Tuesday is dead - If you grew up in the sixties, seventies and even eighties, you'll remember the name, Cat Stevens. An English folk rocker whose work was immensely popular on all sides of the Atlantic, Stevens had a string of hits, toured the world and became filthy rich. He had the Rolls Royce and the trophy girlfriend and the best drugs the money could buy.
One day, at the height of his career, Stevens simply disappeared. He just stopped making records and disappeared from view for about twenty years. There were rumors that he was dead or fallen with some horrible and debilitating disease. The truth is that in those years when he was producing his successes and earning millions, he was quietly and sporadically going through a spiritual crisis. He began to ask the big questions: why am I here? Is there a God? Where am I going to spend eternity?
Stevens was born into a Christian family. Then, when his unwanted search for truth began, he naturally turned first to Christianity for answers. And here the story goes terribly wrong: no one took him seriously. His parents were absent churchgoers: they had nothing for him. They thought their famous son was suffering from a bit of post-teen angst. His relatives, many of whom were also nominally Christian, had no answers. The local Anglican community had no answers. Even Stevens's local pastor had nothing significant to offer. Wherever he turned, all he had was some variation on- "" Well, you know, we all worry about these things from time to time. Just be quiet and know that God loves you. Imagine: here is this young man - there is a window of opportunity in his life - who wants to have a serious talk about God and eternity. He is genuinely distressed; He is wounded in spirit and his Church gives him clichés. He needed the Gospel; he gets "I'm ok, you're ok".
His music reflected a yearning and a search for piety. Author of one of the most beautiful hymns ever written, Morning Has Broken and other songs like The Peace train, and oh, The Wind ...
I listen the wind, in the wind of my soul
Where I’ll end up, well, I think only God really knows
I sat upon the setting sun
But never, never, never, never
I never wanted water once
Never never never
I listen my words, but they fall far below
I let my music take me where my heart wants to go
I swam upon the devil's lake.
But never, never, never, never
I'll never make the same mistake
Never never never
And then someone gave Stevens a copy of the Qur'an. And he read and was instantly filled with questions. Being a resourceful young man, he got on a plane, flew to Jerusalem, went to a mosque and asked for help. He was well received and treated with kindness. The Imams helped him. They had answers. And just as on a Monday morning he was convinced, on the afternoon of his Tuesday, his faith was already dead. Tuesday is Dead
By our lights in the gospel, these answers were and remain lies and heresies - that is what Islam is: a defective and corrupt creed of a false and perverse prophet. But to the mind of a vulnerable young man, the answers seemed to make sense. He wanted to know how to live in this sometimes terrible and confusing world - they told him. Later he said, "I was shown how to live." He was convinced, and not converted.
Feel so different - On the outskirts of Philadelphia, a younger version of me was delighted with such a beautiful voice. A face that brought feelings and tears from the toughest bullies in school. At Esther's sweet sixteen party, I remember dancing with... (well, never mind). But the music ... The voice ... The story of Sinead O'Connor sung in Nothing Compares 2 U. Irish singer and activist converted to Islam. The 51-year-old artist responsible for hits Nothing Compares to You and The Emperor's New Clothes announced her embrace of the Muslim faith in her social media channels, as well as changing her name to Shuhaida. A video of her saying that the Shahabad - the Islamic faith statement - was also posted on twitter by Irish imam Ir Umar al-Qadri.
Her new name, Shuhaida, derives from the Arabic word of the Qur'an "Shahid", which in false sacred scripture is used generically to mean "witness" and in certain passages to describe a "martyr".
As for her conversion to Islam, O'Connor - who was politely ordained a priest in the late 1990s by the Catholic and Orthodox Church of Ireland (an independent Catholic group that is not in communion with the Vatican) - said that this marked a " natural conclusion of the journey of any intelligent theologian. "
Sadaqat "Shuhada" @ MagdaDavitt77
This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian's journey. Every study of the scriptures leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant. I will be given (another) new name. It will be Shuhada
14.3K2h42 - 20th October 2018
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Songs of Faith - Faith and spirituality abounded in O'Connor's three-decade work, with the singer drawing on various spiritual texts, including the Bible. I was so impressed when my brother showed me her new stuff.
