Yet another non-Muslim assures us that the Islamic State is not Islamic. And once again, his analysis is based on comforting falsehoods about Islam that will not convince even one young Muslim who is considering joining the Islamic State not to do so. In that case, what is the effect of articles like this one? To keep Americans from getting nervous about rising Muslim populations, and to keep them ignorant and complacent about the full nature and magnitude of the jihad threat.

More below.

“What our president should say about Islam,” by Mark Cunningham, New York Post, March 1, 2015 (thanks to Budd):

…Let us begin with the so-called “Islamic State.” I’ve heard a few complaints about my saying the IS is not Islamic; let me clarify.

What the Islamic State is, is a cheap and horrible fake — a con job.

Consider: The IS claims to be restoring the “pure Islam” of a past era, either of the time of the Prophet and the early caliphs, or of the later, medieval caliphates.

Yet, what — beyond its snuff videos — is the IS most known for? For slaughtering Christians, Yezidis and other non-Muslims, or expelling them from areas it controls.

Strange: These very same peoples survived and even thrived under Islamic rule for more than a thousand years, including under all the caliphs that IS cites as upholding “true Islam.”

What the IS tells other Muslims about its brand of Islam, in other words, is an outright lie.

Unfortunately not. The Islamic State actually slaughtered Christians, Yezidis and other non-Muslims, or expelled them from areas it controls, as part of its endeavor to reimpose Islamic laws over those years. This is true because these people “survived and even thrived under Islamic rule for more than a thousand years, including under all the caliphs that IS cites as upholding ‘true Islam,’” when they submitted to Islamic hegemony, paid the jizya, and lived as dhimmis, in accord with Qur’an 9:29 and the Sharia rules that were elaborated from that passage’s command that non-Muslims in the Islamic State must “pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” But the Ottoman Empire, the last caliphate, abolished the dhimma under Western pressure in 1856. After that Christians in the areas the Islamic State controls were no longer second-class except insofar as the laws governing dhimmis remained as a cultural hangover in the area. Under the relatively secular states of the Assads in Syria and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Christians and other non-Muslims had almost equal rights with Muslims.

Then came the Islamic State, and it wanted to reassert Islamic law. So it demanded that Christians submit and pay the jizya. When they refused, they were exiled or killed, in accord with Muhammad’s words: “Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them….If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.” (Sahih Muslim 4294)

I submit to you that, as a simple matter of fact, Islam itself has prospered most when it has embraced such tolerance — and that we can see this from the time of the Prophet and beyond, when Islam exploded in a matter of decades from a handful of men to half the civilized world.

For, in the centuries before Mohammad, the Christian rulers of the Eastern Roman Empire had ruthlessly and bloodily sought to stamp out Christian worship that did not conform to their Orthodox faith. These savage campaigns decimated whole populations.

And then the Prophet and his armies rode in, and said to these Christians, and also the Jews, “Accept our rule and you may worship as you will — you’ll just have to pay a tax.”

No, this wasn’t much like the religious tolerance now practiced in the West. But it was far greater tolerance than the Byzantine Christians offered.

Cunningham’s ignorance of Islamic history is embarrassing. Muhammad is supposed to have died in 632. The Arab conquest of Eastern Roman imperial holdings began after that. The closest Muhammad got, according to Islamic tradition, was his attempted attack on the Byzantine imperial garrison at Tabuk, but the Byzantines left before he got there.

Cunningham reflects another widely held falsehood when he suggests that the Christians and Jews had it better under the Muslims than under the Byzantines. Islamic tradition has the caliph Umar making a telling admission in a message to an underling: “Do you think,” he asked, “that these vast countries, Syria, Mesopotamia, Kufa, Basra, Misr [Egypt] do not have to be covered with troops who must be well paid?” Why did these areas have to be “covered” with troops, if the Muslim invaders were more tolerant than the Byzantines?

This principle of tolerance continued to bolster Islam and its culture for centuries. Maimonides, one of the greatest Jewish sages of all time, lived his entire life under Muslim rule — enriching not only Jewish understanding, but also laying the groundwork for thinkers of Islam’s Golden Age, such as Avicenna, Averroes and Al-Farabi.

Actually, Maimonides lived for a time in Muslim Spain and then fled that supposedly tolerant and pluralistic land, remarking, “You know, my brethren, that on account of our sins God has cast us into the midst of this people, the nation of Ishmael, who persecute us severely, and who devise ways to harm us and to debase us….No nation has ever done more harm to Israel. None has matched it in debasing and humiliating us. None has been able to reduce us as they have….We have borne their imposed degradation, their lies, and absurdities, which are beyond human power to bear.”

But Mark Cunningham is able to publish this nonsense in the New York Post not just because he is an editor there, but because his soothing falsehoods coincide with what the Western world so desperately wants to believe. But that doesn’t make it any truer.

This article was originally posted at the JihadWatch.org website.

Written by Bill Bumpas

An author and philosopher says CNN host Chris Cuomo needs a remedial lesson in American history after suggesting that America’s laws come from man, not from a Creator.

Cuomo made the comment February 12 during a testy interview with Roy Moore, the Alabama Supreme Court justice who is defying a federal judge’s order that is allowing homosexual “marriage” to be recognized in the state.

Dr. Jay Richards, a writer, speaker and Catholic University of America research professor, suggests that Justice Moore (pictured at right) made a good counter-point during the interview by bringing up the Dred Scott case, which ruled in 1857 that slaves were not U.S. citizens.

“Which everyone now recognizes was an injustice,” Richards notes. “But how can you say a law determined by the Supreme Court was unjust unless you had a standard that transcended the laws of the land?”

That was Moore’s legal point to Cuomo, Richards explains, which is that laws, although written by men, “have to be founded ultimately on the laws of God – on the natural law that God has put into the created order.”

According to the CNN transcript, Moore asked Cuomo if he would have honored the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision or defied it on the grounds it was unconstitutional.

Cuomo refused to answer even after the justice pointed out he was dodging the question.

The interview included Cuomo suggesting that Moore, who is a Christian, is making legal decisions based on religion without allowing different views that disagree.

“Is that a fair suggestion?” Cuomo asked.

“No, that’s not a fair suggestion,” Moore replied. He then described a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Murphy v. Ramsey, in which the justices ruled that marriage and family are based on the marriage of one man and one woman in a state of matrimony. Other state courts have also agreed with that opinion, he said.

“Naturally it existed hundreds and even thousands of years before the United States even came into existence,” Moore, speaking of natural marriage, told the CNN anchor.

“Right,” Cuomo replied,” but we are a nation of laws and not just God’s law.”

Moore went on to quote the Declaration of Independence and its reference to “unalienable rights,” which are freedoms not given by man – and therefore can’t be taken away – but are entrusted to the government to defend.

“They’re unalienable because they can’t be taken away and they can’t be mandated on the state in this instance,” Moore told Cuomo.

“That’s what Christians think. That’s what the American Founders think,” Richards tells OneNewsNow. “To argue for things like human rights and human equality, you need something that stands outside of the laws of men and judges them just or unjust.”

Cuomo also suggested that “times have changed” after Alabama voters approved a constitutional amendment to ensure legal marriage is defined by the normal definition.

Moore pointed out that 81 percent of Alabama voters approved the ballot measure in 2006.

“They haven’t changed their opinion,” he replied. “The only thing that’s changed is that one federal judge has come in and tried to force upon this state something which she cannot do. Her opinion is not law.”

Originally Published at OneNewsNow.com

The release of the Fifty Shades of Grey movie is a more important and lamentable event than many Christians may realize. What the movie represents is nothing less than the evolution of pornography in an age increasingly distant from a biblical vision of sexuality and human dignity.

One of the hallmarks of the Christian worldview is an affirmation of the unity of the transcendentals — the good, the beautiful, and the true. Christianity affirms — and demands — that the good, the beautiful, and the true are actually one, unified in their source. The source of what is good, beautiful, and true is none other than God himself, who alone is infinitely good, beautiful, and true. Our very knowledge of beauty, goodness, and truth are due to God’s gifts of revelation and creation. He defines the good, the true, and the beautiful by his being, and they are unified in him.

This means that Christians believe the radical truth that nothing good can be ugly, that nothing untrue can be beautiful, and that everything beautiful and true is also good.

To attempt a separation of the good, the true, and the beautiful is, by Christian understanding, both impossible and self-defeating. Furthermore, the attempt to separate them is sinful — an act of defiance.

For this reason the Christian worldview insists that the face of a child with Down syndrome is infinitely more beautiful than an airbrushed model on the cover of a fashion magazine. The model may be pretty, but every human being is beautiful, simply by virtue of being made in the image of God. That grounding of human dignity points to the fact of our creation by a loving and merciful God, who made us in his image, and revealed this truth in our very existence and in our capacity to know him. He revealed this truth explicitly in Holy Scripture, and this means that every single human being, at every stage of development, possesses full human dignity.

The corruption of the gift of sex is, more than often realized, an assault upon that human dignity that is the Creator’s gift. The attempt to declare beauty at the expense of goodness and truth is at the heart of the problem of pornography. Now, we live in a society fast losing even a sense of shame about its pornographic obsessions.

The explosive sales of the Fifty Shades book series alerted many Christians to the fact of female-oriented pornography. While far more attention had been devoted to the visual nature of most male-oriented pornography, the Fifty Shades phenomenon underlined the public mainstreaming of pornography that would find a primary audience among women — narrative pornography in book form.

