The Second Killing of Christ

By Rod Morris

The Second Killing of Christ is a chillingly conceivable tale of a small group of retired US Special Forces so frustrated over the general indifference to the persecution and purging of Christians in Syria and Iraq that they take matters into their own hands.

If POTUS, Congress, the media, and even the pope will do nothing while Christians are brutalized and driven from their homes, they will form their own rogue, unaffiliated military unit to hunt down and deal with ISIS culprits at a level of unbridled brutality meant to send an unmistakable message that Christians will no longer be passive.

They are unaware that one of the groups they are hunting has discovered and stolen relics containing the blood DNA of Christ that had been hidden in an ancient Syrian monastery for the last 1,500 years. They and their royal Qatari sponsor are resolved to use this genetic material to destroy Christianity by cloning Christ. If Christ can be cloned, he cannot possibly be God. The logic is irrefutable. If God is the Creator of all things, he himself could not be created or duplicated, and conversely, his duplication would be undeniable proof that he was just another man. That would mean that Christianity is fundamentally a hoax and will collapse from its own deceit.

At roughly the same time that POTUS is informed of the plot to clone Christ, he is also made aware of these rogue operators killing ISIS in Syria. He realizes that the potential success of the destruction of Christianity would have a devastating impact on almost every conceivable aspect of international affairs-world, national, and Middle East peace-and the social fabric of Western societies: religious, moral, economic, and educational. Christian charitable and social organizations and primary and secondary schools and universities would disappear. The stock exchange would tank, prices would rise, unemployment would skyrocket, etc. The dominoes would fall for decades. He knows that he must act but realizes that it would be political suicide to do anything appearing to support Christianity. He sees an opportunity to blackmail this rogue Christian group in Syria as his front to foil the ISIS plot and seize the relics.

Iranian intelligence, however, has also discovered the Sunni ISIS plot and its potential for wreaking havoc in the Christian world. The mullahs will do everything in their power to assure that the Shia of Iran and not the Sunni dogs of ISIS are the instrument of Christianity's destruction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098071486

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Dream

There was a legend among the Christian faithful in Syria that was particularly entrenched among those living near the Syriac Catholic monastery of St. Eliane three kilometers outside of the town of AlQaryatayn in the Homs Governate. The legend held that the monks possessed a relic of Christ’s blood. It had some credibility if only because it had persisted for over 1,500 years despite the fact that the monks themselves had never confirmed and yet never denied that such a relic existed. When anyone asked about the legend, each monk in every year of every century would simply respond with an indulgent smile in exactly the same way, Yes, of course, we have the blood of Christ. We possess it and even consume it every day in the Eucharist. So can you! And with that, the subject was dismissed.

Such deflections only reinforced the belief that there was something the monks were hiding, and even though it was the subject of innumerable dinner conversations of faithless intellectuals as well as the humble believers, no one could come up with any plausible explanation of why the monks would keep such a secret from literally everyone outside of the walls of the monastery. Even patriarchs, bishops, rulers, and kings knew nothing and could only be amused by the monks’ intrigue or, if there was nothing to the rumors, their mischief in perpetuating it.

Abd al-Assad (aka Qabda—the Fist), the commander of ISIS forces in Homs province, cared nothing about the legend even though he felt no greater pleasure than when he was torturing and killing the priests and nuns of the Crusaders as he and his men referred to anyone aligned with Western or Christian interests. Not even the death of Americans was more fulfilling. He delighted in personally participating in what he euphemistically referred to as interrogation sessions. Almost without exception, his prisoners eventually succumbed to their fear and pain and begged for acceptance into the one true faith of Islam. When they did, the expression on his face was one of ecstasy as if he had just been granted a vision of Allah. At that very moment, before they had even a microsecond to regret what they had just said, he would kiss them on the lips and immediately welcome them into Islam with a blindingly fast slash of his sword to remove their heads.

Assad would come to care about the legend; however, on the night before, he had planned to destroy the monastery and kill the three remaining monks and half dozen nuns who had not fled or already been murdered. He went to bed with sweet anticipation of more Crusader blood, but he had barely been asleep an hour when he awoke with a start and sweating profusely. He had had a disturbing dream that started with him standing on top of the rubble of the monastery holding a bloody scimitar. A bleeding and trembling monk was kneeling before him offering him something that he could not quite make out. As he took the object, the vision changed to a scene of a laughing Christ holding the staff of an ISIS flag that he had used as a lance to pierce the heart of a dead pope lying at his feet. In the background was an inverted cross, and the Christ figure was wearing ISIS black as if he was a jihadi in Assad’s command.

Confused by what the dream meant, he was certain that it was an important portent that had something to do with the destruction of the monastery. He went to the sink and held his head under the cold water until the fog lifted. He called to the guard outside of his door and ordered him to bring his lieutenants to him immediately.

