Showing posts with label Islamic Terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islamic Terrorism. Show all posts
Saturday, May 11, 2013
What Difference Does It Make?
Interesting stuff coming out of Washington since Steve Hayes at the Weekly Standard produced three different versions of "talking points" eventually used by Susan Rice to blame the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stephens and three others on an anti-Muslim video.
Even ABC news has reported that the talking points underwent 12 revisions. Jay Carney had claimed only single edit. We now know that is untrue and that the decision to make the changes came from the State Department.
Scour the internet and even Mother Jones and the Huffington post are now paying attention to the story.
One might ask "What difference does it make?" to a blogger who mainly is concerned with theological issues. (More)
Tuesday, October 09, 2012
Shooting the Messenger - The Left's Only Enemy
Very interesting article in the Jerusalem Post by Caroline Glick titled "The Left's Only Enemy". She begins with reference to Mahmoud Abbas, whom the left in Israel and the United States holds up as a moderate. Writes Glick,
It is difficult for the left to define an enemy, particularly the Christian left. What philosophical commitments lead particular individuals and groups to pretend evil does not exist is an open question I suppose. Glick continues,
"The fact that Abbas was an inveterate
Jew-hater who spent four decades in the senior leadership of a terrorist
organization and whose doctoral dissertation was a long denial of the Holocaust,
was brushed aside."
It is difficult for the left to define an enemy, particularly the Christian left. What philosophical commitments lead particular individuals and groups to pretend evil does not exist is an open question I suppose. Glick continues,
"Abbas’s Israeli supporters are the core of
far-leftists who brought us the phony peace process with the PLO. Two thousand
dead Israelis later, and with no peace in sight, their camp is much smaller
today than it was in 1993. But it is still dedicated. And it is
overpopulated by members of the media". (more)
Monday, September 18, 2006
Saturday, September 16, 2006
The Pope and Islam
There has been much attention paid to the allegedly insulting words of Pope Benedict toward Islam in a speech titled "Faith, Reason & The University" at the University of Regensburg. The offending remark is one particular line, a quote from 14th-century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos in conversation with a Persian scholar, "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Of course few of the news articles give any context whatsover to the the quotation. More on that below.
Most of the attention has been paid to muslim denunciations of the Pope's comments.
According to the article from the AP by Benjamin Harvey:
Salih Kapusuz, deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party, said Benedict's remarks were either "the result of pitiful ignorance" about Islam and its prophet or, worse, a deliberate distortion. "It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades," Mr. Kapusuz told Turkish state television and radio. He said Benedict will go down in history for his words, "in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."
Most of the attention has been paid to muslim denunciations of the Pope's comments.
According to the article from the AP by Benjamin Harvey:
Salih Kapusuz, deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party, said Benedict's remarks were either "the result of pitiful ignorance" about Islam and its prophet or, worse, a deliberate distortion. "It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades," Mr. Kapusuz told Turkish state television and radio. He said Benedict will go down in history for his words, "in the same category as leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini."
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
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.
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.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
The Death of Truth
So there is much buzz about ABCs new miniseries The Path to 911. I hope to find time to watch it, but that may or may not be possible. ABC is under immense pressure from Democrats and Clinton supporters, (free speech champions all) to cancel the series. The reason is for certain events being "conflated" so that multiple statements from a variety of sources are attributed to single individuals, implying that they said specific words that they didn't actually say.
The AP report by David Bauder indicates:
"A cut of the film distributed to TV critics depicts a team poised in darkness outside bin Laden's cave fortress in Afghanistan, while an actor portraying Berger in Washington stalls on giving the final go-ahead to carry out the seizure. He confers via video phone to CIA chief George Tenet.
"'Look, George," Berger says, "if you feel confident, you can present your recommendation to the president yourself.'
"Tenet responds angrily, then Berger's screen goes blank. He has hung up."
