Evangelicals' Anti-Islam Remarks Are Testament To Ignorance

UExpress ^ | May 9, 2003 | Georgie Anne Geyer

[Seti 1]

EVANGELICALS' ANTI-ISLAM REMARKS ARE TESTAMENT TO IGNORANCE

WASHINGTON -- Evangelical Christianity's leaders, meeting here this week, performed a great service for the geopolitical health of the world. They denounced as "unhelpful" and even "dangerous" the outrageous anti-Islam remarks made by some of the movement's star preachers over recent months. The Rev. Franklin Graham was not there. He was in San Diego at a "mission." But his words of the last year and a half -- that Islam is a "very evil and wicked religion" -- clearly hung over the landscape.

Nor was the Rev. Jerry Falwell at the conference, sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals and the Institute on Religion and Democracy. His words last year on "60 Minutes," that the prophet Mohammed was himself a "terrorist," had an equally cloying effect on the meeting, along with those of the Rev. Pat Robertson, who recently said that Islam only wants to "co-exist until it can control, dominate and then, if need be, destroy."

It seems that many in the organized evangelical community, with its extraordinary 45 million Christian members in America, are finally getting sick of such prejudiced outbursts -- and about time, too! Don't we have enough problems in the world without these otherwise respected and even sagacious "men of the cloth" and "men of God" carrying on in such a manner in the name of their faith and their country?

First of all, one has to wish they had ever bothered to read a history book on Islam.

For nearly 800 years from 711 A.D. onward, the Islamic Moorish state in Spain ruled over one of the most brilliant, cultured and tolerant states in world history. "Al Andalus, the ornament of the world," historians called it. In the capital city of Cordoba, the city's library housed some 400,000 volumes, compared to hundreds in the largest libraries in Latin Christian countries.

Historian Maria Rose Menocal wondered over the magnificent "culture of tolerance" in this Moorish Spain. "Their illumination of the rest of the universe transcended differences of religion," she wrote. "It was in Al Andalus that the profoundly Arabized Jews rediscovered and reinvented Hebrew poetry ... Christian palaces and churches, like Jewish synagogues, were often built in the style of the Muslims," and one synagogue in Toledo even "includes inscriptions from the Koran ..."

Today in many parts of the Muslim world, one finds impressive learning and tolerance. Turkey's secular state directly controls Islamic education and even the training of the Muslim preachers; Tunisia began reforming Islam in the 1830s, and that country's Islam today is advanced and highly tolerant; in the Sultanate of Oman, where the distinct Ibadi Islam is the way of life, tolerance is built into every level of life.

In some of the less lucky Muslim countries -- Algeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan, Egypt to a certain degree -- after the colonial powers left the Arab world in the 1950s, and after the Koran became available to interpretation not only by clerical authorities but every preacher, a kind of Arab "Protestant Revolution" came into being. But this was a violent one, and one far removed from the old authorities.

In this untethered Islam, the apocalyptic mystique and message of an Osama bin Laden could grow because the Muslim world had become a society under stress and duress. Strangely enough, this same apocalyptic message -- always ending in terrible destruction and the conversion of "the other" -- is strikingly similar to the Armageddonite message of many evangelical Christians. Both ideas are in part responses to the alienating modern world.

Islam in history was sometimes brilliant, tolerant and just; sometimes debauched, intolerant and unjust -- almost exactly like the history of all great religions.

Second, one has to say that these gratuitous and unbalanced insults to the Muslim faith, which have been broadcast through globalization across the entire world, have played a major role in further radicalizing Muslim society.

Pakistan's religious parties are taking over more and more of the crucially important border areas with Afghanistan, the moderate Islamic authorities are lying low as the radicals crow about American prejudice against Islam, and classic Muslim groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are strongly on the rise again. Is this really what these men of the cloth want to see happen?

Third, it is becoming clear, in part through conferences such as the one here, that these spokesmen are becoming somewhat of an embarrassment to their flocks. Do evangelicals really want to appear to the world to be unschooled in the complicated histories of the great religions; to be seen as politically throwing their support to Ariel Sharon's expansionist policies on the West Bank? Do the masses of good, smart, cultured evangelical people really believe that Armageddon will be more moral than a Palestinian state?

