Islam, Appeasement, and Western Suicide
Back in June 2009 President Obama gave a speech in Cairo. In it he said, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam whenever they appear.” Sorry Barack Hussein Obama, but the only real duty of the President of the United States is to uphold the Constitution and defend that nation against any threats.
It is not the duty of the President to appease America’s enemies, or seek to rewrite history, or push ideological agendas. And it certainly is not the duty of the US President to become an apologist for Islam. I don’t recall in his swearing-in ceremony any words about him becoming the first President in American history to champion the cause of Islam.
Indeed, imagine if he dared to say, “I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Christianity whenever they appear.” The entire secular leftist world would go apoplectic: “Hey, what the heck happened to that separation of church and state?” They would be going ballistic over such a statement.
But the promotion and defence of Islam seems to be just hunky-dory. We have seen Obama engage in one anti-Christian agenda item after another, while at the same time bending over backwards to appease Islam. But of course he is not alone in this.
Plenty of American leaders have become de facto apologists for Islam, all the while denigrating their own country and its Judeo-Christian heritage. This in itself is bad enough, but when it compromises American security, it becomes even worse.
So fearful are so many American elites of offending Muslims in any way, that they have completely lost the plot, and fail to face reality. They simply do not want to get real about who our enemies are. And the last time I checked, it was not old, grey-haired, white women taking lessons in how to fly low-level swoops on 747s.
Mark Steyn in his very important new book also speaks to this insanity of failing to identify who our enemies are. He too worries greatly about how we are putting American security at jeopardy because of moronic political correctness and anti-anti-Islamism. Says Steyn:
“The lessons of 9/11 were quickly buried under a mountain of relativist mush. Consider the now routine phenomenon by which any, um, unusual event is instantly ascribed to anyone other than the obvious suspects. When a huge car bomb came near to killing hundreds in Times Square, the first reaction of Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor, was to announce that the most likely culprit was ‘someone with a political agenda who doesn’t like the health care bill’ (that would be me, if his SWAT team’s at a loose end this weekend). When, inevitably, a young man called Faisal Shahzad was arrested a couple days later, Mayor Bloomberg’s next reaction was to hector his subjects that under no circumstances would the city tolerate ‘any bias or backlash against Pakistani or Muslim New Yorkers’.”
But let’s get back to Obama. His relentless attempts at placating, appeasing and promoting the Islamic cause is as foolish as it is dangerous. Consider one damaging piece of UN moonbattery, the United Nations Human Rights Resolution 2005/3, “Combating Defamation of Religions,” which was passed in April of 2005.
This resolution stated that “defamation” and criticism of Islam was simply out of bounds. Amazingly, the non-binding resolution was easily passed. It was presented to the UN by Pakistan, on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Hot on the heels of this is Resolution 16/18, also moved by OIC (which now stands for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation). Nina Shea picks up the story, alerting us to this alarming situation: “The White House is giving free-speech opponents a megaphone”.
Says Shea: “Last March, U.S. diplomats maneuvered the adoption of Resolution 16/18 within the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC). Non-binding, this resolution, inter alia, expresses concern about religious ‘stereotyping’ and ‘negative profiling’ but does not limit free speech. It was intended to — and did — replace the OIC’s decidedly dangerous resolution against ‘defamation of religions,’ which protected religious institutions instead of individual freedoms. But thanks to a puzzling U.S. diplomatic initiative that was unveiled in July, Resolution 16/18 is poised to become a springboard for a greatly reinvigorated international effort to criminalize speech against Islam, the very thing it was designed to quash.”
She continues, “Having won the latest round in the ideological contest for individual rights and freedoms at the United Nations this past March, the administration is now gratuitously establishing a new ‘transnational’ forum to essentially re-litigate the matter with a body that is openly hostile to such freedoms. This forum’s agenda is to be structured so that freedom of expression will be put on trial and inevitably condemned by most forum participants as, itself, a human-rights violation. In raising OIC expectations that ‘anti-Islam and anti-Muslim attitudes’ will be dealt with under soon-to-be-drafted ‘implementation’ procedures, the administration is riding a tiger.”
Australian religious freedom expert Elizabeth Kendal has also written extensively on this worrying development. She very nicely summarises what this move is all about:
“And so, while it is being hailed in the West as a victory for free speech, Resolution 16/18, ‘Combating intolerance …,’ is even more dangerous than resolution 2005/3, ‘Combating Defamation of Religion’. It is in no way an OIC back-down or a breakthrough for liberty. Rather, the change in focus from defamation to incitement is not only totally consistent with OIC strategy since early 2009, but it actually advances the OIC’s primary goal: the criminalisation of criticism of Islam.”