Her lyrics were often written from a seeker's point of view, either out of love, salvation, and acceptance.
O'Connor was more direct on her 2007 acoustic album Theology, a collection of songs inspired by the Old Testament Psalms. If You Had a Vineyard is based on passages from Isaiah and Jeremiah, while Whomsoever Dwells contains the letters of her then favorite, Psalm 91.
She said in an interview with Cross Rhythms.
“Whatever I say about religion I really love religion, "" I'm very inspired by love in different religions and so if I criticize it, it's not to the point of not liking it - you know what I mean? But I think sometimes the nature of God's character can be portrayed inaccurately in a way that can be difficult for many people.”
O'Connor's quest for inner peace, which she spoke about in her work and escaped most of her troubled life, began to bear fruit on her latest album, I'm Not Bossy.
Another embrace and abandonment of the love of God. Sinead was convinced but not converted. Her pseudo liberation was not the conviction of sin and justice and judgment, but a form of material and psychological atonement for the many atrocities and abuses that took place against her. She felt different only, but not succumbing to the true repentance of sin, she was not converted to the kingdom of the son of God's love. Feel so Different
This is a sad tale. For Stevens, a Christian community failed when a young man came in search of truth. So did O'Connor. Really?
First Peter tells us, "Be ever ready to give an answer to every man who asks a reason for the hope that is in you." That did not happen in those cases. There was a failure at the neighborhood and family level in that Christian community, forty years ago in East London, when a young man came in search of salvation. There was a flaw in the worldwide Christian community that paid no attention to the depressed singer's cry and begging for help between various attempts against her own life. Well, they'll just snap out of it! We can argue. And there is the fact that no one seems to be able to articulate the truth to them. That would be bad enough in itself - losing some souls to Islam is a terrible thing - but we have to wonder what the domino effect of this failure is.
How many young men and women of that generation followed Stevens and O'connor in the darkness of Islam? How many followed in later years? It would be surprising if the answer were "none". Stevens is called Yusuf Islam these days. He is the most famous convert of Islam. He is the poster boy for Islam as a religion of peace. No IEDs, no AK-47s, just an acoustic guitar and peace and love. He is tremendously popular and influential in the Muslim community and beyond, particularly in Britain, but also across Europe. The FBI puts you on an air exclusion list. I suppose it is not without reason. Shuhaida is still reclusive and unavailable, so it does not make that much difference.
But Islam is not the only lie people will believe. It is a much more subtle and profound resentment toward God called sin. Who says, "I know him," but does not do what he says is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. (1 John 2.4) One can be persuaded of anything he hears, but if he does not convert, confess, and repent, the truth is not in that person. I am convinced, however, that the methodology of confronting sin and loving people is the conversion necessary for each to exercise and medicate oneself.
If we are not ready to answer for our faith, we fail not only to the questioner (that is, the unbeliever who might have believed) but also, potentially, fail to all whose life is subsequently touched by them. The consequences of this are incalculable; many variables, lots of math.
Only God knows the whole story of who our friends will become. There could be students sitting in today's classes that people will one day follow. Strange things happened. The answers we give to friends - or not - here in our time together will become a small part of some future reality. And remember, some of us who actively preach the gospel of Christ - the answers we give believers in our care may be the ones that make them survive. We should always be here praying and leaning intensely on the Holy Spirit, experience and personal witness for when these Great Questions come our way.
The Kite Runner - The # 1 New York Times best-selling novel debut that introduced Khaled Hosseini to millions of readers worldwide.
The unforgettable and painful story of the unlikely friendship between a rich boy and his father's servant son, trapped in the tragedy of history, The Kite Runner transports readers to Afghanistan at a tense and crucial time of change and destruction. A powerful story of friendship is also about the power of reading, the price of betrayal and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of parents over their children-their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
Spoiler alert! - There is a part in the story, in which the servant's son is raped by a bunch of older city bullies. And the master's son, the narrator, is cowardly convinced that he could not have done anything about it. He pretends not to know. And internally, he begins to develop a bitter resentment toward his best friend. Resentment turned to hatred, and he lied to the boy, accusing him of stealing his father's watch, being dismissed by the alleged robbery of his son. The story goes on to show the effects of a childhood, a childish attitude of resentment and questioning, a sinful act and its consequences for life, to the end, when the main character decides to correct the mistakes again by trying to heroically endorse and neutralize his sin.
