THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER
FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH
By Barbara Aho
Sunday, November 15, 1998, an estimated 180,000 American churches -- over a third of U.S. churches -- participated in the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. The front page of Monday's New York Times carried a lengthy article which provides considerable insight into the true motives of the organizers of this event and the movement behind it. Consider the following statements from the Times, which I have taken the liberty to categorize according to the possible objectives of IDOPPC organizers:
"Christians Gain Support in Fight on Persecution: Concern is Worldwide," Laurie Goldstein, NY Times, Nov. 9, 1998, p. A1.
To project an image of Christians as disinterested in world affairs and the rights of others, but highly motivated by self-interest.
"Now a wide swath of Americans who admit they never before paid much attention to foreign affairs or human rights is beginning to exert its influence on American foreign policy. They are lobbying cities to stop doing business with nations that they say persecute Christians. They are writing letters to countries - some whose names they cannot pronounce - demanding the release of Christian prisoners.To provide another avenue of consensus building and ecumenical unity"After decades of soul-searching over the indifference or even complicity of some Christians in the Holocaust and in genocidal wars in Rwanda and Bosnia, Christians are seeing themselves as the victims and martyrs of the moment..."
"...Concern about persecuted Christians first emerged about two years ago in the conservative and evangelical churches usually associated with the Christian right. But now it is transcending denominational and political boundaries. Churches that have long found themselves on opposing sides in the debates over abortion or homosexuality are finding common cause in Christian persecution.
"All Christians everywhere, the body of Christ, are really one body, so if one part is feeling pain, we should all be feeling pain,' said Amy Wierman, who is the host of the prayer group in her apartment in Pennsylvania each Tuesday.
"Next Sunday, as many as 100,000 American churches - about a third of the churches in the nation - are expected to participate in the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, an annual event that began two years ago in just 5,000 churches. Organizers of the Day of Prayer say the event will be observed by an array of congregations that rarely find themselves allied, including Methodist, Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, Orthodox and Salvation Army churches."To collect $$$,$$$ from American Evangelicals"As a result, from both the theological left and right, a consensus is emerging."
"They are swelling the coffers of groups that aid and evangelize persecuted Christians."To change the focus of the Church
"Mr. [Steve] Haas, president of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, who used to pray for missionaries, says that his prayers are now for the Asians, Africans and Latin Americans whom the missionaries converted to Christianity. Indigenous Christians on those continents, not white missionaries, are the victims of Christian persecution, Mr. Haas said."To involve Christians in the global human rights movement
"Last month, this fledgling movement succeeded in persuading the Senate to pass by unanimous vote the International Religious Freedom Act, which requires the President to take action against countries that the State Department finds are violating the religious rights of their citizens. The punishment could range from sending a private diplomatic note to invoking economic sanctions. President Clinton signed the bill into law on Oct. 27.
"'Human rights is now no longer the prerogative only of the left,' said Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals. 'Believe it or not, the religious right is making a distinctive contribution to American foreign policy. We are shaping policy. And on human rights? Who would have predicted that?
"'It has reached critical mass,' said Richard D. Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's ethics and religious liberty commission. 'This movement has traction.'"To create Anti-Muslim sentiment which will lead to a Christian/Muslim confrontation (another Crusade?)"In church services, in literature and in videos put out by the persecuted church movement, they are likening Christian persecution to the Holocaust. They quote from Anne Frank and Ellie Wiesel. For moral reinforcement, they frequently note that two Jews, Michael Horowitz [author of HR2431], director of the conservative [CFR controlled] Hudson Institute, and A.M. Rosenthal [CFR], a columnist at The New York Times, have been raising the loudest protests about the persecution of Christians."
"Some leaders of the Christian persecution movement acknowledge [the] flaws in their approach, but say it is only natural for American Christians to care first for their own suffering brethren. Leaders of established human rights organizations agree. William Schultz, executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A., said many people got engaged in human rights work by fixating on their counterparts; feminist groups on women overseas, labor unions on workers. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said, 'Whenever we can get a large, powerful constituency interested in human rights issues, so much the better."
