A stinging critique of the dhimmitude of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, from The Telegraph (thanks to Andy):
The implication of the Archbishop's letter is that the world of Islam is entitled to be exacting because it shares Christendom's values and our tendency to criticise ourselves. ...Dr Williams's belief that Christendom and Islam are one was perhaps most apparent on December 21, 2003, when he condemned the detention of Muslim asylum-seekers who, the authorities believed, were planning atrocities against the Britain on whose mercy they had thrust themselves. "There is theological debate here which is real and deep," Williams said on that occasion of his relationship with Islam, "because we share some history and we can discuss it."
Can we discuss the fact that the Muslims here, all recent immigrants, enjoy rights - for instance to propagate their religion - that are unavailable to the Christians of the Muslim world? This is despite the fact that these Christians are the original inhabitants and rightful owners of almost every Muslim land, and behave with a humility quite unlike the menacing behaviour we have come to expect from the Muslims who have forced themselves on Christendom, a bullying ingratitude that culminates in a terrorist threat to their unconsulted hosts.
Dr Williams has nothing to say about this: but then, Christian passivity in the face of Muslim narcissism and aggression is nothing new. "The history we share" is that Mohammed enjoined his followers to spread Islam by the sword. After his death in 632, Muslim armies poured out of the Arabian peninsula (the only place to which Muslims are native, though even there Islam was imposed by force) and, unprovoked, attacked its neighbours.
Christian Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Anatolia, Spain, the Balkans, the Maghreb and Sicily, as well as Buddhist central Asia, Zoroastrian Iran and Hindu India, all became "Muslim" by virtue of naked imperialism. The indigenous non-Muslims were either exterminated (the fate of the Christians of North Africa), or reduced to the status of third-class citizens in their own countries, their fate to this day.
The Crusades - for which the Pope has apologised to Islam (he did so again last week), rather as an old lady might apologise to a mugger for trying to retrieve her purse - were simply an attempt by medieval Christians to get their homelands back. Spain, Sicily, and parts of the Balkans were recovered. Palestine wasn't, though the Muslim colonisers there - who are no more "native" to the Holy Land than the European Jews who removed them - were largely ejected in 1948. It goes without saying that today's Muslims - who, unlike today's Westerners, are very proud of their history of imperialism - are highly indignant at being parted from this stolen property.
As the Pope's statement shows, Dr Williams's willingness to swallow the camel of Islam's treatment of others while straining at the gnat of Christendom's "sins" against Islam is traditional. What is unprecedented is the theological concession implicit in his remarks, ie that Islam is part of the Judaeo-Christian continuum. This idea naturally lends credence to the Muslim claim that Christ is not God, but just one in a line of Judaeo-Christian "prophets" whose "seal" is Mohammed, a claim which allows Islam to appropriate to itself the greater achievements of the Judaeo-Christian world. ...
The "fruit" of Islam is all around us: we can draw our own conclusions. It is felt in the presence of the Muslims who have fled to a thriving Christendom from the failure and horror of the Muslim world. (Would Muslims show a similar hospitality? It seems unlikely when they rail against the five million Jews who have settled in Israel, while gloating over the fact that 20 million Muslims in less than 30 years have inundated Europe.) These immigrants seem not to realise that the need they feel to flee Islam negates everything they say in its favour, as well as rendering absurd their constant anti-Western diatribes. The Archbishop of Canterbury has no such excuse.
The Abp. of Canterbury is heir to a couple centuries of liberal theology that runs as hard as it can to remain a respectful five paces behind its cultured despisers. He has surrendered talk of truth to radicals (both political and theological), while hiding behind good manners that dare not call ANYTHING evil or false. I don't know what faith the writer of the _Telegraph_ piece holds, but it sounds as if he knows what's at stake for the Christian world far more than the Archbishop does.
Frankly, I believe in being charitable, welcoming, and neighborly to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, scientific positivists, and others (Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan reminds us that our neighbors aren't just "us"-types all the time). But it is important to recognize that the Christian faith has boundaries, too.
