Brother of expat murdered by Jihadists responds to the Bishop of Bangor
The text of a letter sent to the Bishop of Bangor in response to his diocesan press release lauding the Ramadan fast of a deacon to be. Details on the murder of Mark De Salis by Jihadists in Libya can be found in the Guardian, Mirror and other news outlets.
Your Grace
I am a Reader.
On 1st January 2014 according to British Anti-Terror Police my youngest brother, Mark, was made to kneel in the sand in Libya and shot through the head. The arabic paperwork shows the date as the 2nd January which was when they took custody of the body but not necessarily, according to British Police’s advice to the Coroner, the date of his death. Nonetheless, because the inquest took place some 9 months after his killing, I had the arabic paperwork notarised so that I could get the funeral, cremation and Burial of ashes done in January and February 2014.
The killing was filmed and posted on the internet by someone in either Libya or Egypt. I could not bring myself to see it but I discovered quite recently that my wife did to make sure that it was my brother.
The event was in all the national media, but I did not want to talk to any of them. Bizarrely, the local newspaper to where he lived was the only newspaper that told the truth about him. The media reporting was so bad and completely inaccurate (and I am being polite) that I saw my local MP about it. At the funeral the ITV news-crew and cameras tried to invade the funeral claiming that they were invited but fortunately the staff had the good sense to correctly suggest they weren’t invited. They stayed in the Car Park and interviewed people going to/from the funeral instead. Nonetheless they filmed me receiving the coffin and taking it in.
At the inquest the BBC filmed me going in. The inquest was held at Shefford in Bedfordshire because the specialist post-mortem had happened at Bedford hospital where the specialist was based. There was a large number of press behind me in the Inquest Court and I discovered how they all copy each other, no matter how mistaken. The Coroner quite correctly said that my youngest brother had been born in Sheffield (Yorkshire) and the journalists wrote down Shefford (Bedfordshire). He’d probably never been to Shefford but I was treated to even the TV news that evening saying that he’d been born in Shefford – He hadn’t, but I was fed up of their careless, hurtful and thoughtless inaccuracies by then.
My brother had celebrated New Year in daylight (it is too dangerous to go out at night) with a lady from New Zealand and they had stayed slightly too late and were caught that evening as the sun-set and both executed by an arabic gang claiming they were infidels in the eyes of Islam
It is true that all my degrees and extensive qualifications are in Science and Engineering except for one. I have a Masters Degree in Theology from Westhill college at Birmingham University where they study and teach both Islam and Christianity.
I know what it is to experience Islam
Islam means “Submission”, it does NOT mean “Peace” and hence many Imam’s have stated that Jihad and Violence are entirely compatible with Submission (it is not, by contrast, compatible with peace).
It is true that Jesus did, and does, sit down with sinners. It is also true that Jesus tells sinners the truth. Jesus does not support sin.
In John chapter 4 we have the story of Jesus Christ at the well with a Samaritan woman. Samaritans were, of course, treated similarly to foreigners as being non-Jewish.
17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
So Jesus tells sinners the truth at the same time as meeting them. The Lord Jesus Christ does not hide hard truths from sinners. So eating with sinners is one thing but we also have to tell sinners the truth.
In your press release you celebrate the fact that Sara Roberts sat down with Moslems for their Iftar fasting meal end. This is Ms Roberts going to Islam not Islam coming to a Christian centre. Jesus does sit down with sinners but the examples we have are of sinners all around Jesus not Jesus going to a Bhuddist or Islamic centre.
It is also reported that Ms Roberts is connected with, and will serve partly in the LGBT support group.
The killing of homosexual people in accordance with the Koran / Quran by ISIS is widely reported because of its brutality but what is not reported is that executions of gay people happen in places like Saudi Arabia where the killing is at least judicial and clinical. The reality is that Islam does NOT accept homosexualism at all just as the Koran includes sections stating clearly that it is right to kill infidels.
I took three of the Quranic references to why it was acceptable in Islam to have killed my brother as an infidel to the Inquest. Only three references because there are far more than three.
Cardinal Pell wrote in 2006:
2:191 “Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them”
3:21 “Muslims must not take the infidels as friends”
5:33 “Maim and crucify the infidels, if they criticize Islam”
8:12 “Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Quran”
8:60 ” Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels”
8:65 “The unbelievers are stupid, urge all Muslims to fight them”
9:5 “When the opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you find them”
9:123 “Make war on the infidels living in your neighbourhood”
22:19 “Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water, melt their skin and bellies”
47:4 “Do not hanker for peace with the infidels, behead them when you catch them”
“In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence. There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages.”
…. And it isn’t just killing: The Koran / Quran includes the doctrine of Taqiyya, (un)holy deception. The Quran has verses (eg 2:225, 3:28, 3:54, 9:3, 16:106, 40:28, 66:2) establishing the religious legitimacy of breaking oaths, lying, unilaterally violating treaties, and generally scheming against non-Muslims.
By contrast, the Lord Jesus Christ tells us the truth (and He says “the truth will set us free”).
I was originally licenced as a Reader by Bishop John Sentamu when he was Bishop of Birmingham and I not only was heavily involved in his leaving service with Archbishop Rowan Williams but I also organised the licensing service for Readers for 7 years.
When I was re-licenced to the Church in Wales by the Bishop of St Davids, Bishop Wyn, the service required that we all swear an oath before the Bishop, the clergy and the entire congregation. The oath is that the Bible is the primary authority (not the secondary, or tertiary, but the primary). We made that oath. We then swore an oath that Jesus Christ is Lord for us. We made that oath.
For me an oath is absolute and I will not go back on it.
So I look at this press release and question if Ms Roberts either sees the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Lord for her or that the Bible is the primary authority.
Yours sincerely
Clive de Salis