"In suburban Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church outside Denver, 87 Christians from six local churches turned out on a Saturday night earlier this year to hear the testimony of a Nigerian Christian lay preacher. The preacher, Sati, who said he feared revealing his last name, recounted a personal history of horrors at the hands of his Muslim neighbors: blinded at age 6 by Muslims jealous of his father's flocks; tied to a tree and stoned at age 20 by Muslims who accused him of insulting the prophet Mohammed."'They tried to kill me,' Sati said. 'I was merely debating them, and you don't do that if you're trying to reach an Islamic person.'
"His audience listened in silence. Afterward, 30 people submitted green and white response cards volunteering to start Christian persecution task forces in their churches - just one indication that this movement is being fueled primarily by lay people, not church pastors.
"It is events like this in Colorado that have led some critics to accuse the Christian persecution movement of fanning the flames of confrontation between Christianity and Islam. On this particular evening in Colorado, Sati's story of Muslim persecutors - which he has repeated in many churches - was tempered by a follow-up talk by the organizer, Mr. Haas. Mr. Hass told the audience the problem was not with most Muslims but with 'a radical form of Islam now invading North Africa and the Middle East.'
"But such distinctions probably elude most American Christians who are unacquainted with Islam. One woman in Mr. Haas's audience raised her hand and asked him to please explain the difference between Muslim and Islam (one is a person, the other a religion).
"Concern about anti-Muslim undertones in the Christian persecution movement is voiced by American Muslim leaders and even by some Christian missionaries active in Islamic countries.
"'I think we are creating an enemy image of the Muslims and making it worse, aggravating the problem,' said Brother Andrew, who began 40 years ago by smuggling Bibles into Communist nations and now works primarily in the Islamic world.
"'It is not as bad as it is often portrayed, as if Muslims are always persecuting Christians,' he said. 'Culturally and historically Muslims and Christians have usually gotten on fairly well together, and we are distorting the history when we are saying the Muslims are persecuting Christians.'"To base a movement on falsified information, which will nullify the credibility of Christians and may be used against them at some point in the future.
"The Christian persecution movement has gained momentum despite the advice from international scholars and some foreign aid groups that what outsiders often label Christian persecution is often a complex brew of racial, economic, political, tribal and religious rivalries..."Many missionaries, scholars of foreign affairs and State Department officials say they fear that the American churches' framing of Christian persecution as a global threat is a misguided oversimplification. They point out that where there is persecution of Christians, there is also widespread persecution of people of many religions and ethnicities (for example, Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists in China, Animists and moderate Muslims in Pakistan). Also, scholars say, Christians persecute other Christians in places where the dominant church senses a threat to its supremacy - in Russia and Greece, for example, and in Central America and South America.
"Trying to solve these problems by focusing only on Christians is 'like pulling on one strand of a sweater,' said David Little [CFR], senior scholar [Religion, Ethics & Human Rights] at the [Marxist] United States Institute of Peace.
"'Meanwhile,' he said, 'the whole sweater is unraveling. Where you have smoke, you have fire. Where you have religious persecution, you invariably have violations of all other kinds. There are local forces, local interests, so it's not subsumable under one kind of conspiracy against Christians.'To prepare Christians psychologically for martyrdom (aka, extermination)
"Previous solidarity movements - like those concerned with South Africa, Central America or Soviet Jewry - have defined success as the end of oppression. But people active in the Christian persecution movement say their goal is not to stop the persecution. For one, they say that it is not possible. but they also have a theological reason: they say that just as Jesus suffered, modern-day Christians will invariably suffer for their faith. Martyrdom feeds the faith.
"'Other faiths have said, blood is spilled, that's when we grow,' Mr. Haas has said. 'That's very true in Christendom.'
"Ultimately many Americans devoting themselves to spreading the word about Christian persecution say they hope not only to save the victims but also to save a moribund church here in America.
"It's done me a world of good in my commitment,' said John Wildenthal, a municipal judge in Houston, 'to see the examples of these people who have joy and strength in their faith while they daily face the threat of personal disaster.
"It would produce a religious revival in the U.S. if the people in the pews were to realize the strength and joy that those living in daily danger exhibit. It would revitalize the church in America."