Madeline Albright is also upset:
"Albright objected to a scene that reportedly shows her warning the Pakistani government before an airstrike on Afghanistan, which resulted in bin Laden's escape. She said the scene was false and defamatory.:"
And Richard Clarke:
"Another scene in the movie depicts counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke explaining to FBI agent John O'Neill that he doesn't believe Clinton will take chances to kill bin Laden at a time Republicans were pressing for impeachment."
So because the film takes liberties with the association of certain statements with specific people who weren't the ones who made them, Clinton's people and much of the Democratic party is crying for the film to be edited if not scrapped entirely (that is, censored, isn't it?). Sandy Berger, best known for stuffing secret documents in his pants in the defense of truth and justice claims: "You can't fix it, you gotta yank it."
On the one hand, I am uncomfortable with the "docudrama" genre. By its very nature, it is difficult to compress a mountain of "docu-" into even five hours worth of "-drama" in a way that is watchable. There were plenty of complaints about the liberties Peter Jackson had to take with The Lord of the Rings. Had he not conflated certain passages, the film would either have been unwatchable, or key elements would have been left out completely. Certainly writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh faced those sorts of decisions. Still, attributing specific words to individuals when they didn't say them, even though they said or did things consistent with the words is problematic. So I don't entirely blame Albright, for example.
But I have to say, there is considerable hypocrisy in the outrage.
How many Democrats were outraged by the inaccuracies and outright lies of Michael Moore, whom Christopher Hitchens', in his demolition of Farenheit 911, referred to as "beneath contempt".
Is anyone in the Democratic alternate universe upset about charges that President Bush let people die in New Orleans based on economic status or race?
The fact that we should even be wasting time having to debunk 9-11 myths is an indication of how useless the words "journalism" and "objectivity" have become, but nobody in Bill Clinton's party seems to be concerned about fairness there, much less serious about actually fighting the terrorists who were responsible. Frightening how willfully blind to the needs of the hour these people are.
And aside from "conflation" of events, the events that implicate the Clinton administration in failing to comprehend any sort of threat appear to be worthy of examination. Powerline documents the long string of Islamic extremist attacks during the Clinton years, attacks that were rarely, and completely unsuccessfully responded to.
And now, the Senate Intelligence Committee once again insists there was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda, an unfortunate conclusion apparently in search of evidence from the start. There appears to be a fair amount of evidence in documents recoved in Iraq that would contradict such a conclusion, but presumably this evidence was dismissed. Thomas Joscelyn's article in the Weekly Standard notes at least a couple of pieces of evidence available to the general public that were apparently conveniently ignored in the report:
"One of Saddam's senior intelligence operatives, Faruq Hijazi, was questioned about his contacts with bin Laden and al Qaeda.
"Hijazi admitted to meeting bin Laden once in 1995, but claimed that "this was his sole meeting with bin Ladin or a member of al Qaeda and he is not aware of any other individual following up on the initial contact.
"This is not true. Hijazi's best known contact with bin Laden came in December 1998, days after the Clinton administration's Operation Desert Fox concluded. We know the meeting happened because the worldwide media reported it. The meeting took place on December 21, 1998.
"There is a voluminous body of evidence surrounding this December 1998 meeting between Hijazi and bin Laden--yet there is not a single mention of it in the committee's report."
No president in history has been treated with the personalized contempt that G.W. Bush has. See this as just one example. Sorry Mr. Clinton. While I wish the film had attributed specific words or events to the right people, the idea that you and your staff are being treated unfairly rings a little hollow. I actually agree that docudrama's should be accurate, even if it means they are more "docu" than "drama". But the hypocritical and calculated moral outrage over this, under the circumstances, is rather sickening. The president famous for the line "it depends on what your definition of 'is' is." has no place complaining about a lack of truthfulness, even if he has a point about the details.
The AP report by David Bauder indicates:
"A cut of the film distributed to TV critics depicts a team poised in darkness outside bin Laden's cave fortress in Afghanistan, while an actor portraying Berger in Washington stalls on giving the final go-ahead to carry out the seizure. He confers via video phone to CIA chief George Tenet.
