Isaiah 9:6 ,7 "for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and for ever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this."

I have noticed here in my own country that we are hearing "Merry Christmas" more than just happy holidays. What a joyous time this is for us all as we realize what it says in Galatians 4:4 "but when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under law."

The pastor in of the local church in California that we attend (when we are here) has been speaking about what the situation was like when Christ came into this world. What a barbaric place and time it was when the Son of Man came!

I have been reading through Romans and have been rejoicing in this righteousness that has now come to us through faith in Christ. Like Paul, we too must be ready to preach the gospel, the good news, where-ever the Lord might be leading.

This past year has been a very busy one for my wife and I. It does seem that things are speeding up especially now that we are coming closer to the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This past year I've had meetings in Brazil, my wife and I have been twice in Europe, as well as I was twice in India. Also a special trip had to be taken to the Philippines where interesting things are developing.

I personally want to thank all of you for your prayers for Anneli and me as well as your financial giving to make it all possible. As we come to the end of 2007 I could not help but think of how seven is a number of completion and starting 2008 we are starting out in a whole new adventure.

Just in the first quarter of this new year Anneli and I will be in India, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. I will be making a trip the end of March and the beginning of April to Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Later on in the year Anneli and I will be back in Europe and there's a possibility of a trip to Nepal. So you can see that things are moving quite fast.

This will be my last weekly letter for this year and will not put out another one until the last week of January 2008. I have enjoyed writing these letters and have received much encouragement from many of you regarding them. However, they do take time and with all the traveling for ministry and all the other things that are entailed with researching and writing these weeklies does take their toll.

It would be good to hear from you regarding these weekly letters. I put my weekly letter onto my blog (www.xanga.com/frndietz) where you can write a comment. I am always interested in knowing what you are thinking, etc.

Some of you have inquired about supporting us financially and at the end of this letter you can send in donations in my name in one of our OM offices listed below.

Anneli and I want to take this opportunity to wish all of you

                                A very, very Merry Christmas.
                                    Jesus is coming soon!

Every blessing,

Frank and Anneli Dietz

WEEKLY LETTER #50
THE REAL THREAT

WEEKLY LETTER #48
MORAL EQUIVALENCY:RIGHT OR WRONG?

We all have heard about the English schoolteacher who was incarcerated in the Sudan because she allowed the students to name a teddy bear Mohammad. Who’ll forget the scenes of violent mobs in Khartoum wielding their machetes and shouting “kill her, kill her.”

When it comes to Islam and Christianity, those here in the West who bring out the argument of moral equivalency, I wonder what they say about this incident? How many demonstrations have we seen in the West because of the defamation of Christ or the name of Jesus? Often the only time the name of Christ is used is when it is a ‘swear word’.

Often we hear supporters of moral equivalency saying that "yes the Muslims want to impose sharia law upon their own societies, but, they say, are the Christians any different?" Some would even go as far to say that when the Taliban advocate stoning and beheadings the Christians would do the same if they had the opportunity. The moral equivalency supporters would say that the Jihadist, or the Taliban, and the fundamentalist Christians are two sides of the same coin. How ingenious!

Chris Hedges declared “the Christian right and radical Islamist, although locked in a holy war, increasingly mirror each other. They share the same obsessions. They do not tolerate other forms of belief or disbelief. They are at war with artistic and cultural expression. They seek to silence the media. They call for the subjugation of women. They promote severe sexual repression, and they seek to express themselves through violence.”

As Robert Spencer brings out in his book 'Religion of Peace': As television personality Rosie O’Donnell put it in September 2006: “radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.” To this the British columnist David Thompson – no fundamentalist Christian – replied acidly: “but while red-faced evangelist may say, for instance, that gay people are wicked, damned to Hell fire, etc., I do not know of any internationally renowned Christian leaders who are calling for the imprisonment and killing of gay people. Unlike the supposedly moderate grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who insist that gay men and lesbians should be killed in the worst manner possible. Not condemned, corrected, prayed for, or pitied, or any of the usual nonsense spouted by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson etc.; but murdered – as brutally as possible.”

The idea that Christianity has as much to apologize for as the Muslim extremists is not true. No matter how hard the supporters of moral equivalency try to bring up the idea that there is no difference, we find that the facts speak and tell a different story. We, as God’s people, need to be able to defend what Christianity is all about and so defeat the arguments of moral equivalency.

In true Christianity we do not show hate, but love. We are to love our Muslim friends. My wife is constantly making contact with the Muslim women in our area and seeing how she can help them cope with the difficulties and problems of living here in the West and not really understanding the language or our laws. We need to reach out to them in love where-ever they are.

We read in Acts 17:2 “as his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead.”

So, we (the church) must be able to explain and reason with our Muslim friends who Christ really is. With the supporters of the moral equivalency here in the West we need to be able to explain and prove that Christianity and Islam are not at all the same.

WEEKLY LETTER #47

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?

Ex 33:16 “ How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" 

Some years ago the wife of the leader of Operation Mobilization in Spain was walking down the streets of Barcelona. A young Moroccan boy accidentally bumped into her. Instead of apologizing he turned around, looked at her and said: "we are going to take over your country." Where did he hear this and what does it mean?

We see in Europe as well as here in the States how Muslims are demanding their rights and using our laws and our system to obtain what they want. We find that in our "political correctness" people are claiming that there is no difference between Islam and Christianity. Is this true?

