A Defense of Political Correctness

As I begin what turns out to be the third rewrite of this blog post, I find myself curious – why, given the title, are you reading it?

I suspect that there are several different camps here… I’m guessing some are reading this because you love/like/respect/care about me, and are truly interested in my views regarding the subject of Political Correctness, whatever your own opinion happens to be. I imagine some are intrigued simply by the title, and are wondering what kind of rhetorical acrobatics am I going to exercise in order to attempt a cogent argument. And I know there are some who are already mentally composing your replies, hoping to find just the right mix of bombast and condescension with which to take me to task for daring to even express the possibility that PC is anything but pure evil.

I’ve been thinking about the concept of PC for some time, paying attention as the meme arises in my exploration of the world. A typical recent example: the firings of folks like Clint McCance, Juan Williams, Rick Sanchez, Dr. Laura… even Don Imus… or (for my contemporaries) all the way back to Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder. Accepted wisdom states that these folks were fired (or “encouraged” to resign), not because of what they said, but because their superiors were cowed by a misguided fear of being seen as politically incorrect. According to this view, these folks were fired for speaking the truth as they saw it – a truth that was uncomfortable for their employers. Said employers, in their desire to maintain a positive reputation among… well… among someone who is probably liberal and elitist, chose to ignore the passionate, patriotic truth, and ended the employment of these free speakers – possibly hoping to set a public example concerning what types of speech or truth interpretations will be tolerated by society.

In other words, truth is less important than the appearance of propriety.

For many, that’s central to their definition of PC – if a truth makes someone uncomfortable, or if it hurts someone’s feelings, the “correct” thing to do is to soften the language, obscure the truth, and distort reality so as to avoid hurting their feelings.

Let’s look at an example that popped up in the Facebook discussion that prompted this post. According to this view, the usage of BCE/CE (as opposed to BC/AD) as a chronological numbering system is a PC development designed to assert secular primacy over Christian tradition. It’s a movement with the express goal of forcing the world into a secular humanist mold, moving civilization ever further from God. By insisting on using BC/AD, we’re taking a stand for our faith against the crushing onslaught of anti-Christian thought disguised as an effort to protect the feelings of unbelievers.

The other example from my FB thread… Nidal Hasan’s tragic mass shooting at Ft Hood. According to this view that we’re exploring, PC had a role in allowing this event to take place. Common knowledge seems to dictate that although there was concern about Hasan’s views, no one took any action. The lack of action wasn’t due to the fact that he hadn’t committed any crime yet… it was out of fear of appearing to discriminate against Muslims – which led directly to this horrific attack. If it weren’t for PC, he would have been stopped before the events of Nov 5, 2009 could have taken place. Fear of appearing bigoted in the face of truth discouraged any preventative action.

While we’re looking at this particular viewpoint, we should take a quick peek at its roots. Theorists who hold this view place the origins of modern PC back in the Frankfurt School with its emphasis on Cultural Marxism (in case you didn’t spend lots of time in philosophy classes, I’m sure Google will be your friend here). From there, it was adopted by the New Left in the late 1950s… and eventually the disease of PC planted roots – firmly establishing itself in liberal thought. In this view, PC is a tyrannical plot to dismantle freedom of speech and to punish dissent… it’s a tool used by totalitarian regimes to control the thoughts (and behaviors) of the masses. Think of it as a secularized Spanish Inquisition.

Given our propensity to inflate the importance of our views, it’s no wonder that PC is described as the great disease of our society, the source of all of the woes of modern culture, the pinnacle of our victim-oriented mindset, the worst result of the secularization of civilization. (I also read once that hyperbole will destroy the universe!)

If all of that sounds a little harsh, that’s because it is. It’s the view from the far, far right. The majority of PC opponents skew a tad closer to the center than this… the nuts and bolts of the view are same, but some of the exaggerated language might not be as representative. Still, in general, the view is that PC means truth is less important than propriety.

As you might have guessed, I’m going to present a different perspective.

To begin, I propose the possibility that arguments against PC have far more to do with opinion than truth.

