"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." Northwoods is a ministry dedicated to refreshing Christians and challenging them to search for the truth in Christianity, politics, sociology, and science
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"
Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour
Sainte-Sophie by Anthony Baratier, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
“Today,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday, “is Friday, May 29, and we had the opportunity to pray at Hagia. Attendance at Hagia Sophia was also very beautiful, magnificent. Today there was a march from Fatih to Hagia Sophia.” Fatih, or “The Conqueror,” was Sultan Mehmed II, and on May 29, 1453, he did indeed march to Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which had stood at that time for nearly a thousand years as the grandest church in the Christian world.
His march, however, was not a serene victory march. It was a pitiless display of bloodlust and inhumanity, as the conquering Muslims laid waste to the great city and joyfully continued their orgy of rape and murder even inside the great cathedral itself. Once Mehmed entered, he had a muezzin pronounce the Islamic profession of faith and declared that the great cathedral was now a mosque. After over a thousand years, the Roman Empire was no more.
There is more. Read the resthere. It is behind a paywall.
You can also search this blog for "Hagia Sophia" for a few fascinating stories on the ancient church. You may also come across my piece, which suggests that Erdogan's preaching from the pulpit of the Hagia Sophia may well have been the incident referenced in Matt 24:14-16 - The Abomination of Desolation standing in the holy place.
More than 16,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria in four years between 2019 and 2023 as more followers of Christ were victims of violence than adherents of other religions, according to data collected by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa.
ORFA released a four-year data project Thursday documenting 55,910 fatalities from 9,970 attacks, including both civilians and combatants, across Nigeria. Of those killed, 30,880 were civilians. Christian victims totaled 16,769, significantly outnumbering the 6,235 Muslim fatalities — the ratio of Christian to Muslim deaths being 6.5:1. Radicalized Muslim Fulani herdsmen were responsible for 55% of the Christian deaths.
"For over a decade atrocities against civilians in Nigeria have been downplayed or minimized. This has proved a major obstacle for those seeking to understand the violence," the researchers wrote in the 136-page report shared with The Christian Post.
"Misleading euphemisms, such as 'armed herdsmen' and 'cattle grazers' are used to describe continual waves of invasion, torture and killing in rural communities. Descriptions of attacks as 'ethnic clashes,' 'farmers-herders clashes' or retaliatory attacks are seriously misleading."
Another frequent term used to describe militias that carry out mass kidnappings and enforce "serfdom" on communities is "bandits," the report warns, adding that "a policy of concealing the religious identity of victims" is distorting the reality of the situation.
"Fulani Ethnic Militia are targeting Christian populations, while Muslims also suffer severely at their hands," notes Rev. Gideon Para-Mallam, an observatory partner and analyst, said in a statement.
"Millions of people are left undefended," Frans Vierhout, senior analyst at the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa, added. "For years, we've heard of calls for help being ignored, as terrorists attack vulnerable communities. Now the data tells its own story."
Across Nigeria, over 21,621 people were abducted in 2,705 attacks, with some incidents overlapping. The observatory recorded 11,610 distinct attacks where individuals were killed or abducted. Of these, 8,905 involved only killings, 1,065 included both killings and abductions and 1,640 involved only abductions.
Of the 21,532 civilians abducted, 11,185 were Christians, and 7,899 were Muslims, according to ORFA.
Researchers stated the religious identity of victims significantly influenced their treatment by captors, with Christian captives often facing harsher conditions and higher risks of execution compared to their Muslim counterparts.
On average, eight attacks involving killings or abductions occurred daily over a four-year period in Nigeria. Fear of violence has gotten so bad there were reports of children sleeping in trees to avoid nighttime attacks.
The data showed a large geographic spread of violence, with 65 different Local Government Areas affected. The majority of civilian fatalities occurred during attacks on communities, particularly during the farming season's peak months between April and June. The North West, North Central and North East regions were identified as epicenters of such attacks.
