For 2015, Time Magazine's Runner-up for Person of the Year is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of so-called Islamic State. IS, ISIS, ISIL (or whatever else one cares to call them) have dominated the news for what seems like an age. The extremist Islamic group has become highly influential, insofar as it's occupying the attention of the military and political minds of the Middle East, Europe and America.
While no-one would deny the unspeakable, monstrous evil of Islamic State's objectives and activities, it would seem that a subtler, but no less evil, movement of the devil is being largely overlooked by the Christian profession. The emergence of an extreme Islamist threat to international security has drawn the Christian profession into close contact with moderate Muslims. The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury have both been photographed sitting in mosques, surrounded by the Muslim faithful. Surely, this is nothing short of apostasy. Brethren, would any of us set foot in a mosque, and condone such a place by our presence? I would hope not. Yet Christendom seems to accept this behaviour in its leaders as normal, logical and, ultimately, a Christian response.
We must never lose sight of the fact that a moderate Muslim is still ensnared in a Christ-denying system of idolatry, that Islam is fundamentally evil. Of course, the majority of Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding and upstanding citizens, but this doesn't make their religion any more compatible with the true faith of Christianity. Many professed atheists are equally law-abiding and peaceful, and the same can be said for Bhuddists, Hindus, Sikhs, and so on. Yet they're all, without exception, ensnared in evil delusions and involved in evil practises. Can we can associate ourselves - and, consequently, our Lord - with their false beliefs and deeds? Surely not. Yet this is what the leaders or Christendom are doing - bringing the Name of the Lord into association with idols, in the name of political expediency.
While no-one would deny the unspeakable, monstrous evil of Islamic State's objectives and activities, it would seem that a subtler, but no less evil, movement of the devil is being largely overlooked by the Christian profession. The emergence of an extreme Islamist threat to international security has drawn the Christian profession into close contact with moderate Muslims. The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury have both been photographed sitting in mosques, surrounded by the Muslim faithful. Surely, this is nothing short of apostasy. Brethren, would any of us set foot in a mosque, and condone such a place by our presence? I would hope not. Yet Christendom seems to accept this behaviour in its leaders as normal, logical and, ultimately, a Christian response.
We must never lose sight of the fact that a moderate Muslim is still ensnared in a Christ-denying system of idolatry, that Islam is fundamentally evil. Of course, the majority of Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding and upstanding citizens, but this doesn't make their religion any more compatible with the true faith of Christianity. Many professed atheists are equally law-abiding and peaceful, and the same can be said for Bhuddists, Hindus, Sikhs, and so on. Yet they're all, without exception, ensnared in evil delusions and involved in evil practises. Can we can associate ourselves - and, consequently, our Lord - with their false beliefs and deeds? Surely not. Yet this is what the leaders or Christendom are doing - bringing the Name of the Lord into association with idols, in the name of political expediency.
. I would say that that is not entirely true though. Being honest to our working brain will help us realize that madness is madness and sanity, sanity. We all have a working brain that can compute the difference between killing a fish quickly, slowly or setting it free and going hungry. That same working brain knows that if we are cruel to anyone or thing, we are going to have to answer for it or expect karma. We all have this fear of God in us, even in the absence of any religion. I am wondering if calling it humanism is correct.