Sex and the Single Gal and Society

The U.S. Center for Disease Control released a report showing that sexual intercourse is decreasing among young people. What would account for this decease? Perhaps the sex-hype has run its course? On one level, this is surprising in view of the social push to sexualize even the grade-schoolers. However, there are some substantial reasons to possibly account for this turn-around.

In Premarital Sex in America: How Young People Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying, sociologists Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker write that there is a,

• Significant correlation between…monogamy and happiness—between promiscuity and depression…A young woman’s likelihood of depression rose steadily as her number of partners climbed. (Terrell Clemmons, “Saved Sex,” Salvo Magazine, #18, 42)

Writing from an entirely different perspective, thrice-married Tracy Miller comes down in the same place:

• “[C]asual sex is like recreational heroin—it doesn’t stay recreational for long…That’s due in part to this thing called oxytocin—a bonding hormone that is released when a woman a) nurses her baby and b) has an organism—that will totally mess up her causal-sex game.” It’s why you can be hooking up “with some dude who isn’t even all that great and the next thing you know, you’re totally strung out on him. And you have no idea how it happened. Oxytocin, that’s how it happened.” (42-43)

I don’t know if you can blame it all on a chemical, but the down-side of casual sex is clearly a reality. It’s similar to the downside we experience when we eat that extra bowl of chocolate ice cream. We have a vague idea of the price, but not until we finish licking out the bowl.

It is amazing that there is such a strong correspondence between what we consider moral behavior and the emotional payoffs we derive in the long run as we follow our moral impulses. Perhaps it is not amazing that there is a “Significant correlation between…monogamy and happiness—between promiscuity and depression.” The major religions have all signed on to this fact for centuries. Historians and sociologists have noted the role of monogamy in its support of civilization. In this regards, John Davis writes of the work of British Anthropologist, J.D. Unwin:

• After a comprehensive study of both Western and non-Western cultures throughout human history, Unwin concluded that the record of mankind “does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it had been absolutely [heterosexually] monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.” Unwin observed that a society’s adoption and maintenance of heterosexual monogamy as a social standard “has preceded all manifestations of social energy, whether that energy be reflected in conquest, in art and sciences, in extension of the social vision, or in the substitution of monotheism for polytheism.” (Evangelical Ethics, p. 116)

The extra bowl of ice cream might be tempting, but we have to remind ourselves that there is a price to pay. Jesus warned us to nip sexual sin in the bud of our thought life:

• "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-28)

Our Lord gives us these commands out of love, because He knows what’s best for us. Long ago, He had revealed to us the overriding destructiveness of sexual sin:

• Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Cor. 6:18-20)

Sexual purity is not just a matter of does-and-don’ts; it’s also a matter of maintaining the sanctity of relationship. When we violate it, it has a way of violating us.

NewsBusters Expose of Tax-Payer News Biases

I don’t care very much about the media’s favoritism for liberals over conservatives or Democrats over Republicans. However, I care very deeply about the media’s ubiquitous assault on Christians and the church for a number of reasons:

1. This constitutes nothing less than hate-speech, something that the media hypocritically denounces.

2. This assault has begun to marginalize the church. Armed with media dirt, many now claim that Christians shouldn’t have any more public say than the Klu Klux Klan.

3. Even Christians have bought into media distortions, like the NYT calling Anders Breivik a “Christian extremist.” Such reporting has caused many younger Christians to distance themselves from an institution that has been repeatedly portrayed as “corrupt.”

For these reasons, I was happy to read about NewBusters initiative against PBS and NPR:

• "It’s an outrage that federal money has been an enabler for NPR and PBS since 1967 in their efforts to undermine conservatives and Christians," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained in a statement released this morning that accompanies the release of a new Media Research Center (MRC) study detailing a comprehensive compilation of the 20 most memorable leftist excesses of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System.

• "In this current era of huge deficits, surely this is the most non-essential spending. The pattern of bias from PBS hosts and contributors is more than severe. Now is the time for Congress to finally put an end to it," the MRC founder argued.