I was raised as a Baptist in Chicago, and I have great respect for evangelical religions, so, please, no attacks on that basis! But I also know from years of working overseas, not to speak of simple observation of humanity, that the way you contain radicalism -- any radicalism -- is to gradually, persistently and justly drain out the poisons from the swamps, thus drying up the wellsprings for terrorism and diverting the rivers of hatred.

The words of the Grahams, the Falwells and the Robertsons have exactly the opposite effect. It is infinitely good that serious evangelicals are speaking out in other tongues.

[expat_panama]

Allah forbid we offend the people who want to blow us up

 

Before we make fun of those who pray to Allah, we ought to remember something.

Jesus of Nazareth and His disciples did not speak Latin, the language of the western European church, or Greek the language of the eastern European church and the Gospels.  They spoke Aramaic from which descended much of Arabic. 

Jesus and the first Christians did not pray to God, Deus, Gott, Dios, Dieu, but to Allah (the Aramaic word for God).

Link to Aramaic.

[Malcolm]

I'm not sure about the exact wording of these "remarks," as something said in a wrong way, even though factually correct, can cause damage. But make no mistake about it; Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Light. NO ONE comes to G-d except through the SON. If Muslims object to that, then let them object while Christians keep on driving that fact home. If Jesus is lifted up, He will bring ALL men to him. But words ought to be chosen wisely and with much consideration.....

[unspun]

About GAG, from "UExpress" site. Bolded elements are mine... facts/claims that fit the pattern. Maybe Peter Arnett learned from her.
Georgie Anne Geyer

What do Yasser Arafat, Anwar Sadat, King Hussein, Moammar Gadhafi, and the Ayatollah Khomeini have in common? They all have been interviewed by Universal Press Syndicate's foreign correspondent Georgie Anne Geyer. For more than 30 years (17 with Universal Press Syndicate), Gee Gee Geyer has delivered distinctive foreign commentary from an impressive variety of foreign fronts. Based in Washington D.C. , she is also the author of books on Latin America, Russia, and the Middle East; winner of numerous awards for distinguished journalism; and commentator on public television's "Washington Week in Review." Her "definitive biography" of Fidel Castro, Guerrilla Prince, was published by Little, Brown and Co. The paperback version was published by Andrews and McMeel in June 1993. Geyer's intuition, backed by knowledge of five languages, contacts worldwide and voracious historical research, distinguishes her among other foreign correspondents writing today. In her reports, Geyer strives for a deeper analysis. She focuses beyond the surface of events and meeting the next deadline to examine root causes of revolution and political upheaval. Such depth of reporting does not come easily, however. Geyer was endangered by an airport bombing in Managua; has been threatened with death by Guatemala's White Hand death squad; and once was jailed in Angola for writing a book about the revolutionaries. Geyer's analyses have a history of accuracy as well: She was the first to predict the guerrilla movements in Latin America in the' 60s; she wrote a book in 1975 which predicted that Mikhail Gorbachev's generation would be one to seek rapprochement with the West and changes in the country's system; and in the summer of 1973, she told the Isreali foreign minister that Egypt was about to attack. (Egypt attacked that October). Her interviews are one-of-a-kind: In 1973, Geyer was the first foreigner to meet Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Similarly, her interviews with Castro have earned her recognition and respect of her peers. Although her reports are often dispatched from volatile arenas of warfare and intense civil strife, Geyer maintains a woman's perspective. Her writings on domestic and foreign affairs appear three times each week in more than 100 newspapers across the country. Geyer was recently inducted into the Gridiron Club, the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, and the Society of Professional Journalists. She is a recipient of the Northwestern University Alumni Award.

[Rocky]

Sure, chastise and ostracize people who speak the truth. Only those who go along with the program are acceptable, no matter how screwed up the program is.

[unspun]

There are numerous pertinent facts in this thread and its links, about the (let's say...) inadequacy of Islam and its prophet.:

'Islam is a Religion of Peace,' commentary by Donald Wildmon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/814728/posts

[Kevin Curry]

Suggesting that the Qu'ran, when "properly" interpreted, is a peaceable document, is akin to saying that in the aftermath of WWII, "Mein Kampf" has been reinterpreted by more moderate Nazis who find within it some very positive statements about how to build and maintain a just and peaceful society.

[Remedy]

Great article & TLBSHOW links!

