"God's Warriors" lacked historic clarity, balance
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 By Dr. Joseph B. Fuiten
August 28, 2007
CNN's
"God's Warriors" presented the work of Positive Christian Agenda in the
last legislative session. I thought they did so fairly. More
important than what was said, was what they left out.
Beyond the immediate coverage, CNN's coverage was subject to certain assumptions and preconceived notions. First,
as they addressed the issue of religion and violence, they lacked a
control group for their analysis. The control group would be
secularism.
When atheists are in charge, what
kind of violence do we
get? Secularism
should be compared to religion to get
to the right
conclusion.
Where was there a discussion of the twenty million or more
killed by atheistic Stalin, or the thirty to thirty-five million killed
by atheistic Mao, or the eight million killed in the gas chambers by
pagan Hitler?
In the twentieth century secularism and paganism were
the violent warriors, even more than the Muslims and certainly more so
than the Jews and Christians. The underlying assumption is that
religion itself tends to make one violent. The unstated conclusion
that one should come to, based on that faulty assumption, is that
secularism is better than religion because it does not produce violence.
Second,
the premise of the program creates a sense of equivalence. Jewish and
Christian warriors are pretty much the same as Muslim.CNN would like
us to see the Muslims as pretty much like any other religious group.
Fourteen hundred years of facts would suggest otherwise.
Islam is a
religion which has aggressive war as its means of expansion. It has
been that way since the time of Mohammed. Jihad is an article of
faith. There is only Dar es Salaam and Jihad. The irony is that a
long-standing means of attacking the Christian faith has been to
characterize it as war-like and superstitious. I happen to think this
is one of the key issues of our time.
I have spoken to this issue in a
message titled "Is Christianity Violent?" It is an important message
that I would like for you to hear. Click on the heading, located in Quick Links column to the left, and it will take you to a
Sunday night message I preached on October 20, 2006. It is a message
seldom expressed in Christianity these days, much to our loss.
If you get a chance, watch a recording of "God's Warriors" after you have heard my message.
I have also included a Quick Link to a message by Arab-American Psychologist Wafa Sultan who goes after Islam. It is fairly short and well worth watching.
Yours for the Kingdom of God,
Pastor Joe
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