EVANGELICAL MISSIONS OUSTED FROM MUSLIM JORDAN

Grant Swank* | March 2, 2008

Filed Under Conservative Musings, General Politics

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Evangelical missionaries are being given the exit from Jordan per The Washington Times’ Julia Duin.

The biblical message is antithetical to Islam. The Christian God is not the Islamic deity. The Bible is in direct contrast to the Koran.

The Bible includes the Good Samaritan account as well as a Savior who died in our stead in order to procure our salvation. The Bible teaches “. . .faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.” Jesus said, “Love your enemies. Pray for those who despitefully use you.” One of the most favorite passages in the Bible is the Love Chapter—I Corinthians 13. One of the most comforting is Psalm 23.

The Koran has no such passages. The Koran is laden with violent verses, particularly targeted against Christians and Jews.

Further, the Bible includes prophetic passages focusing on the Second Coming of Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This is in direct contrast to the Islamic belief that their messiah left the planet some time ago, only to return in a massive global fireball.

Consequently, the Islamic cultic base does not at all square with biblical Christianity. Therefore, biblical messengers are ousted from Jordan.

They are being deported or their visas are not renewed. That means that officialdom has sided with grassroots hatred against the Christian gospel. This of course is nothing new to Christian missionaries who are being persecuted worldwide, especially in Muslim environs.

However, Hindus particularly in India have also been working daily to rid the nation of Christianity. Churches have been burnt, believers slain, and clergymen threatened throughout India.

It will be interesting what President George W. Bush says to Jordan’s King Abdullah II when they meet in Washington. Bush has been known to support Christian work around the globe, calling upon repressive regimes to open up to religious freedom of expression.

All the while, Democrats in America work to squelch freedom of conservative religious expression except when it furthers their own liberal opportunism.

Interestingly, Abdullah joined US evangelicals in February 2006 at the National Prayer Breakfast. In addition, Jordan is most definitely dependent on evangelical tourism in Jordan. One of the most populous groups moving about Jordan daily are evangelicals from the United States. They put a lot of money into Jordan when passing through.

“’I think the king needs to see the repercussions for allowing this thing to simmer underneath the surface,’ said Keith Roderick, Washington representative for Christian Solidarity International, which tracks religious persecution. ‘The king has to realize there is a cost to this reaction. Christians are an important part of the economic well-being of Jordan.’”

Jordan’s king has been faced with Muslim hatred toward Christians in past times. At one point, extremist Muslims threatened to take off the king’s head if he was not more Islamic legalistic.

In addition to Muslims ousting evangelicals, theologically liberal denominations also work with Muslims to oust them. The so-called mainline denominations that detest the biblical record for their own rewriting of Scripture are against evangelicals presenting the salvation gospel message.

Liberals don’t believe in the Bible themselves. Such denominations also endorse sodomy and abortion, the groups being United Church of Christ (Congregational), Unitarian Society, Episcopal Church USA and groups within the Roman Catholic Church, United Methodist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and so forth.

Evangelical denominations are quite vocal in their allegiance to the Bible as the Word of God—the latter needing no additions or subtractions. It is divine revelation and is to be esteemed as such. Therefore, when the Bible states God’s abhorrence for killing womb babies and sodomy, evangelicals hold to that tenet.

In addition to main-line denominations, there are the Orthodox community and Roman Catholic clergy in particular that does not want American evangelicals in Jordan. They want to work with Jordanian officialdom for their own turf gain.

“’It’s the bishops,’ one ministry director said in a phone interview last week, referring to leaders of the Roman Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox and other native churches in Jordan. ‘There are four bishops that are causing us a lot of trouble.’”

These groups do not preach salvation by faith alone. They want their own liturgical and creedal statements attached to Scripture as the way to salvation. At times, their liturgical and creedal dogma are accepted in direct opposition to statements in the Bible.

Evangelicals preach that one can have soul salvation via repentant faith in Christ’s sinless sacrifice upon Calvary. That is not palatable to the aforementioned denominational leaders.

Evangelical mission stations, Bible colleges and seminaries will be hurt deeply by the Jordanian prohibitions.

“’The evangelicals are the easiest to push around,’ an evangelical spokesman said.”

Read the Koran at j.grantswank, jr. at http://jgrantswankjr.blogspot.com/2008/02/koran.html

Read Christian ministries reeling in Jordan
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080302/NATION/968372760/1001&template=printart

Contributor's website: http://jgrantswankjr.blogspot.com/

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