We point to the Jihadists and terrorism that is taking place and we say: "Yes, there is a difference". However, we find that they come back and say: "Look at your own Bible and especially the book of Joshua where Joshua was commanded to go into the land of Canaan and to wipe out every man woman and child and even in some places the livestock. Not to leave anything breathing. So what is the difference between Christianity and Islam”?

These are some of the questions that are coming up here in the West that we need to be able to have an answer for. Robert Spencer in his book RELIGION OF PEACE said: “It is a common assumption among many left – liberals in the West that Christian and Muslim extremist, radicals, or fundamentalists are two sides of the same coin.” Rosie O’Donnell put it in September 2006: “radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.”

Pope Benedict XV1 said that "God must act within reason and to spread religion or belief through acts of violence goes against the nature of God or is something unreasonable." This was a speech that he gave in Germany in a place called Regenberg that caused such a ruckus throughout the Islamic world.

Muslim teaching is that God is transcendent. This means that he is not restricted by any of our categories, laws etc. in other words God transcends all these things. We Christians say that there are natural laws and God acts within these laws. In other words God acts rationally not irrationally. This was the brunt of Pope Benedict's speech that set off riots throughout the Islamic world.

Many people in the West, even including government leaders, believe that Islam has been hijacked by extreme Islamic Jihadists and that basically Islam is a peaceful religion. They go on to say that the reason we have the Jihadists today is because of the underprivileged and the poverty and if we can overcome these we will then defeat the Jihadists mentality. What we forget is that this has nothing to do with poverty etc., but it is a war by the Jihadists against 'the infidels' - people who are not Muslims.

'Moral equivalence' is the argument that modern liberalism is making here in the West. Is this right? Is there no difference between Christianity and Islam? Is there no difference between Osama bin Laden and Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell (who is now gone on to be with the Lord)? These are things that we need to look at and arrive at an answer.

I was speaking in a Bible school in Finland and during a question-and-answer session one student asked: "what is America doing in Iraq. It is oil isn't it?" Again it is like what Robert Spencer says in his book RELIGION OF PEACE: " Many Westerners think far worse of their own civilization than they do of Islam. They believe that the war on terror is an American imperialistic power grab for Middle Eastern oil, or that it is motivated by evangelical Christians who want a crusade against the Islamic world.” My answer to that question was, why didn't we stay in Kuwait when we were there, because we would have had all the oil that we needed. No, the war on terror is more, it is a clash of civilizations, ideologies and we need to be prepared.

For those who say that there is no difference between Islam and Christianity, who take 'the moral equivalence' argument I would say this. Why is there - in the Muslim world - no anti-bin Laden - anti-Al Qaeda - or anti-Jihad movement of any significance? Instead we find rioting taking place over Danish cartoons; a speech given by the Pope on why is it impossible to sit down and have a reasonable, rational dialogue? Do we find rioting taking place among what we call the 'Christian West' over any insults to our religion or our beliefs? Do we find Christian leaders giving out death threats to those who have offended our beliefs? The answer is an emphatic "NO".

We shall know the truth and the truth will set us free.

WEEKLY LETTER #46

YOU SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH

John 8:32 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

In America we celebrate on the fourth Thursday of November what we call Thanksgiving day. This for us is a very important day because this is the day that the Pilgrims who came to America for religious freedom gave thanks not to the Indians who helped them (although this is what some of our historians now teach), but to God Almighty for his abundance.

The problem that we face today is really the problem of ‘political correctness’. Revisionist historians are rewriting history and very deliberately taking out anything that has to do with Christianity. Thanksgiving day for us here in America is one such example.

Rush Limbaugh in his book I TOLD YOU SO wrote: “On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including 40 pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of their new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower compact come from? From the Bible. The pilgrims were people completely steeped in the lessons of the old and new Testaments. They look to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedence set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work.”

He goes on to say that this was not a pleasure cruise but one of great sacrifice. It was a sacrifice for freedom. The pilgrims had made an agreement with merchants back in London that they would put everything into a common store where people than could take out what they needed. Long before Karl Marx socialism was being tried and found wanting.

The early pilgrims soon discovered that it did not work and Bradford took a bold step and he allotted to each person a plot of land that they could cultivate and use what they produced not only to feed themselves but for trade with the Indians and also to payoff any debts that they had back in the old country. It was through this that they found a great abundance and they were offering thanks to an Almighty God. What is interesting is that the historians are leaving out the impact that the Bible made in the thoughts and minds of these pilgrims.

Another inconvenient truth or untruth that is being carried out today is regarding Christianity and Islam that somehow these two religions are equivalent. The critics of Christianity here in the West often go back to the Old Testament and especially the book of Joshua and say there is no difference between what Joshua did in conquering the promised land and what Muslims are doing.

They also equate things like slavery where Paul admonishes in Ephesians the slaves to obey their masters which according to them seems to condone slavery and also what Muslims are doing today. So what's the difference?

Then of course the Crusades come into play when we talk about the Muslim Jihadist they come back and say what about the Crusades? We do not have time to go into all of this in this letter but these are some of the things that we must look and think through and recognize that there is a difference. There is no equivalence between Christianity taught by Jesus and Islam taught by Mohammed and those of us here in the West must see the difference.

In the next few e-mails for this year I would like to take some of the subject one by one and look at them critically and see that there is a difference. Yes, the church has committed atrocities and no one group has a claim on evil, but we do need to see that there is a difference between the teachings of Christ and the teachings of Mohammed.


Frank Dietz
Minister at large
Operation Mobilization