The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church was initiated in 1996 by the World Evangelical Fellowship, whose U.S. headquarters is located in Wheaton, Illinois. The World Evangelical Fellowship dates back to 1846 when, under the original name Evangelical Alliance, the first global meeting of Evangelical missionaries convened at the United Grand Lodge of England Freemasons' Hall, London. (The U.G.L.E. had been “dedicated to the purposes of Freemasonry” at its completion in 1776.) In 1944 when the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance dissolved (to be later resurrected by the NAE in 1951), its remaining funds were transferred to the Rockefeller-funded Federal Council of Churches [FCC, 1908]. The FCC would later become the World Council of Churches [WCC, Amsterdam, 1948]. The World Evangelical Fellowship today serves the United Nations agenda as a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status with UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
The Board of Advisors of IDOPPC include:
Charles Colson, President, Prison Fellowship International* [Chairman, IDOP Advisory Board; Co-author of Evangelicals & Catholics Together Document; 1993 Recipient of Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion]
*N.B. Prison Fellowship International is also an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the U.N.
William Bennett, President, Empower America; Hudson Institute [CFR front ]
Dr. William Bright, President, Campus Crusade for Christ International [ CNP; Signatory, ECT Document; 1996 Recipient of Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion ]
William F. Buckley, Jr., Editor-at-Large of National Review (CFR, Bilderberg Group, Skull & Bones, Founder of Young Americans for Freedom, youth organization of the John Birch Society)
Dr. Anthony Campolo, Professor, Eastern College [New Age Heretic]
Michael Horowitz, Sr. Fellow Hudson Institute [CFR front ] [ Author of HR2431, Presenter to Council for National Policy Montreal, Canada 1997]
Dr. Thomas E. Trask, Gen. Superintendent, Assemblies of God
Jim Jacobson, Director, Christian Freedom International [CNP]
John Burke, Management Team, Willow Creek Community Church
Dr. D. James Kennedy, President, Coral Ridge Ministries [CNP]
Jim Wallis, President, Sojourners
Pedro Moreno, Intl. Coordinator, The Rutherford Institute [CNP Affiliate]
Dr. Richard John Neuhaus, President, Religion and Public Life Institute [Roman Catholic priest, Co-author of ECT Document]
Rev. Michael Scanlan, President, Franciscan University of Steubenville [Roman Catholic priest; Origin of Mary the Co-Redemptrix Petition to Pope John Paul II]
Dr. Robert Seiple, President, World Vision International [Special Consultative Status NGO of UN Economic and Social Council];
[UPDATE: Seiple has been appointed by President Clinton as Ambassador at Large on International Religious Freedom and Special Adviser to the President on Religious Persecution; Chris Seiple is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)]
Nina Shea, Dir. Puebla Program on Religious Freedom, Freedom House [ Special Consultative Status NGO of UN ECOSOC / CFR front ]
Diane Knippers, President, Institute on Religion & Democracy [ IRD founded by Father Richard John Neuhaus, co-author of ECT Document ]
Dr. Thomas Wang, Intl. Chairman, AD 2000 & Beyond Movement
Dr. Richard Land, Exec. Director, Christian Life Commission, Southern Baptist Convention [Signatory, ECT Document]
Tom White, Exec. Director, Voice of the Martyrs
Rev. Stan DeBoe, Priest, Trinitarian Order
Dr. Jesse Miranda, President AMEN Ministries [Signatory, ECT Document]
Frank R. Wolf, Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives
Keith A. Fournier, President, Catholic Alliance [Signatory, ECT Document]
Dr. Ravi Zacharias, President, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries
IDOPPC Advocacy Groups
IDOPPC Advocacy groups include the mix of liberal and conservative NGOs that we have come to expect in Religious Right initiatives. Involved are CFR-controlled human rights organizations along with ostensibly Christian ministries, i.e, The Bible League, Voice of the Martyrs, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, National Association of Evangelicals, Open Doors with Brother Andrew and the Rutherford Institute.
The IDOPPC consortium of NGOs identified as Advocacy Groups includes:
The International Fellowship of Christians & Jews
Honorary Chairman, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (CFR)
William Bennett (CFR), Jeanne Kilpatrick
(CFR)
Mission: To monitor religious liberty of Roman Catholics in China and give assistance to their bishops.
