Posted on 07/02/2005 8:45:17 AM PDT by nwrep
AMERICA THE MULTI-CULTURED: Shahriar Ahmed, shown in the Bilal Mosque, in Beaverton, Oregon, just one of many mosques in America.
It may be time to throw out old motifs of America as strictly a Judeo-Christian country. A new movement is bubbling to the surface and wants to change the term to Judeo-Christian-Islamic.
Leading Muslim organizations say it's time for Americans to stop using the phrase "Judeo-Christian" when describing the values and character that define the United States. Better choices, they say, are "Judeo-Christian-Islamic" or "Abrahamic," referring to Abraham, the patriarch held in common by the monotheistic big three religions.
The new language should be used "in all venues where we normally talk about Judeo-Christian values, starting with the media, academia, statements by politicians and comments made in churches, synagogues and other places," says Agha Saeed, founder and chairman of the American Muslim Alliance, a political group headquartered in Fremont, Calif. Other national Muslim groups supporting a change include the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim American Society and the American Muslim Council.
The budding movement is largely unformed, and religion watchers question whether it will succeed. Still, the call for new terms shows that words carry huge symbolic importance for Muslims trying to find their role in America after Sept. 11th and the Iraq war. "These are not just let's-make-you-feel-good words," Saeed says. "These are words that define how we're related to each other."
Others take offense, arguing that to alter the phrase "Judeo-Christian" is political correctness and revisionist history at its worst. "A lot of the ideas that underpin civil liberties come from Judeo-Christian theology," says the Rev. Ted Haggard of Colorado Springs, Colo., president of the National Association of Evangelicals. "What the Islamic community needs to make are positive contributions to culture and society so we can include them."
Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, says a "Judeo-Christian understanding of things like freedom of conscience and liberty" are embodied in the Constitution. "No offense intended," he says, "but Muslims weren't a part of that, even though they're part of the discussion now."
From its founding to the late 1940s, the United States was commonly described as Christian, a trend epitomized by an 1892 Supreme Court ruling in which Justice David Brewer wrote, "This is a Christian nation." According to a 1984 scholarly article by religion writer Mark Silk, "Judeo-Christian" wasn't used to refer to a common American outlook of values and beliefs until World War II, when the supposedly Christian Nazis and their death camps made future references to "our Christian civilization" sound ominously exclusive.
"'Judeo-Christian,' which in 1952 looked like an incredibly inclusive term, doesn't look very inclusive now," says Silk, now director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, in Hartford. Conn., in an interview. "So we probably need a new term." But, Silk acknowledged, "I think Judeo-Christian-Islamic is going to be hard for the public to accept at this moment when you've just had people attacking the United States in the name of Islam."
The movement to drop or change the phrase has some non-Muslim support, including the head of the National Council of Churches. The Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the council, which represents 36 Christian denominations, says he prefers "Abrahamic" to "Judeo-Christian-Islamic" because it "rolls off the tongue a little easier."
PING
I really despise these people.
Christian or Judeo-Christian isn't accurate either, anymore.
never going to happen
For this to happen means that Christians have not done their job.
Does that mean we (Christians & Jews) may now actually touch the Koran 'bare back'?
I'm waiting for the raging secularists, ACLU and SCOTUS to put a stop to this islamic identity tag to the United States any day now...still waiting...(may I take a breath now, I'm starting to turn blue...)
When pigs fly!
As for freedom of conscience and liberty, Muslims STILL aren't "a part of that".....
I keep looking for something that will mitigate my continually growing post 9-11 hatred and intolerance of Islam.
So far, nada.
Osama Siblani, an influential voice among American Muslims and publisher of the Arab-American News in Dearborn, Mich., takes an even broader view. "I believe we should call this the United States of America, made up of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Muslims, Christians, Jews and others," says Siblani. "This stuff about language has to stop. We are all just Americans."
Leave identity politics to the Dems.
You might know the National Council of Churches would agree with the Muslims.
"I'm waiting for the raging secularists, ACLU and SCOTUS to put a stop to this islamic identity tag to the United States any day now...still waiting...(may I take a breath now, I'm starting to turn blue...)"
I'm waiting for the Episcopalians to elect an Islamic bishop.
(Bet I quit waiting before you do)
Over my dead friggin' body.
Sick of the mooslimes.
How about Judeo-Christian and Athiest-Hindu, Buddist-lesbo and gay-muslim society? Grouping religion/groups which have something in common with another sector is how it should go, if we follow the judeo-Chistian pattern. Gays and Muslims have the most in common, they both hate women, think pedophilia is ok, and enjoy gay style sex.
So are the Arab countries now to be Muslim Judeo-Christian countries?
They want us to throw out all our founding documents and history records for Allah? I don't think so! We're already fighting the liberal left to stop them from doing it!!
They're just trying to sneak the camels head inside the tent. Later, they'll try to move the rest of the camel in.
I say shoot the camel now.
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