Friday, July 30, 2010

Qur’anic student who killed teenage wife to die by hanging

“I wanted to have sex with her, but she refused. I begged her several times but she will not yield to my request. I then left her inside the room, went out and searched for a knife, which I got in the kitchen. I took possession of the knife and went back to the room with annoyance and stabbed her several times at different places.” That was how 28-year-old Qur’anic student, Abubakar Goni described the events that led to the death of her 14-year old-wife on October 22, 2003.
Seven years later in June 2010, the case was finally settled at the Maiduguri High Court where Abubakar was sentenced to be hanged.
The plain fact is that the innocent bride, Amsa Usman Abdu, at 14 was not ripe for marital life (contrary to the position of new sexuality advocates). Who is the victim here? Both Abubakar and her late young bride Amsa, we think. The sad reality is that hundreds of thousands are today, at the same crossroad as these two young people. These people are stranded and frustrated just because of various distortions introduced into marriage - a concept lovingly given by God – through various religious and human traditions. If only they would embrace the liberty and freedom that is available in Christ Jesus!

“Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1 John 5:5

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” – Jesus (in Matthew 11:28)

Catholic Archbishop of Benin quits over child sexual abuse

The resignation of Richard Burke, the catholic Archbishop of the Nigerian Diocese of Benin City, accused of molesting a teenage girl, was accepted by Pope Benedict XVI on Monday 31st May, 2010.
Dolores Atwood had alleged she was sexually abused by Archbishop Burke when he was a priest in Warri. At that time Dolores was a 14-year-old patient in an unnamed hospital in Warri.
In his letter of resignation, the humiliated Archbishop wrote: “I take full responsibility for my actions. I wish to express my deepest sorrow for my inappropriate, irresponsible and repeatedly sinful conduct.”
According to newspaper reports, Burke, of Tipperary in South-Central Ireland, “voluntarily” left his position. The problem with this statement is that the indicated remorse came only AFTER Dolores had filed the complaint – in far away Canada. Burke had been named Archbishop of Benin City in 2008.
Last edition we referred to a statement by a senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, affirming that: “ Anywhere there is a substantial Catholic population there is the potential for this type of scandal." The situation with the Archbishop Burke confirms this statement for Nigeria, and should be food for thoughts for the wise and prudent. (Story from The Sun Publishing Tuesday, June 1, 2010, still available on-line here> http://www.nigerianbestforum.com/index.php?topic=76436.msg306038)

Church Arise! – Restating our Perspective

We routinely, from time to time, get uncomplimentary responses to our ministry efforts. Of course, it is the norm in the Christian endtime ministry that your teeming friends affirm you by merely nodding their heads while your few foes do far more than that. Often, they don’t spare funds, time, or spiritual efforts in making their points clear. But it is all part of basic ministry!
So whether it is threat letters from legal chambers abroad or verbal snipes from local folks, we simply take these in our strides and keep our focus on our Christ-given mandate. However an email received just before press time from one Peter Osikwemhe addresses a major point in our ministry and we take the opportunity to once again restate our perspectives and position on these issues. First the mail (without any editing):

“I read your article, but why cant we just preach the word and stop condemning one another? what has the catholic church done that you all keep striking hard and forgot to impart the true meaning of Gods Words. let stop all this feud and condemnation of priest and face the true meaning of christainity. God will judge us one day, you too may not be 100% holy. we all need prayers, that is why we have to pray for one another in times of trouble. not telling the whole word the negative side of priest, destroying there image when u were suppose to pray for them. everyone have sinned.

a life of celibacy is difficult, paul in the bible lived that. when most pastors fall out of lust, i pray for them, stop this. it wont lead us anywhere. even falsifying stories to gain your purpose.

pray for forgiveness and stop condenming. leave it to God.Dont fall a victim, avoid insulting men of God, there are implications!

Peter”