Christian Freedom International
Council for National Policy (CNP) members include the President, Jim Jacobson and Board of Directors members U.S. Sen. Don Nickles, Ambassador Faith Whittlesey, and Michael Farris, President of the Home School Legal Defense Association.
The following IDOPPC Advocacy Groups are either United Nations NGOs or supportive of the U.N.
HRW is a Special Consultative Status NGO of UN Economic and Social Council. The Board of Directors includes Bianca Jagger, wife of rock star Mick Jagger who was educated at the London School of Economics. Board members holding membership in the Council on Foreign Relations include Jonathan Fanton (HRW Chair; Pres., New School for Social Research), George Soros (Pres. Soros Fund Mgmt., Bilderberg Group), Vartan Gregorian (Pres., Brown University), Bill Green (former US Congressman), John B. Oakes (former Senior Editor, New York Times).
Chairman of the HRW Helsinki Steering Committee Jonathan Fanton (CFR) and Co-Vice Chair is Freedom House Chairman, Morton Abramowitz (former CFR member; President of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research)
Last July, actress Bianca Jagger testified before the British House of Commons that she was held at gunpoint and interrogated by Serbian forces during a TV film expedition to Kosovo. She was the recipient of the 1997 Amnesty International USA Media Spotlight Award for 20 years of leadership in campaigning for human rights worldwide.
Each summer, HRW sponsors The International Film Festival in New York City. This year's Festival included "Coming Out" - a promotional film for gay rights:
"Hailed as the first and last East German film about gays, Coming Out premiered on the very day the Berlin Wall came down. As a boy, Philip was strongly attracted to his best friend, but he's put that behind him in order to live within the 'norm.' He meets shy Tania who falls hard for him, and soon the genuinely loving couple is sharing a flat. But Phillip can't repress his passionate desire for a young man he meets in a concert queue. Coming Out maps Philipp's painful journey toward saying 'yes' to his truest self."
"Amnesty International was launched in 1961 by British lawyer Peter Benenson. 'The office of the International Secretariat shall be in London...'"
"Mission: Worldwide human rights movement working independently of all governments and political ideologies to secure the release of prisoners of conscience (those imprisoned solely because of their beliefs, ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, color, language, and who have neither used nor advocated violence)."MANDATE: "The object of AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL is to contribute to the observance throughout the world of human rights as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In pursuance of this object, and recognizing the obligation on each person to extend to others rights and freedoms equal to his or her own, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL adopts as its mandate:
"To promote awareness of and adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other internationally recognized human rights instruments, the values enshrined in them, and the indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights and freedoms...
"To oppose grave violations of the rights of every person freely to hold and to express his or her convictions and to be free from discrimination and of the right of every person to physical and mental integrity, and, in particular, to oppose by all appropriate means irrespective of political considerations:… c) the death penalty, and the torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners or other detained or restricted persons, whether or not the persons affected have used or advocated violence..."
The President and CEO of Advocates International is Samuel E. Ericsson, a Harvard Law School graduate. He participated in over 50 U.S. Supreme Court briefs on First Amendment issues while serving as Executive Director of the 4,500-member Christian Legal Society in the 1980s. Since 1991, he has visited over 40 nations, participated in judicial, human rights, professional ethics and reconciliation conferences in 22 nations, and addressed the U.N. Human Rights Commission on two occasions.
"He is a Signator of the Williamsburg Charter, a reaffirmation of the Religion Clauses of the Bill of Rights, signed by nearly 200 national leaders in 1988. In 1990, Sam began focusing on the global arena of human rights, particularly the freedom of conscience for minority faiths in former Soviet-bloc countries, Islamic Republics and elsewhere. He founded Advocates International in 1992 as a vehicle to encourage, enable and equip judges, lawyers, parliamentarians, clergy and other leaders to promote 'equal justice under law.' Advocates seeks implementation of the Golden Rule principle whereby majority faiths treat minority faiths with the same care and respect that the majority desires for itself."
