{"id":91808,"date":"2015-03-14T00:04:21","date_gmt":"2015-03-14T07:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=91808"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:26:15","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T22:26:15","slug":"the-beauty-of-holiness-in-the-persecuted-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2015\/03\/the-beauty-of-holiness-in-the-persecuted-church.html","title":{"rendered":"The Beauty of Holiness in the Persecuted Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote>Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world\u2014he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, \u201cNow the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Rejoice then, O heaven and you that dwell therein! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!\u201d (Re 12:7\u201312).<\/p><\/blockquote>\nDid you know that, historically speaking, the Great Age of Martyrs in the history of the Church is not the apostolic period, the patristic period, or the wars of religion in the 16th-17th centuries? It\u2019s right now. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.persecution.org\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">International Christian Concern<\/a> is doing fine work serving the persecuted Church abroad in this era of persecution. Click the link to see what you can do to help.<\/p>\nOn a related note, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cruxnow.com\/church\/2015\/03\/13\/vatican-backs-military-force-to-stop-isis-genocide\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Rome is now backing military action against ISIS<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\nIn an unusually blunt endorsement of military action, the Vatican\u2019s top diplomat at the United Nations in Geneva has called for a coordinated international force to stop the \u201cso-called Islamic State\u201d in Syria and Iraq from further assaults on Christians and other minority groups.<\/p>\n\u201cWe have to stop this kind of genocide,\u201d said Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican\u2019s representative in Geneva. \u201cOtherwise we\u2019ll be crying out in the future about why we didn\u2019t so something, why we allowed such a terrible tragedy to happen.\u201d<\/p>\nTomasi said that any anti-ISIS coalition has to include the Muslim states of the Middle East, and can\u2019t simply be a \u201cWestern approach.\u201d He also said it should unfold under the aegis of the United Nations.<\/p>\nThe call for force is striking, given that the Vatican traditionally has opposed military interventions in the Middle East, including the two US-led Gulf Wars. It builds, however, on comments from Pope Francis that the use of force is \u201clegitimate \u2026 to stop an unjust aggressor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[650,13,20],"class_list":["post-91808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-na","tag-suffering-church","tag-works-of-mercy"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>The Beauty of Holiness in the Persecuted Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2015\/03\/the-beauty-of-holiness-in-the-persecuted-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Beauty of Holiness in the Persecuted Church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; 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