured in the Bible.

The tablet names a Babylonian officer called Nebo-Sarsekim who, according to Jeremiah 39 was present in 587BC when Nebuchadnezzar "marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it".

The cuneiform inscription records how Nebo-Sarsekim lavished a gift of gold on the Temple of Esangila in the fabled city of Babylon, where, at least in folk tradition, Nebuchadnezzar is credited with building the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

British Museum staff are excited by the discovery.

Irving Finkel, assistant keeper in the Department of the Middle East, said: "A mundane commercial transaction takes its place as a primary witness to one of the turning points in Old Testament history.

"This is a tablet that deserves to be famous."
....

Read the rest of the article here.

Why Jesus folded the linen cloth after His resurrection

The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes.

The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded, and was placed at the head of that stony coffin. Is that important? You'd better believe it! Is that significant? Absolutely!

In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day. The folded napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and every Jewish boy knew this tradition. When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it. The table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just out of sight, until the master had finished eating, and the servant would not dare touch that table, until the master was finished.

Now if the master was done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, and clean his beard, and would wad up that napkin and toss it onto the table. The servant would then know to clear the table.

For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, "I'm done". But if the master got up from the table, folded his napkin, and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table, because the servant knew that the folded napkin meant, "I'm not finished yet." The folded napkin meant, "I'm coming back!"

He is Coming Back!

My mom sent this to me. I don't know the original source. - Ron

Vichy America

From The Omega Letter, posted on The Hal Lindsey Report:

Jack Kinsella - Commentary - 06/14
The Omega Letter

Vichy America

In July, 1940, following France's military defeat at the hands of the Nazis, Marshal Phillippe Petain, a hero of the 1st World War, dissolved the existing "L`etat Republique" (the French Republic) and announced its replacement with "L`etat Francais" (the French State). "L`etat Francais" was better known by its nickname, "Vichy France" named for Vichy, the city in central France where Petain headquartered his government.

The French government itself refused to surrender to the Nazis, so Petain sought a separate armistice with Hitler on France's behalf. Hitler, fearing the French would fight on through its colonies in North Africa, agreed to the armistice.

Petain pledged to cooperate with the Germans, relieving Hitler of the burden of maintaining an occupation force to administer French territory. This allowed Hitler to take the war to Great Britain while tying up a minimum of troops.

Petain agreed to make 'tribute' payments to Germany in the amount of 20 million Reichmarks per day, reduce his military to an "Armistice Army" of 100,000 troops, close the borders and surrender anyone over to the Germans that they demanded, particularly French Jews.

The Vichy government agreed to allow Germany to classify the remaining 1.2 million French military as POW's who were promptly imprisoned in Nazi POW camps.

France was then divided into two zones; "Occupied France" and collaborationist Vichy France. In Vichy France, Democratic liberties and guarantees were immediately suspended, as was freedom of speech and opinion.

As soon as it had been established, Pétain's government took measures against the so-called "undesirables": Jews, métèques (immigrants), Freemasons, Communists, gypsies, homosexuals, and anybody else the Germans declared to be anti-Nazi activists.

Jews were registered at local police stations, and officially excluded from government jobs, the armed forces, entertainment, arts, media, and certain professional roles (teachers, lawyers, doctors of medicine, etc.)

The Vichy government collaborated in rounding up and deporting 76,000 Jews, of whom only 2,500 survived the war. In total, more than 90,000 Jews died under the Vichy regime.

During the Cold War, a number of European states, faced with nuclear annihilation by the Soviets, chose, as did the Vichy French, collaboration over defeat. One of the most prominent was Finland, whose large Communist party membership resulted in the establishment of a "Communist Vichy."

Finland's regime made Soviet occupation unnecessary, preserving, like Vichy France, the illusion of national independence. Finland's relationship with the Soviets became known as "Finlandization" and became the model for Soviet domination efforts world-wide.

During the Cold War, the big fear was that eventually, facing nuclear annihilation, American 'peaceniks' would become the majority, preaching a new era of peace and friendship instead of the belligerent and dangerous Cold War policy of 'containment.'

A Finlandization of America could have been accomplished by using the media to advance the careers of politicians dedicated to socialism instead of the evil capitalist system that created such disparity between the rich and the poor.

This process was well underway by the mid 1970's following the resignation of Richard Nixon and the subsequent abandonment of South Vietnam to the Communist north.

Oddly enough, we have Jimmy Carter to thank for putting an end to US Finlandization. His inept economic policies, coupled with his cowardly reaction to the seizure of the US Embassy in Iran, handed the White House to Ronald Reagan.

Reagan, who understood that 'might makes right' reversed the trend, and in the process, defeated the Soviet Union.

In the 1990's, Bill Clinton revived and re-legitimized the 'peacenik' movement of the 1970's. It took the full decade of the 1990's to squander Reagan's 'peace dividend', but by the time he left office in 2001, America had come full circle.

