Islam Must Turn the Other Cheek
This is by Nolan Finley from the Detroit News:
How absurd is it that the deranged pastor of a tiny Florida church can make the entire world hold its breath just by threatening to burn a book?
The Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville is a hate-filled nut, for sure. But nothing he's done or vowed to do in offering what can only be viewed rationally as a minor insult to Islam merits the paranoia in the West about a worldwide wave of bloodshed at the hands of offended radicals.
Jones was implored not to carry out his promise to burn a copy of the Quran by, among others, the United Nations, the pope, Gen.general David Petraeus and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
His back-and-forth deliberating was covered as if it was another Bay of Pigs stand-off and this scruffy preacher had his finger on the button.
Come on. Jones should have been entirely ignored. He's not an official of our government, nor is he a national leader in any fashion. He's an obscure redneck, or at least he was until the cameras showed up at his 50-member church.
That Jones captured so much attention is an indication of what the West is up against in its effort to coexist with Islam.
Yeah, I know -- all Muslims aren't mayhem makers. But the lunatic fringe is apparently wide enough to trigger an extreme overreaction from our nation's top offices to a silly little publicity stunt.
If Muslim sensibilities are so tender they can't ignore the bizarre rants of an insignificant American fanatic then this is a culture with a serious anger management issue, and one the West can't help with.
There's no way to head-off every potential slight to Islam. Last time it was Danish cartoons, this time it's a Pentecostal pew jumper who lays down his snakes to strike a match.
Tomorrow, an atheist in Italy may name his dog Mohammad, or a biker in Australia will have a likeness of the prophet tattooed on his backside.
The only answer is for Islam to grow up. Religion invites antagonism; get used to it.
Using the destruction of a book as an excuse to rampage is unacceptable and immature. A Quran, like a Bible, is a physical thing. What makes both books holy are the ideas and inspiration they contain, not the pages and ink. The religion won't be broken by taunts, or by bonfires.
Burning a Quran in the Florida swamps doesn't weaken the foundation of Islam any more than burning an American flag in Pakistan dents our nation's underpinnings, or coating an icon of the Virgin Mary with elephant poop, like that "artist" once did in Cincinnati, undermines Christianity.
Grown-ups shrug off such affronts for the ignorance they are, and move on. They don't go nuts, as the radicals did after the cartoon episode.
We've had the mantra "Islam is a religion of peace" drilled into us for the past nine years. But Muslims still have some work to do to make that case. Peaceful religions aren't so easily provoked to violence. Religions of peace turn the other cheek.
What more is there to say?
Labels: Detroit News, islam, Koran, Muslims, Nolan Finley, religion
Religious Freedom
We just got done lighting the Chanukah candles at my house. Tonight is the fifth night of Chanukah. Today is also Christmas, so I'd like to wish Christians everywhere a Merry Christmas. Earlier today, we indulged in our yearly Christmas tradition. We went to a movie and then got some Chinese food from our local carry out. The food was good, the movie was awful. We went to see the Spirit. In spite of the cleavage provided by Eva Mendez and Scarlett Johansson, my whole family agreed that this was a painfully bad movie. A guy sitting at the end of our row fell asleep during this piece of junk. While he was still out the price of his ticket, at least he made better use of his time than we did. My daughter woke him before we left. She felt bad leaving him like that.
My wife's family is Catholic, so we also have a Christmas Eve tradition of going to her sister's house for dinner. So last night we had a nice dinner and a good time. Afterward, we came home and lit the Chanukah candles for the fourth night.
Does any of this really matter?
It does and here's why, from a
couple of
articles I linked to today at Little Green Footballs:
Iraq's Christians, a scant minority in this overwhelmingly Muslim country, quietly celebrated Christmas on Thursday with a present from the government, which declared it an official holiday for the first time.
But security worries overshadowed the day for many, particularly in the north where thousands of Christians have fled to escape religious attacks.
Overall security in Iraq has improved markedly in the past year, but a fatal car bombing in Baghdad on Christmas morning was a gruesome reminder that serious problems remain.
and
Rushing to Christmas mass, Iraqis in their Sunday best hurried into Baghdad's Sacred Heart church, pausing just long enough so a uniformed security guard could pat them down for suicide vests or dangerous weapons.
The juxtaposition of faith and fear is one that resonates across Iraq, where as violence drops people are cautiously venturing out from homes bunkered by blast walls and sand bags and taking up activities abandoned during years of bloodshed.
Christians, who with Yazidis, Shabaks and others make up Iraq's fragile minorities, marked perhaps their safest Christmas since 2003 on Thursday, but many still talk of a precarious future in a nation at risk of backsliding into civil war.
