Observations from Germany

I recently travelled to Germany with my wife, Susan. One of our sons, Jesse, is studying there for his doctorate in mathematics, and we wanted to visit him.

We spent two weeks with Jesse in the university town of Aachen, which is situated near the intersection of the borders of Belgium, Holland and Germany. Then we spent two weeks travelling along the Rhine Valley into the Black Forest. We stayed, several days at a time, in various towns and cities—Lahnstein, Bad Wildbad, Dachau, and Heidelberg—before returning to Dusseldorf airport to fly home.

We enjoyed our time in Germany. Everything was new to us and so everything was interesting. I was impressed by the architecture and found myself taking numerous photographs not only of cathedrals and castles, but also of houses and apartment blocks.

One place of special interest was Aachen Cathedral, which was built by Charlemagne, King of the Franks and the first Holy Roman Emperor, in 790-800 AD. Charlemagne was a valiant defender of the Christian faith and he fought many battles against the Moors, the Arabic Muslims who had conquered northern Africa and Spain, and were intent on further conquests in Europe. The cathedral, which has housed Charlemagne’s sarcophagus since his death in 814 AD, is a magnificent piece of architecture both inside and out. But what impressed me most, as an Australian whose nation is barely 200 years old, was the immense history it represented.

Another special experience arose from attending church with Jesse. The first Sunday we (Susan and I, that is) didn’t understand a word: it was all German to us. Still, there was a sense of being with God’s people and of worshipping God which made our attendance worthwhile. The second Sunday looked like it was going to be even more baffling, language-wise, because there was a guest speaker who was Spanish. So, we found ourselves listening to two languages we didn’t know! But as the preacher got underway, a man left his seat and came over to us and offered to interpret for us. Thus, the service proceeded with one man preaching in Spanish, another man translating the Spanish into German for the congregation, and yet another man quietly translating the German into English for Susan and me! It was a reasonable sermon and an outstanding illustration of Christian hospitality and fellowship.

I could mention many more things of interest, but I will limit myself to two matters that particularly struck us day by day wherever we went in Germany. And these two are matters not merely of personal interest but also of social significance.

The first thing was the magnitude of the public display of Germany’s Christian heritage. In every town and city we stumbled upon cathedrals and churches, many of them centuries-old, and most of them displaying Gospel-themed statuary and stained-glass windows. Additionally, we came across monuments and sculptures portraying Christian figures and scenes. In public squares and in building alcoves we discovered statues of Madonna and Child and sculptures of the Crucified Christ.

Here and there, we also noticed banners and posters announcing the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, set in motion by Martin Luther and his 95 Theses in 1517 AD. (The German government opened the year-long celebration by releasing a postage stamp showing a passage from Matthew 27 with hand-written annotations by Martin Luther. The caption on the stamp reads, “The Bible according to the translation of Martin Luther”.)

In all probability, Germany today is no more a Christian nation than is Australia. Nonetheless, the country’s Christian heritage, its Christian foundation, was everywhere publicly apparent.

The second thing that struck me was the magnitude of the Islamic infiltration of Germany. Everywhere we went we saw numerous Muslims. And this is all the more remarkable, given that we visited mainly small towns and the smaller cities. There were Muslims everywhere we went.

Of course, it was easy to spot the women, brazenly displaying their Islamic credentials by their dress. One had to conjecture more about the men. Perhaps some of the numerous groups of men of Middle Eastern appearance were not Muslim, but I conjecture that most were.

Some of the men wore Islamic robes, and so were easily identifiable. And conjecture was hardly needed to correctly identify one young man who defiantly plonked himself down to pray in the middle of a busy footpath in the middle of the city of Aachen. His action was all the more arrogant and offensive given that just across the street, only six or seven metres away, there was a public square where he could have spread his prayer rug without impeding pedestrians.

In 2015, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, opened Germany’s borders to 1.1 million “refugees”, a majority of them Muslim men of military age. The fact of this is visibly evident throughout the nation, and throughout the nation the effect of it is beginning to be felt.

(A week after we left Germany, on election day 24^th September 2017, Angela Merkel was severely punished by voters for her smug virtue-signalling at the expense of the people she was democratically and divinely appointed to protect. In response to her electoral humiliation, she has promised to limit the number of “refugees” she admits to Germany to a mere 200,000 per year.)

Although she is the leader of a political party called the “Christian Democratic Union”, Angela Merkel has shown scant regard for her nation’s Christian heritage and Christian citizens by allowing, and even encouraging, large numbers of Muslims to press into Germany.

Christianity and Islam cannot coexist—because Islam rejects the right to exist for anything and anyone outside itself.