Kepha1
"But it is important to recognize that the Christian faith has boundaries, too."
If you are not English Kepha1 you should be. You have mastered the understatement.
The good Archbishop's boundaries seem to have no bounds.
I am absolutely stunned - and delighted - that such a hard-hitting and truthful article has appeared in a UK - indeed in any Western - mass-circulation newspaper. Will Cummins, I salute you! BTW, does anyone know anything about him? Googled with no success.
"Telling the truth is a revolutionary act" especially in present times.
Whoa, take a ride on the Straight Talk Express! This is the baldest article about Islam I have ever seen appear in a mainstream Western publication, bar none! But certainly the Telegraph will be forced to print an apology, and possibly fire the writer.
BBC Newsnight did a story recently on the taxpayer-supported training of new imams going on in Wales. Undoubtedly, this is part of Tony Blair's grand scheme for reforming Islam from the "inside" and assimilating the next generation of Muslims into secular British society. France too, is scrambling to fund and fashion a version of Islam that is compatible with Western notions of liberty and democracy. This article is a stark reminder of the fate awaiting European non-Muslims if such a strategy fails.
I was absolutely astonished to read this un PC article. Of course there will be a fuss about it, but I would like to see any of the facts refuted. Fat chance of that.
Islam must be utterly eliminated so that the muslims may be saved.
Germans do better without Nazism,
Japanese do better without Shintoism,
Russians do better without Communism,
Arabs will do better without Islam.
Nazism, Shintoism and Communism were and are beyond reformation/ mellowing.
Islam is as long lived as Shintoism, as universalist as Communism and as bold and urgent as Nazism.
The war against Islam, to save the muslims, is WWIV. Essentially all terrorists are islamists.
Youcancallmemever: No, I'm not English--just something of a Brittanophile (including Scotland and Wales). But I do admit that I understate things often.
One point that I'd like to point out to the Telegraph, though. A slight majority of Israeli Jews are not Europeans and their descendants, but Mizrahis, or Middle Easterners, descended from everywhere between Uzebkistan and Afghanistan in the East to Morocco in the West. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of Iraq's once-thriving Jewish community, the first community of the diaspora, moved to Israel with little save what they could carry back in the late 1940's and early 1950's. The only difference between them and the "Palestinian" refugees is that whereas the Palestinians have been kept "refugees" for 3 or 4 generations, the former Iraqi Jews are now no-questions-asked Israelis.
A country like Britain with an established church receiving government support (two, actually, in England and Scotland) can get away with tax-supported medressahs to train "moderate" Muslim clergy. For the USA, however, what needs to be done is for the country to flip the bird at the ACLU, and make a positive presentation of America's Christian past in all schools. Fat chance it will happen, though.
This article is a milestone!
I've written to them asking them to run a series on Minority religions under Islamic rule.
The horrendeous history of persecution must be told to the general public.
Only by understanding this can they begin to understand the danger we have placed ourselves throught the greed and ignorance of our politicians.
The assassination of the History of christian minorites has accompanied the genocide of the christians themselves.
Because of this so many millions still view Islam as the religion of peace.
Incredibly i just read in the french magazine l'express that 40% of americas 8 million muslims are CONVERTS!!
How powerful is their Saudi funded propaganda machine!
Have some western Historians deliberately revised history to remove the outrages commited by Islam against minority religions ?
How has the appeasement of Christian Churches evolved into a negation of the sufferings of their flocks under the UMMA ?
Why even in the present day , and the attacks on christians and their ethnic cleansing still being ignored by the western press?
Why has the left made a pact with the evils of the Islamists ?
Why do the chuches allign themselves with Islam rather than Judaism by condemning Israel when Judaism and christianity are far close to each other?
Chevalier de St. George: Yes, a lot of historians ignored the outrages Muslims inflicted on minority religions. From the 18th century on, a large part of Western intellectual life has been a hell-for-leather struggle to discredit and abandon Christianity. One strategy used was to make rival religions and cultures look superior.
