The would-be suicide bomber
A Muslim suicide bomber pretending to be a Christian at a major Catholic Church surprised everybody when he stood up, ran at and slashed the priest with an axe, and tried to blow himself up. But in nothing short of a miracle, the bomb just fizzled out and the congregation held him there until police came:
Priest Albert Pandiangan, 60, was holding the holy ceremony at the altar when the 18-year-old fanatic rushed towards him with a backpack bomb and tried to blow himself up.
But the bomb burned without setting off the explosives, so the jihadi pulled an axe from his bag and slashed the priest's arm at St Yoseph Church in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra in Indonesia.
...
The congregation then stepped in and managed to wrestle the axe from his grasp, detaining him until the police arrived.
As officers marched the suspect to the car, pictures show his white trousers soaked in blood. Police found his ID card and a hand-drawn picture of the ISIS flag.
The young fanatic also told police that he was not working alone.
He was later pictured at the police station with an officer holding his bloody head off the ground, where he was lying handcuffed. (source)
It was a miracle that the bomb did not go off, as hundreds of people would have died. However, this attack is also a warning to Christians in the West.
In the early church (and by that I mean the actual early church), becoming a member was a lengthy ordeal, sometimes lasting several years. The purpose was twofold. First, it was to determine if this was something that you actually wanted to do, since it involved coming into a religion where you would be ostracized and disliked. Second, it was to uproot potential infiltrators, who joined with the purpose of undermining it from within. While things changed in the the fourth century under Constantine, there has always been a problem with people trying to use the Church for power and even to destroy it from within. From the laity through even certain popes, this is an ongoing problem that is as old as the Church itself is. It is however the responsibility of the laity to be vigilant and look for the signs of potential invaders.
AA-1025: Memoirs of an Anti-Apostle. This book is the story of one of many men that the Soviet Union paid to become priests in the Catholic Church with the goal of controlling and eventually destroying it from within. This happened with all of the Churches in communist nations, and is a story as old as time. However, this is a fascinating look into this infiltration as one who actually lived it (click here for the book's website).
In the years to come, as Christianity becomes more ostracized in the West, it is assumed that there will be more problems with both governments and Islam. As in this case, expect there to be infiltrators among the ranks of the Churches, especially with Muslims. Indeed, as with this man, the person attending mass may not be a Christian, but a suicide bomber in disguise.
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