• Some of the 20 instances in the MRC’s report on NPR & PBS include:

o PBS host Tavis Smiley insists America has a terrible Christian terrorist problem. In 2010, he told an author that Christians blow up people “every day” in the United States.
o NPR reporter Nina Totenberg wishes Jesse Helms death from AIDS. When Helms insisted in 1995 that AIDS drew a disproportionate amount of federal funding, Totenberg was disproportionately mean-spirited.
o PBS regular Julianne Malveaux hopes Clarence Thomas dies young of heart disease. On the talk show To the Contrary in 1994, panelist Malveaux proclaimed, “I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease.”
o Longtime PBS host Bill Moyers proclaims GOP officials wearing flag pins after 9/11 remind him of communist China. On his weekly show Now in 2003, Moyers ranted, “When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's Little Red Book.”

Read more: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb-staff/2011/10/06/bozell-congress-must-stop-using-taxpayer-money-fund-left-wing-propaganda-p#ixzz1a1Bd1uZi

The Philosophy that Motivated Anders Breivik

A couple of months ago, the Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik’s name splashed upon the news in red. He exploded a building in Oslo and gunned down children. In all, 90 died. The New York Times (NYT), among others, quickly labeled him a “Christian extremist.” Indeed, the Times did have some “justification” in labeling Breivik this way. Shortly before his violent exploits, Breivik had posted a 1,500 page manifesto in which he mentioned the “Lord Jesus Christ.” However, these words can be misleading. World Magazine wrote,

• Breivik clarifies that he is only a Christian in the “cultural” sense. He is not a “Religious Christian,” he says, because he possesses no “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” The object of his devotion is not Christ or Christianity, but Christendom, the powerful monoculture that united Western Europe. “Christendom is essential, he writes, because it’s “the only cultural platform that can unite all Europeans” against their enemies. Breivik affirms the superior authority of science and logic, voices no belief in the deity of Christ, and openly doubts the existence of God. (Tim Dalrymple, Aug. 27, 2011, 68)

More recently, however, John G. West delved further into Breivik’s 1500 page document to discover that according to Breivik,

• “Christianity” [should] include those who worship the Norse pagan god Odin. Breivik calls for the Christian Church to be “recreate[d]…as a nationalistic Church which will tolerate and allow (to a very large degree) native cultures/heritage/thought systems such as Odinism.” (“Salvo Magazine,” Autumn 2011, 28-29)

Although the NYT prefers to label Breivik as a “Christian extremist,” there are no adequate grounds for this. Instead, he advocated for a secular state where,

• “The Church and church leaders will not be allowed to influence non-cultural political matters in any way. This includes science, research and development and all non-cultural areas which will benefit Europe in the future…As for the Church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings.”

For Breivik, science includes Darwinism:

• Breivik lists Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” as one of the “important” books he has read, and Social Darwinism [the application of survival-of-the-fittest to human society – Eugenics] is never far from the surface in his discussions of social policy. At one point he laments that “Social-Darwinism was the norm before [sic] 1950. Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel. Now, however, we have to disguise our preferences to avoid the horrible consequences of being labeled as a genetical preferentialist.”

Hitler had given Social Darwinism a bad name by his attempt to create the “master race” through genocide. West continues on Breivik:

• He argues that “radical policies will have to be implemented” to reduce human population by 3.8 billion which is more than half. He writes that if “second and third world countries” cannot curb their production of human offspring, “Nature will correct their suicidal tendencies as they are unable to feed their populations.” He further argues that Western countries should not interfere in this natural process, even if it results in mass starvation. “If starvation threatens the countries who have failed to follow our guidelines we should not support them…”

Out of the abundance of the heart speaks the mouth. Out of this same heart arise the material consequences of our philosophy – 90 dead! Breivik’s hope clearly was not in Christ, but in this type of “science”:

• “The never-ending collective pursuit for scientific evolution and perfection should become the benchmark and essence of our existence.”

Indeed, it became the benchmark of his own existence. Breivik’s hope was in genetic engineering. It is therefore disingenuous for the NYT to label Breivik a “Christian extremist.”

The way we act is a product of the way we think. As the chisel sculpts the marble, so do our ideas sculpt us. Actions do not arise from a philosophical vacuum. The death of millions was a product of Hitler’s belief in eugenics – creating the master-race and eliminating undesirables. The murder to 90 Norwegians was a product of Breivik’s beliefs.

