Standing with the Oppressed, Until Muslims Are the Oppressors
If one were to ask these questions and apply Cone’s analysis to the plight of Christians living in Muslim-majority countries, the conclusion would be similar to what he said about the god worshipped by white Christians who oppressed blacks in the United States: If God (Allah) is not for Christians suffering under Muslim rule, if God is not against Muslims who oppress them, then God (Allah) is a murderer and we had better kill him.
What is remarkable is that liberation theology — which was so readily used to highlight the suffering of blacks in the U.S. and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — has not been used by its adherents to highlight the suffering of Christians under Muslim rule.
Instead of challenging Islamic doctrine regarding the status of non-Muslims, Christian leaders, particularly those from the Vatican, the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches, and mainline churches in the U.S. — all of which have assailed white supremacy and imperialism — have engaged in mealy-mouthed dialogue with Muslim leaders. Instead of raising the issue of Muslim oppression of Christians and other minorities forcefully with their dialogue partners, they talk about the theological similarities and differences between Christianity and Islam and then blame whatever difficulties there are between Christians and Muslims on Christian support for Israel.
Churches that have screamed bloody murder on behalf of Palestinian Christians have remained silent about the mistreatment of Christians under Muslim rule. The justification for their silence? Speaking up on behalf of Christians under Muslim rule will only make things worse and provoke more violence against Christians in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt where Coptic leaders have asked that outsiders leave well enough alone. Hostage taking on a grand scale has become a tool of statecraft for religious and political leaders in the Middle East.
This is not a heckler’s veto, this is a murderer’s veto. Have we no outrage?
Until there is a Muslim civil war as we had in the 1960′s, until there is a Brown vs Board of Education (1954?), until the moderate Muslim begins to question his/her beliefs, there will be no beginning of enlightenment. Hell, they have to go back to the age Martin Luther (1540′s) much less the age of Martin Luther King. There is no hope of that in this century.
If Muslims are so convinced that they are correct in their beliefs why are they so scared of their people having free access to the Bible? Could it be that they are scared that those who compare the Qur’an and Bible will be shocked to see the difference? Martin Luther – who was so eager to get his fellow Germans to read the Bible in their home language – did not want the Qur’an proscribed. He wanted people to see what was in it so that they would have a far greater appreciation of the Bible.
Muslims are scared of letting their people have free access to the Bible because their people could then not fail to notice how much their ‘prophet’ has actually plagiarised from the Holy Book.
And the main line denominations in the US can’t seem to figure out why so many are leaving their flocks. Besides supporting the guys that do everything to wipe all Christians off the face of the earth they give much of our offerings to left or far left leaning groups. Now why would I want my money going to support something I do not believe in? Somehow the church leaders are so blind as to ignore the Muslims want to totally get rid of the Christians and Jews. No thanks you. Dumbing down the Bible with new “translations” was just a start of the process of destruction. When I hear the preacher read from a newer version I do not even recognize it as coming from the Bible.
JC, you touch on the crux of the matter. Although not about Christianity versus Islam, my blog entry about Albert Camus and Christianity expresses, in language similar to yours, the terminal dereliction of the church in the 21st century. Remember the Roman emperor’s line from the old Hollywood sword-and-sandal epic: “Where’s your God now, Christian?”
http://herbork.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/five-foot-ten/
The Black Liberation Theorists also fail to account for the role that Muslims played in the slave trade – they ran it. But as the saying goes “you become what you hate” and slavery is part of Islam. What Cone and the rest want is to turn the US into dhimini-nation where Whites pay reparations as jizya to Blacks. What Cone and the rest want is to become slaveholders.
Progressives who make excuses for Islam are the types who want to hijack Islam. They either want to find a way to unleash a Muslim Mujahideen Horde on their enemies, or find a way to inspire the same sort of top-level totalitarian control over people that Islam was able to impose through The Shari’ah.
It isn’t even so much that they want Islam and Shari’ah, as it is they want to come up with their own Progressive Analogue to Shari’ah (ie : Special Taxes (Jizya) for Second-Class citizens (Dhimmi), Punishment of Slavery or Death for people aren’t true believers in their ideology, etc.). They sympathize with Shari’ah because it’s the sort of system that they want to set up, themselves.
