Persecution of Christians

“We can only estimate correctly the Reformation, when we rightly understand the state of things in the Church which called for it. If it was not necessary, it ought not to have taken place.

Hans Laub fell back, but he kept his balance. The Norwegian continued his advance, his fist loaded and aimed at its retreating target. “Stop, swine!” Hans Laub bellowed. “Don’t come near me!

“The idea of personal liberty – freedom of conscience – has no place in Moslem law, whether religious or civil. . . The law of apostasy is known to all Moslems from their youth up, if not in its detail of legal penalties, yet in its power of producing an attitude bitterly hostile toward converts to Christianity.

“Kamil’s history is a rebuke to our unbelief in God’s willingness and power to lead Muslims into a hearty acceptance of Christ and his atoning sacrifice. We are apt to be discouraged by the closely riveted and intense intellectual aversion of these millions of Moslems to the doctrines of the Trinity and of the divinity of Jesus Christ.

“The last act in the fearful drama of the extermination of Christianity in the Byzantine Empire was the burning of Smyrna by the troops of Mustapha Khemah. The murder of the Armenian race had been practically consummated during the years 1915-1916, and the prosperous and populous Greek colonies, with the exception of Smyrna itself, had been ferociously destroyed.

“You mean to say,” he said in good Arabic to the leader of the gang who surrounded him and the grey-bearded man by his side, “that my life will he spared if I renounce Christianity and accept your faith?

William Tisdall was an expert in Islam and the Koran, and fluent in Arabic, Persian, and other languages. One of his most valuable books is Islamic Objections to Christianity, which will be re-released later this year by The Lutheran Library.