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| The looks of hostility and contempt directed at a Christian woman in a Christian house of worship. Source |
I wrote the essay, below, in response to the holding of
Muslim Friday jummah prayer at the Washington National Cathedral on November
14, 2014.
Beliefnet posted it, but I don't think they read it
first. I say that because the photos they use to accompany the essay don't mesh
with the essay's content.
You can see it at Beliefnet here.
National Cathedral Hosts Muslim Prayer on Friday,
November 14, 2014: It's About Tolerance, People!
On November 14, 2014, Washington DC's National Cathedral
hosted Muslim Friday prayer for the first time. The National Cathedral is an
Episcopalian church, site of the funerals of US presidents Dwight Eisenhower,
Ronald Reagan, and Gerald Ford, and memorial services for Harry Truman and Richard
Nixon. President George Bush spoke there after the 9-11 terror attacks. Moon
rock is displayed in a stained glass window in the cathedral. The Cathedral has
received federal funds.
The midday, "jummah" prayer, followed by a
sermon, was attended by approximately one hundred invited guests only. Non-invitees
were barred. Muslim leaders supplied prayer carpets, which were strategically
located on the floor to avoid any view of a cross. Muslims may not pray within
sight of crosses. Organizer Ebrahim Rasool said that the event would discourage
"Islamophobia" and allow "a world in which all are free to
believe."
Sponsors of the event include CAIR, ISNA, and the ADAMS
Center.
Christine Weick, a fifty-year-old woman from Michigan,
interrupted the Muslim service by entering the designated area and saying
loudly, "Jesus Christ died on that cross. It is the reason we are to
worship only him. Jesus Christ is our lord and savior. We have built enough of
your mosques in this country. Why don't you worship in your mosques and leave
our churches alone?" Weick was immediately and forcibly ejected from the
cathedral by two men.
DCist, a news site devoted to Washington, DC, condemned
Weick's intolerance. "Because love, respect and understanding is too much
of a concept for some people to understand, a person interrupted the service. Of
course," DCist reported, with disgust.
Other commentators echoed DCist. The National Cathedral
hosting jummah prayer is a sign of "tolerance." Anyone objecting is
"intolerant." After all, as many pointed out, the National Cathedral
is meant to be just that – national. In its own words it is to be "a house
of prayer for all people."
In fact, Muslim prayer at the National Cathedral is part
of a growing trend in tolerance. Truly, those who first espoused the theory of
universal human progress were correct. We are all evolving into a more peaceful,
civilized breed of humanity. Other news items suggesting that we as a species
are advancing towards perfection include the following.
Recently Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science
Education voiced support for the discussion and teaching of Intelligent Design
alongside Darwinian Evolution. This is a surprising turnaround. Back in 2005,
Dr. Richard Sternberg, an editor of a scientific journal affiliated with the
Smithsonian Institution, accepted for publication a peer-reviewed article written
by a proponent of Intelligent Design. Given that Sternberg himself is not a
supporter of Intelligent Design, National Public Radio asked him why he allowed
the article to be published in a journal he edited. He replied, "Because
evolutionary biologists are thinking about this. So I thought that by putting
this on the table, there could be some reasoned discourse. That's what I
thought, and I was dead wrong."
Alas, Sternberg was subjected to harassment. His
colleagues circulated career-destroying rumors about him. They took away his
master key and denied him access to research materials. According to the Office
of Special Counsel, which protects federal employees from reprisals, Eugenie
Scott's National Center for Science Education helped the Smithsonian to
"outline a strategy to have [Sternberg] investigated and
discredited." When questioned about her participation in this witch hunt, Eugenie
Scott told NPR that "Life is not fair."
That Scott is now in favor of the discussion of
Intelligent Design in high school and college classrooms, in faculty lounges and
in the pages of scientific journals is a sign of increasing tolerance.
Yet another sign that we are entering a New Age of human
perfection. Planned Parenthood has recently announced that it will allow
pro-life campaigners into its offices. Those supporting Muslim prayer at the
National Cathedral often argue, "Both Christians and Muslims pray to the
same God." Well, both abortion opponents and supporters address the same
demographic – pregnant women. Perhaps Planned Parenthood has decided that women
really should have access to full information before they make one of the most
important decisions of their lives. Perhaps women really should be able to see
ultrasound images of the fetuses that they carry, and perhaps they should be
fully informed about adoption and other options.
