Islam's Just that Old Time Religion

Thanks to Islam in Action for this story from Broward County, Florida:

Fifty of the county’s 290-bus fleet have been chugging around area streets for the past several weeks with a message that might seem more oblique than inflammatory. Black letters on a white backdrop proclaim, “ISLAM: The Way of Life of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad.”

The $60,000 ad was paid for by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Joe Kaufman is a writer for FrontPage Magazine and spokesperson for Americans Against Hate, who lives in Coral Springs, FL, and is trying to get the ads pulled down. “The group says the ad is misleading because it implies that Abraham, Moses and Jesus were Muslim.”

The ad certainly does imply that. And I couldn’t disbelieve it more. There’s no way that Jesus of Nazareth was a Muslim. Nor Abraham, nor Moses.

But I don’t agree that it’s misleading, necesssarily. Islam does teach that all human beings are born Muslim:

The Prophet Muhammad said, “No babe is born but upon Fitra (as a Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Polytheist.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 033, Number 6426).

Which proves not only that Mohammed was Allah’s Prophet, but that he was the inspiration behind the National Education Association, which also believes that every child’s worst influence is its parents.

But to return to my point, as a religious claim, even though I consider the statement about Abraham and Jesus untrue, I don’t think it’s misleading. It doesn’t misstate what Islam actually teaches, exactly. (Okay, it's somewhat misleading, but I'm trying to make a point here).

On the other hand, the truth of the statement: “Islam is a religion of peace,” is another kettle of severed heads all together. That's misleading, and qualifies as the whopper of the 21st century.

Regardless, as someone who believes that the Constitution forbids the government from weighing in on the truth or falsehood of any religious claims, I’m going to have to say that I don’t think the Broward County Transit people should take down the ads just because Jews or Christians don’t believe the message is true. The government is not in the business, in fact is forbidden, from testing the truth of religious claims.

I also wouldn’t support them pulling down Christian ads saying that Jesus is the Way the Truth, and the Life, just because Jews and Muslims don’t accept that as true, or because others find it deeply hurtful, like all those delicate suburban ACLU contributors who find it physically upsetting to think there’s a bus rolling around the inner city somewhere with a message on it that excludes them.

I’m with Kaufman all the way in wanting people reminded that CAIR is a terrorist-supporting organization, and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case of sending millions on charity donations to Hamas. CAIR’s response to Kaufman's charge on that is typical:

“As to CAIR's alleged ties to Hamas, Ali said: ‘There is no credible evidence that that is true. Unindicted means unindicted.’”

Ooh, well played, Ali. Oh, and wouldn't “co-conspirators in contributing to Hamas” also mean “co-conspirators in contributing to Hamas”?

But I digress. The issue is religious bus advertising. And I think Kaufman is a bit off-base to rally to “send a message right to the commission that it’s not right to legitimize this organization.”

Because in this context "legitimize" only means to sell ad space for a religious message. Now, naturally, the commission is going to try to wimp out and ban all religious advertising:

"We have restrictions on cigarettes and adult entertainment, and we should eliminate religious ads hereafter,” County Commissioner Suzanne Gunzburger said at Tuesday's commission meeting. Or at least print a health warning!

My suspicion is that CAIR, as crafty as they are cagey, are placing the ads to exploit the serious--and tragic-- confusion in many black Christian communities about the relationship between Islam and the Christian gospel (namely, that they are mutually exclusive).

Many black clerics have taken to conflating disparate religions, religions that can’t rationally be admixed together, in order to increase the reach of their own private huckstering operations. (I’m not picking on blacks, nor all black clerics, many of whom are straight down the line. I simply haven’t seen anything like this among white evangelicals. When white evangelicals go off the rails, they usually rocket directly into the New Age clouds).

The usual recipe in the black religious community is a spoonful of Christianity, a few pinches of Islam, and 3 quarts of radical Democratic politics, maybe with some black liberation theology thrown in. This syncretic approach is why Baptist ministers can say that it’s time to “move beyond theology and embrace” people like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Moving beyond theology is the only way a Baptist can embrace Farrakhan. The problem is that once a Baptist has moved beyond theology, all he has to teach his flock is a lot of incoherent gibberish.

