What the heck is wrong with the world?

By Rich Bordner

What the heck is wrong with the world?

I just read a poll that shows that a majority believes Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11 in only 9 of the 17 countries surveyed. What is most astounding is the percentage of people in some countries that believe it was an inside job. Look at Mexico's response!!!

Geeeez....I just talked with a colleague at my school yesterday that claimed the U.S is responsible for the 9/11 attacks. What the???

One commentator quipped that its like Al Qaeda is the Rodney Dangerfield of the globe. They claimed they did it, sent videos out claiming responsibility, and folks were cheering on the streets in certain Al Qaeda-heavy countries, and still they don't get no respect!

Seriously, if you think 9/11 was an inside job, you watch waaaaay too much Youtube. That, and Hollywood, rather than commonsense, dictates too much of your thought process.

In Memory

I've been thinking about it all day, and I've finally decided I can't say anything better than this, from Dave Barry, 2 days after 9/11/01. It's still true. I can't excerpt it, it's all too good--just read it.

Hamas Leader's Son Converts to Christianity

This is an incredible story--Masab-Joseph (or Mosab Hassan Yousef) the son of a Hamas founder converted to Christianity. It's really interesting to read about how he converted; basically he is making the point that when he investigated the claims of Islam and the claims of the Bible, it was obvious to him that the Bible is true and Islam is not. He also has some interesting things to say about Hamas and Islam, and Israel. Here he explains how he learned about Christianity and converted:

"It began about eight years ago. I was in Jerusalem and I received an invitation to come and hear about Christianity. Out of curiosity I went. I was very enthusiastic about what I heard. I began to read the Bible every day and I continued with religion lessons. I did it in secret, of course. I used to travel to the Ramallah hills, to places like the Al Tira neighborhood, and to sit there quietly with the amazing landscape and read the Bible. A verse like "Love thine enemy" had a great influence on me. At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one. But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves 'great believers.' I studied Islam more thoroughly and found no answers there. I reexamined the Koran and the principals of the faith and found how it is mistaken and misleading. The Muslims borrowed rituals and traditions from all the surrounding religions."

"...I now see God through Jesus and can tell about him for days on end, whereas the Muslims won't be able to say anything about God. I consider Islam a big lie. The people who supposedly represent the religion admired Mohammed more than God, killed innocent people in the name of Islam, beat their wives and don't have any idea what God is. I have no doubt that they'll go to Hell. I have a message for them: There is only one way to Paradise - the way of Jesus who sacrificed himself on the cross for all of us."

He has this to say about Hamas, Israel, and the Mideast peace process:

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death. They have to take revenge against anyone who did not agree to accept the Prophet Mohammed, like the Jews who are seen in the Koran as monkeys and the sons of pigs. They speak in terms of historical rights that were taken from them. In the view of Hamas, peace with Israel contradicts sharia and the Koran, and the Jews have no right to remain in Palestine."

If you're interested in more, here's a second interview, with Jonathan Hunt of Fox News:

JONATHAN HUNT: You talk about the good Muslims, like your father, yet you still now renounce the faith of your father. Could you have not been a good Muslim? (note: by "good Muslims" he is referring to the fact that his father was kind and loving to his family)

MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF: Now, here's the reality: after I studied Christianity — which I had a big misunderstanding about, because I studied about Christianity from Islam, which is, there is nothing true about Christianity when you study it from Islam, and that was the only source.

When I studied the Bible carefully verse by verse, I made sure that that was the book of God, the word of God for sure, so I started to see things in a different way, which was difficult for me, to say Islam is wrong.

...So I had to study Islam again from a different point of view to figure out all the mistakes, the huge mistakes and its effects, not only on Muslims — (of) which I hated the values ... I didn't like all those traditions that make people's lives more difficult — but its effects also on humanity. On humanity! People killing each other (in) the name of God.

So definitely I started to figure out the problem is Islam, not the Muslims and those people — I can't hate them because God loved them from the beginning. And God doesn't create junk. God created good people that he loved, but they're sick, they have the wrong idea. I don't hate those people anymore but I feel very sorry for them and the only way for them to be changed (is) by knowing the word of God and the real way to him.

