Let´s Love Muslims

In this post, I discuss how to love Muslims.  It is from my vantage-point of being a Messianist, a follower of Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), and leaving Christianity and its churches after 30 years of spending a lot of my time with them.  Muslims, atheists, agnostics, activists, etc will probably like this post.  Christians of all stripes (evangelicals, liberal Protestants, charismatics, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, sects such Seventh Day Adventists, Local Church, Jehovah´s Witnesses, etc) and Jews will most likely have a range of reactions, starting from hearty agreement to downright hatred.  Go for it.  I call a spade a spade, and joyfully welcome any kind of response, whether supportive or antagonistic.  Although I am anti-war in most cases, I was born a fighter, and I will fight till my last dying breath.   I fear no one but Yahweh on high.  Yeshua threw verbal rocks at the Pharisees, Saducees, Sanhedrin and Herods of his day, and He is my role model.  Remember?  The religious and political leaders of Yeshua’s time eventually caught and killed him.  Truth was too hard for their ears and hearts to handle.   I write this post in the spirit of the prophets and the apostles of the LORD, who denounced corruption and genocide, and called people to make a 180 degree turn, away from their evil and towards the merciful and just face of Yahweh.  We all, including Christians, have to stop hating Muslims.  This has gone on long enough.  No, I am not receiving any money from the Saudi government or any Muslim organisation.  I write this post of my own free will, from my heart.  And I say to one, and say to all: LET’S LOVE MUSLIMS!!!!!!!!!!! Here we go . . . How Muslims Probably View Christians Crusades: Supposing a Muslim is attracted to Yeshua the Messiah through the pages of the Sacred Scriptures, otherwise known as the Holy Bible. But then they remember their Grandpa told them as a child that one Roman Catholic Pope sent armies to attack Muslims, and started the Crusades of the Middle Ages.

FAST FORWARD TO . . .

Cheney, Bush and Blair´s Crusade: And then in recent years, American evangelicals have endorsed George Bush Jr., the ex-alcoholic born again Christian who lied about weapons of mass destruction in order to attack a Muslim nation, Iraq.

Without evangelical support, Bush and his Darth Vadaresque VP  puppet master Dick Cheney who, along with his buddies Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Paul Wolfowitz, Paul Bremer, Alberto Gonzalez, Ehud Olmert, etc. would have no power.  The Bible Belters helped get them into power.  Millions of evangelicals, all voting for ¨their own¨ (supposedly).  Did they learn their lesson yet?

Oh yes, I need to mention former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.  This buddy of Bush ran happily into the Let´s-Take-Over-Iraq campaign in 2003.  And he is aggressively religious, especially apparent after he left office. Now, I´m not against religion at all.  We all have one, including atheists, who believe in Self, or Aliens, or the Great Nothingness of Nothingness.  But when a dangerous religious philosophy of hatred takes over leaders and sucks their entire nations into war, then we have a problem.

A Muslim Take-over¨?: With this kind of history, wouldn’t a Muslim conclude that Christians are bloodthirsty people? Wouldn’t a Muslim wonder why Yeshua and others in the Bible talked so much about loving neighbors and even enemies, and yet North American evangelicals who claim to represent Him are so full of hatred?  Especially toward Muslims, whom some evangelical leaders are saying will “take over”?  Confusing, isn´t it? ¨Take over?¨  First the Communists, now the Muslims are ¨taking over¨?  Yeah, right!!!????!!!!  Is it logical that those whom the state brands as Enemy Number One could win over the masses´ hearts in Turtle Island (North America) and ¨take over¨?  Why didn´t anyone warn Americans and Canadians before NEOCONS took over their governments?  That´s the real ¨Takeover¨!!! And Neoconservatives always need an Enemy or Scapegoat, whether Muslims, First Nations/Native Americans, drug traffickers, pro-choicers, gays, Climate Change scientists, Iranians, North Koreans, etc.  Whatever Flavour of the Month is. Maybe the Neocons were behind the so-called Arab Spring, sweeping away the Middle Eastern leaders originally chosen and propped up by their Conservative/Liberal forefathers  and replacing these decades-old leaders with new, compliant ones who will deliver Oil to the West on schedule, without complaints or protests.  Out with the Old and in with the . . . Old.  Same old, same old.  Same excrement, different day . . .