“One has to wonder why Cone and those who have embraced his arguments about white supremacy and privilege have failed to stand up to its Islamic analogue.” What is there to wonder about? Cone et al. are only worried about the suffering of blacks. To them, only blacks have suffered and only their suffering is worthy of concern. Of course, now that most of black suffering in the U.S.is self-inflicted, Cone can only double down. Otherwise he would lose his grievance gravy train.
And you have Rev. Wright having given his “church’s” highest honor to Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. None of it makes a lick of sense. It’s just black is always right and that’s the long and short of it. Neither of those men are any more Christians or Muslims than a cat is.
Who are the morons who continue to give credibility and acclaim to the thoroughly disgusting Louis Farrakhan ?
Oh yeah, people like J Wright who share Louis’ views but are just more reserved about expressing it.
Oh yeah, the faithful Muslim Bros., some of whom may be afraid to step away from this virulent antisemite.
People like James Cone (admired by Obama’s preacher J Wright) just keep the hatred alive. Not God’s way in any religion.
Would you like some real irony ? This creepy guy, Hassan Nasrallah, who should be in jail for assaults against Israel has given speeches spewing forth vulgarities against Jewish people and Israel that would make your hair curl.
Now he’s calling for an “international law against insulting Islam”
As long as politically correct sorts in the west bend over and spread ‘em for the rantings of people who are, themselves, agitators and assassins, they will keep it up.
Cone’s initial concerns may have been warranted, but the later rants were never about God but about self – race made a convenient excuse, even comfortable livelihood. Same way with Wright, Farrakhan, Sharpton, Jackson.
And it’s the same candy with a different flavor for these dying mainline Protestant churches that dot every big Northeast city, who lost their membership 30 years ago – beautiful churches sitting empty. That too was not about God but about an arrogance of their moral superiority later proved immoral.
When church becomes not about worship but of grievance, then what soon follows is liberal politics under the guise of some thin veneer of religiosity. And what follows after that is what you see right now under the banner of Democratic Party. And if the platform of the party is indicator, politics trumped God, so now they can leave Him out altogether – He’s no longer required.
I’m afraid Mr. Cone, who seems to have made a pretty good life for himself as lifetime “black” victim, apparently has never understood God transcends race. And the big tent of the Democratic Party will soon learn God transcends politics too.
Here’s a good hard and fast rule:
If you find people living in tribes among the ruins of a great city, who claim that their ancestors built them, but make no effort to restore the structures or honor holy places within, they’re probably descended from the people who murdered the builders. Kill them, or drive them away. Spare only those who return or remain in hiding to pay their respects at a particular place; those are the only ones whose actions demonstrate repentance.
Strong, incisive, and cool. Max sounds like a young man to me. Hope of the future…
Moderate (or assimilated) Muslims simply want to live their day-to-day lives.
But every once in a while their own extremist relatives make that impossible.
Think back just a couple years ago.
The Muslim cabbies at the Minn/St.Paul Airport were fine, taking all riders to and from where ever.
Then the Muslim Brotherhood moved to town.
They intimidated a lot of Muslim cabbies.
All of a sudden, gridlock, as cabbies double parked to get out and pray IN THE STREET at the airport!
All of a sudden people were refused rides IF they had an unopened bottle of alcohol with them.
All of a sudden blind people and travelers with pet dogs were refused rides.
The airport stopped all this nonsense.
But the price was a bit of creeping Sharia.
All the men’s room sinks were pulled off the wall supposedly by Muslim men who had no idea how to use a towel to wash their feet.
So both footbaths AND prayer rooms were added to the airport.
And after all that the cabbies admitted they had been forced by the Muslim Brotherhood to act up.
Sharia wins a bit at a time.
And that useful idiocy is what you will see from the MODERATES of Islam.
Liberals who tell us we are wrong to criticize Islam’s violence against the other are silent also about Islamic doctrine which treats females as slaves. What kind of flawed world view speaks approvingly of Islam, and warns people not to criticize it, when over half of the population is repressed under sharia law? The honor killings, genital mutilation, and violence against women are not accidental. They are an integral part of main stream Islam as is violence against those who expose the truth about Islam. America stands for the free market place of ideas. The truth shames those who want to protect Islam’s feelings. Read Islamic Doctrine.
