You may recall that I began this blog by writing that the conflict in the world today reminds me of the magician. The magician’s job is to focus the audience everywhere except where his deception is underway. You will notice that almost no attention was paid to the death of Dr. Tom Little a month ago. Did any of you hear anyone condemn his murder or the murder of any of his staff? Now we have a fringe pastor, leader of a minute flock of about fifty, who plans to burn a Koran. Suddenly the Vatican, the Secretary of State, the four-star general, the rioters of Kabul, and every news organization is covering and condemning the fringe pastor. One thing that is not in doubt: This pastor is the isolated fringe. Now what about the killers of Tom Little? No one has suggested that they are fringe. Indeed, there have been well over a thousand such killings in the decade since 9/11—enough to make it appear routine.
Almost every Christian will agree with me that the burning of a person’s holy book is not consistent with the golden rule that Jesus taught us to follow. One need not even be a Christian to know this. It is too obvious. We believe the Koran is in error and that it sanctions the execution of Tom Little and his associates. In spite of those errors, we still believe that the Bible would oppose its burning. We are called to expose error, not burn it. But we also believe that these two mistakes are not comparable; the burning of a holy book is not as serious as the taking of ten innocent lives. Yet the leaders of our world have shown far more angst over the misguided burning of a book than they have over the wanton slaughter of the innocent. While I do not mind that the leaders of our world condemn a pastor of fifty for his bonfire, I wish they could also mention that the Koran is wrong to call for the killing of those it defines as infidels. Our heroes deserve better. I repeat myself: Remember Tom Little.
Hey Mark,
ReplyDeleteI was just about to ask you via Facebook what your take is on the Florida Pastor and his plan to burn the Koran. I'm glad I checked your blog first.
I agree with you fully. I don't understand where this Islam protectionist wave of thinking is coming from. I hope that our Government doesn't think that condemning this pastor's actions is in any way going to earn us or our troops who are in the line of fire, any brownie points in the eyes of those who want to kill us (the infidels) because of their faith.
I caught a show the other day done by the Omaha radio station I've mentioned before in which the theme of the show was "Ask a Muslim Anything Day." The show was somewhat interesting and enlightening, but I felt that the two Muslims answering questions dodged the more pointed questions. One thing they mentioned was the moral decay of western culture and how it naturally divides them from us, they used an analogy to illustrate their point: the division/separation of the Amish and the American public at large. The problem with the analogy is that the Amish live peacefully among us, they disagree with our lifestyle but their is no incentive or directive in regards to their faith to come out and kill us; obviously we don't have that luxury with Islam extremists.
As our two worlds become increasingly integrated and intertwined, I don't know if peaceful coexistence will be possible. Jesus says we should love our enemies, I think this explains the capacity of the Christian faith to absorb the great abuses exercised against it. I don't see that capacity in Islam. Furthermore, the Christian faith see's the need for salvation in the world and will give her life to the service of sharing that gift, but Islam doesn't seem to share that sentiment. Christianity does not condone the sinful actions of the world, but it takes it for what it is and tolerates it to a certain degree. I'm not sure Islam can do that.
To be fair, it is hardly the majority of those who practice the Islamic faith who will kill us for being the infidels that 'we' are. However, those who want us dead will not change their minds or ideologies because of a foolish American pastor's actions or possible inaction. The fact that the world news has broadcast the Florida pastor's intentions has unquestionably caused much more damage than letting the albeit foolish man and his fifty followers have their unconventional little campfire.