McMaster? McDhimmi? McSlave?
It’s easy to distance ourselves from Westboro Baptist Church. They’re extremists with monstrous practices that flow from a twisted theology of a deceived people. We’re not extremists. We’d never dream of protesting the funerals of American soldiers or even conceive of picketing the funerals of Sandy Hook Elementary victims in the name of God while smugly declaring via Twitter that “God sent the shooter.” We’d never indoctrinate our children as they have and call it nurture. Between most of us and those at Westboro Baptist Church, there’s a great gulf fixed.
But then..
Most of us wouldn’t go to the same lengths as those at Westboro, but collectively, we have our own prejudices, rigid rules, regulations, and zealotries. These drive us to marginalize, cast aspersions upon and exclude others within our own churches, Christian organizations and institutions who so much as dare to differ, even slightly, from our own political or theological stances.
**
If Christianity is understood as the religion of love, then from a Christian perspective, WBC’s excessive and hate-fueled zeal distances them from the very Christianity they claim, and which in historical perspective gave rise to them. Mutatis mutandis, If Islam is understood as the religion of Peace, then from an Islamic perspective, ISIS’ excessive and hate-fueled zeal distances them from the very Islamic faith they claim, and which in historical perspective gave rise to them.
**
Unfortunate McMaster — caught in the crossfire between the theological snipers of Is and Isn’t.
Page 2 of 2 | Previous page
carl:
August 5th, 2017 at 4:02 am
This is how to get it right. If they kill, torture and enslave people as ISIS does, kill them. If they don’t, don’t. If they say they are Muslim, take them at their word. If they say they are Christian, take them at their word.
.
A post comparing ISIS to the people at Westboro Baptist Church seems to me to walking real close to the edge of cultural relativism. I don’t think you can ignore the fact that one is an organized group of mass murderers and the other is an organized group of jerks. Rather a large difference/
Charles Cameron:
August 5th, 2017 at 5:05 am
Hi, Carl:
.
I’m not trying for cultural relativism, nor claiming the two situations are identical. I don’t ignore “the fact that one is an organized group of mass murderers and the other is an organized group of jerks” — I recognize it.
.
What I am trying to do is to provide a way of seeing ISIS as it may be seen from within, fro0m nearby, from elsewhere in Islam, and from outside Islam, using an example from my own culture which, vuewed from different perspectives both is and is not clearly Christian — and Baptist.