I saw, in an episode of Saturday Night Live, a skit in which Jesus appears as a cool guy giving advice to an NFL football team, whose prayers he had been answering by helping them win games. It was funny, and I found myself laughing in spite of a sense of repulsion welling up in me. I later tried to understand my reaction. My thoughts were: These guys would not dare do such a skit about Muhammad. They'd be afraid to, for obvious reasons. Then these words came flooding into my mind, as if from God speaking to the SNL cast:
"
You fear, and therefore respect, the sword. But you mock the Spirit that restrains the sword. The Spirit will abandon you to the sword; and you will cry out in anguish for the Spirit that had provided you the freedom to mock It. And you will bow to the sword, and dare not mock it, even though you do not believe in it."
I know the SNL skits are done tongue-in-cheek, and meant to be harmless. But anything that diminishes [even inadvertently] reverence for Jesus, who has done so much for humanity, diminishes the human condition. What we get in laughter is greatly overshadowed by loss,even if a single young person elevates the "coolness" of a SNL skit over the goodness and reverence of Christ and His teachings. The freedom of media to perform such skits comes from the Judeo-Christian inspired Constitution, and especially the teachings of Jesus. And to belittle his personhood is to strike at the very root of that freedom.
On a deeper level, anything that moves us away from the Christian faith, which has been, and continues to be to a large but decreasing degree, a major current in the American experience, makes our culture more susceptible to Islam. True Christians are healthily inoculated against Islam. The preponderance of religion in the human experience indicates that we are innately religious. As the Christianity that has been freedom-engendering and life-enhancing decreases, the social ground is cleared and fertile for the more dominant, brutal and hard-boundaried Islam, which, like a fish trap, is easy to enter, but extremely difficult to exit. For this reason, all freedom-loving people, whether religious or not, should do everything possible to support and encourage the Christian faith, which poses no threat to secular society, and protects it from Islam which, according to its holy book, gives no place for secularism, or freedom for that matter. And we should not be lulled by the so-called "moderates". As Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of the co-founder of Hamas, states in his book,
Son of Hamas ,[please read it!] the Islam of the Koran is a ladder, with the lowest rung being worship of Allah, the middle rung good deeds, and the highest rung, Jihad. If they follow their book, they will covertly or overtly support jihad, or they will enact it. It is insane for anti-religionists to attack Christianity which has never, in its truest form, been a physical threat to secular society; and ignore the creeping cancer of Islam, which would gladly behead it. If I were an atheist, I would still encourage the growth of Christianity to protect my society from Islam, since, if Islam grows to the point of ascendancy, I would not be allowed to be an atheist. This has been and continues to be a fact in every predominantly Muslim culture. And I repeat, as loudly as I can, Christianity is the only viable protection against Islam--not the military, and not the government, since, in a free society, they can both be invaded by Muslim converts. And Muslims unquestionably place sharia above the Constitution.
Therefore, as a Christian, I could never support the governmental suppression of freedom of speech; even if it mocks my Lord. But as a freedom-loving American, I decry the foolishness of belittling reverence for Jesus. I do this in light of what I have personally seen and what is clearly evident to the objective observer of all the good He has done for the world.
[A response]
Mark I appreciate your comments but I do have to say that during the inquisition "Christian" thought was no less brutal, hard boundaried and intolerant. Political and cultural extremists in Islam have hijacked the religion in the media and don't necessarily speak for the everyday Muslim. "Islamic government “ is not Islamic faith. If our government was “Christian" they would arrest those SNL Jews for mocking Jesus and make them pay for it. Government has a long history of perverting religion for its own ends. I am glad we don't live like that in the West.
[My reply]
I know there are millions of friendly Muslims who are not hurting anyone. And I know that Christianity has been twisted by the very evil it exposes into something evil [at which time it becomes no longer "Christ"ianity.] The major difference between Christianity and Islam is the Bible and the Koran. If either of them is a holy book, the other cannot be, because they present the person of Jesus radically differently. Koran: He did not die on the cross, He was not the "only begotten of God who takes away the sin of the world", he did not arise, "Allah was not begotten and He does not beget", Jesus was simply a prophet, superseded by Muhammad. Bible: He was the Word that was with God and was God in the beginning, Who became flesh and dwelt among men. Jn.1. In Him is the fullness of deity in bodily form"; there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved; the "way, truth and life", etc.
This Jesus commands us to love our enemies and forbids forcing His way upon anyone by threat or coercion. He offers life; but He does not kill you if you don't receive it or bow the knee to Him. This is from the Bible. The Koran, on the other hand, specifically commands the killing of infidels, "strike them on the neck" is literal, and the moderates say that was only for a certain time in history--and I hope they can prevail against the millions of Muslims who take jihad as physical warfare, and who are waging or supporting it across the world to this very day---in stark contrast to anything coming from Judaism or Christianity.
The big problem is the book: Koran. As long as it is considered the immutable word of Allah, terrorists will be spawned by it--just like the young man from Alabama who started reading it, took it seriously, and ended as a terrorist in Somalia. The Koran is a magnet for sociopaths and misogynists because it ordains [makes holy] murder and female subjugation. So we see thugs [like those guys in France] drawn into it. If you're pissed off at the world and you've got a taste for blood, and you like to dominate women, Islam is for you. If you are a "normal" person, you can be Muslim and be moderate; but you cannot very cleanly [according to your book] condemn those guys who are trying to create a world under the sharia law of Allah--no matter how violently--because that's what Allah demands. Those who have lived in Islamic dominated cultures [Brigitte Gabriel {Lebanon}, Michael Yousef {Egypt}, Mosab Hassan Yousef {Gaza Strip}] are the ones who are most alarmed by your way of thinking Russel. And if you're really interested in the facts about Islam, you might want to research some of these folks. I esp. recommend Mosab's book, "Son of Hamas". He is the son, as I wrote earlier, of the co-founder of Hamas. His father and his grandfather were Imams. He knows Islam [the Koran] from the inside. He is not a hate monger--he still loves his people, who have rejected him, and he is a serious target for death because he is now worse than an infidel; he's an apostate, because he now believes Jesus to be who the Bible says He is vs. what the Koran says about Him.