One of my favorites examples of men of the cloth “moving beyond theology” is the Rev. William Revely. I wrote about him in December 2007:

Sure enough, he calls himself “a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. King.” He is pastor of Holy Hope Heritage Baptist Church in Detroit, But though a Baptist he somehow straddles Christianity and radical Islam as an active supporter of the public antics of Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan.

(If you're a Christian and you think that’s not possible, Rev. Revely also supports Rev. Moon’s Unification Church, as revealed in his testimony at a Moon event last January, where “He commented that Jesus himself was not a Christian and that it is Rev. Moon’s movement that is truly bringing all peoples of faith together.”)

See what I mean? I noted the same problem here: Detroit Clergy Look Forward to Ecumaniacal Embrace of Nation of Islam and here: When it Comes to Role Models, Allah Knows Best.

Personally, I’m not sure which of the false gospel being peddled to the literacy-challenged residents of Broward County is more upsetting: the one that says Jesus was a Muslim, or the one that say Obama is the Messiah.

Obama Picks Up Key Endorsements

“There is no doubt that Obama's sexist attitude will go down well with publicly-declared Islamic supporters such as Hamas' political guru Ahmed Yousef ("we hope he will win the election"), Louis Farrakhan ("this young man is the hope of the entire world"), and Libyan President Muamar Khadafi who said in his endorsement speech that "all the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for his success.”

--Vasko Kohlmayer at American Thinker.

Read all about it here.

Context Is The Second Last Refuge of a Scoundrel (Who Happens to Find Patriotism Distasteful)

Fr. Pfleger has published a self-absolving explanation in the Chicago Sun-Times about his bad behavior of last Sunday.

Reading it, I can see that Fr. Pfleger doesn’t borrow only his preaching style from the likes of Rev. Wright, but his public apology talking points as well.

Father’s excuse is that he was taken out of context. Rather than seeing the compassionate, Martin-Luther-King inspired hero of justice and civil rights, we’re all getting the wrong idea about Fr. Pfleger based on a “a 1.5 minute 'YouTube' video” … stolen, apparently, “from a dramatization in a sermon that I felt was in the sacredness of a sanctuary, among people who know me”.

Was it only 1.5 minutes, Father? Because it seemed so much longer. (The main fun was actually 3:00 minutes).

Oh, by the way, if brief duration avoids moral liability, maybe we should we check the clock time on “nappy-headed ho”; or Trent Lott saying “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.” (For Lott’s ten-second tribute to a 100-year-old man, Barack Obama demanded that “The Republican Party … has to drive out Trent Lott.”

The "out of context" excuse Fr. Pfleger offers backfired on Jeremiah Wright, too. Within days, by means of reviews of his complete sermons, and his own statements to Bill Moyers, and what he had to say at the NAACP dinner, and then at the National Press Club, we all knew for certain that the damned foolishness he displayed in the out-takes ran pretty constant through all his many years as a religious charlatan.

Even without seeing the rest of Father Pfleger's Sunday "sermon," we have seen him allowing the Christ- and Jew-hating Farrakhan into the sanctuary at St. Sabina's so that he could kiss Farrakhan's ass and give Farrakhan a platform to patronize the Catholic congregation Fr. Pfleger is accountable for instructing. Fr. Pfleger also rebukes those of us as "liars from the pit of hell") who call attention to the depth of Farrakhan's anti-Semitism and bitter racism. If Farrakhan isn't a racist, NO one is. (Father also does one of the worst black-guy impersonations in the Midwest, but my confessor informs me that's only a venial sin).

We've also seen him tell his Bishop, whom we Catholics believe to be direct successors of the Apostles, that he wouldn't obey orders to accept transfer from his parish, saying, "You're going to have to have the balls to fire me."

Fr. Pfleger says one thing I agree with: “racism is an explosive and sensitive sin in our world and it is against the command to love, and against the God of love.”

It is indeed. And that means that you, Fr. Pfleger, shouldn’t be whipping up black folks, either. And for doing that, you ought to make an Act of Contrition for sinning against the command of love, and against the God of love.

Michigan Ministers Rally and Ponder, ‘Who Would Jesus Lynch?’

Was not Jesus an extremist for love -- “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.”--
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 1963)

“He was an apostle of love.”--
Ossie Davis, speaking the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated, April 5, 1968, in Central Park, New York.

