Virtue Online | David Virtue | June 18, 2007
First came the irregular ordination of women to the priesthood, and then homosexual behavior was deemed acceptable including the ordination and consecration of an openly avowed homosexual to the episcopacy, concomitantly with same sex blessings for all. The elastic band of The Episcopal Church’s theology has been stretched to its limit with the announcement that the Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding, an Episcopal priest and theologian in the Diocese of Olympia, has become a practicing Muslim.
Short of digging up a year old corpse in an Episcopal Church graveyard and marrying it to a liberal bishop of questionable beliefs while using the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer, have we now reached the final stage of public Episcopal blasphemy – the notion that one can be both a Christian and a Muslim at the same time? Has the elasticity of the Anglican Communion finally snapped?
In an interview with the Rev. Dr. Ann Holmes Redding by Norah M. Joslyn, published in the Diocese of Olympia newspaper, Holmes told Joslyn, “The way I understand Jesus is compatible with Islam, and although there are Christians and Muslims who think I must convert from one to the other, the more I go down this path the more excited I am about both Christianity and Islam.”
Redding credits her upbringing for early exposure to interfaith relationships. An African Methodist Episcopal minister baptized her but the only Sunday school she attended was Episcopalian. She attended a Unitarian youth group in high school when the Episcopal group disbanded. A cooperative community comprised of mostly Quakers, Unitarians and Jews near where she grew up influenced her.
Her father was a prominent civil rights lawyer whose work brought him and the family into contact with people of many faiths.
. . . more
More on the illustrious self-styled reconciler:
I am both Muslim and Christian
This Episcopal church has become nearly impossible to satirize. In this case, though, they were about 4 years behind Scrappleface:
Muslim Bishop
This is a person who enjoys attention, let’s not give it to her
This person has just looked around for a hot button issue and embraced it. She is enjoying the newspaper articles and interviews. I don’t think that we should give her any attention.
Again, it is only the religious freedom created by the Judeo-Christian Founders of America which allows her to engage in such intellectual tomfoolery. She, of course, would be subjected to violence if she were a Muslim woman in a Muslim country that showed the slightest interest in Christianity. She would probably be killed by family members.
One of the most well-documented teachings of Mohammed is “He who changes his religion, kill him.” Mohammed made clear that he considered the Bible as understood by either Jews or Christians to be false and blasphemous in its entirety. Devout Muslims won’t touch Bibles.
Today in Islamabad, muslims are threatening violence over the knighthood bestowed on Salman Rushdie by Queen Elizabath II. There is no freedom to question Islamic teachings in Islam, there is only the death penalty for apostasy and blashphemy.
Why do the words “apostate” and “damned” come to mind? No wonder people are leaving the Episcopal church in droves.
One cannot be a member of two faiths that hold mutually exclusive beliefs. That is illogical.
Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all monothiestic faiths who revere some of the same holy persons in common and at least ostensibly believe in a God of compassion and mercy. But from there the three faiths diverge in significant and irreconciliable ways. The best one can say is that perhaps there are enough commonly held religious values and beliefs among the three Abrahamaic faiths to serve as a basis for mutual respect and peaceful coexistence.
It is vitally important that we do draw upon those commonly held religious values and beliefs and work for peaceful coexistence, because the alternative is too horrific to contemplate.
Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University writes in the LA Times:
More troops, more troubles, Candidates who call for beefing up our armed forces to deter terrorism show a profound misunderstanding of the Mideast.
Andrew J. Bacevich recently lost his son, who was killed in combat serving in the US military in Iraq.
Dean, can you respect divinely ordained polygamy and wife-beating?
Dean , an Egyptian acquaintance of mine is a real scholar of religion (he taught at Cambridge and studied under Met. Anthony Bloom and Bp Kallistos). He also is a man of prayer who has read and studied the Koran in Arabic. He tells the story that when asked by a Muslim friend why he, the scholar, was not Muslim, my scholar acquaintance replied, “Because Christianity is better”. The friendship soon ended.
If I do feel that Christianity is better, I should not be a Christian. If the faith is better, it has a better idea of how to communion with God and be in accord with God’s will. Any other faith is, by definition inferior, incomplete, perhaps even dangerous to souls.
It is illogical to have an egalitarian approach to faith unless one has no faith. How can I, except in the most general sense, respect a belief that is wrong? It is possible to have casual and superficial “friendships” with people of other faiths, even do things together in a pragmatic way that furthers mutual interests. Our co-existence should be peaceful (from a Christian standpoint), but it can never be a co-existence of equality. If there is someone of another faith for whom I actually care, I will always want them to adopt the better path.
It is illogical to expect that adherents to another faith not believe or practice their faith as a condition of peaceful co-existence. They may decide to do that on their own, but it cannot and should not be expected. Dean, you have maintained more than once that Muslims must become less Muslim in order to co-exist peacefully in a western culture. IMO, that is a forlorn hope. (The Forlorn Hope was what the first group of soldiers into the breach of a castle wall were called during the Napoleonic Wars because they had such a low chance of survival).
My scholar acquaintance maintains that there are four words that separate Christianity from Islam. They are integral to the Biblical approach to God and entirely missing from the Koran in the Islamic approach to God: Freedom, Love, Growth, Redemption.