It is remarkable that the press labeled him a “Christian” instead of what he actually is – a Darwinist who horrifically acted out his beliefs in the social arena.

The Assault on Religious Liberty

We are not the only ones to notice that our 1st Amendment rights to freedom of religion are being yanked away from us. LifeSiteNews.com reported that:

• The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has unveiled a committee with the aim of safeguarding religious liberty. The formation of the committee comes two months after the Obama administration announced that private insurers will soon be forced to cover birth control - including abortifacient drugs like Ella - and sterilization without co-pay.

Timothy M. Dolan. Archbishop of New York and President, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops outlined six recent and specific threats to religious liberty:

1. The federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued regulations that would mandate the coverage of contraception (including abortifacients) and sterilization in all private health insurance plans. There is an exception for certain religious employers, but…the exception does nothing to protect insurers or individuals with religious or moral objections to the mandate.

2. HHS is also requiring that MRS provide the “full range of reproductive services” to trafficking victims and unaccompanied minors in its cooperative agreements and government contracts —and we all know what that means. This is exactly the position urged by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the ongoing lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of MRS’s contracts as, ironically, a violation of religious liberty.

3. Catholic Relief Services is also concerned that USAID, under the Department of State, is increasingly requiring comprehensive HIV prevention activities (for example, condom distribution), as well as full integration of reproductive health activities including provision of artificial contraception, within a range of international relief and development programs. Under the direction of the board, CRS is following up on these concerns.

4. The federal Department of Justice has ratcheted up its attack on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as an act of bigotry. As you know, in March, the Department stopped defending DOMA against constitutional challenges, and the Conference spoke out against that decision. But in July, the Department started filing briefs actively attacking DOMA’s constitutionality, claiming that supporters of the law could only have been motivated by bias and prejudice. If the label of “bigot” sticks to us—especially in court—because of our teaching on marriage, we’ll have church-state conflicts for years to come as a result.

5. The Justice Department has also disappointed us in the critically important “ministerial exception” case now pending before the Supreme Court. The Department could have taken the position that the ―ministerial exception, though generally providing a strong protection of the right of religious groups to choose their ministers without government interference, just didn’t apply in the case before the court. Instead, the Department attacked the very existence of the exception as well.

6. The New York legislature passed, and the Governor signed, a law redefining marriage, with only a very narrow religious exemption. Already, county clerks face legal action for refusing to participate in same-sex unions, and gay rights advocates are publicly emphasizing how little religious freedom protection people and groups will enjoy under the new law.

There are many other infractions that this document does not cover. I am surprised that it didn’t mention the new Federal Hate Crimes Bill that criminalizes any speech that could be construed to possibly lead to a hate crime. Also, many have already lost jobs and have seen their businesses threatened because they have wanted to live faithfully before their Savior. In the face of this, we cannot simply maintain a do-nothing cavalier attitude, claiming that our God is sovereign. Although He truly is sovereign, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t endeavor to speak out for those facing discrimination:

• Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. (Amos 5:14-15)

• Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:16-17)

Do we have any less a responsibility because the oppressed are our Christian brethren? In addition to loosing jobs and facing intimidation, others have capitulated and comprised their faith. To excuse our lack of involvement, we mustn’t dismissively claim, “The blood of the martyrs provides the seed for church growth.” Although this might be true, this does not relieve us of our responsibility to stand alongside of the victims:

• "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”... Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” (Isaiah 58:6, 9-10)

There is no reason to believe that the incursions against religious liberty will stop here. If the UK gives us any indication of where we are going, we will soon not be able to display in public – even in our own businesses – anything (a Bible or a verse) that someone might consider “offensive.” Just recently, an owner of a Christian café in the UK was threatened with arrest if he refused to remove his Bible presentation on his flat-screen. Even now, there are political initiatives to require that churches conform to Federal hiring standards. Such initiatives will threaten our right to reject for hire, even for the pastorate, those whose lifestyles are opposed to our faith.

At some point, we will have to stand up for our rights. If some had their way, it would become illegal to print or own a Bible. There has already been one lawsuit against a Bible publisher in this country because of the Bible’s alleged “homophobic” verses. Should we capitulate and become Bible-less? Of course not! However, whatever action we might take must be preceded by prayer that the God would lead us. Ultimately, it is His battle.

