“Fringe” Muslims vs. “fringe” Christians
By Tom Quiner
“Islam is really a religion of peace. Those who kill in the name of Mohammad are simply fringe groups, much like fringe Christian groups who bomb abortion clinics in the name of Christ.”
I heard this line again this week.
As you might guess, it came from liberals. It is repeated ad infinitum by Muslim apologists who try to create a moral equivalency between the two religions to explain away ongoing Islamic terrorism.
It came up again in light of the recent murder of four unarmed soldiers by an American Muslim in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Since liberals always bring up abortion clinic bombings, let’s look at the numbers. How many Christians are killing folks practicing human abortion in national and international abortion factories compared to Muslims who kill infidels? (Obviously, I’m not counting the victims of human abortion procedures itself. If we did, Muslims would look like peaceniks compared to human abortionists.)
THIS YEAR (so far)
Number of people killed in abortion clinics: 0
Number of people killed in the name of Mohammad: 2988
SINCE 9/11
Number of people killed in abortion clinics: 1
Number of people killed in the name of Mohammad: 26,477
The lone victim of anti-abortion violence was late term abortion doctor, George Tiller, who was actually shot to death in his church, not an abortion clinic, in 2009. Nonetheless, the shooter, Scott Roeder, killed Dr. Tiller because he performed human abortions.
Mr. Roeder’s wife said her husband suffered from mental illness, having been diagnosed with possible schizophrenia when he was a young man. Roeder did not espouse any religious reasons for killing Tiller.
Since May 1st alone, Muslim terrorists have targeted and killed 192 Christians for the crime of following Christ.
For example, on June 18th Muslims shot an Anglican pastor and a 9-year-old boy to death in Wakama, Nigeria.
For example, on May 26th an 80-Year-Old Iraqi Christian woman was burned alive for failing to comply with Sharia restrictions.
For example, on May 24th ninety-six Nigerian Christians were burned to death in their church by militant Muslims.
When the sayings of Mohammad are contrasted with those of Jesus, the disconnect is jarring.
Jesus said,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16]
By contrast, Mohammad said,
“Allah does not love those who reject Islam.” [Qhr’an 30:45, 3:32, 22:38]
Jesus said,
“He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.”
By contrast, Mohammad said,
“I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” [Muslim 1:33]
In a remarkable act of mercy, Jesus intervened when a woman caught in adultery was about to be stoned to death. He said,
“Let you without sin cast the first stone.”
By contrast, Muslim 4206 calls for the stoning of women caught in adultery. None of these Muslim references sound very peaceful. Everything that flowed from the mouth of Jesus promoted peace, love, and mercy, except when dealing with religious hypocrites.
So the next time one of your liberal friends makes a statement like the one posted at the beginning of this piece, you might simply ask them a follow up question, something like, “what do you base that on?”
Let them talk.
Encourage them to get it all out. Ask them if they have any data. When they say no, you can say, “I do.”
Islam, the religion of peace? More like the religion of “Piece”. Let me have a piece of that infidel, or Christian. Great post!
Thank-you!
I think that it would be interesting to observe that if investigations into the Quran turn out violent messages, then investigations into modern Muslim populations would probably show many examples of the pursuit of love and humanity (e.g. the women protests of 1979 in Iran, or the more recent “Happy” song by Pharrell Williams, lip-sung by British-Muslim citizens). Similarly, while a reading into the Gospels can reveal Christ’s love, a reading into the history of the spread of Christianity undoubtedly includes many moment of hate and violence (e.g. the classic case of the Crusades, or the recent pedophilic cases within the Catholic Church). Both these statements are probably fraught with problems, but they both show a basic capacity of practioners and participants of faith to shape the role of their religion into the future, influencing how people think about said faith.
That is why it becomes problematic to lift passages from ancient texts, compare them, and claim that in the span of a single line there arises the entire anatomical structure of a faith as it exists in the 21st century. The lines ignore original contexts, the influence of complex histories, and the men and women and children that live by those lines in their day to day lives.
No doubt the line at the beginning of your post is a watered-down, liberal, and apologist statement. But those are not the statements that we, as Christians, need to work out or expend our energies on. What does it mean to say that Islam is “really” anything? What does it mean to say “fringe”? Is Islam, as it currently exists in this historical time, the “real” Islam of all time? Is Christianity – as it existed once Roman Emperor Constantine endorsed it as the state religion of Rome thereby injecting Christianity with the classical greed of the rich – is this the “real” Christianity as conceived by Christ? “Liberal” or “conservative” should claim no authority as the lenses by which to view a religion, critique it, and compare it to another. Too many disrupting, complicating, and critical questions are lost in the rapturous show-down between “liberal” and “conservative”, “Jesus” and “Mohammad”, or “Christianity” and “Islam”.
“That is why it becomes problematic to lift passages from ancient texts, compare them, and claim that in the span of a single line there arises the entire anatomical structure of a faith as it exists in the 21st century.” I think the entire Christian Bible can easily be summarized in John 3:16. Regarding Mohammad’s intent, evidently there are no shortage of contemporary Muslims who take his words at face value. Just ask the 29,000 some victims (since 9/11) of the so-called “religion of peace.”
I agree this religion is not and will never be considered peaceful. One of the main factors that I think has a large effect on what should be a peaceful religion is the fact that most of the population are still living in the past and are guided literally by the Koran as they were hundreds of years ago when conflict, punishment and death was accepted as part of life.
Luckily in western countries we do not have many Christians who follow the violent parts in the bible literally and because in stark contrast to them our societies are educated and wealthy enough to know how to live in relative peace.
Interesting perspective. Islam views faith and reason as being adversarial; Christianity views them as allies. The results speak for themselves.
I lost my only daughter when she was 19 in 2014. My oldest child, a son, is 23 yo. I remarried.
This is exactly the same bilge my son spews and worse. He said something to me the other night while discussing the shooting in Philly of a police officer sitting in his car. He basically said he couldn’t believe I was calling the shooter a terrorist and Islam the problem when Christians have been terrorists for millennia using their holy book. I think I realized then that he was lost to the brainwashing of the Left after public school and college and his peers and it is heartbreaking for me esp after losing my daughter. It’s like I have lost him too. All the leftist ideologies galore including practically Communism he is in the tank for and my husband keeps telling me that I will not be the one to open his eyes he will have to have his thinking challenged by others and get humiliated in the process. My husband says and I have to laugh although it’s hard, he will say don’t talk to your son about social issues and religion and politics until he is 36 and has a kid. I am crushed bc my son is a dyed in the wool Socialist. His Dad is a non practicing Jew and are mostly Democrats in his family. My Mom is an establishment Repub and my two older sisters are Left.
I am the only Conservative. Any help would be a blessing in how to build the respect up between my son and myself.
I have found politics within family to be so full of land mines as best avoided. The line that needs to be challenged, though, is this notion that Christians are just as bad as Muslims, that like Islam, they have historically been about violence. That is utter nonsense. A good book on the subject is, “Yours Is the Church: How Catholicism Shapes Our World,” by Mike Aquilina. It’s a quick, easy read, and you’ll appreciate it whether you’re Catholic or not.
Thank you
Thank-YOU for reading and responding. This blogpost is politically-incorrect, but factually accurate. Come again.