The term “mutual respect” was not meant to suggest acceptance of the more offensive practices found within the Islamic faith or suggest an egalitarian approach towards different religions. It was meant more in the spirit of “treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself”.
Relations between the Christian and Islamic world are particularly strained and inflamed at this point in history. It’s important that we don’t leave Christian communities in the middle-east and Africa stranded and isolated, but assist them and speak out forcefully on their behalf. If Muslims feel under attack by the West they may turn on these defenseless communities, as they have so many times, so it is important that we consider our words and actions carefully.
We want to create a universally accepted legal standard that protects the rights of religious minorities. So when we say “mutual respect” we mean it more in the legal and cultural sense, and not from a theological standpoint.
What did you think of Dr. Bacevich’s comment that peaceful coexistence doesn’t imply appeasement or passivity. We want to both contain and quanantine the virulent strain of radicalism currently flourishing in parts of the Islamic world, while helping them to see the benefits of a more peaceful and tolerant interpretation of their faith.
It was meant more in the spirit of “treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself”.
We want to create a universally accepted legal standard
What did you think of Dr. Bacevich’s comment that peaceful coexistence doesn’t imply appeasement or passivity.
And the progressive Troll blabs the progressive propaganda time and time again, despite several years of invitations to question the premises. Christianity (or any other philosophy) never enters into the picture – all at a site called “OrthodoxyToday”…
All ideas should be subject to debate, people should be respected
Dean, as Christians we are commanded to treat people with respect. I have no argument with that.
Muslims do not have the right to claim that any critique of their IDEAS (inclduing their “religion”) is a form of disrespect to them as human beings.
All ideas must be open to discussion and debate–all ideas, most especially Islam because it needs it badly. As much as it pains me I accept that Piss C–t and other works of “art” offensive to Christians must be allowed in a free society. Many Jews were offended by Passion of the Christ (rightly or wrongly) and it was properly allowed to be distributed, viewed and discussed vigorously in public arenas.
Muslims do not have the right to claim that their religion alone is beyond debate and criticism.
Islam has succeeded to date in protecting itself from any form of objective examination. It has used force and violence to do so.
I will never accept the concept that I have any duty to RESPECT Islam. I have every right to thoroughly reject Islam as false, thoroughly completely and totally false. I am under no duty as an educated 21st Century person to honor the ravings of a 7th Century pedophile warlord. It is time that Muslims had to listen to critiques of their religion as every other religious group in the world does. If Islam can be defended then come forward and defend it in the world of ideas.
It is Muslims who assert that Mohammed is the perfect model of humanity and beyond criticism. I refuse to accept that concept and reserve my right to criticize his behavior as I would criticize the behavior of any 55 year old man who engaged in sexual intercourse with a 9 year old female child.
As a note I spent 5 years of my life working in close proximity with Muslims and I never had a problem getting along with them. We were polite to each and other and worked together on very projects without incident.
Similarly, I worked closely with a lady who was a devout Mormon. She and I got along great, she was a nice lady. I still have no respect for Mormonism.
I have a brain.
Again, people are entitled to respect as children of God and ideas are open to debate.
Again, until Muslims reject the following I will never give Islam “respect”
a) Koranic male privilege of multiple wives and divinely endorsed sexual
intercourse with female household slaves Koran 4:34 Pickthall
b) wife beating
c) cruelty to animals by slitting the throat of a live, non-anesthetized goat, sheep or camel to produce Halal meat
d) Koran proclamation that the testimony of one man is equal to the testimony of two women
e) Koranic privilege of a man to divorce a wife by fiat, without cause, without the approval of a judge
f) Muslim acceptance of female genital mutilation. There has been no movement involving Muslim imams against this practice. It occurs right under their noses and they have never opposed it
g) Koranic direction that women inherit half of their brother’s share
h) Muslim teaching that women may not lead countries
i) Muslim teaching that women’s bodies are the carriers of sexual immorality and that these hyper-sexualized female bodies must be covered at all times
j) Prohibitions on women’s freedom based on the degrading concept that the female body is the very embodiment of sexual immorality and must be concealed except for the hands and face.
k) Muslim teaching that men are not required to develop sexual self-restraint and that all illicit sexual conduct is the fault of the woman involved
l) Tolerance of Muslim imams for “temporary marriages” nothing more than prostitution.
m) Tolerance of Muslim imams, especially Iranian Shiia for pedasty of pre-teen boys
n) Endorsement of the most barbaric punishments for crimes including amputatoins and stonings. Amputations occur in public in Saudi Arabia (our great ally). Women are stoned in Iran today based on allegations of sexual immorality. Today. Now. As we speak
o) Endorsement of the idea that the travel of adult women should not occur without the consent of a male relative. The concept that adult women remain subject to the rule of male relatives their entire lives.
p) Endorsement of the idea that segregation of the sexes promotes good in society
These are just for starters.
When an entire thought system is based on morally repugnant foundations, it losese the right to “respect”
Islam alone claims the right to be above debate and discussion. Islam alone backs that “right” with force.
Danish cartoons
Pope’s scholarly comment
QE 2’s knighthood
The denial of unpleasant facts is not a Christian virtue.
