Bomb blasts targeting Christmas Day church services in two Nigerian cities have left at least 28 people dead, with three more attacks on other towns.
The Islamist group Boko Haram said it had attacked St Theresa’s Church in Madalla, near the capital Abuja, killing 27 people.
A second explosion shortly after hit a church in the central city of Jos. A policeman died during gunfire.
Update: There are some photos there, please be warned they are difficult to see.
Another update: An AP story is here also–read it all.
Truly heartbreaking to have to post this on this of all mornings, please join me in prayer for the Church in Nigeria today.
The Church in Nigeria is always in my prayers……especially today.
Mine too.
Lord have mercy.
Holy Great Martyrs of Nigeria pray for us!
They are in our thoughts and prayers! Very sad. 🙁
I wish I did not have to be somewhat harsh. People still waiting for an “Islalmic Reformation” are either naive or very foolish. Islam had its “reformation” two generations ago. It failed.
Their equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition is now in charge and they will spread their vicious darkness as widely and as deeply as they are allowed to do. This is not some “clash of civilisations”. It is a clash between civilisation and utter barbarism.
When essentially the entire female population of Egypt has had forced clitorectomies — because only men are entitled to sexual pleasure — and now the remaining 10 to 15 % Christians there are being attacked, as they are wherever they interface with Islam.
And in Nigeria, and in Sudan, and in Iraq. What’s happening to Baha’is in Iran is horrifying. You elves can keep trying to shoot the messenger, but it does not change the disgusting reality of what counter-reformation Islam has become.
What’s your proposal to stop it?
Reply to Bart Hall (#7.):
“What’s your proposal to stop it?”
Bart,
I honestly do not know.
Shall we “heap coals upon their heads” by showering them with Christian charity and kindness?
Along with the Commandment (depending on translation)
“Thou shalt not murder” or “Thou shalt not kill [the] innocents” it seems to follow that there is a corollary
“Thou shalt prevent murder’ and/or “Thou shalt defend the innocent.”
Personally, I think that we should both shower them with Christian charity and kindness and whenever we can, do what we can, to “prevent murder” and to “defend the innocent.”
So, for American Christians, how do we translate this into action?
By using our Christian convictions and our considerable political clout to cause our elected politicians to carry out the necessary actions.
Prayers for our friends in Nigeria and an end to this persecution. Lord have mercy on your people in Jos and Plateau State, Abuja, Madalla Yobe and the other states and come to their aid in the power of Jesus’ holy name.
Not every problem can be solved, but many of them can be quarantined. In the former years you could quarantine a neighbourhood full of smallpox (or, to some extent plague) and the disease would stop there. Plenty of people would die, but the problem does not spread. That’s why every man on a US submarine is capable of taking command — to save the ship you may have to dog down the bulkheads knowing it means death for some, but survival for the whole.
We, the world, have a terrible problem on our hands as a result of the failed islamic reformation. Like any horrible disease we may have to isolate it and let it blow itself out, tragic as that might be for those caught in thw quarantine zone.
11, I don’t think the Islamic revolution has failed. It has succeeded. Of course it depends on what we mean by an Islamic revolution. We we have is a purer form of Islam purged from it’s secular taint. It is Islam restored to it’s original purpose which is to spread Islam through out the world. It is Islam reformed. It is the Islam proudly proclaiming, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His prophet” and one might add, “To the exclusion of all others and we really mean it!”
This in not by any means the Islam desired by Western liberals and partakers of Western political correctness who invision Islam as a form of Western liberal protestantism which is warmed over universal Unitarianism. Not only has that revolution failed it was never going to happen from the outset.
If you want to know what Islam is all about, you need look no farther than one of the symbols of Islam: [b]the SCIMITAR.[/b] That’s what it’s all about! The curved Arabic sword was and still is used to [b]KILL[/b] those who refuse to submit, and there’s no changing or denying that.
Huge prayers…