Let’s look back at the Ft. Hood shooting. Remember, the accepted wisdom is that PC prevented any action from being taken that might have saved lives on that day.

It should be no surprise that there are more facts than what shows up in “common knowledge” – that’s almost always the case. For more than a year before the shooting, there were investigations into Hasan. For example, email communications between Hasan and a known terror supporter named Anwar al-Awlaki were sent to the FBI terrorism task force (not known as a big hotbed of PC thinking). The FBI determined that Hasan was not a threat. “Because the content of the communications was explainable by his research and nothing else derogatory was found, the JTTF concluded that Major Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning.” (This quote is from the FBI regarding the findings of the task force.)

Of course, after the shooting took place, a much stronger microscope was applied to his life, views, beliefs, activities, associations, etc. Even then, there is no real consensus yet about the preventability of the attack. And why should there be agreement? The vast overwhelming majority of people who have “radical” ideas have never committed violence… but that is beside the point.

The point is that the belief that no pre-emptive action of any kind was taken against Hasan because of PC-based fears of the appearance of discrimination is an opinion – it is not a fact. Could more have been done? Very possibly (although again, before the shooting, he hadn’t committed any crimes), but again, we’re dealing with opinions here…

Let’s go back to the the numbering nomenclature.

In 525, a monk named Dionysius Exiguus made an attempt to move the numbering system away from Diocletian years in order to distance time-keeping from the memory of a major player in the persecution of Christians. He called it “Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi“. In 731, Bede threw in the concept of regressive dating for the years before the birth of Jesus, as well as the idea of not using a year zero.

The term “Common Era” (originally vulgaris aerae – love those Latin guys!) was in use as far back as 1615. In a 1701 book, a man named LeClerc included the phrase “Before Christ according to the Vulgar Aera” – and in 1716, a book by Prideaux (actually written in English) says “…before the beginning of the vulgar aera, by which we now compute the years from his incarnation.” During this time, and for the next 120 or so years, you were equally likely to see common era, vulgar era, Christian era, and of course, AD (or the English version: “in the Year of our Lord”).

In the Victorian Age, the word ‘vulgar’ changed from its original definition (‘common’ – as in ‘used by common people, not exclusive to royalty‘) to mean crude or indecent… so the phrase ‘vulgar era’ went away. From that point, AD became the predominant expression, although one would still – on rare occasions – encounter either CE as the Christian Era or CE as the Common Era.

This quick trip down memory lane does demonstrate the truth of one of the PC opponents’ points – namely that Christians were indeed responsible for the way year numbering works. The line of delineation indeed was the supposed year of the birth of Jesus. While this naming convention was certainly meant as a testament to their faith and as an honor to Jesus, it was an arbitrary choice. (It’s difficult to argue with the idea that the birth of Jesus was the single most consequential event of human history, in terms of its impact across people and time.) Many civilizations managed to keep highly accurate time without referring to Jesus at all… but the convention that is now the most widely used across the world is the one based on some folks’ best guess as to the year of Jesus’ birth.

I mentioned that I believe anti-PC views are based on opinion, not fact. Clearly, the origins of this timekeeping system are rooted in Christianity… so which part of this is opinion?

Motivation… as my friend Brian pointed out in the Facebook thread, it’s all about motives – on both the pro-PC and the anti-PC sides.

So let’s look at the motives surrounding the CE vs AD debate. It is the opinion of some that the majority of those who use CE instead of AD are players (willing or not) in an attempt to increase the secularization of society. Obviously the actual choice of which naming convention we use doesn’t impact the grand scheme of God’s Kingdom – but the motivation behind the choice might. Unfortunately, we can’t always know the motivations behind the decisions of others (or even of ourselves for that matter).

It is highly likely that some of the folks who actively use BCE/CE are only interested in furthering a more secularized society – but that is not universally true. For example, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania (the publishing body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses) have been using BCE/CE exclusively since April of 1964. And whatever you think of them theologically, it’s unlikely that the secularization of society is their goal.