After explaining his dream which he described as a vision, he asked for opinions about its meaning. The first to speak was an American convert who arguably hated Christians even more than his boss.

Tariq al Habbibi had been born Reggie Harris into a large Baptist family from inner city Detroit. Al Habbibi’s father was a preacher with a moderately large and loyal congregation that had been generous enough to provide a comfortable life for a family that included his mother, an older brother, and a younger sister.

It was impossible, even for an interested observer, to determine whether Reggie’s father or mother was the more brutally strict in controlling every aspect of the lives of their children. Every minute of every day had been turned into a suffocating moral lesson, and because his father was often absent until after 10:00 p.m. in the evenings, every night at 8:00 p.m., his mother led the children in group study of the Bible. The rod was never spared by either of them. Corporal punishment, as his father referred to it, was regularly dispensed for any actual or even perceived inappropriate behavior, any insufficiency in the classroom or any moral deficiency.

Every Sunday was spent at the church—in choir, in Bible lessons, assisting with lunch for the poor, cleaning up—until 6:00 p.m. There was never a moment permitted for sports or dating or hanging out with friends, and this was his life without variance or exception until twelve days after his seventeenth birthday when his father was arrested for stealing church funds. The case against him had been overwhelming, and he confessed even before his supporters had an opportunity to spin a tale of a setup by racist police or some kind of prosecutorial conspiracy of an innocent Black preacher. In his admission of guilt, he acknowledged that his motive hadn’t been pure greed but rather to fund his narcissistic and sinful life—a life as a serial philanderer supporting three wives with ten kids and three houses with church funds supposedly collected for the support of the poor.

Reggie was furious and totally devastated. He was sickened by his father’s moral and religious hypocrisy—the lying, cheating, stealing, and abuse of his position. In rejecting everything about his father, he rejected Christianity and began to investigate anything that was the polar opposite of what his father even pretended to be.

Many of his friends were members of the Nation of Islam, and they openly sought to proselytize him. After all, he was an easy target who readily identified with their militant anger. He was angry about everything and so were they, but at its lowest common denominator, the Nation of Islam was less about religion than about fighting the man. It wasn’t just about fighting the White man. It was about fighting the whole power structure—all the dominant structures of power: Caucasians, Christianity, European morality.

The oppression wielded by his father was just another component of a world trying to beat him into submission, and he was done with allowing his life to be so controlled. His resentment and militancy grew so quickly that he outgrew the Nation in less than a year. As he searched the Internet and found dozens of people that he could identify with, he converted to Islam, joined a mosque with a radical imam, and became convinced that Allah’s will could only be fulfilled by becoming a jihadi and fighting for the caliphate.

Without so much as a good-bye to his family, he adopted the name Tariq al-Habbibi and made his way to Turkey and into Syria where he joined the first ISIS cell that he came across. But they didn’t buy his story, and they subjected him to physical and mental tests that would have broken anyone with less than Reggie’s all-consuming hatred and overwhelming desire to prove to them that his hatred could be harnessed and directed. Assigned to torture and behead Christians, he did it without hesitation or guilt. Assigned to solo missions against American patrols just to test his willingness to die for the cause and kill his fellow countrymen, he was wounded twice and yet managed to kill or incapacitate every one of the Americans. His cunning and skill impressed the entire command structure which finally saw him accepted into the brotherhood of ISIS sociopaths.

He moved through the ranks quickly when, after three years, he became Assad’s most trusted lieutenant. So when al Habbibi spoke, the others listened, and his Christian past gave him particular credibility when speaking about the Crusaders and their religion. The fact that the imagery of the dream was about a monk and a pope that he had no knowledge or association with was lost on his comrades. Regardless, Tariq knew he had an advantage and he played to it. He said, I believe that Allah is telling you that there is something or someone at the monastery that you can use to destroy Christianity. That is what I take from the inverted cross and the killing of the pope. I cannot make much sense of the image of Christ, but I think that it is quite clear that there is something at the monastery pertaining to Christ that can be turned against the Christians, God willing!

Another of the lieutenants, a Syrian, added, I think Tariq makes sense, and, brothers, who doesn’t know of the legend that has surrounded this monastery throughout the ages—that it holds some kind of relic of Christ’s blood. Maybe this blood, if it exists, has something to do with it—that we can use this blood somehow to prove the lies of Christianity.

Assad lowered his head and stared at his hands. When no one else had anything to offer, he said, These are my own thoughts as well. Let us thoroughly search the monastery and interrogate the Crusaders to see if we can get them to reveal anything of value. If not successful, we will destroy the monastery in small sections. That way, we can search the rubble and see if we can find anything that had been walled in or concealed in some manner that we could not otherwise discover. Get me a detailed map of the monastery so we can prioritize the sections to be demolished, and let us do this by bulldozer not explosives.

