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| Hypnotized for Death - Art by Jay Johnson |
Radicalization. Is that a new word or is it just now coming into popular usage? It seems to be a term that is exclusively associated with Islamic jihad or fatwa these days. Christians don't use the word radicalization, they call it "being saved". It is the moment you accept Jesus as a personal Savior and become one of the flock. It means you will stop living by the ways of the world and live the way that Christian Clergy tell you is right. Because Christians are not radicals. They are doing God's work. They don't kill and bomb innocent people. Really? Perhaps actions speak louder than words.
Christian religious leader and head of Virginia's Liberty University Jerry Falwell, Jr.'s learned Christian opinion is: every student should carry a firearm on campus to kill Muslims if they try to attack. Donald Trump proposes that those professing Islamic Faith not be allowed to enter the USA. Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee state that if elected to office of the President, they will defer to the laws of the Christian Church over the laws of the Constitution. In fact here is a link to and article by Alex Henderson a writer for AlterNet, on the top ten attacks of innocent people by "saved" Christians. It is interesting to note that this is not an article written after the recent rash of violence. This article was written in 2013.
Robert Dear killed people at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs just weeks ago. No one questioned when he was "saved". In fact his religion never entered the picture. He was just a lone gun wing-nut who was insanely blinded by a lie.
As for the San Bernardino shooters, we are trying to identify the moment they were "radicalized". Was it the wife who radicalized the husband or the other way around. Did they become "radicals" here in this country or did they travel to the Middle East. They are not wing-nut killers they are "radicalized terrorists". Except for the adjectives we use, what is the difference. I don't think the people who were killed in these attacks care how you describe their murder, they are dead either way.
I think it was a teacher named Jesus who said, "Take the log out of your own eye so you can see better to remove the speck from your neighbor's eye." The only side God takes is the one of justice, equality, love, Independence and celestial inclusion. The principle of omnipotent good does not qualify the rule of Thou shall not kill. Does it say, "Thou shall not kill, Christians, or Muslims, or Jews, or friends, or enemies or infidels? No is simply says don't kill, one could argue that even means animals.
So before we open internment camps for the "radicalized" let's realize that most of the terror we are experiencing is not from the blindness of Islam but the intolerance of Christians.
As you were,
Jay
3 comments:
Well said!
(Long time reader of your blog, btw.) I'm sorry, but your analogy of Christian terrorists to Islamic terrorists does not hold. There is *no* established mainstream Christian authority (Catholic, Episcopal, Baptist, Evangelical, Methodist, Pentecostal, etc.) that condones terrorist attacks on abortion clinics.
On the contrary, there are huge populations (numbering in the millions) who belong to, live under, or support established Islamic denominations that do hold that Islamic law is the only legitimate form of governance, and which reject democracy and human rights values (such as equality for women, or liberty for LGBT). There are entire *countries* dedicated to this. Islam is not just the choice of which God you pray to, it is a combined socio-political-religious structure that is completely at odds with any governmental concept of equality or liberty.
If you want to compare it to Christianity, you should compare it to, say, Catholicism in medieval Europe, when the church essentially ran countries as a tyrannical ruler. Christianity had its inquisitions and Crusades, but those were centuries ago. Now, between the reformation, revolutions, Magna Carta, etc., there is no established Christian authority calling for genocides, massacres, slavery, or mass rape. Why don't you try telling the Yazidi women that Jerry Falwell is just as bad as those Islamic extremists.
Just because you can call Robert Dear an "extremist" does not make it the same thing. I am neither Muslim nor Christian, so I'm not defending anyone out of blind faith myself, I just think the progressive narrative you're spouting is dangerous in its own hiding of the truth.
Respectfully,
Lou
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