Another example – me. I am not 100% consistent in my usage, but I do use BCE/CE most of the time. What’s my motivation? I have several… one is that I have a serious character flaw that involves a propensity to tweak the noses of folks that I believe take themselves too seriously. But in general, I believe that words are important – and actually have the capacity to injure. I believe that forcing someone to say “Jesus is Lord” is not the same thing as leading them lovingly to Christ, and might even be an impediment (remember, AD means “year of [our] Lord“). I believe that choosing words that injure someone when I don’t have to flies directly in the face of what it means to love my neighbor.

Earlier, I showed one version of the historical roots of PC – the story generally accepted by the anti-PC critics.

Here’s a different version…

PC has its roots in the abolition movement in the years just prior to the American Revolution. Folks like Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine used rhetoric and logic to argue for the emancipation of slaves. Students of John Locke (like Jefferson and Madison) took seriously the view that “all men are created equal“, and worked toward acceptance of that view. As a quick aside, Moses Brown (co-founder of Brown University) was heavily involved in the abolition movement – which I believe to be an early source of the idea that academia is the seat of all things PC.

As time went by, PC followed the abolition movement forward toward actual emancipation and the Civil War, through Deconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement, before catching up with the New Left. Scattered throughout this history, PC also touched on other movements: women’s suffrage, anti-war efforts, the sexual revolution and hippies and the Summer of Love, the ERA, gay rights, Native American rights, etc. etc. etc.

Here’s where we get down to the main point of this defense of PC.

Some say that history is written by the victors. One perspective on that view is that human history is the story of marginalization. To ensure that we all agree on terms, I’m defining marginalization as the social process of being relegated to a lower standing by the ones in power. People or groups who are marginalized are separated from the rest of society, forced to occupy the fringes, denied equality in all things – often including material resources, services, programs, etc.

I believe that the act of marginalizing someone is diametrically opposed to the message of Jesus.

This is a commonly accepted definition of PC: PC is a term which currently denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, religious, sexual orientation, disability, and age-related contexts. This definition is fairly safe, even if it does give some the heebie-jeebies.

Here’s a better definition: PC is the desire to avoid expressions or actions that marginalize, exclude, insult, or harm ‘others’ simply because they are ‘others’.

There is some depth to this definition, so let me talk about it a little more.

First, this definition distinguishes between the serious and the silly. By silly, I mean the stereotypical nonsense stuff that makes everyone laugh at PC, like saying “altitudinally challenged” instead of short, or “differently geographically aware” for men who won’t ask for directions. I’m not talking about that stuff at all – and I am certainly not defending it.

Secondly, this definition requires an understanding of ‘other’. Here I’m talking about the difference between individual consequence, and membership in an outlier group that’s different than mine. In other words, if I punch Bobby because he said something rude about my mom, that’s not a violation of this PC definition. If I punch Bobby because he’s from a different country, or of a different religion, or has fewer limbs than I do, or he’s attracted to someone I don’t think he should be allowed to be attracted to – that is absolutely a violation of PC.

I’d like to address one anti-PC argument that resonates with me. Specifically, the idea that PC speech or behavior is wrong because it obscures, ignores, or tries to change the truth.

I believe avoiding the injury of others does not require the hiding or changing truth. If I say “African American” instead of the variety of things our grandparents said, I’m not obscuring any truth. If I stand up to the folks who say things like “all terrorists are Muslims“, I’m actually promoting the truth. If you say “that’s so gay” around me, I’m likely to say something like “And for you, is that a good thing, or a bad thing?” Along with being lucky that I’m not as eager to brawl as I was pre-marriage, you might also be encouraged to consider that nothing was gained by your offensive speech. It’s not like some “truth” would be overlooked if you found a better way to express yourself.

It has been my experience that some of the folks who use the most politically incorrect speech in over-generalized fashion tend to play fast and loose with the truth anyway. For example, someone who says to me “It’s them damn spics comin’ over illegally and takin’ our jobs that’s causin’ our unemployment problem” is going to hear from me about both issues – the word choice designed to marginalize, and the lack of truth in the claim itself.

