Fearful Non-Symmetry

If a preacher in the most Christian enclave of the US were to say something in a public setting, which was negative, disrespectful, denigrating, offensive or slanderous about Mohammed, the Koran or Islam, I would worry about the preacher's safety. If anyone anywhere were to say something equally offensive about Christianity, Jesus or the Bible, I would have no such concerns. I suppose someone could get punched in a bar for that kind of talk, and there are always exceptions for anything involving human behavior, but on the whole, there is a non-symmetry between the religions. I think that this contradistinction points to a particularly nasty aspect of Islam.

There was a protest in Afghanistan, 2,000 students shouting "Death to America". It concerned a Newsweek allegation that American interrogators in Guantanamo may have placed the Koran on toilets or even flushed one down the drain. How many Americans might be motivated to march if some Jihadis were to do the same with Bibles? I suspect it would inspire many sermons along the line that the Word of God cannnot be desecrated or lessened in any way by the rebellious act of one of God's children. Protestants, at least, would say that it is not the physical form of the Word that matters; it is the Message that matters. We could probably get more American Christians to march in protest about the desecration of the Koran than the Bible.

We will know that we are beginning to win this War when 2,000 Afghan students march to stop the genocide in Darfur.

5/10/2005 11:39 PM