A Religion of Peace and Love

To one dear friend, the religions of the world are in conflict, each claiming that they are right, and this creates a hostile, war-prone climate. In contrast to Christianity, which has a fixed set of non-negotiable truths, he offers:

•  “an evolving conscious curious compassionate loving kind forgiving reasoning faithful generous non-narcissistic human being, regardless of the accident of birth or faith, or similarity of race, color or class or persuasion or pre-existing unconscious conditioning--should keep re-searching--with reason and love.”

I asked him if his faith also expresses non-negotiables – areas where he feels that he is right and others are wrong:

•  We are both concerned about man’s inhumanity to man. However, do you believe that your faith is more capable of addressing this problem than is mine? Don’t you also believe that you are right about your faith and that others are wrong, maybe even the cause of the problems?

His faith is a common and popular one. It is appealing because it seems to remove the potential for conflict, allowing people to lovingly live together. However, the same problems might be inherent in this formulation.

If he believes that his faith is the correct one, then he will regard those who do not believe this way as the impediments to peace, just like the religions he criticizes! Such “progressives” are even talking about eliminating opposition, as “progressives” had done during the French and Russian Revolutions.

Even if they take a less extreme position – it’s only an “evolving” faith, and we therefore have to be very humble and uncertain about it – such a faith invites other problems. There is a group of Christian who call themselves “Christian Agnostics,” because they cannot be sure of what they believe. However, if they cannot be sure of anything, anything goes! They have become havens of permissiveness for many things that they should not permit – pedophilia, lying, cheating, robbing, manipulations, and hypocrisy.

To stand against evil, we must stand solidly for something. Oddly, with the exception of the one stipulation of an “evolving” faith, my friend has described the Christian ideal. Let us pray that we can show the world many such Christian communities, where we put the needs of the other above our own needs!

Islamo-Realism

My Response to a Liberal Anonymous Christian:

Thanks for your concerned and thoughtful response:

·       If you are concerned about human rights violations, then you'd focus on the violations and not use the violations to prove some point about the religion. Islam is a false religion--which, as it happens, means that there is no "true" interpretation of it. I know several Muslims who believe that the Koran teaches love and mercy and there are many like them Maybe they're wrong about the "real" meaning of the Koran, but that's not the point. The problem with Islamophobia is that it tends to lump all Muslims into the category of either terrorist supporters or potential terrorist supporters.

I appreciate your response because these are substantive issues – issues with which I have long struggled. You are right that my main concerns are the “human rights violations.”  I don’t see how I can stay silent as these appalling rapes, forced conversions and genocides continue through much of the Islamic (and communistic world).

However, if these were isolated instances, you would be correct to question my concerns about Islam. While it is true that a certain minority of Muslims – like the Sufis - do not take their holy writings literally, the vast majority of Muslims do take them literally and want to impose sharia law wherever they can. As a consequence of this, there is not a single Muslim nation where non-Muslim have not been reduced to a second class status and sometimes even far worse.

For the exception of very brief periods, this seems to have been their historical experience under Islam. Therefore, although I am pleased whenever a human rights issue can be successfully addressed, it also should be observed that these problems have been ubiquitous under Islam. We can treat the symptoms, but if the underlying cause remains, it will just re-express itself, as it now does, wherever there is a sizeable Islamic population, as we are beginning to find in the West.

I think that it is unfair to compare conservative Christians to Muslim terrorists:

·       I don't think that Jesus taught us to be hypocrites on human rights, but the fact is that conservative Christians in the US tend to be hypocritical on human rights. It's no accident that the Bible Belt was also the place where Jim Crow was established.

Were these really Bible-believing Christians or were they merely cultural Christians, more similar to our liberals? I really don’t know. Please also bear in mind that it was Bible-believing Christians who had vigorously campaigned against slavery here and brought it to an end in England under the leadership of William Wilberforce.

Admittedly, Christians have done terrible things, betraying their faith. However, when they did so, it wasn’t because of their religion had given them encouragement. However, the Islamic terrorists are finding direct support for their actions from the Koran and Hadiths and are claiming to be the true Muslims.

Westerners naively think that the Islamic experience will be different in the West. They think that we have to sharply distinguish between the terrorists and the “majority of peace-loving moderate Muslims.” However, they are in denial about the nature of Islam, Islamic nations, and the historical Islamic experience. They wrongly regard Islam as vacuous, neutral, and capable of promoting any number of interpretations and peaceful expressions. To point these things out is not Islamophobia but Islamo-realism.

Are “Fundamentalists” all the same?

My Response to a Progressive Christian who opposes criticism of Islam:

Thanks again for your willingness to cross the isle to engage in substantive dialogue. You wrote:

•  “What you're writing is that reading the Quran literally always leads to the sort of extremism that is causing so much harm.”

