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GOING WITH GOD

THE CHRISTIAN ABIDING: THE LORD PRESIDING

The Brighter Way for the Declining Day

Chapter Three

Laws, Lords and Love

Sharia Law for the Brits ? Yes, says a Law Lord,
No, says the Word of God! Answers to Questions Raised Appear.

Where are you going, pretty Britain, where are you going today ?

News 400
Manchester Guardian July 4, 2008

LEAVING SALT FOR SILT ?

UPHEAVING A HAPPY GREATNESS FOR A SERVILE SUBSTITUTION

Islam is a heresy unique in one respect, it draws its materials partly from twisted sources^*1, fictions in the realm of Judaism, partly from parallels to these,  in Christianity; and adds.
It is in that sense, a double take. Elements of Old Testament times and New he has taken, contradicting both Testaments.

It presumes to mould a christ to the will of Muhammad, who did nothing to earn a reputation in the least parallel to that of Christ in power, in word, in grace; for he fought much and killed, rather than healed, overcame and imposed, rather than drew; and where he DID draw, those drawn were frequently exhorted to draw blood in conflict. So far from bringing the peace the world needed and needs, he instituted a realm of religious war which nearly sacked Europe. His raids and wars were exceedingly multiplied and his judgments could be severe.

The case has been analysed in depth as in the references of  Ch. 1, *4 above. Not only did Muhammad seek to give some sense of legitimacy to his religious musing from history, he even tried to use the Old Testament prophets as ground of authority for himself, declaring they were from God. However as seen in SMR 1080ff., their doctrine of redemption was central. In the Bible,  the only righteousness that can savingly be imputed to man is that of God Himself, for the sacrifices COVER what otherwise is utterly destitute, and deserving because of ANY sin, of death. On the subject of Christ, he even appears to contradict himself, as if bent on banishing the truth and contradicting now this, now that (Dancers to Answers Ch. 3, *1A).

Let us however return to the Old Testament situation.

Thus you have Psalm 32 and Psalm 71 telling us how blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not IMPUTE iniquity, Isaiah 53 telling us the sacrificial basis on the part of the Messiah, by which iniquity being imputed to Him, for the believer, it is no more reckoned to the sinner who believes in Him. Indeed,  if God marked iniquities, Psalm 130:3, declares, WHO would stand! Of God's OWN righteousness, says David in Psalm 71, ALONE, will he make mention!  Of His mode of deletion and acceptance, sacrifice is the core. Where faith is, obedience follows.

The two systems, Koran and Bible,  are one of works, one of grace; of battles and prayers and alms on the way to gaining acceptance, and one of grace enabling pardon by grace through all-sufficient and indispensable sacrifice, alone sufficient, incomparable to any work.

Into the midst of this long-standing situation comes first of all Rowan Williams who, as Archbishop of Canterbury, who spoke of a certain inevitability of some aspects of sharia law, that common to Islam, though variable at that, entering into the law of the land. The reaction was so keen that one official was reported to have declared that the Archbishop should resign, but that he was sure he would not. Lord George Carey, predecessor of Dr Williams declared that accepting sharia law would be disastrous for Britain.

Further, the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Azir-Ali, we learn from Times on Line for Feb. 8, 2008, was unimpressed. Having claimed recently that parts of Britain were no-go areas for non-Muslims, he was one of the first to criticise Dr Williams. Dr Nazir-Ali, the country’s only Asian bishop, is reported to have said: “English law is rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and our notions of human freedoms derive from that tradition. It would be impossible to introduce a tradition like Sharia into this corpus without fundamentally affecting its integrity.”

England to be sure, is bordering on disestablishment. Only in the shadow of a shadow now is it to be found in Christian terms, even if the monarch is to be earthly 'head' of the Church of England. Thus the current clash between conservatives and liberals in the Church of England, on a broader scale,  has more to it than treachery against religion and bound truth, successively mutilated. Just as the movement proceeds in pock-marked degradations of biblical Christianity, each moral and doctrinal deletion like a scar from fever (cf. Isaiah 1:5-6), so it both resembles the day of Jeremiah and asks for a similar come-uppance from Him whose word is so treated (Jeremiah 5:20-31).

"Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord," declares the prophet, "and wisdom do they have!"

