Tuesday, February 07, 2006
The Key Difference
As the Danish/Islamic cartoon debacle continues, one of the better things I have read was from Evangelical Outpost on Monday.
Joe's piece got me thinking about what I said on the subject on Monday, that while the Muslims behavior was reprehensible, I wished Christians were similarly passionate about their faith.
There is a key difference though, and that is where the passion should be aimed. The Muslims take the passion and aim it outward - they attack those that they feel blashpheme. Christians would never and should never do that. No, our passion should be aimed inward. Christians that bother at all, ask the right question in the wake of such blashphemy - "What are we doing wrong?"
That may be one of the key reasons Christianity will win in the end. We do not seek to kill the non-believer, we seek to convert them. More, we seek to bring genuine conversion and not simply acknowledgement of religion at the point of a sword.
The "free speech" reponse to the riots, that is to say the secular response, is no different than the Muslim response -- it seeks to draw a line and make an enemy where a convert could be won.
We are at war with terrorists, but there is a parallel effort that must be made. We must seek to alculturate the general Muslim population. We must kill the killers, but we must convert the believers - and as Joe points out, we need to convert a number of our own as well.
Related Tags: cartoons, Danish, Muslim, Islam, blasphemy, passion, faith, culture, conversion
The West is at war with terrorism, not with Islam. But is has become increasingly difficult determining which side of the Islam/Islamicists divide many Muslims are on. Perhaps its simply a matter of moderate Muslim voice being drowned out by the jihadists. If so, then I recommend that they speak louder.Boy that says a mouthful. Earlier in the piece, Joe had made the point that the cartoons themselves were part of an increasing lowering of the bar for what may be protected as free speech, but remains outside the bounds of taste.
When I joined the Marines I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, including the rights to free speech and a free press. For fifteen years I stood ready to take up arms or, if necessary, to lay down my life in the defense of these foundations of liberty. I believe in protecting the freedom of speech, whether it comes from terrorist-wannabes like Ted Rall, know-nothing pundits like Joel Stein, or religious-bashing Danish cartoonists. I believe that, like religious liberty, this is a divinely permitted freedom that demands due vigilance.
But just once I'd like to be called upon to champion speech that is true, honorable, just, and pure. Just once I?d like to defend a freedom that wasn?t vulgar, degraded, and profane. Just once I?d like to defend freedom that aspired to the ideals of Thomas Jefferson rather than to the inclinations of Larry Flynt.
Joe's piece got me thinking about what I said on the subject on Monday, that while the Muslims behavior was reprehensible, I wished Christians were similarly passionate about their faith.
There is a key difference though, and that is where the passion should be aimed. The Muslims take the passion and aim it outward - they attack those that they feel blashpheme. Christians would never and should never do that. No, our passion should be aimed inward. Christians that bother at all, ask the right question in the wake of such blashphemy - "What are we doing wrong?"
That may be one of the key reasons Christianity will win in the end. We do not seek to kill the non-believer, we seek to convert them. More, we seek to bring genuine conversion and not simply acknowledgement of religion at the point of a sword.
The "free speech" reponse to the riots, that is to say the secular response, is no different than the Muslim response -- it seeks to draw a line and make an enemy where a convert could be won.
We are at war with terrorists, but there is a parallel effort that must be made. We must seek to alculturate the general Muslim population. We must kill the killers, but we must convert the believers - and as Joe points out, we need to convert a number of our own as well.
Related Tags: cartoons, Danish, Muslim, Islam, blasphemy, passion, faith, culture, conversion