Dean you have repeatedly maintained in your posts a spiritual equivalence between the Judeo-Christian tradition and Islam by labeling Islam an Abrahamic faith. Islam is not an Abrahamic faith (again not just my opinion but also the heart-felt understanding of my scholarly acquaintance). Not only is your statement non-factual, it is offensive. Judeo-Christianity is the Abrahamic tradition. Evidence from theology, philology, espistomology, linquistics, intellectual history and simple culture overwhelmingly demostrate, according to my acquaintance, the lack of Islam’s connection to the Judeo-Christian tradition and therefore invalidate any claim that Isalm is Abrahamic. If you will allow yourself to follow the testimony of the Church, logic and evidence you will have a much clearer understanding of Islam. IMO you demostrate the same illogic as the lady whose apostasy began this thread.
It is unlikely that any western power will defend the Christian minorities in any Islamic country. It has never been done in history, there is not any reason to suspect that our governement will grow a conscience now. Any attempt to do so would be labled as evidence of a resurrection of the Crusades and be crushed politically.
Islam is the enemy of freedom. We have to have our sword drawn and ready, but that does not mean that we have to use it all the time. However, demographically, we may already be so far behind the curve that it will be difficult to prevent the Islamic spread. The terrorists, if they had a brain, would see that and simply acknowledge Israel’s right to exiist and renounce all use of force and simply allow sheer force of numbers to overcome us. The intellectual “elite” in the west will continue to enable the spread. However, given the Islamic theology and historic pattern of spreading Islam by the sword, that is even less likely than western governments actually standing up to them in any effectual way.
Michael, another possibility
There exists another possibility. It is possible that as Islam spreads the desperation of non-Islamic indigenous Europeans will reach a boiling point and violence will erupt.
Briton has “no-go” zones for non-Muslims as does France and Sweden. The Swedish City of Malmo has a very large “no-go” zone in its center. Police, fire and even emergency medical personnel are attacked and repulsed out of the area unless they arrive with armed guards.
In the south of France, there have been several instances of Muslims boarding public buses and throwing Molotov cocktails setting fire to the bus and killing and injuring the passengers on a random basis.
There are also documented instances of Muslim gangs terrorizing French trains and robbing and accosting passengers at will near Marseille.
There have occurred some truly vicious instances of mob violence in London between Muslims and non-Muslims. A store-front mosque installed in an old bakery was operating without the requisite licensing. The members of the mosque were quite aggressive with people looking into their legal status.
Violence broke out and mobs formed. No justification for such behavior is offered here, no apology. I am simply remarking on what students of human nature can expect.
In Australis, Muslim gangs have claimed certain section of public beach to be exclusively Muslim and large fights have broken out between Muslims and non-Muslims. Australians describe their country as having a “beach culture” in which time spent at the beach is sancrosanct. These were called the Cornula riots, much of that was caught on tape.
Just a few months ago the BBC used the term “indigenous Britons” to refer to Britains of Celtic, Welsh or Scots descent. This is truly sad. There is a substantial body of opinion in the U.K. that “indigenous Britons” are losing their country (alarmist or not, I can’t say, arguments on both sides no doubt)
Fr Jacobse
One of the bishops quoted in the piece sounded orthodox in writing about fallen humanity. Bishop Rodgers, a continuing Anglican.
He says:
No need for a Saviour.
The tragedy.
This woman is entirely consistent with her childhood roots, and it is tragic. She has been trained for this since a girl and her youth group days in the Unitarian Church.
I submit this is where we find the detachment. The break with the Sacred. God is no father, rather he built the world, and left us to our own devices. No relationship, the ultimate desacramentalization. He is aloof and not intimately involved in the day to day affairs of persons. This was all a prescription written by the likes of Thomas Jefferson
Father John Mangels relates that his Catholic Seminary professes says: “One day we will find the bones of Jesus.” So he sought the Old Catholics, and then the Orthodox. However, I believe I read on Orthodoxy Today, from a Catholic seminarian about a gradual dying out of this kind.
I cannot imagine the cross lying before this woman who has been led down a yellow-brick road of dystopia.
She does not seem to perceive it, because of the sufficient padding all around her of falsity, the patting on the back by ‘wolves in sheep clothing’, speaking sacredly. And delusion, Romans 1.
It’s just a fact, the unorthodoxies one finds in NCC-Ecumenical churches cut so to the root, they make one ripe to “embrace Islam” or whatever else thing may strike the fancy. I do not mean to trivialize.
Anne Holmes Redding: her mother died. She was apparently grieving and of a readiness for genuine spiritual help. Might she be invited one day to another church in Capitol Hill, Seattle:
Hope for Ms Redding, to come and see true worship of Christ Pantocrator feeding people, dependent upon him for mercy and grace, God of all comfort.
She sees a full prostration.
She does not see ethnocentrism.
She sees prayer discipline.
Praying without ceasing.
Changed life.
Coming home.
Note: Fr Seraphim Rose’s orientation was ancient Chinese religion. He was brought to the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom in San Francisco,
and said he could not at first discern what glory….then he did. He said it was Grace. Anne Holmes Redding: Here I pray that you might seek the Father of all mercies, the God of all comfort, seek him who will multiply faith and grace to you day by day with much personal intimacy — and live in Christ who wills to give you life and abundant life.
