Also, 45 percent “believe the 9/11 attacks on New York were a conspiracy between the United States and Israel,” and a “third of those questioned said they would rather live under Sharia law in the UK than British law.”
Sure, “most” Muslims are not terrorist sympathizers, but what do you do with the fact that such a significant minority of them are?
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Given the credibility of news reporting and the fact that percentage statistics can be very skewed, how reliable is this report?
And supposing that there is some element of truth to this report (which there probably is), the question that should first be asked is why do they prefer Sharia Law over British Law?
My guess is that they are Muslim first and then citizens of Great Britain rather than vise versa. If that is the case, then no matter how morally misguided they practice their faith, the fact that they are unwilling to allow their national citizenship to have priority over their religious belief is a lesson for many western Christians (dare I say “American” Christians) who have allowed national citizenship to have precedence over their faith in Jesus Christ.
Early 20th century Germany is an extreme example. But I think the current status of US citizens who claim to be Christian (hopefully we will never allow the extremism that occured in Germany).
Rex, wishing to impose Sharia law is a bit more than just saying that your first allegiance to God and the state comes in somewhere else down the list.
It means advocating the death penalty for Muslim apostates, i.e. Christian converts. It means making it legal for men to beat their wives.
There is nothing in these traditions that ought to serve as lessons for Western Christians — quite the opposite. It is Islam that needs to learn the lessons Western Christianity learned long ago about pluralism and the separation of church and state.
If you noticed, I did say that are morally misguided in their faith practice.
And you point out two such examples. Nevertheless, no matter how misguided they are we “Western Christians” could learn from then that Faith in God trumps our allegiance to our nation/state.
And I don’t need a government to grant me the right of separation between church and state in order to live as a faithful disciple of Jesus. The first three centuries lived as faithful disciples without any rights granted to them from their government that we contemporary Christians deem necessary in order to live the Christian life.
That it is possible to be faithful in a totalitarian state that rejects pluralism doesn’t mean that it is irrelevant whether a society is pluralist or not. Pluralism is both morally and practically superior to the alternatives.
At quick glance pluralism may look better than totalitarianism. But it sure would be interesting to study the moral consequences of pluralism. After all, the Roman Empire was pluralistic to a certain extent and we know the moral quagmire (sp?) that empire became.
The truth is that there is only one kingdom where righteousness exists and all other kingdoms and societies, no matter how noble the attempt, have their problems, failures, and eventually their demise.
That doesn’t mean they’re all equal.
Yes, I do agree that not all worldly kingdoms are equal. And I believe you and I agree that some earthly kingdoms embrace evil more than others.
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