The Path Back to 9-11

So I watched The Path to 911. It appears that whether the general drift of the story is correct or not, some of the details were not. This is unfortunate, because the inaccuracies become the focus and any central truths get lost. Reaction from the left was predictable, and I believe Dennis Prager hit the nail on the head. Clinton administration defenders who decry the film are being hopelessly narcissistic. The film was NOT about them. It was about the terrorists and the fact that we as a nation, collectively, were inexcusably blind to the threat, including the early days of the Bush administration.

What the film portrayed accurately was that Islamic radicals attempted and failed to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993 and continued through the entire eight years of the Clinton administration to plot and execute terrorist attacks. It did document the acknowledged fact that numerous inadequacies made the attacks possible, from lack of communication and outright competition between agencies as well as clueless indifference. It also documented that there were opportunities to get Bin Laden, though the details may have been condensed and “fictionalized" in the film.

As I watched, my one hope was that people would remember who the enemy is. My hope was that folks would understand once again that there is a significant threat from individuals and groups who wish to see a Taliban-like regime instituted worldwide, with Sharia law as the norm and they are willing and ready and willing to commit mass murder to see this goal accomplished. That was my hope. I fear it is a false hope.

Reading today that Rosie O'Donnell can compare Christian fundametnalists to the Islamic terrorists on network television was disturbing enough, though nothing surprises me anymore.
Her specific words included,

“Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state."

“…as a result of the attack and the killing of nearly 3,000 innocent people we invaded two countries and killed innocent people”

When challenged that Christians are not threatening mass murder on anyone here or abroad, she continued “…we are bombing innocent people in other countries. True or false?"

Reading the words online was maddening. Watching the clip was worse. Because the studio audience applauded! Significant numbers of Americans apparently agree that “radical Christianity” is equivalent to radical Islam!

Clearly, there is no clue out there what the war on terror is really about. Yes there have been isolated cases of folks who claim Christianity doing destructive things like bombing abortion clinics and killing abortion doctors. But there is absolutely nothing else that comes close to a comparison between Islamic terrorism and Christianity. There are no Christian church leaders that I am aware of advocating mass murder. Nor does the U.S. Government or the U.S. Military target civilians and no major Christian leader of ANY denomination would dream of advocating such things. That such a point even needs to be made is infuriating. The terrorists behind 9-11 intentionally targeted civilians with the intent of killing as many civilians as possible. Nothing in anything any legitimate Christian group teaches or represents compares to this. In the 9-11 attack, there was no distinction between the killing of women, children, men or military personnel, white, black, Arab, European, multi-ethnic, gay or straight. Any death was seen as a victory for Allah. This in no way compares to any American military action or the support of the war by conservative Christians.

In many places across the world those Muslims who did not participate in the attacks, supported, cheered and celebrated them. Almost no one in the Muslim community, particularly among the Muslim clergy have been willing to publicly repudiate the goals or methods of the terrorists.

There is no evidence or even any rational reason to believe that any civilian deaths caused by the war in Iraq or Afghanistan by our military were intentionally targeted, deliberate, or celebrated in this country. And the fact that the terrorists make a point of not identifying themselves by uniform as military combatants, and instead hide among civilians and use them as shields demonstrates both that they have no regard for human life that would resemble anything we have long held dear and also that they are counting on the fact that we won’t target civilians to make such hiding places effective.

What in the world is behind this moral equivalency lunacy? What is it that Rosie and others on the left fear from Christianity?

The answer, I think, is absolutes. More precisely, absolutism. Those who crave absolute (!) pluralism fear any viewpoint that suggests it is true and all other views false. They fear that anyone who believes in absolute, objective truth will eventually, inevitably resort to violence, coercion, force, and state power to make sure that everyone else accepts that view. I guess they really believe that conservative Christians want to establish a militant theocracy, (which we don’t) and that we, like radical muslims, want to murder anyone who disagrees with us, which is ridiculous.

