Blogs of Note

Onward Christian Soldiers Stories like this wish that I could squish some heads like the boys used to do on Kids in the Hall. I'm not Christian. I find some its stories interesting, some of its believers good people, some screwed ... in other words, just like the rest of us. Christianity also happens to be the dominant religion of the world. It was in the name of the Christian god that a lot of evil was committed as Europeans raced across the world, fed by hopes of a better life, escape from persecution and greed. I happen to think the evil that was done far outweighs the good. But that's history. History that shouldn't be forgotten, history that should have its truths told and lies revealed. We can learn from them, so as to not repeat the same mistakes again. Life goes on. We can make a better world for tomorrow by the way we live our lives today, not by going back to the past and try to recreate what would today be artificial. There ... that was my level setting of your expectations on where I'm coming from. Here's where I'm going ... head squishing. The article the above link points to is from Time Magazine. It chronicles undercover Christian missionaries that are travelling to the Muslim world, to covert them to Christianity. They insert themselves into Muslim societies and slowly try to change their thinking, to move them away from Islam and towards Christianity. These people believe things like:

"Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you."

"Jesus arose from the dead and is alive. Muhammad is dead."

"Islam is the terrorist, Muslims are the victim."

Is it no wonder that the west is hated? In the world we live today, are missionaries really needed? These missionaries are not fighting a war to bring the Christian message to the world ... they're not going out to tell the story of Jesus ... they're going out to destroy a faith. History has shown Christians doing this before. It doesn't matter what faith they're attacking - this is wrong. It won't bring peace (look at the Christians that are killing Christians today ... look how many killed each other in history). It won't bring enlightenment. It will either serve to destroy a faith, or increase the resentment already felt by a group of people who are just looking for another reason to confirm their suspicions that Christians are out to get them; that Christians are evil. Christians have yet to reach the level of fundamental fervor and violence that some fundamental Muslims have ... those Muslims have shown that they can mobilize to violent action, are willing to do so and have no qualms about killing a few Christians or anyone else who gets in their way. The outcome of Christian evangelists going off to mount missionary campaigns in Muslim countries is already clear. Avoiding that outcome means understanding today and taking action to prevent what only needs time. For those of you who are Christians ... you need to do something. The rest of us non-Christians won't be heard ... you might though, and hope is only with you. (BTW, I'm not Christian, I'm not Muslim ... I'm sometimes a lot of things, but neither of those.)