The Church of England: Another Step Toward Irrelevance

The Archbishop of Canterbury once again contributes to the decline of his own church in the name of tolerance:

Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims, the Archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday.

Dr Rowan Williams also criticised Christianity's history for its violence, its use of harsh punishments and its betrayal of its peaceful principles.

His comments came in a highly conciliatory letter to Islamic leaders calling for an alliance between the two faiths for 'the common good'.

But it risked fresh controversy for the Archbishop in the wake of his pronouncement earlier this year that a place should be found for Islamic sharia law in the British legal system.

James Lileks is dead on about why this is a problem (scroll down about 2/3 of the way):

He would probably be seconded on that point by this fellow [the Archbishop of Canterbury], who I expect will name an atheist as his successor, as part of an outreach program to attract people uncomfortable with the whole “God” part of religion. There really isn’t any reason to set the bar that high, you know. In his latest missive, he has acknowledged that parts of Christianity may “offend” Muslims, which is a fascinating choice of words. It puts doctrinal differences into the realm of emotional reaction, and as we all know “offence” must be followed with apologies and seminars and outreach and an hour of steady banging of the head on the hard marble floor. No one has the right to give offense, but everyone has the right – indeed, the obligation – to be offended by something.

It’s the natural end result of elevating tolerance above all else: eventually you are intolerant of the things in which you once believed, because they are theoretically offensive to those who have no interest in the maintenance of your traditions. In the end, traditions are just social constructs used to impose social order; best if we do away with them anyway.

[Plus, Lileks has the best metaphor ever for the decline of the Brits: "Meanwhile, over in Blighty: every day brings another story that suggests they could power the lights on the Strand by harnessing the RPMs of Churchill’s corpse." I love that creativity!]

Obviously Lileks is dripping with sarcasm here, but he’s right. If you’re willing to give up the core of our religion because someone might be offended, what do you really believe in? It is very troubling to me that the supposed leader of one of the largest churches in the world is so eager to set aside the cornerstone of his faith, or at least what should be the cornerstone of his faith, to achieve some sort of amorphous goal of peace, tolerance and social/environmental justice.

Islam in Public Schools

Britain’s slow decline continues:

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson.

Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights.

But that can’t happen here, right? We have freedom of religion, strict separation of church and state, all that good stuff that makes people afraid to have a voluntary Bible study after school? Wrong:

The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear a case involving the indoctrination of public school children into Islam. The decision came on the First Monday of October, the opening day of the 2006 Supreme Court term.

Not surprisingly, the controversial case comes from a ruling made by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But what is surprising, is that hardly anyone has heard of the legal battle.

The lawsuit stems from a state mandated course in California public schools that requires seventh grade students to learn about Islam, the teachings of Muhammad, as well as studying scriptures from the Quran.

Though the course is mandated, the Californian Department of Education allows teachers to exercise their own discretion on how the course on Islam is to be
taught.

This discretion encouraged one teacher in the Bryon Union School District to adopt a supplementary “Student Guide” that specifically states:

"From the beginning, you and your classmates will become Muslims."

There's lots more about the specific content of the class at the link, or if you Google "byron school islam." To me, it's pretty appalling that this sort of thing goes on in the name of tolerance. Obviously kids should learn in history class about the impact of Islam on world history, and the same goes for Christianity. But requiring them to act out aspects of any religion for course credit takes multiculturalism WAY too far. And yes, I'd feel the same way about a public school class that required students, in class, to pray to Jesus like an evangelical or cross themselves like a Catholic.

Freedom of Worship

Closing out the holiday weekend, this Sunday is a great time to thank God for blessing us with freedom to worship as we choose. I'm constantly reminded by news from other countries that many Christians aren't nearly so fortunate. Here's one historical example from Greg Kundra, a CBS Evening News writer and Catholic deacon (hat tip: Anchoress):

In the early 1970’s, during the Vietnam War, the Archbishop of Saigon was a man named Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan. The Communists saw him as a threat. And on the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1975, he was arrested and sent to prison. Without ever being tried, or sentenced, he was shipped off to a prison in North Vietnam. He stayed there for 13 years, nine of them in solitary confinement.