Michael – I have pointed to common historical origins and some shared theological concepts, not spritual equivalency. Those are two distinct ideas. Spiritual equivalency suggests that one faith is as good the other, which i have never stated or even implied.
It is undeniable that Christianity, Judiasm and Islam have shared historical antecedents. Muslims do not even consider Islam a new religion, but the fulfillment of the line of prophesy and revelation that began with Abraham and included Moses and Jesus. They believe that Muhammed was a direct decendant of Abraham through his first son Ishmael.
You are correct to state that Islam does not belong in the Judeo-Christian tradition. While the Koran refers to holy persons from Old and New Testament their lives and actions are, in many cases, so altered in that text as to make them unrecognizable to Jews and Christians. The moral and ethical values of Christianity and Judaism are far more closely aligned to each other than they are to Islam. The differences are great enough to make a lot of Judeo-Christian and Muslim belief, mutually exclusive.
However, if the Muslims want to claim spiritual kinship with me I am all to happy sieze the opportunity that affords to work for peaceful coexistence.
As I see it there are two doors we, as Christians can walk through one of two doors, one labeled PEACE and the other labeled WAR.
If we want war we should behave this way: We should be antagonistic as possible and loudly trumpet the superiority of our faith while disparaging their faith, willfully indiiferent to that inflammatory effect it will have on Muslim listeners who can only perceive our comments as calculated threats and insults. We should show as little respect to them as possible, and be sure to never yield to the possibility that their faith may have even the slightest positive attribute.
If we want peace on the other hand we should behave as Jesus advised, wise as snakes, but as gentle as doves. Let our acts of kindness and compassion be the proud boasts of our faith. Let our enemies looking out from their world of violence, intolerance, oppression and squalor, see us happy, prosperous and free, and wonder what they are doing wrong and we are doing right.
Missourian, you are right. Strangely, the hope that I have is in the intrinsic nature of evil–PRIDE which always oversteps itself and provides the seeds and the means of its own defeat.
More importantly in the promise of God that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church.
My concern is in how much needless suffering will be endured because we refuse to see the true nature of the enemy: the complacency, the apostasy, the heresy in our own hearts that allows the extrinsic evil to flourish. Islam would never make inroads into a culture that was spiritually alive. It merely scours the tombs using an ersatz spirituality to draw in the unwary, the disillusioned and the empty. But of course, the Church has not been there before them as we should have been, modeling the truth and giving life to those in the tombs. Islam is a challenge to us to go more deeply into our faith. I pray that I am up to it.
That being said on a strictly worldly basis, if governments do not act, people will and it will be increasingly violent. Strange as it may seem, the influx of Hispanics into the United States may act as a buffer against Islam demographically and culturally.
Dean, I’m stumped. Please name one theological concept that the Judeo-Christian tradition shares with Islam.
The story is told in the Lives of the Desert Fathers that one of the Fathers was in prayer when the devil sought to trick him. A demon appeared in the cell of the monk (who was in prayer) and said, “I am the angel Gabriel sent from God.” Without looking up the monk replied, “You must be in the wrong cell. I am not worthy for an angel to visit me.” The demon disappeared, defeated by the humility of the monk.
Note 15, Dean, I “disparage wife-beating and polygamy” with my dying breath
But that is the very point, Dean, only Muslims are allowed to treat criticisms of their beliefs as if it were attacks on them personally. Jews must listen to frequent comments claiming that the God of the Old Testament was unjust and unlovable. Christians must listen to allegations that Christian teachings on sexual conduct evince a “hatred” of sex, when in fact, the very reverse is true.
Only Muslims may not have their intellectual world disturbed. We must tip-toe around them.
Muslims are very, very outspoken in the West when they think any aspect of their Western created individual rights are impinged upon. They are opening mosque after mosque, while denying Christians from training clergy in Turkey and practicing their faith in most Muslim countries. It is time to demand reciprocity for a change.
Obviously, I not suggesting that we engage in rude behavior, simply principled behavior which no longer allows Muslims the unearned and undeserved privilege of being beyond the reach of reason and debate.
Please remember, Dean, that Muslims are slaughtering non-Muslims, today, in America, Nigeria, Kenya, Kashmir, India, Thailand, Phillipines, Indonesia, Gaza, Iraq, Egypt. This is a world-wide pattern of vicious attacks engaged in by no other group of people, just Muslims. Time to speak up for their victims. Let Muslims stop the violence and stop the persecution, then we can chat.
This is where we differ. Your policy would, in fact, amount to nothing more then dhimmitude, letting Muslims set the boundaries of thought. Not for me, Dean, not for me.
Dean, when they see me “happy and free” they see sin
When they see seeing-eye dogs helping the blind, they see an “unclean” animal.
When see animals killed humanely, they see non-halal meat.
When they see daughters receive inheritances equal to sons, they see
“injustice”
When they see female political leaders, they see “foollishness” which displeases God
When they see femal athletes, they see sin
When they see male doctors treating female patients, they see sin
When they see the Mona Lisa they see a unveiled woman.