While many had noted the attraction of so-called “romance novels” to many women, the arrival of the Fifty Shades series announced that the culture at large was ready to shift to what can only be described as explicitly pornographic. Furthermore, the plot line of the series, now quite well known in the larger society, is devoted to forms of sexuality that had historically been defined as perverse and abusive.

The lost sense of shame is not only documented in the unprecedented sales of the series in book form, but also by the mainstream celebration of the movie.

A culture that is determined to reduce all sexual morality to the issue of adult consent is now ready to eat popcorn while watching the corruption of the gift of sex and, in effect, granting approval to the vision of sexuality that is the film’s very essence.

This next stage in the evolution of pornography combines, in an unprecedented way, male-oriented visual pornography with female-oriented narrative pornography. The movie is being marketed on Valentine’s Day as an adventure for couples — something offered to both men and women.

That something is a lie. The late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan spoke of our tendency to “define deviancy down.” That is one of the marks of our age. The Fifty Shades movie will not be legally defined as obscenity or pornography. In our age, almost nothing is. But biblically speaking, there can be no question about the fact that the Fifty Shades phenomenon is explicitly pornographic — defined in the New Testament by the Greek word porneia — which refers directly to any illicit sexual impulse or act. Pornography, whatever its form, is intended to produce that wrongful sexual impulse.

Going to see Fifty Shades of Grey, or reading the book series, is an exercise in pornographic intent and effect. It is also an act of defiance against the goodness of the gift of sex as granted to humanity by God. Furthermore, the series is an assault upon the dignity of every human being.

The loss of shame in modern society is championed as a sign of cultural progress in many circles and as a step forward in mental health by many therapists. More than anything else, however, it points to the depth of the confusion that inevitably accompanies the corruption of God’s gifts.

Christianity celebrates the unity of the good, the beautiful, and the true in God himself. In obedience, we must seek to unify the true and the beautiful and the good in our hearts and minds — and in our bodies.

Words from the Book of Common Prayer‘s service of Holy Matrimony will serve us well here. Christians know that the good, the true, and the beautiful are always and evermore united. What God has joined together, let no one tear asunder.

This article was originally posted at the AlbertMohler.com website.

Written by Frank Newport

NBC News Managing Editor and Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has been suspended without pay for six months as a result of his superiors’ determination that he “misrepresented events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War,” and also about concerns that occurred while he was “talking about his experiences in the field” outside of NBC News.

Will this affect Americans’ trust in the media? It could, but it’s important to keep in mind that such trust is already as low as it has been since Gallup began measuring it.

Each September we track a measure of trust in “…the mass media, such as newspapers, TV and radio — when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly…” The accompanying graph shows the trend since 1997, with the “great deal”/”fair amount” of trust category dropping from as high as 55% in 1999 to a low of 40% both in 2012 and in 2014.

We also ask Americans to rate their confidence in television news in our annual Confidence in Institutions poll conducted each June. Overall in 2014, only 18% of Americans said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in television news, putting it next-to-last on the list of 16 institutions tested, ranking above only Congress (which has a 7% confidence rating). Television news was the lowest rated of the three media sources tested, slightly below Internet news and even further behind newspapers.

This 18% confidence rating in television news is the lowest on record since Gallup began tracking it in 1993, when confidence in this medium was at 46%.

Thus, this latest media controversy has played out in the context of pre-existing and declining trust in the mass media and in television news. The Williams situation will reinforce this existing and negative perception of news media and may possibly accelerate that trend — unless the fairly rapid action by NBC News executives to remove Williams from the air encourages some Americans to believe that the base news organizations themselves retain a commitment to accuracy.

One of the contextual issues here is the impact of efforts by television news producers to stem the decline in their programs’ ratings. Either formally or informally, producers of television news shows have clearly decided that so-called straight news isn’t enough to deter the erosion of viewers. These producers have increasingly turned to efforts to enhance the news with what they hope will be a more enticing entertainment focus. ABC World News Tonight, for example, spends the back-end of its 30-minute broadcast on soft news — larded with eye-catching video, lifestyle and celebrity stories, and much else that is far from what one would have seen in the old Peter Jennings days. Brian Williams himself, no doubt, reasoned that his appearances in non-news settings such as the Late Show with David Letterman broadened his appeal beyond just those who traditionally seek old-fashioned hard news. Of course, as has been discussed in great detail, appearing in these types of entertainment venues demand that one be entertaining, which in turn can lead to a desire to develop arresting and attention-grabbing anecdotes and stories from the field.

The Williams situation didn’t involve specifically liberal versus conservative issues. We know, however, that there has been an increasing divide in trust in the mass news media across partisan lines. Republicans are now half as likely as Democrats to say they trust the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.

In theory, mainstream networks and their news departments can position themselves as a few of the remaining non-ideological news outlets — eschewing, as they have, the temptation to hunt down ratings by catering to one side of the ideological spectrum or the other, as is the case for cable news channels and radio talk shows.

Brian Williams’ problems probably don’t help the networks if this is the way they are intending to go. His actions were not explicitly ideological, as noted, but they are most likely going to reinforce the existing negative views of the mainstream media, including network television news, among Republicans and independents, and may depress these views among Democrats as well.

Frank Newport, Ph.D., is Gallup’s Editor-in-Chief. He is the author of Polling Matters: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People and God Is Alive and Well.

This article was originally posted at the Gallup website.

Written by Ravi Zacharias

President Barack Obama’s address at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2015 has reverberated through the corridors of the world and provoked shock and dismay in numerous quarters. Even a professor at the University of London commented on his shallow understanding of the Crusades. I hesitated to write anything on the subject because it would drag me into politics or into a sobering critique of Islam. I am not sure that at a time like this either distraction would be wise, so let me keep it to the minimum.

For those who did not hear the talk, it is sufficient to say that it was the most ill-advised and poorly chosen reprimand ever given at a National Prayer Breakfast. I have been to several and have never, ever heard such absence of wisdom in a setting such as this. ‎I wasn’t at this one but have heard the speech often enough to marvel at the motivation for such thoughts. President Obama basically lectured Christians not to get on a moral high horse in their castigation of the ISIS atrocities by reminding them that the Crusades and slavery were also justified in the name of Christ.

Citing the Crusades, he used the single most inflammatory word he could have with which to feed the insatiable rage of the extremists. That is exactly what they want to hear to feed their lunacy.  ‎In the Middle East, history never dies and words carry the weight of revenge.

There is so much I would love to say in response but shall refrain. The President obviously does not understand the primary sources of either faith for him to make such a tendentious parallel. The predominant delight in his remarks would be in the Muslim world and the irreligious. The next day Geraldo Rivera, opining favorably, made the oft repeated lie that more people have been killed in the name of God than in any other cause.

Try telling that to the Chinese and the Russians and the Cambodians and the victims of the Holocaust! ‎Such intellectual ignorance gains the microphone with pitiable privilege. If a thinking person doesn’t know the difference between the logical outworkings of a philosophy and the illogical ones, to say nothing of the untruth perpetrated, then knowledge has been sacrificed at the altar of prejudice.

But let me get to the President’s final statement, after he had wandered off into erroneous territory. That final remark was true. He said, “It is sin that leads us to distort reality.” He was right. In fact he embodied it in his talk. But there is good news for the President. At least in the Christian message forgiveness is offered for sin. In Islam it isn’t. You must earn it. May I dare suggest that if Christians had been burning Muslims and be-heading them, he would have never dared to go to Saudi Arabia and tell them to get off their high horse. He unwittingly paid a compliment to those who preach grace and forgiveness. That is the dominant theme of the Gospel. That is why we sit in courtesy listening to the distortion of truth, the abuse of a privilege, and the wrong-headedness of a message.

I cannot recall when I have heard such inappropriate words at so important an occasion, in such a time of crisis. The world is burning with fear and apprehension. We need a message that will inspire and encourage and redeem. Ironically, two years ago when Dr. Ben Carson spoke and made some comments about our medical plan and the tax system, the White House demanded an apology from him for straying into controversial terrain, because it felt his comments showed disrespect for the President.

This year’s National Prayer Breakfast speech was a blunder in thought. But there was a silver lining. In the end, President Obama blundered into the truth. Sin distorts… and only Jesus Christ restores the truth. Christ will ever rise up to outlive His pallbearers. Even presidents will have to get off their high horses then and recognize the Lord of life and hope and peace. There will be no speech making then. Only a prayer of surrender… which is what the National Prayer Breakfast was meant to be in the first place.

Originally published at RZIM.org.

Written By Dewayne Hamby

When a big-screen faith-based romance hits the screen the same weekend as the highly-anticipated adaptation of the erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey, it could be coincidence. But probably not. More than likely, it’s clever counter-programming that Hollywood types have done before, such as offering a new family feature on a date when an R-rated raunchy comedy opens.

Old Fashioned is the polar opposite of Fifty Shades, which should interest not only Christian audiences, but also perhaps anyone hesitant to subject themselves and loved ones to a big screen glorification of sadomasochism. In all actuality, this programming choice is putting love in a side-by-side contest with lust.

Old Fashioned is the story of Clay Walsh (played by the film’s writer/director/producer Rik Swartzwelder), an antiques dealer who is shy, guarded and moralistic. When a new girl, Amber Hewson (Elizabeth Ann Roberts) arrives in his small Midwestern town, she’s intrigued by his faith in God and his convictions.

Through the story, the film reveals the flaws of both characters and the emotional healing they can provide to each other.