And that ? It is found in Jeremiah 7:28-29 in the first place, and in history, at the hand of the Babylonian Empire, with the report of the desolations in Jeremiah's book of Lamentations. As it was foretold, so was it:

"Therefore you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not obey you.
You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you.

"So you shall say to them,

‘This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord their God
nor receive correction.
Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.
Cut off your hair and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the desolate heights; for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.
For the children of Judah have done evil in My sight,' says the Lord."

The lamentation was indeed taken up after the event, as well as before, as the prophet wept for what was so clearly revealed to him as coming! (Jeremiah 9:1ff), and then was devastated at the literal devastation and the horrible inhumanities of the insurgents from an Empire not noted for kindness! The book of Lamentations exposes the tragedy that came, and the profundity of its rebuke.

SHARIA ? HARDLY!

In speaking as if some of this Sharia law, an intensive form of Islamic application with some punishments such that the Law Lord (Lord Phillips) who talks of having some parts of it in Britain, explicitly rules those parts out: this message of innovation from things ancient, coming increasingly from England, is ignoring several things.

Firstly, heresy is never a good source of wisdom, and England still officially at least has a Church of the land. What has been said already on this topic is more than enough, as the scriptures of truth are surveyed to the point! (cf. Ch. 1, above, Separation). With this, in Romans 16:17 - as in II Corinthians 5-6, with the idolatry indeed of having any god who is not the God of the Bible, of tested and verified revelation (cf. Ch. 1 above, *1), and worshipping that, there is an exclusion notice in the Bible of the strictest kind: AVOID THEM. Avoid, do not mingle. Concerning unbelievers (II Cor. 6), it is the same.

If of course you say, Forget Christianity, forget any relationship between law and God, between law and the Bible, between law and Jesus Christ, forget any type of commitment in Britain to Christ or to the Bible, stamp on the concept of a national church, and let culture be your kind, and current opinion in all things be your master, your guide, your counsellor, and go not worry about the Almighty for who is He! ... if this is the approach in the legal heights of Great Britain at the most formative level, then of course we are witnesses to the last death rattles of the body which once was so vigorous, so fair and so vital.

However, this is precisely what gives even more significance to the conflict arising in Jerusalem, this time between the conservative and liberal wings of the Anglican world establishment. If the liberal approach, so well seen in the legal mode, but most clearly in the moral transmutations concerning sexuality, and concerning the exclusive character of Jesus Christ as not only the only begotten Son of God but the TRUTH and the only way to God (John 14:6): if this is to complete its desolations of England and its Church, then what Hitler failed to do in a take-over by force, is now wrought in one by stealth and by liberty, by revolt and by dissonance from doctrine.

It is no accident that England at the height of its power was also at the height of its evangelical fervour, and at the nadir of its doctrine and conviction, is approaching more and more the rank of a nondescript addition to Europe, under orders from Brussels, where orders sprout for the EU so readily.

The failure even to separate from the Anglican establishment, noted in Ch. 1 above, on the part of leadership in Australia underlines the complementary character of the Anglican world body, and its failure absolutely to return to the word of God (cf. the challenge to the prophet Jeremiah, which HE ACCEPTED! - Jeremiah 15:19-21). If then this once so prominent Church that helped, despite its many defects, inspiration and vision in England for so long, and helped to unify expectation and deliberation around Christ in the national life, if this is near its final precipitous leap of non-faith, then here is a signal of the faith-fall of the nation, a sort of spiritual scream as the land withers.

To the point then of the Sharia law episode, and its degree of acceptance from first, the Archbishop of Canterbury, not long ago, and now by a law Lord in some measure, we are seeing England not only loosed from its moorings but adrift in the violent 21st century seas of passion both heretical and secular, an unenviable position and a mutated one.

Secondly, then concerning this approach to such a law or set of rules, or some part of them, there is not only the SOURCE and its NATURE, there is its NURTURE. Thus any such measure of adoption would explicitly be tending to accept, endorse either the law itself or the religion from which it comes, and to foster the thought of it and its way, in a sanitised way (not cutting off of hands, for example,  that is OUT!).