Dr. James Dobson's April 1997 newsletter lavished all manner of praise on the efforts of CFR agents, A.M Rosenthal, Michael Horowitz & Nina Shea on behalf of the persecuted Christians, but poured contempt on Christians who (we are told) care not a whit about their own martyrs:
"It isn't just our spiritual leaders who have denied the tragedy. Who can explain the lack of outrage evident among so many Christian churches in Western democracies? A.M. Rosenthal, also a Jew, decried this apathy in his recent column in The New York Times. He wrote:
"A few clergymen and their religious organizations try to arouse congregations. But astonishingly few, compared not only with the spread of the persecution, but what could be done to fight it, if the political, religious, business and press leaders of the world had the will and courage.
"If I were a Christian, I would complain that Christian leaders, political, religious and business, around the world have failed in their obligations to fight oppression of their co-religionists. I am complaining anyway.
"Michael Horowitz's original column in The Wall Street Journal should have generated an outpouring of support from outraged believers around the country. Inexplicably, it brought little more than a yawn. Shocked and disappointed, Michael said, 'I then wrote a letter to the 150 leading mission boards in the U.S. I said to them, 'If I had written a story about anti-Semitism, I would have been overwhelmed with support from the Christian community. But when Christian persecution was involved, the Christian community seemed tongue-tied and embarrassed.' What a disgrace!
"I thank God that Rosenthal and Horowitz, among others, are sounding the alarm. Nina Shea of Freedom House is also doing her part. In her upcoming book, IN THE LION'S DEN, she wrote:
"Millions of American Christians pray in their churches each week, oblivious to the fact that Christians in many parts of the world suffer brutal torture, arrest, imprisonment and even death—their homes and communities laid waste—for no other reason than that they are Christians. The shocking, untold story of our time is that more Christians have died this century simply for being Christians than in the first nineteen centuries after the birth of Christ. They have been persecuted and martyred before an unknowing, indifferent world and a largely silent Christian community..."The October 10 BreakPoint Commentary by IDOPPC Chairman, Chuck Colson, reported sensational atrocities by Muslim extremists against "Coptic Christians" ~
Crucified Christians
What Your Tax Dollars Buy
By Charles W. Colson
November 10, 1998
"It was one of the most horrific instances of religious persecution the modern world has ever seen. During a government crackdown on Egypt's Coptic Christian community two weeks ago, a thousand Christians were manacled to doors, then beaten and tortured with electric shocks to their genitals. Teenage girls were raped.
"Even babies were not spared. Mothers were forced to lay their infants on the floor and watch helplessly while police struck them with sticks. And in a scene right out of ancient Rome, Christian men were nailed to crosses.
"It was a grisly example of a grave problem in the Middle East: the persecution of Christians by Arab governments--including governments like Egypt that America supports financially.
"Since the Camp David accords in 1979, Egypt has been one the largest recipients of American aid. This fiscal year alone, Egypt is scheduled to receive approximately $2.5 billion from American taxpayers.
"Well, whatever else we may have gotten for that money, respect for the human rights of Christians isn't among them.
"For the past decade, Egypt's Christian minority, the Copts, have been the target of brutal attacks by Muslim extremists. And in recent months they have even come under attack from government officials themselves, as I just described.
"What happened in this case, according to the London Daily Telegraph, is that the police in the city of Al-Kosheh instigated a dragnet, detaining 1,200 Christians. They were rounded up after the death of a Muslim who other Muslims believe had been murdered by Christians, even though doctors had put his death down to natural causes. And then the police tortured many of the detainees.
"When Bishop Anba Wissa protested the beatings, rapes, and torture, the regional police chief told him, "You haven't seen anything yet."
"Wissa's next move was to go to Cairo and talk to human-rights groups. And what was the Egyptian government's response?
"Bishop Wissa and two priests were arrested and charged with "using religion for the purpose of inciting strife and damaging national unity." The charge carries a possible death sentence.
"Often there's very little that Christians can do to help their persecuted brethren around the world. But Egypt is an exception. The more than $2 billion Egypt receives from American taxpayers makes the country very sensitive to public opinion.