Since its publication in 2003, Kite Runner has become a beloved and unique classic of contemporary literature, touching millions of readers and launching the career of one of America's most valuable writers.
That's the way things are. People can be convinced of something. And though they are convinced and not yet converted, they will make promises, and in search of peace of mind, freedom, or atonement, they may face their sinful nature and truly surrender to the grace and love of God, or they will go from branch to branch , ideas for ideals, friends for friends. They will embrace friends and ideas and as easily as they were convinced, if there is no conversion, they will turn their backs on friends and church and faithfulness to God. In the end, broken promises and a consolation bravado of "But I still have not found what I'm looking for ..." ( another song that shook my world). He goes on to say evil things and make up lies about those who have helped him most. People who, for the love of God were blessings to those who abandoned him today. Sad for who it is, Terrible for those who go! The end; spiritual death.
In Proverbs 26 we find it disgusting and disconcerting to read verse 11 when it says, "When a dog returns to its vomit, fools repeat their folly"
What abomination is sin, and how it is sometimes odious to make it appear, even to the sinner himself. When his conscience is convinced, or he feels good about his sin, he is tired of it and vomits; he seems then to dislike it and to be willing to discard it. It is in itself, and in the first or last place, it will be to the sinner, more disgusting than the vomit of a dog. Sl 36.2.
How ready sinners are in a relapse. Like the dog, after it has gained relief by vomiting what has burdened its stomach, it still licks again, so the sinners, who were convinced only and not converted, return to sin again, forgetting how sick it has made them. The apostle (2 Pet 2:22) applies this proverb to those who have known the way of righteousness, but have turned away from it; but God shall drive them out of his mouth, Revelation 3:16.
So a fool goes back to his madness. Although he knows that this is madness and ruin for him: but vice has become second nature, and he cannot escape it even if he wants to. This is especially true for those who gave way to drunkenness or the impurity of life. The fool never frees himself from the bonds of his foolishness; his deeds and words always carry the same character to the end. The same truth holds true for the sinner, especially the drunkard and the sensualist. But still true for those who give themselves to idolatry for hours in falsehood of legalistic prayers, and pretense of much love and relationships based on themselves. If they feel temporary remorse and reject their sin by partial repentance, they are not totally shaken; it has become second nature, and they soon return to it.
If you can overcome the intolerance of "people nowadays" to which we are all prone, this new generation has some real possibilities. They seem totally determined to keep things positive. Good for them. They are not traumatized by change - they actually like it. They are not afraid of technology. They are materialists, but no more than we are, and their materialism tends to center mainly around the acquisition of new technologies. There are, of course, dangers in technology - it can be a little fascinating and some of its doors lead to obscure places, but let's be honest, those doors have always been there; they just needed more effort to open in the past.
These children do not like confrontation. They avoid it - sometimes even when it is inevitable in good conscience for a young man or woman of faith. They may be a little too open to commit. We have to help them with this. We have to teach them; you cannot make deals with the Scriptures. You cannot give prerogatives to God - they are not ours to give. And in the end, they will do to you, as Peter did with Jesus.
These people are also a bit narcissistic. They like to take pictures of themselves shopping and eating sandwiches. Such eccentricities aside, we can reasonably have high hopes for them. We have to fear for them too. They lack wisdom, especially the younger ones. They need guidance. We should provide this when and where we can. We should look for opportunities to guide them. We should make opportunities to guide them. But the maximum that anyone on earth can do is convince ... Face it ... Maintain relationships - "in the real" ... However, only the holy spirit will convert the hearts of the lost.
They live in a world that is more wicked in several orders of magnitude than what we knew as young people - and it will get worse before it gets better. The least we could do is be ready to answer their questions about how we got here and where we're going. These big perennial questions: Why am I here? Is there a God? Where am I going to spend eternity?
Stevens and O'Connor were already convinced of something. Like them, many people who came and went out of my life were convinced and convincing. I had such close friends and they were not faithful. I'm looking for the friends I left. The years have passed, and when we will finally leave our defenses, we will be friends in Christ again.