Thus the religion which sought to reduce Europe to second class citizenry which is the combination of toleration and subjugation spelt out in the Koran for those who having surrendered, are held at arm's length, is being admitted in measure, given comfort and cozetting in the land that did not yield either to Islam or Nazism, two extreme methods of handling the human race, with military force given either virtual or actual celestial credentials. With Hitler, it was the master race with mystic significance (cf. Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 14); with Islam, it is the enforcers of submission in the world, to a god which a man has sought to enshrine in the minds of men, but who is as far from almighty as history shows him to be! (cf. SMR pp. 829ff.).

It is necessary in all things to be factual, for illusion endangers all who entertain it, as is most clear when reality ... hits (cf. Matthew 21:44).

Thirdly, there is the more intimate question of justice itself, as a source for law. Here again we meet a substantial inhibition. Play with fire and the forest may burn. Man is not well advised to dabble in what is incendiary in disposition.

The American Thinker, July 7, notes some interesting aspects of the Koran and the hadiths, July, 2008, and further is found concerning Bukhari hadiths below^*2. While Lord Phillips, the senior British law Lord who spoke of the complete acceptability of having portions of sharia, with its variable but extensive components, brought into same phases of British law, it is true he excluded from this thought, certain extreme punishments. Examples of such appear in the end-note, with reflections on the position vis-à-vis law, force and faith^*2*.

While it is no wonder the British law Lord thought that for this style of thing there would be an exclusion, as the data below indicates, yet source and product have to be considered together, in spiritual things the more especially. There is a time to extract good and a place, and from a burning wrath and a hideous defilement, carried out in precise stages and inveterate horror, over a long time, there is no place for communion. Such appears one of the trends in the punishment element of what is taken as relevant to Islamic law.

As noted below, the  Quran itself says:

5:33 Those who wage war against God and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land should be punished
by death, crucifixion, the amputation of an alternate hand and foot
or banishment from the land: a disgrace for them in this world,
and then a terrible punishment in the Hereafter,
34 unless they repent before you overpower them:
in that case bear in mind that God is forgiving and merciful. (Haleem)

Notice that repenting afterwards is too late. NO mercy is available then. Moreover Muhammad had strong conceptions, it seems of what constituted 'war'. Oppose him with any force, and the payments would be horrific.

Nor is it one isolated instance of what is if not barbarism, virtually impossible to differentiate from it. As to cruelty and extremes: there is a bevy of such cases, and the relationship to justice is less apparent than that to intemperance, excruciating infliction and systematic torture.

Fourthly, there is a problem in sharia, about WHY it should be even considered; OR for that matter, the emblems, customs, practices or claims of any other religion. IF there is a demonstrable word from God, as is true with the Bible (Ch. 1, *1), then it comes not by force by but faith into the heart. Steel as noted below, does not think.

In endnote ^*1, examples of force and its reprobative nature are provided with due reflections, where the list is extended. 

Even blasphemy, which is deemed to be covered in the Koran 5:38-39 as cited above and considered in *1, involves cutting off opposite hands and feet, death, crucifixion, banishment, eternal horror and so on.

This is in no way compared to the Old Testament theocratic approach. There was no question there of bearing horror for a life-time with amputations which might lead to slow death in agony, or of crucifixion. The only crucifixion prescribed in the Bible is that for the One whom the Father in heaven loved MOST, and the reason that in His perfectly delightful innocence and beauty of holiness, God's eternal expression, ONLY HE was good enough, ONLY He had with this power enough to break death, and as that eternal life always with the Father, it was HE who brought immortality to light, dispensing with death in love, for those who receive this His payment in faith in HIM (and not some imaginary alternative).

Such horror however the Koran inflicts such continuing physical catastrophes on those who reflect negatively on Muhammad, a prophet who has nil objective grounds for one to believe in him, and many for one not to do so (as in More Marvels Ch. 4...); and so reason is prevented, revelation is invented, for God if He wishes to speak does not found it on what is unclear, when clarity is abundantly in His power, as the Bible precisely demonstrates (cf.  Ch. 1 above, *1). Nor does He contradict Himself (cf. SMR pp. 1080ff.).

Is it more methods of punishment the Koran proclaims ? Yes, it is worse; and just as Israel, being by nature and calling, and not by mere desire, a theocracy, having been founded out of being confounded by miracles on all sides such as have not been sense outside this dispensation of the Lord, that is, except in Biblical terms, inflicted death and contempt on those who ENTICED them (Deuteronomy 13) to follow other gods, so it was its own law for its own called and freely committed people.

