Chinas deadly Chairman Mao, blamed for the deaths of between 50 million and 80 million of his countrymen and women, has been chosen to grace one of the ornaments on the White House Christmas tree for President Obamas first holiday season in residence.
via Obamas Christmas tree graced by Chairman Mao, transvestite.
This is CHANGE alright. That we can believe in, not so much.
Pastor Kevin
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December 20, 2009
Hello,
I greet you once again in the Name of Jesus!
Last time we looked at what has been referred to as, “The back-bone” of Bible prophecy. I am speaking of Daniel’s “70th Week” prophecy recorded in your Bible in Daniel 9:24 – 27. It is there that we find out that God has placed the people and land of Israel on a prophetic time table.
As we pointed out last time most scholars interpret the “weeks” as referring to weeks of years. In other words, 70 sets of seven, or a total of 490 years. I won’t reiterate all of the material that we presented last time, but suffice it to say that Bible prophecy makes it clear that 69 of the prophetic “weeks” have already been fulfilled. This took in the command to re-build Jerusalem under the reign of Artaxerxes, all the way to the coming of Messiah as Prince. The total of the first set of “weeks” is 483 years.
Israel’s prophetic clock stopped ticking after Messiah was “cut off.” This undetermined period of time between the 69th and 70th weeks takes in the Church age, or the dispensation of grace. We can be sure the 70th week will be fulfilled just as surely as the first 69 were. The prophetic clock for Israel and the Jewish people will begin ticking again following the catching away of the Church. This final period of seven years will be the time of “Jacob’s Trouble” [See Jer. 30:7] or the “Great tribulation.” [See Matt. 24:21]
Contrary to popular belief in prophecy circles, it will not actually be the rapture that will signal the beginning of the 70th week. It will actually begin when a coming world ruler known as, among other names, the Antichrist comes on the scene and makes a seven-year peace treaty with Israel [See Dan. 9:27]. The prophecy of Daniel goes on to say that in the middle of the final seven-year period of this age, or after 3 ½ years, this world ruler will break his treaty with Israel, turn against the Jews, and desecrate a re-built temple in Jerusalem. Yes, the Jewish temple will be re-built. Prophecy demands it.
This act of desolation prophesied by Daniel, called the abomination of desolation, was also prophesied by Jesus 500 years after Daniel as He looked ahead prophetically to the end of days [See Matt. 24:15]. Prophecy indicates that the abomination of desolation will begin with the Antichrist defiling the temple by sitting in the temple, in its holy of holies, declaring himself God [See 2 Thess. 2:4]. If this were not bad enough, he will then have an image of himself constructed that will sit in the temple, and all will be forced to worship him and the image [See Rev. 13:14 – 18].
At the culmination of the final seven-year period, the Antichrist will be destroyed by Christ at His Second Coming to earth. The following illustration will help you to visualize this prophetic period of time:
One might be tempted to ask, “Ok, but what does all of this have to do with 2012?” You may recall that we said last time that Daniel 9:24 – 27 is one of the key clues that we have that demonstrates that 2012 will not be the time of the Second Coming of Christ or the end of the world. According to Daniel, the Second Coming of Christ will be preceded by a seven-year period that again, Jesus called the Great Tribulation.
If 2012 were the end of this age, then based on Daniel’s prophecy, we would have to back up at least seven years to 2005, which would be the beginning of Daniel’s 70th week. That would mean that the rapture would have to have already happened, and the Tribulation would have to have began in 2005. Even though we have witnessed many really unique and strange things in our world over the past few years, I think almost everyone would agree that the rapture hasn’t occurred and the seven-year Tribulation period that both Daniel and Jesus prophesied has not started yet.
I submit to you that God’s end-time clock in Daniel 9:24 – 27 settles the matter once and for all: 2012 will not be doomsday. Does that mean from an astrological perspective as the earth and the sun align at the very center of the Milky Way on December 21, 2012, that some strange things won’t occur? No, not at all. I am not an astronomer or a meteorologist. We could see some very strange things occur and some upheavals in nature and weather patterns. My point is that it will not spell the end of the world as we know it, nor will it be the time of the Second Coming.
We will continue our panoramic look at Bible prophecy next time.
The Weekly Word is found in Matthew 24:21. Here the Bible says,
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. [Matt. 24:21 NKJV]
Until next time, this is THE WEEKLY WORD.
Pastor Kevin E. Johnson
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“Pyramid” UFO Seen Over Moscow
Another example of “fearful signs in the skies.” This video was shot in Moscow of what appears to be a pyramid in the sky. Very strange.