There are many parts of the world today where you can be imprisoned or killed for practicing the Christian faith, especially if you're a convert from Islam--North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. Open Doors has a list of persecuting countries that makes a good prayer guide.

On a more positive note, the Anchoress also has a great post about Jesus, the incarnation of God in the flesh, about what it means that He was a man who walked the earth. In light of the persecution in the world, it's good to be reminded of the power of the Gospel.

Political Potpourri

Edition 2 of our new semi-regular roundup of newsworthy items...

Yet another installment in the slow and disturbing decay of Western values in the United Kingdom:

Muslims have complained over a police advert featuring a puppy sitting in an officer's hat. A police force has apologised to Islamic leaders for the "offensive" postcard advertising a new non-emergency telephone number, which shows a six-month-old trainee police dog named Rebel.

Horrors continue in Zimbabwe, and no one seems to quite be able to muster the courage to do something about it:

The supposedly civilised world has allowed Mugabe and his horrors to happen, mainly unchecked. Sanctions on his country merely starve those who disagree with him. Zimbabwe has all the natural, and had all the human, resources to be an example to the rest of Africa. It is now merely a symbol of what happens when a dictator takes charge, and those who might rein him in simply look away.

The guy who came up with the whole national health care system in Canada now thinks it was a bad idea:

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

In Obama news, the Boston Globe has done some high-quality investigative reporting into some pretty shady dealings in Chicago. It's a lengthy discussion of the complete failure of public housing in Obama’s Illinois state senate district, managed under programs he supports and by people involved in his campaigns, including Tony Rezko.

And at least one commentator is worried about what an Obama presidency might mean for individual freedoms in the United States. Jeffrey Lord writes:

Pull back for a moment from the day-to-day and see the pattern.

Talk radio. Oil. Guns. Global warming. Smoking.

On the surface this is a seemingly unconnected laundry list of issues, their connection one to another tangential at best. Or is it?

In the increasingly disturbing view we are all getting of the messianic world that is Obamaland, these subjects in fact have a chilling commonality.

Remember, it's not only the freedoms listed in the first and second amendments that make this country great. As a conservative, I also value the freedom to spend my time and money the way I want to, to be in control of my own health care, to make (currently hypothetical) decisions about my (future) children's schooling, etc. And if I want to use my own money to heat my house to 72 degrees (I don't) or drive an SUV (I do!), the government really ought to stay out of my way. You know, it's that whole crazy thing about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"... seems like maybe I read that somewhere... might be an important part of the founding of our country or something... anyone?

Western Christ followers: "Recover thy nerve"

By Rich Bordner

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, an Anglican Bishop from Rochester, England, has been the center of much controversy for a few years now. Most of the controversy hovers around his comments about Islam. For one, he has unashamedly called for the evangelism of Muslims worldwide.

Here in the wild, wild west, 'dems fightin' woyds. "GASP! He said WHAT?! How dare the bigot offend our Muslim friends! Quick! Call the Human Rights Gestapo, er, Commission!"

Where's Canada when you need it? Sheesh.

It comes as no surprise that non-Christians balk at such sentiments. Though inclusivism, relativism, and pluralism are in error, the fact that most in the non-believing world are fans of those ideas is hardly front-page news. It is a horse of a different color, though, when Christians themselves embrace these ideas, as many of Nazir-Ali's colleagues in Anglicanism have.

Nazir-Ali has noticed this zeitgeist in the western church at large, and this week at a press conference at GAFCON (the Global Anglican Future Conference) he re-affirmed his stance. In his speech, he exhorted all fellow Christians to speak up about their faith wherever they are at, and also to commit to bringing the gospel message to peoples that have not heard it before.

"Let us pray we are able to recover the Christian nerve in the West and to make sure the Gospel is not lost," he said.

To paraphrase: "Brothers and sisters in the LORD...there's a gauntlet...you gonna pick it up, or just stare at it?"