Evangelical Support for Israel: Without US, Canadian and other Western nations´ evangelical support, Israel and its post WWII predominantly foreign-born population (Russians, Americans, Germans, Ethiopians, etc.) wouldn’t have been able to stand till now. 

And Israel is not known for its love for Muslims. Note: I am not anti-Israel nor anti-Jew.  I am pro-Jew.   But I hate to see Israelis who give little in the way of human rights to Palestinians, who have more right to the land by virtue of being there for thousands of years.  Some evangelicals will say to me: Well, God promised the land to the Jews through Abraham, and this promise stands today.  And I answer them: Yahweh´s promises in the Old Testament are for those who obeyHim, not for Western-oriented boot-lickers who are either disavow Him or have designed a modern day version of Phariseeism. Read your own book, dummies!  Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and the gang promised a SPIRITUAL Revival, not just a Land Grab from a bunch of secularised Zionist terrorists.  A Land Grab which was basically and invasion and take-over backed by Western governments, run in turn by fake Christians, who, by the way, never really respected Jews in the first place! So why did the Western leaders back the establishment of Israel?  Love for the Jews?  No.  Feeling sorry after these same leaders allowed Hitler to rise to power and murder the Jews?  Not really.  Israel is basically a product of Anglo-American Imperialism.  Although Britain already had Palestine in their possession, they were happy to find another method of more directly manipulating the situation in the heart of the Middle East.  As an intrusion from the outside, of course Israel from Day One has caused extreme friction with local non-Israeli populations, whatever the religion, and with neighbouring Muslim countries. Now wouldn´t a Muslim interpret Turtle Island (North American) evangelical and Catholic political support for Israel as hatred against Muslims?  I was at a conference in Edmonton, Alberta, back in 2010.  It was packed with thousands of evangelicals from all over.  Speakers and singers, the cream of the crop of Turtle Island evangelical folk, were featured.  One of the main sponsors?  The Israeli government.  Not even the Canadian government, but instead the government of a tiny Middle Eastern nation.  Hmmmmm…..I wonder who´s in bed with whom?

So every time you see problems on the TV news between Palestinians and Israelis, blame yourselves, guys.  You started it, Mr. and Mrs. Westerner, and you are stoking the flames of conflict over there until today.  Wait until you meet your Maker on Judgment Day, you hypocrites!!!

Evangelicals and the Indigenous Peoples of North America: Also, if Muslims start reading up on US history, they will find that European-Americans slaughtered native Americans and took away their land, culture, languages and means of survival.  Evangelical leaders were almost all in favour of these policies.  Indeed, John Wesley himself visited from England and called the natives “savages”.  But who are the real savages?, a Muslim wonders. Tragic Facts:

• Why did Columbus ¨discover¨ the Americas?  Because of European Christians hatred of Muslims . . . The Euros were looking to skirt around the Muslims and find another trade route to India, China, etc.  Instead of going East, Columbus went West.  And the rest is history!  Think about that next time you celebrate Columbus Day!
  

  Sheep! Don´t get in this dude´s way!

• The Europeans hatred and brutal treatment of Native Americans, whom they regarded as ¨savages¨, was a continuation of their hatred of Muslims.  The hated was simply transferred from one group to another.  And the Key Issue?  Muslims stood in the way of trade with India and China, etc.  First Nations?  They stood in the way of Manifest Destiny, the belief that the Euros were destined by the Creator to take over the Americas.  The solution for the Muslim Problem and the Indian (Native American) Problem?  Kill them . . . May the LORD forgive us, the bloody-handed murderers that we are! . . .