I share everyone's amazement that something so blunt could ever be published. It had seemed like the truth would never find a voice. The only disturbing part was the statement that European Jews were not natives of Israel.
The history of anti-semitism shows that they have never really been considered natives of Europe ever since the Romans kicked most of them out of - where was it now? Oh yes - Israel!
The Holocaust alone shows that the Jews are not considered Europeans.They may be Europeanized, but that's not the same thing. If they were not originally natives of Israel (do we intend to return the land to the canaanites?) where were they natives ?
Liberal Christianity has been part of the secular humanist effort to deny the reality of the Jewish God that Christians worship. If we deny the Jews we cut ourselves off from the olive tree into which we were grafted.
At that point we become vulnerable to the lie, wherever it comes from.
Question: I am deeply disturbed by what is happening in Palestine and the following questions obsess me ...Is a Muslim allowed to kill unarmed civilians, pregnant women and little children?
Answer: Irrespective of the objectives of a martyr, it is incorrect to kill civilians especially women and children and there is no reward for killing a civilian Jew in times of peace. Yes, if the target is a soldier, for instance, and a civilian is caught in the crossfire, it will be viewed as unavoidable collateral damage.
and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best
Mufti Muhammad Kadwa
FATWA DEPT.
checked & approved by: mUFTI EBRAHIM DESAI (FATWA DEPT.)
Wow no reward for killing a Jew in times of peace. well isn’t it all ways a time of war!
But hey kill all the soldiers you want!
That sounds like a peace loving religion to me. NOT!
Through the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
Maybe we should kill all the Muslims and just call it unavoidable collateral damage! They should stand where we are shooting!
The Anglican Church, like every other Christian denomination which nowadays retains any foothold in the Holy Land, whether Eastern or Western rite, Catholic or Protestant, is subject to intense, hourly pressure to do the bidding of the PA/PLO. Most of them quickly conform, since - in terms of Power Politics - the Arab Christian minorities in “Palestine” are, effectively, held as their Moslem “brothers”’ HOSTAGES, guaranteeing the compliance* of all these Churches.
On top, while the Christian congregations there are shrinking fast, due to mass-emigration, the Churches in question nevertheless possess valuable real-estate throughout Israel and the disputed territories of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and east Jerusalem. To avoid hassles, they normally jump to obey the PA/PLO instantly - indeed, they frequently vie with each other, to be an extra step ahead, to show afresh their loyalty to their Islamic masters and to be of worth to them. They’ve had centuries of experience under Islamic rule to get their responses satisfactory.
True, committed dhimmis, these Christians, often (selectively) “pacifists”, view themselves, with pride, as so totally inoffensive today - in such stark contrast to their Crusader, Inquisition and Imperialist ancestors, for whom they profusely, repeatedly apologize - that they purblindly insist on remaining tragically convinced that the dar el-Islam will RECIPROCATE all the nice things which Christians humbly tender to it, and then we can all sing together and clap along….
Though the ecclesiastical establishments, separately and jointly, deny it vehemently, in reality, without the tiniest shadow of a doubt, should the Jihad triumph, the BEST that any Christians (of whichever sect), can ever look forward to is the most abject of dhimmitude - and then, solely if the zealous “Holy Warriors” should deign NOT to cut their throats, enslaving them instead.
Dhimmitude isn’t second- or third-class status - in practice, it’s FOURTH- and FIFTH-class: first, Arab Moslem men; second, non-Arab Moslem men; third, Moslem women; fourth and fifth, the reviled male and then, finally, the female dhimmies.
*A prime example of the dhimmi Churches’disgracefully obsequious behaviour was, memorably, the case of the seizure of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, about two years ago, by heavily armed, Moslem, “Palestinian” terrorists. Despite their foul desecrations, brazen thefts, vandalism and sheer brutalities carried on there, they were treated by the Christian clerics as great heroes, while the Israelis surrounding them, patiently endeavouring to evict and arrest them, were loudly and repeatedly condemned as predatory beasts, profaning the “rights” of these gunmen.