This guy gets it. He perceives, correctly, I think, that many (though not all...I don't want to over-generalize here.) of us in the western church have a squishy backbone when it comes to talking to folks about the gospel. We allow the persecution of being called intolerant (can that even be called "persecution"? Nah, man.) to obscure the fact that without Christ, no one will escape the gavel of God's justice. We are rebels in arms against God, and only God's gracious offer of amnesty through Christ can change that....F-A-C-T. T-R-U-T-H, not just "for me," but objectively, is true regardless of who believes it.

Maybe some of us have never really believed that in the first place.

At any rate, Nazir-Ali gets that a significant portion of us are losing this focus. Many of us are content only to serve their earthly needs, giving people cups of cold water and then watching as they jump off the cliff of eternity, straight to hell.

That is not love.

Serving earthly needs is necessary, and cannot be divorced from the Kingdom. But neither can a bold proclamation of the full counsel of God. This is why Nazir-Ali's exhortation to "recover (our) nerve" is a worthy prescription for many believers in the west.

Freedom Isn't Free

OK, I know it's a bumper-sticker cliche. But it's still true. The freedoms we have in this country, freedom of speech, worship, association, the press, the right to bear arms--they were all won and preserved at a high cost. And we have to continue to protect those freedoms today.

Here's an excerpt from a really good post on protecting our freedom. You should definitely read it all:

For those of you have yet to see 300, do yourselves a favor and see it. (Warning: Spoiler Alert if you read the whole linked post.)

This movie is not just about the past. It's about today. Right now.

It's about each one of you who stands in the breach against the enemy.

And it's about each one of you who stands against the enemy within, who would happily widen that breach.

Today's enemy is Islamofascism, but it is little different from the hordes following the tyrannical King Xerxes.

Today's enemy within is the left, both at home and across the globe. And they too are little different from the scheming legislator Theron and the vile Ephori, who were willing--even eager--to see all Sparta kneel before Xerxes, just to gain power.

How is the left today any different? Do they not see their own nation, their own people, their own military as the enemy? Do they not seek to withdraw us from the field, to give the enemy the day?

And just as Sparta was the lynchpin that defended all Greece--that great cradle of democracy--is not the United States today the last bastion of freedom defending Western civilization?

But what care the left for Western civilization? They HATE Western civilization. They hate the men and women who defend it. They hate themselves.

It's a great read, maybe put a little strongly but with some very good points about the value of freedom, about the need to protect our civilization against tyranny. (Please note, though, that I'm not necessarily recommending actually seeing the movie. I haven't seen it, and I think it's pretty violent, so you should definitely make that decision for yourself based on how you feel about that kind of content. But it sounds like a really good story!)

Totalitarian Times?

Just read a really interesting (and long) article by Bruce Bawer about the way the New York Times has approached reporting on totalitarian regimes and ideas. Definitely worth a read, because we all need to understand the way that the news media can shape our understanding of the world by selective reporting of events. We also need to know what worldview they are putting forth.

Bawer reviews NYT reporting on Stalin, Hitler, Castro, and the Cambodian killing fields, tying it into current coverage of Islamic fundamentalists. Here's a few paragraphs:

Since 9/11, the kind of brazen sugarcoating of Islam that Feldman served up last Sunday has become a convention in the Times and other mainstream media. Routinely, news organizations suppress, downplay, or misrepresent developments that reflect badly on Islam; they go out of their way to find stories that reflect (or that can be spun in such a way as to reflect) positively on it; and they publish professors and intellectuals and “experts” like Feldman, who share the media’s determination to obscure the central role of jihadist ideology in the current clash between Islam and Western democracy and to point the finger instead (as Feldman does) at European racism.

Yet while a number of media consumers are wise to this policy regarding Islam, relatively few realize that it’s a fresh variation on a well-established tradition. This tradition -- which may be fairly characterized as one of solicitude, protectiveness, and apologetics when reporting on totalitarian ideologies, movements and regimes -- involves habitual practices that can be attributed partly to institutional stasis, passivity, and timidity, partly to a desire to maintain access to this or that tyrant, partly to profound failures of moral insight and responsibility, partly to inane notions of “fairness” and “balance,” partly to an unwillingness to face aspects of the real world that need to be acknowledged and dealt with, and partly to an inability to grasp (or, perhaps, to face the fact) that the status quo has changed.