Our response: CA! is not about condemning people. What do we gain from that? On the contrary we have a great deal of sympathy towards those most of society despise or (ab)use. Our position and concern is that the great deceiver and enemy of our soul (using largely religion and social tools) is keeping people in bondage away from their destiny and potentials in Christ.
Just look at the facts in these sexual abuse cases:
(1) It is plain wrong, and unfair that young children who trust in a religious institution get abused and scarred and corrupted. Wrong is wrong, no matter who is involved or the institutions that sponsor them!
(2) It is sad that ordinarily sincere people, seeking to serve God (as priests, for instance), should get ensnared in unbiblical situations that turn them into fiends and abusers of children – doing satan’s work for him. Of course each individual is accountable before the great Judge. But while we refrain from the futile and unfruitful efforts to judge people, we have the mandate to judge institutions and practices, using the yardstick of God’s eternally-settled word .(eg, Acts 4:19, 1 Cor 14:29, Phil 1:9, etc) God Himself affirms that He has some of His people (trapped/blinded?) even in unimaginable places (e.g. see Rev 3:4). Church Arise! mandate includes attempting to reach out to such people. Anyone who fits into this category needs to urgently heed God’s clear instructions in the Bible (see e.g. Rev 18:4, 2 Cor 6:17, Cor. Etc) – TODAY!
Yes, it’s tough living in the world, especially in these perilous end-time days. But we affirm that the Lord Jesus has made more than adequate provisions for our victory (See 1 John 5:4-5). We report these issues hoping that people will see that there is a glorious alternative provided for them through Jesus Christ the Truth. If only they would be bold enough to take the right steps, seeking the honour that comes from God alone and not that from men and their institutions (see John 5:44, John 12:42-43)
And of course, we don’t CREATE the news. We only report them. And we go to great length to always cite the sources of our news. Deliberately, most of our news and commentaries are taken from reliable sources that others can easily check out. For instance, all the news and commentaries we published on the catholic church in the last edition (vol 13 no 2) were all in the public domain, authored by catholics themselves. We only direct the attention of people (engaged by several other man-made problems in society) to these facts!
Finally, as any regular reader of CA! can attest, events in the catholic institution are only a fraction of the issues we routinely report on. We devote at least as much space to unedifying situations in non-catholic churches too. And, especially where persecution of Christians is involved, we do report extensively on Islam and other religions also. Of course reports on religion is only about a half of what we publish. The other half involves politics and governance, technology, economy, education and ethics, etc. The whole point is to alert the Church that “the time is short” and there might be better ways to use whatever time is left than what most of us are currently doing.
We seize this opportunity to sincerely thank all who have steadfastly encouraged us along, all these 12 years plus.

Worthy News now syndicated on our website.
You can now have up-to-date news on subjects relevant to our ministry by visiting our website anytime. This is because Worthy News (www.worthynews.com) now feeds our site directly. This is in addition to links to an enormous amount of resources (many of them free) from other Christian ministries and websites. See what we mean by checking out www.churcharise.org.

In Pakistan, Moslem Mob kills wife and children of newly-posted Christian Police officer

In a direct mirror of the story at Wukari, Taraba state of Nigeria (see above), a police officer officially posted to a city with a Moslem majority in Pakistan was told he and his family could not stay in his rented apartment in a Moslem colony. His tardiness in responding to the quit order has cost him his wife and all four children!
The sad story began with the official transfer of Officer Jamshed Masih from Gujrat to a new posting 50 km away at Jhelum, Punjab Province. Upon arrival, he was summoned to the local mosque by a local muslim leader, Maulana Mahfoz Khan who ordered him to leave the Mustafa colony. “You must leave with your family, no non-Muslim has ever been allowed to live in this colony – we want to keep our colony safe from scum,”
Masih consulted with a local Pastor who advised he must indeed vacate his residence. But while preparing to do so, the faithful day Monday, June 21 came. Compass Direct has the details:
“Masih’s neighbor, Murtaza, told Compass that after Masih went to work at 7 a.m. on June 21, his children could be heard singing hymns before breakfast.
“Razia [Masih’s wife] sent their eldest son to buy a packet of Surf [detergent], and he was singing a hymn on his way to buy the Surf,” Murtaza said.
Neighbors saw Masih’s s 11-year-old son come into the store, he said. The shopkeeper asked him if he was a Christian; the child responded that he was.
“The shopkeeper refused to give him the packet of Surf and spoke very harshly to him, ‘I don’t sell to any non-Muslim, you are not welcome here, don’t you dare ever come to my shop again,’” Murtaza said.
The boy went home, upset, and told his mother about the encounter; she grew worried and called her husband, saying, “Jamshed, please come home quickly, the kids and I are very worried, we must leave this house today,” Masih said.
His neighbor, Murtaza, said that shortly afterward some area residents came to the door with the Muslim religious leader, Khan.
“Your son has committed blasphemy against Muhammad, our beloved prophet – we can’t allow him to live, he should be punished,” Khan told Razia Masih, Murtaza said. “Razia got scared and said, ‘My son couldn’t do such a thing, he is only 11 years old.’”
Khan became furious and said, “Are we lying to you? You call us liars, how dare you insult us,” Murtaza said. “Someone from the crowd hit something hard on her head, and she started bleeding. The children started crying and shouted for help. Razia kept shouting for help, ‘Please have mercy on us, please let my husband come, then we can talk.’”
Jamshed Masih said his daughter telephoned police as the mob attacked his wife and children. He said he later learned that “the people kept shouting, ‘This family has committed blasphemy, they should be killed.”
Before police arrived, his family was murdered, he said.”

