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Zakaria Botros: 2008 Daniel of the Year
by Scott Gilbreath ~ December 8th, 2008
Father Zakaria Botros (at right), an elderly priest in the Egyptian Coptic Church, has a very fruitful ministry as an evangelist to Muslims across North Africa, the Middle East and beyond. His weekly television show has an audience numbering in the tens of millions.
An Arabic newspaper has named him Islam’s Public Enemy #1 and radical Islamists have placed a bounty on his head, but he refuses to be deterred in spreading the good news of Jesus in hostile lands.
Fr Botros is World magazine’s Daniel of the Year for 2008.
Botros has been hosting Truth Talk since 2003. The weekly show grew out of an internet chat room attended by thousands where the Coptic priest engaged Muslims on the inherent contradictions of their own religion and found that he was leading many to faith in Jesus Christ. As the geographic scope of the show has grown, so has its reach into the lives of Muslims. It is broadcast in Arabic, and this year began also to be translated for Turkish audiences and into Farsi to be aired in Iran.
Father Zakaria, as he is known to millions, has won his enormous following not by borrowing from the toolbox of the televangelist. For someone whose ecclesiastical tradition began in a.d. 100, his tools are decidedly 21st century: satellite uplinks, Wi-Fi connectivity, a late-edition Vaio laptop that is with him at all times, and a trusted reference tool he refers to as “St. Google.” He can spend 14-hour days on research for each show, and for this episode emailed the final script to producers at 4:30 a.m.
The result is less a preaching ministry and more like battlefield strategy. It’s the late-in-life culmination of a conscious decision, Botros says, to move away from apologetics and toward what he calls polemics: “My program is to attack Islam, not to attack Muslims but to save them because they are deceived. As I love Muslims, I hate Islam.”
Such conviction earns Botros a heady following—and serious enemies. Jihadist groups have reportedly posted a death threat worth $60 million against him. This year his name and photo appeared on an al-Qaeda website, seeking retribution for his teachings, which often depict Muhammad as less of a prophet and more of a womanizer. For his fearless determination in the face of his enemies, for his willingness to label Islam a false religion in a year when many Christian leaders have overreached in their quest for common ground with its worshippers, Zakaria Botros is WORLD’s 2008 Daniel of the Year.
Fr Botros has guts: “As I love Muslims, I hate Islam.” Anyone saying that in Canada risks public humiliation by our doyens of political correctness, if not a “human rights” complaint. That’s bad, but not nearly as bad as a bounty on your life.
Click here for Father Zakaria’s website.
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December 10th, 2008 at 04:52 PM
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