A Christian leader in Brazil says he"s alarmed by what he regards as a campaign by evangelicals to spread pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli propaganda.
Julio Severo, a pro-family activist and blogger, told WND he’s concerned about a speaking tour in Brazil that features Bethlehem Bible College President Emeritus Bishara Awad in support of Open Doors, International.
A Peruvian Evangelical Mission is giving instruction on how to outreach to Muslims.
Very interesting.
This why – inspite of our media scaremongering – I do not believe that Islam will get a hold in Latin America.
It may make some converts, but over time the Evangelicals will make more Christians out of Muslims than the Muslims will make Muslims out of Christians.
What is worrisome, however, is the increasing anti-Israel sentiment arising in Latin America. The Latins may not become Muslim, but they may become very hostile to Israel.
The reason for this is simple. The more traditional denominations in Latin America, the Catholic Church – and to a smaller extent, the Orthodox Church – have theologies where the Jews are written off for their rejection of Christ.
It is easier for anti-Semitism to prosper with those theologies, unlike Evangelical theologies where the Jews are still central to God’s design.
These traditional churches were magnificent in converting earlier generations of Muslim immigrants; but while they were effective at eradicating Islam, they made no effort to eradicate anti-Semitism. Hence, Arab and Iranian propaganda may not install Islam in South America; but it can instill an anti-Israel viewpoint that is vicious.
A few years ago, there were news reports that there is a potential caliphate looming in South America. Former President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, predicted it would come.
Often mentioned is the King Fahd Mosque in Buenos Aires, which was built for Argentina’s Muslims. But does that really mean a caliphate is rising in South America?
Let’s go to some South American sources to sort this out:
In 2010, the Argentina Independent had this to say:
There are estimates of some 700,000 Muslims in Argentina, mostly descended from Syrian and Lebanese immigrants who came over in the late 1850s. There are only two mosques in Buenos Aires, the other being part of the Organización Islámica Argentina.
…
Whoa! Did you catch that? 700,000 Muslims and only two Mosques in the capital where the highest concentration of Muslims are to be found?!
Only two Mosques?!!! (At the time of that writing)
Around 2002, the Argentine Academics Pedro Brieger and Enrique Herzskowich reported this:
Assuming four people per family, a realistic guess for the Muslim population of Buenos Aires might be around 4,500, far fewer than the number projected by some Muslim officials.
Now 4,500 is a figure more in keeping with two Mosques.
Yes, there are Muslims in Argentina; but many are second- and third-generation Argentines who no longer speak Arabic. Those Muslims, who did immigrate in, were often inclined to either convert or intermarry into Christianity. At the least, they usually became non-practicing.
Even Islamic sources admit that Islam dies out in Latin America.
(The video is set to the right time.) This imam admits that the official figure
of half a million Muslims in Argentina is ridiculous.
Argentina assimilates/converts Muslims very well.
Posted on YouTube: September 22, 2015
From the late 19th century and early 20th century, there should be about half a million Muslims in Argentina. But now there is not even five to seven thousand Muslims who call themselves Muslim.
WOW! DID YOU HEAR THAT? LATIN AMERICA CONVERTS MUSLIMS.
So, despite the official figures, in reality, Islam in Argentina (and by extension, all of Latin America) is weak and dying. It survives chiefly among immigrants and their first-generation children.
Yes, there are occasional looney converts to Islam, but they are insignificant.
SO WHAT ACCOUNTS FOR THE DESCEPANCY IN STATISTICS ABOUT MUSLIMS?!
It seems the mullahs count anyone who might have a connection to Islam as Muslim, or if the parents were Muslim, even if they are no longer practicing or have converted to Christianity.
Muslim leaders estimate that there are between 700,000 and 3 million Muslims, with the lower figure representing active practitioners.
However, the Brazilian 2010 census (Table 1.4.1) reported only 35,167 Muslims.
[Note: you have to download file directly from a Brazilian gov’t site to get a zip file]
You look up numbers after numbers, and you get fantastic differences between what the local mullahs claim and what exists in reality. As you start to track these numbers down, you realize the estimates are wildly exaggerated.
There might be 700,000 people in Argentina who are former Muslims, or who are the descendants of Muslims. They got entered in a list somewhere, but never go to mosque. They probably drink wine, eat pork, and have a Christian boyfriend. These are Muslims in name only.
Then there are those reporters who can’t distinguish Arabs from Muslims. They are not one and the same. It turns out that the overwhelming majority of Arabs in South America are Christian, many of whom have ancestors who were Orthodox Christian or Catholic, and who fled religious persecution at the hands of Muslims.
The local imams themselves exaggerate; whether out of wishful thinking, fancy, imagination, lack of knowledge, or just plain deceit.
Now, look at this, again from the Argentine Independent article:
Non-Muslims in Argentina don’t seem to know much about this complex other than that former President Carlos Saúl Menem (himself of Syrian descent) was responsible for it. This is somewhat true. King Fahd of Saudia Arabia financed the construction, which totaled some U$15m. Menem’s contribution was arranging the donation of the land, which has been valued at around U$10m. Congress passed a national law in 1995, giving the land to the cultural centre. The first stone was laid on 7th December 1998, not without some slight controversy: neighbours were unsure about the increased traffic and architectural disharmony, among other issues. But the centre opened on 25th September 2000 with much fanfare as King Fahd himself and 250 other dignitaries came from Saudi Arabia to celebrate the opening.
…
If the Argentina government had not donated the land to build the King Fahd mosque to begin with, the Saudis would not have gotten a foothold into Argentina to resuscitate a dying Islam.
This King Faud Mosque has caused some controvery when it managed to get a popular Arab-Argentine TV Show (hosted by Christians) cancelled to make way for an Islamic program that no one, not even the Arab community, wanted.
Yet, even though the King Fahd mosque was built, the number of Muslims attending it was pitifully small by 2015. (See video – set to right time).
But NONE OF THIS would have happened if the Argentine government had not donated the valuable land in the first place.
If the governments of the West would stop subsidizing Islamic prosyletization, Islam will die a natural death in the Western Hemisphere.
No Caliphate is looming unless some government supports it.
Fortunately, with the collapse in the price of oil, the Saudis and Iranians no longer have as much money as they used to have to create problems.
THIS IS THE FORCE FIGHTING ISLAM AND PREVAILING!!!!
There is a massive Evangelical Christian Revival in South America. It also tends to be very Zionist.
Posted on YouTube: May 4, 2010
So for every convert to Islam that you read about in the news in Latin America, there are probably dozens more converts to Pentecostalism or Baptist Churches.
The press is lying.
May 8, 2017 – Edited: some grammar and words. May 10, 2017 – Edited: Updated a link. Added an image. September 3, 2020 – Added videos. Edited text. May 4, 2021 – Added a video and links. Edited text.
This should amaze you. As the clout of the Palestinian Community in Chile is growing, so also is the clout of the growing Evangelical community, which is very pro-Israel.
While Islam may be converting a few thousand, Evangelicalism is converting millions per year.
This is an Evangelical TV preacher in Chile who wonders if Chavez’s anti-Israel tirade is what caused God to issue a divine judgment against Chavez, causing his death from cancer.
Forgive my poor translation, but I caught the general drift.
Below is the video of Chavez speech that the preacher was referring to. It is from 2010.
Published on YouTube: January 28, 2011
Chavez’s comments were very ugly!
April 14, 2020 – Edited: I had to find a new source for the Chavez video, and had to correct some errors.
