When Jim Bacon makes a point, you know it’s gonna be good:
UVa’s student newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, caused a flap recently when it printed a cartoon depicting “Christ on a Cartesian Coordinate Plane,” with Jesus crucified on the X and Y axes of a mathematical grid, and another, “A Nativity Ob-scene,” in which the Virgin Mary tells Joseph that her bumpy rash was “immaculately transmitted.” So reports the Charlottesville Daily Press.
When Christians get in an uproar, they write letters and call into talk radio. Conservative Fox News Bill O’Reilly termed the cartoons “an unbelievable assault on Christianity” and urged UVa alumni not to donate to the school until the newspaper is “forced off campus.” Ooooh, how horrible! But please note: There were no riots, no lynchings, no acts of arson. No repressive legislation was passed, no one was fired, no one got punished. (For the record: The CD did pull the cartoons.)
In America, gays can’t get married. In Iran, they get executed. But radical Christians and Islamicists are equally dangerous. What kind of bizarro world does O’Donnell live in?
Perfectly summarized.
Tacking on, there is another great post from the Richmond War Room that shares the exasperation of many:
Arguments that the vast majority of Muslims embrace peace and that violence is un-Islamic are starting to wear thin. When Christian crazies blow something up, churches all over the world leap to condemn it, all while praying that the souls who have worked such evil can be reached and turned from violence.
Please, moderate Muslims, I’m begging you, pleading with you. Put an end to this “The CIA and Mossad did 9/11” nonsense. Denounce those who threaten violence against those whose only offence is expressing an unpopular idea.
Stand up and be counted. There are hundreds of millions of people in this country, and billions around the world, who want to stand with you for peace and understanding, who wish nothing more to practice our faith while you practice yours.
The tension is building. The only one who laughs when Abraham’s children kill each other is Satan.
Agreed entirely, and what’s more they exist and are just as nervous as we about the violence in Islam.
It used to be that Islam was united under a caliphate that ensured some degree of moderation. Without that caliph or moderating force, the extremists seem to be unfettered.
What will it take to fix things? I’m probably not the one to ask or even speculate upon, but it will take another Ibn Rushd (Averroes to the uninitiated) or a renaissance of Islamic thought to restore reason over violence.