After a break...

You might have thought I was waiting until next Thanksgiving to pick up blogging again, but I needed to take some time to step back and reflect on the purpose and nature of what I was posting. From here on, my goal is to post once a week.

The subject that brings me out of hibernation is that of Islam in the modern world. Islam in Europe has been grabbing the headlines, from bombings in Spain and then England, to riots in France, and now, of course, the cartoon debacle of the Danes with all of the global implications that have issued forth from it.

There is an editorial in the Wall Street Journal yesterday which details the hypocrisy and purely political motivations behind the riots over the recent cartoon incident. The author documents how the Quran does not forbid images of Muhammad, and there are in fact many, many images of Muhammad which have been created or painted by Muslims and are on display in Muslim museums around the world. The final sentence in the column states: “Just as Muslims should not blame all Westerners for the poor taste of a cartoonist who wanted to be offensive, those horrified by the spectacle of rent-a-mob sackings of embassies in the name of Islam should not blame all Muslims for what is an outburst of fascist energy.”

We should not blame all Muslims for these crimes, but what is so dangerous in this line of thinking is the notion that it is only radical Islam which poses such a deadly threat to the West. Related to this subject, another book I have been skimming is The West’s Last Chance, by Tony Blankley, editor of the editorial page for the Washington Times. He is quite helpful in the analysis of the Islamic threat – warning first of the Eurabianizing of Europe if action is not taken. Yet, in his conclusion and call for action, Blankley falls illogically short of the mark (based on his own arguments) in placing the heart of the threat in radical Islamic groups rather than the religion that has given birth to them. Other similar analyses do the same. Our politically correct frame of mind may indeed do us in as a culture if we cannot call a spade a spade – and act accordingly. There will be political steps that require that we work with Islamic governments, and we must do so with tact. However, we must understand the truly theological nature of the conflict in which we are engaged and not underestimate the true enemy and the long term goals of even moderate Muslims. Western Christians who are under thirty should especially engage their minds to understand that there can be no compromise between Christ and Islam. Especially depending on what happens in Europe in the coming decade or two, this could very well be the defining issue for our generation of the faith.