If we love freedom and desire to maintain our republican democracy, we can't ignore Islam. It is and continues to be the fertile soil from which terrorism springs. And it expressly states that the world must come under sharia, voluntarily or by force. The sporadic acts in history in which Christianity has been twisted and used to subjugate or abuse people [KKK, inquisitions, bombing abortion clinics, etc.] pales in comparison to the violence that continues to be spawned by Islam; and in comparison to the immeasurable amount of good that has come from it [Christianity] for the human family. Anything can be twisted. But its a lot harder to twist "love your enemies", spoken by a man who never killed anyone and wouldn't let His disciples protect Him from the vigilantes who falsely accused Him, than it is to twist, "strike them [infidels] on the neck" spoken by a man who was a brutal warrior himself. There's going to continue to be some friction along the lines that separate Islam from basically everything else: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, secularism, etc. We are all well-advised to learn as much as possible and prepare ourselves for it--and to do so without fear or hatred.
In Christ's Eternal Love,
Mark
I am definitely not very studied when it comes to the Koran. I thought it was more or less certain books of the old testament with maybe some adaptations by Mohammad, sort of like the Mormons have a sort of a bible adapted by their prophet, Joseph Smith. It's certainly a difficult question about how to deal with these types of religions that spawn from our roots though the auspices of modern day "prophets". My point is mostly that it is only when politicians seize the concepts that they tend to get used to make people hate each other instead of love one another, I can't see how the Mormon doctrine is less of error than Islam, but secular authority has not adopted Mormonism to support its authority while many governments and political movements have adopted Islam to support their authority. So it is the adaptation of religion to buttress secular functions of civil government that is at the root of the problem. "Jihad" as a spiritual warfare of ideas is nothing to fear, just honest evangelism. But military interests and economic interests have no real investment in spiritual things.
I can't support this with anything, but in my heart I tend to think that if all the true spiritual seekers of all faiths, however misguided, were left to themselves without secular manipulation, in the end we would find that all Godly people pretty much believe the same things and live by the same principles. While Jesus was a king in the absolute sense of the word, Mohamed was a warrior.It is no wonder that some Muslims try to give meaning to old testament call from God to slaughter the men women and children in villages. That is all there was to work with until the new covenant changed the rules. In that sense, Islam is something of a throwback, an attempt to bring modern significance to old scriptures that have been supplanted by a liberation doctrine revealed by Christ.
As a Christian it is my natural tendency to think that once all the real seekers got together they would figure out that Jesus really brings an advancement to everything good that they ever believed. I cannot imagine people raised in other faiths think. I am pretty sure the answer is that we all have to live together in peace with understanding and tolerance of the beliefs of others. That interpretations of faith that involve destroying life or even the culture and spiritual beliefs of others through fear, force or other coercions is never what God could have intended.
Without secular, civil government that doesn't have a stake in the enforcement of religious beliefs it just isn't possible to bring large numbers of people to live together without strife. We have learned this in the west after about 1000 years of failure. But a lot of the world's wealth is in the hands of only a few Saudi Princes, and they fear nothing more than secular government, democracy and social justice. So they have little choice but to preach against our way of life as immoral and corrupt. they would like to hand on to as much as they can for as long as they can. Ironically, every time you and I buy a gallon of gas, we are kind of supporting them in rallying against our way of life. It's a funny world.
[My Reply 2]
Thanks Russell for your stimulating thots.
Our Founding Fathers were geniuses or, perhaps as they described it, being led by "divine providence" when they conceived a form of government that attempted to protect religion from being harnessed by the government and misused in the manner you describe. And it has done a pretty good job. Of course, any government "of, by and for the people" will rise or fall based on the level of spiritual maturity [wisdom] of those people. And there have always been the "wolves in sheep clothing" who will try to use anything that anyone is devoted to to serve their own selfish ends. Thankfully, because of the reality of the Holy Spirit, and the discernment afforded thereby, we can recognize love and truth when we see it. The life of Christ Himself is the barometer and plumb line.
My prayer is that there will continue to be enough serious disciples of Christ who have not gone so far off track that they become a part of the problem vs. solution. If we don't take our spiritual growth seriously, we should not expect our lives to work. This is true if Christ is true, because He revealed to us that the main gig is spiritual. And He warned us against being lost in the world and blind to eternal reality---the "truth that sets us free". When we examine in some depth the teachings and workings of Islam in the light of His Spirit, we begin to recoil in a very healthy manner. There's not enough laughter there; there is too much fear and critical austerity; there is shadiness, even in the "moderates", and in those who take it [the Koran] very seriously, there is something that is the very opposite of Christianity [hatred].
My LPC supervisee told me the story of when she spent some time in France a few years ago. Her son, about 10 yrs. old was with her. She speaks fluent French, but she was speaking English with her son as they were walking back from his school to their apartment when they were approached by a Muslim man holding his son [also about 10 years old] by the hand. Perhaps not knowing that she spoke French, he spoke [in seething French] to his son "You hear that language!. That is a despicable language! And these are despicable people!" My supervisee instinctively said to the Muslim boy [in French] "Don't you believe him!" The man spat on the ground at her feet and pulled his son away. That is the fruit of the Koran. And Jesus said, "The tree is known by its fruit." What does any objective study of Islam reveal about the fruit it is bearing in the world?
