It is common to hear people say that we can’t judge other
religions or belief systems. Why not? One thoughtful young lady had responded to
my listing teachings from the Quran in favor of world conquest. “Linda”
dismissed all of the quotations I had provided:
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With all due respect Daniel, I don't think it
does much to quote the Koran out of context…The most recent mass shooting was
against Muslim people. We need to fight extremism and hatred, not bicker
between religions. If Christianity has the upper hand on moral values,
demonstrate that in your actions and words. Love thy neighbor instead of trying
to inspire hatred.
She didn’t seem to think that “Christianity has the upper
hand on moral values,” since she quoted several verses she thought proved that the
NT was equally violent. Nor did she seem ready to examine the grand perspective
by comparing the status of previously Christian nations against Islamic
nations. Linda also argued that since the Muslims are also victims, they should
be given immunity against any charges. However, she charged me with “inspiring
hatred.” Hmmm? Perhaps I should have prefaced my remarks with, “I had been
mugged by Muslims on three occasions, and they also raped my daughter.” Perhaps
this would have given me the right to speak to her.
I responded that it would have been the loving thing to blow
the whistle against Hitler and Stalin before they had each killed their many
millions. However, Linda objected to my equating Hitler with Islam:
·
But like Christianity, there are many
interpretations of Islam! Hitler and Stalin weren't Muslims - I don't see an
equivalence here and I challenge you to demonstrate one. In fact, if you want
to talk about Hitler, look at the hatred of Jews leading up to WWII, the
language used against Jewish people was scarily similar to that we now use
against Muslims.
·
There is hatred and there are reductive
arguments on both sides and so many innocent people getting blamed for the
actions of a few violent extremists - who come from a variety of ideological
persuasions. There are bad people and good people on all sides - continually
categorising like this is harmful and does nothing to move things forward - it
only divides us further.
Why was Linda unable to see my point that, sometimes, love
requires us to warn against certain groups and people? I think that her stance
has been nurtured by the ideology of religious pluralism and multiculturalism -
We cannot judge others because we lack any absolute moral standard to do the
judging. It would be like a math teacher grading a math exam if there are no
correct answers.
This, of course, puts the kibosh on all serious efforts to
transform this into a just society, since there is no absolute standard of justice.
Instead, justice is merely a concept we have dreamed up, and yet Linda was
judging me as if she did have objective standards. She illustrates the great
extent to which this world is floundering with cognitive vertigo.
However, it might be more fruitful to approach Linda’s
position from a more personal or psychological framework. Why is this moral
malaise so acceptable? What do our youth derive from it? Moral vertigo seems to
be widespread and highly acceptable. While the West takes a strong stance
against racism, as it should, it also endorses racism in many forms. Shaming “White
Privilege” seminars have become mandatory on many college campuses for those
who have a skin color associated with crimes of the past.
Surprisingly, the participants are not objecting to the
seminars’ implication of guilt-by-color but seem to be basking in it and its
implicit message that America is evil. Why are they not protesting this new
racism?
Besides, “white guilt” that is now promoted doesn’t seem to
be of any help to people of color. In his recent book, “Shame: How America’s Past Sins have Polarized Our Country,”
Shelby Steele argues that white guilt, the terror that whites experience of
being labeled a “racist,” has harmed the Black community:
- It has spawned a new white paternalism toward minorities since the 1960s that, among other things, has damaged the black family more profoundly than segregation ever did.
Steele claims that this paternalism was worse than anything
that he had experienced under segregation. How did this serve to undermine the
black family? Steele argues that white-instituted entitlement programs, along
with their narrative of victimhood, have served to disempower:
- Post-1960s welfare policies, the proliferation of “identity politics” and group preferences, and all the grandiose social interventions of the War on Poverty and the Great Society—all this was meant to redeem the nation from its bigoted past, but paradoxically, it also invited minorities to make an identity and a politics out of grievance and inferiority. Its seductive whisper to them was that their collective grievance was their entitlement and that protest politics was the best way to cash in on that entitlement—this at the precise moment when America was at last beginning to free up minorities as individual citizens who could pursue their own happiness to the limits of their abilities. Thus, white guilt was a smothering and distracting kindness that enmeshed minorities more in the struggle for white redemption than in their own struggle to develop as individuals capable of competing with all others.
According to Steele, “white redemption” was the
Leftist/progressive attempt to occupy the moral high-ground by demonstrating that
they aren’t racist. Rather, it is those who oppose them that are the racists.
It also served as a strategy to manipulate the “oppressed” by reminding them of
their victimization long after it was an issue.
This reminds me of an article in which white young ladies
are bowing and kissing the shoes of the “Black Israelites” (a photograph
pictured this), a hateful and intimidating group. Why would they abase
themselves in this manner? Were they guilty of racism or were they simply led
to believe that they had profited from racism, and that this had made them
guilty? In any case, their behavior was justifying the hate-dripping stance of
the “Black Israelites.”
Steele argues that the victimization identity along with the
Welfare State has undermined black initiative:
- We should not be smothered, as we have been, by the new paternalistic liberalism that emerged in the mid-1960s—a guilt-driven liberalism that has imposed itself through a series of ineffective and even destructive government programs and policies. We should be left to find our own way as free men and women in this fast-paced and highly competitive society.
Linda wrote back and dismissed the many sources that I had
presented to validate the fact that Islam is a real menace as “biased.” She
seemed to be immune to any of the evidences, which I had presented. (I also
suspect that she dismisses Steele as an “Uncle Tom.”)
What does Linda derive from such paternalistic attitudes
towards Muslims? I can only guess. However, knowing my own tendencies towards
self-righteousness, I would think that this kind of paternalism is not only a
way to prove that we are not racist but also to prove that we are more
righteous than those who do not offer obeisance to the “oppressed.” This makes
us feel that we are a “somebody,” a person of value.
Self-righteousness is a life-controlling despot, who hides
his controlling influences until they become invisible. However, I am thankful
that I no longer need this uncompromising despot. In the eyes of my Lord Jesus,
I am already righteous and beloved and no longer need to prove myself. However,
those who do not have Jesus are driven to prove their worthiness as I had, even
when it is to the detriment of others. The late poet and thinker T.S. Elliot
had been understandably suspicious of idealists:
·
Half the harm that is done in this world is due
to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm—but the harm
does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they
are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
I can identify!
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