This was not for mere dissident, but active propagandists, and in the land already so committed to God that to allow it would be hypocrisy. The point was this: it was ONLY to their own land, that this applied. If YOU thought otherwise, the world was available. There was no thought of pursuing you or seeking to get you in some other land with another religion, or putting out a decree for your murder, in some other land.

This was the rule for this people. It did not attempt world dominion. It did not say that if a fight occurred that all should continue WHEREVER and WHENEVER, until only the Lord was honoured, as does the Koran (cf. Divine Agenda Ch. 6 as marked). FAITH was critical (Deuteronomy 29:18ff., Psalm 2), and while it is true they were sent to bring judgment on another nation, it is also true that the confines of their land were spelled out, it was a theocracy for a basis for the Gospel and the revelation of God, not for mere military expansionism and triumphalism over the world, seeking this and that land, and judging those who did not accept the Lord.

When judgment CAME on Canaan, Israel was charged to bring it. Then it was established. When judgment COMES to this world, then the Lord will execute it not with the power of sinful and rebellious man, exulting in force, but in His own just hands. Vengeance, specifically, is HIS and not ours. He is just and knows the end and the beginning, the real reasons for all actions and gives what in mercy, He finds at length needful.

THEOCRACY AND ITS PURPOSES ARE LONG PAST:

IT IS THE LORD, NOT LAW, AND IN LAW, CHRIST'S MERCY NOT BATTLE CRY

But now we talk of sharia LAW. The day of the theocracy is now long past, not a century, not one thousand years, but two. To conceive of using the means of a theocracy in a world not even committed to God is ludicrous. THAT was a freely chosen path for the people as shown in detail In Ch. 1 above. To mutilate because faith is not present in an open situation is not the way or will of God, nor is it that of reason. It is reneging which is perilous, hypocrisy which is startling; not unbelief.

To be sure, it will be judged since the word of God has romped over the earth, incisive in its contacts, decisive in its fulfilments, personal in the coming of Christ, effectual in salvation, it has raised civilisations (News 73) and condemned wickedness while supplying not a more or less good works more or less may avail philosophy, but a gift of eternal life from God BY FAITH. The sword can never generate that!

The endeavours of Islam in this are not merely astray, but irrational. Fear and the sword, or scimitar, insistences on invasions to all lands and force there: it is neither useful for bringing on faith which believes, rather than winces, nor apt for other nations, the truth of which is better decided not by steel, which cannot think, but by reason and evidence, and testimony and functionality.

Not only is Islamic law misplaced in that it does not have the rational relationship between faith and force in its background, and hence must tend towards disproportion and intolerance, fear because it in fact depends indeed on battles, which it has provoked and applied till all of Europe nearly fell before the scimitar, though the allegedly almighty Allah did not manage it, Tours of 732 having aborted the mission. It is better left out while biblical law is put in, that is, what is founded either on its NON-theocratic elements of the Old Testament and the New Testament commandments and perspective. That of course is coming near to what Britain in fact did, and it flourished; but now why not sharia ? It is because it lacks reason and faith alike for its basis, relying on force where inapplicable, and because it does not have its BASIS verified by reason, confirmed by testing, nor does it begin to stand in comparison with the certainties both of validity and of verification of the Bible.

The same applies to any other 'faith', so that Lord Phillips is helping England to separate law from its only possible just source, God, and to allow what is built on (in biblical terms) nothing, to displace it (Deuteronomy 32:15-22). To what is NOT GOD, they turn, in measure here, in measure there, just like ancient Israel (Jeremiah 3:27-28). In fact the case is so parallel that it is good to see it:

"Saying to a stock, You are my father; and to a stone,
You have brought me forth:
for they have turned their back to me, and not their face:
but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us!
But where are thy gods that you have made yourself?
let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble:
for according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah."

Worshipping nature and not God, increasingly the culture of  'the West', they look to the product instead of to the Producer, and it has no power to save, it did not bring forth mankind with his mind and spirit; but the Lord who did, from Him they turn with variant gods of variable dimensions.  explicit or implicit. Will they save England next time ? Alas, in all these ways, they with many others, have sold themselves; and some nations even now, are negotiating for the final price, their minds already made up!

