Pakistani Christian Pastor, Family Fled Persecution
POSTED BY: CINCINNATUS Universal Free Press ALBANY, N.Y. ― The Pakistani police made a Christian pastor an offer he had to refuse.
Muslims nearby Pastor Saleem James’s home church in Lagore, Pakistan, had made death threats against him, told him they would kidnap his children, and tear down his house unless he stopped preaching about Jesus Christ and holding healing services that even some Muslims attended.
The police told him to reconcile with his neighbors or the neighbors could bring a blasphemy case. James, in good conscience, wouldn’t do that.
“Our healing meetings involved hymn singing and praying for the sick people,” James told this reporter.
“’Stop this meeting or we will beat you and demolish everything,’” the furious crowd told him.
“They grabbed my collar and slapped me and kicked me until church leaders stopped them.
“I was very much terrified.”
They accused him of trying to convert Muslims, but they weren’t appeased when he said he didn’t invite Muslims, they freely attended.
The Muslims threatened a blasphemy case against him, which means “the mob takes revenge first,” and the police arrive later.
On one occasion, the crowd had broken down the gate to the house and fired shots in the air. Mob revenge meant death.
Reminiscent of the way blacks were treated in the post-Reconstruction South, Christians get separate water, plates, cups and food. They aren’t allowed to drink from the same cups as Muslims.
Church members and an international human rights group urged the family to flee their homeland of Pakistan, which James said was a miracle in itself. This is how they finally arrived in Albany and became members of City Harvest Church on Central Avenue.
Related: Down On The Farm, Spreading Fertilizer - Clinton's "Marked Classified" Claims Irrelevant According To Regulations Powered by Inline Related Posts It didn’t matter that at James’s church, Renewal Church of Pakistan, people reportedly were healed of many illnesses, such as cancer, depression, blindness and deafness, and delivered from demons. Muslims came to the church for help when their own mullahs’ prayers didn’t work, but very few converted. “It was like they were going to a different doctor,” James said.
James’s oldest, 18-year-old Joshua, said, “A lot of demon-possessed people, including children were delivered in the name of Jesus.”
He said a demon or demons made one “child act and sound like a frog.” Once the child was delivered, the youngster heard a whisper in his ear, “now you are free.”
Joshua and his siblings attended St. Anthony’s High School, a Catholic school in Lagore, in which the vast majority of students are Muslim. Christians are poor compared to Muslims because they face discrimination in employment, so the school aids them, Joshua said. But Muslims, even the current prime minister, attend or have attended the school because of its disciplined atmosphere, encouragement of good manners, and high-quality education.
Christians are treated as third-class citizens and are mocked, treated rudely and rarely befriended. “They always look down on you,” said Joshua, who is now a senior at Bishop Maginn High School in Albany.
“Christians are unholy. They’re considered as great sinners.”
Reminiscent of the way blacks were treated in the post-Reconstruction South, Christians get separate water, plates, cups and food. They aren’t allowed to drink from the same cups as Muslims, he said.
“I didn’t have a lot of friends because I was a Christian,” he said.
Related: Woman Arrested for Really Concealed Weapon Powered by Inline Related Posts “They used to bully me, saying Christ is this or Christ is that.”
His sister, Christine, 17, also now at Bishop Maginn, said prejudice runs so deep that as a 4-year-old, she pretended to be a Muslim so other children would play with her. When they found out she was Christian, they shunned her.
When Christians work as cleaners in Islamic households, the Muslims “treat them as slaves,” Pastor James said.
James claimed it was a miracle he and his family were able to get passports so easily and leave Pakistan because they are Christians and very poor. Other Christians helped them in Pakistan and in America in the spring, including City Harvest Church.
“God opened the doors, and we were provided everything,” he said.
“It seemed that everybody is our relative.”
James said Islamic extremists are increasing persecution of Christians in Pakistan with murders and bombings and attempts to push more stringent Islamic law.
Still he believes the government’s estimate of Christians as 1 to 2 percent of the population is low since some Muslims have become covert Christians. “When persecution and hate increase, the glory of God increases in abundance,” he believes.
Pakistani politicians who say “Christians are our sisters and brothers and everybody’s happy” are hiding the truth, James said.
You act like this is something 'new'. It isn't. It's been happening for the better part of 1000 years.
