Those WallBuilders folks exaggerate and distort reality so much that even fellow religious-righters sometimes have to correct them. Take, for example, Tuesday’s WallBuilders Live! radio program, hosted by David “Separation of Church and State Is a Myth” Barton and sidekick Rick “Texas Supreme Court Justice Wannabe” Green.
Barton and Green spent the first few minutes of their show trying to whip their audience into a lather about Christians who believe that they just might share heaven someday with non-Christians, including Muslims and even atheists. They went on to suggest that too many Christians lack “moral clarity” by supposedly being afraid to highlight the differences between Christianity and Islam. Then in introducing their guest, Alan Wisdom of the religious-right group Institute on Religion and Democracy, Green tossed out this doozy:
“I am a bit overwhelmed by our topic today. I cannot believe that we have churches actually giving sermons on Muhammad and I guess, supposedly, the greatness of Islam and even passing out Qu’rans in Christian churches. What is going on here?”
Huh? Even Green’s guest, Wisdom, seemed a big startled:
“Well, I don’t know about those reports. Some of them turned out to be false.”
But did Green acknowledge that he was misleading his audience? Of course not. Green just prattled on about the need for “moral clarity” between Chrstians and Muslims. And just what really separates the two religions? Here’s how Barton summed it up toward the end:
“For Islams [sic], they’re going to be good on the life issues. They’re going to be good on the homosexuality issues. But they’re not going to be good on the abuse of women issues, on the Sharia law issues, or how many times you can beat your wife. We’re never going to agree on that kind of stuff and there’s no use wrapping our arms around each other, singing Kumbaya and saying we do.”
So there you have it: Islam according to David Barton and Rick Green.
Not all Christians believe in the Holy Trinity. Some believed that Jesus was a prophet, not divine. Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet, but that Muhammed made Islam as an upgrade to Christianity. So also do the Mormons bring what they beleve is an upgrade to Christiantiy.
They used to be called heretics, subject to incendiary interrogation. All Protestants were once called heretics, some still do, so what is the difference between heretical Christians and Muslims?
And what does whatever Christianity say about family that is essentially different from Islam’s view of family? Wife beating only superceded nagging as a crime in the Twentieth Century. Community property in the Southwestern US is an adaptation of Spanish Law that was influeced by Islamic law and practice left behind in Spain after the reconquest. Women’s rights in our own colonial and early non colonial existence weren’t.
And what is so unclear in Islam about morality that is crystal clear in Christiantiy? And Vice Versa? Western European tolerance for minorities, with a few exceptions, was exceeded by Ottoman tolerance for national and religious minorities until the early Nineteenth Century. It was only after Turkey jetissoned it’s role as Caliph of Islam that Turkish nationalism resulted in the removal of Greeks from lands they had occupied from before Alexander the Great.
Moral clarity requires some objective clarity, not the aggregated clusters of buzz words.
And since when are Christian fundamentalists against beating of family members. As far as beating children there are even open protests against the fact that it has become illegal despite the Bible being all in favor of it (he who loveth his son, he does not spare the rod but he who spareth the rod doth not love his son).
The Koran is far more restrained there with beating the last choice after other possibilities are exhausted.
Both holy books try to control abuse by setting rules and neither is up to the standards of today (no surprise there)
When my wife was growing up in, where else, South Carolina, her Southern Baptist preacher was a wife beater. She was friends with the pastor’s daughter, who told trusted confidante friends the terrifying truth of what went on at home during the off-church hours. She was a real battered wife:
“Submit to my dominant leadership of the household or I’ll beat the snot out of you.”
Hurray for David Barton…… God Bless the USA.. your rhetoric is dispicable..
Ron