Remember Pastor Saeed as he marks his second Christmas imprisoned in Iran

[Dusty]

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/...soned-in-iran/


This Christmas, Remember Pastor Saeed. Remember the Persecuted Church

This is the second Christmas that Pastor Saeed Abedini, a U.S. citizen, will spend in an Iranian prison.

His only crime? His Christian faith.

Last Christmas, Pastor Saeed was locked away in Evin Prison – Iran’s brutal destination for political prisoners – where he was beaten and abused, suffering internal injuries.

This Christmas, he’s in an even worse prison, a prison overrun with murderers and rapists, where Pastor Saeed has already been threatened at knifepoint, and his life is in danger every day.

Inexcusably, he remains in prison even after the Obama administration made a “deal” with his captors. According to this “deal,” Iran keeps enriching uranium, Iran keeps its centrifuges (key equipment for building nuclear weapons), Iran gets billions in sanctions relief, and Iran gets “humanitarian transactions” from the United States.

Before this deal, Iran also received back one of its own, a nuclear scientist imprisoned in the United States.

His crime? Nuclear proliferation.

And what did America get in return? Certainly not its own citizen, in chains for the Gospel.

We pledged humanitarian aid for the Iranians. Where is Iran’s humanitarian gesture for America?

Earlier this month, Pastor Saeed’s wife, Naghmeh, traveled from her Idaho home to once again testify before Congress on behalf of her husband. Alongside my son, ACLJ Executive Director Jordan Sekulow, she pleaded for the State Department not to leave Pastor Saeed behind, telling Congress:

I had anticipated that I would battle the Iranian government for my husband’s freedom. I never anticipated that I would also have to battle my own government and that the journey would become even much more difficult than it had been. My husband is suffering because he’s a Christian. He’s suffering because he’s an American. Yet his own government did not fight for him when his captors were across the table from them.

But as we remember Pastor Saeed, we can’t forget the plight of millions of Christians in the Middle East, nor can we forget that again and again the Obama administration has made deliberate choices that have increased their suffering.

In Egypt, after the administration’s naïve embrace of the “Arab Spring,” President Obama threw his weight behind the Muslim Brotherhood, even as it enacted a Shariah-based constitution and its enforcers killed Christian protestors.

He condemned the popular revolution that threw the Brotherhood out of power and continued to defend the Brotherhood even as they set fire to dozens of churches in reprisal.

In Syria, the president threw his weight behind an Al Qaeda-infested insurgency, trying to drag the United States into war on behalf of rebels who murdered priests and assaulted ancient Christian towns. Fortunately, the American people – left and right – spoke with one voice to prevent American bombs from helping Al Qaeda and harming Christians.

And now, the president throwing his weight behind an Iranian regime that has yet to provide any evidence that it’s dealing with America in good faith.

The president has to change course. After five years of failure in his dealings with jihadists, he has to realize that strength matters, and we can’t squander our considerable economic leverage without getting anything in return.

America and Iran are still at the bargaining table, and as they bargain, the world’s lone superpower must send Iran – and the entire Muslim world – two clear messages: America takes care of its own, and America will never support or abet the persecution of Christians.

If we don’t send those messages, if we remain on the course of appeasement and retreat, then more churches will burn, more Christians will suffer, and next Christmas Pastor Saeed will still be in prison, facing abuse and dangers that we can scarcely imagine.

It’s time to draw the line. No more deals, no more sanctions relief, until an American pastor is returned to his family.

Snip

[The Reaper]

I am sympathetic to his case, but I have to ask myself, what is the U.S. responsibility to keep negotiating for people who continue making poor decisions to travel where we know that there is considerable risk to tourists, much less those who are promoting an anti-governmental agenda while they are there.

I'd like to see him come home, but if you go to a country like Iran or NK and start preaching against the government, don't be surprised if they lock your ass up.

And I am not sure what risks or compromises should be made to get you out.

TR

[Dusty]

He's got a Mission.

[Peregrino]

Originally Posted by Dusty

He's got a Mission.

Personally, I'm even less sympathetic than TR. I can't help but wonder if he put himself in harm's way (after being explicitly warned by the Iranian government the last time he did stupid "stuff") with the expectation that this US government would spend political capital to "rescue" him from his poor decision making. If he did - well - he's even more delusional than I would have guessed. I hope his MICON included martyrdom in the composite risk assessment. Prolonged abuse (or torture if you will) and dying for his cause becomes a very real possibility.