When Masih tried to file a complaint against Khan for the murder, Station House Officer (SHO) Ramzan Mumtaz refused to cooperate with him. The SHO later confirmed to Compass that he had answered Masih exactly in this manner: ‘Khan is an influential man, and he said your son has committed blasphemy – we cannot do anything against him…. I am a poor man, I have a family, and I was pressured by higher authorities not to register the FIR [First Information Report] as Khan is a very influential man. I am sorry, I don’t have anything in my hands.’” Compass Direct News (www.Christianpost.com/article/20100708/muslim-mob-kills-wife-children-of-Christian-in-pakistan/index.html)

CITIZENS OF WESTERN COUNTRIES FED UP WITH MOSLEM DOMINIONISM – NO TO NEW MOSQUES

The situations described above are by no means peculiar to Nigeria. Indeed Nigeria’s situation is really only a portion of a global development. The Jihadists’ quest to intimidate and dominate native majority in their own lands (while no Church is allowed in the Jihadists’ own domain - such as Saudi Arabia or Kano) is finally backfiring.
From New York, to even France, local indigenous populations are recognizing that many Moslems do not see Islam as just a religion to practice, but a tool for political domination and subjugation of others. To this end, mosques are not just simple functional buildings meeting local religious needs, but grand, statement-making edifices, often far beyond the resources of the local Moslems – but funded from the same Arabia where no Churches are allowed. The situation is well-captured by a line in a poem by Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (before he became the PM): "the minarets our bayonets".
Consider the case in New York. After Moslems, funded from the Middle East, razed down two grand edifices (the World Trade Center twin towers) in the infamous 9-11 events, with thousands of people killed, the same Moslems are bent on erecting grand Islamic centers on the rubbles of these same towers!
The Jihadists might have pushed their agenda a little too hard, and the previously docile American citizenry is up in arms. As at Press time, New Yorkers have risen against three separate plans to build Muslim worship centers in their city. The Washington Times quotes Joan Moriello, a community activist involved in one of the protests: "This is about radical Islam wanting to colonize the world. They pretend to be tolerant, they pretend to be loving but they aren't. It's just starting to come bubbling up to the surface." For more, see www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/6/plans-mosques-divide-new-yorkers/
Exactly similar protests, in direct response to local aggravations (just like at Wukari in Taraba state), are on-going virtually all over Europe, ranging from Warsaw (www.bt.com.bn/features/2010/04/06/protests-warsaw-over-new-mosque ), to Britain (http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2010/05/uk-edl-stages-rooftop-mosque-protest.html ) to France (www.chasingevil.org/2010/06/marseilles-muslims-win-right-to-build.html ), to Poland (www.globalpost.com/dispatch/poland/100520/islamophobia-europe-immigration ). Even, perhaps the most “tolerant” people in the world, the Swiss, in a national referendum, voted to ban mosques from incorporating their ubiquitous minarets.( http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/29/switzerland.minaret.referendum/)
Recall in Numan (Adamawa State, Nigeria), issues about the appropriateness of a high minaret overlooking the compound of the local king’s palace eventually led to the deposition of that respected and beloved Christian Monarch, Feddy Soditi Bongo, in 2005. (see CA! Vol 8 No 2). Also in Vol 8 No 4, we mentioned the plans of the Prince of Wale to build a majestic mega mosque in the predominantly Christian community of Cornwall, which government’s data showed had exactly 33 Moslems out of the over 22,000 total population! (www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article537568.ece)

AMAZING: POLICE OFFICER INSISTS ON CONSTRUCTING MOSQUE INSIDE POLICE STATION IN TARABA STATE

It’s incredible what level people bent on fostering chaos in society could go to in order to actualize their satanic agenda. How can a public officer who was recently transferred on a new posting insist against all entreaties on building a mosque within the office complex! (What else will such a man not do, then, to the men under his command?) Not to mention that the location happens to be one of the states in northern Nigeria with majority Christian population. It’s just like the situation in Jos (Plateau state), another of such few states. One can imagine the outcome should every public officer decide to follow this example at each of their new postings!
It should be obvious enough that the police officer, Mr Mohammed Mustapher (an Area Commander), must have received strong assurances and backings from certain quarters, else it would have been a totally insane and unconceivable action. Jihadists are ever hell-bent on reversing the balance of power wherever it is not in their favour.
Not unexpectedly, the foreign Islam-leaning press was quick to come out with blazing headlines about Christians attacking mosques – rather than the real situation that the attempt to build a mosque at a police station was forcibly stopped when all entreaties had been rebuffed by a stubborn officer with obvious religious cum political agenda.
At the commissioning of CA!, 9 years ago, Bishop Francis Wale Oke recalled his poser to then Gov Bafarawa of Sokoto State, who was insisting that Church buildings erected without government approvals must be bulldozed: “Your excellency, where are the papers for all those mosques attached to practically every mansion, petrol station, etc in this state?” (we paraphrase!)
Thank God the conflagration they might have hoped for in Wukari, Taraba State did not quite occur – 8 dead and about 40 seriously wounded is tragic and horrible, but still a child play compared with the situation on the Jos plateau. And to imagine that, of all people, it would be a police officer, supposedly in charge of security that would blatantly work to destabilize peace in his own domain! Now who is going to prosecute such a guy?