The story may sound familiar but the film offers well-developed characters and a charming, compelling story. Walsh delivers some of the film’s best lessons, both through his spoken convictions and his backstory, which offers a glimpse of how he arrived at them.

Because of those convictions, Walsh has to make some hard choices, such as not being alone with a single woman or even walking out on a bachelor party offered for one of his friends. These are real-life dilemmas and it’s refreshing to find a main character in a film choosing the high road. In Old Fashioned, younger viewers will find a solid but counter-cultural approach to romance with principles that will help them avoid their own mistakes. Older ones will enjoy seeing romance kindled in the lives of the likable main characters.

If Old Fashioned is to be judged simply as a movie alone, it would pass the test. It is well-produced, well-acted and well-written. However, as a player in a cultural standoff, like “David and Goliath” as Swartzwelder has proclaimed, it serves a much bigger purpose—to show the world it doesn’t have to follow the road of self-gratification. Like God’s Not Dead or Left Behind, even a moderately successful run will send shock waves through the culture. It’s definitely a movie—and a cause—worth getting behind.

Playing this weekend in Machesney Park, South Barrington and Warrenville.  Click HERE for details.

Originally Published at CharismaNews.com.

Originally published at OneMillionMoms.com

On February 27, the WE tv network (owned by AMC Networks) will televise real-life couples having sex for a national television audience. Based on a U.K. show of the same name, “Sex Box” goes where no other reality show has gone when its participants enter a soundproof box on stage, have sex, and then discuss their “intimacy issues” with a panel of so-called experts, all in front of a live studio audience! If this boundary is crossed, then what reality show will be produced next to out do this one?

Although the audience doesn’t see the couples having sex, the titillating premise that we’re watching while real couples are engaging in an intimate act inside the box on stage is obviously the hook WE tv is using to lure viewers, as their own press release shows:

“The series takes therapy to a whole new level with couples not only discussing their relationship issues with a panel of experts, but also spending time in a camera-free, soundproof box on the show’s set to have sex…all in front of a live studio audience!”

“Amazingly honest, provocative and yes, dare we say it, educational, “Sex Box,” may just be the start of the next sexual revolution in the United States,” the press release continues.

When you sign our petition today, 1MM will communicate your message, and that of millions of other concerned parents and grandparents just like you, to the network and advertisers.

The more voices we have, the louder we can speak out to stop “Sex Box.” A live sex show on TV is something that might show up on a premium cable network. But WE tv is bringing that content to basic cable and potentially exposing millions of children in the process.

Add your voice today! Your support will help One Million Moms stop this disgraceful new show from entering the American television lineup. If this program airs, then there will likely be copycats on other networks in the near future.

TAKE ACTION: Please sign the Stop “Sex Box” Petition to urge WE tv to immediately cancel “Sex Box” in light of the massive public outcry against this show.

One month ago, headlines proclaimed, “Grandson of Billy Graham: The Pulpit is No Place to Speak on Social Issues.”

The headlines were in response to comments made by Tullian Tchividjian, Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, during a panel discussion on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Pastor Tchividjian had said, “I think, in my opinion, over the course of the last 20 or 30 years, evangelicalism, specifically their association with the religious right and conservative politics, has done more damage to the brand of Christianity than just about anything else.”

He added, “That’s not to say that Christian people don’t have opinions on social issues and we shouldn’t speak those opinions, but Sunday morning from behind the pulpit is not the place, in my opinion.”

To give this further context, he explained, “It’s not so much religion in the public sphere as much as religion in the pulpit, behind the pulpit, that’s my primary concern. As a preacher, my job when I stand up on Sunday mornings to preach is not first and foremost to address social ills or social problems or try to find social solutions. My job is to diagnose people’s problems and then announce God’s solution to their problems.”

Was Pastor Tchividjian right? Have we politicized the gospel from our pulpits? Have we mixed with the culture wars with the gospel?

On the one hand, he is absolutely right, and to the extent we have confused allegiance with the Republican or Democratic Party with allegiance to the kingdom of God, we have damaged the cause of Christ.

The gospel message is divisive enough already, proclaiming that salvation is found only through Jesus. Why make it even more divisive by identifying Jesus with partisan politics?

I’d much rather defend Jesus than defend Barack Obama or Sarah Palin or Joe Biden or Ted Cruz, although to be sure, I have far more in common with some of the names on this list than with others.

And because the Republican Party has stood much stronger on a number of key moral issues than has the Democratic Party (at least in terms of their respective platforms), and because movements like the Moral Majority were associated with Republican leaders, Pastor Tchividjian is right to speak of the damage done to the gospel by associating it with conservative politics. (I’m speaking broadly here, fully aware that there are many voters who claim the Democratic Party is the more caring and compassionate in terms of the needs of the poor, also drawing a large percentage of conservative Black voters.)

It is also very easy to get so focused on social issues that we take our eyes off of Jesus, as if our primary calling was to “reclaim America” or stop abortion or preserve marriage rather than our primary calling being to make disciples and glorify God.

On the other hand, Pastor Tchividjian is absolutely wrong, since there is no separation between the gospel and culture, between how we live in society and how we live in our private lives, between the lordship of Jesus inside the four walls of a church building and outside that building.

Joel McDurmon, a resident scholar at American Vision, addressed this mentality in his Introduction to the reprint of Alice M. Baldwin’s book, The New England Pulpit and the American Revolution. He spoke of those who would say, “Christians should not preach politics! We should preach the ‘Gospel’ only!”

He responded, “Of course, this assumes that the Great Commission applies only to the inner, private lives of people and the salvation of their souls for the next world alone. In short, it limits the definition of the Christian calling in such a way as to exclude its social aspects up front.”

Put another way, we are called to go make disciples, but how do disciples live? How do we function in the world – in our marriages, families, schools, and places of business? How do we live as salt and light in the society?

That’s why it was preachers of the gospel who were at the forefront of the American Revolution (as carefully documented by Baldwin), preachers of the gospel who were at the forefront of the abolition movement, and preachers of the gospel who were at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement.

Do you think that Dr. Martin Luther King thought to himself, “Well, I shouldn’t be mixing the gospel with social issues”?

Conversely, we have no sympathy today for the German pastors who stood idly by as Hitler rose to power and began to make his murderous goals known. Should they have simply focused on the personal problems of their congregants?

And when a young woman in one of our congregations is contemplating an abortion, is that a personal issue or a social issue? When parents are trying to understand how to respond to the announcement that their son is “marrying” another young man, is that a personal issue or a social issue? When kids come home from school with virtually pornographic sex-ed material, is that a personal issue or a social issue? When a family is falling apart under the duress of severe economic pressure, is that a personal issue or a social issue?

There is also the matter of perspective, as an inner city black pastor once said to me, “You’re trying to get prayer back in the schools. I’m trying to get education back in the schools.”
Is that a personal issue or a social issue?

Recently, Rev. Franklin Graham addressed the concern that “your father wouldn’t get onto these subjects,” as he spoke about the need to stand up against the rising tide of secularism in our country.

He responded, “Wait a second. My father, when he was going to school, they had a Bible in school,” he continued. “When he was going to school, they had the Ten Commandments on the wall. When he was going to school, you could pray in school, and the teachers would lead in those prayers.

“Our country has changed. And we’ve got to take a stand.”

He also said, “Now I’m not talking about Baptists or Republicans and the Tea Party. I have no confidence that any of these politicians or any party is going to turn this country around. The only hope for this country is for men and women of God to stand up and take a stand.”

He’s absolutely right, and it’s time we take our stand, not with hatred, rancor, or insult, and not in the name of a political leader or political party, but in the name of Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, and in the love and truth of God.

Let us go into the world and make disciples, and let us go out into the world and be disciples.

(We reached out to Pastor Tchividjian for interaction without success but would welcome dialogue on these issues.)

This article was originally posted at The Christian Post website.

With the war on Islamic terrorism being portrayed as a righteous cause in “American Sniper,” the Clint Eastwood film breaking box office records, a book which documents the days when Hollywood was a mouthpiece for communist propaganda might seem out of date. But Allan H. Ryskind’s book, Hollywood Traitors, is a reminder that Hollywood can’t always be counted on to take America’s side in a war, even a World War when the United States faced dictators by the names of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

The Ryskind book, published by Regnery, documents how the much-maligned House Committee on Un-American Activities, known as HUAC, uncovered dramatic communist infiltration of Hollywood and forced the studios to clean house.

Ryskind calls HUAC’s investigation of Hollywood in 1947 and 1950 “one of the most effective, albeit controversial, probes ever carried out by any committee of Congress.” He adds, “HUAC had revealed that Hollywood was packed with Communists and fellow travelers, that the guilds and the unions had been heavily penetrated, and that wartime films, at least, had been saturated with Stalinist propaganda. Red writers were an elite and powerful group in Hollywood—many of them working for major studios.”

He writes that, “HUAC, though bruised by elite opinion, had won the support of the American people and a victory over Hollywood Communists, fellow travelers, and the important liberals who supported them.” Members of Congress involved in HUAC did their jobs, in the face of opposition from “the East coast establishment newspapers” like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The book reminds us that the Hollywood agents of Stalin had also been “Allies of Hitler,” a threat symbolized on the book cover by a Hollywood director’s chair featuring a Nazi swastika. The Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939-1941 had paved the way for World War II.