"For example, earlier this year the Egyptian government closed down a Coptic Christian church. After receiving a letter signed by some 30 members of Congress, the Egyptian government reversed itself.
"You and I need to apply this same kind of pressure now in response to this latest round of persecution. Contact your representatives; see them while they're at home and demand that they put pressure on the Egyptian government to stop its persecution of Christians.
"Then ask them to insist that Egypt drop all charges against Bishop Wissa and his companions. And finally, insist on measures that hold the police in Al-Kosheh accountable for their brutality.
"In the wake of this vicious attack on Coptic Christians--the first in which police have been perpetrators--many observers fear that even worse treatment is ahead. The Clinton administration, which needs Egyptian President Muburak as an ally in the Mideast peace process, is reluctant to
rock the boat in its relations with Egypt.
"Well, American Christians need to make it clear we will not tolerate "peace" paid for by the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
(c) 1998 Prison Fellowship Ministries
Copyright notice: We encourage liberal distribution of these transcripts through email and print. Please do not post on the world wide web or use this content for profit.
The IDOPPC Latest News reports of Christian persecution around the world include injustices suffered by Evangelical Christians who preach the Gospel as well as other groups who preach a false gospel. The term "Christian," according to IDOPPC, includes Catholic clergy and the Gnostic Coptic Church. The following examples are noteworthy:
Egypt - Police Terrorize Christians to "Confess" Crime
India - [Catholic Union re: Christian Priests & Nuns ]Prosecutor Indicts Three Coptic Clergy
Hindu Extremists Demand Expulsion of MissionariesLibya - Nigerian Leaders Rewarded for Promoting Islam
Anti-Christian Conspiracy Exposed in Gujarat State
Christians Demand Justice After Gang Rape of Nuns
Hindu Extremists "Justify" Rape of Catholic Nuns
Mexico - Municipal Elections Cancelled by Catholics in Chiapas
Sudan - Catholic Chancellor Faces Military
Court Martial
The Coptic "Christian"? Church
Reports like the above are misleading American Christians regarding the facts of persecution of the Church in foreign lands. Many of the religions labeled "Christian" in these reports are not Christian at all. Furthermore, it is impossible to verify information where no documentation is provided, which is usually the case. The Christian persecution movement has saturated the churches with undocumented reports of the most outrageous persecution, projecting guilt onto Christians who, if they "really care," will demand retribution toward the persecutors. Compare the IDOPPC spirit of vengeance with the command of Jesus Christ to his disciples in Matthew 5:34. 44:
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that hate you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefuly use you, and persecute you."One documentable fact is that the Coptic Christian Church is not Christian, but is rather the heretical Gnostic tradition which originated in Syria and proliferated in the early centuries A.D. through Clement's Alexandrian School in Egypt. (1) Later history associates the Coptic Church with Druidism, euphemistically called "Celtic Christianity." This pagan cult, which migrated to and developed in the British Isles, makes the absurd claim that the literal bloodline of Jesus Christ exists today in a royal lineage called the Merovingian Dynasty. The quest for the "Holy Grail" is the ascent of these elect beings to the divine state.
