Are Christians and Muslims the Same?
“Offend a Christian and he is obliged to pray for your salvation. Offend a Muslim and he is obliged to murder you.” So observed conservative journalist Robert Stacy McCain in the wake of last week’s horrific Charlie Hebdo massacre in France.
And then we have Islam’s useful idiots—the politically correct set: secular-“progressive” media-types and other left-wing ivory tower elitists bent on bowing in subservient dhimmitude to the “religion of peace.” You know, people like Barack Hussein Obama who, in 2012, demanded from his lofty perch at the U.N., “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
I assume that by “the prophet of Islam,” the current leader of the free world was referencing Muhammad, a child-molesting, Christian-and-Jew-beheading slave trader who, for the purposes of selfish ambition and political power alone, plagiarized and perverted the Judeo-Christian Bible to cobble together the Quran—an incoherent owner’s manual to nearly a quarter of the world’s population. Islam is Christianity’s photo-negative, and a cheap knockoff at that. (Mr. President, you went to law school. You should know that truth is an affirmative defense to slander.)
Liberals: You can’t live with ’em, you can’t slaughter ’em en masse. Unless, of course, you’re a Muslim terrorist. Then, and as per Hillary Clinton, we must “respect” and “empathize with [your] perspective and point of view.”
Like the battered wife who keeps coming back for more (but didn’t she really bring it on herself?) secular-“progressives” will trip over themselves to rationalize the barbaric acts of those who take seriously the express dictates of this savage cult.
Better still, and as an alternative to excusing the global explosion in Islamic violence, these same “progressives” might choose to exploit the bloodshed for their own socio-political gain. If the Muslim world gives them lemons, they’ll compare apples to oranges. They’ll leverage the Islamic violence to actually slander the one religion they do hate: Christianity.
Even before the bodies of the French fallen had grown cold, former Rolling Stone executive editor and home-lobotomized liberal Eric Bates did just that. In perhaps the dumbest comment ever uttered on liberal television (and there is no short supply to choose from), Bates, who was a guest on the always-dependable MSNBC newsy network, compared the late Rev. Jerry Falwell to the Charlie Hebdo terrorists, suggesting that “religious fundamentalists of all stripes and of nationalities have this penchant to say, we want to be able tell you what you can and can’t portray.”
In an email addressing Bates’ remarks, Deryl Edwards, president of Liberty Counsel Action and close friend and confidant to Jerry Falwell for over two decades, said the following:
“To compare Dr. Falwell’s lawsuit against Hustler publisher Larry Flynt to the murderous thugs who gunned down the editors of Charlie Hebdo is mind-boggling. When I heard this comparison I was instantly reminded of the first time I ever spoke with Dr. Falwell. I was a student at Liberty Baptist College (now Liberty University) at the time. As my Christian service that semester I was working the tape ministry, which, in those days, meant duplicating sermon messages onto cassettes that were sent out to radio stations.
“I was there by myself in one of the adjacent buildings to Thomas Road Baptist Church when the door suddenly opened and I heard a booming voice shout out “Hello!” Turning around to see Dr. Falwell, I was more than a little scared and intimidated. But he nicely asked me if my supervisor was around. I said, “No,” and Dr. Falwell proceeded to ask me to relay a message. Dr. Falwell told me that in a recent sermon he had been critical of pornographers and, specifically, Larry Flynt. He added that Larry had just been shot and was paralyzed, so it wouldn’t be right for that tape to go out right now.
“Even as a college sophomore I right then knew the measure of the man that his enemies would never acknowledge. Dr. Falwell could have easily used this tragedy to attack Flynt and call it God’s judgment or something, but because of his compassion, he refused to verbally attack a man who had been injured. Compare this to the horrific images this week of an Islamic radical calmly and methodically executing the wounded French officer lying on the sidewalk.”
“I don’t recall Dr. Falwell leading or sending a team to assassinate Larry Flynt and the editorial staff of Hustler,” Edwards added. “He took his personal defamation case against Hustler to court, operating under the Rule of Law, and accepted the results, bitter as they may be. To take that further, Dr. Falwell then invested his time and much prayer, until he died, to winning Larry Flynt, whom he loved, to the Lord.”
And there, Mr. Bates, is your contrast/comparison between Christianity and Islam. Dr. Jerry Falwell was a man with more love in his heart and righteousness in his soul than, absent your own coming to King Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you’ll possess in a lifetime.
This is the difference between Christianity and Islam. They are as day and night.
One loves its enemies. The other murders them.
One frees women and children. The other binds them.
One welcomes conversion. The other compels it.
One suffers persecution. The other inflicts it.
One is truth. The other a lie.
One offers eternal salvation. The other, damnation.
Islam is the poison.
Christ is the cure.
Matt Barber is founder and editor-in-chief of barbwire.com. He is an author, columnist, cultural analyst and an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. Having retired as an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer, Matt has taken his fight from the ring to the culture war. (Follow Matt on Twitter: @jmattbarber).
