A strong work ethic, devotion to God and family, conservative views on abortion and sexuality ”” on these scores and more, the newcomers would appear to be right in stride with the traditional-values folk in Anytown, USA.
In view of the Christian gospel followed by most of the established residents, you might assume they’d extend a hand of hospitality. You certainly wouldn’t expect them to resist the newcomers’ worship centers, would you? Or squander an opportunity to enlist potential allies in the fight against the country’s inexorable drift toward coarseness and secularism?
These perfectly logical thoughts might run through your mind until you learned that the newcomers in question often have Middle Eastern-sounding names, wear beards or head scarves, and take their spiritual cues from the Quran. And then you’d know that the situation was bound to play out on a whole different frequency. At flashpoints from Temecula, Calif., to Gainesville, Fla., to New York, N.Y., and all along the low road in between, mongers of fear and haters of the “other” are sounding the alarm about Islam with a new level of intensity. To hear it from conservative spokesman Newt Gingrich and those of a similar persuasion, the Muslims between our shores are bent on taking over the country and imposing their “un-American” values.
Muslims in America may well be far more peace-loving and moderate than those in the heart of Islam, but that does not mean that Islam itself is to be trusted. I would believe this writer more if he cited the dreadful practices of honor killings, forced conversions, etc, as well as terrorism, and could somehow show that these are contrary to the teachings of Islam. I would also believe the writer more if there were Imams around the world who called for the cessation of terrorism, decrying particular instances of terror, and who also called for honor killings, etc, to stop.
He is so wedded to his ideology that all religions are essentially the same that he cannot see how frightening Islam is to those of us who know what it teaches and what it does when it has the upper hand in a society.
Hate card again. Yawn.
I suggest this author read the Koran, perhaps he might see why some of us think the way we do.
Grandmother
It’s an assumption to think that a holy text has much to do with personal piety. The reality has always been more complicated.
Bishop Josiah I. Fearon once spoke basically to the effect that:
1. Muslims in minority situations, like the United States, are usually the most peace loving gentle and kind people that you can fined.
2. Muslims in majority situations, like Saudi Arabia, are basically peaceful, but enforce Dhimmitude requiring submission of “protected” religious minorities.
3. Muslims in situations near equal numbers with others as in some places in Nigeria are often very violent as they seek to become majorities by ether converting, killing or driving out the others.
And yet….1) we are called to love our “enemies”; 2) Jesus did for “them” just as much as for “us”; 3) “our” sins are no better then “their’s” are……so….get to know a muslim, get to know their culture, invite them into your home, love them. You’ll be a better person for it… and you might just change the world.
Or you can sit back in the blogosphere….
The Koran promotes honor killing, dhimmitude of non-Muslims, and the murder of infidels.
Murder is a sin. I will love these particular neighbors by not giving them the opportunity to commit that sin against me or my family.
Rattlesnakes are part of creation. God gave man charge and care over the creation. That does not mean that I am obliged to make my home a haven for rattlesnakes.
Steve, we are certainly called to love our neighbors. If a Muslim family moved in down the block, I would get acquainted with them, and likely help them get oriented to the area, etc. We might well become friends.
Mr Krattenmaker’s thesis, however, is not simply that we should be good neighbors, but that, in listening to them, we would discover that they are just like us and that there is nothing to worry about – and that is what I reject. There are probably hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the US who are moderate and who fit right in with our basic values and way of life. Perhaps one reason they came to the US was because they saw that American values and customs were more in line with what they wanted than was true in their native land – or if second generation or later, they have adopted many American values.
Krattenmaker wants us to “listen” because he knows (how, he does not say) that those who are wary of Islam do so because it is strange and mystifying, and hence they fear it – not because it is what it is, but because it is “other.” I find that attitude both patronizing and stupid. I do not fear individual Muslims – I do fear Islam, because I have learned a lot about it. The word “Muslim” means a “submitted one” – a person who has submitted to the rule of Allah – which is not too bad; we who are Christians have submitted to the rule of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Both Christianity and Islam are missionary religions who seek to spread their faith to as many people as possible. BUT – Christianity seeks to do so with love and grace, while Islam seeks to do so by any means possible, including lying about what they are up to. When Christians live in consistency with the Bible, they are gracious and kind to all. When Muslims live in consistency with the teachings of their religion (I do not say “with the Koran,” for the Koran is filled with inconsistencies), they can be kind – or they can be violent. I could go on for pages with contrasts.
So – my concern about Islam is not a concern about any individual Muslim, but it is a concern about Islam as a whole. Of all the nations that are majority Muslim, only Turkey has anything approaching a democracy – and they maintain the separation of mosque and state only by constant vigilance on the part of the state.