As the stranger from Nazareth found his voice in the cauldron of his times, he ran into stiff resistance. Jesus was declared impertinent, a blasphemer, functioning beyond his station. Proprietors of old ways savaged his new ways. Tradition fought back. Privilege fought back. Power fought back.And Mr. Ehrich dismisses the criticism of the Ground Zero Mosque as outside agitation:
Jesus found himself isolated, forced to lead his small band from village to village, as he waited for the right time to set his face to Jerusalem.
Bigots and fear-mongering politicians beyond the Hudson River might be feasting on New York City's debate over the Cordoba House mosque, but they do so without any awareness of how much religious and racial tolerance mean in this melting pot...But this poll of New Yorker's opinions of the Ground Zero Mosque pretty much puts that straw person argument in the dustbin.
Can is not the same thing as should. Most New Yorkers understand the distinction. So does nearly 70 percent of the rest of America.
They also understand that this isn't about religious freedom. This is about respect. Respect for the 3,000 who died on September 11, 2001, at the hands of men shouting "Allahu Akbar" as they went about their inhuman enterprise. When Islam, on it's own, seeks to cut out and purge these violent elements from itself, then I will believe the Ground Zero Mosque is there as a place of healing, not an opportunity for triumphalism.
2 comments:
Hopefully the Church Pension Fund will shift plenty of investment to the Iranian nuclear development effort. Would be nice if the PB would drop by and bless the reactor.
If Ahmadinejad got Iran's nuclear program declared one of the Millennium Development Goals (pbut), she probably would!
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