Pastor Kevin
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Lying Signs & Wonders
In these last days deception is on the rise. Here is a YouTube video of a so-called apparition of Mary appearing over a Coptic church in Egypt. No one seems to be questioning this or trying the spirits. The quality of this is not good.
Pastor Kevin
Filed under: End times, Signs of the times, Strange & Unusual Occurences | Leave a Comment
My dear mother and father-in-law were partners of Oral Roberts for many years. They are all rejoicing together in Heaven right now! One of God’s Generals has graduated.
Pastor Kevin
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Oral Roberts, a pioneer in televangelism who founded a multimillion-dollar ministry and a university that bears his name, died Tuesday. He was 91. Roberts died of complications from pneumonia in Newport Beach, Calif., according to his spokesman, A. Larry Ross. The evangelist was hospitalized after a fall on Saturday. He had survived two heart attacks in the 1990s and a broken hip in 2006.
Roberts was a pioneer who broadcast his spirit-filled revivals on television, a new frontier for religion when he started in the 1950s. He was also a forerunner of the controversial “prosperity gospel” that has come to dominate televangelism. The evangelist’s “Seed-Faith” theology held that those who give to God will get things in return.
“If God had not, in His sovereign will, raised up the ministry of Oral Roberts, the entire charismatic movement might not have occurred,” said Jack Hayford, president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, in a statement.
Roberts overcame tuberculosis at age 17, when his brother carried him to a revival meeting where a healing evangelist was praying for the sick. Roberts said he was healed of the illness and of his youthful stuttering. He said that it was then that he heard God tell him he should build a university based on the Lord’s authority and the Holy Spirit.
Roberts rose from humble tent revivals to become one of the country’s most famous preachers.
He gave up a local pastorate in Enid in 1947 to enter an evangelistic ministry in Tulsa to pray for the healing of the whole person — the body, mind and spirit. The philosophy led many to call him a “faith healer,” a label he rejected with the comment: “God heals — I don’t.”
By the 1960s and ’70s, he was reaching millions around the world through radio, television, publications and personal appearances. He remained on TV into the new century, co-hosting the program, “Miracles Now,” with son Richard. He published dozens of books and conducted hundreds of crusades. A famous photograph showed him working at a desk with a sign on it reading, “Make no little plans here.”
He credited his oratorical skills to his faith, saying, “I become anointed with God’s word, and the spirit of the Lord builds up in me like a coiled spring. By the time I’m ready to go on, my mind is razor-sharp. I know exactly what I’m going to say and I’m feeling like a lion.”
Unity of body, mind and spirit became the theme of Oral Roberts University. The campus is a Tulsa landmark, with its space-age buildings laden with gold paint, including a 200-foot prayer tower and a 60-foot bronze statue of praying hands.
His ministry hit upon rocky times in the 1980s. There was controversy over his City of Faith medical center, a $250 million investment that eventually folded, and Roberts’ widely ridiculed proclamation that God would “call me home” if he failed to meet a fundraising goal of $8 million. A law school he founded also was shuttered.
Semiretired in recent years and living in California, he returned to Tulsa, Okla., in October 2007 as scandal roiled Oral Roberts University. His son, Richard Roberts, who succeeded him as ORU president, faced allegations of spending university money on shopping sprees and other luxuries at a time the institution was more than $50 million in debt.
Richard Roberts resigned as president in November 2007, marking the first time since Oral Roberts University was chartered in 1963 that a member of the Roberts family would not be at its helm. The rocky period for the evangelical school was eased when billionaire Oklahoma City businessman Mart Green donated $70 million and helped run the school in the interim, pledging to restore the public’s trust. By the fall of 2009, things were looking up, with officials saying tens of millions of dollars worth of debt had been paid off and enrollment was up slightly.
That September, a frail-looking Oral Roberts attended the ceremony when the school’s new president, Mark Rutland, was formally inaugurated.
“He was not only my earthly father; he was my spiritual father and mentor,” said son, Richard Roberts, in a statement.
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You will have to decide if this video is real or a clever hoax. I do not know. There is high strangeness going on in the world today.
Pastor Kevin
Filed under: Current events, End times, News, Strange & Unusual Occurences | Leave a Comment
December 13, 2009
Hello,
I greet you once again in the Name of Jesus!
We have been looking at some things that many say are looming over the horizon of our future. As we stated last time, it seems everyone wants to know what the future holds, yet no one really does. We can’t look to the many voices that are vying for our attention today. The reason for this is that these voices do not have a reliable track record for accuracy.