[fish hawk]

Islam is violent. Now, after saying that, I guess I am ignorant or Georgie Anne Geyer is full of crap. Like FOX news says, "you decide".

[Kevin Curry]

Jesus and the first Christians did not pray to God, Deus, Gott, Dios, Dieu, but to Allah . . .

Right. And if I write and send a letter to "Charles," to which of the one million Charles's in the US is my letter addressed? Apparently you would conclude it is "Charles Manson" because jury-rigging the answer to that pre-selected result "proves" your point.

You're trying to be too cute by half. "Allah" is a sound made by the tongue, lips, and throat using expelled air. Behind the sound is a denoted identity that can only be discerned within a broader context comprising essential additional information about the denoted entity. The Father of Jesus Christ is not the "Allah" of the muslims.

And in any event, Jesus Christ addressed God as "Abba" (Father) NOT "Allah."

[Kevin Curry]

A follow-on to my post ending "And in any event, Jesus Christ addressed God as 'Abba' (Father) NOT 'Allah.'"

The fact that Jesus Christ addressed God as "Abba" should tell you that Jesus was not addressing the "Allah" of the Muslims. Don't ask us--ask a Muslim. To address "Allah" in such a fashion is a terrible blasphemy according to Muslim belief.

[unspun]

Thanks to Cindy too (and Donald Wildmon, Franklin Graham, and Pat Robertson).

Give to Samaritan's Purse

[IFly4Him]

First of all, one has to wish they had ever bothered to read a history book on Islam.

That was her mistake. She is reading accounts about Islam rather than reading the texts that Muslims read themselves. If you read Qu'ran, Hadith etc.. it only takes five minutes to figure out 1) that it's not from God and 2) why Islamic terrorists do what they do.

This guy read all the material and wrote about it...
LINK

[Natural Law]

This reaffirms the concept of Natural Law, or the manifest laws of a universal God. Whether Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, etc. there are universal rights and wrongs.

The "evil" identified by the evangilists is not in the Koran or the millions of peaceful practitioners who only want good for themselves and mankind, but in a priest class who take unto themselves the mantel of God's voice on earth and twist it to their own purposes. This is the taking of God's name in vain.

[TXnMA]

You left off the

"Religion of Peace" Barf Alert!

[TXnMA]

Like all non-Christian religions, there is much in Islam that is unique, and much that is true. But that which is true is not unique to Islam, and that which is unique to Islam is not true.

Now, that is a most thought-provoking and, IMHO, profoundly true observation!

[houstonian]

.....bump.....

[LiteKeeper]

Franklin Graham simply refuses to bow to political correctness. When the National Association of Evangelicals begins doing this, as opposed to the National Council of Churches from whom it is expected, I fear for the future of the evangelical wing of the church in America.

[joesnuffy]

1 Chronicles 17:9
Also I will ordain a place formy people Israel,and will plant them, and they shall be moved no more; neither shall the children of wickedness waste them any more as at the beginning (2 Sam 7:8-10)

This passed to David from Abraham Isaac & Jacob...

Gen 17:8 And I will give unto thee the land wherin thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.

9: And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou and thy seed after thee in their generations

Genesis 17…11-12 And the angel of the Lord said unto her (Hagar..Sarahs servent given to Abraham to bear him a son Ishmael) Thou art with child, and will bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael because the Lord hath heard thy affliction.

12. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presenence of all his bretheren.

Verse 18. : And Abraham said unto God, oh that Ishmael might live before thee!

19: and God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.

20:And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will makehim fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I wil make him a great nation.

21: But MY COVENANT WILL I ESTABLISH WITH ISAAC, whichSarah shall bear unto thee at thisset time in the next year

For muslims to be right with the one true God the God of Abraham Issac and Jacob they must be at peace with their brothers the Jews (and stop killing enslaving torturing Jews and Christians whereve they find them)...the inheritors of the covenant..
And therefore must also worhip as do the Jews (who still worship God that is)

The path they (muslims) currently are on is a false one..and the god they serve is a false god
"By their fruits ye shall know them"...
"Those who love death hate God"
Jesus of Nazareth...aka God

[Cindy]

LINKS OF INTEREST:

AZ CENTRAL.com - THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC (AP): "AL-QAIDA PLANNING ATTACK ON SCALE OF 9-11, PAPER SAYS" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The FBI's counterterrorism chief, Pasquale D'Amuro, told a congressional committee in Washington on Tuesday that while al-Qaida may very well be in disarray, "it is a severe threat to this nation." Top legal and security officials from the United States and seven other major nations, meeting this week in Paris, said al-Qaida has apparently moved its operational centers to new locations in central Asia.") (May 8, 2003) (Read More...)

