Christian Jihad

Christians are being burned out of their homes and churches in Egypt, and Christians here in America rightly condemn the murderous Muslim bigotry





We’re so much better here in America. Pure Christians do not do violence against deviant heretics like Mormons and Catholics, but they do strive mightily to keep them on the margins.  And be warned, my Israel-loving friends, wherever anti-Mormonism has a home, anti-Semitism lurks just below the surface.

The “Values Voters,” Tony Perkins and religious bigots like Perry-supporter Pastor Robert Jeffress have every right to espouse their narrow views and host their exclusionary forums.  I just wish GOP candidates would drop the knee-jerk urge to pander to them.  When you take your nomination contest to a circus tent, don’t be surprised when the clowns come out.

Rick Perry’s Very Own Reverend Wright

At a gathering of Christian conservative voters in Washington on Friday, evangelical megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress, chosen to introduce Texas Gov. Rick Perry, attacked Romney by telling reporters the Mormon Church is “a cult” and “Mormonism is not Christianity.” (WaPo – Religious Bigotry)

Of course, Perry distanced himself from the remarks, ducking the larger issue of how he could be so politically stupid as to allow an anti-Mormon bigot to introduce him.

I was hoping that with winking dogmatist Mike Huckabee bowing out this go around, the 2012 campaign would be blessedly free of Holy Christian Jihad, but then I really don’t understand politics.

Folks, this bs has no place in presidential politics.  It converts no one to the firebreather's side, and it just turns off secular people who otherwise might make common cause with republicans if not for the unhinged religious nutlogs using their 20 seconds of fame to flame their religious rivals.

Such unseemly displays and unresolvable theological debates have no place in political discourse. I don’t care how you worship. I do care about your morals, your actions, and how your faith (or lack thereof) manifests itself in the public arena and in your view of public policy.

Morality is a proper political subject, but when it descends into denominational chauvinism, the GOP needs to grow a pair and give the sectarian jihadis the bum's rush.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2011/10/mormon-romney-perry-cult-christian-/1

Sexual Liberty vs. Religious Liberty

America's post-modern fetish with all things gay has culminated in an inevitable absurdity: 

Petitions to Sesame Street demanding the marriage of Ernie and Bert.

Gay mania has gone beyond granting gays their god-given rights, and has now entered the territory of publicly-enforced morality to the point of binding our consciences.




Tim Dalrymple examines the potential consequences of New York's gay marriage law:

The religious liberties and conscience rights of individual professionals and business owners, Nimocks says, are in particular peril. Since they do not fall beneath the "religious umbrella" the law creates, wedding planners or florists or clothiers who decline to offer their services to same-sex couples may face lawsuits or other forms of government pressure. Marriage counselors and adoption attorneys, if they are not employees of a religious group, also could be accused of illegal discrimination if they do not serve gay couples.

Even those beneath the "religious umbrella" may be less protected than they would like to believe. In spite of the conscience provision, there are "huge gaping holes" in the language of the law, says Nimocks. Ultimately, the long-term consequences of the law are unknown. Yet gay couples will take offense if they are not offered the same services traditional couples receive, and the same well-funded activists who pushed the same-sex marriage bill into law will continue to make their case in the courts and in the statehouses. (Tim Dalrymple - Liberty's Loss)

Before anyone seeks recourse in the trite and inapt comparisons to the Civil Rights movement of the 60's, lets recall that this is an issue determined solely by how people have sex, a private act that's nobody's business but the practitioners'.

The state rightly does not enforce Christian morality, but it does declare the moral goodness of being gay and forces the rest of us to pay obeisance to this moral pronouncement upon pain of punishment.

So why was Rick Perry's Christian rally wrong, but government forcing everyone to accept homosexuality is OK?

The Hidden Imam & The Risen Lord

Liberals who reflexively scream and caw like a flock of startled birds at anything uttered by a conservative make the fundamental mistake of conflating Islam itself with the different cultural milieus and practices that spring from it.  We who defend Western culture should not make the same mistake.

Some bloggers in Right Blogistan have really been laying the wood to Islam, some going so far as to call it a satanic cult.  Others struggle to separate the Islamist murderers from the religion itself, while still railing against its malignant influence on Western Christendom.  While I do not criticize religious debate, I am in the latter camp.

I don't think it is any more racist to criticize black panthers or radical islamists than it is to attack white supremacists.

It is not anti-Christian to call Fred Phelps and his followers the anti-American ass-hat dingbats that they are, and it is completely legitimate to criticize Muslim extremists operating in the west who hate our western values. 

Having said that, I think Christians and conservatives do our cause more harm than good when we criticize Islam itself.  I've done it.  Usually while criticizing one of the Muslim world's multifarious abhorrent cultural practices, hydra-headed hatreds, cultural intolerance, or religious bigotry.  We can condemn an abortion clinic bomber without condemning Christianity; can we condemn a Muslim terrorist without casting aspersions upon the religion of Islam?  

