Hating America, Loving Islam – The Religious Left Fashions Our Noose

There is no nice way of saying this: the religious Left, along with their compatriots in the Secular and neoLeft, are fashioning the nooses our enemies are going to hang us all with. Of course they too will end up losing their heads to those they currently appease and pander to – but for the moment, their irrational hatred of America, Christians and Jews to the empowerment of their social and political ideology trumps everything.

These days I am not sure who is a bigger danger to us, Jihadists with detonators and bombs on their person, or these people who will drive them to their targets in the name of peace and understanding.

Of course late last week we learned that conflict resolution “scientists” will request a new course of action for Israel. After being pressured for nearly two decades to swap land for peace that never came, Israel will next be asked to apologize to its Arab and Muslim enemies for coming into existence in the first place.

Couple that with the nitwits on the Religious Left who call Columbus Day “Conquest Day”, and it is evident that the Left of all stripes wants America and the West to apologize to everyone for our existence.

Benedict Arnold is not even in the same league as these people.

Praying for Defeat

By Mark D. Tooley
FrontPageMagazine.com

Religious Left officials joined in a press conference on the lawn of the Methodist Building on Capitol Hill to unveil their umpteenth protest against the Iraq War. This time, it will be an interfaith “fast” to coincide both with Islam’s Ramadan season and, more specifically, with Columbus Day. The fasters prefer to call the later the “day of conquest.”

The locale, the cause, and the participants all combined to create a uniquely absurd spectacle. Participants included the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, which owns the Methodist Building, the National Council of Churches, liberal Jewish groups, some Buddhists, liberal Baptists and the Islamic Society of North America. The later is named as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the ongoing terrorism trial involving the Holy Land Foundation.

To help illustrate the fast’s interfaith theme, Gerald Serotta of Rabbis for Human Rights sounded a shofar, or ram’s horn, which Jews have used for 3 millennia as an instrument of worship. Serotta himself was introduced by Rabbi Debra Kolodny, self-professed sexual liberationist and editor of “Blessed Bi-Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith.” Rabbi Kolodny is a noted advocate of “polyamory” and the ostensible holiness of multiple sexual partners. She is not your typical rabbi. “Today, we will activate our senses,” she pronounced, right before the shofar was sounded.

But how superbly sublime that Rabbi Kolodny should be present on the lawn of the Methodist Building, taking a break from her crusade for polamory, to introduce the blowing of a shofar against the Iraq War, with her Muslim and Methodist co-belligerents. And how often is an official from the Islamic Society of North America likely to spend a late Summer morning in public solidarity with a bisexual Jewish rabbi? Only the United Methodist Board of Church and Society could facilitate such a cosmic event.

…But the interfaith fast organizers were all about interweaving “ancient” practices into more relevant and modern political activism of the Left. “We must return to the ancient disciplines so that we will turn away from violence toward reverence,” insisted Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center. He did not explain whether “ancient disciplines” might include his fellow rabbi’s vision of polyamory.

Besides the shofar, other “ancient practices” like ringing bells and smudging ashes on foreheads were performed on the Methodist Building lawn, just across the street from the U.S. Capitol and U.S. Supreme Court. Ash smudging is a symbol of Christian repentance. And fasting is a spiritual tool for drawing closer to God. But neither repentance nor the Almighty seemed to feature very prominently in the political goals of the interfaith fasters.

“When you are fasting for Ramadan, you are enhancing your sense of compassion,” instructed Sayeed Syeed from the Islamic Society of North America. “We will be asking mosques to open their doors to people of other faiths around the world on October 8 for prayer and dialogue.”

Syeed quoted from the Koran’s first chapter to conclude the performance on the Methodist Building lawn. At least somebody was quoting from the scripture of his tradition. Excepting the Muslim, nearly all of the anti-war fast enthusiasts were paladins of the Religious Left, treating the symbols of their faith like politically expedient props for the cameras.

The old Methodist temperance activists who constructed the Methodist Building were motivated by their Christian faith and love of country. Maybe with too much cultural confidence, they viewed America as the new promised land, whose sins were numerous, but whose destiny was still guided by Providence.

In contrast, the anti-war Religious Left fasters performing on the Methodist Building lawn, in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, were a sad parody of the old Methodists. The latter were propelled forward by their faith convictions, rooted deep in the Christian Scripture and in American revivalism. The former seemed almost indifferent to their professed faith, except as channels for political attention, and weapons against a nation perceived to be insidious.

