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Vigilance for Religious Liberty |
By Wayne Bley
"Tolerance of the intolerant is cowardice."
Aayan Hirsi Ali
Daniel was a very young man, perhaps a teenager, when he
stood firm in his faith against the demands of his pagan master,
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
Would the faith of the strongest among us today produce that kind of response? Will
postmodern youth stand firm in "their truth," when the truth of a future master
is truly intolerant? Do Bible believers really understand that Christian Fundamentalism
is seen as the moral equivalent of Islamic fanaticism by those who were
conceived in so-called Christian liberalism?
There is a growing fear in the United States of litigation by
Muslims against non-Muslims. Well-known examples include: the "Flying Imams,"[1]
paid prayer times for Muslim employees at a Swift &Co. meat packing plant,[2]
taxi drivers refusing to accept passengers who are carrying alcohol,[3]
and threats to advertisers funding the Michael Savage show.[4] This
phenomenon is not unique to the US.
Aayan Ali is an example of the informed spirit of resistance that is needed.[5] Although
her life is in constant danger because she has chosen to reject Islam and
challenge its teachings, she believes and acts. Her kind of courage is needed,
not the cowardice we see in response to this worldwide problem.
The malaise of American Christians is dangerous. President
Bush has repeatedly expressed the conviction that Islam is a religion of peace.[6] The
facts of history and current events prove otherwise. Americans must be awakened
to what is happening around the world and here at home. Since 9/11 there have
been over 9000 terrorist events orchestrated by Muslims.[7] The
problem is not new.[8] Thomas
Jefferson[9]
fully understood the threat even before he became president, and his concern explains
why he had a Qur'an in his library. The history of those days is lost to our
postmodern culture.
Few Christians know what the Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR) is or that it is an enemy within. In 1998 the former chairman,
Omar Ahmad, made the following statement: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other
faith, but to be dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of Scripture, should be
the highest authority in America,
and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."[10] A
cursory review of the documents and the efforts of CAIR recorded on their own website
(http://www.cair.com/) would awaken even the most complacent Christian.
Christians need to ponder the question, "Why do Muslims
fight for their right to pray at a Richardson,
Texas, public school?"[11]
Muslims are required to pray five times a day, and schools are being required
to permit it. Muslims do not pray silently most of the time. The docile
response is more than a double standard. Christians seem to have surrendered on
even the matter of a "moment of silence," even though they are told to pray
without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17).
Is the command of God of less authority than the assumed command of Allah?
We are surrendering on the vocabulary of the discussion of
this threat. President Bush has said initially, "This is the beginning of a
long struggle against an ideology that is real and profound. It's
Islamo-fascism."[12] Then he
backed off. We must have the courage to state in plain language that real Islam
and real Christianity are not morally equivalent. They are not alike at all in
character. While we have polite discussions about whether Hispanic immigrants,
legal or otherwise, should learn to speak English, we are too cowardly to ask
if we want our own grandchildren to have to learn to speak Arabic. We are
alarmed that they answer their cell phones during the occasional family dinner;
what will we do when they must answer the call to prayer from a minaret?
Why is it that Congress did not issue a resolution regarding
Christmas[13] until
after many US
citizens recoiled when the House voted to commend Islam and Ramadan?[14] This
is an evidence of political pressure that has as its goal enforced dhimmitude
(submission to Islam) in America,
as elsewhere. For 1400 years everywhere that Islam has become the dominant religion
Christians have been relegated to a second-class status. It is then too late to
appeal for equality. In fact, equality is only the illusion as Islam passes by
from minority to majority.
Consider the following illustrations where taxes paid by
Americans are being used to accommodate the need of Muslims to wash their feet as
a part of their prayer rituals: Minneapolis Community
Technical College,[15] Kansas City International Airport,[16] and
New York University.[17]
Are you aware that we now have requirements to change school lunch programs to
accommodate Muslims by removing ham sandwiches from the menu?[18] Would
offering a ham sandwich on the lunch line be a hate crime in your opinion? Some think so in Lewiston, Maine,
where to bring a ham sandwich to school and open it in front of a Muslim is
just too offensive to be acceptable.