How do you like it when smart-ass atheists ridicule your faith?

Sticks and stones, right?  But does it make you have a more favorable or less favorable opinion of them?  Does it make you more willing or less willing to hear what they have to say?  I found Mike Huckabee's winking anti-Mormonism repellent.  He lost my vote, and I'm not even a Mormon.

It is in our own best interests to keep our focus on the anti-Western practices of the few, rather than the religion of the many who go about their daily lives as good Americans.

My God's Better than Your God

I remember awhile back hearing Glenn Beck on the radio mocking the Shia Twelvers, calling the Hidden Imam “the boy in the well.” You’d think he'd be a little more circumspect, seeing as how his religion is based upon God coming into the world as a human baby, dying, and coming back to life after three days in the tomb, and then ascending to heaven.  To the skeptic, that's right up there with Mohammad's flying donkey.

Some Christians believe we’re all saved.  Others believe there is a preordained elect, and the rest of us will burn in hell. Catholics pray to saints, believing they are with God and can therefor plead to him on our behalf.  This leads fundamentalists to condemn the followers of the Whore of Babylon to eternal damnation. And that's just within Christianity!

My point here is not to mock anyone, but to simply point out that our different and varied beliefs are not reconcilable.  We don't have to respect the religion of others, but we must respect each others' constitutional right to freedom of worship.  None of us can scientifically prove our particular sect or belief is the right one, so why argue about it and inflame one another? As Dennis Prager once observed, every religion has elements that look downright ridiculous to outsiders.

Freedom of Conscience - Freedom from Violence

Outside of some witch trials, institutional bigotry against Jews, and a few spasmodic episodes against Catholics and Mormons, we've been blessedly free of sectarian turmoil and bug-eyed religious zealotry here.  I pray we can keep it that way.  Inshallah

Gay New York

New York has approved gay marriage in that state. I don't agree with gay marriage, but they did it the right way. I believe it is a states rights issue and that it should not be decided by mullahs in black robes at the federal level.

My opposition to gay marriage is definitional 

There is no society in the history of mankind where gay marriage ever existed.  This is a post-modern theft of the word.  Advocates counter that gay couplings have been observed in the wild among apes, but simians also throw crap at each other, so I don't think that is a valid example to point to. The term marriage has always had a specific meaning, and it should not be changed. Call a gay relationship whatever you want,  protect gay rights in contract law, but don't call it marriage.

A Victory for Polygamy

Can anyone keep a straight face while telling me Muslim advocacy groups will not bring lawsuits to strike down polygamy bans? Unlike gay marriage, polygamy has a robust history. What makes marrying someone of the same sex more valid than a man marrying two or three or four women? Or a woman marrying multiple men for that matter. We've struck down a standard and now have nothing to take its place, so it's anything goes for the cultural vandals. The next ten years should be exciting.

A Dangerous Blow to Religious Liberty

The New York Legislature, God bless 'em, insisted that churches should not be coerced into doing anything against their beliefs. While I applaud the good intentions, it sets a dangerous precedent, in that the state legislature is granting by law a right to a church that the state has no right to grant.  Freedom of religion is a preexisting right recognized in the First Amendment to the constitution.

According to the Founding Fathers and The Constitution they authored, religious liberties come from God, not a politician. If a legislature can grant rights to a church, it can also take them away, and that is the Trojan Horse. The law should be struck down because it pretends to grant the God-given right of religious liberty that has already been guaranteed by the First Amendment to The US Constitution.

This is another shot over the bow of religious liberty.

To My Atheist Friends

Correction:  Maya Angelou did not write this.  And I have updated the text to reflect the true author's words.  See Snopes for the full story.  Shame on me for not checking my facts, and thanks to Anonymous, whoever you are!

"When I Say I am a Christian" 

By Carol Wimmer


When I say, “I am a Christian”

I’m not shouting, “I’ve been saved!”
I’m whispering, “I get lost!
That’s why I chose this way”

When I say, “I am a Christian”
I don’t speak with human pride
I’m confessing that I stumble -
needing God to be my guide

When I say, “I am a Christian”
I’m not trying to be strong
I’m professing that I’m weak
and pray for strength to carry on

When I say, “I am a Christian”
I’m not bragging of success
I’m admitting that I’ve failed
and cannot ever pay the debt

When I say, “I am a Christian”
I don’t think I know it all
I submit to my confusion
asking humbly to be taught

When I say, “I am a Christian”
I’m not claiming to be perfect
My flaws are far too visible
but God believes I’m worth it

When I say, “I am a Christian”
I still feel the sting of pain
I have my share of heartache
which is why I seek His name

When I say, “I am a Christian”
I do not wish to judge
I have no authority
I only know I’m loved