Mistaken Extrapolations

Submitted by Stephen Fong (Canada), Nov 26, 2002 at 15:03

The comments submitted by messrs Tyler and Klotz betray a curious mindset, perhaps molded by a post-modernist liberal education.

By now they should have observed, being enthusiastic readers of Daniel Pipes' articles and interviews, that it wasn't Baptists, Methodists, Anglicans, nor "fundamentalist christians" who have fired bombs, bullets, and hurled grenades in Pakistan, the Phillippines, Indonesia, Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Israel, Afghanistan, and other conflict areas. (Let's not even mention 9/11?) Where do they draw the extrapolation that a religious war between Islam and Christianity is in the offing ? Indeed when American missionaries are killed such as Bonnie Penner and Martin Burnham, do we hear calls for revenge and wars ? When Christians globally are tortured, raped, robbed, murdered, disenfranchised of their rights and property for their faith, do we see a call to arms by other "fundamentalist" Christians ? I hear prayers for their enemies, personal forgiveness for the perpetrators of these crimes and calls for justice to the rightful authorities.

If the gospel of Jesus Christ which calls for repentance from one's own sins and for salvation of mankind through the the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross can be construed as a call for warring against Islam, then I humbly submit that more research is needed to see the real picture. May I submit instead that wars are rooted in envy and jealousies ?

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