In his
speech to the United Nations General Assembly today the
President of the United States declared that the
future does not belong to practicing Christians.
Already, the media and the left are in full denial,
probably based on their general lack of understanding
of theology. This would have been a gaffe had Mitt
Romney said it. But with Barack Obama, he’s just
speaking bold truths. His bold truth declares that the
future does not belong to practicing Christians.
The future must not belong to
those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be
credible, those who condemn that slander must also
condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus
Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or
the Holocaust is denied. Let us
condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shiite
pilgrims. It is time to heed the words of Gandhi:
“Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an
obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.”
Together, we must work towards a world where we are
strengthened by our differences, and not defined by
them. That is what America embodies, and that is the
vision we will support.
Now, that’s the full
paragraph so no one can claim I took him out of
context.
But consider this.
It is an orthodox Christian
belief that Mohammed is not a prophet. Actual
Christians, as opposed to many of the supposed
Christians put up by the mainstream media, believe
that Christ is the only way to salvation. Believing
that is slandering Mohammed. That’s just a fact. If
you don’t believe me, you go into the MIddle East and
proclaim Christ is the way, the truth, and the life
and see what happens to your life.
Then Barack Obama went on to
say “Yet to be credible, those who condemn that
slander must also condemn the hate we see when the
image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are
destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.” Note he says
we cannot “slander the prophet of Islam” but it’s only
the image of Christ in the next sentence — not
actually Christ himself desecrated. If this is so, why
does Barack Obama’s government continue funding the
National Endowment for the Arts, which funded Christ
in piss, the Virgin Mary painted in dung, etc.?
Now, in point of fact, this
is a major difference between Islam and Christianity.
Christ came to this world as an enemy of the world and
expected to be impugned. He also tells his followers
that they should expect to be impugned. There is joy
in being persecuted for following the Risen Lord. In
Islam, if you impugn Mohammed, you get a fatwa on your
butt.
And then there is the first
amendment. The President of the United States tried to
have it both ways in his speech.
I know
there are some who ask why we don’t just ban such a
video. The answer is enshrined in our laws: our
Constitution protects the right to practice free
speech. Here in the United States, countless
publications provoke offense. Like me, the majority
of Americans are Christian, and yet we do not ban
blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. Moreover,
as President of our country, and Commander-in-Chief
of our military, I accept that people are going to
call me awful things every day, and I will always
defend their right to do so. Americans have fought
and died around the globe to protect the right of
all people to express their views – even views that
we disagree with.
We do so
not because we support hateful speech, but because
our Founders understood that without such
protections, the capacity of each individual to
express their own views, and practice their own
faith, may be threatened. We do so because in a
diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can
become a tool to silence critics, or oppress
minorities. We do so because given the power of
faith in our lives, and the passion that religious
differences can inflame, the strongest weapon
against hateful speech is not repression, it is more
speech – the voices of tolerance that rally against
bigotry and blasphemy, and lift up the values of
understanding and mutual respect.
I know
that not all countries in this body share this
understanding of the protection of free speech. Yet
in 2012, at a time when anyone with a cell phone can
spread offensive views around the world with the
click of a button, the notion that we can control
the flow of information is obsolete. The question,
then, is how we respond. And on this we must agree:
there is no speech that justifies mindless violence.
Just words, Mr. President?
You say “there is no speech that justifies mindless
violence,” but all last week you condemned a
ridiculous video trailer for a movie that does not
exist. Your government ran advertisements in Pakistan
denouncing the video. What of free speech, Mr.
President? Last week you were saying the violence was
understandable given the offensive film and this week
you are trying to claim it was mindless.
Oh wait, you did it again in
the same speech where you said “there is no speech
that justifies mindless violence”:
At times,
the conflicts arise along the fault lines of faith,
race or tribe; and often they arise from the
difficulties of reconciling tradition and faith with
the diversity and interdependence of the modern
world. In every country, there are those who find
different religious beliefs threatening; in every
culture, those who love freedom for themselves must
ask how much they are willing to tolerate freedom
for others.
That is what we saw play out
the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting
video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.
Time and again the President
of the United States tries to have it both ways.
But are they just words?
The fact is, many religions
do not recognize Mohammed as a prophet. In the widest
swath of Islam, that denial is, in and of itself,
slander. So what exactly are you saying Mr. President?
As an exit point, with all
of President Obama’s statements on tolerance in his
speech, we should remember that tolerance is really
not a Christian virtue. As Archbishop Chaput of
Philadelphia noted, “We need to remember that
tolerance is not a Christian virtue. Charity, justice,
mercy, prudence, honesty — these are Christian
virtues. And
obviously, in a diverse community, tolerance is an
important working principle. But it’s never an end
itself.” The Archbishop also noted that
evil preaches tolerance until it is dominate and then
it seeks to silence good. That’s not a statement that
the President is evil in any way, shape, or form, but
we should be mindful when the secular world demands
tolerance for all, tolerance for all means we cannot
have standards of faith to live by, because those
standards obviously require we be intolerant of sins
this world has embraced.