"'Look, George," Berger says, "if you feel confident, you can present your recommendation to the president yourself.'
"Tenet responds angrily, then Berger's screen goes blank. He has hung up."
Madeline Albright is also upset:
"Albright objected to a scene that reportedly shows her warning the Pakistani government before an airstrike on Afghanistan, which resulted in bin Laden's escape. She said the scene was false and defamatory.:"
And Richard Clarke:
"Another scene in the movie depicts counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke explaining to FBI agent John O'Neill that he doesn't believe Clinton will take chances to kill bin Laden at a time Republicans were pressing for impeachment."
So because the film takes liberties with the association of certain statements with specific people who weren't the ones who made them, Clinton's people and much of the Democratic party is crying for the film to be edited if not scrapped entirely (that is, censored, isn't it?). Sandy Berger, best known for stuffing secret documents in his pants in the defense of truth and justice claims: "You can't fix it, you gotta yank it."
On the one hand, I am uncomfortable with the "docudrama" genre. By its very nature, it is difficult to compress a mountain of "docu-" into even five hours worth of "-drama" in a way that is watchable. There were plenty of complaints about the liberties Peter Jackson had to take with The Lord of the Rings. Had he not conflated certain passages, the film would either have been unwatchable, or key elements would have been left out completely. Certainly writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh faced those sorts of decisions. Still, attributing specific words to individuals when they didn't say them, even though they said or did things consistent with the words is problematic. So I don't entirely blame Albright, for example.
But I have to say, there is considerable hypocrisy in the outrage.
How many Democrats were outraged by the inaccuracies and outright lies of Michael Moore, whom Christopher Hitchens', in his demolition of Farenheit 911, referred to as "beneath contempt".
Is anyone in the Democratic alternate universe upset about charges that President Bush let people die in New Orleans based on economic status or race?
The fact that we should even be wasting time having to debunk 9-11 myths is an indication of how useless the words "journalism" and "objectivity" have become, but nobody in Bill Clinton's party seems to be concerned about fairness there, much less serious about actually fighting the terrorists who were responsible. Frightening how willfully blind to the needs of the hour these people are.
And aside from "conflation" of events, the events that implicate the Clinton administration in failing to comprehend any sort of threat appear to be worthy of examination. Powerline documents the long string of Islamic extremist attacks during the Clinton years, attacks that were rarely, and completely unsuccessfully responded to.
And now, the Senate Intelligence Committee once again insists there was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda, an unfortunate conclusion apparently in search of evidence from the start. There appears to be a fair amount of evidence in documents recoved in Iraq that would contradict such a conclusion, but presumably this evidence was dismissed. Thomas Joscelyn's article in the Weekly Standard notes at least a couple of pieces of evidence available to the general public that were apparently conveniently ignored in the report:
"One of Saddam's senior intelligence operatives, Faruq Hijazi, was questioned about his contacts with bin Laden and al Qaeda.
"Hijazi admitted to meeting bin Laden once in 1995, but claimed that "this was his sole meeting with bin Ladin or a member of al Qaeda and he is not aware of any other individual following up on the initial contact.
"This is not true. Hijazi's best known contact with bin Laden came in December 1998, days after the Clinton administration's Operation Desert Fox concluded. We know the meeting happened because the worldwide media reported it. The meeting took place on December 21, 1998.
"There is a voluminous body of evidence surrounding this December 1998 meeting between Hijazi and bin Laden--yet there is not a single mention of it in the committee's report."
No president in history has been treated with the personalized contempt that G.W. Bush has. See this as just one example. Sorry Mr. Clinton. While I wish the film had attributed specific words or events to the right people, the idea that you and your staff are being treated unfairly rings a little hollow. I actually agree that docudrama's should be accurate, even if it means they are more "docu" than "drama". But the hypocritical and calculated moral outrage over this, under the circumstances, is rather sickening. The president famous for the line "it depends on what your definition of 'is' is." has no place complaining about a lack of truthfulness, even if he has a point about the details.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
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.
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.
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