"JIHAD ONLINE.net - TALIBAN - English Articles: Dubai (AFP): "REPORT: AL-QAEDA PREPARING NEW ATTACK IN US 'ON SCALE OF SEPTEMBER 11'" -Posted by "Jihad" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "05/08/03: DUBAI (AFP) - Al-Qaeda is preparing a new attack in the United States on the scale of September 11 after adopting a new operational structure which is impenetrable to US intelligence, according to a Saudi weekly. "An attack against America is inevitable," Al-Majallah quotes the Islamic militant network's newly-appointed spokesman Thabet bin Qais as saying in an e-mail to the paper. Al-Qaeda has "carried out changes in its leadership and sidelined the September 11, 2001 team", the paper quotes bin Qais as saying. "Future missions have been entrusted to the new team, which is well protected against the US intelligence services. The old leadership does not know the names of any of its members." Bin Qais mocks concerns expressed by Washington about a possible al-Qaeda attack on its consulate in the Pakistani metropolis of Karachi, saying the network's target is the United States itself. "Of course, the US consulate in Karachi is a US interest and a staging post for Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel in Pakistan, but it doesn't necessarily constitute a pressing target. "Striking it is not a priority for al-Qaeda compared with the plans under way preparing a new attack in the United States on the scale of September 11."") (May 8, 2003) (Read More...)

WorldNetDaily.com: "JUDGE LINKS SADDAM TO OSAMA BIN LADEN Families of September 11 Victims Awarded $104 Million Judgment Against Them" (May 7, 2003) (Read More...)

BUSH COUNTRY.org - Opinion Corner: "IS THERE AN INNOCENT EXPLANATION FOR AN APPARENT 60 MINUTES LIE? -Commentary by Jeremy Reynalds (May 9, 2003) (Read More...)

WASHINGTON TIMES.com: "AL QAEDA NETWORK RECRUITING IN U.S., FBI DIRECTOR SAYS" by Joyce Howard Price (May 4, 2003) (Read More...)

CBN.com: "Moving Forward THE GRACIA BURNHAM STORY: HOSTAGE IN THE HANDS OF GOD" by Wendy Griffith (May 5, 2003) (Read More...)

NTM.org - SPECIAL REPORT: "THE BURNHAMS" (Read More...)

BOOK..."IN THE PRESENCE OF MY ENEMIES" by Gracia Burnham (Click Here for Info.)

CHRISTIANITY TODAY.com (COMPASS DIRECT): "PASTOR AND SIX FAMILY MEMBERS BURNED TO DEATH IN NIGERIA Christian Leaders Suspect Muslim Fanatics of Fatal Arson Attack" (May 7, 2003) (Read More...)

INA TODAY.com - INTERNATIONAL NEWS ANALYSIS -- TODAY by Toby Westerman: "IRAQI RELIGIOUS WAR AGAINST U.S. TROOPS? Guerrilla Leader Arms Supporters For Struggle" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "A guerrilla leader once hostile to Saddam Hussein is now arming his followers in preparation for a possible struggle against U.S. troops stationed in Iraq. Abdul Asis al-Hakim is purchasing arms at so rapid a rate that he is "driving up the price for military weapons" in the south Iraqi city of Basra, according to the German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel. Al-Hakim's activities occur as millions of Muslims participate in the pilgrimage to the city of Kerbela, a ritual long forbidden under the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Virulent anti-American sentiments have erupted during the pilgrimage. Al-Hakim, however, will not seek to attack U.S. troops alone, but awaits help. "According to rumors, Hakim is building an armed militia...preparing for the arrival of his brother," reported Der Spiegel. The brother of Abdul al-Hakim is the Shiite religious - and military - leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.") (April 23, 2003) (Read More...)

CBN.com - "OPERATION PRAYER SHIELD" (Click Here.)

"SUPPORT OUR TROOPS" (Click Here.)