Christians kill Muslims.
Muslims kill Muslims.
Muslims kill Christians.
Christians kill Christians.
Which of them do so as an exercise of their faith?
I ask as a result of scanning an article which begins thus:
Religious minorities in the Muslim world today, constitutionally entitled in many countries to equality of citizenship and religious freedom, increasingly fear the erosion of those rights — and with good reason. Inter-religious and inter-communal tensions and conflicts from Nigeria and Egypt and Sudan, to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia have raised major concerns about deteriorating rights and security for religious minorities in Muslim countries.
When I first saw this piece, I missed the punctuation in the headline — A Global War on Christians in the Muslim World? — or I might have skipped clicking the link.
So after reading the opening sentences above, I came across this:
Regrettably, a significant number of Muslims, like many ultra conservative and fundamentalist Christians, Jews and Hindus are not pluralistic but rather strongly exclusivist in their attitudes toward other faiths and even co-believers with whom they disagree.
I take that statement by John L. Esposito to mean that a significant number of Muslims — that is, the radical types and the terrorist types — are like I am. 😯
I know I should be used to pluralists attempting to melt “radical Islam” and “conservative Christianity” in a common pot. 🙁
Oh well. 🙂
Reminder for Mark (and other conservative Christians and fellow members of the so-called Radical Reformation): Live your life according to Jesus Christ and His Gospel. The unequal comparisons eventually will fail.
In light of my opening lines in this post, I urge upon you something else I wrote quite awhile ago: Kosovo and Serbia: A Case Study Regarding Christians in the Military.
I should say yet that I do have at least this point of agreement with Mr. Esposito: Leaving out relevant truth to usher along toward a false impression is wrong.
PS: I don’t generally read the Huffington Post. I “wandered” over to this article from one at persecution.org. (I don’t generally read on that site either, though for different reasons.)