As a result of the purging of communists from Hollywood, the so-called “blacklist,” we entered a time, from about 1947 to 1960, when the communists lost control of the major Hollywood unions and “the studios were actually creating anti-Communist pictures,” Ryskind writes. It was a remarkable turnaround.

But while Hollywood did turn anti-communist, at least for a while, the communists scored their own ultimate victory, succeeding in forcing Congress to abolish HUAC. The committee, which had been renamed as the House Internal Security Committee, was the target of what HUAC called the Communist Party’s “Cold War against congressional investigation of subversion.”

For many years, there was a comparable body in the Senate, which went by different names but tackled such matters as “Castro’s Network in the United States,” a 1963 investigation into the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee” that we later learned included JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

To those insisting it was somehow inappropriate to ask Hollywood figures about their “political beliefs,” Ryskind counters that “Few questions could have been more important for a congressional committee to ask than whether American citizens were actually serving as agents of a hostile foreign government.” He said HUAC was engaging in hearings designed to accurately disclose membership in the Communist Party, “a subversive organization controlled by an enemy nation and designed to turn America into a Communist country…”

In its battle against communism, HUAC had subpoena power and was not afraid to use it. HUAC also issued contempt citations against those who refused to testify completely and truthfully. All of the members of the so-called “Hollywood Ten,” who refused to testify about their involvement in the Communist Party, eventually went to prison.

Ryskind cites estimates that over 200 Hollywood Communists were named in this process. His book provides the Communist Party card numbers of the Hollywood Ten as well as the names of other “well-known radicals,” many of them overt Communists, who were active in the movie industry.

Bring Back HUAC?

Today, with dozens of leading conservatives now clamoring for congressional action to “Stop the Fundamental Transformation of America,” the Ryskind book may add to the impetus for Congress to reestablish a HUAC-style panel. The George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP) acted frightened and alarmed in 2010 when Rep. Steve King (R-IA) expressed agreement with my suggestion at that time that re-establishment of such a committee would be a good idea. “I think that is a good process and I would support it,” he said.

The oath of office for members of Congress requires that they support and defend the Constitution of the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” HUAC is a model for how such a problem can be identified and confronted.

Donald I. Sweany, Jr., a research analyst for the House Committee on Un-American Activities and its successor, the House Committee on Internal Security, sees the need for such a committee. He has issued this statement:

“The re-creation of the House Committee on Internal Security will provide the Congress of the United States, Executive Branch agencies and the public with essential and actionable information concerning the dangerous and sovereignty-threatening subversive activities currently plaguing America. This subversion emulates from a host of old and new entities of Marxist/Communist revolutionary organizations and allied militant and radical groups, some of which have foreign connections. A new mandated House Committee on Internal Security is of great importance because it would once again recommend to Congress remedial legislative action to crack down on any un-American forces whose goals are to weaken and destroy the freedoms which America enjoys under the Constitution. In addition, this legislative process will provide public exposure of such subversives.”

Ryskind’s father, Marx Brothers screenwriter Morrie Ryskind, testified before HUAC about communist penetration of Hollywood that he had learned about first-hand through his involvement with the Screen Writers Guild. Morrie Ryskind had attended the Columbia School of Journalism in New York and written for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper World. But he underwent a political transformation, from an anti-war socialist who became disillusioned with FDR to a Republican determined to stop the communist advance. He wrote for conservative publications such as Human Events and National Review, which he helped William F. Buckley Jr. launch.

Morrie Ryskind helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals to counteract the work of the communists and educate the American people about what was at stake. The Ryskind book also notes how the American Legion and various Catholic organizations were focusing attention on Hollywood’s far-left elements and making the public aware of this problem.

The book includes Allan Ryskind’s memories of his Hollywood upbringing, including meeting famous people such as top Communist Party leader Benjamin Gitlow. He spent decades as editor of Human Events, which was President Ronald Reagan’s favorite paper. It also became known for its aggressive reporting on the communist and socialist threats. Reagan so appreciated the weekly paper that he had arranged for copies to be sent to him personally at the White House residence.

Ryskind, who still serves as Human Events editor-at-large, documents the development of Reagan’s anti-communism in Hollywood Traitors. Reagan began his acting career as a liberal who got involved in Communist-front activities, later realizing that the “nice-sounding” groups he was supporting were secretly controlled by members of the Communist Party. He carried this understanding and analysis of the communist threat into his presidency and talked openly about the growing Marxist influence in Congress as he battled with congressional liberals and tried to stop the Soviet advance in Latin America.

In fact, as President, he told journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave in a 1987 interviewthat “I’ve been a student of the communist movement for a long time, having been a victim of it some years ago in Hollywood.” He said that he regarded some two dozen Marxists in Congress as “a problem we have to face.”

The problem is far worse today. Analyst Trevor Loudon now counts the number of Marxists in Congress at more than 60, a fact that would seem to make it more of a controversy to re-establish HUAC, but even more of a reason to do so. All it would take is more courageous members like Rep. King, backed by the House Leadership. Such a committee would be able to seriously analyze an area that remains off-limits to the House Homeland Security Committee, the House Intelligence Committee, and the Select Committee on Benghazi—subversive infiltration of the highest levels of the U.S. government, including the White House and Congress.

One key to HUAC’s success was finding those in Hollywood, including in the unions, willing to name names and identify the subversives. Reagan testified before HUAC and took a leadership role in defeating communist influence in the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), later becoming the union’s president. Labor leader Roy Brewer was another effective anti-communist in Hollywood highlighted in Ryskind’s book.

Although the 506-page book is based on HUAC hearings, Ryskind conducted independent research that adds to his case against the Hollywood traitors. For example, he combed through the historical papers of one major Hollywood-Ten figure, the Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who refused to cooperate with HUAC and expose his comrades. Ryskind reports on an unpublished script Trumbo wrote that treated the invasion of South Korea as a “fight for independence” for the communist north.

Trumbo wrote many excellent film scripts, including Roman Holiday, but was “a hard-core Party member, a fervent supporter of Stalinist Russia and Kim Il-sung’s North Korea, and an apologist for Nazi Germany until Hitler double-crossed Stalin and invaded the Soviet union,” Ryskind notes. “Yet to this day he is regarded as a hero in Hollywood.”

Almost on cue, as Ryskind’s book was being published, it was reported that Hollywood is planning a new film which glorifies Trumbo, starring Bryan Cranston of “Breaking Bad” fame as the screenwriter. The battle over communist influence is slated to return for another act.

Love for Cuban Communism

The book’s chapter, “Hollywood Today,” tries to bring the communism problem up to date by examining Hollywood’s love affair with the longtime Stalinist ruler of Cuba, Fidel Castro. He writes that much of Hollywood “is still lured by the romance of Marxism, and its films are still filled with heavy doses of anti-American propaganda.”

More details are provided in Humberto Fontova’s excellent books, Fidel: Hollywood ‘s Favorite Tyrant and The Longest Romance: The Mainstream Media and Fidel Castro.

I recently asked Fontova why a Stalinist like Castro gets fawning treatment, while the Stalinist North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, is ridiculed in the movie The Interview. “My best guess is that it’s a generational thing, nostalgia mostly,” he told this writer. The Castros and Che Guevara, he said, are perceived as “the first hippies” or beatniks.

Indeed, The Longest Romance quotes The New York Times reporter who helped bring Castro to power, Herbert Matthews, as saying, “Castro’s is a revolution of youth.” Fontova adds, “The notion of Castro’s Cuba as a stiflingly Stalinist nation never quite caught on among the enlightened. Instead the island often inspires hazy visions of a vast commune, rock-fest or Occupy encampment, studded with free health care clinics and with [the hippie icon] Wavy Gravy handing out love-beads at the entrance.”

Perhaps the pro-Castro influence in Hollywood is something that a new HUAC might want to tackle.

Another issue worth investigating is how Hollywood has also come under the influence of radical Islam. For example, the 2002 film, “The Sum of All Fears,” which was the movie version of the Tom Clancy book of the same name, replaced the Arab terrorist villains with neo-Nazis so as not to offend the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate. The Fox network responded to complaints about its popular series “24” depicting Muslims in America secretly plotting terrorism by running public service announcements from CAIR portraying American Muslims as moderate and peaceful.

The book, Council on American-Islamic Relations: Its Use of Lawfare and Intimidation, has an entire chapter on how CAIR attempts to silence its critics in radio, television, and the film industry.

There will be those in Congress and the media who will argue against the return of anything resembling the old HUAC, contending that “McCarthyism,” or the anti-communist “witchhunt,” is the greater danger. The truth about McCarthy’s investigations is provided in the M. Stanton Evans book, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight against America’s Enemies.

It bears repeating that Senator McCarthy never had anything to do with the House committee or its investigation of Hollywood.

This book is a valuable contribution to understanding a dangerous time in American history when America’s elected representatives and the people themselves rallied to the defense of their homeland against these foreign and domestic enemies.

While it is worth noting that the veteran Hollywood actor and director Clint Eastwood has bypassed the censors at CAIR with “American Sniper,” this kind of film is the exception and not the rule. The film portrays the great sacrifices being made by U.S. military personnel in the Middle East as they combat an enemy that is depicted as savage and barbaric. It is based on the life of Chris Kyle, an Iraq War veteran and Navy SEAL who joined the Armed Forces to defend his country from Islamic terrorism.