People were most vulnerable in their homes, with the majority of civilians — 25,312 killed and 16,761 abducted — suffering attacks in their communities, according to the report. This contrasts with other locations where 5,568 civilians were killed and 4,771 abducted.
The report pointed to the Fulani Ethnic Militia and other less-known groups as primary aggressors.
Armed Fulani herdsmen, part of FEM, and various terrorist groups were responsible for most killings and abductions, overshadowing the more internationally recognized threats from Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province. For instance, armed Fulani herdsmen were responsible for the deaths of 11,948 civilians, while other terror groups were responsible for 12,039 deaths. Armed Fulani were responsible for over 6,000 civilian abductions, while other groups were responsible for 13,000.
Armed Fulani were responsible for 9,153 Christian deaths during that timespan; Other terrorist groups accounted for 29% or 4,895 deaths. Combined, Boko Haram and ISWAP were responsible for 8% of the Christian deaths, which amounts to 1,268 fatalities.
The report criticized the Nigerian government's focus away from these areas, suggesting that the lack of adequate security response has allowed these groups to operate with near impunity.
"The Nigerian government should wake up to its responsibility of securing the lives and properties of Nigerians. Impunity has allowed targeted attacks against innocent people to continue unabatedly," the report concludes. "The government has [a] responsibility to maintain law and order, therefore, providing protection for lives and properties will reassure citizens and endear trust in the government. If the people cannot trust the government to deliver justice, more militant groups and sub state actors could rise up to the State against its citizens."
The observatory urges the Nigerian government to prioritize peace and coexistence, reevaluate its security strategies and enhance support for affected communities.
Key suggestions include reorienting national values towards justice and reconciliation, enhancing security measures to protect civilians and promoting interfaith dialogue to mitigate religious biases and tensions.
The report called for a concerted effort also from international bodies to address the violence in Nigeria.
The European Union member states, along with the United States and United Kingdom governments, should allocate more aid resources to Nigeria's North Central Zone and Southern Kaduna, which are experiencing a displacement crisis, the report said, explaining that in areas where internally displaced persons can return to their home communities, they often find their houses and communities in ruins.
ORFA added that the U.S. and U.K. governments should use their positions on the United Nations Security Council to pursue a resolution aimed at enhancing the security of communities in Nigeria that are vulnerable to attacks.
The U.S. government continues to face pressure from advocates and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to again label Nigeria as a country of particular concern for international religious freedom after it was removed from the list during the first year of the Biden administration.
As we have seen in so many other cases, the mere allegation was enough to incite the mob to violence. Due process? A fair trial? Come on, man! Don’t be “Islamophobic.”
Pakistan: Christian man attacked by mob in Punjab province
Lahore: An elderly Christian man, who was viciously attacked by a mob over blasphemy allegations in Pakistan’s Punjab province that left him critically injured, has succumbed to his injuries, according to police on Monday. The incident shows once again the ugly side of Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy laws, where radical Islamists often take the law in their own hands and lynch people accused of blasphemic acts.
An enraged mob led by radical Islamist Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) activists on May 25 attacked some Christian community members in Mujahid Colony in the Sargodha district of Punjab, some 200 km from Lahore, injuring two Christians and 10 policemen. The mob also ransacked the property belonging to the Christians.
A heavy contingent of police had to deployed in the area to bring the situation under control as the mob had surrounded some houses (of Christians) over the allegations of the desecration of the Quran. Another police officer told PTI that on Saturday morning some youth in Mujahid Colony alleged that an elderly Christian man Nazir Gill Masih, alias Lazar Masih, desecrated the Quran.
Factory set ablaze by angry mob
“Following their allegations, a mob led by the TLP activists marched towards the residence and a factory of Nazir. They set ablaze his shoe factory and his house.They also ransacked a few shops owned by Christians. Before police could reach the spot, the mob lynched and thrashed Nazir,” he said. Nazir was hospitalised in a critical condition and the other Christian man also suffered injuries.