Christianity, as I have argued here before, balances absolute moral standards with compassion and forgiveness. High standards, plus unlimited grace. Christianity also values free will, even in the most Calvinist circles. Individuals are responsible and cannot, must not be coerced. Faith that is coerced is not faith. Protestant Christianity, in particular, fears absolute power as much as any other worldview in history. The fears Rosie spews are completely unfounded.

And even then, why would Rosie or anyone else fear Christianity even half as much as the extreme form of Islam, which treats women as a fraction of the value of a man, which doesn’t merely disagree with homosexuals but would execute them, and which would tolerate not a whit of the pluralism and free speech she uses to its full extent? I don’t understand how such blindness can be held with such fervency. But I guess rationality is out of style these days.

But the end result, I fear, is that we as a nation will not have the will or the understanding to defend ourselves against this threat that is more dangerous than communism or Nazi ideologies. Communists were willing to kill for their cause. Islamic radicals are willing to commit suicide for their cause. I fear 9-11 will be repeated. The terrorists will continue to be emboldened. Pluralism and multi-culturalism will continue to bend over backward to be fair to the

Khatamis of the world and will insist that pluralism and democracy mean a place at the table for Sharia law. I fear everything Western Civilization has been for centuries may well disappear within the lifetimes of our children.

There was much furor over the “Path to 9-11” For all the wrong reasons. And the main point of the film, that there is a real enemy out there and it is not our own government, has already been lost.

The Difference Between Christianity and Islam

Ran accross this article which describes stoning for adultery as a brutal affair in some Islamic countries. Human rights groups are drafting a resolution to protest the practice. Quoting the article, regarding the case of one Malak Ghorbany,

"Lily Mazahery, president of the Legal Rights Institute in Washington, D.C., had the lead role in drafting the San Francisco resolution, telling WND: 'Malak is receiving the penalty of death for having committed 'adultery,' which, under the Sharia legal system includes any type of intimate relationship between a girl/woman and a man to whom she is not permanently or temporarily married. Such a relationship does not necessarily mean a sexual relationship. Further, charges of adultery are routinely issued to women/girls who have been raped, and they are sentenced to death.'"

I notice that it is only the women who are stoned and that, according to the article, the testimony of the woman only counts for half of that of the man.

Tutu on Islam and Christianity

Two different sources on my regular morning reading list picked up on speeches by Anglican Archbishop and Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu at a UN conference in Qatar and a World Council of Churches conference in Brazil. One focused on Tutu’s “willful ignorance” in matters relating to the cartoon jihad over images of Mohammed printed in Denmark. The other focused more on the theological content of the address.

John Hinderaker at Powerline referred to Tuto as “the appalling Bishop Tutu” for taking a line of moral equivalence between the occasional vocalizations of Christians and Jews toward media types who hurl insults and the random killing and rioting in multiple countries over a handful of cartooons, killing of individuals who had nothing to do with those cartoons. He seems to think the Danish government had more to apologize for than murderous mobs. Tutu is quoted:

''Had relationships been different, one, the cartoons might not have happened, or if they had, they probably would have been handled differently...'Imagine if the subject had been the Holocaust and it had been treated in a way that the Jews had deemed offensive and the reaction of the Danish government and international community had been as it is now."

The writer correctly sees a horrifying foolishness in the very question:

"'Imagine'? 'Imagine'? Does Bishop Tutu really not know that this happens all the time? Is he unaware that Iran is, in fact, sponsoring a Holocaust cartoon contest, the reaction to which has been a big yawn? This is willful ignorance.

Tutu blundered further into historical silliness…

"He lamented the negative stereotyping of Muslims and wondered why North Ireland's Protestants and Catholics, the Oklahoma City bombers or even the Nazis had never been labeled ''Christian terrorists.'''

This brought the inevitable response from Hinderaker...