Iraqi Christians, believed to number around 750,000, have been targeted like others in Iraq's 28-million, mainly Muslim population by the horrific violence since the 2003 invasion. Their plight often gains heightened attention in the West.
Reliable figures are hard to find on how many Christians are among the millions who have fled the country, but some Christian leaders warn of a threat to the existence for their community.
A series of high-profile attacks against Christians in the northern city of Mosul this fall prompted the flight of thousands of families and fuelled a fear of being singled out.
"Christians have no political ambitions and they don't have militias to defend themselves. They are peaceful people," Thaier al-Sheikh, the pastor of the Sacred Heart church, said as he sipped tea in his rectory.
"Christians have been here longer than Muslims, 600 years longer. We are the roots of Iraq," he said.
"We want to live in this country; we don't want anything else. But we want to live peacefully ... Unfortunately, today we have the impression that Christians have no future in Iraq," he said, standing before he donned his gold-trimmed clerical robes.
No mention is made as to whether there are
any Jews
left in Iraq to celebrate Chanukah.
And then there is the rest of the Islamic world. There are a very few Jews left in some Islamic nations, but are they allowed to openly celebrate the Jewish holidays? I'm guessing that they aren't. At one time perhaps, the authorities were more forgiving in allowing Jews and Christians to practice their religions, but with the current jihadist climate that has taken hold of the Muslim world, I bet things are tough.
There has also been articles about attacks on
Jews in Europe - by whom? Oh yeah, Muslims - uh - I mean - youths. We don't know who these youths are, or why they attack Jews, or burn cars, or riot, or . . . you get the idea. If I were a European Jew, would I shut the drapes before lighting my Chanukah candles? Would we have the decorations in the window that we have, that we've always had, year after year? We live across the street from a church, but we've never feared anyone at the church. We were even friends with the previous pastor. Would I be able to say the same thing if I live across from a mosque? In London or Berlin?
I value the freedom I and my children have to practice Judaism in the open, without fear. I have that freedom because my grandparents were willing and able to move to this strange foreign country from Russia and Poland way back in beginning of the 20th century. A lot of people, Jews and non-Jews take this freedom for granted. It's something that we've always had, and so they think, something we will always have. Religious persecution is for other countries. I think they are asleep at the wheel. There are people in this country who do want to
take that freedom from us. A lot of people don't want to face that fact and put on great demonstrations about reaching out to others in order to "know the other." They won't admit that "the other" wants to murder them and their children.
Some people don't want to consider the situation where we could, right here in the United States, be persecuted for our religious beliefs. But there are
people in California being
persecuted and blacklisted for their political beliefs. They foolishly thought they had the right contribute to the campaign to pass
Proposition 8 in California. Not only have
churches been vandalized, but some people have been harassed and forced from their jobs for this allegedly protected
political speech. What's worse is that nobody, outside of a few conservative bloggers, have risen to their defense. Where are the newspapers who pretend to be guardians of our freedom? Where is the ACLU on this? Don't they claim to protect civil liberties? And where will the ACLU and all of the other "human rights" groups be when these brownshirt tactics begin to be used against religious minorities? They won't be on our side, that's for sure.
Labels: Chanukah, Christmas, Iraq, islam, Proposition 8, religion
How religious right, left can work together
The News ran a Washington Post story about how the religious left and religious right are working together on some issues, such as a hunger convocation in Washington. The following are comments by two Faith and Policy columnists and another contributor:
That's how Saturday's debate in the
Detroit News began.
According to Rabbi Aaron Bergman,
. . .If religious leaders on the right and religious leaders on the left cannot work together on important projects, they are not religious leaders or servants of God. They are political hacks, no better than the most blatantly self-interested politician. . .
According to Jordan J. Ballor,
. . .On any number of issues, partisan politicking and loyalty has trumped theological and ecclesiastical unity. And with the increasing politicization of churches, oftentimes prudential policy issues become a new "shibboleth." Demonization of the religious opposition obscures the agreement of intent that often exists, overemphasizing the discord over how that good intention is to be actualized. . .
According to Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi,
. . . Interfaith participants should be true to their traditional identities and not bargain on their principles, but avoid exploiting religion for political purposes. Traditional Christian-Jewish interfaith groups have often silenced criticism over issues like Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . .
The Imam is certainly being true to one of his major principles; blame the Jews and Christians, but especially the Jews for all of the pathologies of Islam. As for "exploiting religion for political purposes", isn't that another principle of Islam? Didn't he just indulge in it?
Yes, we can all work together, if we are truly willing to do so.
Labels: Detroit News, Imam Elahi, religion
CHALLAH AKBAR
