Charlie Kirk - a tribute

It was as I was preparing the post for my French-language blog that went out last Sunday, that I heard the news of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Like so many more around the world, I was both shocked and saddened, and tears welled up in my eyes. Why? I had never met this young man - 31 one years of age when he was murdered. I had never been at one of the events that he had hosted in so many university campuses. However, I had often heard him speak as I watched YouTube videos taken at many of those events, and had been greatly impressed by his knowledge, his unapologetic testimony to Jesus as his Saviour and Lord, and his calm demeanour in the face of many attempts to rile him. He was known for his political debate, passion for sharing Christ, and support for Israel.

On the day following his assassination, I started to read, again, the book of the prophet Jeremiah. As is my custom, I lifted down a couple of commentaries from my bookshelves, that I might benefit from the words of those who understand much more than I. One of those was a Scripture Union book from many years ago, written by Rev A.E.Cundall. In the introduction to Jeremiah, I read these words: "The prophet Jeremiah ... was an exceedingly courageous man. Called to an extremely difficult task, that of proclaiming God's judgement upon an unresponsive,apostate Judah, he stuck to his task for forty years in spite of popular resentment, which sometimes took violent forms. A lesser man would have given in long before this. Jeremiah had an especial heartache, for he was every inch a patriot; he loved his people and it grieved him to see them inching towards the disaster which he foresaw so clearly, but to which they were so blind."

I would suggest that that description would, to a very large extent, fit Charlie Kirk. 

Last Sunday's French blog post was based on II Tim.2:24 - "And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to every one, an apt teacher," (emphasis added). I had shared the road that I had been obliged to travel before entering the teaching profession, here in Scotland, and made the point that disciples of Jesus don't have to follow such a path, but that we should all be teachers in our own way - teaching the Gospel message by word and action.

Those words of Paul to Timothy applied to Charlie Kirk. He withdrew from university studies after one year because he had quickly recognised that he was not being educated, but indoctrinated. Yet, he had a wealth of information at his fingertips, including an apparently encyclopaedic knowledge of God's written Word, that I wish I could match. He was certainly "an apt teacher".

Let those of us who pray, seek to uphold his widow, Erika, and their two young children, before the throne of grace.

I want to write more, but that would make this post unacceptably long, so I'll leave that until next time. Be sure to read!

So where were the Christians?

Bombings across Pakistan killed more than one hundred and fifteen people yesterday, including eighty-one in an attack on a snooker hall in the troubled south-western city of Quetta, in one of the country's bloodiest days in recent years. Some of those who went to help victims of an alleged suicide-bomber were, themselves killed as a car-bomb exploded.

On the same day, the co-founder of the Kurdish PKK separatist movement and two other female activists were found dead in Paris on Thursday in a suspected assassination that has dealt a blow to "historic" peace talks between the movement and the Turkish government. 

Last month, a twenty-three-year-old student was gang-raped on a Delhi bus, and died from the horrific injuries she sustained in the attack - an attack in which her male companion was also badly beaten.

Each of these incidents, involving Muslims and Hindus, have been widely reported in the British media, and there can be no decent person who is not appalled at such wanton, and destructive, behaviour by other human beings who seem to be intent on delivering death and destruction, or on satisfying their own physical lust, regardless of the cost to their victims.

However, I must have missed the reports in the British media concerning Nigeria where at least twelve Christians were killed in Christmas Eve church attacks in northern Nigeria, and fifteen others were murdered in their sleep on Dec.28th.  Boko Haram (Islamist) militants are suspected in both cases. On Christmas Eve, gunmen opened fire during a time of prayer at the Church of Christ in Nations in Jiri village, Yobe province, killing five worshippers and the pastor. The attackers also set the church on fire, and several other Christians were seriously injured. On the same night, a deacon and five other Christians were killed at the First Baptist Church in Maiduguri, Borno state. Four days later, attackers invaded the homes of Christians in Musari, outside Maiduguri, and slit the throats of fifteen Christians during the early morning hours. A number of Christians had moved to the Musari area to get away from the violence in Maiduguri. This is the third consecutive year that Christians in the north have been violently attacked during the Christmas season. Understandably, church buildings in northern Nigeria were nearly empty on Christmas Day.  

So where, in the British media, were the reports of these, and other, atrocities?  Could it be that, in a country with such a rich Christian heritage, everyone else is important, but that Christians are not?

