Father Josiah Trenham mentioned “intimidation” to the parishioners of St. Andrew Orthodox Church, and he was quite right: Islamic supremacists and jihadis routinely traffic in intimidation. That’s based on a Qur’anic command: “And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by which you may strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them whom you do not know, whom Allah knows” (Qur’an 8:60).

When they practice this intimidation, they generally find Westerners — especially Christian leaders — unwilling and unable to do anything in response but submit to it: the Christians are anxious to show themselves to be charitable and loving to the Muslims, without realizing that as far as the Muslims are concerned, this equates to surrender. Hence the many Christian leaders who counseled that in the face of the jihad murder of cartoonists of Muhammad, the charitable thing for Christians to do would be to accept the Sharia blasphemy restrictions on speech, at least regarding criticism of Muhammad.

This is not to say that Christians shouldn’t be charitable and loving, but sometimes the most charitable thing to do is to refuse to allow the intimidator a victory for his intimidation. Giving in to intimidation only encourages more of it. Christians in the U.S. need to have a public discussion of this point, since one thing is certain: there are going to be many, many more incidents like this one at St. Andrew Orthodox Church.

“Churches take new security measures in face of terror threats,” by Hollie McKay, Fox News, August 9, 2016:

As Father Josiah Trenham prepared to read the Gospel, several parishioners discreetly scooped up their babies, retreated up the aisles of St. Andrew Orthodox Church and out into the spring air, so as not to allow the crying of little ones to disturb the divine liturgy. The time-honored tradition was shattered when a car passed by the Riverside, Calif., church, slowing down as the front passenger leaned out of his window and bellowed menacingly through a bullhorn, according to witnesses. “Allahu Akbar!” the unidentified man repeated several times as the unnerved parents drew their infants close and exchanged worried glances. Witnesses were able to give Riverside police a description of the green Honda Civic, but not of the three occupants. Some told police they believed one or more of the men may have been taking photographs, according to Officer Ryan Railsback. Although Trenham insisted multiple congregants heard the Arabic phrase, Railsback noted no mention of it was in the police report.

In omitting this, was the author of the police report running some politically correct interference for area Muslims?