And here’s what really gets my goat (or would, if I had a goat): people who use the specter of PC to defend themselves. When a bigot’s word choice is called into account, we often hear something like “What? Oh, that’s so typical. Everyone is so afraid to say what they think. PC has taken over the world! At least I’m man enough to admit the truth! What happened to the First Amendment, anyway??”

That’s not it at all. What’s really happening is that they’re spouting off about something they don’t understand, and trying to shield themselves instead of taking responsibility for their mind-numbing bigotry. The First Amendment wasn’t designed to encourage ignorance, hatred, or (maybe even worse) a lack of caring that someone might actually be injured by words.

I realize that some folks will have legitimate differences of opinion with what I’ve ranted about here.

For example, not only do I believe that it’s a spiritual imperative to avoid marginalizing others, I hold to a liberal belief that correcting past marginalization is almost as important as preventing future marginalization. And there are lots of folks who don’t believe that we have any responsibility to correct any past marginalization. There’s a common view out there that there is no burden on our part to level any playing field – that we have no obligation to make up for significant past sins.

But I absolutely believe that there is no ambiguity in the call to avoid further marginalization of others. The Golden Rule. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies. The entire Sermon on the Mount.

In fact, I believe that Paul described the best definition of PC out there… Ephesians 4:15 “Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ…“

Altitude Thickness

As at least a couple of people know, Janet and I recently moved to Colorado Springs. It’s a beautiful city known for snow, NORAD, and a toxic substance called altitude.

When I was a young man, naive and impressionable, I would hear the occasional story, platitude, and cliché about altitude that made it seem completely benign – even healthy… like smoking in the ’50s…

My favorite was the phrase: “Put some altitude in your attitude!”

I remember thinking, “Hey, that’s a somewhat clever slogan that’s only slightly condescending in its oversimplification of the multitude of issues endured by the victims of clinical depression. Its complete lack of grounding in reality surely qualifies it to join the ranks of such timeless bumper stickers as Don’t blame me – I voted for Perot, or the ever-popular Stop Continental Drift!!”

But then, I learned more about this menace, this hideous blight that has so insidiously insinuated itself into our attitude-embellishing phrase industry. And the more I learned, the more I realized that I had to do something – I couldn’t just sit by and let our other wonderfully useless, trite, prosaic platitudes (like go with the flow or a bird in the hand will shoot your eye out) be edged out by this evil plague.

As it turns out, altitude is dangerous! It causes excruciating pathologies that have been compared to “flu, carbon monoxide poisoning, and a hangover, all rolled into one.”

Here’s just a partial list of the symptoms associated with this mephistophelogical malady:

1. Lack of appetite, nausea, or vomiting
2. Fatigue, weakness, light-headedness, or dizziness
3. Insomnia
4. Shortness of breath
5. Nosebleed
6. Diarrhea
7. Pulmonary or cerebral edema
8. Retinal hemorrhage
9. Receding hairline
10. Parvo
11. Foreshadowing
12. Involuntary Narnian adventures
13. Sugar high
14. Artificial stigmata
15. Tusks
16. Glowing eyelids
17. Blurred peripheral vision
18. Uncontrolled rhyming
19. Kettle corns
20. Dry mouth

Yeah, right, I want to put some of THAT in my attitude – I don’t think so!

Now I realize, of course, why the whole altitude in your attitude thing is so tempting. It feels good! It rolls trippingly off the tongue, like up your nose with a rubber hose or they can take my gun when they bring lots of bigger guns, and other fun phrases. Our psyches respond to the assonance, the rhyme, and the thoughtlessness. I get that! And I don’t want to be a total ogre (although, I wouldn’t mind occasionally being able to transmogrify into a troll, when the situation calls for it), so I thought I’d remind us all of some tried-and-true substitutes. These have withstood the test of time – and as we all know, old things are old.

So next time you want to throw out a morsel of meaningless malarkey about attitude, try one of these:

“It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

“Don’t cry over spilled milk.”

“Hey! Lighten up, man!”

“Don’t worry – be happy!”

“One day you’re doing fine, the next day an animal comes along and bites off your head. Go Figure!”

You’re welcome.

Living Absolutely…

When ya know, ya know!