It is only God, who is omniscient (He knows everything), who is omnipresent (He is in all places present), and is omnipotent (He is all-powerful); who can truly forecast the future. He would not have us look to the predictions of the Mayas, Nostradamus, abstract Bible codes, or any other source being promoted by the world today. Our God has given us His Word so that we can know what is coming in the days ahead. Someone has wisely said, “If you want to know what happened yesterday, read the newspaper; if you want to know what happened today, listen to the evening news; if you want to know what will happen tomorrow, read the Bible.”
I want to make it clear that while the Bible doesn’t tell us everything or answer all of our questions, it does provide us with the headlines, if you will, of the future. Let’s take a panoramic look at what the Bible reveals the future holds.
- THE CATCHING AWAY OR RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH:
According to the Bible, the next great event on God’s prophetic calendar could happen any day. The world will be traumatized by what theologians call the rapture of the Church. While the word “rapture” does not appear in the English translation of the Bible, it does describe a Bible experience. In 1 Thessalonians 4:17 the phrase, “shall be caught up” is from the Greek harpadzo. This word could be translated, “to snatch, to seize, to pluck up, or to remove forcibly.” It describes what will happen when Jesus returns to receive us to Himself. Interestingly, in the 3rd and 4th centuries when Saint Jerome was translating the Greek New Testament into Latin, he used the Latin word, rapere to translate the Greek harpadzo. So, the word rapture is in reality a transliteration of the Latin word.
Even though the catching away is referred to multiple times in the New Testament, I will refer you to three main passages. These are, John 14:1 – 3; 1 Cor. 15:50 – 57; and 1 Thess. 4:13 – 18. I won’t take the time to include the full text of these scriptures due to lack of space. However, I would encourage you to read these verses of scripture. These scriptures will help you to get a basic overview of what the event referred to as the rapture is all about. When the rapture occurs, every living believer in Jesus Christ will be snatched off planet earth and whisked away to heaven in the amount of time it takes to blink your eye. It will be the most world-changing event since the flood that covered the earth in the days of Noah.
- THE SEVEN-YEAR TRIBULATION:
I want to make it clear that the Bible strictly forbids attempting to determine the specific date for end-time events. However, there is one prophecy in the Bible that mentions a specific time. It is found in Daniel 9:24 – 27, one of the most important prophetic sections in the Bible. It is the indispensable key to all prophecy. It has been referred to by many as the “Backbone of Bible Prophecy”, and “God’s Prophetic Time Clock.” This prophecy tells us that God has put Israel’s future on a time clock.
The setting for the prophecy is found in Daniel 9:1 – 23. This passage finds the prophet Daniel in Babylon, where the Jewish people have been in exile for almost 70 years. Daniel discovers through reading the prophecies of Jeremiah that the captivity will last only seventy years. In Daniel 9:1 – 23 Daniel confesses the sins of the Jewish people and prays about the restoration of the people from Babylon. He knows that the seventy years of captivity is over (Vv. 1, 2), so he begins to intercede for his people. While Daniel is praying, God sends an immediate answer by the angel Gabriel (9:21). Daniel 9:24 – 27 is God’s answer to Daniel’s prayer, and in this answer, God goes far beyond the restoration of the people from Babylon. He goes all the way to Israel’s ultimate restoration under Messiah. This has been referred to as “Daniel’s 70th week prophecy.” It reads,
24“Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.
25“So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.
26“Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.
27“And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.” [Dan. 9:24 – 27 NASB]
I need to take a little time to carefully explain and examine this passage and its message. Bible scholars generally interpret each of these seventy weeks as a period of seven years because Daniel had already been thinking in terms of years in Daniel 9:1, 2. The entire period involved, therefore, is 490 years (70 sets of 7-year periods using a 360-day prophetic year.) The prophecy goes on to predict that 7 of these sevens (49 years) will pass while Jerusalem is rebuilt and 62 more sevens (433 years) will transpire until the Messiah comes as Israel’s prince. The total of the first 69 sevens is 483 years (49 + 434 is 483 years).
Using simple calculation, we can determine that the divine prophetic clock began ticking on March 5, 444 B.C., when the Persian king Artaxerxes issued a decree allowing the Jews to return under Nehemiah’s leadership to rebuild the city of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 1). From the time the countdown began until the coming of Messiah (“the Anointed One”) will be 69 weeks (7 weeks + 62 weeks), or 483 years. This exact period of time, which is 173,880 days when using the Jewish calendar of 360 days for a year, is the precise number of days that elapsed from March 5, 444 B.C. until March 30, A.D. 33, the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem for the Triumphal entry. God predicted a period of 173,880 days to the exact day!
