Jesus and Jihad

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Jesus and Jihad
33
Sat, 07-17-2004 - 11:06am
This article by Nicholos Kristof gives voice to an uncomfortable feeling of mine. I have posted about the "Clash of Civilizations" before, but this article places the question more exactly: "this portrayal of a bloody Second Coming reflects a shift in American portrayals of Jesus, from a gentle Mister Rogers figure to a martial messiah presiding over a sea of blood. Militant Christianity rises to confront Militant Islam." Is this an outcome that we would willingly advocate?

If the latest in the "Left Behind" series of evangelical thrillers is to be believed, Jesus will return to Earth, gather non-Christians to his left and toss them into everlasting fire:

"Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again."

These are the best-selling novels for adults in the United States, and they have sold more than 60 million copies worldwide. The latest is "Glorious Appearing," which has Jesus returning to Earth to wipe all non-Christians from the planet. It's disconcerting to find ethnic cleansing celebrated as the height of piety.

If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of "Glorious Appearing" and publish it in Saudi Arabia, jubilantly describing a massacre of millions of non-Muslims by God, we would have a fit. We have quite properly linked the fundamentalist religious tracts of Islam with the intolerance they nurture, and it's time to remove the motes from our own eyes.

In "Glorious Appearing," Jesus merely speaks and the bodies of the enemy are ripped open. Christians have to drive carefully to avoid "hitting splayed and filleted bodies of men and women and horses."

"The riders not thrown," the novel continues, "leaped from their horses and tried to control them with the reins, but even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted and their tongues disintegrated. . . . Seconds later the same plague afflicted the horses, their flesh and eyes and tongues melting away, leaving grotesque skeletons standing, before they, too, rattled to the pavement."

One might have thought that Jesus would be more of an animal lover.

These scenes also raise an eschatological problem: Could devout fundamentalists really enjoy paradise as their friends, relatives and neighbors were heaved into hell?

As my Times colleague David Kirkpatrick noted in an article, this portrayal of a bloody Second Coming reflects a shift in American portrayals of Jesus, from a gentle Mister Rogers figure to a martial messiah presiding over a sea of blood. Militant Christianity rises to confront Militant Islam.

This matters in the real world, in the same way that fundamentalist Islamic tracts in Saudi Arabia do. Each form of fundamentalism creates a stark moral division between decent, pious types like oneself — and infidels headed for hell.

No, I don't think the readers of "Glorious Appearing" will ram planes into buildings. But we did imprison thousands of Muslims here and abroad after 9/11, and ordinary Americans joined in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in part because of a lack of empathy for the prisoners. It's harder to feel empathy for such people if we regard them as infidels and expect Jesus to dissolve their tongues and eyes any day now.

I had reservations about writing this column because I don't want to mock anyone's religious beliefs, and millions of Americans think "Glorious Appearing" describes God's will. Yet ultimately I think it's a mistake to treat religion as a taboo, either in this country or in Saudi Arabia.

I often write about religion precisely because faith has a vast impact on society. Since I've praised the work that evangelicals do in the third world (Christian aid groups are being particularly helpful in Sudan, at a time when most of the world has done nothing about the genocide there), I also feel a responsibility to protest intolerance at home.

Should we really give intolerance a pass if it is rooted in religious faith?

Many American Christians once read the Bible to mean that African-Americans were cursed as descendants of Noah's son Ham, and were intended by God to be enslaved. In the 19th century, millions of Americans sincerely accepted this Biblical justification for slavery as God's word — but surely it would have been wrong to defer to such racist nonsense simply because speaking out could have been perceived as denigrating some people's religious faith.

People have the right to believe in a racist God, or a God who throws millions of nonevangelicals into hell. I don't think we should ban books that say that. But we should be embarrassed when our best-selling books gleefully celebrate religious intolerance and violence against infidels.

That's not what America stands for, and I doubt that it's what God stands for.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/opinion/17KRIS.html

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
In reply to: hayashig
Mon, 08-02-2004 - 1:14pm

"UN or EU Support? It isnt going to happen."


It isn't going to happen with Bush as Pres. that's for sure.


Kerry has 19 years experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He speaks other languages, can relate to people in other countries. I think he'll be able to mend the relationships that Bush broke.


"he will need to focus on issues"


He is.

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2004
In reply to: hayashig
Mon, 08-02-2004 - 3:33pm
"Kerry has 19 years experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."

Senators have little useful experience talking with foriegn leaders. They can't negoitate anything of importance so their talks are general of little consequence.

"He speaks other languages, can relate to people in other countries."

Well Bush can't speak English but relates to us just fine. ;)

Ok I couldn't resist figured somebody would say it anyhow. Speaking a language means little to relating to other people.

"I think he'll be able to mend the relationships that Bush broke."

What relationships were broke? We had disagreements over Iraq, that hasn't changed. We are still allies of the French and most other countries. Do you think they will change their viewpoints on Iraq? Perhaps so if Kerry gives them what they want and more control of Iraq. But the lofty French wouldn't want something so selfish as more control of Iraq would they? They were against Iraq on principles right? Nah they are the French.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
In reply to: hayashig
Mon, 08-02-2004 - 5:43pm
<>

I'm not so sure that abandoning Iraq is not an option. I had always thought that we needed to stabalize Iraq before we left. However, I recently changed my opinion; we may have no other choice but to leave. The US, despite rhetoric, is not in charge of the future in Iraq. We will die of a thousands cuts in a foreign land.

<>

I don't know. I did however think the article presented a perspective we don't often hear in the US. Which indicates to me that the situation in the middle east is worse than were being told. I wonder if the recent actions by militant groups is just an exercise to get other nations out of Iraq before the chaos begins. Aljazeera reported that

"Al-Ubaidi, a UK-based physiology professor, provided a detailed breakdown of the 37,000 civilian deaths for each governorate (excluding the Kurdish areas) relating to the period between March and October 2003:

Baghdad: 6103

Mosul: 2009

Basra: 6734

Nasiriya: 3581

Diwania: 1567

Wasit: 2494

Babil: 3552

Karbala and Najaf: 2263

Muthana: 659

Misan: 2741

Anbar: 2172

Kirkuk: 861

Salah al-Din: 1797."

This is the minimum. Imagine how quietly we would sit by and watch if this were the US.





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