When they see Winged Victory, they see pornography, for they
can’t process images of the female body as anyting but the
very essense of sexual immorality.
When they see violence used to promote sharia, they see “justice”
The early Christians must have looked around at the cruelty, depravity and gross immorality of the Roman world and seen much to loathe and condemn. But they kept a low profile rather than march through narrow streets carrying placrds declaring “Rome Repent” or “Nero is the Anti-Christ” (which John of Patmos certainly would have agreed with). They didn’t want to play the part of the Lion’s lunch as part of the next matinee performance at the Coliseum.
There is a time for entering the temple, telling off the money-changers and tossing them out on their ear, and their is a time for keeping your head down and going about your business as unobtrusively as possible, and I certainly don’t want to condemn any early Christian who decided discretion is the part of valor.
We have to realize that radical Islamic fundamentalism represents a very serious threat that must be contained and reduced, and not allowed to spread throught the rest of the Islamic world. Our actions have caused the cancer of radical islam to metastsize and become worse. We can’t stop it through force of arms. As Iraq has demonstrated, our beligerent words and actions have fueled the growth of radical Islam like nothing before. For that reason we really need to reevaluate our entire approach and exercise prudence and caution.
#21
I don’t know, perhaps this is an ‘American” point-of-view but…That’s nuts, Dean. The moment we start cowering in a corner and apologizing for being Christian and having values that conflict with Muslim values, that’s the moment they’ve succeeded.
I’m all about respecting a person because they were made in the image of God. I cannot and will not bow my head to someone to keep them from blowing up my house and every other house on my street and in my town just because I disagree with them.
IMO, Christ expects His followers to grow up. Mohammed told his followers to throw a temper tantrum every time someone said something they didn’t like. I don’t want to live at the whim of a bunch of over sized toddlers with dirty bombs.
Precisely wrong, Dean, trouble stems from mainstream “orthodox” Islam
Dean accepts the idea that all negative aspects of Islam may be isolated and labeled as “radical” or “fundamentalism.” He ignores that the source of the problem is the core teaching of Mohammed. Dean should read Karsh’ Islamic Imperialism to see that Muslims have been using the same tactics for centuries.
As proof of this, I offer the following uncontested piece of history:
From Christopher Hitchens book on Jefferson
Our actions have not caused the radical Islam to become worse other than to display weakness which is provocative. Our actions in Iraq are subject to debate but it was Jimmie Carter who “fueled Islamic radicalism” and it was the rank corruption of Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac who took cash from Saddam to resist the United States.
We don’t cause terrorism. Mohammed teaches terrorism and world conquest. Dean can never concede this so he whitewashes 1400 years of Islamic history and ignores the world-wide conflagration of violence committed in the name of Islam.
We need to become energy independent and the Muslim world needs to be isolated until it can join the 21st century and respect other people’s rights.
Missourian writes: “We need to become energy independent and the Muslim world needs to be isolated until it can join the 21st century and respect other people’s rights.”
Missourian, I’ve been reading your various diatribes against Islam for months now. What I’m curious about is what you think we should actually DO. In other words, what “action items” do we take away? It’s clear that you don’t want anyone to say anything nice about Islam. Ok, so we’re now all really pissed about Islam. Now what?
How do we become “energy independent?” One idea would be for the government to mandate fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. But then the right wing hates the idea of government mandates. Or the government could have a large surcharge on vehicles not meeting mpg standards. But that would be a “tax increase.” So plans A and B are dead on arrival. What’s plan C? Does the invisible hand of the free market somehow make us energy independent? If so, how, and why hasn’t it done that so far?
You say — in the passive voice — that the Muslim world “needs to be isolated.” But what does that even mean? Who isolates? How? What exactly is the “Muslim world?” We have military bases all over the Middle East. Do we close those? Do we stop trading with countries with large Muslim populations? Do we prohibit U.S. citizens from traveling to Egypt? Do we place Muslim U.S. citizens in detention camps? At this point I have no idea what you think we should do.
Dean, see my post #17. I’d really like to know what theological concepts we have in common with Islam?
End Muslim immigration to the United States. End foreign aid to nations like Egypt which gets $2 billion a year of tax payer money. Expand domestic production of oil by drilling in areas like ANWR and off the coast of Florida.
Encourage the break up of multi-religious states such as the Sudan and Nigeria in which Christians are abused by Muslim rulers. End the Kosovo fiasco and give it back to Serbia.
Nations which are ruled by Muslims constitute the Muslim world. Close military bases? Yes. I can support that.
Not necessarily. But trade isn’t the issue. These countries produce almost nothing of use save oil. At the bare minimum we should stop funding them. Pakistan held up the U.S. for 40 billion USD as the price of support us against the Taliban. Talk about a bad deal.
No. But I have no problem prohibiting Egyptians from traveling to the U.S, nor do I have a problem banning the immigration of Muslims to the U.S. the same as we once banned Communists and NAZIs. If Egypt went tit-for-tat they might ban U.S. citizens from visiting, but that’s their call.
No. But there is no reason to not deport non-citizens who are illegal. Nor is there a problem with restricting the activities of mosques, keeping imans out of prisons, restricting national security access, and generally treating Muslims as second class.