The day of theocratic power, purpose and program is then long past; but the Lord is not past who long before Christ came, not only predicted His role, birth-place, tribe, economic conditions, nature and nurture, His death and the reason for it, with the results of it and the resurrection with it, but the Gospel as it now is complete and secure, and the variable but considerable Gentile response to it; and indeed, it latter-day turning from it, just as we see now (cf. SMR Ch. 8).

 Turn then from Christ and Him crucified, instead of those crucified who disbelieve in an unbased false prophet, using force for fear, not love for faith! What folly is this which threatens to grip the nation, long wandering, from both religion and law!

NOTES

*1

On the twistings and turnings from the word of God, see Ch. 4 below.

*2

Excursion on Fear, Faith and Love, Striving and Wars of Religion

The Koran says:

5:38 Cut off the hands of thieves, whether they are male or female, as punishment for what they have done—a deterrent from God: God is almighty and wise. 39 But if anyone repents after his wrongdoing and makes amends, God will accept his repentance: God is most forgiving and merciful. (Haleem)

The concept of cutting off hands seems to be met in practice with variable results. A relevant hadith or accepted or historically cited tradition,  however, states and stresses  that repentance is acceptable only after mutilation. Muhammad himself says that even if his own daughter, Fatima, were to steal and then intercede that her hand should not be cut off, he would still have to cut it off (Bukhari, Punishments, no. 6788 - this appears to be part of the hadith, one of the most received sections).

From American Thinker July 7, 2008, in association with Amnesty International, we learn something of present practice.

In 2002 Amnesty International reported that even though Saudi Arabia had ratified the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) in October 1997, certain appalling events occurred there. Thus, amputation is prescribed under both Hudud (punishments) and Qisas (law of retaliation). What then happened ? Amnesty International recorded thirty—three amputations and nine cross—amputations where the alternate hand or foot is mutilated.

The Quran says:

5:33 Those who wage war against God and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land should be punished by death, crucifixion, the amputation of an alternate hand and foot or banishment from the land: a disgrace for them in this world, and then a terrible punishment in the Hereafter, 34 unless they repent before you overpower them: in that case bear in mind that God is forgiving and merciful. (Haleem)

Islam Daily, a site at http://www.islamdaily.net/EN/Contents.aspx?AID=3966

gives access to Bukhari translations, and these include the following listed as Book 82, Numbers 794-796.

Then he ordered for [sic] nails which were heated and [the tribesmen] were branded with those nails, their eyes, and they were left in the Harra (i.e. rocky land in Al-Madina). And when they asked for water, no water was given them till they died . . . . (Bukhari, Book of Jihad, no. 3018; cf. online source ). Other instances are available from these Moslem sources.

The Prophet cut off the hands and feet of the men belonging to the tribe of 'Uraina and did not cauterise (their bleeding limbs) till they died.

We may wonder what led to this. The preceding hadith tells us.

Volume 8, Book 82, Number 794:

Some people from the tribe of 'Ukl came to the Prophet and embraced Islam. The climate of Medina did not suit them, so the Prophet ordered them to go to the (herd of milch) camels of charity and to drink, their milk and urine (as a medicine). They did so, and after they had recovered from their ailment (became healthy) they turned renegades (reverted from Islam) and killed the shepherd of the camels and took the camels away. The Prophet sent (some people) in their pursuit and so they were (caught and) brought, and the Prophets ordered that their hands and legs should be cut off and that their eyes should be branded with heated pieces of iron, and that their cut hands and legs should not be cauterized, till they die.

What is given first, above, was the result. This was the cause. There is a certain violence and uninhibited wrath which seems to storm into the scene as if to call for vengeance from on high!

---

One summary indicates as follows: The next hadith reports that the renegades died from bleeding to death because Muhammad refused to cauterize their amputated limbs. Then the hadith after that one reports that the renegades were not given water, so they died of thirst. They probably died of both causes: thirst and loss of blood.

As a basis for law, this has nothing to desire, therefore. If the punishments are not to be included in the law, as Lord Phillips suggested for any such development, yet the fire in the bosom which inserted such punishments is indissoluble with the results. The regard for human life, for pain, for point, for measure is small; the regard for inhibiting such conduct is great: but the sense of justice is hard to discern. Making an example of people has some point; but if the example is made for effect, rather than precise desert, and if vileness if added in seething envelopment with horror, then the nature of justice is not served, but of security, vengeance or wrath. It is better to let the Lord show vengeance, who knows all; and for us simply to show justice with mercy, not justice with embellishments.

