Why is Huckabee being summoned for a round of interfaith monologue? He said:
“If the purpose of a church is to push forth the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then you have a Muslim group that says that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated, I guess I have a hard time understanding that.”
Islam does not “obliterate” Jesus, but rather appropriates Jesus as a messenger of Islam in order to create a place for Muhammad in its narrative. Islamic teachings do seek to do away with central Christian beliefs about Jesus’ divinity, message, death, and resurrection, and they make professing those beliefs a cause for persecution under Islamic law.
That latter issue has been known to catch the attention of concerned citizens.
Qur’an 9:29 offers non-believers, including Jews and Christians, the option of conversion, subjugation, or war. So, Christians may not be “obliterated” in one fell swoop, but slowly (“tolerantly,” “compassionately”) strangled and expected to fade away quietly in a land where they cannot display crosses, propagate their faith, or repair their churches and monasteries.
Those clarifications aside, Huckabee is quite correct in noting the contempt in which Islam holds the religion whose local church would offer its hospitality. It is that contempt which results in the lack of reciprocal respect for non-Muslim religions and the unequal rights to religious freedom seen in Muslim countries.
“Muslims Demand Huckabee Apologize for ‘Infidel’ Comment,” from Fox News, February 21 (thanks to Ken):
A prominent Muslim civil rights group is asking Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, to apologize for his take on Christian churches that have allowed Muslims to use their worship space.
Apologies: a symbolic form of tribute, but demanded with no less a sense of entitlement. And “Muslim civil rights group” is right. It’s the fate of everyone else’s civil rights under Sharia that becomes cause for alarm.
Huckabee, who also ran for president in 2008 and is mulling a 2012 bid, said on “Fox and Friends” recently that he did not understand why churches would make that sort of decision.
“If the purpose of a church is to push forth the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then you have a Muslim group that says that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated, I guess I have a hard time understanding that,” said Huckabee, who has his own show on Fox News.
“Is there a reason to say that the people who donated, who gave, who sacrificed to give that facility really ever intended it to be a place where something that is the antithesis of the gospel of Christ would be presented?” he added.
Well, the ahadith say Jesus will come back to break all the crosses anyway (Sahih Bukhari 3.43.656, among others), and “fight the people in the cause of Islam” (Sunan Abu Dawud 37.4310).
On Monday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations called Huckabee’s comments divisive and proposed that he meet with Muslim leaders to discuss commonly misheld views about the religion.