is calling for a summit<\/a> in light of a recent wave of anti-Christian violence.\u00a0 OK.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see how that goes.\u00a0 One reason I think for the violence?\u00a0 Because all those old liberal professors I had were right.\u00a0 You see, when I was growing up, I learned about the harmful effects of societal bigotry. That corporate racism in which we all lived.\u00a0 Not the laws that sad blacks had to use a different drinking fountain.\u00a0 But the undercurrent of racial bigotry.\u00a0 It was the ease with which our society used racial slurs, made racial jokes, put down people of color as a matter of course.\u00a0 It was the day-to-day living out of racism that was every bit as bad as any law that said a black must go to a different school.<\/p>\nSame with anti-Semitism.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t as if the Nazis took over and invented anti-Semitism.\u00a0 That bigotry against Jews was in the life blood of Europe.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter why, whether it was racial or religious.\u00a0 It was there, in the atmosphere, in the air people breathed.\u00a0 It was that assumption that all Jews were crooks, that Jews were corrupt, that Jews \u2018those kind of people\u2019.\u00a0 It was the easy acceptance of anti-Jewish caricatures, a willingness to laugh at and mock Jewish customs and traditions because of a dislike of Jewish people.\u00a0 It was, in effect, the subtle acceptance of hatred and contempt for the Jewish people that was so acceptable in Europe that allowed for the Holocaust every bit as much as any flagrant Nazi policy of extermination. <\/p>\n
Fine.\u00a0 I believe them.\u00a0 Because not only have we seen violence across the world against Christians, we\u2019ve seen it here at home.\u00a0 Oh, it\u2019s still never assumed to be a \u2018hate crime.\u2019\u00a0 When a man opens fire on Christians in a Colorado church, despite his writings signalling a hatred of Christianity and call for its extermination, most in the media chose to focus on his mental instability.\u00a0 That happens.\u00a0 Any vandalism, church burnings, assaults against Christians is immediately assumed to be due to some other reason. <\/p>\n
Yet these things are happening.\u00a0 And globally, they are happening more every day.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Need I say.\u00a0 Look at how Christianity is portrayed in our popular media.\u00a0 Look at movies and books like The DaVince Code<\/em>.\u00a0 That is nothing other than the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion<\/em> applied to Catholics.\u00a0 It\u2019s the old [___________] are part of a great, vast conspiracy of evil and murder trying to take over the planet.\u00a0 You simply remove the old \u2018Jew\u2019 from the blank, and insert Catholic\/Christian.\u00a0 <\/p>\nFrom Tavis Smiley to Keith Olbermann, Christians are routinely attacked, accused of outlandish crimes, mocked and derided.\u00a0 Movies portray them as corrupt, evil, stupid, zealous fanatics.\u00a0 People like P.Z. Meyers, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins frequently use the old terminology, phraseology, and condemnation\u00a0that was once applied to minority groups like blacks or Jews.\u00a0 They simply change the terms to Christian\/Catholic and receive rave reviews, invitations to speak at our leading universities, and praise from our media culture. <\/p>\n
And that\u2019s here at home.\u00a0 The way Christians are perceived and portrayed throughout the Muslim world is just as disconcerting.\u00a0 Since 9\/11, I\u2019ve lost track of how many Muslim pundits have brought up the Crusades \u2013 or at least the part of the Crusades where Christians did bad.\u00a0 Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said it best when he blamed Christianity for anything and everything done by any nation of the Western world, even if such things \u2013 like the dropping of the atomic bombs \u2013 were widely condemned by such Christian groups as, you know, the Catholic Church.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Now, if my old liberal professors were correct, and such constant and acceptable trashing, thrashing, and re-trashing the re-thrashed trash is a major reason for old bigotry and racism and slavery and genocide, should we be shocked that the socially acceptable contempt for Christianity in our popular culture, our popular media, and our academic intuitions should facilitate such things?\u00a0 And if in the Muslim world, where at least a fair number of Muslims have no problem emphasising all that is wrong with Christianity, receives nothing but vindication for their views by people they consider to be living in a \u2018Christian\u2019 culture, ought we to be shocked that such violence is springing up around the world?\u00a0 After all, it wasn\u2019t just Hitler who was to blame.\u00a0 It was all of European Culture, all of the Christian West.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t just the slave owner who was to blame, but all of European and American culture that accepted the bigotry and prejudice and stereotypes.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Therefore, based on the traditional liberal interpretation of events I learned all those years ago, I can only suppose that no matter what the Pope says, it will do no good.\u00a0 As long as Hollywood, Keith Olbermann, Christopher Hitchens, and Imam Rauf continue to spin the Christian Faith as they do, the violence will continue.\u00a0 And those fine institutions and individuals will, of course, no doubt accept the blame they\u2019ve been all to willing to bestow on others for so long.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pope is calling for a summit in light of a recent wave of anti-Christian violence.\u00a0 OK.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see how that goes.\u00a0 One reason I think for the violence?\u00a0 Because all those old liberal professors I had were right.\u00a0 You see, when I was growing up, I learned about the harmful effects of societal bigotry. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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