[Team Sergeant]

No sympathy..... or as much as I had for Daniel Pearl...... going to a radical islamic country and preaching Christian sermons is beyond stupid.

I think I'll start a pig farm in Egypt or A-Stan.......

[craigepo]

What amazing dedication! I can't imagine having the courage to step off into Iran with nothing other than a Bible and an idea. It's interesting, though, the huge changes the underground Christian church is making in Iran.

I recently read a book about Brother Yun, a Chinese Christian who spent about 20 years in Chinese prisons for preaching. The Christian church in China, which is almost wholly underground, is now the largest producer of missionaries in the world.

Interestingly, Yun tells people not to pray against the Chinese communist government. His reasoning: God is in charge, and Chinese Underground Christians are so well taught at operating underground, they are able to go throughout the entire old "Silk Road" countries to preach.

I still can't fathom taking on all of Islamic Iran alone. Guys like that make a difference.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by craigepo

....I still can't fathom taking on all of Islamic Iran alone. Guys like that make a difference.

He's not alone.....

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

No sympathy..... or as much as I had for Daniel Pearl...... going to a radical islamic country and preaching Christian sermons is beyond stupid.

I think I'll start a pig farm in Egypt or A-Stan.......

He's showing the same kind of stupidity you'd show if you had to fall on a grenade to save a Brother, only his concern is for souls.

[Toaster]

The missionaries who go into the middle east know the risks, the Bible is pretty clear that Christianity may cost everything temporal. Those church groups and missionaries practice pretty good OpSec about what they do, it's why they can do that.

There are places in Europe that missionaries choose to be covert when they travel there.

Religiously motivated people tend to take a long view in their actions. We're going to be dead a lot longer than we'll be alive, and eternity reflects the actions taken.

If someone believes that a course of action will cause some temporary discomfort, but an eternity of bliss, they'll do some pretty outstanding or horrendous things. Religiously motivated people are hard to deter.

[craigepo]

Originally Posted by Toaster

If someone believes that a course of action will cause some temporary discomfort, but an eternity of bliss, they'll do some pretty outstanding or horrendous things. Religiously motivated people are hard to deter.

Pretty interesting article about a a Vietnam POW on this line.

Snip

" A few days later, Lt. Cmdr. Edwin A. Shuman III, a downed Navy pilot, orchestrated the resistance, knowing he would be the first to face the consequences: a beating in a torture cell.

“Ned stepped forward and said, ‘Are we really committed to having church Sunday? I want to know person by person,’ ” a fellow prisoner, Leo K. Thorsness, recounted in a memoir. “He went around the cell pointing to each of us individually,” Mr. Thorsness continued. “When the 42nd man said yes, it was unanimous. At that instant, Ned knew he would end up in the torture cells.”

The following Sunday, Commander Shuman, who died on Dec. 3 at 82, stepped forward to lead a prayer session and was quickly hustled away by guards. The next four ranking officers did the same, and they, too, were taken away to be beaten. Meanwhile, as Mr. Thorsness told it, “the guards were now hitting P.O.W.s with gun butts and the cell was in chaos.”

And then, he remembered, the sixth-ranking senior officer began, “Gentlemen, the Lord’s Prayer.”

“And this time,” he added, “we finished it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/25/us..._20131226&_r=0

[ghp95134]

Iran Gives 80 Lashes for Communion Wine

Four Iranian Christians were reportedly sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking wine for communion, a shocking punishment meted out even as a new United Nations report blasted the Islamic republic for its systematic persecution of non-Muslims.
<...>
The UN reported noted Iran’s “Authorities continue to compel licensed Protestant churches to restrict Persian-speaking and Muslim-born Iranians from participating in services, and raids and forced closures of house churches are ongoing…More than 300 Christians have been arrested since 2010, and dozens of church leaders and active community members have reportedly been convicted of national security crimes in connection with church activities, such as organizing prayer groups, proselytizing and attending Christian seminars abroad."

Different reporter stating at least one of the men was flogged with "extreme violence"

Semen est sanguis Christianorum
Blood is the seed of the Church
--Tertullian (Apologeticum, 50)

It's amazing that anti-Christian violence is not championed by the MSM [or at least given sufficient consideration]; when it is reported, it's usually a blurb, then forgotten. Heaven forbid someone draw a cartoon of Mohammed ~~ the news would be all over that for a month.



--GHP