Yesterday I was looking at some stuff that I had in a ‘saved’ folder in an old email account that I no longer use. I found a blog post that I’d written just a few weeks after the attacks on September 11. Not surprisingly, it was a very long and involved essay – and I enjoyed reading it. It was a very fascinating glimpse into the mind of Mikey circa 2001… If you ever get the opportunity to read something you wrote a long time ago, you should take advantage of it… it’s quite enlightening.

At one point in the essay, I asked this question: “When did faith become so completely internal, so thoroughly independent from our minds?”

I had listed a few ideas, but one of them jumped out at me: the death of the absolute. To be more precise, I referred to the fact that relativism has gone a long way toward supplanting absolutism in western culture – so really, I was talking about the death of society’s awareness of the absolute, not the absolute itself.

It seemed to me at the time (and I suppose it still seems to me) that when absolutes died in the western mind, it had a drastic impact on the world’s perception of those of us who still believe in them. At best, those who embrace the existence of absolutes are considered quaint throwbacks to an earlier, more naïve time – the sociological equivalent of someone who cooks popcorn without a microwave, or pays bills by sending checks via the US postal system. At worst, these folks are dangerous fanatics willing to kill or destroy to validate their opinion.

This change has even altered the lexicon – a ‘fundamentalist’ used to mean just what it looks like… someone who believes in the simplified, fundamental truth of a concept. Now the word is a synonym for ‘extremist’ – someone who clings tightly to narrow, radical, dangerous, volatile ideas or opinions.

In one sense, I suppose, this new thinking is correct – absolutes are dangerous. If one accepts the possibility that there might be something that is absolutely true, then one must recognize the possibility that one can be absolutely wrong. That’s a terrifying thought – a thought that today would be considered patently un-American.

Unfortunately, to bring this back to the question I asked back in 2001, many of us have reacted to this shift in the zeitgeist by turning off our minds. Many of us have decided that not only must we fight to defend the existence of absolutes, we must always declare to everyone around that we are correctly aligned with these absolutes. We have added a Beatitude to the list in Matthew 5:

“Blessed are you who are so totally, completely certain that you know everything that you refuse to even listen to another opinion, for you shall feel victorious.”

Here’s an example of being unwilling to listen. This just happened a few days ago:


On one level, at least, this is about politics, not faith – but of course it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see just how deeply faith is embedded in every aspect of politics.

For the sake of this post, it doesn’t matter what side you happen to support in the DADT discussion (and yes, I’m being unbelievably lenient by using the word ‘discussion’ here). The point here is Senator McCain’s behavior. I suspect that he’s acting this way because he knows that he’s wrong, and he doesn’t want to talk about it.

But let’s assume for the sake of argument that he really believes what he’s saying. Let’s assume that he genuinely believes that the military always behaves in accordance with their stated policy. I have to admit that it’s hard for me to even pretend that – since no non-divine person or group in all of human history has ever lived totally in accordance with their stated policy/beliefs/ethics/guidelines – but for the sake of rhetoric, let’s make that assumption: Senator McCain believes that the military does not conduct investigations with the goal of discovering homosexuals for the purpose of discharging them.

Even believing that, what does it take to refuse to admit even the possibility that he is wrong? At what point can you ever believe honestly that evidence to the contrary of your opinion cannot possibly exist? Of course I am stacking the deck here – in this particular case, evidence does exist that proves that the military has upon occasion acted in a way that is contrary to their stated policy. Again, this is not a surprise – the human condition literally requires that at some point someone will slip up.

The point is that he refuses to consider the remote possibility that there might be a chance that somehow, maybe, there might be a situation that could conceivably be different than his current belief.

Guess what?

This is an axiom for humanity: we cannot know everything.

Guess what else?

That’s actually the reason that faith exists in the first place.

One definition of faith that is popular among us Jesus-folk is that faith is being sure of things that are hoped for and being certain of things that are unseen. Upon first glance, that may seem to be a contradiction to my point, but it’s not. The difference is simple – where does our faith rest?