Zaid Jilani, a “progressive” writer who left the Center for American Progress after being charged with anti-Semitism, has emerged as one of the film’s most vocal critics. A regular on the Kremlin channel Russia Today (RT) and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Al Jazeera, he insists the film about the “remorseless” sharpshooter has sparked “anti-Muslim bigotry,” and he complains about it becoming “a rallying point for the political right.”

However, he admits that Eastwood’s skill as a filmmaker could result in a “Best Picture” award for “American Sniper” and “Best Actor in a Leading Role” award for Bradley Cooper, who plays Kyle. He just can’t bring himself to admit that the pro-military and anti-terrorist message is also a major factor in its success. TheAcademy Awards take place on February 22.

Indeed, this is the fear from the modern-day “progressives”—that Hollywood will rediscover the box office appeal of American patriotism.

But according to the annual Reuters/Ipsos Oscars poll, if ordinary Americans voted for the Academy Awards, “American Sniper” would be the Best Picture winner. Those who wonder why we don’t get more pro-military and pro-American movies out of Hollywood should read Ryskind’s new book.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

The Leftist media and Islamic supremacist groups have been doing a victory dance ever since Saturday night, when Fox News issued an apology for statements made on the air by terror expert Steve Emerson and others about Muslim no-go zones in Britain and France. However, the apology doesn’t say what it has widely reported as saying – and there is considerable evidence that Muslim areas in both countries are a growing law enforcement and societal problem.

Fox Report host Julie Banderas stated:

Over the course of this last week we have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France. Now, this applies especially to discussions of so-called ‘no-go zones,’ areas where non-Muslims allegedly aren’t allowed in and police supposedly won’t go.

To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.

There are certainly areas of high crime in Europe as there are in the United States and other countries — where police and visitors enter with caution. We deeply regret the errors and apologize to any and all who may have taken offense, including the people of France and England.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s joyous headline read: “Fox News admits ‘no-go zones’ are fantasy.” The far-Left Crooks and Liars blog exulted: “Fox Pundits Finally ‘Apologize’ After A Week Of Being Mocked For ‘No Go Zones’ Claim.” More restrained but still unmistakably gleeful was the New York Times: “Fox News Apologizes for False Claims of Muslim-Only Areas in England and France.” The Leftist media has seized on Fox’s apology to declare that there are aren’t any no-go zones in France or Britain – and by extension that there is no problem with Muslim populations in Europe. NewHounds’s summation was typical: “Fox News has become the laughingstock of Europe this week as first England and then France lampooned its ignorant, Islamophobic reporting.”

The only problem with all the cork popping around Fox’s apology was that there is a problem with Muslim areas in Europe – and the Fox apology didn’t go so far as to say there wasn’t. To be sure, the controversy began with undeniably inaccurate statements from Emerson. He said on Fox on January 11 that “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.” That is false, and Emerson has acknowledged that and apologized.

However, Emerson was not guilty of fabrication, just of overstatement. Some of the comments on a piece in the UK’s Daily Mail about his gaffe and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s reaction to it (he called Emerson a “complete idiot”) insisted that Emerson was at least partially right: “Just shows cameron doesn’t even know what is happening in this country , as the news presenter is totally correct , its a no go zone .” “There ARE some parts of Birmingham where you darent or shouldn’t go !” “Is he far off the truth? Maybe it’s not true for Birmingham as a whole but there are certain areas where it is true. Certainly it is true of certain other Towns in the UK. Bradford, Leicester, Luton spring to mind.”

Fox’s apology stated that,

“To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.”

That says as much as it says, and no more. It says that neither the British nor the French government has designated any areas to be no-go zones where non-Muslims aren’t allowed in, and that there is no evidence that non-Muslims are not allowed into any areas in either country.

But this carefully worded statement does not actually say that there aren’t areas in Britain or France in which non-Muslims are menaced for not adhering to Islamic law. That is a real and abundantly documented problem. Emerson pointed to it when he said:

“In parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound, seriously, anyone who doesn’t dress according to Muslim, religious Muslim attire.”

While Emerson’s implication that this was an ongoing phenomenon was false, there were indeed such Sharia enforcers in London between 2011 and 2013. In July 2011, the UK’s Daily Mail reported:

“Islamic extremists have launched a poster campaign across the UK proclaiming areas where Sharia law enforcement zones have been set up. Communities have been bombarded with the posters, which read: ‘You are entering a Sharia-controlled zone – Islamic rules enforced.’”

In December 2013, members of one of these self-styled “Muslim patrols” were imprisoned; according to the Guardian, in London they

“harassed people, berating them with shouts of ‘this is a Muslim area!’ They forced men to dump their alcoholic drinks, instructed women on the appropriate way to dress, and yelled insults at those they perceived to be gay.”

They didn’t just berate people; as Emerson said, they beat them. In YouTube videos, they threatened to do so, saying: “We are coming to implement Islam upon your own necks.” In June 2013, Muslims attacked an American who was drinking on the street, grabbing the bottle out of his hands and smashing him in the eye with it, causing permanent injury. In August 2013, according to the Daily Mail, “two brothers in law who went on a sponsored walk wearing comedy mankinis had to be picked up by police – after they were pelted with stones and eggs by residents who told them ‘this is a Muslim area’ and demanded they leave.”

A “Muslim area” – maybe even a “no-go zone.” Not in the sense that non-Muslims are barred from entering, but in that, if they do enter, they have to adhere to Sharia restrictions.

The Fox apology is all the more curious in light of the fact that others, even on the Left, have noticed the no-go zones in France before some Fox commentators began talking about them in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. David Ignatius wrote in the New York Times in April 2002:

“Arab gangs regularly vandalize synagogues here, the North African suburbs have become no-go zones at night, and the French continue to shrug their shoulders.”

Newsweek, hardly a conservative organ, reported in November 2005 that

“according to research conducted by the government’s domestic intelligence network, the Renseignements Generaux, French police would not venture without major reinforcements into some 150 ‘no-go zones’ around the country–and that was before the recent wave of riots began on Oct. 27.”

The police wouldn’t venture into these areas without major reinforcements in 2005. Does anyone really think that the situation has improved in the intervening years?

And the day after the Charlie Hebdo massacre set off Fox’s discussions of no-go zones in France, the reliably Leftist New Republic wrote:

“The word banlieue (‘suburb’) now connotes a no-go zone of high-rise slums, drug-fueled crime, failing schools and poor, largely Muslim immigrants and their angry offspring.”

So something the New York Times noted in 2002 and Newsweek in 2005, and that the New Republic reported was still a problem in January 2015, is now something that Fox News has to apologize for discussing?

Clearly there is a problem in these areas. Two of the three Charlie Hebdo murderers were born and raised in France. Where did they get their ideas about killing blasphemers? Not from French schools. They learned them in the Muslim areas where they were born and raised. What’s more, France leads the West in the number of Muslims who have traveled from there to wage jihad for the Islamic State, with well over a thousand Muslims leaving France to join the caliphate. Where did they get their understanding of Islam?

In objecting to Fox’s coverage, the French government objected to claims that these areas were outside their control and subject to Sharia, but it is obvious that whatever control they do have over these areas is not enough to prevent the indoctrination of all too many young Muslims into the jihad ideology.

There needs to be a balanced, honest public discussion of these Muslim areas in Britain and France. The controversy over what has been said on Fox in recent weeks only obscures the need for that discussion. And Fox’s apology, however carefully worded, only plays into the hands of Leftists and Islamic supremacists who have a vested interest in rendering people ignorant and complacent about the reality of what is going on in these areas.

So now would be a good time for Fox to apologize for its apology – and to devote extended attention to the Muslim areas of Britain and France, and shed light on what is really going on in them. That would be to provide a service far greater than the usual surface-scratching of television news.

This article was originally posted at the Front Page Magazine website.

In a story about Bret Baier’s withdrawal from a Catholic conference, where he was going to speak about his Catholic faith, the website known as Mediaite noted that Republican Governor Bobby Jindal (LA) was going to go through with his appearance at the event. But the website warned him about the consequences of offending the homosexual lobby. “Given the controversy that follows U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) more than a decade after he allegedly spoke before a group connected to white supremacists, Jindal, who has presidential ambitions of his own, must be giving his appearance some serious thought right about now,” it said.

Hence, the philosophy of white supremacism associated with the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis is compared to Catholicism. That’s the message this so-called “respectable” source of news and information is sending. Jindal rejected that. The governor’s spokesman said, “Governor Jindal looks forward to addressing the summit and speaking about what faith means to him.”

The summit is sponsored by Legatus, a group that upholds the teachings of the Catholic Church on human sexuality and other matters.

If Baier was speaking at or attending a fundraiser for the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), that would have been perfectly okay. After all, many Fox media stars, including Megyn Kelly, have done so in the past. In addition, Fox pours money directly into this important lobby in the homosexual movement, and it’s not even a controversy.

What’s fascinating in this case is that the attacks which forced Baier and actor Gary Sinise out of the Legatus conference do not involve opening fire on anybody’s editorial offices and murdering the offenders. These things are mostly done differently in America. I say “mostly” because of the terrorist attack on the Washington, D.C. offices of the Family Research Council (FRC) in 2012. That was inspired by a “hate map” posted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) pinpointing the location of the FRC. A security guard was injured as he stopped a homosexual militant from trying to carry out a massacre in the FRC offices.

In most cases, however, the weapons of character assassination, distortion, and anti-Christian bigotry will suffice. The purpose is to intimidate and ostracize those who dare to associate with groups affirming traditional standards of morality. One of the new tactics, as used by Mediaite, is to associate Catholics with racial extremists. This is a smear that is beneath contempt, but the gay lobby and its fellow travelers will stop at nothing.