You may have noticed that this leaves one “seven” or “week” still left for the future. I submit to you that God’s prophetic clock for Israel stopped at the end of week 69. We are presently living in this period of unspecified duration between weeks 69 and 70, which is called the Church Age. The Church Age will end when Christ comes to rapture His bride, the Church, to heaven. At that time, the prophetic clock will begin to run again, after the Church has been raptured to Heaven, when the Antichrist comes onto the scene and makes a seven-year peace treaty with Israel (Daniel 9:27). This is the final or seventieth “seven” that still remains to be fulfilled. Again, it is often referred to as the seventieth week of Daniel.
Daniel’s prophecy is a major key demonstrating that the end will not come on December 21, 2012. How so? We will leave the answer to that for next time.
The Weekly Word is found in Revelation 13:14 – 18. Here the Bible says,
14And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.
15And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed.
16And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead,
17and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.
18Here is wisdom Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six. [Rev. 13:14 – 18 NASB]
Until Next time, this is THE WEEKLY WORD.
Pastor Kevin E. Johnson
Filed under: Bible teaching/Prophecy | Leave a Comment
News Source: My Way News
====================================================
Fast-growing Christian churches crushed in China
Dec 10, 12:16 PM (ET)
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
LINFEN, China (AP) – Towering eight stories over wheat fields, the
Golden Lamp Church was built to serve nearly 50,000 worshippers in the
gritty heart of China’s coal country.
But that was before hundreds of police and hired thugs descended on
the mega-church, smashing doors and windows, seizing Bibles and
sending dozens of worshippers to hospitals with serious injuries,
members and activists say
Today, the church’s co-pastors are in jail. The gates to the church
complex in the northern province of Shanxi are locked and a police
armored personnel vehicle sits outside.
The closure of what may be China’s first mega-church is the most
visible sign that the communist government is determined to rein in
the rapid spread of Christianity, with a crackdown in recent months
that church leaders call the harshest in years.
Authorities describe the actions against churches as stemming from
land disputes, but the congregations under attack are among the most
successful in China’s growing “house church” movement, which rejects
the state-controlled church in favor of liturgical independence and a
more passionate, evangelical outlook.
While the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of religion,
Christians are required to worship in churches run by state-controlled
organizations: The Three-Self Patriotic Movement for Protestants and
the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association for Roman Catholics.
But more and more Chinese are opting to choose their own churches,
despite them being technically illegal and subject to police
harassment. Christians worshipping in China’s independent churches are
believed to number upwards of 60 million, compared to about 20 million
who worship in the state church, according to numbers provided by
scholars and church activists.
House churches have been around for decades, but their growth has
accelerated in recent decades, producing larger and larger
congregations that are far more conspicuous than the small groups of
friends and neighbors that used to worship in private homes, giving
the movement its name.
Their expansion and growing influence has deeply unsettled China’s
rulers, always suspicious of any independent social group that could
challenge communist authority. Fears that Tibetan Buddhism and Islam
promote separatism among Tibetans and Uighurs also drive restrictions
on those religions.
“They are so afraid of rallying points developing for gathering of
elements of civil society,” said Daniel Bays, who follows Chinese
Christianity at Calvin College, a religious school in Grand Rapids,
Michigan.
While house churches have faced varying degrees of repression
depending on the region and political climate, the latest crackdown
appears to specifically target the largest congregations.
Authorities want to dismantle large churches “before they grow out of
total control,” said Bob Fu, a former Communist Party researcher in
Beijing who now heads the China Aid Association, a Texas-based church
monitoring group.
At least two other large churches have recently faced similar crackdowns.
In Beijing in October, authorities locked parishioners of Shouwang
house church out of the space they had rented to worship in. In
Shanghai, the Wangbang congregation faced a similar lockout. Both
congregations had grown to more than 1,000 members.
Shouwang and Wangbang church leaders have not been detained, but
activists fear further arrests are coming.
In a brief phone conversation, Wangbang’s pastor Cui Quan said worship
continued in small groups while he fought to have their lease
restored. He declined to give other details.
Christianity was long associated with foreign interference in
traditionally Buddhist and Taoist China, and came under heavy attack
after the 1949 Communist revolution.