Islam is not a religion like Buddhism, Hinduism, or Christianity. Rather, Islam is a method of social control. It is a totalitarian thought system akin to Communism whose sincere adherents always end up pushing for the Sharia to be extended to cover everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. It’s about control, which is why Hamas is forcing the small Christian population in Gaza to adopt the Sharia, the same as is happening in Iraq.
If the Sharia is the perfect will of God, then it is mandatory for all people, not just Muslims.
Actually, at this point I have no idea what liberals are trying to do. The Sharia hits liberal viewpoints squarely upside the head. The more Muslims, the greater the chance that what comes out of townhalls is going to be highly restrictive of human rights. If the Congress of the U.S. ends up with a substantial number of Muslims voting on laws, then the liberals are the first to go down as immoral.
Hence, my sense of awe that (overall) liberals spend so much of their time kissing up to Muslims rather than recognizing how alien and harmful simple, common place Islam is for all of the great liberal tenets.
Southern baptists may take away your whiskey, but that is about it. A Muslim-dominated state that results from a cowed majority or a true demographic shift makes your wife were a head scarf and stones your daughter for kissing her boyfriend.
Where are the liberals on this? I know Bush and his war in Iraq is stupid, but surely the liberals can do more in this than moo about cultural respect?
Note 26, CFL conservative said it all
CFL conservative said it all in response to Jim Holman’s challenge to Missourian
Jim, you should check out a report on the “future of the Middle East” put together by the U.N. about three years ago. It noted that, if oil revenues are set aside, the Middle East ranks just slightly above sub-Subharan Africa in economic prosperity. In other words, except for oil, the Middle East is a backward armpit.
We could end all trade with the Middle East, if we were energy independent, and suffer absoultely no harm. The entire Middle East has a non-energy GNP equal to a single small european country with 1/30 the population. The Middle East, with the exception of Israel, is nearly scientifically stagnant. It produces almost no patents of international importance, while Isreal produces many and houses major research branches of Microsoft, God’s chosen got brains along with their persecution it appears.
Egypt has accept a $2 billion bribe from the United States while major branches of its government works against U.S. policy and supports terror.
Pakistan takes our money and hides Osama Bin Laden.
Fatah is lining up to take our money and laughing all the way to the bank.
Muslims represent 20% of the world’s population and 50% of the worlds illiterates.
Let them be. Let them live in their stagnant economies and corrupt governments and be as Islamic as they choose. They have no legal, ethical or moral right to come to the United States, we don’t need them, we can get brilliant immigrants from all over the world and not even notice the absence of Muslims.
As a woman I want as few Muslims as possible because they all believe that they have a divine right to rule over women, that has never been refuted. That belief is contrary to the tenets of our constitution and I would like to know why any country with a sane government would knowingly import people that hold beliefs in direct contravention of our most basic public policy.
CFL Conservative is right. The Christians may preach against homosexual conduct but nobody is advocating imprisoning gays. The Muslims will kill them and believe that they are serving God.
Romanticize Islam at your peril. The Left loved to demonize Jerry Falwell, Falwell was nothing compared to what you are getting in bed with, nothing.
13. There exists another possibility. It is possible that as Islam spreads the desperation of non-Islamic indigenous Europeans will reach a boiling point and violence will erupt.
22. IMO, Christ expects His followers to grow up. Mohammed told his followers to throw a temper tantrum every time someone said something they didn’t like.
Excellent. Missionizing Mohammedans is the best answer. Crusades are counter-productive. Only “grown-up” mature missionaries need even consider. It is hard ground. It takes a crusade mentality/spirituality perhaps icon’d by the physical “Crusades.” Icon’d in the Lord of the Rings where “That Hideous Strength” is seen graphically.
Radical Reformation types, Amish & Mennonites, who will not defend against aggressors — are they rising to the call of pro-active mission to Muslims? Perhaps. Who?
And what of genuine compassion for souls living in abject existential darkness, to use a term of Fr. Hans’ — if I use it a little different.
There was one valiant missionary [after the order of a Robert the Bruce, Braveheart] — to the Mohammedens I know of: Samuel Zwemer. Then 5/6 of them were under British rule and he was persuaded they would be won ipso facto. IOW, he had optimism on his side and ran with it. Then all that changed; now they have individual powers.
True, the point about pride/evil turning in on itself. They are not likely to “get together”, to “well-organize” — but then they have spiritual help, that hideous strength, if you know what I mn.
Deleted.
Nancy L. I have not seen anything of this before about Met. Anthony. I have read some of his writings which I have found to be edifying and have heard good things of him by people who are generally reliable. I will check it out to the best of my ability.
Note 28. Nancy, I won’t allow posts that accuse people of crimes without corroboration or proof.
Then, I apologize for shortcoming.
Thank you for explaining.
It’s a grand thing to see. If the Diocese of olympia *does* say something about the Rev. Redding, seeming (gasp) to disapprove, then they might have to disapprove of something *else*. A slippery slope for Episcopalians! If they don’t say anything, they look dumber every day. Either choice a great one.