The message that the site was sending to Jindal is that he risks his political future by associating with a notorious hate group called the Catholic Church. It was a threat disguised as news.

The leftists have no quarrel with the views of the pope on economic matters. And they certainly won’t quibble with his encyclical on climate change when he issues that in March. But challenging the morality of the lifestyle of so many in Hollywood and the media is something else. Questioning the homosexual lifestyle simply cannot be tolerated.

Jindal, who is a Catholic, didn’t succumb to the pressure. He had the intestinal fortitude to remain true to his beliefs. He understood that the attacks on Legatus were an attack upon his own faith. He couldn’t back down and maintain his own principles. Jindal’s decision to stand up to the modern totalitarians in the gay rights movement has to be seen as courageous.

Backing out is especially troubling in the case of Bret Baier, since his speaking appearance at the Legatus summit was for the purpose of talking about his own Catholic faith expressed in his book, Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love. He wasn’t there to talk about gay rights. Neither was Sinise, for that matter.

Baier, or his corporate bosses, have to take the blame for giving in to the pressure. We would have thought that the Fox News Channel would have stood firmly for freedom of expression and freedom of conscience. It sets a terrible precedent that a “conservative” news channel, which became successful by speaking for many without a traditional voice in the liberal media, should bow at the altar of political correctness. Why they buckled to the pressure is a story in itself.

As we have pointed out, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is allowed to pontificate on the air, including on behalf of the gay rights cause. But a Bret Baier speech about his book at a Catholic event is supposed to be offensive. This is the state of our media today.

The tactics used by the homosexual lobby have been perfected by such groups as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations against their enemies. What’s new is that the official Catholic Church teachings on human sexuality are now labeled as so offensive that people can’t even be associated with a group that promotes them. This is the kind of religious discrimination we have seen in countries like France against the Jews.

Some in the media called the summit “anti-gay,” which is a complete lie. As Legatus Executive Director John Hunt said in a statement, “Legatus embraces all that the Catholic Church teaches—nothing more, nothing less. Of course, at the core of all that the Church teaches is Christ’s unconditional love for every man and woman. While the Church has and always will teach about the morality of certain behaviors, these teachings are always to be understood in the context of the value of and respect for every human person.”

Turning Christian love into “hate” is an indication of how a situation can be twisted into something it’s not. This is how political correctness, a form of cultural Marxism, works in practice. The homosexual lobby has perfected this tactic of intimidation.

Hunt said the group’s members are only asking for the freedom to exercise their religious beliefs, “which includes the ability to gather together and discuss their faith.”

That such a meeting has become controversial, to the point where major figures in the media and Hollywood can be forced to back out, is a terrible reflection on the condition of the First Amendment right to free speech in America today. The news organizations that are involved in this silencing of freedom of expression have shown they have no understanding of what “I am Charlie” is all about.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

It was widely reported two days ago that Bret Baier, thoughtful and winsome host of the FOX News program Special Report with Bret Baier, has canceled his commitment to speak at the annual conference of the Catholic organization Legatus, which Domino’s Pizza owner Tom Monaghan helped found.

It appears that an infamous homosexual blogger, Jeremy Hooper, was instrumental in impelling Baier to cancel. For those who are unfamiliar with Hooper, he has a website Good As You (get it, “G.A.Y.) on which he attacks anyone and everyone who expresses orthodox Christian views of homosexuality, castigating them as ignorant, bigoted, haters, which, of course, includes anyone who publicly affirms the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

Hooper’s “arguments” amount to, “Can you believe he (or she) said this?”

So, this is what Hooper presented as his “evidence” that Legatus is a bigoted organization:

Legatus is a very anti-gay organization of Catholics. Here are just two examples of the views that this organization pushes out to its members:

It’s impossible to see homosexual unions as being in line with God’s intentions for marriage since the product of intercourse is not fruitful. Along with masturbation, fornication, and adultery, homosexuality is a selfish act that cannot fulfill the divinely ordained purpose of the reproductive powers. The Church teaches that God instituted the sacrament of Marriage, and only He has the authority to change the nature of marriage. Neither the Church nor the state has the competence to alter the substance of marriage or the family. Attempts by civil government or the courts to alter the law in favor of same-sex unions distort the true meaning of marriage, which has existed for thousands of years.

The Church encourages people who suffer from the disorder of same-sex attraction to live a chaste and celibate life. Chastity is required of all people, no matter their state in life — single, married, or celibate. It is a virtue in which our thoughts, words, and actions are modest. Celibacy is a discipline by which one does not marry.

***

There are many reasons why people suffer from SSA disorder. Some “discover” this tendency within them. Others grow into it through pursuits of pleasure or experimentation. Some use it to punish themselves or others. Whether the disorder has some deep, unknown roots over which one has virtually no control, or whether it’s a developed disorder resulting from bad choices, it leaves an individual disposed toward activities and a lifestyle that are dangerous — physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Fortunately there is hope for those who suffer from the disorder. The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality reports that significant numbers of homosexual persons have undergone treatment and had their sexual drives properly ordered. These findings are a beacon of hope to those suffering from SSA, as well as for their family and friends who desire their happiness and good health. Finally, for those who for whatever reason cannot be cured, there is a support group known as Courage to help them live safe, moral, chaste lives. Those who continue to suffer from this disorder can find true help through an orientation toward their Savior and Redeemer, “the Orient from on High,” and the life that He offers them in Himself. [Legatus]

You might remember that I [Jeremy Hooper] helped convince Bob Newhart from appearing at a benefit for this anti-gay organization. 

A few words about the word “bigoted”:

A “bigot” according to The Merriam Webster dictionary refers to a person who is “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.”

Clearly, there is a distinction between bigotry and moral views. Bigotry cannot simply refer to holding opinions or being in possession of moral precepts, for if it did, everyone but sociopaths would have to be considered bigots because everyone but sociopaths holds certain behaviors as moral and others as immoral.

In addition, the word “obstinacy” in the definition of “bigot” warrants some discussion. According to The American Heritage Dictionary, “obstinate” connotes “unreasonable rigidity.” I would argue that conservative views on homosexuality are completely reasonable, and that conversely, liberal views are woefully unreasonable.

In order to determine whether a tenaciously held conviction reflects obstinacy requires an evaluation of the content of the belief and the justifications for that belief. For example, very few would characterize the act of consistently, tenaciously, unrelentingly, and enduringly holding the belief that infantilism, or pedophilia, or polyamory, or genocide, or female genital mutilation is wrong to be a manifestation of obstinacy or bigotry. Rather, holding unwaveringly to the moral conclusions that these behaviors are wrong represents legitimate and essential moral judgment.

Moreover, “obstinate” cannot be severed from the other parts of the definition. Bigotry is the obstinate devotion to uninformed or unintentional inclinations, especially ones that result in hatred of members of a particular group.

The key phrase for distinguishing between bigotry and moral conscience is that a bigot not only holds opinions but “regards or treats the members of a group…with hatred and intolerance.” Certainly there are those in society who demonstrate this kind of behavior–just as there are “progressives” who demonstrate such behavior toward people of faith–but anyone who truly submits their lives to Christ, dooes not treat anyone with hatred. And simply expressing the view that some particular volitional conduct is wrong is not an act of hatred.

While FOX News contributed $10,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Journalist Association and both FOX News personalities Megyn Kelly and Shepard Smith have attended its events, Bret Baier cancels a Catholic event because the organization upholds Catholic teaching.

If Baier refuses to speak at any event hosted by an organization that affirms the teachings of the Catholic Church on homoerotic activity, will he attend a church in which a priest preaches homilies about the Catholic Church’s position on homoerotic activity?

What if Hooper and other homosexual activists are wrong? What if the God who Christians—including Baier—claim to serve does, indeed, hate homoerotic activity? What if the words of St. Paul in 1 Cor. 6:9 are true that “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.…”? If successful, homosexual activists who seek to censor public speech will prevent those who experience same-sex attraction from hearing the truth that could set them free. Their efforts are not acts of love but acts of ignorance that may result in eternal separation from God.

And because of Bret Baier’s apparent cowardice, he has become complicit in their destructive efforts.

The Truth Project

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015
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Barely five days after The New York Times ran a major news article on the firing of Atlanta’s fire chief for his views on homosexuality, a major Times opinion writer declared that religious liberty is a fine thing, so long as it is restricted to “pews, homes, and hearts” — far from public consequence.

The firing of Kelvin Cochran as chief of Atlanta’s Fire Rescue Department came after the city’s mayor, Kasim Reed, determined that the chief could not effectively manage the department after he had written a book in which he cited Scripture in defining homosexuality as a sin.

The most crucial portion of the Times story includes the mayor’s rationale:

“At a news conference, Mr. Reed said that Mr. Cochran’s ‘personal religious beliefs are not the issue.’ But Atlanta’s nondiscrimination policy, the mayor added, is ‘nonnegotiable.’

‘Despite my respect for Chief Cochran’s service, I believe his actions and decision-making undermine his ability to effectively manage a large, diverse work force,’ Mr. Reed said. ‘Every single employee under the fire chief’s command deserves the certainty that he or she is a valued member of the team and that fairness and respect guide employment decisions.’”