In our little video parable, McCain’s faith rested in his knowledge and personal experience with all things military. As we all know, he’s a war hero and former POW and all that… so his knowledge and personal experience is quite vast.

There’s the rub. That is exactly the trap that most of us fall into. We place our faith in ourselves. We have faith in our knowledge, our personal experience, our understanding of what the Bible says, our perception of right and wrong, our idea of what is fair or just or worthwhile or natural or correct or healthy or legitimate or American or whatever. It’s a devious – and incredibly effective – trap.

I’m not unseen… and I seriously doubt that I’m hoped for.

For us Jesus-folk, our faith is supposed to be in God. For those of us who believe that God is who he says he is, if we remove our faith from ourselves and put it in him, we don’t have to turn off our brains. Truth is no longer our enemy. Evidence is no longer something to fear or avoid. If someone shows me evidence that proves that my understanding of the Bible was incomplete or lacking, I don’t have to behave like a cornered animal – because my faith isn’t in my understanding of the Bible… it’s in the one who inspired it.

This is a pretty big deal. This means that I no longer have to be so suspicious or terrified of people who disagree with me. This means that I don’t have to condemn ‘others’ just for being ‘others’. If I recognize the fact that it’s entirely possible that I could learn something from anyone, I might actually begin to act toward my neighbor the way I claim to believe I should.

Let me make something clear… I’m definitely not saying that I think we should change our beliefs with every new (or old) idea that flashes across our mental in-box. I specifically mentioned the words evidence and proof because they’re important to this process. Ideas need to be more than just charming or trendy or sweet or egalitarian or whatever… they need to be true if they’re going to make the cut. Throughout the Bible we are encouraged to study, to discern, to work our stuff out, to work and persevere and pray and meditate… This is work, folks. This is the very opposite of accepting something at face value the very first time you hear it.

So – what am I saying?

If we believe that we are done learning… if we believe that we can’t be wrong about anything… if we believe that we already know everything that there is to know about any subject… we’re wrong.

But even that’s not the point. This is America… and for better or for worse, we’re allowed to think what we want – even if it’s wrong. And in fact, our Constitution pretty much says we can say what we want – even if it’s wrong (a quick peek at many of our popular media outlets makes it appear that we get to say what we want especially if it’s wrong).

I’d be happy if we just acted like we believe in the possibility that we might be wrong. Those of us who believe in all that “do unto others” stuff should be the last ones to act like we know everything. I’d be thrilled if we would act like we’re meek and humble and gentle and willing to put others before ourselves… rather than what I currently see so much: folks saying that we’re all these things, but acting like we are the only ones who really know anything.

Wow. This is kinda heavy. I actually prefer to write funny blog posts. Maybe this bit of unloading will clear out my system and let me get back to the silly stuff I usually write… Hope so! For now, it’s time to sleep… if you made it to the end, thanks for reading – and peace be all over you!

Talkin’ ’bout My Generation

As card-carrying members of the modern techie generation, my wife and I work from home – sharing a home office, wireless broadband, and a Rhapsody account. Fortunately, we share a similar taste in music.

At the moment, Janet is obsessed with the soundtrack to Glee.

I do enjoy the show – but I have to say that with each passing time we listen to the soundtrack, I am increasingly impressed with the music.

Specifically, I seem to be feeling existential joy at the fact that the vast majority of the music for the show comes from my generation.

There are some exceptions (their version of Gold Digger, for example, which is significantly better than Kanye’s original), but most of their music is the stuff I grew up on.

I don’t really have a point here – other than my appreciation of the fact that today’s youth are still being exposed to the greatness of my generation’s music…

Maybe it’s not bliss after all…

From time to time, it seems, I need to get something off my chest. Occasionally I’ll see or hear something that strikes a chord within me, and I feel a need to rant a bit. Evidently now is one of those times.

In the last 72 hours, some folks have asked me to watch a video. At least one of these friends I’ve known for more than 20 years.  They’re my friends on Facebook – but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t friends “in real life” too…

This video they’ve forwarded is called “Three Things About Islam” – it’s put out by a European group calling themselves White R0ses. They get their name from a group of non-violent intellectual-types who protested the Nazi regime in the 40s. They were most known for a widespread leaflet campaign pointing out the evils of Nazi policy… It makes sense that they’d make a video now – I think you could say that videos are a natural descendant of leaflets.