Let me repeat this last line; this is all about “the criminalisation of criticism of Islam.” All over the Western world moves are under foot to make it a crime to say anything critical or negative about Islam. Here in Victoria we have Stalinist Religious Vilification laws which already basically operate in this fashion.
And concurrent with this is another major development all over the Western world: the move to make the proclamation of Christianity illegal. Laws are being passed all over the place with the sole purpose of silencing Christians. Whether they are vilification laws, or anti-discrimination laws, or so-called hate speech laws, the results are the same: a full-fledged attack on Christian freedom of speech.
It is interesting how these two dangerous trends so nicely dovetail: silence Christians, and silence any criticism of Islam. With laws like these being passed all over the West, who needs suicide bombers. Stealth jihad and creeping sharia are moving along quite nicely, thanks.
Of course getting laws like this passed will not result in the faithful getting their dark-eyed virgins in paradise, as dying for Allah does, but it still renders the West impotent, impoverished and enslaved. That too is something all Islamists look forward to.
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2009/06/05/obama-islam-and-appeasement/
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/276021/administration-takes-islamophobia-nina-shea
http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/2011/08/hr-resolution-1618.html
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Scary stuff! Maybe we need to get Christians ready for persecution. Back to texts like 1 Peter.
Jon Newton
We need more Christians in parliament.
Rosina Gordon
Rosina, I’m not sure that will be enough.
If we look at the “born-again Presidency” of Jimmy Carter in the USA, the effect of having an openly evangelical Christian in the White House was probably “zip” as Bill would say.
We also need more overtly Christian accountants, bakers, plumbers, salesmen, ambulance drivers, farmers, checkout staff etc so that the people who go to vote every 3-4 years are thinking Christianly, and voting according to a Biblical worldview – such as we are able to discuss here.
John Angelico
Of course, the idea is to shut down Christianity completely. In Adelaide, Christian people who ae exercising their right to free speech are being heckled and jeered at – even been taken to court for preaching the Gospel. Adelaide Council tried to ban them, but the Court stated that their by-laws as written could not do this, so now the Council is busily redrafting these by-laws to stop them preaching in the Mall. The hatred shown by the public was terrifying to see, but the Preachers, just kept on repeating “We love you and wish to bring the word of God to you”.
It seems strange that an Imam from inner Sydney is allowed to preach hatred and violence against this Country with absolutely no interference, but peaceful Christians must be stopped at any cost.
Joan Davidson
Yes quite right Joan.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
John Angelico rightly says we need to have Christians “thinking Christianly, and voting according to a Biblical worldview”. This is indeed the great task ahead of us because, as I have increasingly found out, to my amazement and distress, not many Christians have a Christian worldview. I spent the first half of my adult life as a militant atheist and Marxist. This had a whole worldview constructed around it, so when I became a Christian that world view had to be dismantled bit by bit and a new worldview put in its place. I guess I have been blessed through this experience and I am able to see the importance of a worldview that is congruent with the Word of God.
I hold Christian “leaders” responsible for much of the trouble we are in, particularly Bible College teachers who compromise on the word of God to satisfy an atheist worldview and pass on to whole new generations of pastors their poisonous doctrine. This usually revolves around “supernatural” phenomena and particularly attacks the Books of Genesis and Revelations and the prophetic works in Isaiah and Daniel. But once you start on compromise, the integrity of the whole Bible is up for grabs … if you can’t believe that Adam and Eve were real, historical people, or that a real man called Noah and his family and selected animals were saved from a world-covering flood, or that Isaiah predicted the coming Messiah hundreds of years ahead of time, then why should you believe that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to pay for our sins (in fact, why should you believe that there is any such thing as ‘sins’?)
Doubting the Word of God is the root cause of our Fall, our degeneration and our ultimate apostasy and destruction.
Col Maynard
Hi Bill,
You are right to raise concerns about the moves to criminalise criticism of Islam and prevent the free proclamation of Christianity and other religious beliefs.
However, I take issue with your language of describing Muslims as our enemy. Our enemy is the Evil One, not Muslims. We need to view Muslims like we view other non-believers, lost people in need of the Good News. I would also suggest your description of Barak Obama’s presidency is one-sided. His support for Israel is one example of a position that is opposed strenuously by Muslims.
Andrew Reid
Thanks Andrew
But you may be missing my point. I of course nowhere stated that individual Muslims are our enemy. But there is no question that a political religion like Islam which despises freedom, democracy, rule of law, freedom of conscience, choice in religion, and the Christian gospel itself can rightly be described as an enemy which must be resolutely resisted.