For the relevance and development of this theme, return to the text above.

As you see the illustrations from the Koran above, it becomes the more apparent that this assessment of Lord Phillips re exclusion on punishment codes, is not only correct, but restrained. The use of force both on those conquered, and those submitting from within involve a religious tyranny, just as also there is a male tyranny over women so horrible as to be an incitement, a disregard for the body so great as to appear ruthless.

Consider this from the Koran (4:34 - brackets indicate translator's aid):

4:34 . . . If you fear highhandedness from your wives,
remind them [of the teaching of God], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them. If they obey you, you have no right to act against them. God is most high and great. (MAS Abdel Haleem, the Qur'an, Oxford UP, 2004).

This is the same force solves it approach to women, as to those others who do not submit to the religious requirements, and its relationship to love, to seemliness, to mutuality as parents, to the husband being willing to sacrifice himself for his wife are so distant that even the most powerful of telescopes could find no trace.

Where second class citizenship applies to those subordinated and taken over by this oppressive religion in terms of taxes and insults, and war is always on the threshold if they try to escape, you find the same motif. Law from this ? Perhaps; but scarcely justice with kindness, humanity with thoughtfulness or wisdom that can speak one word in the presence of Christ, who DID what it took so that we might TAKE what we need, and love one another.

On this aspect of non-Moslems and citizenship and treatment of others, consider these from the Koran. In 48:29, we read:

"Muhammad is God's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another."

Again, in the area 9:27ff., we find this:

"Believers, know that the idolaters re unclean.... Fight against such of those to whom the scriptures were given as believe neither in God nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what God and His apostle have forbidden, and do not embrace the true Faith, until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued."

Thus submission, this use of scimitar, expansionism, movement wherever the name of Allah is not honoured, this overcoming and taxing, this insistence on breaking the very spirit of alternative is just that harsh reality of which we now have seen rather more than enough, that insistence not where truth is paramount but force, not where evidence rules but insistence, not where freedom is permitted but to contrive compulsion: this becomes a trade-mark in conflict.

What then was Muhammad's idea when asked what was the most important of duties, the best cause ? In Bukhari vol. 1, book 2, no. 26, we find that Muhammad deemed to be this - to participate in Jihad (holy fighting) in Allah's cause. Robert Spencer gives further detail, in his  "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam", pp. 50ff.. In terms of utterly subduing we find here a classic, taken from the Qur'anic Commentary of Ibn Kathir, where a supposedly Christian community was given the way in which to co-exist with Islam.

Anything more servile, more calculated to infest the mind with what it did not believe, invade the spirit, breach the psyche, outside USSR prison ideas, it would be hard to imagine. One of the more external items: "We made a condition on ourselves that we will neither erect in our areas a monastery, church or sanctuary for a monk, nor restore any place of worship that needs restoration nor use any of them for the purpose of enmity against Muslims." Enmity would include anything that did not exalt Allah, the entire purpose.

Further, any breach alleged, meant that the Christian community having put itself unreservedly in the hands of the Islamic, if they were deemed to break any law, their churches could be taken over at all. In the meantime, they would move if any Muslim wanted to sit where any of them was sitting, have the front of their hair cut (like the Nazi Star on Jews, for identification). Indeed, if any breach occurred, then Islam could "do with us what you are allowed of people of defiance and rebellion."

This  involved openness to be sold in slavery or killed.

Europe did not yield to force. It is strange if this unhallowed use of force were to be exalted by having treaties and dealings with the externalia of the submission religion.

If Islam feels insulted or attacked in any way, then it can start a jihad. If there is resistance, then it can seek to subdue; and if there are treaties, the above is an example. So it is one of the several world-dominion religions, whatever some may feel, in terms of its Sharia laws, and their various underlying documents, such as the source for the above.

As what does not worship the god of Muhammad may be deemed an idolater if worshipping anything else, then Surah 9:30 gives occasion to war, and to subdue, a ground of jihad, which then has grounds for submission on the part of the victim, and suppression by the sword, or its modern equivalent. Accordingly in Bukhari, vol.1, book 2, no. 25, we find Muhammad admitting that he has been ordered by Allah to " fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah..." In addition, of course, there were payments they had to make, and prayers...