The video was put up on YouTube, which is the site I was directed to watch. On this YouTube site alone, this video been viewed nearly 1.5 million times. Yes, that’s MILLION, qualifying it as a viral hit – and that’s just from this site. It’s also been forwarded, posted, and otherwise distributed all over, so there’s no way to know exactly how many times it’s been seen – but I think we can agree that it’s been a lot.

Of course, as anyone who has ever attended a high school prom knows, popularity doesn’t make truth.  Viral videos gave us water-skiing squirrels, and Justin Bieber.

As it turns out, we’d be just as wise to base our worldview on water-skiing squirrels or Justin Bieber as this video about Islam.

Let’s look at a few points – I am not going to talk about every little thing, and I’ll explain why in a bit.

The first major point these guys try to make is that Islam hasn’t been hijacked. They  say that Islam presents a unified, monolithic front – and that (unlike the Bible) the Qur’an is a single document written by a single man.

The first half of that point is completely wrong – and the second half is strongly misleading.

Like Christianity, Islam has had several extremely large splits, and a great number of smaller splits – there is nothing unified or monolithic about it. You’ve heard of Sunni, Shi’a, and Wahhabi – and that’s just some of the divisions… These groups have fundamental differences in their beliefs – differences that are far more elemental than the differences between, say, Lutherans and Presbyterians.

Claiming that one specific group of insane, criminal Muslims represents the entire faith of Islam is EXACTLY the same as saying that Terry Jones (of the Florida Wannabe-Qur’an-burning Joneses) represents all of Christianity. If you are one who believes the latter, you should probably stop reading this now – it won’t do you any good.

The video guys also talk a lot about Shariah… much of it wrong. For example, they talk about Shariah and the Qur’an almost interchangeably. But the fact is that the writings of Islam are spread out among the Qur’an, another book known as the Sayings of the Prophet, and books of interpretation called the fiqh. Like the Talmud, the fiqh aren’t considered divine – rather, they are interpretations and extrapolations from various Muslim scholars over hundreds of years.

Remember when we talked about the various divisions of Islam just a few seconds ago? Well, each of these groups has its own set of interpretations… Much of what is considered Shariah comes from these various fiqhs…

What does that all mean? It means, there is no single understanding of Shariah. In fact, some of it was intentionally designed to be culturally flexible so as to give Muslims a ‘path’ to follow in whatever time period they happen to inhabit. In the same way that most Christians don’t follow what passed as ‘Christian’ teaching in the 5th, 9th, 12th, or even 19th centuries, modern understandings and interpretations of Shariah have shifted with time.

Let’s talk for one sec about the claim made in this video about Shariah ‘courts’ in the UK and other places. They make it sound as though Shariah ‘law’ is making significant headway in the judicial systems of these governments. Here’s the deal – anytime two parties agree to binding arbitration from a third-party arbitrator, the results are binding. So when Muslims who have domestic issues seek to resolve them, some might choose to avoid the court system in favor of arbitration from another Muslim. If they all agree, the decision is binding. This is NOT a unique scenario – binding arbitration has been around for hundreds of years. Even international arbitration guidelines have been around since 1923 – that’s international…between separate countries, for those in the cheap seats! To say that Muslims agreeing to arbitration is tantamount to Shariah taking over our courts is like saying that ‘rock/paper/scissors’ is the codified legal means of conflict resolution since sports bar patrons use it to decide who’s buying the next round.

A quick aside – one of the chief worries that’s being exploited here is the fear that Muslims want to enforce their religious beliefs on us…even if we aren’t Muslim. Does anyone else see the irony here? The ones who are the most afraid of this are fundamentalist American Christians – the very ones who insist that everyone in America follow their rules. For example, they insist that they get to decide who can marry whom – based on their religious convictions – even if the ones who want to marry aren’t Christian. Hard to find a better example of pot&kettle disease.