I know some folks want to laugh at the blatant absurdity of bi-sexual promiscuous Activists standing in unity with Muslims to ‘promote the faith’ – but the truth is that this movement is highly dangerous. Not just treasonous, but an active element towards inciting and aiding the next holocaust to be visited upon Christians and Jews.

We ignore these “silly people” at our own risk.

Where Have All The Christian Soldiers Gone?

I’m often castigated for being unlike a normal Christian, and I think that is a good thing.

Churchianity in America and the West have crafted a pacifistic approach to how God and Jesus view this world we live in, and how we as Christians should withdraw and seal ourselves away from all who are unlike ourselves, handing our culture and liberties over to the Secular Left.

They have not stood against sin. They do not encourage anyone to overcome it. They refuse to call sin what it is for fear of offense.

They have not stood against encroachments on our liberties.

They have not even stood for God’s Commandments or principles from being abolished.

What do today’s Christians stand for?

Tolerance?

Pot Lucks?

Big emotional concert events with no life-changing discipleship?

I never thought I’d see a time when Christians in America and the West would be so confused about their faith, and refuse to stand up against evil – even when it confronted them face-to-face.

Where have all the Christian Soldiers gone?

Will we find the courage enough to arm ourselves and be ready for the battles that have already long come to our doorsteps?

Or will Christianity in the West go quietly into the night with nary a whimper?

An older essay worth the read.

The Modern Crusade (Registration required to read link)

Defenders of the faith need to arm themselves with facts if Christianity is to thrive in the 21st century

Ted Byfield

It was kind of Maclean’s magazine to run a cover story late last month wholly affirming my last column, which described a mounting attack against Christianity, both in Canada and throughout much of what was once known as the Christian world.

Maclean’s focused on the more blatant attackers: militant atheists like Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion); columnist Christopher Hitchens (author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything); and pop philosopher Sam Harris (who declares, “raising of children to believe themselves members of a religious group is a ludicrous obscenity”). All three are receiving wide publicity for their contention that the world can no longer afford belief in God. It’s too likely to start wars.

I had centred on the subtler assaults: Christian “fundamentalists” portrayed as terrorist bombers in mock school exercises; the endless perpetuation of the fallacy that since Muslims are bent on mass terrorism, Christians must be too (although there’s no evidence for it); and in Canada the leprous influence of media outlets like The Globe and Mail , which determinedly (and almost always mendaciously) undermine the intellectual credibility of Christianity.

So we all agree that there’s a war going on. In the view of the Dawkins-Hitchens-Harris coalition, however, it is not a war between Muslims and Christians, nor even between East and West, but between reason and superstition. And right there is one of the points I think we should notice. Reason is quietly being conscripted as the ally of the non-believer. Christians allegedly opt for “faith,” their opponents for “reason”–this is always the assumption. Never mentioned is the fact that reason, more often than not, is the ally of faith, not its opponent.

The atheist coalition and their quieter cohorts also avoid mention of many other things. I repeatedly read, for instance, how “modern scholars” (the favoured media term for “skeptical scholars”) increasingly doubt the historical authenticity of the New Testament. Strangely absent, however, is any reference to the fact that all the many textual discoveries of the late 19th and 20th centuries have served to substantiate, rather than repudiate, the traditional dates assigned to the New Testament books, and that we have far better historical grounds for believing them than our great-grandparents did. Only once can I recall it being pointed out that just as many “modern scholars,” if not more, are believers as are doubters.

It has been customary to claim that the Christians created the African slave trade (which of course is nonsense; slavery existed throughout the ancient world long before there were Christians). But not until very recently has anyone taken note that it was the Christians, and they alone, who brought about the abolition of the slave trade.

Then, too, we see constant reference to “the Crusades,” always presented as a vicious assault by avaricious Christians on the tranquilly irenic Muslim communities of the Middle East. Never is it mentioned that those lands which the Crusaders invaded were in fact Christian countries which had been seized at sword-point by the Muslims four centuries earlier. Nor is it ever noted that those intervening centuries had seen continuing Muslim attacks on Europe; that Sicily, southern Italy and southern France had been seized and held by Muslims for 100 years; that they had cut off the Alpine passes in an attempt to separate Rome from northern Europe; that Rome itself had suffered three Muslim attacks; or that the first Crusaders took up arms in response to a plea from Christian Constantinople, which was under immediate threat from the Muslim Turks.