Twenty years ago they had a similar problem. Bishop Cochrane’s first priestess he had ordained in 1976, Laura Fraser, was found to be into “channelling”. The diocese had to decide whether to try her in an ecclesiastical court, which might involve talking about theology, or just keep it quiet. Finally, they gave her a full disability pension(!) to renounce her orders. This was a woman who had such a shaky grasp on things they had to waive her Old Testament exam before ordination. It might be a good idea for Rev Redding to get a Ouija board as soon as possible and apply for the Laura Fraser Retirement Plan.
Michael Bauman writes:
Dean, an Egyptian acquaintance of mine is a real scholar of religion (he taught at Cambridge and studied under Met. Anthony Bloom and Bp Kallistos).
[He] maintains that there are four words that separate Christianity from Islam. …… Freedom, Love, Growth, Redemption.
Michael
Our L’Burg Catechist priest from Washington D.C. taught Islam shares roots/religion with Christianity. Reference was made to St John Damascene.
I find here, excerpted from The Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians of the the Middle East by Wm Dalrymple.
Michael, from my Baptist upbringing and Orthodox stance — can you show me in the Sacred Word how Islam is remotely “form” of Christianity? A word picture? Where is the analogy how Islam might be a “form” of Christianity?
Basic conventions of Islam?
Note 34. Nancy writes:
Islam emerged in the countries that remained Arian after the defeat of the heresy. Mohammed lived in an Orthodox monastery for six(?) years or so and assimilated some of the monastic practices such as: praying three times a day — the Orthodox hours; facing toward Mecca — facing East during prayer; Mecca as the Old/New Jerusalem, etc.
Islam may be, by some definitions, a Christian heresy. I won’t make this argument because I need to study it a lot more. I can see the outlines though. OTOH, the outlines testify to a benign Islam, and historical Islam was anything but benign.
But Islam is not winning everywhere.
Six Million African Muslims Convert to Christianity Each Year (from the Al-Jazeerah Website).
Note 27. Missourian writes:
Yes, and thus I wonder why their public relations in the West is so effective. Take the Danish cartoons for example, or the knighthood of Salmon Rushdie. The day the announcement was made all sorts of threats emanated from Muslim world throughout the Western media.
So how are such backward people so media savvy? The only answer I can come up with is the some Western public relations firms must be advising them. How can it be otherwise? Who is advising them?
Satan is a “form” of an angel.. That does not mean he any longer has any holiness.
Islam denies the Holy Trinity, denies the Incarnation of the Son of God, denies the Redemption that is the result of the Incarnation of the Son of God and His sacrifice on the Cross. Islam denies that Jesus really died on the Cross. In short Islam denies everything foundational to the Christian faith.
To paraphrase the disclaimer on many TV shows: Any resemblance to Christianity is purely coincidental.
St. John of Damascus lived and worked in the court of the Caliph during the height of Islam when the Caliph felt he could be tolerant of Christians.
Missourian can give a pretty complete litany of the Islamic attitude toward women but one of the clearest pieces of evidence that Christianity and Islam are not of the same spirit is the treatment of women. Jesus Christ clearly revealed the full personhood of women. In His actions and teachings He raised their status immensely. While the Church has not always suceeded in emboding His teaching and example, Christianity remains the exemplar of genuine women’s liberation. In Islam, women are chatal, a sub-speicies really.
We will fail politically if we continue in the delusion that Islam has a logic that is compatible with ours based on a faith that has any commonality with western tradition. It is drastically different.
Western democratic government even in its current corruptedness, is founded upon over 2000 years of social, political, economic and cultural development and experience that is not shared by the Islamic world. Is is the height of fantasy to expect such a drastically different culture to ever understand democatic principals which are almost part of our genes, let alone have successful democatic government.
Remember those four words: freedom, love, growth and redemption. They are not part of the Islamic worldview.
A summary of Islamic teaching on women from State sponsored Saudi
Television:
Sigh, how romantic!!!!!
Source: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=25967_Video-_Our_Friends_the_Misogynistic_Saudis&only
Dean, I’m still waiting for you to indicate what theological concept we have in common with Islam. If it really is an “Abrahamic faith” there ought to be several that are faily easy to identify. If I’m missing them, I’d really like to know.
Dean, I’m still waiting….
Michael – For the sake of comparison the various religious beliefs of Christians and Muslims fall into one of three categories:
1) Christians and Muslims recognize the same biblical persons and concepts and understand them similarly.
2) Christians and Muslims recognize the same biblical persons and concepts but intepret and understand them differently.
3) Christians and Muslims belief in persons and concepts, rejected by the other faith completely.
In the first category we would have to place the fact that both Christians and Muslims believe in a single God who was creator of the universe and who is compassionate and merciful. Christians and Muslims share a belief in the value of altruistic acts of charity. Both Christians and Muslims believe in angels and satan, a day of judgement and an afterlife. Both Christians and Muslims see Christ’s work as “complement(ing) the legalism of the Torah with a leavening compassion rarely expressed in the older testament”
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/29/story_2964_1.html
In the second category we find that while both Christians and Islam recognize Abraham they disagree over which son God asked him to sacrifice, Issac or Ishmael. Muslims revere Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, but do not recognize the ressurrection. While both Christians and Muslims and Muslims believe in an afterlife, they have different understandings of what it would be like.