The administration, weakened and divided by Election 2000, was too preoccupied with domestic infighting to adequately respond to the 9/11 attacks.

Constant and unrelenting attacks domestic attacks against the Bush administration by the 'peaceniks' on the Left left little time to unite the nation against the threat posed by radical Islam.

The socialist mantra equating national security issues with anti-Islamic racism found resonance among those who felt they had been robbed of an electoral victory in 2000.

The net result has been America's metamorphosis from Finlandization to Islamization.

Most of the Bush presidency has been focused on appeasing the peacenik element, with the net result being a mirror image of the political situation of the 1970's.

The administration, trying to balance the threat from without against the threat from within, adopted a policy of appeasing Islam by pronouncing it a 'religion of peace and love hijacked by a few terrorists'.

It embarked on a policy of appeasing the Left by diluting elements of the Patriot Act, refusing to crack down on domestic radical Islam to stave off charges of 'racism' and 'racial profiling' and conducting a half-hearted war aimed at maintaining the status quo rather than victory in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The half-hearted efforts convinced many Americans that the Clinton years were indeed the 'good old days' and handed the 'peaceniks' one political victory after another.

With the loss of the Congress to the peaceniks in 2006, and the probable loss of the White House to 1970's radicals like Hillary Clinton in '08, America is poised for an American Vichy solution to the war with the Islamic world.

According to a new book by former CIA Director George Tenet, in 2002, Russian president Vladimir Putin confirmed that rumor that Russia could not account for all its nuclear weapons after the collapse of the Soviets in 1991.

He also confirmed that from late 2002 to spring 2003, Ayman al Zawahiri had been negotiating with Chechen rebels for the purchase of at least three Russian nuclear suitcases.

In his book, "Brotherhood of Terror" in 2002, author Paul Williams claimed that al-Qaeda had purchased as many as twenty Russian suitcase nukes from members of the Chechen mafia.

"After the devices were obtained, they were placed in the hands of Arab nuclear scientists who, federal sources say, 'were probably trained at American universities,'" says Williams. al-Qaeda came up with a way of hot-wiring the bombs to the bodies of would-be martyrs, according to the book.

Williams also says al-Qaeda obtained chemical weapons from North Korea and Iraq.

Williams says the FBI confirmed to him that Saddam Hussein provided bin Laden with a "gift" of anthrax spores.

The FBI has picked up 'chatter' that suggests that al-Qaeda's nuclear arsenal could be much larger than even Williams or Tenet suggest.

One intelligence source told me yesterday that it could also include battlefield tactical nukes purchased in the early 90's from renegade Russian officers -- tactical warheads large enough to level a city the size of Los Angeles.

This new information is given added crediblity, when one recalls that, in the early 1990's many Russian generals had taken to selling their medals at Russian flea markets in order to buy food.

In the years prior to 9/11, al-Qaeda had a war chest of more that $300 million and the freedom to spend it without interference.

The problem for al-Qaeda until now, has been finding a way to get these warheads into the United States.

Thanks to the Venezuela/Damascus/Tehran air corridor, al-Qaeda now has the ability to bring them to the Western hemisphere. The recent decision to open the US to the Mexican trucking industry also provides them with the means to deliver them.

A lead-lined tanker truck could easily smuggle a nuclear warhead across the Mexican border and drive it to any city in America.

Islam's goal is not to kill every American. It is to force America to submit to Islam. A nuclear attack against selected American cities would give America one of two choices.

Fight on, or negotiate a Vichy-style 'armistice'.

Much of the American Left is already advocating a Vichy solution to the Iraq war -- the same 'peace with honor' solution that ended the Vietnam War -- by abandoning South Vietnam to the Communist North.

Thanks to the popular imposition of 'political correctness' Vichy-like suspension of democratic liberties, free speech and freedom of opinion are already well-entrenched in the American psyche.

Try expressing the 'wrong' opinions on topics like gay rights, global warming, Islam, or advancing pro-Christian, pro-life, or pro-American opinions and watch the reaction from the Left.

Opinions are one step away from being criminalized now -- and in some cases, are already grounds for arrest and prosecution.

America is at a crossroads. It is but one more attack away from adopting one of two courses. Either Vichy America, or Occupied America.

It depends on whether America chooses the preferred course of the 'peaceniks' or the 'neo-cons'. Sadly, I can only conclude that neither choice bodes well for America's future.

(This helps to explain my ongoing insomnia).

But it does suggest an answer to the question, "Where is America in Bible prophecy?"

(Frankly, I would prefer to leave that question unanswered. I would sleep better at night if I did.)

Sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss.

(Emphasis added)

We must defeat the radical, anti-war left in the 2008 elections, or we may indeed find out why America doesn't seem to be mentioned in the End Times prophecies.

