Mike Pence praises Indonesia’s Islamic culture saying it should inspire other Muslim countries as he tours mosque with his shoes off
Pence’s wife and daughters cover their heads with Islamic scarves at mosque
By Julio
Severo
U.S.
Vice President Mike Pence praised Indonesia’s Islamic culture last week
alongside the president of the world’s most populous Muslim nation, reinforcing
his message with a visit to the region’s largest mosque.
 |
| Mike Pence with Islamic leaders at mosque |
Pence
added: “Indonesia’s tradition of moderate Islam frankly is an inspiration to
the world and we commend you and your people. In your nation as in mine,
religion unifies, it doesn’t divide.”
Even
though these words seem to be Obama’s, they are not. Different from Obama,
Pence presents himself as a solid evangelical.
Was
Pence correct and fair in equalizing religion in the United States (the largest
Protestant nation in the world) and religion in Indonesia (the largest Islamic
nation in the world)? Was he correct and fair in saying that Islam in Indonesia
unifies?
Was
he correct and fair in saying that Islamic Indonesia and Christian America share
many common values including freedom, the rule of law and human rights? Was he
correct and fair in saying that Islamic Indonesia promotes and protects these
values?
In
his book “Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians” (Thomas Nelson), Paul
Marshall said:
On May 2, 2008,
a mob from the predominantly Muslim village of Saleman attacked the mainly
Christian village of Horale. They burned one hundred and twenty houses, three
churches, and the village school, and injured fifty-six Christians and killed
four. Three of the four murdered had their throats slit.
The Indonesian
Protestant Church Union reports that religious violence against Christians almost
doubled between 2010 and 2011.
For the 10 to 13
percent of the Indonesian population that is Christian, the greatest challenges
to religious freedom come from social pressure, vigilantes, militias, and local
government.
Indonesia has
recently been plagued by attacks on churches. It is impossible even to recap
them all, so here are some examples from just the first part of 2010, as
summarized by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
On January 22, 2010, local residents joined with members of radical groups to
torch both the Batak Protestant Church building (HKBP) and the pastor’s
residence in Sibuhuan, North Sumatra. Also that day, the Pentecostal Church
(Gereja Pantekosta di Indonesia) of Sibuhun, Tapanuli Selatan, North Sumatra
Province, was also set afire.
So if
Indonesia and the United States are equal in religious terms, why are not
Protestant churches torching mosques and killing Muslims in the United States?
Yet,
the fanciful comparison made by Pence was motivated by flattery, not reality.
It was flattery just, as Pence said at a joint news conference with Indonesian
President Jokowi Widodo, to strengthen U.S. commercial partnership with
Indonesia.
Pence’s
flattery surpassed all the limits of his evangelical faith. According to a
DailyMail report:
“He and his
family later visited the Istiqlal Mosque, the largest in Southeast Asia. The
Pences removed their shoes at the entrance and his wife, Karen, and two
daughters covered their heads with scarves.”
The
Istiqlal Mosque can accommodate up to 200,000 Muslims.
 |
| Mike Pence, wife and daughters with Islamic leaders in front of mosque |
“Take your sandals off your feet, for the
place on which you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5 ESV)
A
mosque is not a holy ground and God’s presence is not in that place. A mosque
is a place of Islam, and Islam is a religious ideology of violence.
You
can take off your shoes where God is. But to take off your shoes in a place
where God is offended is an insult to God. A Christian should never take off
his shoes in a place where Islam is worshipped.
Daniel
in Babylon kept a high government post without “taking off his shoes” to other
gods. Islam is another god, and if Pence thinks that Islam in Indonesia and
evangelicalism in the United States are the same, he is doing what Daniel did
not: he is selling his Jesus for the sake of U.S. commercial interests.
Daniel
never sold his God for the sake of Babylon’s commercial interests.
Adding
insult to injury, Pence said his trip to Indonesia was to “strengthen economic
ties and security cooperation in combating terrorism.” To fight terrorism?