Perhaps editors of newspapers, and of television and radio news, and current affairs, programmes would be willing to check out what is happening to people of all belief-systems, rather than apparently discriminate against some!

PS  Apologies if this is displaying in upper-case letters only.  This is not the case as I type but is in the preview!  Any expert advice, as a comment, will be gratefully received!

Another assassination in Pakistan

It was in July of last year that I was made aware of the violent threats that were being made against Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Minorities' Affairs, and the only Christian member in the Cabinet.  At that time, I was informed that this brother in the Lord had pled, passionately, that we in the 'free west' would take one minute to pray for him every day.
 
Having made him an integral part of my daily devotions ever since, I was more than usually shocked when I heard, on this morning's radio news, that he had just been assassinated - the second high-profile Pakistani politician to have been thus murdered, in just a few weeks.  In each case, the reason for the assassination has been the victim's opposition to Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws.

In such a situation, I find myself questioning.  I know that prayer works. I also know that this was not the outcome for which I had been praying.  The only answer that makes any sense is that, as the Lord said through the prophet Isaiah: "'My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,' says the Lord.  'And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.'" (Isa 55:8-9; NLT).

I continue to believe, as did my brother Shahbaz, in the sovereignty of God.  I continue to believe that His will is perfect.  I continue to believe that He is, regardless of how the situation may look to my eyes, working out His own purposes.  I see everything from the limited perspective of created time; He sees everything from the perspective of eternity - an eternity in which Shahbaz Bhatti is praising the Lord for Whose Name he died.

Was it just 'coincidence' that a former fellow-student at the Bible Training Institute in Glasgow, who had taken on the task of reuniting as many of us as he could contact sent, today, some further instalments of this epistle that he has produced - in one of which he gave this quotation from a former BTI Lecturer and, later, Principal?

‘Christians too may be puzzled by the ways of God, but He has given us such affirmations of His holiness, grace and wisdom in the cross and resurrection of Jesus that faith is constantly renewed as it contemplates these wonderful facts in a spirit of trustful worship.’ (Geoffrey Grogan)


In such a spirit of worship, I commend the family and friends of Shahbaz Bhatti to the gracious embrace of the living God - Who knows, Himself, what such a loss is like.  May they be filled with His peace, and surrounded by His loving strength.

Death of a Muslim Governor

For some reason, it appears not to have been mentioned on the early evening TV news programme that I watched, so I am grateful for the radio programme to which I listened on my way home from the gym. 
The news items was that the Governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, Salman Taseer, had been gunned down by one of his own bodyguards as he stepped from his car in Islamabad's Kohsar market, a favoured haunt of westerners and wealthy Pakistanis.

Reports claim that the reason for the assassination was Governor Taseed's support for the repeal (or, at least, amendment) of Pakistan's notorious blasphemy laws - laws which, as regular readers of this blog will be aware, are (ab)used indiscriminately to settle old scores and grudges against any of the minority groups in that country (and even against fellow-Muslims!).

The assassination raises some interesting questions.  The Governor had a detail of bodyguards, yet it would appear that the murderer was able to shoot his victim at least nine times, and then quietly drop his weapon and surrender.  One is obliged to ask why the other bodyguards did not intervene, and possibly save the Governor's life?  Was the murderer just one of a larger group, any of whom might have been chosen for this dastardly deed?

The question of the vetting of bodyguards also arises.  How could it be that this man's extremist views could have gone un-noticed?  Was no-one aware that he was so opposed to the stand taken by the Governor - who had even publicly visited Asia Bibi, the Christian woman currently under sentence of death for alleged blasphemy against the Islamic prophet, Muhammad?  Mind you, since a Muslim would be the first to insist that Muhammad neither was, nor is, divine; and since blasphemy is a vocal insult against God; one wonders how Islamic nations manage to square that particular circle!!

To the best of my knowledge, Governor Taseed was a devout (albeit, enlightened) Muslim, but I am thankful for his outspoken criticism of the blasphemy laws - criticism that has now cost him his life.  I pray that his family will find peace; that his country will act justly; that his legacy will be the repeal of those very laws that he realised are so draconian.

I also pray for Shahbaz Bhatti - the government minister for minorities - who is under constant threat of death for his own attempts to have those blaspehemy laws repealed.  And I pray against the extremism, and fanaticism, of those who seem to believe that the only answer to those who disagree with them is destruction, devastation, and death.

I invite you to join with me.