No, the progress doesn't stop there. In the past, organized
Atheists made headlines by opposing the placement of the Ground Zero Cross at
the World Trade Center Memorial. The cross was indisputably a central artifact
of the 9-11 terror attacks. Firefighters, police officers, and other rescue
workers congregated around the cross, attended mass under it, and carved
significant messages into its surface. You can't tell the story of 9-11 without
including the Ground Zero Cross. But that's exactly what organized Atheists
demanded that America do. Atheists went to court again and again to demand that
the Memorial simply erase the Ground Zero Cross, in the same way that Stalin
erased Trotsky from photographs after Trotsky fell out of favor. But now, in a
new move for tolerance, Atheists have announced that representatives Richard
Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Bill Maher will travel to the 9-11 Memorial and lay
flowers at the foot of the cross.
Tolerance is breaking out all over, it seems. In summer,
2014, Kathleen Hermsmeyer, Superintendent of Springs Charter School in
California, became embroiled in controversy. A school employee told a parent to
remove from school shelves "all books with a Christian message, authored
by Christians, or published by a Christian publishing company." Expunged
books included "The Hiding Place," the memoir of Corrie ten Boom, a
woman who rescued Jews and was imprisoned in a concentration camp for doing so.
Her father died after arrest and her sister died in the Ravensbruck
concentration camp. Ten Boom is typical of rescuers who acted on Christian
beliefs. Others include Maximilian Kolbe, Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma, and hundreds
of Polish nuns. Theirs is an essential part of Holocaust history. Even so, the
books telling their story needed to be removed from school shelves – until now.
Suddenly it's okay to read "The Hiding Place" at Springs Charter
School.
The most stunning evidence of the new tolerance sweeping
the globe comes from a belt of nations stretching from Morocco in the west to
Indonesia in the east. Suddenly nations that had previously tortured people for
mere possession of a Bible are inviting open discussion of Christianity. Lands
where Christians have not been allowed to hold Sunday services for over a
millennium now host Catholic mass. Where marriage between a Christian man and a
Muslim woman had been outlawed, suddenly, there are joyful open displays of
affection.
The alert reader recognizes that, of the above listed
accounts of tolerance, only one is a report of a true event. The only true
event is that the National Cathedral did hold Muslim services on Friday,
November 14. The other listed events are unthinkable. That they are unthinkable
reveals that the word "tolerance" used in reference to jummah prayers
at the National Cathedral is Orwellian doublespeak. Those calling for Christian
tolerance desire neither Christians nor tolerance. Rather, they want
Christianity to commit a physician's assisted suicide administered by Political
Correctness. Islam, to them, is a useful tool to achieve this end. Archimedes
famously said, "Give me where to stand and I will move the earth." He
could move it, he insisted, with the right lever. Islam is the lever that
Christophobes would use to eliminate Christianity. One might scoff, until one
remembers that Syria, Turkey, and Egypt were once central to the Christian
world.
Of the world's dominant religious systems: Judaism,
Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Islam, Islam is unique in its relationship
to Christianity. Mohammed died six hundred years after Jesus. Mohammed
appropriated garbled, popular elements of Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity
into his new book – the Koran – and his new system – Islam. Mohammed altered
these elements to suit his own needs. These alteration might change; once
Muslims worshipped facing Jerusalem, a city sacred to Jews and Christians. Later
they faced Mecca, a Pagan holy site. Moses and Mary are both characters in the
Koran, but highly distorted ones. Moses, who lived over a thousand years before
Mary, becomes Mary's brother. Islam's distorted picture of Jesus is of great
consequence. Christianity insists that Jesus is the son of God, and that he
died on a cross. Islam insists that "Isa ibn Maryam" – that is, son
of Mary, a mere woman – is not the son of God, and that he did not die on a
cross. In fact, Isa ibn Maryam will someday return to destroy all crosses, kill
all pigs, and wipe out Christianity. The Christian Bible contains material that
contradicts Mohammed's teachings. For this reason, Islam must denigrate the
Christian Bible as "corrupt." In their daily prayers, Muslims
repeatedly petition God not to be like "those who have gone astray,"
i.e., Christians.
Those arguing for Muslim prayer in the National Cathedral
argue for nothing less than the eclipse of Christianity and its replacement in
the minds, hearts and souls of its adherents with something entirely other. Given
that Christianity is one of the foundations of Western Civilization, this matter
is of concern to all.
Danusha Goska is the author of Save
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