To admit such a religion in the proven domain of Christ is like letting in Hitler by invitation, and if not at first altogether, then perhaps helping some of his ships to cross the Channel.

To crucify, or to receive the Crucified One, that is the question. Logic has answered it; will must respond. Casualness is irresponsible; deferment is blind. Indecision constitutes a decision, not to act. Action ? We use spiritual weapons, as befits a spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6). For Muhammad, take up the sword; for Christ, put it down. Both Islam and Romanism have used the sword where it does not belong (John 18:36, Matthew 26:52ff.). Each attempts to relate to Jesus Christ, but neither obeys Him; each uses His greatness for some reflected flow, neither has the ground for the name (cf. SMR 1032-1088F, 911ff.).

While war is in the hearts of man, peace with God is far off. While this wanders, wisdom does not. All its paths are pleasantness, and all its ways are peace; but without purity, there is no peace, and without purification there is no purity, and without the Gospel, man's efforts are still at war with truth, with worship where it belongs, where it is solidly attested, where the power lies. In the meantime, man is beginning increasingly to worship power, and ignore purity. That way there is a breach, and man is broken; as indeed, amid many wars, Christ foretold (Matthew 24:12). History, like the demons in Christ's day, knows its master. It simply does what it is told, and Revelation 6 is looking down on this earth, because it refuses to look up to the God of creation and redemption. The ONLY reason for keeping on man for the time is this, that He is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth.

It is not found in steel, or discriminatory legislation, or faltering churches, or recidivism. With a humble and contrite heart it is found (Isaiah 66:2), where God has attested His speech with power (I Peter 1:10ff., II Peter 2:19ff.), not to 'subdue' but to enlighten (John 10:10), enable and bring life eternal as a gift (I John 1:1-4), through the only One who has ever acted at this level on this earth, fulfilling prophecy and exhibiting power with compassion, love by sacrifice, saving law-breakers by being stricken by law, over which at last, He is shown to be Lord, the very word of God incarnate (cf. Christ the Wisdom of God ... Ch. 8,  Repent or Perish Ch. 2). As to life eternal, there is no other way that this race will ever get it (John 14:6, 6:37, 5:24, 3:36 cf. The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy Ch. 11).

The folly of imagining that any works we do, from our position, to impress God enough to grant us a 50% pass or 49% fail, with minor differences the ground of eternal results: this is altogether too apparent by the works of man, by the works of the Lord, and by the fruit of both. It is not by imaginary visions that one will be saved, as if psychic impact were god; but by the solid realities of the carefully predicted, practised and perfect path of that God whose word is power and whose truth is validated and whose peace is past understanding, His people needing no world to rule, but only God to worship.

When He takes over the office of King, it will not be by proxy, by like the atonement, He will do it Himself! (Revelation 19). There are no other options, and the more politics lasts, the more obvious this becomes.

Small wonder then that Paul declares of himself, that he was "casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ...", II Corinthians 10:5. The punishment he has in mind for erring churches is not physical, for in his war, as Paul is inspired to define it, the weapons are spiritual, those of faith and truth and righteousness (Ephesians 6), and the Gospel of redemption, for which no physical war is enjoined.

Nor is there any blood to be shed, for that is sufficient for this war, which is already shed by Christ; and as to Him (Hebrews 10:9-13, 9:12), He strictly forbade Peter to use the sword, in the most literal fashion, and told Pilate most emphatically that if His kingdom were of this world, then His servants would fight (John 18:36). Since He had instructed them to the contrary, He made clear, it was apparent that His kingdom was NOT of this world. Indeed, as to this world it will not have any peace until the Prince of Peace comes, and since it will not receive Him freely, then in judgment it awaits His ruling, that of God Almighty, when the time comes (Revelation 19-20, Matthew 24:6-15).

Hence of course Pilate had not even the slightest excuse for listening to the murderous cries of those who declared they had no king but Caesar (John 18:36, 19:15).

The ministers of God are commanded to rebuke, exhort with all authority, and forbidden to be dumb dogs as they proclaim the word of God (Isaiah 56:10), the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the liberation love and mercy have wrought (II Timothy 4:2). Indeed, Paul is set as an example to be followed (I Corinthians 11:1). They do not add to the carnage, for the objective is not this world, but its Redeemer, Creator, the Prince of Peace.