Dr Paul Allen

One of the world’s oldest Christian communities is facing extermination from jihadists, as Islamic militants linked to Al-Qaeda have seized the Syrian city of Aleppo –home to an estimated 3.5 million people, including more than 50,000 Christians. While Aleppo has seen a mass exodus of some 200,000 Christians in the past 12 years, the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took control of large parts of the city on Sunday, prompting warnings from persecution watchers of a fresh “religious cleansing” of Christians. “It looks like we are now heading for another major crisis for Syrian Christians,”  Dr Martin Parsons , director of  The Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution , told  The Stream . “Christian aid agencies need to prepare for a massive relief operation.” “Effective and Deadly” Muslim Militants Parsons explained that HTS is a direct affiliate of Al Qaeda set up under the name of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front in 2011 with the help of Abu Bakr al-Ba...

Elisha (right) Refusing Gifts from Naaman (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Elisha refuses the gifts of Naaman (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) There is a tension between loving your enemies and using the sword against your enemies–yet both are commanded by God . How do they work together? The clearest example of these two principles working in concert is in the life of Elisha . Perhaps no one in Israel ’s history had more opportunities to demonstrate love for his enemies than Elisha, yet we also see that he was hardly a pacifist. Elisha was God’s chosen messenger in particularly hostile times. His predecessor, Elijah, was run out of the country when the Queen ordered him murdered as punishment for killing the priests of a false god. Rejected by Israel, he fled to Egypt and begged God to take his life. Instead, God gave him a final task: to anoint Elisha as his successor ( 1 Kings 19:16). Thus Elisha became a prophet with no shortage of enemies. The Israelite king stood opposed to him—an...