The Coptic/Celtic Church is a formidable movement today which spreads its Gnostic heresy, based on counterfeit Scriptures, via popular New Age books such as Holy Blood, Holy Grail and Bloodline of the Holy Grail. In The Occult Conspiracy, Michael Howard connects Coptic Christianity with Druidism, Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, the Secret Gospel of Mark and the Priory of Sion:
"In addition to Druidism, the Celtic Church had been influenced by Coptic Christianity. This unorthodox version of the new faith was founded by Clement of Alexandria who had blended the teachings of Jesus with Gnosticism, Judaism and Neo-Platonism. Clement founded his Coptic Church on the Secret Gospel of Mark, written by the evangelist in Alexandria following the death of Jesus. This gospel preserved the inner teachings given by Jesus to his closest disciple who had been initiated into the Christian mysteries. It is interesting that Ormus, the legendary first-century founder of the secret society which became the Priory of Sion, lived in Alexandria and was converted to Christianity by Mark." (2)The Encyclopedia Of Religion confirms the British/Celtic connection:
"In Europe, Coptic monks followed the steps of Roman legionaries to preach the gospel in Gaul, Switzerland and Britain... The Copts appear to have introduced Christianity to the British Isles. In England, Egyptian monastic rule prevailed until the coming of Augustine to Canterbury in 597, and the powerful Irish Christianity that shaped the civilization of northern Europe may be regarded as the direct descendent of the Coptic Church." (3)The Columbia Encyclopedia deals with the doctrine of the Coptic Church, which was declared to be heretical in the 5th century by the Council of Chalcedon. Note the identification of the Coptic Church with the Jacobite Church, which is the Merovingian cult of the Priory of Sion:
"Most Copts belong to the Coptic Church, an autonomous Christian sect that officially adheres to Monophysitism, which was declared (451) a heresy by the Council of Chalcedon. The Church is in communion with the JACOBITE CHURCH (also *Monophysite) ...the chief bishop, the Patriarch of Alexandria is in direct succession to the 5th century Patriarchs who embraced Monophysitism. Among the Copts a small minority are in communion with the Pope; these 'Catholic Copts' have their own organizations and churches but share the rites and practices of the Coptic Church. This community began to develop in the 18th cent. Protestant missions have had some success among the Copts. Besides Copts there are orthodox communities, mainly Greek and Syrian; the Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria traces his succession to the Catholics of the 5th century. There are also many Catholic Syrians, mainly Melkites and Maronites." (4, 5) (caps added)*A Monophysite is one of a sect, in the ancient church, who maintained that the human and divine in Jesus Christ constituted but one composite nature.
A New Age book, Messiah & The Second Coming was written by two members of the Coptic Fellowship and published by the Coptic Press. The backcover of the book gives a thumb nail sketch of the belief system of Coptic Fellowship International:
"John Davis is Director of Coptic Fellowship International, an action oriented new age organization presenting Universal Wisdom as passed down through the ages in the great tradition of the Atlantean Doctrines to the present day. The Coptics are dedicated to the Spiritual Unity of Nations (S.U.N.), cooperating with leaders of religions and philosophies stressing spiritual World unity. John has conducted Christ Consciousness Training Seminars extensively throughout the U.S. and in Mexico, Canada, South Africa, France and Egypt. He is the successor to the Egyptian Master, Hamid Bey, who founded The Coptic Fellowship of America." (6)
On Oct. 30, the DAWN International Network projected as many as 180,000 churches participating in IDOPPC and included a reminder to Christians that the persecutors are largely Islamic nations:
Persecuted Church: International Day of PrayerIt is difficult to resist the suspicion that the current "Christian persecution" propaganda may be part of a global anti-Muslim campaign. The New York Times made the plausible observation that the Christian persecution movement is "fanning flames of confrontation between Christianity and Islam." Typical of the current hysteria over the Islamic threat is the following press release regarding an incident involving Egyptian Coptics and a simple Muslim bus driver in Canada:"Up to 180,000 Christian churches will take part in the 'International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church' on 15 November 1998. The WEF (World Evangelical Fellowship) has organised prayer meetings in many countries. It is estimated that 160,000 people were killed for their belief in Jesus in 1997 alone. Most of those murdered were ex-Muslims in Islamic nations, where the fact that someone believes in 'Isa' - the Islamic name for Jesus - is viewed as falling away from the true faith and is punishable by death. The WEF calls on all Christians to take part in this day of prayer, to pray for all Christians who are already in jail, asking God to use them to spread the gospel among their fellow prisoners and the prison staff."
From: "INTERNATIONAL CANADIAN FREEDOM INSTITUTE FOR THE PERSECUTED CHRISTIAN" <thepersecuted@hotmail.com>
PRESS RELEASE
OCT / 26 / 98
TO ALL CANADIAN CHRISTIANS
CHRISTIANS MOVIES NOT BE TOLERATED
ON CHARTED BUS SAYS MUSLIM BUS DRIVER"Over 300 Christian demonstrators took part in a peaceful demonstration outside the Ottawa parliamentary buildings this past weekend (OCT 24 ). They where their to protest the persecution of their brothers and sisters in Egypt by Islamic officials, who currently, among other atrocities, have arrested over 1000 Christians including a bishop and priest’s, and applying electric shock to them as a means of getting them to sign a confession of a crime they did not commit.