Ok, enough with the specifics… the points I want to make don’t even have anything to do with the specifics.

First, I believe that Christians should make every effort to speak truth. Technology has definitely increased the level of temptation in this regard. With Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, not to mention the new stuff that’s coming down the road, it’s unbelievably easy to forward stuff to lots and lots of people with the simple click of a mouse. Receiving a video like this, watching it, and sending it out to your friends – all of that takes no time at all… other than the actual watching of the video, the rest is simply a matter of seconds.

Given that, I think we need to be extra careful and make sure stuff is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable (to paraphrase Philippians) before we send it out.

I’m not just worried about the fact that it’s basically spreading gossip… I’m worried about the fact that we reflect Christianity when we act.

This brings me to the other point… there are a LOT of Christians who are intellectually lazy to the point of being actually harmful to the spread of the Gospel. People don’t want to study for themselves. They believe what they hear or read from “pundits” on talk radio or cable news or email forwards or blogs or whatever. They don’t want to research it for themselves, partially because they trust these information sources. Why trust the interpretations of folks with obvious agendas? That’s part of the very definition of intellectual dishonesty.

If you’re getting information from a website or a so-called “grass roots organization” that has a name like LoyalPatriotsForJeeeeezuz.com or ReclaimAmericaForGodFearingWhiteFolk or something equally inane, consider the possibility that they have a slant to what they’re telling/selling you.

When you hear or read something – CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF!

Here’s a huge hint… the Qur’an is FREE! You can read it for free online, or on your iPhone, or on your iPad, or on your Kindle… for FREE!

If you’re the type of person who gets upset when someone takes a single verse of the Bible and quotes it out of context in order to make a point that you don’t believe… why would you think it’s any better to do the same with the Qur’an? It’s NOT.

Remember when Paul went to Athens in Acts 17? He went to the Areopagus, near the city’s public market, and checked out the various shrines and images and altars to various deities. And then he started speaking to them – preaching the message of Jesus. Remember how he went about it? He pointed out a shrine to the unknown God, and he went from there. One of the most amazing aspects of this sermon was that he quoted ONE OF THEIR OWN WRITERS.

Paul quoted a work called Phaenomena which dealt with the divine aspects of Zeus. This work was written by a Stoic poet/philosopher named Aratus, who had died some 350-ish years before.

Why is this important? It’s kinda the central point of my whole rant.

It’s important because PAUL KNEW THIS GUY’S WRITING. Paul was tasked to bring the message of Jesus to the Gentiles… and he knew that, in order to do that, in order to be effective at all in this endeavor, he would need to know something about their beliefs and ideas and philosophies and religions. Paul’s sermon starts with their beliefs and moves forward from there.

When Philip met up with that Ethiopian, he started with Isaiah – the very book the Ethiopian was reading – and moved forward from there.

When Jesus spoke with Nicodemus, he started with the question Nicodemus asked him, and moved forward from there.

How can we be effective in speaking with someone if we can’t start with the lowest common denominator? We can’t.

So, what am I saying? Should every Christian read the Qur’an? I don’t think so. But if we are going to participate in a debate about Islam, integrity kinda forces us to know something about it. If we are going to participate in a debate about evolution vs creationism, integrity kinda forces us to read something about evolution that wasn’t written in the 1970s by faux-scientists with a preference for persuasion over accuracy. If we’re going to participate in a debate about politics or public policy or economics, integrity kinda forces us to read up a bit… and actually learn the definitions of the words that get thrown about without thought, like socialism or capitalism.

And finally, remember my point about not just accepting the words of folks with agendas? Well – I have an agenda. In I Timothy, Paul mentions that elders should have good reputations with outsiders. I don’t think that goal is for elders alone – I believe all Christians should strive for it.

Since I have an agenda, I don’t want anyone to just accept my words here. If you’re reading this, I want you to study, learn, read for yourself. As Mulder used to say, the truth is out there… so go find it.

Sorry for the long rant – but as Janet says, the MikeyPedia button got pushed. For those who made it to the end of this – I’m proud of you! Now go do some reading!

Peace!