Foreign Media changing tune

Foreign media are well-known for their serious pro-Islam bias, as pointed out several times by CA! But one foreign media house seems to have finally found its wit and tongue. Reuters not only reports that at least half of the fatalities at Wukari came from police guns, it also now seems to have finally understood the basic roots of the problem. It reports “One local student who asked not to be named said he saw four people die when police and soldiers opened fire”. On the roots, Reuters states: “Taraba state neighbours Plateau state in Nigeria's Middle Belt, a central region of Africa's most populous nation where the mostly Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south. The tension is rooted in decades of resentment between indigenous groups, mostly Christian …, who are vying for control of fertile farmlands and for economic and political power with migrants and settlers from the north.” – Reuters (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE66D1SB.htm)

MUSLIMS IN KANO: EVEN INDIGENES CAN’T BUILD CHURCHES HERE!

Worthy News has reported (May 21, 2010) that Muslim extremists destroyed several churches and a pastor's house in the latest religious violence to hit Nigeria's northern Kano state. One of the buildings and the pastors house were set ablaze on the premises of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) at Kwasam, in the Kiru Local Government area, while another building under construction was demolished, the church said. Over 100 Moslem youths were involved in the attacks, demanding that their area must be free from Church buildings!
The ECWA Church had earlier been dragged before the Sharia Court for this “great crime” of putting up Church building in a Moslem city; but the church argued that the land on which the Church stood was their inheritance, and that its members are indigenous to the area. Nevertheless, according to Christian Soldarity Worldwide CSW which has closely monitored the case, the Sharia court ruled in favor of the Moslem complainants.
The rampaging youths then were the demolition squad effecting the orders of the religious court!
Earlier the Baptist Church in the area of Banaka, Takai LGA, was also destroyed on May 15, - the fourth time the Church would be demolished. "After the previous demolition, a group of Christians from Kastina State paid for the construction of a new building, and also drilled a well for church members to use. However, during the demolition, the well was blocked off completely," CSW said in a statement.
Meanwhile, while Moslems would not allow indigenous Christians to construct Churches in their own family properties, is it not incredible that they would sponsor transiting public officers to attempt to erect mosques in public institutions in parts of the same “northern Nigeria” where they (Moslems) are struggling to put the Christian majority under political subjugation? Read the next story please. [see, http://churcharise.blogspot.com/2010/07/amazing-police-officer-insists-on.html]

… ECWA Laments Attack on its Churches in Plateau State

Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) has again lamented the attack on its church and vehicles “by Muslim hoodlums”, without security intervention. During a violent protest supposedly against the recent ban on Okada, ECWA leaders claimed “we watched helplessly in the presence of armed soldiers of the military Special Task Force (STF)” as the hoodlums destroyed precious properties.
In a statement issued in June by the church’s General Secretary, Reverend Ezekiel Mipo Dadang, ECWA lamented that “since the wake of the November, 2008 and January, 2010 crises in Jos, our churches have suffered several attacks and destruction; the ECWA buildings in Gangere, Rikkos, Jos-Jarawa, Adebayo street, Ahmadu Bello Way and Bukuru areas have been attacked and destroyed.
The Church further alleges that “…we have keenly watched the massive security being provided by the Joint Military Task Force at the Jos Central Mosque and other mosques without any being provided for our churches.” In closing, the ECWA said “our patience is wearing out and we cannot continue to watch the Muslim hoodlums destroying our churches, killing our pastors and members without the security agents challenging them. The ECWA leadership has therefore demanded that these attacks must stop”. www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=175550