"Approval ratings go up and down for various reasons... An example is the high post 911 support for GWB even though he could be said to be responsible for the event." --- Box A Rox '9/11 Truther'
Melania is a bimbo... she is there to look at, not to listen to. --- Box A Rox and his 'War on Women'
mr. pope will make sure that don't happen in the future. he's having that big interfaith fiasco in Israel in September. one god....one religion.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
I always laugh at those coexist bumper stickers on the backs of Toyota Prius' this will never happen religious zealots hate all who don't believe what they believe. Yes in America we tolerate but only so far, and the only way we have managed to "coexist" is due to the following tools of coexistence
Under Saddam, Iraq's Christians and Muslims had no problem coexisting. Some of Saddam's top officials were Christians.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Under Saddam, Iraq's Christians and Muslims had no problem coexisting. Some of Saddam's top officials were Christians.
They also didn't have a problem under Assad's Syria, Morsi's Egypt, and even Gadhafi's Libya had no problem.
Christians in the region are giving many thanks to Obama and Clinton for changing the situation!
"Approval ratings go up and down for various reasons... An example is the high post 911 support for GWB even though he could be said to be responsible for the event." --- Box A Rox '9/11 Truther'
Melania is a bimbo... she is there to look at, not to listen to. --- Box A Rox and his 'War on Women'
They also didn't have a problem under Assad's Syria, Morsi's Egypt, and even Gadhafi's Libya had no problem.
Christians in the region are giving many thanks to Obama and Clinton for changing the situation!
Yes... Clinton and Obama invaded Iraq, disbanded he military (they could keep their weapons), then did nothing to secure the country so that criminals, terrorists and profiteers took over. It's Clinton's and Obama's fault.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Yes... Clinton and Obama invaded Iraq, disbanded he military (they could keep their weapons), then did nothing to secure the country so that criminals, terrorists and profiteers took over. It's Clinton's and Obama's fault.
Clinton voted 'Yes'. Obama pulled all the troops out and left Iraq high and dry, giving rise to ISIS that Obama said was a "JV team".
I know your a good obedient revolutionary, but let's not start revising history
"Approval ratings go up and down for various reasons... An example is the high post 911 support for GWB even though he could be said to be responsible for the event." --- Box A Rox '9/11 Truther'
Melania is a bimbo... she is there to look at, not to listen to. --- Box A Rox and his 'War on Women'
G worst Bush negotiated the US Pull Out of Iraq. Obama wanted to amend that agreement but was overruled by the Iraq leaders.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
G worst Bush negotiated the US Pull Out of Iraq. Obama wanted to amend that agreement but was overruled by the Iraq leaders.
That's really quite an interesting story and resurfaced with accusations by clueless brother Jeb. I think it also speaks to the weakness of the Bush admin, too. He alienated our allies and let others walk over us at the same time. For him it was all personal and lacked strategy and effective long term planning. from factcheck.org:
Quoted Text
Who’s responsible for withdrawing all U.S. combat troops from Iraq at the end of 2011?
Jeb Bush says President Obama is to blame for the “premature withdrawal” of all U.S. troops. Hillary Clinton’s campaign reminded Bush that his brother, President George W. Bush, signed an agreement that set Dec. 31, 2011, as the withdrawal date. Both have a point, but there’s more to the story than either is letting on.
The Florida governor gave a foreign policy speech Aug. 11 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library, where he praised his brother for the 2007 surge and blamed the Obama administration for conditions in Iraq that led to the rise of the terrorist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS (about the 13-minute mark of the video).
Bush, Aug. 11: So why was the success of the surge followed by a withdrawal from Iraq, leaving not even the residual force that commanders and the joint chiefs knew was necessary? That premature withdrawal was the fatal error, creating the void that ISIS moved in to fill – and that Iran has exploited to the full as well.
The Clinton campaign responded with a statement from Senior Campaign Policy Adviser Jake Sullivan, a former State Department official under Clinton, who said it was President Bush — not Obama — who agreed to the Dec. 31, 2011, date.
Sullivan, Aug. 11: It was President Bush who set the withdrawal date for Americans from Iraq, not President Obama. President Bush signed an agreement that required us to be out by the end of 2011. The Obama administration urged [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki] to approve our leaving a residual force behind. But Prime Minister Maliki … made it clear that he could not get the Iraqi parliament to do that. Not even for five- or ten-thousand troops.
We won’t settle the political argument over who is responsible for the rise of ISIS, but we will explore the facts over the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.
It is true that Bush signed an agreement, known as the Status of Forces Agreement, on Dec. 14, 2008, that said: “All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.”
