Scarborough actually goes farther toward the truth than most mainstream media types, and much farther than anyone on MSNBC usually goes, when he rejects the idea that the jihadis are “as far from Islam as possible.” He even acknowledges that they stand for “a stripped down and pure Islam as it gets.” But then, perhaps sensing that he had strayed dangerously far from the politically correct reservation, ran back to safety by equating jihadis with “ultrafundamentalist Christians who believe every single word of the Bible has to be interpreted in the exact ways which could also lead to some violence.”
The problem with this is that the violent Christians that Obama used as bogeys just recently — the Crusaders — were not “ultrafundamentalist Christians,” and they didn’t (and couldn’t) point to the Bible to justify acts of violence in the way that jihadis point to the Qur’an to justify violence. This is why there have been over 25,000 acts of jihad terror since 9/11, all justified by their perpetrators by invoking Islamic teachings, and exactly zero acts of terror committed by fundamentalist Christians who pointed to the Bible to justify their violence. But such distinctions will never get a hearing on MSNBC.
“Scarborough: Like Radical Islam, ‘Ultrafundamentalist’ Christianity Could Also Lead to Violence,” by Mark Finkelstein, Newsbusters, February 16, 2015:
…On today’s Morning Joe, Scarborough twice suggested such parallels, analogizing radical Islamists to “ultrafundamentalist Christians who believe every single word of the Bible has to be interpreted in the exact ways which could also lead to some violence.” A bit later, Scarborough circled back, saying “it doesn’t matter what faith you’re in,” that a literal reading of scripture attracts the outcasts of society, for better or “for much worse.”…
JOE SCARBOROUGH: What your article, Graeme, pointed out was that Westerners, who say they’re just getting petty thiefs and robbers and assaulters from across the planet don’t understand and they will say, this isn’t Islam, this is as far from Islam as possible. You say this actually is a stripped down and pure Islam as it gets. It’s what, a very crude way to put it is this would be the ultrafundamentalist Christians who believe every single word of the Bible has to be interpreted in the exact ways which could also lead to some violence . . . I’m not comparing — I am not comparing religions here so I don’t want to be torn to shreds online today. But I will say to a lesser degree, it doesn’t matter what faith you have, a more fundamentalist, a more stripped down, raw version, a more liberal [sic, presumably meant “literal”] reading of the scripture will be more likely to attract the broken, the disillusioned, the outcast of society. And again, sometimes for better, in this case for much worse….