Posted on 05/08/2007 2:14:08 AM PDT by Blue_Ridge_Mtn_Geek
I’m honored that you have stolen. Please be sure not to capitalize the (otherwise) proper noun because that denotes respect for what the noun describes.
“I’m getting a little tired of the Muslims blaming Western culture for all their ills.”
Yes, chronic blame shifters are insufferable, aren’t they - - -from Eve blaming the serpent to Adam blaming “this woman that YOU gave me”. What a pain! Makes you wonder why God didn’t just rub us out and start all over again.
“I’m a conservative Christian, and I don’t like the vast majority of our popular culture. So what do I do? I turn it off. I don’t let it into my home. I homeschool my kids. I live by my values and teach them to my children. And the Muslims are perfectly free to do the same.”
Yes, they are. Perhaps they aren’t as willing as you are to let the neighborhood slide into hell while you cocoon yourself off from it. I’m inclined to be like you in this respect: let the sinners stew in their own juices, and just stay clear of them as much as possible. Somehow I don’t think our Lord is very appreciative of such indifference and stand-offishness on our part. However, congratulations on taking up the Deut 6:4-6,20-25 challenge. More Christians retracting their delegation of teaching authority to state schools is a good step towards a better educational future: separation of school and state: http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20276
And not only conservative Christians see it that way: http://www.freedomofeducation.net/ https://honestedu.org/page1.php
“Instead, they wallow in our popular culture and then fault us for its existence. The 9/11 hijackers were hanging out in a strip bar a few nights before the attack. Muslims expose themselves to our popular culture, then turn around and try to use it against us. “America made me do it” is the reasoning of a child, and it’s time for the Muslim world to grow up.”
One might say that: “the reasoning of a child”, for all the “worlds” that constitute the City of Man. No argument from me on that point. The 9/11 hijackers had the same problem as other self-righteous prigs (Jimmy Swaggert and Jim Bakker come to mind) who talk the talk but stumble badly when they try to walk the walk.
“I’m not buying it, and I’m pretty sick of other Americans who do.”
This brings Rev 3:15-22 to mind. Since I’m struggling with the same deficiencies of heart that I see in you, I will leave it at that.
“I’m sick of the media with their constant refrain of ‘why do they hate us’ as though somehow America is to blame for the pervasive Middle Eastern discord and dysfunction which has been around since the dawn of time. The ‘it’s our fault’ mantra coming from liberal Americans always reminds me of a beaten wife who blames herself for making her abusive husband mad. There’s no excuse for terror, and it’s time for us to stop accepting the blame.”
Since I agree with you that these media mantras are an attempt to mesmerize us with a guilt trip to advance their own perverse agendas, I will only say that its good to kick their ploy to the curb. That said, there is still plenty for us to do to engage our sworn enemies and our perverse neighbors (well represented in the media as well as physically around the corner) in the spirit of Rom 12.
“I absolutely reject the moral equivalency the writer of this article is trying to make between conservative Christians and conservative Muslims.”
Having similar views on the profligacy of American culture (as exemplified by the image posted at #7 with the tag line “This is the American way of life”) does not make the two groups “morally equivalent”.
“When Hollywood makes yet another disgusting movie, Christians pass the word amongst themselves and avoid it. When artists defame Christ or the Virgin Mary, Christians protest. They boycott, they write an op ed, they complain on Free Republic. They don’t behead the artists. They don’t issue fatwas calling for the death of authors who write anti-Christian books.”
Yes, we definitely make better neighbors in that respect, at least lately. The large groups of Christians who slaughtered each other over diverse readings of Scripture and religious practice and authority have been dwindling since the Wars of Religion sputtered out in the 17th century, and the last witches executed in (formerly) Christian Europe were (I think) hanged in the early 18th century. As we can see in Iraq, and elsewhere, slaughter driven by odium theologicum is still a common element of Islamic culture. Perhaps, in a neighborly kind of way, while we hunt down their jihadists and check their dreams of a new caliphate (if we can indeed accomplish that), we can help them grow a less vicious polity (supposedly the point of the US military presence in Iraq). I think we have a few beams to remove from our own eyes along the way before we can really be of much help to them, though. As long as they find the same self-righteous and dismissive attitude in us that their holy book teaches them to have with respect to non-Muslims, they will see little reason to repent of it.
“The author says that conservative Christians should have stood up for Muslims over the Danish cartoon incident. Is he actually suggesting that Christians should have stood shoulder to shoulder with Muslims calling for the death of a cartoonist? Earth to Seattle Times—that’s not how Christians act.”
Read the article more carefully. “They supported not only their right to print the cartoons, which was OK, but their decision to print them.” How you get that he was calling for us to agree with rioting and death threats from that statement is mystifying indeed.
One can support free speech without cheering on every exercise of it. And at the same time one can note the irony of the intemperate and violent Muslim reaction to the observation that their culture is prone to chronic violence and intemperance, as if they are saying to the world, “We resemble that remark!”
There is nothing in the life of Christ that would lead a thinking person to conclude that putting a crucifix in a jar of urine is anything other than unjustified contempt. Likewise the Virgin Mary.
However, the Danish cartoons had a degree of truth to them. Study the life of Mohammad. There is little admirable there. Since the cartoons had a core of truth, they can properly be considered protected political speech.
I, as a Christian, will not defend Mohammad. I can defend other non-Christian religious leader and practitioners who have preached peace and tolerance, but not the violent, misguided founder of Islam.
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