The Sunday Dispatch
Five stories about faith and culture you probably missed this week — delivered every Sunday morning.
Author: Abdul Masih
By Abdul Masih — In an Artic freeze falling over Finland, the Nordic nation’s Supreme Court held MP Päivi Räsänen guilty of a hate crime for a pamphlet she published following scriptural lines equating LGBTQ with sin. She must pay a fine and destroy the pamphlet that called homosexuality a “developmental disorder.” “It was surprise and it was shocking. I was not expecting to be convicted,” said Räsänen, who before being a member of parliament was the Finnish interior minister 2011-’15. As elsewhere around the world, legislation defining “hate crimes” is causing collisions between Free Speech and right to religious…
By Abdul Masih — According to Sahih Muslim 2104, a puppy is the reason angel Gabriel blew his appointment with Prophet Mohammad. “It was the dog in your house that prevented me,” Gabriel told him later. “We do not enter a house that contains a dog.” Hence the origin of Islamic aversion for dogs. “Whoever keeps a dog… each day out of his own good deeds Allah will erase and deduct the weight of Mount Uhud (a mountain near Jeddah) of good deeds,” warns Assim al‑Hakeem, a Saudi cleric in Jeddah. While there are moderate traditions that view dogs benignly…
By Jaslyn Alvardo — He was high priest during the time of Samuel, and when messengers came notifying that the Ark of Covenant had been taken by the enemy Philistines, he fell from his chair and broke his neck, the Bible says. Now archaeologists believe they have found the gate where Eli died. “I would invite people to look at the evidence and if they’ve bought into the idea that the Bible is mythology or not historical, I encourage them to look at what we’re finding here at Shiloh,” says archaeologist Dr. Scott Stripling, director of excavations for the Associates…
By Abdul Masih — The latest curveball in the Iranian War is that the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is gay, according to intel presented to President Trump, who reportedly laughed. The issue here is not the morality of being gay. But because homosexuality is punishable by hanging in Iran, the revelation proves that people of privilege and power do whatever the like, plebes be damned. Not only has Mojtaba misappropriated his country’s wealth to personally buy 12 properties in the U.K. worth about $120M, stakes in two hotels in Germany, a luxury golf resort in Mallorca, properties in Paris…
Far off past the Gulf where the tankers glide slow,Past deserts that shimmer with petro-cash glow,There squatted a capital dusty and grimWhere Laryjani Loudmouth ruled bluster and brim. His palace was marble, his carpets were thick,His speeches ran longer than bureaucrats’ schtick.And every noon briefing — a daily routine —Was threats by the barrel and rage by the ream. “I thunder! I threaten! I rattle! I vow!The Orange-Haired Man will come begging — somehow!My rockets will roar! My drones will take flight!My enemies tremble and faint at the sight!” The courtiers clapped like obedient seals,The generals nodded with medals and…
By Abdul Masih — The survival of the Iranian Regime now lies in the estimated 300,000 fanatics comprising the Basij units who suppress dissent, surveil neighborhoods and otherwise keep control on the 95% of Iran that’s not on board with the Islamist occupier leadership. Three hundred thousand. That’s a lot of fierce loyalists to kill — if the Army, tasked with defending the nation, not the regime, should defect. While international analysts are pessimistic about changing leadership inside Iran, a closer look at the Basij reveals the task may be close at hand after all. That’s because the Basij –…
By Abdul Masih — After receiving explicit threats, the gay rights group Jejaka in Malaysia canceled in January its planned retreat Glamping with Pride in Hulu Selangor. The threats were not limited to a few backwards-thinking weirdos but was joined by police, legislators and government officials. Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs Marhama Rosli exhorted the public to stop using the term LGBT. “To ensure the use of consistent terminology and to avoid any normalization in speech or writing, it is urged that the term LGBT no longer be used starting today,” Marhama said, per translation. “The term should be referred…
By Abdul Masih — EXACTLY when the first cruise missiles hit Iran, China suddenly stopped ALL of the constant hostile flights — usually about 30 or so fighter jets, drones and surveillance aircraft– buzzing Taiwan, intimidating and violating its airspace. “The moment the U.S. launched a major strike, Beijing pulled back,” says Lei of Lei’s Real Talk. “A switch was flipped, a kill switch.” It was very strange for the world’s most militarized airspace around the Taiwan Strait, a critical shipping lane, to suddenly go quiet and stay quiet for nearly eight days. Theories were proposed (a good will gesture…
By Abdul Masih — According to long-time critic of Islam, David Wood, Ali Khamenei’s assassination and the subsequent demolition of the Shi’ite regime is the last vestige of hope for faith in Islam. “It’s almost impossible to overstate how traumatic the assassination of Khamenei is to Muslims,” said the Apologetics Roadshow podcaster. “Everyone is completely missing the big picture… Muslims are throwing tantrums because they’re looking around at the world and thinking, If Islam is true, this isn’t the way things should be. It’s suffocating their confidence.” The significance of the ayatollah’s death is that he represented the only remaining…
By Abdul Masih – Since the Iranian uprising and now with the war, some 10,000 Iranians have poured across the Pakistani border as refugees, and Pastor Paul has been there to minister to them. “When we teach about repentance and about Heaven and Hell from the Holy Bible, when they understand what it is, then they happily accept Jesus Christ,” he says. Pastor Paul says he’s seen 500 or so Iranians become Christians as refugees. This is what Pastor Paul does since 2017. He goes into the poorest areas of the Balochistan Province and especially the Sindh Province and brings…

