“The awful truth about Islam is that it isn’t a religion of peace and tolerance.”
About two or three years ago, as we headed into the last week of Christmas, some headlines were full of hopeful promise for a Unified Palestinian State in the coming year. The theory was that a UPS would go a long way to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Of course it didn’t happen. Did anyone really expect it would? Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is proving as elusive as shadowy Bigfoot, or that special inter-galactic letter to SETI.
In fact we just signed off on yet another year of violence in Israel. We saw opportunistic stabbing attacks on Jews by ordinary Palestinians. These attacks were sanctioned by Muslim preachers and the Palestinian leaders. There was even one incident where a man deliberately drove his car into a group of Jews. Not to mention the violence on the Temple Mount.
Washington Post’s Anne-Marie O’Connor cycled the usual Christmas-time charges:
“…Palestinians say major challenges remain: the Israeli military checkpoints and security barrier that separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem, a ten minute drive away; the shuttered homes and shops that are symbols of a stagnant economy; and the Israeli settlements that are growing around Bethlehem on land claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.”
All this has nothing to do with Israeli oppression, security walls or stolen land. See Leo Rennert’s response to O’Connor at American Thinker. Christians have been evacuating the Middle East (not just Bethlehem) long before there were Syrian refugees.
We’ve all read the manifold excuses designed to defend Islam and not offend Muslims and Palestinians. But the awful truth about Islam is that it isn’t a religion of peace and tolerance. History has shown otherwise. Proponents of Islam will only tolerate their own versions of Islam in regions where they are dominant. Mark Durie observes:
‘It is high time for western political leaders to stop responding to terrorism by naming Islam as ‘the religion of peace’. It is time to have a hard conversation about Islam…The West is in the throes of acute cognitive dissonance over Islam, whose brands are at war with each other. On the one hand we are told that Islam is the Religion of Peace. On the other hand we are confronted with an unending sequence of acts of terror committed in the name of the faith.’
I don’t aspire to constantly preach to the choir in these columns. Rather, I want to challenge popular assumptions I hear from casual Islamic apologists. Readers who believe Islam is given rough treatment because of a few radicals need to show how this is true. Why do you believe what you believe?
It isn’t good enough to say the Qur’an is taken out of context by radicals. Someone recently charged that one person makes a claim about what it really teaches while another says something else. This is a cop-out sometimes used when giving Islam the benefit of the doubt.
We should check the sources and hold our favorite documentary channels to rigid critical account. What does the Qur’an really say about itself? What about Muhammad and the Hadiths? Do you believe the general narrative because it’s more comforting than the alternative? Have you checked the truth for yourself? If not, then do your homework.
In a previous column I linked to a David Wood video in which he systematically refutes at least 20 errors in a documentary whitewashing Islam presented by ABC News. It is included here again because it is a vital tool in understanding the truth about Islam. I challenge skeptical readers to use the Qur’an (and Hadiths) to show where Wood has been misrepresenting Islam.
If you are going to have an opinion, may it be an informed one.
Wood also says that there at least three verses about Islam which Christians should be aware of. This is important in light of the fact that various popular Christian leaders have spoken approvingly of the “Holy” Qur’an and stated that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
By now most people would also have seen the photo of the lady holding the placard saying: “I’m Christian and I love the Qur’an.” I’m reminded of the polemical book by ELCA Minister Barbara Rossing (The Rapture Exposed) where she praises the “beautifully proportioned octagonal” Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.
Unfortunately, the Dome of the Rock contains inscriptions which deny Christ as the Son of the Father (1 John 2:22). The Qur’an denies Jesus Christ’s divinity. It presents an entirely different and ambiguous path to salvation than what is outlined in the Bible. And finally, Allah’s attributes are not the same as Yahweh’s.
At best, Muhammad drew elements from Christianity, Judaism and possibly Zoroastrianism to come up with his own religion. Sadly, football fans often show more loyalty to their teams than some Christians show for their professed faith.
Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?
See Robert Spencer’s article in PJ Media, Sam Shamoun’s article in Answering Islam and Nabeel Qureshi’s response.
This is a time of the year where Christians remember and contemplate what Christ did for those would believe in Him (John 3:16-18).
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Phil 2:5-11
Islam denies all this.
Apart from everything else discussed above, this is the most awful truth about Islam.
Have a Blessed Christmas season, New Year and may the Lord come soon.
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