Just about always! However, as you correctly point out, there are also peaceable verses in the Koran. However, the imams – the teachers – correctly understand that these were the earlier verses given before Muhammad had an army, and these have been replaced by the jihadic verses. Therefore, all of the Western commentators that I know of observe that as Muslims get deeper into their holy writings, they become more radicalized.

•  “Reading the Bible literally, fundamentalist Christians have pushed for the teaching of the Creation story in science classes instead of evolution, justified the prejudice and discrimination of gays and lesbians…”

I certainly grant you some of this, but I don’t see how you can compare legitimate political democratic persuasion to Islamic rape, kidnapping and genocide!

As I tried to argue before, perhaps without sufficient clarity, we are all fundamentalistic about certain things. You are fundamentalistic against extremism and violence, as you should be. I would also assume that the principles of justice and love are also fundamental non-negotiables for you.

Admittedly, we derive our values from the Bible. However, is the source for your values any more trustworthy than ours? And what if the Bible is actually God’s Word, as many of us believe? Shouldn’t we devote ourselves to it?

You will probably point out that the Muslims also believe that their own holy writings are God’s Words. Of course, this is a critical issue. Has God spoken to humanity, and are there ways to know this? I think that there are many ways – both subjection and objective (miracles, fulfilled prophecy, changed lives/societies, internal and external consistency…).

•  “A literal interpretation of any holy book … naturally leads to an extremism that you find in fundamentalist Islam and in fundamentalist Christianity.”

“Literal” is not an accurate word. Instead, we try to interpret the Bible as it was intended to be understood. Some of it is highly figurative and some isn’t. More importantly, it depends on what one is fundamentalistic about. As a Christian, I follow the New Testament, which teaches me to put the needs of the other before my own. Although I fail badly at this – and this continues to humble me – I trust that the Lord forgives me and is delighted when I get off my butt and reassert myself to love others.

Love also demands that I cry out about the victimization of the innocent. In our world, the vast majority of these are Christians, as the jacket of “The Global War on Christians” by CNN writer John L. Allen Jr. states:

• From Iraq and Egypt to Sudan and Nigeria, from Indonesia to the Indian subcontinent, Christians in the early twenty-first century are the world’s most persecuted religious group. According to the secular International Society for Human Rights, 80 percent of violations of religious freedom in the world today are directed against Christians.

Allen writes:

•  “The Open Doors” estimate, based on decades of tracking the realities of persecution in some of the darkest corners of the earth, is that roughly one hundred million Christians today suffer interrogation, arrest, and even death for their faith, with the bulk located in Asia and the Middle East. The overall total makes Christians the most at-risk group for violations of religious freedom. (37)

I would love to turn my back on these painful realities, but I cannot. I also fail to understand how others who call themselves “Christian” can be so dismissive of these realities.

Nazi-Phobia and Islamophobia

 

Here is my response to a “progressive Christian” who accused me of Islamophobia:

I do appreciate your attempt to explain your behavior towards me. You stated:

“Anytime Christianity is used to condone Islamophobia, Anti-semitism, Homophobia, Racism, or any other prejudice, it does great damage to the Christian religion. That's why it has to always be confronted.”

I too care about how Christianity is perceived, and it profoundly grieves me that my adopted faith – I come from a Jewish/Zionist background – is so denigrated throughout most of the world. I mourn daily because of this.

As a Jew, I used to fantasize about what I would do, had lived in Nazi Germany? Sometimes, I would envision myself making payments to the Nazis to free Jews from the “death camps.” At other times, in my young adult imagination, I saw myself picking up arms to liberate my brethren.

Today, as I survey the Communist and Islamic worlds, I am confronted with the appalling sight of tens of thousands of Christians exterminated, kidnapped, raped and subjected to forced conversion or blasphemy charges, in accordance with the literal teachings of Islam:

• Qur’an 9:29 - Fight against Christians and Jews ”until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.” (9:7-9; 9:12-14; 9:5; 2:191-2; 4:91)

• Qur’an (5:51) - ”O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.”

• Qur’an (2:65-66) - Christians and Jews must believe what Allah has revealed to Muhammad or Allah will disfigure their faces or turn them into apes, as he did the Sabbath-breakers. (9:30; 5:72; 5:53; 5:63; 5:59)

• Qur’an (5:80) – “You will see many of them befriending those who disbelieve; certainly evil is that which their souls have sent before for them, that Allah became displeased with them and in chastisement shall they abide.” Those Muslims who befriend unbelievers will abide in hell.

Had I been in Nazi Germany, I would not have been able to keep silent. I would like think that as I saw Hitler’s rise to power that I would have exposed his evil agenda before it was too late.

