Liberty Minute August 28 2014

Following a bitter and bloody sectarian war, the triumphant faction imposed a severe victor?s peace on the vanquished: They could either ?Convert, leave, or die.?

New laws were imposed and brutally enforced. Clergy were expelled from the country or compelled, on threat of death, to swear an oath repudiating their religious views and submitting to the new order. Anybody caught encouraging apostasy was subject to the death penalty.

People regarded as infidels were disarmed, forbidden to seek education, denied the unrestricted use of their property. Anybody observing unapproved religious holidays was beaten. An army of secret police was created to hunt down and capture priests, who were subject to the most inventively cruel tortures devised by the imagination of fallen humanity.

This could be considered a brief summary of the reign of ISIS ? the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. In fact, it is a description of the official persecution of Catholics in Great Britain following William the Orange?s victory in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

It is often said that the problem with Islam is that it reflects the personality of its founder. The problem with Christianity is that it too often fails to reflect the personality of its own.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.