So, I'm having breakfast with my wife at McDonald's on Saturday and I read this headline on FaceBook: Community Shocked Over Christian Church Sign: 'Muhammad not Greater than Jesus.' And they aren't kidding when they say shocked. One resident, Eric Cohn, is reported as saying, “I literally had to stop and back up and make sure I saw what I saw, and I was profoundly offended and upset by it.” Cohn also felt moved to write a letter to the editor of the local paper where he said, “Disparaging another group’s God is completely out of line.... Please, take it down — now.”
Another offended resident said in the same editorial, “I want to complain openly about the marquis in front of the Missionary Baptist Church on Belmont Drive. The message on the west bound side of the sign promotes ignorance, bigotry and hatred, none of which are regarded as true Christian values.”
In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father but by me.” The message of Christ is one of exclusivity. There is only one name by which men may be saved: it's Jesus – not Allah, not Muhammad, not Buddha, not Confucius. If Jesus is right, then all these other religions are wrong. Liberals say I'm intolerant but the truth pretty much is exclusive. I find it offensive – and more than a little hypocritical – that liberals say I'm bigoted and intolerant for believing the words of Christ. They say I'm wrong for believing someone else's religion is wrong yet liberals can't see how they are calling my religion wrong.
Even the mayor of Hood River, OR, had an opinion on the sign. Mayor Blackburn said, “I was really annoyed and sad. I am annoyed that in this political season there's a solid case of ugly going on. I think it norms up this kind of behavior like 'oh it's okay to be a bigot now.'”
The other thing that offends me is when elected, public officials abuse their office. Is this mayor aware that the Constitution protects our freedom of speech and the right to freely exercise our religion? If private citizens want to write letters to the editor or protest a church, they have a right to do so. But when the mayor, a representative of the state, uses the sway of his office to mock and ridicule the religious speech of a church, it erodes our liberty. Mayor Blackburn is a despot, a tyrant, and an offender of freedom!
OK, now fast forward to Sunday. My wife and I are having lunch after church and see the news of the shooting in FL. A radical Muslim called 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS before shooting more than 100 people, killing 50 of them (later it was amended to 49). How sad.
I find it strange that the “peaceful” religion of Islam continuously spawns worshipers who would shoot people in a night club, burn Christians alive, behead people on TV, fly planes into buildings, and strap bombs to themselves to blow people up in a mall, while brain-damaged liberals continuously call for tolerance. Yet let a Christian church puts out a sign that says Jesus is greater than Muhammad and militant bleeding-hearts seem ready to riot. Really?
Oh, and I'm getting a little offended that the shooting is being characterized as an attack on gays. It's sort of like the President calling the Ft. Hood shooting a case of workplace violence. This was a jihadist. He would have found any reason to shoot innocent people. If it weren't a gay nightclub, it could have been a bus full of first-grade kids. It didn't matter to the shooter. At the end of the day, he wanted to create terror. If we don't identify the problem for what it is, it only distracts from the issue. We need to deal with radical Muslims who want to kill all of us; this is not the time to talk about gay rights or gun control.
It is God's will that we should all come to believe in the Son and have life (John 6:40). It is the plan of terrorists to kill non-believers. Christians want the lost to hear the truth. We want to reach them with the gospel – the good news. There is life in Jesus and none other. We plead with people, we reason with them, we pray for them – we don't shoot them. Are liberals really so thinned skinned that they're offended by a sign that says the Muslims are wrong?
I'm offended by stupidity.
4 comments:
It seems that these days words hurt more than stones and sticks. I wonder if they would protest the same way when a mosque advertise something with the word "infidel".
Josue,
Some people seem to think they have a right to not be offended. In a free society, it is inevitable that someone will say something that someone else disagrees with. I think that an open exchange of ideas is good for society. Yet liberals want to silence debate and label anything they disagree with as “hate speech.” In some cases, they've even been successful in getting laws passed that restrict free speech for the sake of fairness.
What I can't figure out is why liberals seem to champion gays, women, and other minorities while also asking for tolerance of Islam which seeks to oppress or kill women and gays. It's insane.
Thanks for your comments. God bless!!
RKBentley
Amen Mr. Bentley! You are right on! Grace and Peace!
Post a Comment