One of the key points here is that modern, multicultural notions of fairness and tolerance lead some people to excuse horrifying, amoral behavior. But read the whole thing, because there's a lot more information there than in this brief comment!

The "Doctrine of Multiculturalism" in Action

Here's another story from Britain that highlights the problems with tolerance and multiculturalism as they are commonly practiced by liberals in Western society (see The "Doctrine of Multiculturalism" below):

The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that "no-go areas" for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities, as the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, claimed in The Sunday Telegraph this year.

Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, both full-time evangelical ministers, have launched legal action against West Midlands Police, claiming the officer infringed their right to profess their religion.

Mr Abraham said: "I couldn't believe this was happening in Britain. The Bishop of Rochester was criticised by the Church of England recently when he said there were no-go areas in Britain but he was right; there are certainly no-go areas for Christians who want to share the gospel."

…

Mr Cunningham said: “[The officer] said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station."

Update: Here's another story about the evangelists, along with a bunch of links to similar incidents and issues in Britain.

The "Doctrine of Multiculturalism"

A British clergyman has issued a scathing critique of the “newfangled and insecurely-founded doctrine of multiculturalism.” This speaks to the emptiness of tolerance as a bedrock value of society.

The collapse of Christianity has wrecked British society, a leading Church of England bishop declared yesterday.

It has destroyed family life and left the country defenceless against the rise of radical Islam in a moral and spiritual vacuum.

In a lacerating attack on liberal values, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, said the country was mired in a doctrine of 'endless self-indulgence' that had brought an explosion in public violence and binge-drinking.

If you aren’t aware of the significant social problems facing “post-Christian” Europe, you really need to do some research. Just a couple of examples from the United Kingdom:

• Britain's Mean Streets—about the significant rise in youth crime
• Rowan Williams says Sharia law unavoidable—the Archbishop of Canterbury believes the British legal system should accommodate Sharia law
• Multiple wives will mean multiple benefits—although polygamy is illegal, the British welfare system will pay Muslim husbands welfare benefits for all their wives

These problems arise from the belief that all cultures and ideas are equally valid and must be tolerated and accepted. We should of course love individuals because they are created in God’s image, but it is vital that Christians refuse to accept this moral relativism. We know there is absolute Truth and some ideas and beliefs are absolutely wrong.

What PBS doesn’t want you to see.

Watch a Hotair.com interview with Frank Gaffney about the taxpayer-funded film that PBS continues to suppress. watch here

Other links:

FreeTheFilm.net
Center For Security Policy

Are Muslims above the law? Sometimes.

A growing Muslim population in the West has increasingly pitted Islamic teaching against traditional Western values. It appears that this tension has increasingly resulted in the West becoming “de-Christianized” while simultaneously becoming more “Islamo-cized.” If a Christian principle, for instance, counters a prevailing national law, the Christian side is often dismissed, harassed, prosecuted, or persecuted and labeled “closed-minded," "bigoted," "intolerant," or "judgmental.” On the other hand, if a Muslim follows Islamic teaching that runs counter to national law – like wife beating – there appears to be increasing favoritism shown towards Islamic law. Take, for example, the recent wrong-headed effort at “cultural sensitivity” – possibly influenced by intimidation – in Germany, where Judge Christa Datz-Winter placed the Koran above the German constitution. As stated in the New York Times:

“…The judge turned down the wife’s request for a speedy divorce, saying her husband’s behavior did not constitute unreasonable hardship because they are both Moroccan. ‘In this cultural background,’ she wrote, ‘it is not unusual that the husband uses physical punishment against the wife.’”

This has resulted in a political backlash. Fox News reported:

“Lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats said traditional Islamic law, or Sharia, had no place in Germany. ‘The legal and moral concepts of Sharia have nothing to do with German jurisprudence,’ Wolfgang Bosbach, a lawmaker with the Christian Democrats, told N24 television.”