Chapter 2

Letter from Philip

By the time the group strategized the manner of destroying the monastery and its church, it was nearly dawn, and Assad decided that there was no better time to commence the raid than the present. They entered the monastery without resistance and set about their first priority which was to gather the monks and nuns and begin the interrogations. Gathering them could not have been easier since they were all assembled in the monastery church for Matins before the Divine Liturgy.

The American led the storming of the church while Assad stood back and observed. Without even aiming, they fired their AK-47s over the heads of those gathered which, in addition to the priests and nuns, included only one old man and two elderly women. The invaders walked slowly and calmly down each of the three aisles. Without having said a word, the American leveled his weapon at the elderly congregants and dispatched them with two short bursts. He then turned to the altar and released a burst that cut the main cross on the altar in half.

Remarkably, neither the priests nor the nuns tried to run or take cover. They didn’t even cower in the pews but rather stood ramrod straight showing no fear. While the American marched directly onto the altar, his comrades directed the nuns to exit the church by the main door. Tariq struck the oldest priest with the butt of his rifle breaking the priest’s glasses and starting a flow of blood from the bridge of his nose. The other two monks rushed to assist their brother but were met with the same fate.

The American grabbed the half-conscious monk with a handful of the priest’s kutino (alb) and began dragging him down the center aisle toward the door. He dropped him after a few feet and began kicking him in the stomach and face while yelling at him to get up and walk. The other two monks were finally allowed to assist him, and the three of them ultimately stumbled into the street in front of the monastery while being slapped and prodded with the barrels of the guns.

The nuns were separated from the priests and each other and were questioned individually by two teams of three: one to interrogate, one to torture, and one to witness and assist in whatever atrocity might spring to mind. The subjects of the questions were: what is hidden within the church—monastery or convent? Where are the relics—gems, art, manuscripts?

The torturers would check responses for consistency if not accuracy, and should they be discovered to be lying, they would be shot or beheaded in front of the others. If the nuns refused to talk, they were brutalized in front of the priests, and yet despite all, they gave up nothing and were systematically martyred.

The first monk to be interrogated was the youngest, perhaps thirty-five, and he seemed to crack while being struck and pierced with the tapered end of a bronze crucifix taken from its stand on the altar. Crying out in pain, he begged them to stop, and he would give them what they were asking for. Smiling at their victory, the torturers released him from the cuffs that held him in a facedown spread-eagle position on a well-worn table taken from the refectory, but he protested that he could not get up without some help. As he had hoped, the one who had been beating him put the crucifix down on the table in order to free his hands. In less than a heartbeat, the young priest grabbed the crucifix and thrust it with all his strength into the neck of the ISIS fighter and wheeled to strike another. He missed and the third member of the torture team killed him with three shots to the chest.

While all this was going on, three more teams were going through the entirety of the monastic complex removing anything that could be sold, destroying that which could not, and searching for any concealed spaces that might contain relics or valuables.

Within the monks’ quarters, there was a small chapel used only for monastic prayers. It held only one small altar which was not concealed by an iconostasis. With the exception of one large tapestry behind the altar, the chapel was unadorned with icons or other works of art. The tapestry depicted the Trojerucica (the three-handed Theotokos—meaning God bearer). Revered as the most important icon of the Serbian Orthodox Church, it is a picture of the Virgin Mary holding a young Jesus. And in the bottom left corner is a silver recreation of the hand of John of Damascus.

The original dates to AD 717 and according to tradition, it commemorates the miraculous restoration of the hand of John of Damascus after he was falsely accused of treachery and his hand was cut off. The accusation was made by Byzantine emperor Leo the Isaurian while John was Vizier to caliph Al-Walid I. After praying in front of an icon of the Theotokos, legend holds that his hand was regenerated. In thanksgiving, he had a silver replica of his hand fashioned and attached to the icon which resulted in the icon coming to be known as the three-handed Theotokos.

The tapestry would bring good money in the black market, so the search team removed it and discovered that it had covered a nook in the shape of a simple Greek cross. The bottom of the cross began at about three feet above the floor with dimensions of four inches high by four inches wide. The nook had been filled in with plaster—rather poorly and visibly—since the wall itself was marble. Assad ordered that the plaster be chipped out to see what might be behind it. After removing the plaster, they found that it held nothing at all but they were curious about the nook’s dimensions. It was eighteen inches deep at the top but only five inches deep at the bottom with a marble ridge running the full length of the opening. It seemed apparent that the nook was made to display something at an angle and the ridge was there to keep it from slipping forward. The discovery gave them some hope that the monks really did have something that they were concealing.

The hunt took a dozen searchers all day but nothing more interesting than the niche in the chapel had been discovered, so Assad gave the order to begin the systematic destruction of the buildings. Each section was to be razed by bulldozers which were to break the walls and foundations into small pieces and then push everything to an adjacent location so as not to impede the rest of search. Troops were assigned to watch the process to see and