Where did the European Christians get so much hatred?  Doesn´t their Bible tell them to love their neighbours as themselves?  Doesn´t their Bible teach them to spread Good, not Bad News? How All the Followers of the Messiah Can Love Muslims Well, the nice thing is: some Muslims didn´t learn the history.  So they don´t carry all this ¨baggage¨.  But, probably, one day they will come up some time or another.  And it will bother them to no end. It´s not the theological differences between the Koran and the Bible that is the biggest problem Muslims have.  No, it is the bloody history of Christians. Theology about the personhood of God, the nature of the Messiah, His death and resurrection, is more in the realm of philosophy or theory.  It can be debated, reasoned about, hashed out.  But history is much tougher.  Events can either be proven to have happened, or disproven.  The historical facts are always there, staring you in the face.

Most Muslims do not want violence and war.  They are not out to conquer the world, or to take revenge on the West.  They just want a happy, helpful family.  A good job.  An opportunity to start a small business.  Friends.  Good health.  A peaceful retirement.

And they care about their motherlands, just as Americans love South Turtle Island (the US) and I love North Turtle Island (Canada). Muslims in the West or anywhere cry when they see images of their hometowns being destroyed by bombs on TV.  They grieve when their former or present neighbours are being made widows and orphans.    Wouldn´t you cry if your American or Canadian hometown was made into a war zone, and all the women lost their husbands, and the children lost their parents?

Sometimes we Westerners are so happy-go-lucky to send out our young men and women to fight some Bogey Man overseas, and forget that it´s a real country, with real people, that we are destroying.  We´re Christians, we´re on the Winning Side, we will join Jesus on His white horse.  The Muslims?  They are Babylon, the Losing Side.  They are the Enemy of the Cross. Blablabla.  We are on God´s Side, aren´t we?  How could we go wrong? . . . This talk is all a load of rubbish to Yahweh.

Indeed, in Yeshua´s (Jesus´) eyes, we are all on the losing side.  Until we humans repent, and renounce war and hatred and forgive people 70 x 7, and turn the other cheek, we are all losers.  We Westerners need to show Muslims that we (1) love Yahweh (God) not money, possessions, shiny new toys, our cottage on the lake, our vacations to Mexico or Hawaii, our political party, our fun religion or religion of fun; and (2) love our neighbours, including Muslims, Jews, Native Americans, gays, girls who have had abortions, drug runners, liberal Protestants, Republicans, Democrats, evolutionists, climate change scientists, Occupy Wherever people, etc.

If you want to impress a Muslim, become pro-Muslim.  Not pro-Islam.  I didn´t say you have to actually believe in the Koran and its teaching, or fake it.  But recognise Muslims as humans, as neighbours.  They love that kind of love.  They can realise it.  Then Muslims can stop being afraid that you may one day suspect them of being a terrorist, or of sympathising with terrorists.  They can feel you love them from your heart.  And whether they convert to the Messiah or not, you continue relentlessly loving them.  Whether they are Hell-Bound or Heaven-Bound, in your estimation.

If they wish to join the followers of Messiah, you would probably rejoice, right?  But if a Muslim refuses to put his or her trust in the Messiah, what will your attitude be?  Does your love dry up?  We who claim to represent Yeshua are out to impact a generation, not to collect statistics.  And Christian history is as bloody or even bloodier than Muslim history.  We all have blood on our hands.  Recognise that, shut up and love.  The Planet depends on it.

So….we repent, we change our attitudes, we renounce bloody history and current events, and embrace the New Model: Passionate Love of those around us, and a Passionate Embrace of Peacefulness rather than violence and war.

Why?  Because the Kingdom of Yahweh is near.  Yeshua said the Kingdom is in us, or among us.  We carry it wherever we go.  And the Kingdom isn´t an Empire.  It is NOT controlled by the Brits or the Americans.  Instead, it is a robust Nation of Yahweh – lovers and neighbour – lovers.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

For the Kingdom of Love and Peace, via the Prince of Peace!

Cheers,

Dimitri