CAIR[19] actually
provides instructions to schools, businesses, and prisons on how to accommodate
the needs of Muslims who desire to pray. The technical precision and lengthy
ritual required in "Wudu" (ablutions) for Muslims preparing for prayer should
be read with a busy international airport washroom in mind. Seriously, you
should read them.[20] Then
imagine yourself standing there with your toothbrush after a long and tiresome
flight.
Americans should respect the religious rites and rituals of
all, but we must remember the First Amendment of our Constitution. Christians
and Jews do not insist that their religious rituals be funded and that the
general public provide space in public buildings for them. If you have read the
ritual from the site referenced above you now know that if a Muslim comes into
contact with an infidel-you-while performing his ablutions, he is ceremonially
unclean, so take your turn at the back of the line, way back.
The Fundamental Baptist Fellowship values vigilance for
religious liberty. It was Baptist pastor John Leland who influenced James
Madison to give us the First Amendment that protects this liberty. Islamic
states know no such liberty. Ronald Reagan said it well: "To sit back hoping
that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the
crocodile, hoping he will eat you last-but eat you he will." Preferential
treatment of a system that tolerates in its midst the terror that would destroy
religious liberty is madness. Can this be anything other than the fruit of a
century of liberalism and all its mutations?
Vigilance for religious liberty is the duty of Christian Fundamentalism.
We would do well to remember the observation of the liberal Kirsopp Lake
in 1925:
It
is a mistake, often made by educated persons who happen to have but little
knowledge of historical theology, to suppose that Fundamentalism is a new and
strange form of thought. It is nothing of the kind: it is the . . . survival
of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians. . . .
The Fundamentalist may be wrong; I think that he is. But it is we who have
departed from the tradition, not he, and I am sorry for the fate of anyone who
tries to argue with a Fundamentalist on the basis of authority. The Bible and
the corpus theologicum of the Church (are) on the Fundamentalist side.
We have the truth
that makes religious freedom possible. It is under siege by belief systems that
will make it impossible. Our duty is to proclaim that truth without apology, to
live it without apprehension, and to be vigilant for the freedom to do so. If
professing Christians do not stand for truth while they have that freedom, will
they have the courage to stand for Christ when that freedom is taken away? Who
will dare to be a Daniel? Who will remember who he was?
Wayne
A. Bley is a member of the Executive Board of FBFI and serves as the Chairman
of the FBFI Commission on Chaplains. He is a retired Navy Chaplain and
currently lives in northern Virginia.
[1] http://www.meforum.org/article/1809
[2] http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/111407/bus_111407004.shtml
[3] http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztravel/2006-09-17-airport-check-in-usat_x.htm
[4] http://cbs5.com/local/michael.savage.council.2.601366.html
[5] http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,521546,00.html
[6] http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/ramadan/islam.html,
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52962
[7] http://www.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
[8] http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/,
http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/, http://antidhimmi321.blogspot.com/, http://www.dhimmi.com/
[9] http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={55E5C6C2-B801-4FF3-B59E-F52F591A42AA}
[10] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32341
[11] http://www.becketfund.org/index.php/article/453.html,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0712/p01s03-ussc.html,
[12] http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/20060807.html
[13] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:2:./temp/~c110RyHTRJ::
[14] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:2:./temp/~c110hPYz5O::
[15] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,265913,00.html,
http://www.insidehighered.com/layout/set/print/news/2007/04/13/minneapolis
[16] http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55488
[17] http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTI2ZDcxNTJhMGNmMTJhNzkzOThiM2NlYjgwMDRjNmQ=
[18] http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/zieve/070424
[19] http://www.cair.com/AboutIslam/PublicationDownloads.aspx
[20] http://members.aol.com/MuttaqunOL/wudu.html
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