Johnnie Moore - Defying ISIS

PRAISE FOR DEFYING ISIS

Johnnie Moore has courageously focused on one of the most alarming and heartrending crises of our time. He bears witness to the war against Christianity which is being waged with horrific brutality by an evil opponent. Everyone should read this and demand their government stand up against barbarism.

NEWT GINGRICH
FORMER SPEAKER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

This is an important book written by a competent voice at a critical time. Johnnie Moore has become one of the worlds leading spokespersons for Christians in the Middle East. When most of the world didnt know about our plightmuch less carehe raised his voice. Johnnie has shown in action that we are family with the suffering church. He has come with us in our suffering and pain. Even more than that, he came to our rescue. I hope millions read this book, and care enough to act.

THE REVEREND CANON DR. ANDREW WHITE
CHAPLAIN, ST. GEORGES ANGLICAN CHURCH
BAGHDAD, IRAQ
WWW.FRRME.ORG

In the summer of 2014, ISIS terrorists stormed into Iraqs ancient Christian center and unleashed a genocidal jihad that exiled or killed every Christian man, woman, and child and laid waste to some of Christianitys earliest churches. Half a world away, Johnnie Moore got on a plane and rushed to the region to help. In this book, he relates the stories of the survivors he metfirsthand accounts that give vivid testimony to a powerful Christian love that prevails against satanic violence straight off a Hieronymus Bosch canvass of hell. This primer also draws links between Christian martyrs of todays Middle East and those of first century Rome, and ends with a warning to a complacent West. Every Christian in America should read it, and then help the persecuted.

NINA SHEA
DIRECTOR OF HUDSON INSTITUTES CENTER FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Johnnie Moore has been consistently sounding the alarm and seeking to awaken the church in the West to the existential threat that ISIS poses to Christians in the Middle East and beyond. His timely book underscores the urgency of confronting this evil.

REP. FRANK WOLF
DISTINGUISHED SENIOR FELLOW
21ST CENTURY WILBERFORCE INITIATIVE

I thank God for Johnnie Moore and for this important book. If Christians do not wake up to this demonic evil and take action against it, God will hold us accountable. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

ERIC METAXAS
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MIRACLES AND BONHOEFFER

This is possibly the most important book of the year. It is not just timely and relevantthe subject makes that soit is heartbreaking and spirit-inspiring. Written with journalistic passion, historical nuance, and Christian conviction, Moores book doesnt need to elevate these modern martyrs to sainthood, he merely shines a light on the reality of their plight. In doing so, you realize they are the most tangible, gripping examples of the Gospel of Christs love in our day.

DAVID DRURY
CHIEF OF STAFF
THE WESLEYAN CHURCH

2015 Johnnie Moore

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ISBN 978-0-7180-3958-5 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015932950

ISBN 978-0-7180-3959-2

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CONTENTS

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

ROMANS 16:20

J ust as this book was going to press, the publisher graciously allowed me to add this preface. The unrelenting stream of ISIS news compelled me to say more. The Middle East today is bursting with jihadists. They are not confined to one country, one locality, or even one organization. They can be found anywhere.

Even in the weary newsrooms that have reported one beheading after another, a new low was reached on Sunday, February 15, 2015, when ISIS warriors released a well-produced video, complete with Hollywood-style camera angles. On the shores of the Mediterranean, apparently near Tripoli, Libya, twenty-one Egyptian Coptic Christians were beheaded for their faith alone. It claimed to be prepared as a message signed with blood to the nation of the cross. It wasnt just a message for the Middle East, it was a message sent to all Christians everywhere.

The faces of the men looked like anyone youd see at your local coffee shop. They were young, rugged, some even handsome, with shocks of black wavy hair and olive skin tanned deeper by the sun. They were brothers, husbands, fathers from tight-knit families. They were sons. They had taken jobs in Libya to provide for their families back in Egypt.

They should still be alive, but they arent. Their blood has polluted the Mediterranean and their twenty-one severed heads have been thrown to the wayside.

Then there was Kayla, a prep school graduate who logged hours of volunteer work in her hometown of Prescott, Arizona. Kayla had a quick laugh, a huge heart, and a focus on the world. She graduated college with a political science degree in 2009. As classmates polished their resumes, she packed her bags. Graduates her age looked for a way to start their career. Kayla started hers spending most of the next two years in India and Israel, volunteering in hope of relieving the suffering of other people. When she did return home, she went to work at an AIDS clinic and an area womens shelter.

After a year at home, Kayla spent another year in France to learn the language. Then, Kayla saw an opportunity to go to Turkey to ease the suffering of refugees from the surrounding war-ravaged region. Like any twenty-something, Kayla skyped with her boyfriend. She wrote letters to family and friends. She laughed and posed for pictures. She seized every opportunity to help. Thats what led Kayla to Syria on August 3, 2013, to see how she could assist Doctors Without Borders. The next day, extremists kidnapped her.

For the next eighteen months, Kaylas family received occasional communication that she was alive. Then, on February 10, 2015, Kaylas grieving family released a statement confirming their daughter had been executed. In the last letter they received, Kayla wrote, I remember Mom always telling me that all in all, in the end, the only one you really have is God. I have come to a place in experience where, in every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to our Creator because literally there was no one else.