Persecution of Christians in Iraq

From www.frontpagemag.com:

Assault on Assyrian Christians
By Paul Isaac
International Herald Tribune | May 9, 2007

A militant Islamic group in Iraq recently issued a fatwa, or religious edict, to the Assyrian Christian residents of the Baghdad suburb of Dora: Convert to Islam within 24 hours, or face death. At the same time, Muslim neighbors were instructed, over the loudspeakers of local mosques, to confiscate the property of Christians and enforce the edict.

The response was as swift: The majority of Assyrians remaining in Dora immediately gathered whatever they could carry and fled the city.

Iraq's Assyrian Christians know quite well that these latest threats are not empty promises. Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, over 25 churches across Iraq have been bombed, in highly symbolic and coordinated manners. The Islamic group claiming responsibility for the bombing of four churches in August 2004 issued a warning. "To the people of the crosses: Return to your senses and be aware that God's soldiers are ready for you. You wanted a crusade and these are its results."

Several priests have been abducted and beheaded, one in apparent retribution for the pope's public musings about Muhammed and the nature of Islam in October 2006. In March, two elderly nuns were reportedly stabbed to death in Kirkuk. Several Christian women have been beheaded or doused with chemicals for failing to wear the veil. And last October a 14-year-old Assyrian boy was crucified near Mosul.

For the Islamists, the violence has certainly had the desired effect: The massive exodus of Assyrian Christians from Iraq. The UN High Commission for Refugees estimates that as many as a third of the 1.8 million refugees now outside Iraq are Christian.

A similar percentage of the 1.6 million internally displaced within Iraq are likely Christian, many of whom have fled Baghdad, Basra and Mosul to the relatively stable Northern Iraq. The Catholic Bishop of Baghdad, Andreos Abouna, recently stated that as many as half of Iraqi Christians, perhaps half a million people, have fled the country since the 2003 invasion.

Assyrian Christians, the indigenous people of Iraq, the inheritors of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization and the world's earliest converts to Christianity, are at risk of being completely eradicated from their homeland.

In a case of tragic irony, the "liberating" international forces have done nothing to protect Iraq's Christians. Not wishing to admit the catastrophic security failure nor be seen as intervening on a religious basis, U.S. officials have simply stood aside and watched. The State Department's recent offering of 7,000 visas for refugees is not only woefully inadequate but will merely encourage the flight of Assyrians from Iraq.

The United States has been complicit with the destruction of an entire people and should be held liable for the rectification of this misfortune.

Many Assyrians have pled for the establishment of an autonomous region for Christians in Iraq. This zone would likely be situated around the Nineveh Plains, the Assyrians' ancestral homeland, where Christians still comprise the majority. Sargis Aghajan, the finance minister for the Kurdistan Regional Government and himself an Assyrian, has called for autonomy in the Nineveh Plains. He also has financed the construction of thousands of homes in the area and to the north, to prevent those Assyrians fleeing Baghdad and elsewhere from leaving the country altogether.

In March, I joined 1,200 Assyrian intellectuals and civic leaders, both from the diaspora and around Iraq, in attending a conference in Erbil which formalized Iraqi Christians' demand for autonomy. An autonomous region for Assyrians will convince those remaining in Iraq that their faith, language and way of life has a future in Iraq and persuade many of those who have fled to return.

The Bush administration and its Iraqi allies should support this development and ensure its realization. The fate of an entire people lies in the balance.

"And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved." Mark 13:13

Another False Christ

"Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray." Luke 13:6

Crowd Packs Amphitheater For Man Claiming He's Jesus Christ Reincarnated
Christians Protest Event In Orlando

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A controversial religious figure who claims he is Jesus Christ incarnate with a following of millions with "666" tattoos on their bodies, filled an amphitheater in Orlando this weekend, and promised joy, peace and prosperity.

Orlando police officers stood guard around the Lake Eola amphitheater as Dr. Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda, 61, arrived in the city Saturday.

Miranda, who has been banned from three countries, told Local 6 News cameras and a cheering crowd that he was Jesus Christ reincarnated.

His followers believe that Miranda's life and his teachings replace those of Jesus of Nazareth, Local 6's Jamie Guirola said.

"They believe that Jesus is going to come from the sky," Juan Sanchez said. "But, that is not the way he is going to come."

"He is here?" Guirola said.

"He is here." Sanchez said.

Miranda said millions of people worldwide have tattooed their bodies with "666" in recognition that the second-coming of Christ has taken place, according to the report.

"I have it proudly on my hand," a believer told Local 6's Jamie Guirola. "It is easier when they shake my hand. It is easier for them to ask. I am very proud to show it is a sign of love."

A group of Christians protested the event, calling the following a cult. Police also removed two people from the amphitheater.

"We are just questioning their faith and their '666' tattoos," a protestor told Local 6. "We just want to learn more so we can relate more between being a Christian and believing in this and who the true Jesus is."

Miranda said he is known as God in at least 30 countries.

Local 6 reported that he was born in Puerto Rico and admits to being a recovering heroin addict. He also spent times in prison on drug and petty theft charges.

Miranda is the founder of the Miami-based Growing in Grace Ministry.

A sign of the times.