One More Christian Café Neutralized: A Satire

(Photo: David Singer)

My Dear Wormbottom,

I’m sorry to again write you so soon, but I’m sure that you will be delighted over this latest development:

• Police in Blackpool, England threatened a Christian café owner with arrest last weekend - for displaying the "Watchword Bible" on a TV screen in the back of his restaurant. Jamie Murray was warned by two police officers to stop playing DVDs of the New Testament in his café following a complaint from a customer that it was inciting hatred against homosexuals. Murray, owner of the Salt & Light Coffee House on Layton Road, was told that displaying "offensive" or "insulting" words was a violation of Section 5 of the Public Order Act. The officers warned Murray that if he didn't stop, he could be prosecuted.

If this stands against Murray’s challenge in court, do you have any idea what this will mean? It means that our bigoted enemy will fear to give any public indications of their religion, lest our people charge that it is “offensive.” This means no more of their ugly tracts, no more Christmas hymns or nativity scenes, and no more public Christmas programs. We’re corking up their churches so tightly, that before long, we won’t even be able to hear a church bell.

Of course, I find everything about their religion offensive – and someday we hope to make this case – but for now we restrict ourselves to only making those charges that constitute a direct offence, like pointing to certain “homophobic” verses. However, I look forward to the day when we can charge that their “Holy Bible” is bigoted and offensive in its entirety. For now such an attack would considered a violation of the 1st Amendment. But recall that at one time, God-discourse found its way into the schools at all levels. Not anymore! With the help of our dear secularist cohorts, we’ve even been able to convince many Christians that talking about God is a violation of the separation between the church and state. And when they mention their detestable faith in public, they now do it with a sense of shame that they have violated the sensitivities of others. Consequently, they look no more alive than cadavers as they present their arrogant “good news.” In fact, in many churches, it is now frowned upon to talk about their faith to outsiders. They have concluded that it’s utterly unsophisticated and makes them look like fundamentalists. Instead, they now give out cups of water, which read at the bottom of the cup, “Jesus loves you!” How pathetic and ridiculous! We’ve got them running for cover!

Everyone knows that we’ve been able to remove prayer from school. However, many still don’t realize that we’ve been able to shut down God-talk. We pulled-the-plug on one valedictorian as she was in the middle of thanking Jesus for her academic accomplishments. You should have seen her face! However, I agree with you that the heavy-handed approach might not be the best tactic. The student body had perceived that this was little more than censorship, and they applauded her – the very last thing that we want.

Don’t you find it laughable that the bigots haven’t succeeded in making the case that they are equally offended by us and our friends at the media? Not that they really are our friends, but at least they do our bidding as long as they fear us. The same goes for the politicians. As long as they fear that we can upset their chances for re-election, we’ve got them where it counts. I therefore think it’s imperative that we never slack in the judicial use of intimidation. This doesn’t mean that we have to intimidate everyone who disagrees with us, but our “friends” need to know that the threat is always present.

Don’t you just love to see how “might makes right!” After all, what else is there?

Your Devoted, Shelkron

The Media’s Lack of Integrity and Our Responsibility

If you think that you can send your children to school for thirty hours a week and it will not impact their values, you are kidding yourself. If you think that the few hours a week that you process this experience with your children will overcome the impact of what they learn for those 30 hours, you are kidding yourself. If you are a teacher and think that you can teach curriculum that says trans-genderism and trans-sexuality is perfectly OK simply because you were instructed to teach this curriculum, you are in denial. If you are a media professional, and your organization will not allow balanced reporting, you cannot deny that you are part of the problem, unless you speak up. Sadly, many refuse to speak up:

• The Canadian National Post [CNP], which until the advent of SUN news network was thought to be the most conservative national mainstream media outlet in the country, has shocked conservatives by apologizing for running a pro-family advertisement. Moreover, the National Post says it will be donating the thousands of dollars paid for the ad by the pro-family group to a homosexual activist group. The ad, sponsored by the Institute for Christian Values, depicted a large picture of a little girl with the header, “Please! Don’t confuse me.” Below the photo, the [female] youngster said, “I’m a girl. Don’t teach me to question if I’m a boy, transsexual, transgendered, intersexed or two spirited.” The ad specifically addressed the Toronto District School Board’s policy of forbidding parents to opt out of its pro-homosexual curriculum.

