Saturday, May 14, 2005

Islam is Evil

There is in Iran a brigade of women trained to be suicide bombers. They are sworn to kill Israelis and Americans. This is the child of one of those women. The picture was taken on May 12 at the at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, near the city Tehran. This is the real culture war. The argument between the collectivist liberals and the individualist conservatives in America is nothing compared to Islam vs. the world.

In order to avoid a replay Muslim of world conquest (And it is happening today by immigration as much by advancing armies. In the 17th century Islam's armies were stopped at Vienna but today just visit Marsellies, France to see for yourself the Muslim invasion.) there are, as far as I can tell only four options:

Extermination: It will be long and bloody and will probably create monsters our great grandchildren will have to live with. Remember that boy in the picture above? Do we want our children to have to live on the same planet with him after we have killed his parents?

Absorption: We can try but it is not likely to work. The self-identity of muslims as muslims is too strong. I was talking with an Swedish woman who immigrated from Iran when she was 3 years old (Her parents fled the revolution). Except for those three years she had lived her entire life in Sweden and France (for boarding school). Yet she, while attending Santa Clara University no less, let escape from her lips these statements:"I hate George Bush." "I hate American culture." "Muslims should be in charge of Education in America" "Islamic governments are better than democracies." This from a woman who's family fled the Islamic revolution in Iran! And again, I say visit Marsellies, or the suburbs around Amsterdam. Muslims do not assimilate.

Expulsion and containment: Expel muslim from non-muslim majority countries and pray they don't come back.

Convert them to Christianity: Not likely. Islam is, essentially, a Christian heresy. It contains enough truth to resist conversion. Perhaps, another great Saint such as Prince Vladimir could do it. But is there some secret Christian in the Hashimite dynasty? Is there any Saudi prince who is secretly worshiping the Holy Trinity, and waiting in the wings to take over the Kingdom? No. I don't think so. But that kind of conversion, though it worked for St. Constantine and St. Vladimir is not the norm. In fact, St. John Chrysostom frowned on it. How deep can a conversion be when one is tempted to convert to keep the government happy?

Besides, we are already well-placed for evangelizing the muslim world. We have six churches there already and the speak the language:

A. Jordan and Palestine/Israel are served by Patriarch Eiranaios.
B. Part of Turkey is served by Patriarch Bartholomew.
C. Syria, part of Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and the countries of the Arabian peninsula are served by Patriarch Ignatius.
D. Albania (Yes, it is a Muslim country and it is in Europe) is served by Archbishop Anastasios. (My money is on him to be recognized as a saint before I die.)
E. Egypt and all of the Muslim countries of Africa are served by Patriarch Theodoros.
F. Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgistan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan are served by Patriarch Alexy.

Is this a pipe-dream? All of these churches have been in these Muslim countries for centuries. In fact, most of these churches existed long before there was something called Islam. I suppose that the problem was that the churches identified too closely with the states they lived in, and when those states were defeated by the muslims the conqerors saw Christianity as part of a defeated state, and saw Jesus as a God who can't protect his people. But here is an idea. Now that the Church looks weak, has lost it's close relationship with the state, might it not be able to better reflect the glory of the Lord who came in extreme humility?

1 comment:

Matt said...

THanks Basil. That is the picture. I don't know why the link I used didn't work. I copied and pasted from my browser. Oh well, mysteies of the internet.