Earlier this month Amir Taheri published an important article titled Turkey's Creeping Coup D'Etat. It offers unusually insightful analysis of the Islamist political maneuvering going on in Turkey.
While on the subject of Turkey, I'd like to provide links to accounts of the recent vicious attack and martyrdom of three Christians in Turkey. The Voice of the Martyrs has an extensive report here (also reported here). It is tremendously moving and I urge you to click through to read it. It begins this way:
On April 18, five Muslims entered a Christian publishing company and killed three believers in the southeastern province of Malatya. Two of the victims were Turkish converts from Islam and the third man was a German citizen who had lived in Turkey for 10 years. News reports said four of the attackers admitted that the killings were motivated by both “nationalist and religious feelings.”
The article is composed primarily of a letter from a Turkish Church that details what happened and explains the situation that confronts believers in Turkey today. I found the following particularly moving:
In an act that hit front pages in the largest newspapers in Turkey, Susanne Geske [wife of the martyred German man] in a television interview expressed her forgiveness. She did not want revenge, she told reporters. “Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do,” she said, wholeheartedly agreeing with the words of Christ on Calvary (Luke 23:34).
In a country where blood-for-blood revenge is as normal as breathing, many many reports have come to the attention of the church of how this comment of Susanne Geske has changed lives. One columnist wrote of her comment, “She said in one sentence what 1000 missionaries in 1000 years could never do.”
A church pastor said in urging prayer for the Church in Turkey: “Don’t pray against persecution, pray for perseverence." A torture report of one of the martyrs is available here (but I don't necessarily advise reading it.)
The Associated Press tells the story of the slain German missionary and his surviving family here. To my mind, modern heroes.