For Christ’s Sake [View all]

[cbayer]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/republican_reaction_to_obama_s_prayer_breakfast_many_conservatives_don_t.html

Some Republicans would rather defend Christianity from all criticism than stand clearly against religious violence.

By William Saletan
FEB. 9 2015 3:29 PM


Rick Santorum, speaking here to guests at the Iowa Freedom Summit on Jan. 24, 2015, in Des Moines, is among the past and current GOP presidential candidates who have attacked Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast speech.
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

A few days ago, at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama asked people of all faiths to reflect on the perils of religious arrogance. He began with terrorists who “professed to stand up for Islam.” But he cautioned his fellow Christians:

Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. … So this is not unique to one group or one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.

Obama continued:

I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt—not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us, and doesn’t speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn’t care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.

This message of humility has infuriated the GOP. Several past and current Republican presidential candidates—Rick Santorum, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Jim Gilmore—have attacked the speech. So have dozens of conservative commentators. They reject the suggestion that Christianity has anything to apologize for. Many go further. They claim that Islam sanctions violence, that Islam is our enemy, or that Christianity is the only true faith. In issuing these declarations, Obama’s critics validate the propaganda of ISIS and al-Qaida. They’re not just pandering to the Christian right. They’re aiding the Islamic right.

Conservatives are correct that we’re in a global struggle over Islamic violence. But the struggle isn’t between Islam and Christianity. It’s between people who want religious war and people who don’t. Al-Qaida and ISIS can’t conquer the world with 19 hijackers or 20,000 fighters. They need the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. That’s why Osama Bin Laden always framed the conflict between al-Qaida and its targets as a war between Islam and “Crusaders.” It’s why George W. Bush always stressed that Islam wasn’t our adversary. And it’s why today’s conservatives, with their anti-Muslim rhetoric and their excuses for the Crusades, are doing the enemy’s work.

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