Cone’s trajectory is a cautionary tale about the dangers of hatred, and becoming what you hate. He was motivated first by fear, and then by hatred, and the heart of his Black Liberation Theology seethes with sinister hatred. Hatred of whites. Hatred of America. And yes, even an implaccable hatred of Christianity. This is one reason you’ll rarely hear blacks who embrace the continuum of hatred embodied in Black Liberation theology say anything malign about the rampant hatred of Islam.
Obama is steeped in this hatred, and we see our nation being polarized and destroyed by Obama and his followers.
Once upon a time I was having a personal crisis which surpassed my abilities to resolve or see a resolution forward. A friend said the following words to me: “Are you running towards something, or running away from something?”
Today I believe that a very diluted racism exists among some whites against blacks, but the white community has done astounding things to expiate that defect. Rather than acknowledging any of this, the top lights of the black community, including Obama and his vile hateful wife, would have us believe white racism is as menacing and rampant as it ever was, perhaps even worse… ! This is simply astounding, and shows what they’re really about. The most viciously racist segments in America today are mainly in black communities across America. And if you’ve befriended any Latinos, or (oh-my-god) Arabs, the racist hatred which many of them openly espouse will curl your hair…
I hope everybody is happy Mr. Obama gave all of these countries who are protesting us now Billions of our dollars. Anybody else think it is time to cut off all funding for the countries who hate us. They will still hate us for free.
Barack the Sun King is grinning from ear to ear that the Arab World is shaking us down.
What better way to implement worldwide redistribution of wealth, but still make yourself look like the victim to low-info voters!
Just claim that you’re being threatened by them, and you only want to clean up their mess and curtail the violence!
Not too surprised really, I would note Blacks have always looked to others rather than taking responsibility for their situation. In Thomas Sowell’s terms they are mascots and not allies because they really bring nothing to the table.
As for Islam, I have written often that they are the militant wing for the Left, and better than American Blacks, they have enough foreign support of all types to make them very credible especially when billed as oppressed.
Maybe there really IS a God. If so, He’s an embittered anti-Semite who hardens the hearts of the world against the Jews.
Why should this be so? Maybe it’s because Abraham made up a cock-and-bull story about an angel who stopped him from sacrificing his son Isaac. Child sacrifice was the rule at that time and in that place. Abraham ended the practice among Jews, and God is still enraged.
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/AfterTheBinding.html
It is 2012, not 1960. I’m sick of Cone and others like him who accomplish nothing but to keep the hatred alive.
What does Cone say about the devoutly Christian abolitionists, who oin some cases risked their very lives to free slaves? Who ran the Underground Railroad? How many people died in the bloodiest conflict this country has ever seen to free the slaves?
Get over it. We’re tired of the whining. Never forget, but stop hating.
Right you are.
360,000 men from the north, overwhelmingly white, died in order to free men of another race. Millions more uprooted their lives in service of the war. Volunteers!
260,000 men from the south, white, died as a result of their defense of the indefensible, and their land and their way of life was destroyed.
This country paid a terrible blood debt in order to eliminate slavery.
It was Christians from the north, inspired by a book written by a Christian woman and openly full of the gospel of Jesus which provided the social momentum to do it, and men of the north, supported by their women, answered the call fully.
” ……….then blame whatever difficulties there are between Christians and Muslims on Christian support for Israel….”
so if support for Israel is the problem why do the Muslims destroy and kill Buddhists? Hindus? Zoroastrians? Bahais? Chinese who do not support Israel? etc
“What is remarkable is that liberation theology —has not been used by its adherents to highlight the suffering of Christians under Muslim rule.”
No it’s not remarkable to thoseof us who have watched these type of people who are giant hypocrites and masters of the double standard- and quite open in their hatred of all things Christian or Jewish.
Actually, Christian theologians do not speak up for Palestinian Christians generally. The murders and other outrages in Gaza, for example, draw no attention. When Israel can be blamed (generally for fanciful reason) they leap to the barricades in defense of their co-religionists. When Muslims persecute Christians, they say nothing.
I lived in Israel from 1973-75 and at that time Bethlehem was about eighty percent Christian. It’s now something like fifteen percent and those who left didn’t leave out of fear of the IDF. Meanwhile, the only country in the Middle East whose Christian problem is growing is Israel.
Similarly, they bleed for the Palestinians. The Kurds? The Baluchis? Who?