The appalling Kristof just can’t keep himself from equating Christian fundamentalists with Islamic jihadists. I have taken him to task for this once before, and just completed a long post about this that was obliterated by technical difficulties. Nick is practicing what in Islam Unveiled I call “theological equivalence”: the tendency to equate Christianity and Islam, just as during the Cold War his ideological older brothers practiced “moral equivalence,” which opined that the USA and the USSR were just two sides of the same coin. The net result is the same: to make defense efforts seem unnecessary. After all, we’re all the same, aren’t we?
Here is Nick from today’s Times, with thanks to Steve:
If America’s secular liberals think they have it rough now, just wait till the Second Coming.
The “Left Behind” series, the best-selling novels for adults in the U.S., enthusiastically depict Jesus returning to slaughter everyone who is not a born-again Christian. The world’s Hindus, Muslims, Jews and agnostics, along with many Catholics and Unitarians, are heaved into everlasting fire: “Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and . . . they tumbled in, howling and screeching.”
Gosh, what an uplifting scene!
If Saudi Arabians wrote an Islamic version of this series, we would furiously demand that sensible Muslims repudiate such hatemongering. We should hold ourselves to the same standard.
Nick, you really ought to acquaint yourself with what they’re really saying in Saudi Arabia. Do a search or two at this site.
Silly me. I’d forgotten the passage in the Bible about how Jesus intends to roast everyone from the good Samaritan to Gandhi in everlasting fire, simply because they weren’t born-again Christians.
I accept that Mr. Jenkins and Mr. LaHaye are sincere. (They base their conclusions on John 3.) But I’ve sat down in Pakistani and Iraqi mosques with Muslim fundamentalists, and they offered the same defense: they’re just applying God’s word.
Nick, I won’t buy your argument until the troops crash into Jerry Falwell’s beheading parlor.