“The largest threat to the world’s safety and security at present and throughout the 21st Century is Christian, Jewish, and Islamic fundamentalism.”
These are the words of Pastor Eric Elnes, Senior Minister at Countryside Community Church in Omaha. It is part of his exhortation to his congregation to join the Tri-Faith Initiative. The laughable conflation of Christian and Jewish “fundamentalism” with the horrors of Islamic jihad serves no one but his own apparently limitless sense of self. The good pastor continues:
“Each subscribes to an entirely “worldly” form of faith in which the God of their understanding (and they understand God perfectly in their estimation) loves the very people they love and hates the people they hate.”
Aside from the very unappealing snarkiness of his condescending characterization of other faiths, one can’t help but notice that his own characterizations apply more appropriately to himself as he projects his own self-righteousness onto those with whom he disagrees. Rev. Elnes finishes:
“And guess who each of these groups hates? Anyone who is not a fundamentalist of their particular tribe.”
What a neatly tied parcel your prejudice makes Reverend Elnes. It must be very easy for you to carry it with you, leaking it’s poison with your every step. Do you honestly believe that you’ve figured it all out and the only possible reason why some may oppose you must be rooted in hatred?
Hate never enters into the equation Pastor. The fundamentalism you so blithely decry on the part of Christians and Jews, and so naively excuse in Islam (by assigning it moral equivalence in your above statement) finds expression in such different ways among those three faiths as to be utterly unconnected.
Please show me the Christian church that is calling for the murder of those who believe differently. Is it the Lutherans? The Catholics? Evangelicals? I must’ve missed that memo.
Likewise Reverend, would you deign to reveal the Jewish synagogues that support the subjugation of other peoples simply for not worshipping in the same manner as they?
I imagine it is the Amish we must fear? Such fundamentalism is surely a threat to national security in the same way as civilizational jihad.
Hate is a strong word Reverend, and ascribing it as a motivation to those who simply ask questions about the wisdom of partnering with a Mosque that refuses to renounce clear associations with groups that support the very radicalism presently convulsing the Middle East, is not a hallmark of a man of God, but rather the pathetic bleating of a bigot.
In Iraq today, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) brutally executed hundreds of unarmed soldiers and civilians – not because they posed any threat to ISIS or its aims (they had already surrendered) – but because they were from a different sect of Islam.
Please illustrate for me Reverend Elnes, the contemporary examples of Jewish and Christian fundamentalism that would place those religions on a par with the sickness illustrated in this photo.
Your moral equivalence argument is barely concealed religious bigotry. Your church heralds the idea that “there are many paths to God,” yet you are personally treating those who disagree with your views as some sort of spiritual Neanderthals…unenlightened hate-mongers, who now having been effectively dehumanized by your characterizations, can have their beliefs dismissed just as casually.
Ironically, this is precisely the method by which Islamists silence their critics and racists marginalize those of a different color. Great company you’re in with, Pastor. You might want to reconsider the attitude that brought you there.
Tell your congregants the truth Reverend. Quit concealing the associations of the Tri-Faith and the AIISC with CAIR and ISNA. Cease whitewashing the well-known and equally well-documented status of these groups as fronts for radical Islamism. But above all, find some humility. Your naked ambition is showing.