Man, have we fallen a long way since then.

You'll know what I mean if you check out Friday's rally outside the Isabella County Prosecutor's office. ("Activists protest sluggish pace of CMU noose probe").

Witness the looks on the faces of these men: clergymen, mind you, every one of whom is going to tell you he considers Martin Luther King, Jr. his mentor and model.

What a joke. What a heartbreak.

(All photos below except for that of Malik Shabazz are by Jeffrey LaMonde / Special to Detroit News)

Gaze into this face of love:

Meet Rev. William Revely.

Sure enough, he calls himself “a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. King.” He is pastor of Holy Hope Heritage Baptist Church in Detroit, But though a Baptist he somehow straddles Christianity and radical Islam as an active supporter of the public antics of of Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan.

(If you're a Christian and you think that’s not possible, Rev. Revely also supports Rev. Moon’s Unification Church, as revealed in his testimony at a Moon even last January, where “He commented that Jesus himself was not a Christian and that it is Rev. Moon’s movement that is truly bringing all peoples of faith together.”)

Apparently, all microphones lead to the one true religion. But what I want to know is, what Divine Principle is it that makes his face look this way?

And the text of this Sunday’s sermon by Rev. Revely?: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” James 1:19,20

Then there’s Pastor Maurice L. Rudds, Greater Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit. He also belongs to Rev. Charles Williams II’s National Council for Community Empowerment. According to his bio on their website, Rev. Rudds has a “Bachelor’s Degree in Christian Thought from William Tyndale College,” (so at least we know he’s had some exposure to Christian thought. There's also this interesting personal detail: “God has given Pastor Rudds a big heart with the love of Jesus for everyone.”

Okay, almost everyone. This is Pastor Rudds showing off what "a big heart with the love of Jesus for everyone" looks like.

The stated purpose of this rally was to pressure a prosecutor into charging someone with a criminal offense, regardless of what the evidence shows or whether or not a crime has been committed. You know, the kind of thing Jesus was always doing.

“We live in America,” Pastor Rudds is reportedly shouting. We're in America. That explains all this. We live in America, where we prosecute first, answer questions later, or better yet, skip all that facts and evidence stuff all together. But wasn’t it the prosecute-first America, the rush to judgment America, that lynching America--wasn't that the America that all those Freedom Riders were striving to change during the civil rights struggle?

By the way, we've checked out Pastor Rudds’s scripture text for this Sunday's message: “Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.” Psalm 94:20,21

Then we have Rev. R. Chester Gulley of New Covenant Baptist Church in Benton Harbor, who explains why evidence suggesting the student is guilty of only a harmless prank done without any ill intent, or even racial awareness, must never be allowed to play any role in the decision to rush forward with the maximum jeopardy of prosecution and criminal penalties.

“I don't hate the young man who hung the noose,” said Gulley,....But we cannot allow it to go unprosecuted.”

And if one were to press the point with Reverend Gulley and ask, “Why can’t the noose incident go unprosecuted, especially if you don’t hate him, and there’s no evidence that he hates you or yours? Moreover, there's the lack of a hateful motive that places this beyond prosecution, not to mention the even more insurmountable problem of the lack of any victim. (Or what Bruce Springsteen might complain about during concerts as “no habeas corpus delicti”)).

“Why not?” retorts Rev. Gulley. Because, “This type of behavior is not accepted and will not be tolerated as a joke.”

So now we show we don’t tolerate jokes by putting people in jail? If that’s our legal standard, the people writing The Simpsons for the last five years wouldn’t be eligible for parole until 2039.

All I can say is, if Christian love can be hog-tied by all these conditions, I’m asking for a refund on my Red Letter Bible.

And then again wasn't it so fitting when Martin Luther King once remarked about his enemies: “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.”

Oh, and Reverend Gulley’s Bible message this Sunday? Open to I Corinthians 13: 5,6: “Charity is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. ”

If you don’t like the “intolerable joke” explanation as an excuse for an unfounded felony prosecution, there’s always the “intolerable intolerance” explanation, if you care to wrap your head around that one.

The CMU organizer of the rally, senior Kierre Majors, a 21-year-old elementary education student, (and leader of campus group Students Against Discrimination), insists that, if the prosecutor doesn’t charge this student with the harshest crime, and expose him to the harshest criminal penalty available, “it sends a message to us that we're tolerating intolerance, that we’re supporting this young man. And I don't want that message sent to the student body.”