In the the third category we have to place the Christian belief in the Trinitarian nature of God, which Muslims reject, as well as the Islamic belief in Muhammed as God’s last prophet, which Christians reject.
There are obviously more dissimilarities but I only wanted to touch on the major differences.
While the Christian and Muslim faiths have very significant differences it would be incorrect to say that they are mutually exclusive. The common beliefs that do exist to not imply that there is spiritual equivalnce among the faiths. The bottom line is that although there are major, significant differences between Christianity and Islam, there is enough common belief to draw upon to justify working for peaceful coexistence between the two faiths. Christ called upon us to work for peace and healing in the world, and that is certainly a more important task then thumbing our nose at other people and and making juvenile declarations like:
US is ‘battling Satan’ says general
BeliefNet.com had this nice Abrahamaic faith Chart comparing the beliefs of Christians, Jews and Muslims on various subjects.
http://www.beliefnet.com/features/abrahamicfaiths.html
Dean, I’m still waiting….
and then
Michael – For the sake of comparison…In the first category we would have to place the fact that both Christians and Muslims believe in a single God who was creator of the universe and who is compassionate and merciful….While the Christian and Muslim faiths have very significant differences it would be incorrect to say that they are mutually exclusive….he bottom line is that although there are major, significant differences between Christianity and Islam, there is enough common belief to draw upon to justify working for peaceful coexistence between the two faiths….Christ called upon us to work for peace and healing in the world, and that is certainly a more important task then thumbing our nose at other people and and making juvenile declarations like….
Michael, I would suggest that if you respond to this liberal protestant blather you are NOT helping Dean, you are simply training his heart to dwell even more in it’s ignorance and helping him to harden it against Orthodoxy…
Christopher, since Dean makes no mention of a single theological concept I have to assume his answer to my question is that he can’t find any.
Michael – How is belief in a single God of compassion and mercy, who created the universe and will judge humanity in the afterlife, not a theological concept?
I don’t know what’s more disturbing, that you don’t consider belief in God a theological concept, or that you choose the validate the malicious rantings of this hateful person who we should not waste a single keystroke responding to.
Emotional judgementalism aside, my reply to Christopher stated the reality. Your post was not theological. Your statement was not theological because it refused to engage the reality of God. Instead you offered a socio-political discourse that presented nothing but vague platitudes. Frankly, it does not even rise to the protestant level.
Belief is an epistomological concept, not a theological one.
Who or what is God. That is a theological concept.
The Nicean Creed is an expression of Christian theology. It is our Statement of Faith. Islam agrees with none of the Nicean Creed, in fact beyond disagreement, Islam actively opposes all that the Nicean Creed states. That is enough right there to prove my point that there is no, NO theological commonality between Christianity and Islam. There might be certain pragmatic socio-political agreements from time to time but that is the best it will ever get.
You brush aside the Christian revelation that God is a Holy Trinity: one God in three persons as if that made no difference to anything. Really take a look at the Nicean Creed, consider the radical consequences of the Incarnation vs a belief that denies not only the reality of the Incarnation, but the need for it.
Mercy in and of itself means whatever one wants it to mean. Who has it and why, what is its effect? What is it?
Compassion: see above.
Study Genesis 9-17
Matthew 22: 37-39
Luke 10
Luke 23
Rev 22
Get out an Orthodox Service Book and carefully read the services of Baptism and Chrismation. Talk with your priest about what you read and get ideas for further reading such as St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation. Read that about three to four times at least.
It is apparent to me from your posts that you lack an appreciation for fundamental Orthodox theology.
By the way, I am told by a reliable source who is fluent in Arabic and has studied the Koran in Arabic that the name of Jesus appears nowhere in the Arabic version of the Koran. The Arabic version is the ONLY authoritative version of the Koran in the Muslim world. The various English translations are carefully crafted to appeal to uncritical, uneducated western folk.
Think of Jesus’ question to the Pharisees: “Was the teaching of John of God or of man?” Apply it to Islam.
In three or four years, get back to me.
Note 44. Dean, read the Pope’s Regensburg address, the speech that caused all the furor in the Muslim world. He hits the issue dead center.
Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections
Dean, if, after reading the Pope, you want to take one more step try this: A brief overview of the theology of St. Gregory of Palamas
Dean in reading your statements in defense of Islam it makes me wonder if you believe salvation can be found in that religion?
Do you believe salvation can be found in the teachings of Muhammad?
Do you believe salvation can be found in the teachings of Muhammad?
What meaning would his answer possibly have?? He is a liberal protestant, a modern with all the trappings there of. Revelation is not a extant thing, but a moveable and always shifting “concept”. He already said that
While the Christian and Muslim faiths have very significant differences it would be incorrect to say that they are mutually exclusive
Thus they are both part of Plato’s shadows on the cave wall, real knowledge (and real Revelation), is yet to come, or found in a generalized “charity” found in all persons everywhere – in all “faiths” to a greater or lesser extant.
Really Fr. Jacobse, Michael, JBL – this bantering back and forth, year after year with Dean – do you ever question it??
Chrisopher, OrthodoxyToday.org will have somewhere around 85,000 to 90,000 visits this month. Somebody finds it worthwhile.