The most onerous restrictions were lifted after the death of communist
leader Mao Zedong in 1976. Although Christians still account for a
less than 10 percent of China’s 1.3 billion people, recent years have
seen rapid growth in house churches in both cities and rural areas,
Adding to official concerns about their numbers, house-church
Christians also emphasize missionary work – illegal in China – and
some have even operated an underground network to help smuggle North
Korean refugees and Uighurs out of China in defiance of the security
forces.
The Golden Lamp Church was built by husband and wife evangelists Wang
Xiaoguang and Yang Rongli as a permanent home for their followers,
whose numbers had soared to more than 50,000.
The couple, administrators at the provincial teachers’ college, had
been preaching in the region around the city of Linfen since 1992,
establishing a network of three dozen communities meeting in
improvised spaces such as factory dormitories and greenhouses. They
also attracted thousands to tent revival meetings.
According to Bob Fu, Shanxi authorities grumbled as the church was
being built last year, but did not try to stop work and offered few,
if any, signs that an impending crackdown.
On a rainy Sunday in mid-September, some 400 police officers and hired
thugs descended on more than a dozen church properties around Linfen,
smashing doors and windows and hauling off computers, Bibles, and
church funds, according to accounts posted online by church members
and their allies.
Those accounts said worshippers who resisted were beaten, with dozens
hospitalized with serious injuries.
Wang, Yang, and three other church leaders were convicted on Nov. 25
on charges including illegally occupying agricultural land and
assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic. Yang, 51, received a seven-year
sentence, while Wang, 56, and the others received terms of three to
four years. Five others were sentenced without trial to two years in a
labor camp.
Other church leaders have gone into hiding.
Courts, police and government officials in Linfen refused to comment
on the claims of violence and persecution. A local Communist Party
spokesman said only that the case centered on the mega-church’s lack
of planning approval.
“We have always supported and allowed everybody to believe in
religion. But the church itself is an illegally constructed building,”
said the spokesman, who would give only his surname, Wang.
A lawyer for Wang and Yang, Li Fangping, said the church had applied
for permits to build the church from the local religious affairs
bureau and the land use authority, but received no reply.
Almost three months after the crackdown, people in and around Linfen
refuse to discuss the church, and police vehicles remain parked on
virtually every corner of the neighborhood where the Golden Lamp is
located.
Source: AP via My Way News
URL:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091210/D9CGIQ0O0.html
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Signs In The Heavens
End Times News Update
Sign: Signs in the Heavens
Scripture: Luke 21:11
News Source: Fox News
============================================================
Mysterious Giant Spiral of Light Dominates Norway’s Sky
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
A mysterious giant spiral of light that dominated the sky over Norway
on Wednesday has stunned experts — raising the possibility of an
entirely new astral phenomenon.
Thousands of awe-struck Norwegians bombarded the Meteorological
Institute to ask what the incredible light — which could be seen in
the pre-dawn sky for hundreds of miles — could possibly be.
Theories have ranged from a misfired Russian missile, meteor fireball,
never-before-seen type of northern light, black hole and even alien
activity.
Witnesses across Norway all described seeing a spinning “Catherine
wheel-style” spiral of white light, centered around a bright moon-like
star. A blue “streaming tail” appeared to anchor the spiral to earth,
before the light “exploded” into a rotating ring of white fire.
Sightings of the spiral spectacle, which lasted for two minutes, were
reported as far north as Finnmark to Trondelag in the south.
Chief Scientist Erik Tandberg, at the Norwegian Space Centre, said
that he too was “totally amazed” by the spiral.
He agreed with many other experts that the spiral pattern could have
been caused by a missile from Russia — something the Russian military
have strongly denied.
Source: Fox News
URL:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,579868,00.html
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End Times News Update
Sign: Gog Alliance (Turkey is turning)
Scripture: Ezekiel 38:2-9
News Source: BBC News
==================================================================
Turkey FM Davutoglu embraces mediation role
By Jonny Dymond
BBC News, Brussels
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu may not use the phrase
“regional power”, but nearly everyone else does to describe his
country’s new influence in the Middle East, Balkans and Caucasus.
Some go so far as to describe the policy as “neo-Ottoman” – a nod back
to the times when the Caliphate’s writ ran from the Balkans to North
Africa. Mr Davutoglu bats away such a label.
But the range of his direct concerns at the ongoing Nato foreign
ministers’ meeting in Brussels is an indicator of how critical Turkey
has become to the western alliance’s security architecture.
Afghanistan comes first. He rejects criticism that, given the
500,000-strong standing army at Turkey’s command, its contribution of
700 non-combat troops is a little thin.