Already, the public symbols of Germany’s Christian heritage are under attack from the new Muslim arrivals. For example:

w  At New Year’s Eve celebrations in Dortmund a mob of more than 1,000 men chanted “Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is the greatest”], launched fireworks at police, and set fire to a historic church.1

• A fortnight before Christmas in a region of Germany that contains more than a million Muslims, approximately 50 public Christian statues (of Jesus, Mary, etc.) were beheaded, and crucifixes broken.2
• Muslim vandals devastated a Christian parish in the town of Brühl … According to the report, “the vandals left a ‘picture of devastation’, destroying glass panes, breaking doors and writing ‘Islamist’ slogans on the walls.”3
• For the third time in six months the “Bessung” cemetery in Darmstadt was vandalised. About 20 wooden crosses were pulled out of the ground and thrown away. … At the end of June, 30 crosses were pulled out of the ground in the same way.4
• A group of Muslim children shouting “Allahu Akbar” threw stones at a visiting Ethiopian priest who was walking to a chapel in Raunheim. Police said the priest was targeted because he was wearing a cross.5
• A 24-year-old Pakistani migrant has been arrested for trying to destroy a church tower … The St. Hildegard church [in Mannheim] was set on fire on the evening of 17 October this year [2017]. Gas and an explosive were used to try and blow up the tower of the church.6
• German media reported at least 200 cases of damaged churches in the region of Bavaria alone every year. In addition, attacks on summit crosses are also increasing in the region’s mountains. Crosses on several mountain tops have been toppled and destroyed with axes or saws.7

These are a few of many instances of attacks in Germany by Muslims on the symbols of the Christian faith in the past 18 months. It would take a book to document similar attacks throughout Europe.

Of course, Muslim attacks on Christian symbols foreshadow more serious attacks on Christian people themselves. And such attacks are abundant and increasing in Germany today. For example:

• A Muslim man and asylum-seeker stabbed and killed a Christian woman with a kitchen knife in front of her two children near a public market. Those who knew the slain woman, an Afghan who had converted to Christianity eight years earlier, said she was a successful “example of integration”.8
• A 19-year-old migrant raped a 90-year-old woman as she was leaving a church in downtown Düsseldorf. Police initially described the suspect as “a Southern European with North African roots.” It later emerged that the man is a Moroccan with a Spanish passport.9
• The German branch of Open Doors, a non-governmental organisation supporting persecuted Christians, reported that Muslims are attacking Christians at refugee shelters throughout Germany. The NGO documented 743 incidents between May and September 2016, but said they were only the “tip of the iceberg.”10
• Thanks to dishonest Muslim translators, [German] immigration officials are rejecting asylum applications from Muslim converts to Christianity from Iran and Afghanistan, during what one pastor characterized as “kangaroo court” hearings. Rev. Gottfried Martens accused the “almost exclusively Muslim translators” who “mocked and laughed at” Christian asylum seekers of deliberately mistranslating their responses to disqualify their applications.11
• A Syrian migrant disrupted a wedding at the Karmel Church in downtown Duisburg. He burst into the building and began fondling a statue of the Virgin Mary while shouting “Allahu Akhbar”. …12
• In August [2017], another man, who was out walking in the Prenzlauer Berg area, was attacked by three men of North African appearance who also objected to his cross. The three men brutally beat the 39-year-old and shouted abuse at him. Earlier this year in May in Neukölln yet another man was attacked for wearing a cross necklace.13
• A court heard how a 27-year-old Muslim intruder named Abubaker broke into the Heilbronn home of a 70-year-old Christian woman described as a “devout Catholic” and “regular churchgoer.” He tied her up, abused her, placed a cross in her hands, and strangled her to death. Then he wrote “a series of Arabic and religious messages around the house”—including “It’s payback time” in English … The defendant—described as a “strict Muslim”—is of Pakistani descent and grew up in Saudi Arabia.14

If only “Mamma Merkel” had a little more compassion for her own people, these atrocities would not be happening.

Christianity and Islam cannot coexist. Either Christians will win over Muslims with the love-driven gospel methods of preaching and persuasion, or Muslims will sweep over Christians with the hate-driven Islamic methods of terror and slaughter. History tells us that the former is most unlikely. When Muslims gain the ascendency in any society, they either eradicate or subjugate all the rest.

King Charlemagne shed blood to keep Muslims from Germany: Chancellor Merkel sheds tears to admit them. It is a tragedy. It is an outrage. It is the beginning of misery and ruin for the German people, Christian and non-Christian alike.

References

1. Jihad Watch, 4 January 2017 – www.jihadwatch.org/2017/01/1000-muslims-screaming-allahu-akbar-set-fire-to-germanys-oldest-church-on-new-years-eve
2. Gatestone Institute, Raymond Ibrahim, 12 March 2017 – www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10029/christmas-death
3. Gatestone Institute, 16 April 2017 – www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10207/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january
4. Voice of Europe, 4 December 2017 – https://voiceofeurope.com/2017/12/germany-wooden-crosses-pulled-ground-cemetery-darmstadt/
5. Gatestone Institute, 27 November 2016 – www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9431/germany-islam-october
6. Voice of Europe, 10 December 2017 – https://voiceofeurope.com/2017/12/germany-pakistani-migrant-arrested-for-trying-to-blow-up-a-church-in-mannheim/
7. Voice of Europe, 14 November 2017 – https://voiceofeurope.com/2017/11/germany-two-hundred-churches-damaged-christian-symbols-destroyed-just-one-region/
8. Gatestone Institute, Raymond Ibrahim, 15 October 2017 – www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11168/muslim-persecution-christians-may
9. Gatestone Institute, 27 November 2016 – www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9431/germany-islam-october
10. Gatestone Institute, 27 November 2016 – www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9431/germany-islam-october
11. Gatestone Institute, 16 April 2017 – www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10207/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january
12. Gatestone Institute, 27 November 2016 – www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9431/germany-islam-october
13. Breitbart, 13 September 2017 – http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/09/13/man-attacked-migrant-populated-area-berlin-wearing-cross/
14. Gatestone Institute, 16 April 2017 – www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10207/muslim-persecution-of-christians-january