But the mayor’s words do not form a coherent argument. Chief Cochran was fired precisely because his “personal religious beliefs” are, in the mayor’s mind, incompatible with assuring every member of the department “that he or she is a valued member of the team and that fairness and respect guide employment decisions.”

Chief Cochran had written a book entitled, Who Told You that You Were Naked?, in which, according to the Times, he had affirmed that homosexual acts are among what the Bible defines as “vile, vulgar, and inappropriate activities” that “dishonor God.”

The story has been widely reported in the national press, and no accusation that Chief Cochran had acted in a discriminatory fashion toward any department employee has yet been asserted. In November, announcing the Chief’s suspension without pay, Mayor Reed said that Chief Cochran’s views as expressed in the book were inconsistent with the city’s policies on discrimination. Note, as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution made clear, the mayor’s concern was the chief’s views on homosexuality. The paper cited a statement from the mayor’s office in its report on the suspension: “I want to be clear that the material in Chief Cochran’s book is not representative of my personal beliefs, and is inconsistent with the administration’s work to make Atlanta a more welcoming city for all of her citizens — regardless of their sexual orientation, gender, race and religious beliefs.”

But the mayor did not extend his concern about non-discrimination on religious beliefs to Chief Cochran, who clearly expressed his views as a matter of biblical belief.

Liberties do not exist in a vacuum. In any historical moment, certain liberties collide with other liberties. We are now witnessing a direct and unavoidable collision between religious liberty with what is rightly defined as erotic liberty — a liberty claimed on the basis of sexual identity and activity. Religious liberty is officially recognized in the Bill of Rights — even in the very first amendment — and the framers of the American order did not claim to have established this right to free religious expression, but to have recognized it as a pre-existent right basic to citizenship.

Erotic liberty is new on the scene, but it is central to the moral project of modernity — a project that asserts erotic liberty, which the framers never imagined, as an even more fundamental liberty than freedom of religion. The logic of erotic liberty has worked its way from law schools and academia into popular culture, entertainment, public policy, and Supreme Court decisions.

In one classic example, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy famously wrote  of human dignity in terms of one’s “concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” — and he has explicitly tied that to erotic liberty in a series of decisions and opinions.

Chief Cochran wrote a book, as a Christian and for his fellow Christians. According to the Times article, he gave a copy of the book to three city employees who had not asked for it. In response, he was fired by Mayor Reed.

The opinion column published just days after Chief Cochran’s firing was written by Frank Bruni, an openly-gay columnist whose essays often appear in the “Sunday Review” section of the paper. In this case, he cites his own sexual orientation in making his argument in “Your God and My Dignity.”

His argument is that claims of endangered religious liberty for conservative Christians are “absurd.” He complains about “religious people getting a pass that isn’t warranted.” Religious liberty, he claims, is being used as “a fig leaf for intolerance.”

The legalization of same-sex marriage cannot and will not infringe upon religious liberty, he claims, because such laws “do not pertain to religious services or what happens in a church, temple or mosque; no clergy member will be compelled to preside over gay nuptials. Civil weddings are covered. That’s it.”

The really chilling part of his statement is the restriction of religious liberty to “religious services or what happens in a church, temple, or mosque.” This is becoming more and more common, as major political and legal figures speak more and more of “freedom of worship” as a replacement for religious liberty. Religious liberty certainly includes freedom of worship, but it by no means stops there.

Furthermore, when the proponents of same-sex marriage and the new sexual revolution promise even to respect what goes on in a church, temple, or mosque, they evidently cannot keep their arguments straight. In the very same column, Bruni complains that religious congregations are given too much liberty to define their own ministry. He laments that “churches have been allowed to adopt broad, questionable interpretations of a ‘ministerial exception’ to anti-discrimination laws that allow them to hire and fire clergy as they wish.”

The front lines of the battle for religious liberty will be at the door of your congregation very soon, if this column is any indication — and it is. While promising to respect “freedom of worship,” Bruni openly implies that congregations should not have the right to hire and fire ministers or clergy on the basis of their sexual orientation or beliefs. What kind of liberty is that?

It is no liberty at all. This argument spells the end of religious liberty in any meaningful sense. What about the right of religious schools to hire, admit, and house on the basis of Christian moral judgment? If Bruni complains about congregations having the right to “hire and fire clergy as they wish,” we can only imagine what he would want to see mandated in terms of religious schools and institutions.

The headline over the print edition of Frank Bruni’s column is “Your God and My Dignity.” The use of the term “dignity” in this way is explained by University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus as “the mission creep of dignity.” In an important article released today, Regnerus contrasts the traditional view of human dignity, rooted in the belief that every human being is made in God’s image and affirmed by natural law theorists as “Dignity 1.0.” As Regnerus explains, this view of human dignity is defined as a person’s “inherent worth of immeasurable value that is deserving of certain morally appropriate responses.” As he further explains, “Understood in this way, dignity is an inalienable value. It’s a reality. Human dignity does not become real when you start to believe in it. It remains real even when neglected or violated. It may be discerned differently across eras, but it’s not arbitrary, to be socially constructed in unique ways by collective will or vote.”

“Dignity 2.0,” on the other hand, is on the ascent. As Regnerus asserts, “To be sure, Dignity 2.0 exhibits some similarities with its predecessor. Each has to do with inherent worth. Each implies the reality of the good. Each understands that rights flow from dignity. But Dignity 2.0 entrusts individuals to determine their own standards.”

In terms of the moral revolution and marriage, he writes:

“Witness, as an example, what is happening to marriage in the West, where the power elite has aligned behind Dignity 2.0 and its novel conclusions about the nature and structure of a timeless institution. The basis for Dignity 2.0 in the West does not rest on external standards, on traditional restraints such as kinship, neighborhood, religion, or nation, which are all stable sources of the self. Rather, it is based upon the dis-integrated, shifting “me,” subject to renegotiation, reinvention, and reconstruction, reinforced by expansive conditions and regulations. It’s exhausting—though profitable to attorneys. And Facebook. But it also explains my confusion: there are rival forms of dignity, and the version you employ matters a great deal.”

Indeed, it matters a very great deal. And the central thrust of Dignity 2.0 is what I describe as erotic liberty — the newly asserted liberty that is now trampling  or endangering religious liberty.

Don’t miss the final words of Frank Bruni’s column:

“And I support the right of people to believe what they do and say what they wish — in their pews, homes and hearts. But outside of those places? You must put up with me, just as I put up with you.”

In the event we missed the point earlier in his column, he makes the point crystal clear in the end. Religious liberty is to be respected, so long as it is confined to “pews, homes, and hearts.”

Chief Kelvin Cochran knows exactly what Frank Bruni means. Do you?

This article was originally posted at the AlberMohler.com website.

Openly homosexual New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni has announced his generous support for the right of people of faith “to believe what they do and say what they wish—in their pews, homes and hearts.” (emphasis added).

Wow, thanks, Mr. Bruni.

The hubris of “progressives,” particularly “progressives” of a particular rainbow-hued stripe, seems to know no bounds. According to Bruni, conservative Christians must relinquish their constitutionally protected right to the free exercise of religion on his altar to the god of homoeroticism.

A peevish Bruni starts his screed by moaning that he feels “chafed” by claims that homosexuals like himself are a threat to religious liberty and then proceeds to argue for a breathtaking limitation of religious liberty to only pews, homes, and hearts—which is actually no liberty at all. In so doing, Bruni reveals his lack of understanding of both the history of religious liberty and of what faith entails for followers of Christ.

The First Amendment was intended to protect the right of people of faith to practice their religion unencumbered by government, which has the unruly tendency to intrude into areas of human life into which it ought not intrude. The Free Exercise Clause was intended to provide broad protections for the exercise of religion—which is not limited to pews, homes, and hearts, and not abrogated by homoeroticism.

Homosexuals and their “progressive” ideological allies who condemn orthodox Christian beliefs are trying to arrogate to themselves the right to determine what the free exercise of religion for orthodox Christians entails. For true followers of Christ, the practice of religion is a holistic endeavor—at least as holistic as homosexuals claim their romantic and erotic desires are. Imagine someone saying that he supports the right of homoerotically-oriented men and women to believe what they do and say what they wish only in their churches, homes, hearts, and maybe the Center on Halsted.

Or imagine if those homosexuals who attend churches that embrace late 20^th Century, heterodox theology and as a result support legalized same-sex faux-“marriage” were told that they could believe what they wish and say what they wish only in their pews, homes, and hearts. In other words, they should lose the right to affect public policy or allow their business practices to reflect their religious beliefs.

In a hyperbolic rhetorical flourish, Bruni asks, “why should a merchant whose version of Christianity condemns homosexuality get to exile gays and lesbians?” Exiling gays and lesbians? Wow again.

The inconvenient truth for Bruni is that Christian florists and bakers are seeking neither to exile homosexuals nor to refuse to serve customers who affirm a homoerotic identity. Rather, they’re refusing to use their time, gifts, and labor to make a particular product that celebrates an event that the God they serve abhors. In reality, these same florists and bakers have actually served on multiple occasions the very homosexuals who are suing them for not making products for their “weddings.”

Bruni then digs in with his floppy shovel, suggesting that not making a cake or floral arrangement  for a same-sex “wedding” is analogous to a Muslim store-owner refusing to serve a woman whose head is not covered or a Mormon hairdresser turning away clients “who saunter in with frappuccinos.”

In other words, Bruni suggests that when a baker chooses not to make a particular product for a particular type of event—and a type of event for which this baker has never made a product—it is analogous to a business-owner demanding that a customer adopt the owner’s religious practices in order to be able to purchase a product or service.