It is no wonder that many have ceased to trust the news media, while still others remain gullible. The media are supposed to defend free speech, the very foundation for their work and even rationale. Certainly, the CNP must appreciate this simple truth, but instead, they have apologized for running the ad:

• The National Post believes strongly in the principles of free speech and open, unhindered debate. We believe unpopular points of view should not be censored simply because some readers may find them disturbing, or even offensive. Free speech does not apply only to views that will not offend anyone.

So far, so good! But the apology continues:

• The ad in question was attempting to make the case that the Ontario curriculum was teaching very young children about issues that, at that age, should be the domain of parents. In addition, it made the case that even when parents or teachers may object to the material being taught, they did not have the right, in the case of parents, to remove their children from the class, or in the case of teachers, to decline to teach the material on the grounds that they objected to it. In an open society, these positions are worthy of being part of a debate on this issue. They are also legitimate arguments to make in a paid advertisement in a media outlet. Where the ad exceeded the bounds of civil discourse was in its tone and manipulative use of a picture of a young girl; in the suggestion that such teaching “corrupts” children, with everything that such a charge implies; and in its singling out of groups of people with whose sexuality the group disagrees.

• The fact that we will not be publishing this ad again represents a recognition on our part that publishing it in the first place was a mistake. The National Post would like to apologize unreservedly to anyone who was offended by it. We will be taking steps to ensure that in future our procedures for vetting the content of advertising will be strictly adhered to. The Post will also be donating the proceeds from the advertisement to an organization that promotes the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people

What was the matter with the tone? The picture? All advertising is “manipulative!” All of it is an attempt to influence the reader. Just about all of it uses pictures!

Furthermore, the ad didn’t single out “groups of people with whose sexuality the group disagrees.” It singled out a set of teachings that might adversely affect the children. And even if it did single our LGBTs, what’s the matter with that? Don’t Republicans “single out” Democrats, and Democrats Republicans? Doesn’t one candidate “single out” another? Doesn’t the law “single out” specific crimes in its Penal Code? I think that it comes down to this – whenever anyone expresses disagreement with the LGBT position, it’s automatically labeled “offensive” and dismissed.

While the newspaper claims to support free speech, it then hypocritically denies free speech. While the CNP shows such exquisite sensitivity for those promoting alternative sexualities among others’ children, it shows absolutely no sensitivity for the very parents of these children. While the CNP wishes to “apologize unreservedly to anyone who was offended by [the ad],” they are oblivious to the offense done to the parents and their overriding concern for their children.

Nor does the CNP show any concern for the welfare of the children or even the question of the possible impact of such teachings on the children. At the prospect of possibly offending “groups of people with whose sexuality the group disagrees,” the CNP is perfectly willing to allow masses children to become the subjects of sexual experimentation for which there is absolutely no historical or scientific justification. This act of censorship also announces that CNP will only be presenting one-sided reporting on this subject. We call this “propaganda” or “indoctrination.”

This constitutes another example of how little truth and integrity influence media decisions and priorities. It reminds us how all the bookstores had removed Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses because of threats coming from the Islamic community. Fortunately, one store had the courage to carry this book, and this put all the others to shame. Consequently, they put the “offensive” Satanic Verses back on their shelves.

Just recently, Muslim cabbies in NYC vigorously objected to their cabs bearing lewd advertisements, and they won! If a few Christians would do the same, perhaps we too would be the salt and the light. Instead, many of us passively send our children to schools where their minds are sexualized, while the rest of us have been intimidated into silence.

Those who know to do the good and do it not have sinned (James 4:17). What if we determined that we would be the salt and the light? What would happen if many teachers and school principles refused to compromise their faith by presenting this propaganda? What would happen if parents refused to subject their children to this sexual indoctrination? What if pastors stopped worrying about who they might offend and began to preach against compromise and sin? Do not we have a responsibility to “expose” the works of darkness (Ephesians 5:8)? When we fail to preach against them, we are saying in effect, “They don’t concern us!” Silence speaks loudly!