The trick is to stand strongly against the jihadists and spreading sharia, while still seeking to win individual Muslims to Christ. But I write about that elsewhere, such as here:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/08/01/christianity-other-religions-and-islam/
And respectfully you clearly have little understanding of Obama and his views on Israel. No one with a straight face can claim that he is a keen supporter of Israel – quite the opposite is the case. But I write about that elsewhere as well, including here:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/05/24/turning-on-israel/
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
take heart. “Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more” all this manure is fertile soil to love of God. take full advantage of this every single day. and, Give Thanks. We are blessed to live in such days.
June Estep
The Islams (Muslims) want to obliterate or enslave all non-believers, and the Communists want to abolish all religion. They both want to completely ruin our form of government. Put these two elements together, as they now are in our White House and the liberal Democrat, and we have the most dangerous enemies we have ever had. You might say that we have always had those same enemies, but never have they had so many friends within our own government. Even though we were forewarned, and our present President told us time and time again what sort of person he is, and what his beliefs are, he was still elected.
If you look around you, its plain to see that has had great success toward reaching his goal to ruin our government, and take full control. With backers such as George Soros, who has made no secret of the fact that he wants to get rid of our Constitution, and all other important historical documents.. Not only has our Congress and Supreme Court failed in their duties, we the people have failed in ours. We must demand that they do what is required of them by our Constitution, or force them out of office. We could easily find replacements, those patriotic individuals that know what is required, and have the guts to do it.
Lloyd Revalee, US
Reality is that 0bama is trying to suppress the facts (many of which are far worse than the “negative stereotypes” he refers to) about the goonda-founded Satanic death-cult:
(*) this is the only religion which since 1945 has killed over 10 million of its own adherents–of which two nations, Pakistan (2.3 million 1971/03/26-1971/12/15 and at least 1.2 million more during the 1977/07/05-1988/08/17 dictatorship of 1971-war-criminal Zia ul-Haq and the 1999/10/31-2008/08/31 dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf) and Sudan (500,000+ South Sudanese Muslims 1956-2010, and another 500,000+ Darfuri Muslims since 2003) account for nearly half.
(*) from founding to 1945, it killed about 40 million of its own adherents
(*) from founding to current, it has killed 220 million (120 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, 90 million in Asia, and 10 million elsewhere) non-Muslims–including at least 2 million (1.2 million by Pakistan 1971/03/26-1971/12/15 and 800,000 South Sudanese by Khartoum 1956-2010) since 1945.
(*) the only religion to be described as having a worse historical record than another–by one who had suffered much from the latter. Specifically, I refer to the writings of India’s first Law Minister, B.R. Ambedkar who was a dalit; he described Islam has having “only religion with worse historical record in South Asia than Hinduism” (in context, he said of Hinduism, “it relegates a vast group to be unworthy of so much commerce as mere touch–should be called infamy!”)
Srini Varadarajan
Basically, Islam is what it is; NOT a ‘religion’, but a cult/sect following it’s founder – Muhammad. He also ‘founded’ their Koran (sayings), and if these comments are open to truth and not PC, then, hey!: “Know the truth and the truth will make you free”. (Islam?.? .. CONFLICTS’ with both -).
Pat Wills
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Recall Jerry B. Jenkins’ and Tim LaHaye’s Antichrist character who builds up a particular world religion to use it against all others, then destroys its leaders in order to proclaim himself god (actually, God!)?
Seems fact is quickly imitating fiction. “How long, oh Lord, faithful and true…?”
Dr. Anthony Husemann
Dear Bill, The lessons of history will never be learned! The politicians bent over backwards to appease Hitler throughout the 1930’s. Winston Churchill’s was practically the only voice in parliament warning that Hitler was determined to dominate Europe. For a long time he was ignored and demoted. Hitler and the Nazis could have been dealt with earlier but instead they naively waited and kept giving in to his demands. In the end they were forced into a ghastly war which lasted six long years and where millions died horribly. Similarly, they are appeasing the Islamists and the result will be the same. Evil has to be faced up to and dealt with. To delay it means the outcome will be worse.
Patricia Halligan
Wow!! Hussein Obummer, President of USA, Defender of Islam!
Roland Foong
More and more I believe we are indeed living in the end times. Especially bearing in mind the “strange” natural phenomena we read about ie the floods and quakes in the eastern part of the US. As Jon Newton said, maybe it is also the beginning of the persecution of Christians for proclaiming their faith and being steadfast in obeying only God’s word. Also Dr Huseman’s prayer from the New Testament: “How long, oh Lord, faithful and true…?”
I pray: “Oh Lord make me a fisher for lost souls even though they will abuse me, stone me and even kill me. Let Thy will be done, NOT mine.”
Pieter Fourie, South Africa
Good on you Pieter
There are people, who need to hear, caught up in all the false systems. And the worst deception may be the “christian” teaching that makes Jesus a good man but no more.
Not sure about the beginning of persecution. We might be at the beginning but others have been through it for a long time.
Katherine Fishley