Condoleezza Rice, who served as Bush’s secretary of state, wrote in her 2011 book, “No Higher Honor,” that Bush did not want to set a deadline “in order to allow conditions on the ground to dictate our decisions.” She wrote that she met with Maliki in August 2008 and secured what she thought was an agreement for a residual force of 40,000 U.S. troops. But she said Maliki soon “reneged” and insisted on “the withdrawal of all U.S. forces by the end of 2011.” She said Bush “swallowed hard” and agreed to what she called “suitable language” to do just that.
Rice, “No Higher Honor,” 2011: We’d given quite a lot of ground on issues such as a withdrawal timetable, consenting to the removal of all U.S. forces by the end of 2011, and we even conceded a limited level of Iraqi legal jurisdiction over our troops. … Ultimately, the compromises we made proved beneficial because the resulting [Status of Forces Agreement] put the end of the war in sight and left the new U.S. president a firm foundation for a successful conclusion of our presence there.
So, President Bush reluctantly agreed to a withdrawal deadline without leaving behind a residual force because of Maliki’s strong objections. Jeb Bush ignores those facts.
Still, Obama had three years to negotiate a new agreement prior to the Dec. 31, 2011, withdrawal date to keep some U.S. troops in Iraq. In fact, a day before Bush signed the agreement, Gen. Ray Odierno — the former commander of the U.S. troops in Iraq and current Army chief of staff — said the agreement might be renegotiated depending on conditions on the ground. “Three years is a very long time,” Odierno told the New York Times.
Leon Panetta, who was Obama’s defense secretary from July 2011 to February 2013, wrote in his 2014 book, “Worthy Fights,” that as the deadline neared “it was clear to me — and many others — that withdrawing all our forces would endanger the fragile stability” in Iraq. As a result, the Obama administration sought to keep 5,000 to 10,000 U.S. combat troops in Iraq, as Sullivan said in his statement.
But negotiations with Iraq broke down in October 2011 over the issue of whether U.S. troops would be shielded from criminal prosecution by Iraqi authorities. Panetta wrote that Maliki insisted that a new agreement providing immunity to U.S. forces “would have to be submitted to the Iraqi parliament for its approval,” which Panetta said “made reaching agreement very difficult.”
Very difficult, but Panetta wrote it was not impossible.
Panetta said the Obama White House did not press hard enough to reach a deal — a point that Bush makes in his speech. Panetta wrote that the U.S. “had leverage” and could have “threatened to withdraw reconstruction aid” if Iraq didn’t agree to “some sort of continued U.S. military presence.”
Panetta, “Worthy Fights,” 2014: To my frustration, the White House coordinated the negotiations but never really led them. Officials there seemed content to endorse an agreement if State and Defense could reach one, but without the President’s active advocacy, al-Maliki was allowed to slip away. The deal never materialized. To this day, I believe that a small U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have effectively advised the Iraqi military on how to deal with al-Qaeda’s resurgence and the sectarian violence that has engulfed the country.
Clinton was involved in the negotiations as Obama’s secretary of state and, at least publicly, supported the president’s decision.
Days after Obama announced he would withdraw all troops by Dec. 31, 2011, Clinton was asked on “Meet the Press” if critics had a point that such a withdrawal would “endanger recent success in Iraq by not having any residual force?” She replied, “They should have raised those issues when President Bush agreed to the agreement to withdraw troops by the end of this year.”
More recently, she defended Obama’s actions at a 2014 town hall meeting televised by CNN. This time, she blamed the Iraqi government.
Clinton, June 17, 2014: Some now say, well, you should have made him or you should have — but that’s not the way it works. You have to — if you’re going to having American troops in harm’s way — and we knew Iraq would be quite dangerous for a long time, unpredictable, at the very least — you have to have the host government, in this case Iraq, say, OK, here’s what we want. We’re signing this agreement which will protect American soldiers. We didn’t get that done. And I think, in retrospect, that was a mistake by the Iraqi government.
We take no position on whether the U.S. should have left some combat troops in Iraq. But the record shows that Jeb Bush ignored the fact that his brother agreed to the withdrawal deadline and agreed not to leave behind a residual force. Likewise, the Clinton campaign’s response that Iraq wouldn’t allow the Obama administration to renegotiate the terms of the withdrawal ignored criticism that Obama didn’t try hard enough. That criticism isn’t just partisan. His own defense secretary said Obama wasn’t actively engaged in the negotiations and allowed the opportunity to “slip away.”
— Eugene Kiely
JUST BECAUSE SISSY SAYS SO DOESN'T MAKE IT SO...BUT HE THINKS IT DOES!!!!! JUST BECAUSE MC1 SAYS SO DOESN'T MAKE IT SO!!!!!
Logged