But of course, no Christian florist or baker has demanded that customers adopt his or her religious practices or beliefs in order to purchase a product or receive a service. Conservative Christian bakers sell their cookies and cupcakes to homosexuals. Christian photographers take photos of homosexuals. Christian florists sell flowers to homosexuals. No Christian has turned away customers who saunter in wearing a PRIDE t-shirt. And Christian business-owners do not demand that customers wear crucifixes or take Communion in order to be served.

It’s important to note this critical distinction: A ceremony that celebrates the union of two people of the same-sex is not identical to a ceremony that celebrates the union of two people of opposite sexes. Such a ceremony is the antithesis of a marriage, which is why many orthodox Christians will not use the terms “wedding” or “marriage” to describe the union of two people of the same-sex.

Calling a homoerotic union a “marriage” does not make it a marriage in reality. Just as legally construing a human as 3/5 person would not make him in reality only 3/5 a person, the foolish decision of foolish people to recognize legally a homoerotic union as a “marriage” does not make it in reality a marriage.

So, the request of homosexuals for a cake for their “wedding” is not the same as a request from a heterosexual couple for a cake for their wedding. Homosexuals are seeking to compel bakers to make a product for an entirely different type of event, and one which the bakers believe mocks real marriage and offends God.

Bruni trots out and beats the dying but still useful homosexuality = race horse: “As these lamentations about religious liberty get tossed around, it’s worth remembering that racists have used the same argument to try to perpetuate segregation.” It’s also worth remembering that the fact that one group of people with a gross misunderstanding of Scripture appealed to religious liberty to defend evil practices does not mean all groups who appeal to religious liberty are guilty of engaging in evil practices or of grossly misinterpreting Scripture.

Moreover, it makes no rational sense to compare a condition like race that has no inherent connection to either feelings or volitional acts to homoeroticism which is constituted solely by feelings and volitional acts.

Since Bruni is busy declaring the boundaries in which people of faith may exercise their religion, maybe Bruni can help us out by answering these questions:

• Should a male Muslim massage therapist whose faith prohibits him from touching unrelated women be required to give massages to unrelated women?

• Should a Mormon hairdresser whose faith teaches that polygamy is profoundly sinful be required to use her skills to style the hair of brides in a polygamist’s commitment ceremony?

• Should a Christian whose faith teaches that racism is sinful be required to bake a cake decorated with a white supremacy message for a Neo-Nazi event?

• Should a baker who identifies as a “gay Christian” and attends a theologically heterodox church—perhaps a Metropolitan Community Church or a Dignity USA chapter—be compelled to make a cake for a National Organization for Marriage event?

Bruni makes clear the error in his thinking when he says that Christian bakers, photographers, and florists “are routinely interacting with customers who behave in ways they deem sinful. They don’t get to single out one group of supposed sinners. If they’re allowed to, who’s to say they’ll stop at that group?”

Bruni’s rendering of the plight of Christian owners of wedding-related businesses is backwards. Christian owners of wedding-related businesses are not singling out and refusing to serve a particular group of sinners. Rather, some members of a particular group of sinners are trying to force Christian owners of wedding-related businesses to participate in their sin.

Bruni presumptuously proclaims that “Baking a cake, arranging roses, running an inn: These aren’t religious acts…”

Well, God may beg to differ with Bruni:

• “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).

• And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col. 3:17).

• “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men…” (Col. 3:23)

• “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness…” (Jer. 22:13).

• “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

• “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.  Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.  Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.  For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret” (Eph. 5: 5-12).

Due to the astonishing influence of homosexual and “trans” activism and the unbiblical cowardice of Christians—including especially Christian leaders—we’re going to see the government increasingly making demands on Christians with which Christians ought not comply. It is during those times that Christians should remember that we are commanded to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

The Truth Project

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
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April 10-11, 2015

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With the dozen Muslim killings fresh on the news, the self-proclaimed liberal addressed the massacre to the audience for what he believes it truly was: a jihadist attack by merciless Islamic terrorists on infidels for dishonoring their religion’s founder and prophet.

“It’s not a presume [sic] — no, no it’s Muslim terrorists,” Maher told Kimmel and his studio audience on ABC. “This happens way too frequently. It’s like … Groundhog Day, except the groundhog kept getting his head cut off.”

As a political commentator, TV host, writer, producer, actor and stand-up comedian, Maher showed his appreciation and admiration for the four French journalists boldly doing their jobs despite previous Muslim attacks on satirists. “Let’s also give some credit to this newspaper,” Maher pleaded with the crowd.

How is this not a Muslim attack?

While the three masked jihadists fired rounds from their AK-47 assault rifles at the Charlie Hebdo magazine headquarters in Paris, France — yelling “Allahu Akbar” (meaning their god [Allah] is greater) and screaming that they are “avenging the prophet” (Mohammed) — 12 French were slain, including four of the publication’s top editors and two police officers. Their vengeance was aimed at paying the publication back for satirical cartoons it published depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed. After the incident, one of the three suspects turned himself in. The other two gunmen were killed earlier today when French police stormed a printing plant north of Paris where they were holding hostages.

Maher insists that no matter how offended Islamists might be by political cartoons, tolerating such heinous acts of revenge are despicable and unpardonable and should not be shielded under the veil of politically correct religious tolerance or marginalized as a random unorganized terrorist attack.

“For the crime of being satirists — for the crime of drawing cartoons — this has to stop, and unfortunately, a lot of the liberals, who are my tribe (I am a proud liberal) [are saying the attack was not Islamic in nature],” Maher proclaimed. “No, I’m not turning on them [liberals], I’m asking them to turn toward the truth as I have been for quite a while.”

So what kind of liberal denials is Maher talking about? Look no further than former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean, who said the Charlie Hebdo assassins are not Muslim despite their Islamic chants.

“I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists,” Dean expressed on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” about the jihadist murderers of a dozen Parisians. “They’re about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for anybody else’s life — that’s not what the Koran says. Europe has an enormous radical problem. I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it’s a cult.”

Such reasoning reflects the common montage frequently proclaimed by President Barack Obama, who has consistently insisted that ISIS (the Islamic State) “is not Islamic,” declaring Islam to be a “religion of peace.”

The liberal host could not see how his fellow leftists could rally behind a group in the name of cultural tolerance — one that stands against the very principles of freedom of speech and expression that liberalism champions.

“I’m the liberal in this debate … I’m for free speech,” Maher continued. “To be a liberal, you have to stand up for liberal principles. It’s not my fault that the part of the world that is against liberal principles is the Muslim part of the world.”

But Maher could not look past his leftist colleagues just not getting it, such as CNN commentator Sally Kohn, who recently made light of the Charlie Hebdo killings by turning the attack toward conservatives.

“Since 9/11, right-wing extremists (incl anti-abortion, anti-gov) have killed more Americans than Islamic extremists,” Kohn tweeted Wednesday.

Islam … really a religion of enlightenment and peace?

Maher pointed out the injustices and atrocities most of the world looks past out of so-called religious tolerance — or out fear of being avenged or being deemed as politically incorrect.

“There have been studies … We have facts on this, [such as Muslims’] treatment of women,” Maher asserted. “They studied 130 different countries. Seventeen of the bottom 20 were Muslim countries. In ten Muslim countries, you can get the death penalty just for being gay. They chop heads off in the square in Mecca. Well, Mecca is their Vatican City. If they were chopping the heads off of Catholic gay people, wouldn’t there be a bigger outcry among liberals?”

He maintains that zero tolerance should be afforded to a religious group that slaughters people in the democratic world for just doing their job — all because their religion, which most liberals call a “religion of peace,” calls for the execution of those who don’t submit to Allah or disrespect his prophet, Mohammed.

“So to bring it home to us, because we are satirists … and I deal with this subject particularly … it’s kind of scary that some people say you cannot make a joke,” Maher added. “That’s off-limits. We saw this with [North Korea’s] Kim Jong-Un.”

No excuse

Publicly proclaiming to be no lover of religion, Maher concedes that they’re not all the same and that he particularly detests some basic religious precepts much more than others.

“[I] know most Muslim people would not have carried out an attack like this,” Maher expressed to Kimmel. “But here’s the important point — hundreds of millions of them support an attack like this. They applaud an attack like this. What they say is, we don’t approve of violence, but when you make fun of the prophet, all bets are off.”

And he insists that it is not just the supposed “extremist” Muslims who advocate blood for not honoring Mohammed.

“That is mainstream in the Muslim world … When you make fun of the prophet, all bets are off,” Maher contends. “It’s also mainstream that if you leave the religion, you get what’s coming to you — which is death. Not in every Muslim country, not in the majority, but this is a problem we have to stand up to.”

Maher notes a big difference between Muslims and some other people groups he champions as a liberal, making the distinction that Islamists are the oppressors wielding their unchecked tyranny.

“And again, I’m the liberal in this debate … I was brought up in a liberal family,” Maher concluded. “The reason we were liberals is because we were against depression. I was a little kid when my father told us We‘re with Kennedy and against the Southern governors who stand in the doorways and don’t let black kids go to school. And all my life I’ve been for people who have been the downtrodden, the oppressed, the minorities. I’ve been for blacks, gays, women, Mexicans, whoever it is.”

Islam in America:
A Christian Response

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May 7, 2015

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This article was originally posted at the OneNewsNow.com website.