Exposing the Koranic agenda is no different. While there are many lovely Muslims, once they become trained in the writings of the Koran and Hadiths, they become radicalized. Meanwhile, I pray that Muslims might learn to interpret their writings in ways that accord with love, justice and peace. However, this requires that the literalistic interpretation be revised, and I think that our role is should be one of confrontation and not denial. This is why I post and re-post articles demonstrating the atrocities of Islam, when taken at face-value.

Wisdom requires us make critical distinctions among the various worldviews. We might disagree with many of them, but we can still live with them. With others, we cannot. Some are not amenable to justice for all and equality, but advocate violence to achieve their ends. Denial of this fact can only prove costly. While we desire, “Peace in our Time,” a false peace is worse than no peace at all.

Universalism and Religious Pluralism: Their Appeal and Problem

I must confess that I find universalism (“everyone gets saved”) appealing. My Jewish parents passed away without giving any indication that they believed in Jesus. I want to see them again and to be with them forever. While I can always hope, the Bible gives me no explicit basis for such a hope.

However, our Lord does keep certain things hidden (Deut. 29:29; 1 Cor. 13:12; 1 John 3:2). I therefore hope that He will be gracious in ways that He hasn’t explicitly revealed through Scripture. In fact, I tend to think that the stillborn and perhaps also some of the mentally challenged will receive His mercy (Luke 12:47-48). However, He hasn’t given me the liberty to preach or teach these uncertainties as if they were verities. Instead, where He is clear about the nature of His mercy, hope, and inheritance, I too must be clear and unequivocal. However, where His revelation remains shrouded in mystery and uncertainly, I too must reflect the same in my speech. This is part of what it means to be faithful.

We do not have the liberty to tamper with His revelations or go beyond them. He explained this to the Prophets of Israel:

• When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. (Isaiah 8:19-20)

In so many ways, Scripture teaches that if we abide in His Word, we will thrive (Psalm 1; Josh. 1:8; John 15:7-14); if we refuse, we will suffer (Deut. 28-29). He warned Isaiah that to go beyond His Word demonstrated willful ignorance and incurred grave consequences:

• “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord says: You will have peace.’ And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, ‘No harm will come to you.’ But which of them has stood in the council of the Lord to see or to hear his word? Who has listened and heard his word? See, the storm of the Lord will burst out in wrath, a whirlwind swirling down on the heads of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back… I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied.” (Jer. 23:16-21)

The false prophets inevitably prophesied a popular message – one that could be successfully marketed. However, they confidently spoke, even though God “did not send these prophets.” They therefore stood guilty before God, along with those who, in “the stubbornness of their hearts,” embraced their comforting message.

I think that we need to take a course in astronomy or simply meditate on what our eyes reveal. Time and space are unfathomable. The galaxies are uncountable, along with the stars in each galaxy! In comparison, our minds are small. And yet we are confident that we can get our minds around the spiritual mysteries of God. We are so confident that we have little hesitation to invent things beyond what Scripture has revealed. It is like an astronomer throwing away his telescope, saying, “I don’t need this. I can learn more about the heavens by just sitting in my armchair.”

This is arrogant presumption and not truth. However, we require truth more than self-absorbed comfort, more than the self-satisfaction we might find by conjuring up in our own minds the nature of the universe. Therefore, God continued to Jeremiah:

• “But if they [the false prophets] had stood in my council [My Word], they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds.” (Jer. 23:22)

Surgery can be painful, but it is sometimes necessary. The truth can also be painful, but it can bring healing and reconciliation, while the comforting message can enable us to repress the real problem – the turning away from God.

If we play fast-and-loose with what God has revealed, we stand guilty before Him. However, the Apostle Paul claimed that he had been faithful to God’s Word and, therefore, bore no guilt:

• “Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” (Acts 20:26-27)

Even the unpopular teachings of Scripture! Paul also warned the church to not go beyond what the Bible states:

• Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other. For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? (1 Cor. 4:6-7)

The Corinthian church had gone far “beyond what is written!” Therefore, they committed a costly error by boasting of the spiritual superiority of their particular faction. Consequently, Paul had to remind them that, if they had any good thing, they had to regard it as a gift from God and not a reason for boasting.

I’d rather preach a popular and all-inclusive message – “Everyone is saved” or “Everyone has her own path” (Religious Pluralism). I would then be invited on all of the talk-shows and to the exclusive parties.

Instead, we are called to walk a costly road with a toll-booth at every intersection. Jesus had to pay the price and warned that we also will:

• “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.” (John 15:18-20)

If, instead, you find that the world is readily accepting your message, it is very possible that you are on the wrong road.