Posted on 07/31/2007 5:57:27 AM PDT by SJackson
Muslim Groups in the U.S. have joined with left-wing Protestants and Catholics in planning an “interfaith fast” on the upcoming “day officially known as ‘Columbus Day,’” according to fast organizers. Called “From Conquest to Community, From Violence to Reverence: An Interfaith Fast to End the War in Iraq,” the day of October 8, 2007 will conveniently synchronize with Islam’s “Night of Power” during Ramadan.
The fasters include officials from the Islamic Society of North America, the National Council of Churches, the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Catholic Maryknollers, Sojourners, the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, and the Quaker Fellowship of Reconciliation.
What better way to draw religionists together than to transforming the sinister day of conquest formerly known as Columbus Day into a Ramadan fast devoted to opposing American imperialism?!
The interfaith fasters are calling on “all armed forces and militias to ‘fast’ from killing at least for one day, reminding them that Ramadan calls for a fast from violence as well.” They also want to exploit the fast so as to “educate people in our religious communities about electing a president and representatives who are committed to ending this war.”
It’s nice that al Qaeda and other insurgents in Iraq are also invited to join the interfaith fast. Maybe there will be a spontaneous Ramadan soccer game among all the contending parties in Iraq, as during the famously unofficial Christmas Truce between British and German troops in World War I.
“American culture, society, and policy are addicted to violence at home and overseas,” the interfaith fasters explained. “In our time, the hope of a decent future is endangered by an unnecessary, morally abhorrent, and disastrous war. Ending this war can become the first step toward a policy that embodies a deeper, broader sense of generosity and community at home and in the world.”
The interfaith fasters hope to “end the shattering of Iraqi and American lives by offering American generosity and support – but not control – for international and nongovernmental efforts to assist Iraqis in making peace and rebuilding their country, while swiftly and safely bringing home all American troops.”
Calling upon a long religious tradition of abstaining from food for spiritual purposes, the interfaith fasters cited the Prophet Isaiah, Jesus, Gandhi and Cesar Chavez as potent fasters who “changed the course of history.” Strangely, Muhammad is not specifically mentioned in the litany of admirable fasters. Perhaps his own record as a military conqueror makes his inclusion slightly inappropriate on a day meant, in part, to bemoan Christopher Columbus’s “conquest” of America, not to mention modern America’s “conquest” of Iraq.
The interfaith fasters want to condemn all conquest and war. Their underlying assumption is, of course, that the presence of United States forces in Iraq is the sole cause of war there. The departure of U.S. forces will automatically precipitate peace in Iraq, they seem to assume, in an assumption common throughout the Religious Left.
“Today we call for an end to this war, an end to our reliance on violence as the first, rather than the last resort, an end to the arrogant unilateralism of preemptive war,” typically insisted a recent declaration from the 1.1 million member United Church of Christ. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) also recently pronounced that it is, “conscientiously opposing the war in Iraq as an action inconsistent with the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.”
What the Religious Left is denouncing and fasting against is in fact not the war in Iraq per se, but only U.S. participation in that war. These indignant prelates prefer to assume that the war as a whole can be turned off like a car ignition, as soon as the American President decides, or Congress forces him to do so. To acknowledge that the war in Iraq would continue, or expand, absent U.S. participation would be to admit that the U.S. presence is not exclusively responsible for the conflict. For the Religious Left, this admission is unacceptable.
These interfaith fasters have suitably targeted Columbus Day for their time of protest. America’s discovery by the European adventurer marks the start of cultural genocide and Western imperialism, in the minds of Religious Left activists. For them, the Iraq War is simply the latest sinister episode in four centuries of Western and America, aggression, for which Christianity is ultimately responsible.
The interfaith fasters and their various Religious Left allies have little genuine interest in ending the war in Iraq or in the welfare of Iraq’s people. They were not concerned about Iraqi suffering under Saddam Hussein, except as victims of U.S.-supported sanctions. And the interfaith fasters will have no interest in Iraqi suffering under an Islamist regime or under an expansive civil war, if the U.S. does as the Religious Left desires and departs Iraq precipitously.
For the Religious Left, the war in Iraq is an urgent cause only because the United States is the perceived villain. And for the Religious Left, reflexively opposing the United States, wherever it is active, is a theological and cosmological imperative.
Make it a 3 week, 24 hour a day, 7 days a week fast.
Of course, the Islamofascists will quit suicide bombings /s
PIG ROAST ON COLUMBUS DAY!!!
The Maryknollers are working toward extinction.
>>Maryknoll is dedicated to the spread of Liberation Theology throughout the United States and the Third World.
Founded in 1911 as the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, Maryknoll had the formal approval of both the American Bishops and the Vatican. For some fifty years, all seemed well. Missions were founded in one country after another, and the society eventually established its presence in all continents.
In 1912 a companion congregation of nuns, the Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic, was formed and eventually approved by the Holy See. Their purpose was similar to that of theMaryknoll fathers: the bringing of the gospel of Jesus Christ to those in need of salvation.
Then Maryknoll embraced Liberation Theology and the promotion of political activities(revolution) in one of the most remarkable changes in a religious organization in the United States. Under the influence of Miguel D’Escoto and others, Maryknoll adoptedLiberation Theology as its primary form of ideological expression. In 1970, D’Escoto founded Orbis Books, Maryknoll’s publishing house. He is also responsible for the change in orientation of Maryknoll Magazine from a traditional missionary publication to an instrument of political indoctrination that is distributed to about one million readers worldwide.
The results of these changes were devastating. From more than 800 priests in 1969,Maryknoll is down to less than 700 today. The nuns have been similarly reduced from more than 1,400 in the 1960s to less than 900 today. Whereas there were 330 major and 447 minor seminarians in 1960, there are less than 25 today. Maryknoll’s five seminaries have all been closed, reportedly, over the teaching of Marxism instead of Christian theology. <<
They may as well fast their way into extinction......
Let the ragheads starve.
In a related manner the South Merrimack New Hampshire Knights of Columbus have announced an afternoon BBQ on Labor day and invite all political candidates to attend. Update to follow...
I hope this includes no water either. 5 or 6 days without water and they’ll be assuming room temperature
How about if they just join an interfaith moratorium from cutting people heads off or stoning people to death for a weekend?
Oh, jeez
Some Catholics IS the right term. Maryknoll? Used to donate to them for years. No more.
Some Catholics IS the right term. Maryknoll? Used to donate to them for years. No more.
Well, that sure won’t fly here in Canada- your Columbus Day is our Thanksgiving :-D
Leftist fasting = skipping between-meal snacks. I never see them get any skinnier.
In theory you could hang their butts for treason and spare them the pain of starvation...
We really, really have to get the Orthodox Churches the hell out of the National Council of Churches!
Excellent Idea!
Maybe we should have the various local chapters of Free Republic sponsor a chain of Columbus Day Pig Roasts across the United States!
I wish these left wing MORONS would leave Colon/Colombo alone. He was an explorer in the employ of Spain, NOT a conquistador.
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