Recently, upon having the spiritual progenitor of their religion
mocked in the public square, thousands of true believers took
action. They called out their mockers and brought to heel those who
would make light of their religious beliefs and traditions.
Actually, this happened twice in the last few weeks; first among
Christians and then among Muslims. And the ways in which these
respective true believers responded to their mockers tells us a
great deal about the foundational characteristics of these two
major religions. Further, it tells us quite a bit about modern day
liberalism and its unwholesome desire to use religion as a
political weapon.
As I wrote
almost a month ago, Jesus of Nazareth is in desperate need of a new
PR guy. Already in this young 2006, He has been depicted as a pot
head, a hipster, a playboy, a French dynast and a figment of
zealous imaginations all at the same time.
In a fresh example that emerged even since I wrote that piece,
NBC was prepared to air an episode of Will & Grace in
the spring in which Britney Spears was slated to guest star as the
host of a Christian-themed cooking show crudely titled
Cruci-fixins’. As with The Book of Daniel, NBC’s
earlier foray into Christ mockery, hundreds of thousands of
Americans called and wrote letters in protest to the network.
Network executives apparently decided it was in their financial
self-interest to stop mocking Christians and, so they claim, have
radically altered the script.
The revered spiritual leader of the Muslim faith was also mocked
recently, when twelve cartoon renderings of the Prophet Mohammed
appeared in numerous European newspapers. Muslims went nuts. They rioted in Lebanon
and Syria, where they also proceeded to set the Norwegian and
Danish embassies ablaze (the cartoons originally appeared in the
Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.)
I happen to agree that the cartoons in question are in poor
taste and needlessly provocative. But that Christians are mocked
with greater malevolence from within their own culture
than Muslims are even by outsiders is shamefully clear. And yet,
these episodes speak volumes about the characteristics of
Christianity that are obviously lacking in Islam: patience, mutual
respect, and tolerance for dissent.
SO WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS have to do with American liberals, you
ask? Well, it says a lot about them when one considers that many on
the left can’t see the distinctions between peaceful Christian
political activism and lunatic Islamist rioting and jihadism.
For example, comparing conservative Christians to the Taliban,
the failed tin pot dictatorship in Afghanistan that harbored Osama
bin Laden before the U.S.-led coalition demolished it in 2001,
became a cute trick of the political left after 9-11.
Speaking at a rally in support of the Democrat candidate for
U.S. House of Representatives in a 2004 special election, South
Dakota Democrat Senator Tim Johnson exclaimed to a cheering crowd,
“How sweet it’s going to be on June 2nd when the Taliban wing of
the Republican Party finds out what’s happened in South Dakota.”
Sen. Johnson later apologized for the hateful smear, but only after
his remarks snowballed and began to threaten Democrat chances in
the special election.
The Interfaith Alliance, an ecumenical left-wing coalition based
out of Washington, D.C., distributed a fundraising flyer in
late-2005 that claimed the Religious Right “believes adhering to
their narrow interpretation of biblical law is more important than
protecting individuals from hate, violence and discrimination.”
Penning an article under the charming headline “American
Wahabbis and the Ten Commandments” for Mother Jones,
William Thatcher Dowell wrote, “In a strange way, George Bush may
now find himself in the same kind of trap that ensnared Saudi
Arabia’s founder, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud. To gain political
support, Saud mobilized the fanatical, ultra-religious Wahabbi
movement — the same movement which is spiritually at the core of
the al Qaeda. Once the bargain was done, the Saudi Royal Family
repeatedly found itself held politically hostage to an extremist,
barely controllable movement populated by radical
ideologues….President Bush has spent the last several months
cajoling evangelicals and trying to pay off the political bill for
their support.”
Lewis H. Lapham, editor of Harper’s, recently called a
National Association of Evangelicals publication on civic
responsibility “a bullying threat backed with the currencies of
jihadist fervor and invincible ignorance.”
Fringe elements of the left do not act out on this fetish alone.
Indeed, according to Howard Fineman of Newsweek the
Democratic Party actually made a strategic decision to liken the
Religious Right in America to oppressive, terror-sponsoring
theocrats in the greater Middle East. Fineman wrote, “The theory
goes like this. Our enemy in Afghanistan is religious extremism and
intolerance. It’s therefore more important than ever to honor the
ideals of tolerance — religious, sexual, racial, reproductive —
at home. The GOP is out of the mainstream, some Democrats will
argue [this] year, because it’s too dependent upon an intolerant
religious right.”
Yes, conservative Christians and radical Islamists react to
their tormentors in significantly different ways. And yet this is
really a story about the secular left in the United States and how
it refuses to understand the importance of religion and faith in
public life.