Northern Elites in last-minute religion-fuelled rampage for political power

Nigeria is witnessing a last minute desperate rampage by some caucus of northern elites who are bent on using religion as platform to achieve relevance and maintain political power. As they see the Hand of God turned against them at Nigeria’s Jubilee, they have now thrown caution or subtlety to the wind, openly seeking to destabilize the polity and grasping at whatever agenda is handy for support. But the One they contend with is none other than the Lord of Hosts Himself!
In recent times, we see “fulani herdsmen” ( the politically-correct name for Islamic jihadists field soldiers), intensity their desperate determination to secure the Middle-Belt buffer zone between Christian majority South, and Islam majority North. The middle-belters are in geographic north, but have a Christian majority. This region then constitutes the battle ground jihadists must overrun before their advertised goal of dipping the Koran into the sea can ever materialise. Hence the incessant attacks.
In what can only be the reflection of utter desperation, the Jihadists are out on naked rampage – not even seeking any excuse or “provocations” before their attacks. On July 3, a day after police stopped protecting the village of Kizachi, in Kaduna State, muslim miltants swooped in, in the dead of the night, and mercilessly slaughtered “at least eight Christian believers”. The police – in the state where God had recently divinely installed a Christian governor, against all imaginations - had withdrawn their presence claiming their salaries were not being paid. The next night, on July 4, it was the turn of neighbouring Plateau State, when murderous muslims matcheted and gunned to death three Christians in the Ganawuri community. (http://www.worthynews.com/8499-eight-Christians-killed-in-nigerian-muslim-attacks) The foreign press always refers to these cold-blooded murders as “sectarian clashes”!
The Nigerian Tribune begins its report on the next wave of attack, which happened on July 17 in this way: “NO fewer than nine persons were murdered in their sleep in Maza Village, Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State in the early hours of Saturday by suspected Fulanis who invaded the village.” The report continues: “[A]rmed with guns, cutlasses, bows and arrows, [the muslim “warriors”] sneaked into the village,… around 1:00 am and descended on the people.” Among those hacked to death were Reverend Nuhu Dawat’s wife, two children and a grandson. Mr Gaya Suna lost his only daughter who was “caught while sleeping”. See details at http://www.tribune.com.ng/sun/index.php/front-page-articles/1626-nine-killed-as-jos-boils-again
Sadly, there is hardly any indication that these callous murdering are about to stop. Especially with no considerable visible progress being made in the case against the 405 arrested so far . (These include “Fulani Herdsmen” who confessed to have been hired by unnamed sponsors for sums ranging from N500 to N1000 each to kill over 500 villagers in Dogon Nahawa in March). Rather, some principal suspects are allegedly being released already! (http://thenationonlineng.net/web3/saturday-magazine/weekend-treat/4322.html) Now the “action” is spreading further south with the incident at Wukari, in Taraba state, with the chief instigator no less a person than an Area Commander in the Nigeria Police! (See story below).

PFN RISES TO THE CAN CHALLENGE

With the PFN bloc (Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria) capturing the keenly-contested presidency of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), northern Christian brothers can look forward to more sympathetic attention and quicker responses from the national umbrella body than they have gotten in the past. Apparently frustrated at the limited interests previous CAN leaderships have shown to the peculiar situation in Northern Nigeria (in the name of Political Correctness) the perennially persecuted and marginalized brethren from that region drafted the indefatigable president of the PFN, Pastor Ayo Oritsajefor, into the race for CAN presidency. He “won” by a significant majority.
With this development, the published agenda of the PFN to become more involved in endorsing and probably sponsoring candidates for the next year’s crucial elections is likely to now receive more attention in CAN circles. All these can only be good news in this year of Jubillee!
Church Arise! believes that Pastor Ayo Oritsajafor is up to the task, and wishes him God speed and guidance and protection. However, we hope that as Pastor Oritsajefor steps up to a more political and diplomatic terrain, the PFN will be able to still maintain her unique identity and mission. In other words, as Pastor Ayo goes to his new assisgnment with PFNs prayers, it is important that the PFN does not go with him to CAN!

QUOTABLE QUOTES: Vol 13 No 3 Church Arise!

(Background: Dr James Dobson, 73, was recently “forced” out of Focus on the Family, a ministry he started in 1977 and has nurtured to an enormous international status and influence. He thereafter started a new TV program, Family Talk. See some details in CA! Vol 13 No1)

Interviewer: Do you see Family Talk as competing at all with Focus on the Family?