"Well, let me see if I can think of a few reasons. One, the Nazi leaders were atheists or pagans, not Christians. Two, none of the individuals cited purported to kill in the name of Christ or Christianity…Three, no Christian priests or ministers advocate murdering those of other faiths. That's "none," as in zero. Same with Jewish rabbis."

Tutu wants peace and "justice" at the expense of truth and reason…and that carries over from truth about the basic facts of what is happening in the news of the day to what is happening in the spiritual realm.

Parker Williamson reported on Tutu's speech to the WCC at Virtue Online

"The Rev. Desmond Tutu, archbishop and primate of Southern Africa, has weighed in with World Council of Churches leaders who seek to have the council transcend Christian boundaries. 'After all,' said Tutu, 'God is not a Christian.'"

One wonders what Tutu means. Do the words of Christ “No one comes to the Father but by me” have any objective meaning at all? Tutu goes on to embrace universalism further and more explicitly.

"Jesus, it appears, was quite serious when he said that God was our father and that we belonged all to one family, because in this family all, not some, are insiders. None is an outsider - black and white, yellow and red, rich and poor, educated and not educated, beautiful and not so beautiful, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, all belong, all are held in a divine embrace that will not let us go - all, for God has no enemies."
Is this the Jesus who cast the moneychangers out of the temple? Is this the Jesus who said it is better to be cast into the sea with a millstone around the neck than to lead a child astray?

More came at a later press conference…

"I have said that God is not a Christian," said Tutu. "Some people chewed me up for saying that, but I believe it. Some like to think that we Christians have the duty of protecting God. But I wish these people could meet the Dalai Lama. He is a holy person, incredible. We are the ones who keep trying to put limits on God, but God gives the incredible gift of grace."

Hey, the Dalai Lama may be a nice guy, but does that mean that the basics of Christian faith can be simply discarded?

"God is the God of all...We are too prone to excommunicate. God welcomes all of us. Today we Christians have moved a long way toward understanding that we don't have a corner on the God market. Once we said that all who are not Christians are pagans . We must do away with social apartheid in the world. Religion is like a knife. You can use it for cutting a sandwich or to kill."

I had always thought that the role of a “bishop” was to guard the deposit of faith as proclaimed by the apostles and documented in the scriptures. As I read the early church documents, it seems the role of the bishop is supposed to be essential to the church. It is easy to see why evangelicals are so skeptical of Episcopal structures when those in such lofty positions holding the title of "Bishop" can so easily and visibly proclaim a completely new vision of the world and the faith with impunity.

It was Tertullian, I believe who asked "Do we prove the faith by the man or the man by the faith?" This was a massive failure.

Islam, Benedict and the West

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Father Joseph Fessio, Provosty of Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida, on January 5 and posted a portion of the interview on his website. This was a very interesting exchange. Father Fessio is part of a group that has long met for topical discussions with Joseph Ratzinger and groups of Graduate Students, a practice that is apparently continuing now that Ratzinger is Pope Benedict XVI. Their most recent meeting discussed Islam. A couple of quotes struck me.

First, regarding the spread of Islam and the response to it by Christians in the West...

"... I want to say without exaggeration, and without trying to become histrionic here, I see the trends...I've seen them for years, in Europe, of depopulation as you've mentioned. And their immigration is coming from the South, which is mainly Islamic. And there are, I think there are 98 Islamic countries in the world, and 97 of them do not have religious freedom... And that's what's going to happen to Europe. Once there's an Islamic majority...it's going to eliminate religious freedom...and therefore, Western civilization as we know it. However, in the United States, we also are not having children. There's abortion. There's contraception. There's the ideal of a one or two child family. But where is our immigration coming from? From Ecuador, from Mexico, from Cuba, from Guatemala. And these people are Christians. And so, I believe without being...you know, having hubris as an American, I believe that Christians in the United States are the ones who will be able to save not just Christianity, but Western civilization, if we maintain our fidelity to the scriptures, our fidelity to Christ, our fidelity to family life, and our fidelity to fertility and fruitfulness in marriage."