Posted on 06/15/2005 9:29:15 PM PDT by Iam1ru1-2
Observers of the printed page, the White House, and anyone interested in responsibility in the media were rightly outraged that Newsweek recently botched a report about Koran desecration by the U.S. military and started rioting in Afghanistan that ended lives and injured many.
It has long been known, but apparently not often reported by the mainstream media, that in places like Saudi Arabia, Bibles are not flushed at airport customs but are shredded. And if you are carrying enough of them, you may well receive 70 lashes if not execution.
Little is heard publicly about such contempt.
The reason? It is likely what Newsweek and its media elite friends choose to report, and not report. The largely irreligious corps of reporters and their disrespect of Christianity obviously comes into play.
But Danny Nalliah, a Sri Lankan-born pastor now based in Australia, presents a slightly different perspective: "The Muslims respect the Koran far more than Christians respect the Bible." So, then, when a Koran is reportedly destroyed, it is really big news. When a Bible is shredded -- yawn. No outrage, no tears, no human rights organizations rising to champion a cause. Just -- yawn.
A denominational executive just informed one of my friends that if a young missionary with a relatively weak view of Scripture is sent into a Muslim country, he will be broken in that country. Muslims aren't playing games with their holy book in most parts of the world. Christians who mean to take them on at an ideological and spiritual level must think at least as highly of the Bible as the Muslims do of the Koran.
How will we know when this happens?
- Christians accept a theological position that their Bible is fully authoritative and without error. A weak position here leads to weak positions on other consequential teachings. For instance, George Barna reports that in 2005, 46 percent of born-again Christians deny Satan's existence. A majority (52 percent) of all born-again Christians in 2001 rejected the existence of the Holy Spirit.
- Christians spend significant time in daily Bible study. Combined with significant hours of prayer per week, this makes Spirit-filled Christians most likely to have a powerful impact on their world and in their wooing of the Muslim to their faith.
- Christians not only affirm Scripture as authoritative and read it, but are informed by it. In short, they intellectually grasp the details of the Word. Be mindful that Barna found in 2000 that three-quarters of Americans believed that the Bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves. It doesn't.
- Christians recognize that knowing means more than intellectual assent. It means acting on that Truth. To know Scripture means to do Scripture. There is power in truth released in the daily lives of believers.
No one is stimulated to riot or even care much when a Bible is desecrated and shredded, or when people with Bibles are persecuted. But flush a Koran, and protests break out and people are killed or injured.
It would be understandable for the Evangelical to attribute the difference to the fact that the Bible has a civilizing effect and the Koran -- believed in or destroyed -- agitates the soul.
Is that the case? Or is it that Christians have long ago ceased to be a people of the Book and, frankly, it is not sacred enough in our daily lives to make it much of a consideration when it is shredded?
Fwd:
Under Islamic law, non-Muslims are deemed unfit to touch the Quran. That much is generally known. What is not usually considered is the reason: According to the Islamic law, we are unclean.
The term is "najis." On the multilingual Web site of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, the leading Iraqi Shi'ite cleric, there is a catalogue of Islamic laws. This includes a list of "najis things." There are 10, beginning with an assortment of excretions and body fluids--obvious stuff that really shouldn't need special mention. On the "najis" list with urine, feces, etc., are the pig, the dog and the "kafir." That means the Christian, the Jew, the unbeliever in Islam--and, chances are, the Gitmo guard.
In effect, then, with its official policy of clean gloves and detainee towels, the United States military is promoting, enabling and accepting the Islamic concept of najis--the unclean infidel--a barbarous notion that has helped fuel the bloodlust of jihad and the non-Muslim subjugation of dhimmitude. Our soldiers are many things: self-sacrificing, bold, loyal and true. They are not unclean.
Is this political correctness run amok? Not exactly. It's something else again, a new threat from within that needs vigilant redress. P.C. is about victimology, the elevation of perceived victim groups to the canonical pantheon. The Gitmo rules are more blatantly about surrender, a voluntary self-extinguishment, a spreading condition of denial of what is right and worth standing for. Not what you expect from the United States Southern Command.
To put it bluntly, we Christians can forgive the ignoramous who destroys the Bible. We can get another and still have the word of God. To the muslim, a book is nearly as holy as their so called prophet. I will take God over a book any day.
God helps those who help themselves, No?
Well said.
I suggested to a web developer friend of mine that we create a web site that allows you to pay to drop a qur'an into a toilet via web cam. We figured we could make 50 bucks a drop and be on all kinds of TV shows before we were killed the next week.
We have a home school hosted on the third floor of our 1889 house taught by a Christian school teacher.
That means that 8 school children have 8 Bibles that are left all over our house.
If we were Gitmo, Newsweek would have a field day with us. The Bibles are left on the floor, the dog can sit on them, they get knocked about, the cat can pee on them.......
The bottom line is that, if we were rabidly anti-Christian, there would be zero Bibles in this house to endure any wear and tear whatsoever.
:)
Sand
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