Erick Stakelbeck/ US. Correspondent.
Jack Hibbs, Pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in Southern California, has been sounding the alarm about legislation (Assembly Bill 2017) rapidly advancing in his state that would make two Islamic “holy days,” Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, official state holidays.
It’s a troubling development. The conversation is not about “religious freedom”; it is something entirely different.
“Imagine if we changed the verbiage a bit… that there is a Christian bill before the legislators in Sacramento, and it mandates that all schools, universities, and businesses must give the day off for either Good Friday, Easter, Christmas, or Thanksgiving as a ‘Christian holy day’—this is key,” Hibbs detailed in an episode of Stakelbeck tonight. “The response of the nation would be to go crazy. They would be screaming ‘separation of church and state.’ [They would call it] a First Amendment violation. The government shall not establish or show favoritism toward any particular religion. This is exactly what we have regarding Islam.”
“California and our legislators are going full bore in on Islam,” Hibbs underscored. “If California is going to recognize two Islamic holidays, we, as a culture, will be forced to deal with that within our businesses, our schools, and with our children. It also incorporates teaching among public school children about what these two holidays mean—translation: Islamic indoctrination. There’s no other way to put it. That’s where we’re at. And it is happening as we speak.”
Charlie Kirk once said that Islam and Western Civilization are not compatible. And yet, Islam is making significant inroads.
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott is thankfully pushing back, most recently overruling an attempt to install Islamic footwashing stations at the Dallas and Houston airports. Yet, Islam and Islamists are becoming increasingly emboldened, and by and large are doing so with little opposition.
Shariah Law is not just some “bogeyman”; it is a very real possibility that we see being enforced on a smaller scale in Islamic enclaves across America.
“The reality is this—and it is quite convicting—Christians in America tend to fight for something until they lose,” Hibbs emphasized. “Muslims in America have come here to overrule the Constitution—they fight until they win.”
“The Christian wants it easy. They want it simple. The Muslims are at war—a cultural war,” he noted, calling the advancement of Shariah in America “textbook” to Islamic history. “They are probing our constitutional rights. Shariah law in Islamic jurisprudence is diametrically opposed to the constitutional republic government in which we live. Their goal is to bring down what they refer to as ‘the great satan’—that’s their name for America.”
“Christians do not want to entertain that because it provokes them to get involved,” Hibbs stated, encouraging the church to fulfill the responsibility to be “watchmen of the wall and sound the alarm.”
Unfortunately, a flabby, complacent version of Christianity is the main reason that Islamists and communists are able to make inroads in our country. This is especially critical to understand in the lead-up to the midterms. The past has demonstrated that tens of millions of self-professing Christians stay home every election.
Pastor Hibbs pointed to the election of New York City Mayor Zorhan Mamdani, highlighting that while Christians and Jews did not support the Islamic Marxist, that opposition didn’t translate into action.
“The exit polls in New York City showed that the Muslims voted. The Christians did not vote, the Conservatives did not vote, and the Jews did not go out and vote. As a result, Zorhan Mamdani became the Mayor of America’s greatest city,” he lamented. “This is happening in smaller villages, townships, and cities across America. It’s happening in California.”
“As Abraham Lincoln warned, if we ever collapse, we are going to collapse from compromise from within,” Hibbs described. “That’s what is going on.”
“Islam has taken the Judeo-Christian foundation of this nation, and they are using it against an apathetic Christian/Conservative electorate. The Christian isn’t voting. We know this statistically. They don’t care. They don’t view keeping the Republic and their freedoms as a ministry stewardship,” he warned, adding that a proper understanding of Scripture, including Jeremiah 29:7, “demands that we care.”
Erick Stakelbeck is an author, analyst, and host of “The Watchman” newscast and “Stakelbeck Tonight.” Stakelbeck also serves as the Director of Christians United for Israel’s CUFI Watchman Project.