James Dobson: It's kind of silly to think that the family, with all its problems across the country and around the world, needs only one ministry whose goal is to reach out to them. There's plenty of work to be done. We're not in competition any more than two Baptist churches in Atlanta are in competition. We're not trying to hurt each other, wound each other, or overtake each other. That's not going to happen.
My legacy doesn't matter. It isn't important that I be remembered. It's important that when I stand before the Lord, he says, "Well done, good and faithful servant." I want to finish strong. I don't want to make a mistake that would hurt the cause of Christ late in my life, so I'm going to do everything I can to bring many people to Christ. If he can use me in that regard through Family Talk, that will be my greatest legacy. http://www.Christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/july/17.31.html?start=3

Moroccan jailed 15years for Christian Faith

The International Christian Concern,ICC, has reported that a Moroccan Christian named Jamaa Ait Bakrim is currently serving a 15 year term, simply on account of his faith. Jamaa became a Christian in the 1990's while travelling through Europe. When he returned to Morocco he was ostracized and later imprisoned for refusing to stop talking about his faith. In 2005 Brother Jamaa was jailed for 15 years for “proselytization”, as according to the judge, “the fact that Jamaa denies accusations of proselytization is inconsistent with the confession during which he proclaimed he was a son of Christ and he wanted Moroccans to become Christians…”
Jamaa is currently serving out this sentence, and is located in Prison Centrale of Kenitra, Morocco. In order to advocate for Jamaa and other Christian prisoners, ICC is launching a prisoner focus page at: www.persecution.org/prisonerfocus/. Please visit this site and remember to pray for God’s blessing on ICC’s efforts.

Even in Police Custody, Christian Brothers shot to death by Pakistani Jihadists

In the Pakistani city of Faisalabad, two Christian evangelists have paid the supreme price for their vibrant evangelistic ministries. Pastor Rashid Emmanuel (32) and his 30 year old brother Sajid Masih Emmanuel were taken into police custody on July 2 following allegations by local Moslems that the two had authored some hand-written manuscript that denigrated the Islamic prophet. Even though the Christian evangelists denied the allegation, and handwriting experts confirmed that the manuscript did not match their handwritings, they remained in police custody. Even a high governmental official publicly expressed his doubts that anybody would write such a manuscript and put their real names as was being alleged in this case. In Pakistan such an offence attracts the death penalty.
However, especially following the instigation of some mosques on Friday 16th July that Christian houses should be burnt over the matter, it probably was not so easy for the police to release the men. As the police took the Christian evangelists, handcuffed, to court on Monday 19th July, five masked men stepped forward outside the court building and shot the two brothers dead, right in the custody of the police!
Police later hurriedly effected an early-morning burial for the two, apparently to forestall violence that could follow an elaborate burial. Some eye witnesses told Worthy News that they saw torture marks on the bodies of the two Christians suggesting they had been subjected to torture while in police custody. The two brothers were members of the Mission Group United Ministries, Pakistan. Even as at this moment, several other Christians are languishing in police custody in Pakistan on the allegation of blasphemy – which is fast becoming an effective way of settling land and similar disputes, when your opponent is a Christian. In Vol 11 No 1, we reported the resulting mayhem and massive destructions in Bauchi State, NIGERIA, when a love-seeking muslim suitor turned round to accuse of blasphemy, the Christian lady who had rejected his advances. (http://churcharise.blogspot.com/2008/02/again-muslim-riot-claims-3-lives-in.html)
For further details and follow-up on the story from Pakistan, check www.WorthyNews.com

And Here comes Printable RFID Tags

Researchers from Sunchon National University in Suncheon, South Korea, and Rice University in Houston have built a radio frequency identification (rfid) tag that can be printed directly onto boxes and bags (used as packages) . The tag uses ink laced with carbon nanotubes to print electronics on paper or plastic that could instantly transmit information about a cart full of groceries. This means that rfid codes can now be applied enmass, using printing technology! As expected, focus for the moment is on consumer products. Other applications will follow sooner or later.
“You could run your cart by a detector and it tells you instantly what’s in the cart,” says James M. Tour of Rice University, whose research group invented the ink. “No more lines, you just walk out with your stuff.”
RFID tags are already used widely in passports, library books and gadgets that let cars fly through tollbooths without cash. But those tags are made from silicon, which is more expensive than paper and has to be stuck onto the product as a second step.
The new tag, reported in the March2010 issue of IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, costs about three cents to print, compared to about 50 cents for each silicon-based tag. The team hopes to eventually bring that cost below one cent per tag to make the devices commercially competitive.
For now, the tag is essentially just a “proof of concept”, to show that the process works as it can only store one bit of information — essentially a 1 or a 0 — in an area about the size of a business card. However study co-author Gyoujin Cho of Sunchon National University, along with a team from the Printed Electronics Research Center of the Paru Corporation in Suncheon, Korea, are working to pack more transistors into a smaller area to ultimately squeeze 96 bits onto a 3-square-centimeter tag. That would be enough to give a unique identification code to each item in a supermarket, along with information like how long the item has been on the shelf, Mr Tour says.
The tags were made possible by the creation of semiconducting ink, which contains carbon nanotubes that will hold an electrical charge. Once they had the ink, Cho and his colleagues built roll printers to transfer ink to the final material. The tags are printed in three layers, and one of the remaining hurdles to making the tags store more memory in less space is to improve the alignment of those layers, Cho says.
“The work is impressive,” comments Thomas N. Jackson of Penn State University in University Park, who is also developing flexible electronics. He thinks it will be difficult to compete with silicon, which is well established in the realm of consumer products packaging. But similar technology could be used to do things silicon can’t do, he says, such as make smart bandages that can sense infections or freshness-sensing food packaging. (source: http://www.wired.com/)