“Turkey is one of the biggest contributors to peacekeeping efforts in
a military sense, everywhere, all around the world,” said Mr
Davutoglu, in an interview squeezed between meetings in Brussels hotel
rooms.
In Afghanistan, he said Ankara had pledged to increase its
contribution by 1,000 troops in the last month.
Turkey has taken over military command in Kabul; it has spent more
than $200m in the past five years on reconstruction, building 50
schools and hospitals that have treated a million Afghans.
Mr Davutoglu called for a comprehensive military, political and social
strategy in Afghanistan.
“We shouldn’t use the term foreign troops,” he said. “We are there as
the international community to help Afghan people.”
There will, he promises, be more help for the Afghan military from
Turkey – help that has been forthcoming since the early days of the
Turkish Republic.
‘Zero-problem’ policy
Bosnia, too, is a concern for the minister, and it is clear that
Turkey will press hard for the country to be given a nod towards Nato
entry.
Bosnians, he says, feel left out by the EU, which has recently
extended visa-free travel to Serbia and Montenegro.
“Now if they feel isolated from the support of Nato, it will be a big
problem,” said Mr Davutoglu.
“We want Bosnia-Hercegovina to feel that the international community
cares for them. We cannot forget that we watched three years of
massacres in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Now we can’t just leave them alone.”
Mr Davutoglu describes Turkey’s new regional vision as “zero-problem”
with its neighbours; its relations in particular with Iran, Iraq and
Syria have improved dramatically compared to a decade ago.
Turkey is also reaching out to Kurdish-run northern Iraq, and offering
itself as a mediator in several conflicts.
Criticism rejected
But criticism of Turkey has increased too – that it is sacrificing its
longstanding closeness with Israel because of an Islamist agenda due
to the governing AK party’s roots in political Islam; that it is too
close to the Iranian government; that links with the Sudanese
government of President Omar al-Bashir are too cosy.
The foreign minister rejects such criticism. This time last year, he
said, Turkey was working with Syria and Israel towards a settlement.
But it felt obliged to speak out after Israel’s military offensive in
Gaza this January.
On Iran, he said: “In a negotiation, 60% is psychological, 20% is
methodological and 20% is more substantive.
“If there is no mutual confidence in the negotiations the substance
becomes less important.”
Turning to Europe, Mr Davutoglu said the Swiss vote on Sunday to ban
the building of minarets had rung an alarm bell.
“There is a rise in Islamophobia, in the concept of ‘the other’, as if
they do not belong to society,” he said. “It may be today Muslims,
tomorrow Jew, the next day blacks, the next Africans.
“In this new global world we will be living together everywhere, so we
need a new spirit of tolerance everywhere.”
EU optimism
And what of the drive to join the EU? With popular support dropping in
Turkey, and political opposition hardening in Europe, is this still
the Turkish government’s priority?
“We want to be a member of the EU,” said the minister. “I am an
academic. Statistics say something. All the countries that start
accession negotiations with the EU, they became members of the EU,
except Norway which didn’t want it.
“Based on this statistical analysis, I can say, Turkey will be a
member of the EU, 100%,” he laughs.
Leaders, opinion formers and intellectuals, he added, now recognise
that Turkish membership would be a strategic asset for the EU.
“There are two ways in front of the EU,” he said. “Either the EU will
be a global power, a dynamic economy and a multicultural global
environment, or a continental power with a less dynamic economy, with
a more inward-looking culture. These are the two options.”
“Turkey is a litmus test for this. With Turkey the EU will be a global
power, much more strategically important, with a much more dynamic
economy, with a strong hinterland with rich economic resources.
“I am optimistic. I believe in the rationality of the EU approach. I’m
sure Turkey will be a member, a contributing member – not a burden,
but a big asset for the EU.”
Source: BBC News
URL:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8393516.stm
Filed under: Bible teaching/Prophecy, Current events, End times, News, Politics & World Events, Signs of the times | Leave a Comment
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Pastor Kevin E. Johnson
pastorkjRecent Entries
- Obamas Christmas tree graced by Chairman Mao, transvestite
- 2012: Discerning The Prophetic Season, XI
- “Pyramid” UFO Seen Over Moscow
- Lying Signs & Wonders
- Oral Roberts At Home With The Lord
- Another Cattle Mutilation In Colorado
- 2012: Discerning The Prophetic Season, X
- International Persecution On The Rise
- Signs In The Heavens
- Turkey Is Turning – Gog Alliance Up-date
- 2012: Discerning The Prophetic Season, IX
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