Why are the forces of atheism able to mask such facts? Because of Christian ignorance and delusion, that’s why. We’re in a cultural war all right, and you don’t win wars without fighting–not in this instance with bombs and firearms, but with words, thoughts, ideas, well-grounded grounded factual knowledge, and a readiness to use them all. Prayer, too, of course, but God gave us brains and expects us to use them. And what the average Christian will need to know to practise his faith in the 21st century will vastly exceed what he needed to know in the 20th.

The long holiday is over.

War For The Soul of a Nation

Jesus has told us to judge the things in this life by the fruits which they produce. (Matthew 7:16)

In terms of our present culture, the fruit is rotten. Yet rotteness is peddled by the Secularists, the Socialists and the Left as good and better than the stuff America used to serve as part of it’s diet.

And I’m not talking about just food here. I’m talking about our national soul.

The Rev. Peter Marshall discusses this topic in his latest essay, which by and large I agree with.

Where I disagree with Mr. Marshall is more in perception than fact, but since perception is reality – and the fruits are borne thereof in our culture – I think his assertion that
Conservative Christian views are the majority view of the people is hopeful at best.

If those are truly the majority view of this people, then we are losing ground daily and becomming more silent as the days progress.

Mr. Marshall is an optimist on this score. A majority may indeed have Conservative social leanings, but a silent majority will become slaves to a rebellious vocal minority every single time. Communist regimes, dictatorships and even Jihadist nations are repleat with examples of how a minority can grab power and subjugate a majority to slavery and death with promises built on good intentions. Lately, the Secular Left has become more open and truthful about what they intend and believe, and they no longer go to such great lengths to disguise themselves. They hate Christians and religion. They seek to abolish it. They seek to create a new Morality, imposed by force of law.

There is little outrage, little passion, little outspokeness and little challenge by the bulk of Conservative Christians in this country to the growing shouts to bury and remove our Christian Foundations by such people. In the face of relentless attacks by the Secular Left and the grinds of daily life – fire and passion to recapture our culture and heritage is voiced by the very few, and merely gets a silent nod by those that we HOPE are still a majority opinion. Christian Americans are become hearers only, while the doing is getting lost in multicultural morass and the daily struggles to make a living.

If we are to judge the fruits – the few who do speak up are not producing enough to stem the tide of the secular and cultural locusts stripping the branches bare.

Some pest control experts are needed to get active and cultivating this ground we stand on to resist the plagues of the Secular Left. If things continue at the pace they are going in this nation, a famine of the Word is sure to be in our future.

Making Sense of the Culture Wars

Americans are fundamentally a religious people. And we are currently engaged in an all-out moral and spiritual struggle for the soul of the nation….

…The Democrats have been pandering for votes among primarily secularist groups that have arrayed themselves against the traditional religious mind-set, or worldview, of the majority of Americans. I refer to the ACLU activists; the MoveOn. org types; the homosexual activists and their supporters; the abortion-rights activists and their followers; the animal-rights and environmentalist whackos; those permanently on welfare (a shrinking number in recent years) and the welfare bureaucracy; most of the Hollywood crowd; the vast majority of the academic establishment at our colleges and universities; the majority of the print/radio/TV media; etc., etc. So, if these candidates are going to toe the Party line, they have created a nasty conflict for themselves. They can’t publicly and openly take the positions of their backers on the cultural issues without alienating the majority of the moderate Americans, whose votes they need in order to get elected…

…if you get down to the bottom of the barrel in our American culture wars, what you have is a war over religion. Most anti-religious secularists vote the Democratic ticket, but most Democrats are not secularists. We Americans are basically a religious people, so the real war is not one of religion vs. irreligion; the real war is over what our religion requires of us in terms of public policy, or how we are going to live together as a people.

…We’re not very denominationally minded, and we don’t think any more highly of church bureaucracies than we think of government bureaucracies. Our religion tends to be more private these days, because with both husband and wife working and the kids’ team practices and games, we have less and less time for “church stuff.” Though we don’t much trust TV preachers, and don’t hold our priests and preachers in as much regard as we used to because of the scandals, it doesn’t mean that we don’t believe in Jesus and God any more. We do. We just aren’t up for organized religion much any more.

(read whole article at link)

The last paragraph I agree with more than one would know. Of all the people I encounter, the disgust with organized “church” is as vehement as the disgust in our national politics – but, as with all things and human nature – those in power do not relinquish their status without a fight of some kind.

Given the pacifist Judge-Not mentality of a good number of Christians – it seems living under oppression is preferable than the risk to stand up and defy the status quo.