Microchip implants for people – the product with nine lives just got deadlier

VeriChip is the company that is pioneering commercial microchip implants in people in the United States. Starting off as Digital Angel in November 2001, the company played around with an array of “wearables” – which are microchip-fitted devices, used in various applications. From serving as ultra portable computers, to the monitoring of blood pressure and other medical data in the wearer. The outputs can be fed directly via satellite to remote locations, for instance a hospital, where it can be monitored. Soon ,the wearables, despite assurances by Digital Angel that it had no such intentions, were re-introduced as microchip implants to be embedded within people’s skin. Many were shocked at the incredible speed at which the new product secured the mandatory Food and Drugs Agency approval, which later became understandable when the Secretary of Health at the time of this decision, Tommy Thomson, resigned to become a member of VeriChip’s Board (see ref, also CA! Vol 10 No 5)
Regular readers of CA! will be familiar with the various hypes that Mr Scott Silverman’s company, VeriChip, tried to use to convince the world that they needed a microchip implant very badly. From VeriGuard (to protect you from kidnappers – i.e. your location can be traced, provided the limb bearing the chip is left intact by the kidnappers!), VeriMed (which promises to make people’s medical records available so their physicians can set to work immediately they are brought in from some emergency situation that could possibly, thus saving precious seconds – hmm!), etc, etc (see Vol 7 No 1).
Needless to say, the products were big flops. Not only are people uncomfortable with having themselves tagged and thereby subject to 24/7 surveillance, it was further revealed in 2007 that the implanted chip could be linked with the inducement of cancer in animals. (See CA! Vol 10 No 5). Moreover, for every touted benefit, there existed dozens of other proven, more effective and far simpler solutions!
The biggest success for the product so far seems to be the microchipping (between 2007 – 2009) of about 200 Alzheimer subjects who were made available by a nursing home in West Palm Beach. Even that event raised considerable hoopla as the study was not subjected to any review by any ethic committee, and many of the senior citizens involved were incapacitated and not in any position to make informed decision about participating or not. Moreover, it was revealed that the microchip company had sponsored the nursing home, the Alzheimer’s Community Care, in fundraisers before.
All the failings of the company VeriChip naturally translates to financial woes. As members of the company’s board threw in the towel one by one, it was the passion and money of the CEO, Mr Scott Silverman, that has been keeping the company floating. (Apparently, the man understands very well that some things in life are far more important than the financial profit associated with them!) And part of the never-ending restructuring is the emergence of the new company, PositiveID, born November 11 2009 (see its Annual Report in the mandatory 10-Q form with the US Security and Exchanges Commission at www.faqs.org/sec-filings/100319/VeriChip-CORP_10-K/). In forming PostiveID, Verichip had been merged with Steel Vault (also largely owned by Mr Silverman), a company which is into credit monitoring and identity-theft prevention.
Of course, Mr Silverman would be hoping that the changes in name might make people lose track or interest in the company’s deadly and dubious products.

