What 12 Cartoons about Muhammad Can Teach Us
This will be the 2,443,871st blog to address the issue, so as the name of my blog implies, very little of it will by my own thoughts. I think the best thing to do here is summarize some of the lessons we can all learn from this whole fiasco.
1. Muslims aren't interested in religious toleration.
The freedoms and rights of Muslims haven't been violated, nor have Muslims been discriminated against, denied opportunities, or been made to suffer personal harm because of their religious beliefs. You can't show me a single Muslim who was forced to do or not do something that violated their religious convictions.
What they are interested in is "Islamic Imperialism," as Daniel Pipes writes in his Feb. 7 column. Pipes quotes Flemming Rose, the Danish editor who decided to publish the cartoons, as saying that "if Muslims insist 'that I, as a non-Muslim, should submit to their taboos … they're asking for my submission.'"
Muslims may be offended by the cartoons, but that should not prevent the Danes from publishing them. Religious toleration does not mean being obligated to conform to the beliefs and morality of different religions. Muslims don't desire toleration. They desire dominance, as Pipes notes, saying, "Western governments should take a crash course on Islamic law and the historically abiding Muslim imperative to subjugate non-Muslim peoples." Submission, not toleration, is the desire of Islamic Imperialism.
2. Islam is not a religion of peace, despite what you've been told.
Liberals and The Media have spilled plenty of ink accusing George Bush of lying. Well, there is some truth to their claims. I do know of one occasion when President Bush blatantly lied to the American people. In a post-9/11 speech he referred to Islam as "a religion of dignity and peace." Though I can understand why Bush would like us to believe that, it simply isn't historically accurate. These protests and acts of violence are especially absurd when you consider the mysterious absence of any objection from the Muslim world to be-headings, homicide-bombings, and commercial airliners being flown into sky scrapers full of innocent human beings. In fact, I seem to remember seeing people out in the streets of Islamic countries following the attacks. They were dancing and cheering. As Melinda put it on STR's blog, "it is stunning what kind of offense incites the response we've seen - cartoons satirizing Muhammad as opposed to thousands of innocents slaughtered in his name. " Their silence is, in my opinion, a tacit approval of these heinous acts of violence by those who practice this "religion of peace."
The Israelis understand something that most of us Westerners have yet to realize. Muslims aren't looking for a peaceful co-existence built on mutual religious toleration, and appeasement will never work for one simple reason. Muslims will not be satisfied until all of us infidels are subject to Muslim rule.
Pipes makes it very clear that this is an occasion for us to consider how far we're willing to bow to Islamic Imperialism. Pipes put it this way:
The key issue at stake in the battle over the 12 Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad is this: Will the West stand up for its customs and mores, including freedom of speech, or will Muslims impose their way of life on the West? Ultimately, there is no compromise: Westerners will either retain their civilization, including the right to insult and blaspheme, or not.
3. These Muslims who are protesting are blatant hypocrites, and The Media is happy to join them in their hypocrisy.
As the German paper, Die Welt, put it in an editorial, "The protests from Muslims would be taken more seriously if they were less hypocritical. When Syrian television showed drama documentaries in prime-time depicting rabbis as cannibals, the imams were quiet." FrontPageMag.com adds,
Christianity is routinely mocked and vilified in most counties where Islam is the dominant religion. Countless thousands of Christians have, in recent years, paid the ultimate price for practicing their faith among Muslims, including three young Indonesian girls butchered by Muslim psychopaths as they walked to Christian school. Hate-filled anti-Semitic cartoons pepper the pages of Arab and Muslim newspapers. Programs meant to incite hatred of Judaism and violence against Jews are regularly featured on Arab Muslim television networks. And yet, politicized Muslims, who rarely, if ever, categorically condemn the barbarous acts of their co-religionists and often cheer those same acts, behave as if they desire to see ?infidel? blood spilled over a series of provocative drawings. Is their religion not strong enough to withstand the cartoon assault on it?
Then there was the vicious murder of Theo van Gogh, who was shot eight times, had his throat slit, and then was stabbed in the chest with two knives. One of the knives pinned a five page note to his body, threatening Western governments and Jews. The motive? Van Gogh had made a 10 minute long film dealing with violence against women in Islamic societies. These Muslim "extremists" believed this horrendous murder was proper retribution for van Gogh's crimes against Islam (i.e. freedom of speech leading to an accurate account of reality in many Muslim societies).
The Voice of the Martyrs regularly provides accounts of Muslim violence against Christians. Again, if the greater Muslim world showed any sort of concern about Muslim violence against other religions, perhaps we could afford them the benefit of the doubt in this case. That, obviously, is not warranted.