Police said the mob also torched Nazir, but the man was saved by the timely arrival of a heavy contingent of police rescued Masih, which rescued other members of the Christian community. The FIR says that some pages of the holy Quran were reportedly found outside the shoe factory, instigating the locals.
Masih, who was receiving treatment at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Sargodha died on Sunday, police said. His nephew, Irfan Gill Masih, also confirmed the death. Gill said his uncle had returned from Dubai after four years, and was falsely accused of Quran desecration. He said the Christian families saved their lives by locking themselves inside their houses when the mob marched towards them….
The Blasphemy laws and their misuse reveals devout Islam's hatred for Christians, which reveals the source of their religion. Islamic hysteria is another indication of the spiritual power that drives them.
The Mujahid Colony must have resembled Germany in Kristallnacht. It's not surprising since Islam is the new NAZI.
The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law. It’s based on the Qur’an: “They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.” (Qur’an 4:89)
A hadith depicts Muhammad saying: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, both Sunni and Shi’ite. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most renowned and prominent Muslim cleric in the world, has stated: “The Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-‘ashriyyah, Al-Ja’fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.”
Qaradawi also once famously said: “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment, Islam wouldn’t exist today.”
Christian Convert in Somalia Wounded, Loses Family
NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – A Muslim in Somalia was seriously wounded for putting his faith in Christ this month and lost his wife and five children, sources said.
Mohammad Abdul, 40, survived a knife attack by his Muslim relatives on the outskirts of Kismayo, a port city in southern Somalia’s Lower Juba region, on May 5 after converting to Chritianity on March 20. The relatives took his wife and children while he was recovering at a medical clinic, said a source whose name is withheld for security reasons.
“While Abdul was nursing injuries, the Muslims went back to his house and started destroying his house, and the wife and the five children went back with their people,” said the source. “His wife has told him that the Muslims are looking for him, and that therefore he should not go back to them.”
Abdul suffered a deep cut on his head and a fractured hand in the attack. Fearing for his life, he has moved to another city in Somalia, the source said.
After coming to Christ when a Somali pastor residing outside of Somalia visited him with the gospel in March, Abdul began praying and studying the Bible with his family and the Christian leader every evening, the pastor said. When Abdul’s youngest child, 5, mentioned the meetings to a neighbor, his wife suggested the visiting pastor leave for his own safety.
After leaving on April 11, the pastor heard from Abdul that the Muslim relatives were sending him threatening text messages, he said.
“We are now aware that every evening you are praying in the name of Issa [Jesus] as well as reading a corrupted book and not reading the Quran, the holy book sent to Muhammad from Allah,” read one of the text messages, according to the pastor. “If you do not stop this bad way of conducting religious activities, then you risk your life.”
As his wife became more fearful of relatives and withdrew from Christian prayers, Abdul continued alone, he said.
“Two of my children continued sharing with other children the kind of prayers I was making,” Abdul told Morning Star News. “On May 2, my younger son arrived crying that he was beaten by some boys after telling them about my reading the Bible and praying.”
On the evening of May 5 at about 7:30 p.m., the Muslim relatives arrived at his house, he said.
“They were shouting and yelling that they were looking for my head,” Abdul told Morning Star News. “The attackers forcibly entered the house and started questioning me for forsaking Islam and joining a bad religion. My wife and children looked shaken.”
One of his relatives struck him with a sharp knife, he said….
When an army rescues scores of hostages it invariably comes with a number of the kidnappers taken as prisoners, if not killed in the process. No such word on this, not so much as a mention of who kidnapped them or how they were rescued.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the Nigerian government paid a hefty ransome for these people while pretending to have rescued them. This is how, in my humble opinion, the government supports the Islamic genocide of Christians in Nigeria.
March 25 (UPI) --The Nigerian army has rescued more than 130 staff and students who were kidnapped from their school in northern Kaduna State earlier this month, officials and authorities said.
Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, director of Defense media operations, told local media in a statement, that the 137 kidnapped victims were rescued by the military in an early Sunday search-and-rescue operation in Zamfara State.
The students were among the 287 who were kidnapped March 7 from the LEA Primary School and the Government Secondary School Kuriga in the town of Kuriga. The kidnappers had demanded a ransom of $690,000 for their release.
Buba identified those rescued as 76 females and 61 males.
He said they would be handed over to the Kaduna State government.
Sen. Uba Sani, the executive governor of Kaduna State, published video of the students whom he visited Sunday evening. He said they will formally be handed over to the state on Monday when they will be hosted to a dinner. They will continue to undergo psychosocial counseling and remain under medical supervision, he said.
"In the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Most Merciful, I wish to announce that our Kuriga school children have been released," he said in a statement.
Funny, it was in Allah's name that they were kidnapped. Allah must be working against himself.
President Bola Ahmed Tibubu of Nigeria also issued a statement welcoming the rescue of the students.
"I once again assure Nigerians that my administration is deploying detained strategies to ensure that our schools remain safe sanctuaries of learning, not lairs for wanton abductions," he said.
According to Human Rights Watch, mass kidnappings have become a problem across northern regions of the West African nation since Boko Haram abducted 276 school girls in 2014.
In late February, more than 200 internally displaced people, many women and children, were abducted in the Ngala Local Government Area of Borno State.
After more than 24 hours of letting the story run freely, Qatari mouthpiece Al Jazeera deleted the page featuring their former story, which accused Israeli soldiers of allegedly perpetrating rape against women during the IDF’s latest excursion against Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who barricaded themselves inside the former hospital-cum-terror headquarters at Shifa Hospital.
Though the Qatari mouthpiece hasn’t officially referred to the retraction, all content related to the allegation has reportedly been deleted.
Al Jazeera columnist and former director Yasser Abuhilalah also tweeted, admitting that “It was revealed through Hamas investigations that the story of the rape of women in Al-Shifa Hospital was fabricated… The woman who spoke about rape justified her exaggeration and incorrect talk by saying that the goal was to arouse the nation’s fervor and brotherhood,” adding critically that “As if more than thirty thousand martyrs, ninety thousand wounded, about a million displaced people, and comprehensive destruction were not enough!”
Is there any reason we should believe those numbers any more than the accusations of rape? Hamas, like the far-left in the West, believe the ends justify the means. In other words, truth is optional.
Jihad Khelles, a pro-Hamas preacher from Gaza, also tweeted that it became evident that there was no proven evidence for the events and that the alleged “witness” told a story that she had heard and not witnessed, also adding that “this creates panic and fear” and “makes [Palestinians] feel despair and frustration at a time when we are most in need for stability and reassurance.”
The original story published by Al Jazeera featured a “testimony” by Jamila Al-Hessi, a Gazan woman who claimed that while she was under siege in the area of the hospital complex, she witnessed IDF soldiers “raping women then killing them and burning entire families alive.”
The fake testimony went viral, with many expressing their rage at Israel and at what they deemed Arab failure to protect the honor of Palestinian women, even asking where Hamas and the resistance had gone. However, Israeli news blogger Abu Ali Express also reported that the viral fake testimony also had unexpected reverse ripple effects, leading many Gazans to flee their homes in the northern Gaza strip southwards, which may explain the unusual event of a Hamas investigation into the details.
Al Jazeera was founded with the financial help of the Qatari royal family and has served for decades as a mouthpiece for the regime, which provides lavish asylum for the leaders of Hamas, a group designated as a terror organization by the US, Canada, the EU, Israel, and other nations.
France raises terror alert level after Moscow attack claimed by IS group
France’s government increased its security alert warning to the highest level Sunday after the deadly attack at a Russian concert hall and the Islamic State (IS) group’s claim of responsibility.
