Cartoons, Muslims, Christians, and Civility

The blogosphere, or at least the Conservative side of the blogosphere, has been on fire (no pun intended) as of late over Cartoon-gate…the reaction of various segments of the world Muslim community to some satire published by a Danish newspaper. To hear it from these sources, one would think that the riots provide the smoking gun to prove the assertion that Islam is a religion of violence, hate, and intolerance, and should be wiped from the face of the planet by whatever means necessary.

I’ve not commented on it thus far because, well…I find it a non-issue. Paper offends group A, group A expresses outrage…end of story. Yeah, yeah…Violence and riots and the destruction of private property and such is completely and morally unjustified….but stuff like this happens on a daily basis. So why bother talking about it?

Then I read this article by Charley Reese offering a voice of reason to the perceptions of these riots.

The first thing to remember is that electronic communication is a two-edged sword. Ninety-nine and more percent of the world's Muslims are neither rioting nor demonstrating over those cartoons. We can now take pictures of a crowd in Beirut, one in Damascus and one in Kabul, and with the magic of generalization create the impression that the whole Muslim population is in the streets.

Trust me, if all 1.1 billion Muslims ever do take to the streets, we'll know about it.

Which brings up a bigger point. Sure… 20 years ago, when Christian groups headed by the likes of Jerry Falwell campaigned to have the film The Last Temptation of Christ censored by government, did we hear an explosion of “Christianity is a religion of intolerance” rhetoric? With the exception of a handful of anti-religion fringe groups, no.

How about the reaction to film Dogma, a comedic satire of Catholicism? There were protests, but by and large, most people recognized that the protestors were a small minority of believers who simply were humor-impaired. There was no mass movement to label all Catholics as members of “a religion of hate and intolerance”.

Ok, ok.. One might say…well these were just peaceful protests, designed to apply economic pressure against the perpetrators of these malicious, anti-Christian antic. Fine…point made. But what about abortion clinic bombers? What about people who murder gay people for no other reason than the victims are gay? Like it or not, these people are committing their heinous deeds in the name of Christian values , or at least finding support from Christian groups. Do they represent the whole of the Christian community? Of course not… Probably not even 1 percent of 1 percent. Yet, Christianity-sympathetic Conservatives would take the view that because some fringe element of the Muslim community acts out in a completely uncivilized way, we should all be tempted to view the whole of Islam in the same light.

And don’t give me that line, “well, more Muslim groups should be speaking out against this if they don’t want to be labeled that way”…. The fact is…practically NO Christian I have ever met has ever said one bad word about nutcases like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps …even when these Christian “leaders” would call on God to strike down “enemies” of the Bible. So, should all Christians be judged in light of the actions of a few nutcases in their ranks?

The bottom line: I agree with Reese. What’s wrong with a little civility regarding one of our most sacred freedoms…the freedom of conscience? (Or, at least if we are uncivil, we should expect to bear the consequences of our incivility). Sure, we can disagree with each other on theological and spiritual matters, but what’s wrong with according a little respect to others who are different? After all, that’s why we have a separation of church and state in America…(even if most Christian fundamentalists disagree)….