To put it in playground speak, they can dish it out, but they can't take it.
The Media in the United States has been willing to play along with this little double-standard. Since the cartoons were first published, very few U.S. newspapers have actually republished them. Michelle Malkin reported on 02/07/2006 that only the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Riverside Press-Enterprise, and the New York Sun have published any of the cartoons in their papers. The Dallas Morning News and CNN both displayed one of the pictures, but had it "pixelated" to distort the image. As Malkin notes, "Funny, I can't recall any newspapers that pixelated the Abu Ghraib photos."
The LA Times and Christian Science Monitor, among countless others, have chosen to not publish the cartoons under the guise of "sensitivity." I seem to recall little concern for sensitivity when The Book of Daniel debuted last month, depicting Jesus Christ as a laid-back hippie kind of guy who condoned homosexuality, adultery, fornication, and drug dealing (though he was opposed to prescription drug addiction?). You may remember the "Holy Virgin Mary" controversy revolving around a depiction of Mary covered with elephant dung. The NY Times used this current controversy as an occasion to bring up the former as a similar example of religious convictions in conflict with freedom of expression. In this story, the Times prominently features an image of the controversial virgin Mary "work of art," though they have decided not to show the Muhammad cartoons because out of "sensitivity" to the Muslim faith.
Following the mantra of the ACLU, The Media is proving yet again that they are in favor of freedom of expression, as long as it isn't favorable expression of Christian beliefs.
4. Christianity and Islam are not simply "different paths to the same God."
Religiously "tolerant" types like to think that we should all just try and play nice in our little sandbox. They wonder to themselves why us religious types can't all just get along. After all, we are merely on different paths to the same God, they suppose.
Chuck Colson, in an article entitled That's Not Funny, put it like this:
The Muslim response has been unthinkingly violent. Rioters have set fire to Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon; several Danes and people thought to be Danes have been killed. Funny, isn?t it, how Western liberal elites still believe that all religions are alike?
Quite simply, Christians and Muslims behave differently because they follow different Gods.
John Piper examines this reality in his Desiring God blog from Feb. 8th. The title of his post is "Being Mocked: The Essence of Christ's Work, not Muhammad's." Piper points out that suffering through mockery and humiliation were at the heart of Jesus' redemptive work on our behalf. Despite The Media's reaction to it, I think Mel Gibson's movie didn't show the half of it. Jesus was beaten, spit upon, whipped, mocked, and humiliated. He willingly endured this torture with meek, yet exceedingly powerful endurance.
Muhammad endured no such treatment, and his followers believe it is insulting for us to believe that Jesus was humiliated and crucified. Piper points out that Muslims believe that they "honor [Jesus] more than you [Christians] do… We refuse to belief that God would permit him to suffer death on the cross." The follower of Muhammad has no place in his theology for a suffering savior.
Piper sums it up in this way:
An essential Muslim impulse is to avoid the ?ignominy? of the cross.
That?s the most basic difference between Christ and Muhammad and between a Muslim and a follower of Christ. For Christ, enduring the mockery of the cross was the essence of his mission. And for a true follower of Christ enduring suffering patiently for the glory of Christ is the essence of obedience. ?Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account? (Matthew 5:11). During his life on earth Jesus was called a bastard (John 8:41), a drunkard (Matthew 11:19), a blasphemer (Matthew 26:65), a devil (Matthew 10:25); and he promised his followers the same: ?If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household? (Matthew 10:25).
Christians are taught to expect persecution, to expect to be mocked. We are even told to consider ourselves blessed when we are persecuted for our beliefs. Piper says we are to, "rejoice in our afflictions, and say with the apostle Paul that vengeance belongs to the Lord, let us love our enemies and win them with the gospel." We should consider it to be a great honor to share in Christ's sufferings, knowing that he is using our lives as a witness to his glory.
This patient endurance is in stark contrast with the violent, volatile reaction from Muslims. Their "witness" continues to be by-the-sword, as it has been for centuries. Their "god" is served by violent, savage men who throw rocks and set fires when their prophet is insulted. They consider Christians to be weak because we don't react as they do. Piper says, "this religion is destined to bear the impossible load of upholding the honor of one who did not die and rise again…" but "that Christ is still the only hope of peace with God and peace with man."
Jesus displayed peaceful, powerful endurance as he went to the cross. Through his redemptive work, he accomplished the salvation of many men. Thankfully for our sake, Jesus was willing to endure the shame of the cross, in order that us rebellious, sinful creatures might throw down our arms and find peace between ourselves and our Creator. That doesn't mean that Jesus was weak. That means Jesus is God.
Update:
Charles Krauthammer makes some excellent points in an article on this subject, available here.
RSS 2.0