"Egyptian Christians from the Coptic Christian association in Toronto, chartered five buses from PARKINSON COACH LINES in Brampton Ont and hired the company to drive them to Ottawa and return them after the event.. Emad Yossef of the Coptic association said ‘on the way back from Ottawa we decided to play a Christian video tape by Dr. Robert Morey intitled pre - Islamic origins of Islam. After approximately 25 minutes of viewing, the tape was stopped by the bus driver,’ who apparently said "I stopped the tape because I am a Muslim from Iran he said, although no one on the bus was aware of that at the time. The bus driver apparently would not tolerate hearing the tape, I just don’t like it he said.
"More than 40 people on the bus including children, teenagers and women, where terrified at the thought of this driver pulling of to the side of the road and leaving them there stranded, or ordering them off the bus, because of this no one dared to argue with him. Mr. Jamie Murray, the President for the bus lines said that the driver would be reprimanded for his conduct and apologized for his racist behavior. Christians from various Islamic states have complained in the past about the harsh treatment they receive because of their Christian faith, some have had to escape persecution by Muslim radicals because they talked about Jesus Christ to other Muslims, instead of facing death or imprisonment, to themselves and family members, they come to Canada, where freedom of religion can be found, some of these who escaped with nothing but their very lives, may have been on that bus, and I would guess, wondering if Canada is so free from religious persecution of Islamic teaching’s after all, and more importantly what the future hold’s."True Christians should reflect upon the fact that a main objective of the New Age Movement is the eradication of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Considering the imminent military assault on Iraq and implications for the Mideast, Islamic nations may be first on the list for extermination (followed by Christians). Similar anti-Muslim misinformation is being generated about Sudan and the former Yugoslavia ~ of these more will be said in the next report on Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
From your brothers and sisters
at the FREEDOM INSTITUTE
GOD BLESS"
November 15, 1998
Christian Solidarity Worldwide
Freedom From Religious Persecution
ENDNOTES
1. Jean Doresse, Secret Book Of The Egyptian Gnostics," p. 12.
"Gnosticism appeared originally in Syria. It is in Samaria and the Valley of the Lycos that we trace it for the first time. Simon [the sorcerer] is a man of Gitta and Samaria; Menander is originally of Capparetia - again in Samaria; Satornel is of Antioch; Cerdon is a Syrian; Cerinthus comes from Asia Minor.;...In the time of Hadrian (A.D. 110-38), Gnosticism passes over from Syria into Egypt: it is in Alexandria that the greatest doctors of the heresy are flourishing - Bacilides, Carpocrates, and Valentinus. Then it reaches Rome ; and this is the moment when the Christian doctors realize the importance of heresies which, in the East, had been incubating for a considerable time... Marcion was in Rome from 140, and thence expelled by the Church in 144, being by excommunicated by his own father, the Bishop of Sinope."
2. Michael Howard, The Occult Conspiracy, p. 142.
3. Mircea Eliade, Encyclopedia Of Religion, "Coptic Church," pp. 83, 84.
4. Columbia Encyclopedia, "Copt," p. 652.
5. Ibid., "Maronites," p.1700.
"Maronites, a Christian community of Arabs in communion with the Pope. By emigration they have spread to Cyprus, Palestine, Egypt, South America and the United States and now number about 1 million. Their liturgy (said mainly in liturgical Syriac) is of the Antiochian type, with innovations taken from the Latin rite. Their ecclesiastical head, under the Pope, is called Patriarch of Antioch; he lives in Lebanon... The Maronites have been a distinct community since the 7th cent., when they separated in the doctrinal dispute over Monotheletism; they returned to communion with the Pope in the 12th cent. In the 19th cent., massacres of Maronites by the Druses brought French intervention; this gave France its modern hold in Lebanon and Syria. Besides the Maronites, there are two other groups in Syria in communion with the Pope - the Melkites and the Syrian Catholics."
6. John Davis and Naomi Rice, Messiah & The Second Coming, Coptic Press, 1882, backcover.