In his letter from the Birmingham jail on April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King argued that

• One has a responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that, “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Following sinful laws or rulings implicates us in sin! King cited how the two Hebrew midwives violated the Egyptian command to kill Hebrew children and how the three Jewish magistrates refused to obey the king’s edict to bow down before his statue. In order to honor their God, they refused to obey the edict. Peter and “the other apostles responded to the powerful Sanhedrin, "We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29)! Mustn’t we do the same!

I believe in intelligent discourse. However, we have no forum for our concerns, and the media persistently refuses to give voice to our objections. Instead, whenever we try to express our concerns we are shouted down with accusations of “homophobe” or “hate-monger” or “bigot.”

How must we honor God? Peter and John informed the Sanhedrin: "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God” (Acts 4:19). We too need to judge, repent, pray, and trust that our God will make our way fruitful.

In The Jew Today, Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, describes a young boy trying to reassure his father as they entered Auschwitz: “The world, father, the civilized world would not allow such things to happen.”

Wiesel comments:

• And yet the civilized world did know, and remained silent. Where was man in all this? And culture, how did it reach this nadir? All those spiritual leaders, those thinkers, those philosophers enamored of truth, those moralists drunk with justice – how was one to reconcile their teachings with Josef Mengele, the great master of selections in Auschwitz? I told myself that a grave, a horrible error had been committed somewhere – only, I knew neither its nature nor its author. When and where had history taken so bad a turn?

We may someday be asking the same question.

Apostasy from Islam

Fortunately, it has now been widely reported that the Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani is facing the death penalty, having once again refused to convert to Islam to save his life:

• Nadarkhani was arrested in 2009 for the crime of apostasy because he allegedly abandoned Islam for Christianity. As a pastor, Iranian clerics believe that Nadarkhani was preaching in order to convert Muslims.


While it is encouraging that many are petitioning for his release and dismissal of all charges against him, it is important to remember that this type of egregious human rights violations is endemic to Islam. Although most Islamic countries will not impose the death penalty if a Muslim converts, I don’t know of any that will allow this to slide. The Koran reads:

• But whosoever accepts disbelief willingly, he incurs God's Wrath, and there is severe torment for all such people"(Quran-usc 16:106).

Although the Koran does not designate a particular penalty for apostasy, several sayings of Mohammad (the Hadiths) specify death:

• Narrated 'Abdullah: Allah's Apostle said, "The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims." (Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari, 9:83:17)

According to the Wikipedia, even when Islamic governments do not impose penalties for apostasy, the Imams will:

• The violence or threats of violence against apostates in the Muslim world usually derives not from government authorities but from individuals or groups operating with impunity from the government. An example is the stabbing of a Bangladeshi Murtad Fitri Christian evangelist while returning home from a film version of the Gospel of Luke. Bangladesh does not have a law against apostasy, but some Imams encourage the killing of converts from Islam. Ex-Muslims in Great Britain have faced abuse, violence, and even murder at the hands of Muslims. There are similar reports of violent intimidation of those electing to reject Islam in other Western countries.

The Wikipedia also cites a Pew survey revealing that many Muslims believe that the convert should be put to death:

• A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found relatively widespread popular support for death penalty as a punishment for apostasy in Egypt (84% of respondents in favor of death penalty), Jordan (86% in favor), Indonesia (30% in favor), Pakistan (76% favor) and Nigeria (51% in favor)
.
Double standards abound! While the evangelism of Muslims is strictly forbidden and punished throughout the Islamic world, the Muslim is free to evangelize anyone. Muslims can even marry non-Muslim women – they then have to convert to Islam – men of other religions are forbidden from marrying Muslim women. While no one is free to criticize Islam, Muslims are free to criticize other religions. While no one can deface a Koran, Bibles are routinely destroyed.

If Muslims are going to settle in the West, these double standards have to be addressed, and not indulged out of fear of a violent response.

However, we Christians have to keep these concerns in context of the higher, more glorious spiritual truths:

1. We too deserve only the wrath of God, but were saved by the sheer grace of God. Therefore, we, as individuals, need to treat the Muslim with the same mercy.

2. Knowing that our foremost battle is against spiritual entities, we cannot be bitter against Muslims but must love them.