Steve Centanni and Olaf Wig are free!

Good news indeed.

 

I'm glad to hear it.

 

"Militants freed two Fox News journalists on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, ending a nearly two week hostage drama in which one of the former captives said they were forced at gunpoint to make statements, including that they had converted to Islam....

"We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint," Centanni later told Fox. "Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the **** was going on."

- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060827/ap_on_re_mi_ea/gaza_journalists

It will interesting to see if these forced conversions will be condemned by the Muslim world and if the Palestinian authoritities will go after the kidnappers.

Let's see how responsible Muslims in government and religious positions are about this.

 

Here is a problem: If the two journalists were Christians (I'm not sure what they were) and they converted to Islam, even by forced conversion, wouldn't that mean they renounced their faith? I thought you're not supposed to do that.

 

This is an exciting event!

 

You're not supposed to, but Peter did it three times.

 

Easy for you to say, sitting comfortably in Indiana.

Conversion is a change of mind. You can say anything at gunpoint to survive a bad situation, but your mind is something no one can force you to change.

 

I am praising the Lord because He answered prayer for their safety and that they would be released unharmed. I believe it was only by God's Hand that these two were set free. I praise God that He Reigns! Hallelujah!

 

You're right, Joseph. Jesus said those who deny Him on earth will be denied before His Father in Heaven.

The radical Islamist MO is to force Christians to convert to Islam under threat of death. Some Christians have had their children slaughtered in front of them, stuffing them into tires and dousing them with gasoline and burned alive, or hacked into pieces because they would not denouce Jesus Christ. What is it worth if we gain one more day of life on this earth or gain the whole world but lose our own soul, as the Bible says.

 

==I thought of that this morning shortly after hearing the account. I was all happy and then it hit me...wait a minute. I recalled the words of Pliny the Younger in a letter he wrote to Trajan. He is asking for advice on how to deal with Christians...

"All who denied that they were or had been Christians I considered should be discharged, because they called upon the gods at my dictation and did reverence, with incense and wine, to your image which I had ordered to be brought forward for this purpose, together with the statues of the deities; and especially because they cursed Christ, a thing which, it is said, genuine Christians cannot be induced to do."

It is interesting that the heathen Pliny understood, via what he had been told, that true Christians "cannot" curse Jesus Christ. True Christians would not worship the roman deities even if it meant their lives. And yes Pliny had Christians killed according to his own testimony in that same letter. Whether that has any connection to the current case I don't know. The report just brought that letter to my mind.

The Lord Jesus Himself warned about those who deny Him. Now could a Christian, a true believer, do what these reporters did in an effort to save themselves? Probably so. After all Peter denied Jesus three times and yet he was forgiven. The true believer would repent if he/she denied Christ for any reason.

I do think, however, that before we are critical of them we have to understand their situation. No that would not excuse them, if they were Christians, but it shows that they are humans capable of sin. None of us should look down our noses at them. What would we do in the situation they were in? Would we be brave and refuse? Or would we, in a moment of fear, give in and go along with the terrorists? Don't answer that question quickly since you don't know what you would do. If these men are Christians they will repent and be forgiven but if they are not true believers than there really is no issue here (since they need to be saved).

 

I hope that if I were in the same situation as the Fox reporters I would have the courage to stand up for Jesus and profess (though falsely) Islam.

 

How can you stand up for Jesus and profess Islam (even faslely) at the same time?

 

Joseph, I pray you are never in that situation, but until you are, you really don't know what you would do. I bet you won't be worried about "Liberal thinking", that's for sure.

None of us have any right to criticize Mr. Centanni or Mr. Wig. I imagine they wanted their heads to stay firmly attached to their bodies.

 

I am not criticizing Mr. Centani or Mr. Wigg since I do not know whether they are saved or lost.

For myself, I would like to believe I would not deny Jesus Christ and would trust Him to give me the courage, as He has so many of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, to not deny him. After all, Christians face death from various sources every day.

But concerning persecution, we have it so easy here in the West. But we have brothers and sisters in other countries who are beheaded, tortured, and murdered for Jesus Christ every day. And a lot of them are killed because they will not embrace islam.

 

You go girl... :applause: :applause: :thumbs:

 

True believers cannot deny Christ. The Holy Spirits keeps us and strengthens us.
When Peter denied Christ he had not yet recieved the Holy Spirit.



2Ti 2:11 The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
2Ti 2:12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;


Mat 10:19 When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour.
Mat 10:20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Mat 10:21 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death,
Mat 10:22 and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.



Luk 12:8 "And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God,
Luk 12:9 but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.
Luk 12:10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
Luk 12:11 And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say,
Luk 12:12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say."


Luk 21:12 But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake.
Luk 21:13 This will be your opportunity to bear witness.
Luk 21:14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer,
Luk 21:15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.
Luk 21:16 You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death.
Luk 21:17 You will be hated by all for my name's sake.
Luk 21:18 But not a hair of your head will perish.
Luk 21:19 By your endurance you will gain your lives.


Rev 2:13 "'I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.


Rev 20:4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.


Joh 14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
Joh 14:17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
Joh 14:18 "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
Joh 14:19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.
Joh 14:20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.