Fine. Let's send this message instead:

To all CMU students: anyone caught tolerating intolerance, or engaging in intolerance, will not be tolerated, and further, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law--AND PROBABLY BEYOND.

The online profile for Students Against Discrimination says, “Our ultimate goal is to be happy by promoting diversity, equality and justice.”

We know that wherever people's happiness is at stake, we know we're not allowed to question whatever it takes to get them there, (especially if it involves a partial-birth abortion or trying to get some kid thrown in jail for unauthorized congress with a sanctified symbol of the struggle.)

But it doesn’t sound like the happiness thing is exactly working in her case. On the other hand, Ms. Majors isn't exactly promoting justice in this case, is she?

And, si bien sur, where would any self-respecting Black church affiliated civil-rights protest be without a visit from Malik Shabazz, general counsel of the New Black Panther Movement, who showed up Friday to tell protesters: “The battle is everywhere. We must march on, and we must stand together.”

“No Justice--No Peace®” indeed.

For those of you unfamiliar with him, Malik Shabazz is as close to a complete self-invention as we’re ever going to see.

He stole his name from Malcolm X, (his real name is Paris Lewis); he belongs to an organization stolen from Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, he preaches a religion stolen from radical Islam and The Twilight Zone, and he sports a black uniform stolen from Himmler’s SS. The only thing genuine about him is the hate.

Foreseeing such creatures as Shabazz, Martin Luther King once said this:

“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

A sentiment I'm sure all of us can recognize in Shabazz's April 2002 speech at a New Black Panthers Party demonstration outside the B'nai B'rith building in Washington, D.C.:

“Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!”

I ask you--what is there not to be inspired by in this Heaven-sent Apostle of Love? And I’m puzzled that the Southern Poverty Law Center would condemn the NBPP itself as “fundamentally racist."

Then there was the time Shabazz, (who, as general counsel for the NBPP is known in the ranks as “our attorney at war”), refused to apologize for his unjust support for the lynching of the Duke lacrosse students, even after they were vindicated by the North Carolina state attorney general as “innocent.” Instead, he blamed Nifong (whose name he kept pronouncing “Neefong” as a sign of disrespect), for his incompetence in framing up and jailing the innocent students.

When challenged by Michelle Malkin on the Bill O’Reilly show about his refusal to own up to being so wrong (sort of like right now) about the Duke case, he responded by calling Michelle “political prostitute.”

(Hint: This is how a man acts when he believes he is immune from public accountability for anything he says. Please spend some time thinking about that).

Ms. Majors--she of the intolerance of intolerance--was only slightly chagrined when she learned one of her key speakers holds an advanced degree in intolerance, saying “she was stunned when asked about Shabazz's status as a leader of a known hate group. ‘It makes me aware of something I wasn't aware of before,” Majors said. ‘[But at least] He did not get up there and speak about hate.’” (“Leader of hate group addresses rally opposing hate at Central Michigan University”).

Neither did the student you’re so determined to lynch, Ms. Majors. But symbolism always takes priority over susbtance. Or so you’ve all been lecturing us for the last 40 years. What message does Shabazz at your parade send?

Of course, we've already met the Rev. Charles Williams II, who’s doing his best to ride herd on all these sharp-elbowed Sharptonistas so he can take credit for the win. Here he is in a Detroit News photo as he “shouts up to Isabella County Prosecutor Larry Burdick's office, while Robert S. Womack, of Grand Rapids, points his flag during the rally… accusing Burdick of dragging his feet in pressing charges in the CMU noose incident.”

Though Williams's main mentor is Rev. Al Sharpton, he also has a framed photo of Martin Luther King that hangs in an honored place on his wall just below his gigantic Sharpton “No Justice!--No Peace!®”) poster. As a tribute to MLK, Williams has been working on his own version of the “I Have A Dream” speech, in which he declaims, in part:

I have a dream that one day the state of Michigan will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands against little white boys who tie play nooses that aren’t intended for nothing--and throw they’re asses into jail. Oh, wait, yeah, and what was that other thing that, oh yeah--and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Reverend King, please send help.