Strategic Alliances

Although the company is still losing money and, at least according to its 10-Q form, has no hope of a turn around in the near future, Mr Silverman is nevertheless building strategic alliances which continue to seek to establish microchip implants in vital sectors of society. In volume 12 No 5, we drew attention to the fact that the new Obama health care initiative might be attempting to provide a massive bail-out for PositiveID by assigning the chip a central role in the new system – basically for record keeping. However, we are not sure at the moment how the product features in the final version of the bill as eventually approved. However, that more governments of the world are interested in promoting Mr Silverman’s product seems evident considering that exactly the same idea is being touted in Australia’s on-going HealthCare reform package. Even the technical specifications looked like a direct copy from PositiveID’s manual (http://industry.bnet.com/pharma/10007874/conspiracy-theory-how-16-digits-linked-australian-medicare-to-positiveid-chip-implants/).
Strategic alliances already forged in the private sector that seems to guarantee the continued sustenance of the PositiveID’s dream include:
A partnership with a Minnesota firm called Receptors to develop the “iGlucose system” in which the microchip automatically and continuously communicate blood sugar readings to an online database. The company envisions integrating its iGlucose system and its other rapid testing devices so that all test results could be automatically downloaded into a patient’s online personal health record. According to Mr Silverman, “In theory, way down the road, that same chip could contain a device to release insulin as well.” PositiveID further hopes to use similar technology to create a non-implantable test kit that could quickly identify various flu strains. This it hopes to accomplish before the next flu season. (www.floridatrend.com/article.asp?page=1&aID=53177)
In another strategic alliance with Innovations Avocare, the onlined medical records system in Florida’s various regional healthcare organizations can now be integrated with PositiveID’s Health Link. This brings, in a jiffy, more than 1 million patients into the Company’s sphere of business.
The Health Link electronic medical record service which PositiveID is already offering for businesses “on a paid subscription basis” provides access to a patient’s online medical records. It can be used with an implanted microchip and linked to Microsoft (MSFT)’s HealthVault and Google (GOOG) Health. Later on, the company intends to offer on the same platform various identification tools and technologies for consumer establishments and businesses. To pull this off, PositiveID is partnering with Boston-based FIS, a provider of technology to the banking industry.
Commenting on these developments, the news agency BNET feels that “The PositiveID/Avocare alliance will doubtless be painted by critics as a sinister development in which Americans’ medical privacy will end up becoming the online plaything of PositiveID, and that life in the U.S. will become difficult for those who do not want a chip inside them (in much the same way as it is currently difficult for anyone without a credit card, cellphone, email address or internet access).” (http://www.bnet.com/blog/drug-business/positiveid-deal-advances-use-of-microchip-implants-in-florida-health-system/3647)
CA! believes the mark of the beast will be a form of microchip implant. We have previously shown how such a chip gives remote access to your soul (via your mind) with dire eternal consequences (see vol 4 No 6, Vol 7 No 1). However, we believe that the chips of the Silvermans currently in the marketplace, while interesting to follow, are nothing but mere distractions from the real chip. For instance, knowledge about the Multiple Micro Electrode Array (MMEA) which comprises an array of about 100 microchips (developed by combination of Kevin Warwick and US DARPA, see Vol 11 No 4) is already in the public domain. Without doubts, more sophisticated ones, classified at the moment, and perhaps years ahead of even the MMEA exist somewhere in the closet of the world’s secret services. It would appear then that the main job for Mr Silverman and company is to continually guage and mould public attitude to microchip implants, as well as get the chip integrated into vital sectors within civil society. Even if it takes the next generation to accept it, it is important to them that they keep alive the rhetorics and efforts. The real mark of the beast could well be ready for deployment, awaiting the right socio-economic conditions – which in our opinion eventually depend on the Lord’s agenda and time-table, known only to Him. Once chips-under-the-skin has become accepted and fashionable, few will note the difference when the verichips are switched with MMEAs. For efforts in promoting microchip implants in other countries outside the US, see CA! Vol 12 No 5.

The Overcomers and God’s Dispensational Moves -(by Watchman Nee)

When God changes His attitude towards a certain matter, He makes a dispensational move. Every dispensational move brings in God’s new way. His most important dispensational move is in Revelation 12. He wants to end this age and bring in the age of the kingdom. His purpose is not general and ordinary. How can He bring this age to a close and bring in another? He must have His dispensational instrument. This is what God wants to do today.
The rapture of the man-child brings an end to the church age and introduces the kingdom age. The man-child enables God to move. If there is not a man-child and a rapture, God cannot make a dispensational move. We should never forget that God can be limited. He waits for man in all of His moves. God’s binding in heaven is based on our binding on earth; God’s loosing in heaven is based on our loosing on earth. Everything depends on the church.
Are we at the end of the age? If we are, the kingdom will soon begin. If a dispensational move is near, then God needs an instrument. General work is no longer adequate. The children of God lack a vision; they do not see the seriousness and intensity of the situation. Now is a matter of dispensation. Just being a good servant of the Lord is no longer good enough; this is not of great use to God. Please note that we are not saying that it is of no use. What are we doing to close this dispensation? What are we doing to bring in the next age? This is a special time, so there is the need of special Christians to do a special work.
Today God is waiting for the man-child. Only the rapture can precipitate the events in Revelation 12:10. God has an order, and He works according to that order. After the rapture the woman will be persecuted three and a half years. Many other of her children will go through the tribulation, but God will keep them. Being an overcomer is not primarily for escaping the tribulation. We need to see of what value the rapture is to the Lord, not to ourselves.
Of all the dispensational moves, the man-child is the greatest because it removes man’s power and the devil’s power, and it brings in the kingdom. We live in the most privileged time; we can do the most for God. Light will show us the way, but strength and power will enable us to walk the road. A great price must be paid in order to be used now.
Watchman Nee. Culled from a message with the above title. Part of a series of discipleship messages given between 1939 and 1942. Published in The Glorious Church, Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, California. (1968)