Today,
Islamic terrorism is the biggest global threat. How can Pence want the U.S. in
a partnership with Islamic Indonesia to fight terrorism? Comparatively, how
could the United States want a partnership with Nazi Germany to fight Nazism?
How could the United States want a partnership with the Soviet Union to fight
Soviet Marxism?
In
the early days of his administration, U.S. President Donald Trump committed the
same absurdity: He
sent his CIA director to reward Saudi Arabia for fighting Islamic terror.
In contrast, a
CBN report said that Saudi Arabia spreads Islamic terror around the world,
including ISIS, the biggest Islamic machine of genocide against Christians
today.
Not
surprisingly, Obama, who was so respectful of Islam as Pence has been in
Indonesia, was credited,
by Trump himself, as founder of ISIS.
To
show deep respect for Islam is to help Islamic terror.
Last
month, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman visited Indonesia to accelerate the expansion
of Islam. Since 1980, Saudi Arabia has devoted millions of dollars to exporting
its strict brand of Islam in Indonesia.
 |
| Saudi King Salman shakes hands with Indonesian President Joko Widodo |
“As
the country with the biggest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia will
always have a special bond with Saudi Arabia,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo
told King Salman.
Indonesia
has a special bond with the terrorist state of Saudi Arabia. The United States
has, for the sake of commercial interests, the same bond with Saudi Arabia. And
the United States, previously under Obama and now under Trump, is strengthening
Islam, which kills about 100,000 Christians a year. With a future Islam
strengthened by Pence, Obama, Trump and other American “Christians,” many more
Christians will be slaughtered. America is feeding a powerful anti-Christian
monster.
Indonesia
has a special bond with the United States, through Barack Hussein Obama.
Obama
lived in Indonesia, in the late 1960s, because his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham,
after divorcing Barack Obama Sr. (a Marxist Muslim), moved to Indonesia after
marrying another Muslim: Indonesian Lolo Soetoro.
In
Indonesia, Obama studied in an Islamic school.
According
to Wayne
Madsen, not only Dunham worked to CIA, including in a cover
operation in Indonesia through the population control agency USAID, but her son
Obama was a CIA creation.
U.S.
conservatives voted for Trump-Pence ticket because they were tired of Obama
taking his shoes off for Islam. What has changed? When the neocon’s agenda is
followed, pro-Islamic speeches and partnerships are common, regardless if the
follower is Democratic or Republican, left-wing or right-wing.
Saudi
Arabia is spreading its violent religion through government efforts. If Pence
actually thinks that Jesus Christ is important, why does not he behave as
Daniel did, spreading His Gospel and taking off his shoes only for Jesus, never
for Islam?
For
the sake of commercial interests, a godless American can hypocritically partner
with Islam to fight Islamic terror. But for the sake of Jesus, a Christian
cannot behave hypocritically. Daniel did not so in his high government post and
he was honored by God.
Partnership
with Islam, especially against Russia, is a persistent objective of neocons,
who are unable to see the future. Some decades ago, a group of Indonesians
said, “Back in the fifties he [Arnold Toynbee] predicted that the real war in
the next century would not be between Communists and capitalists, but between
Christians and Muslims.”
For
this future war, neocons are strengthening Muslim interests, not Christian
interests.
Does
Pence want honor from neocons and Islamic leaders or from God?
If
Daniel could honor God in his high government post in the Babylonian Empire,
why cannot Pence honor Jesus in his high government post in the American
Empire?
If anti-evangelical
left-wing Obama deserved to be rebuked for praising Islam, what does evangelical
right-wing Pence deserve?
With
information from DailyMail, The Atlantic and Associated Press.
Portuguese version of this
article: Mike
Pence louva a cultura islâmica da Indonésia dizendo que deveria inspirar outros
países muçulmanos enquanto ele visita mesquita descalço
Source: Last Days Watchman
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