Members of a Christian militia group were recently arrested and charged with conspiring to make war with the U.S. Government. Do you live in fear of Christian zealots?
These are two quotes from a wandering, meandering, pointless, irresponsible, Seattle Times op-ed piece entitled "Insults To Religion". The internet version is titled differently.
"Arrests in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio were spurred by a group's apparent desire to spread the gospel by fomenting armed revolution. If nothing else, it is a timely reminder that no world faith contains all the zealots willing to pervert core religious beliefs."
And then this from the same op/ed piece ...
"This is the creepy realm of the mad bomber Timothy McVeigh, and even the butcher Charles Manson. Evil visions of how to bring about apocalyptic violence to cleanse the world. Yikes."
We all know, including Christians, that different faiths in the world (including Christianity) contain zealots. We all know that violence in the name of the Scriptures is not a representation of it's message. What then is the point or motive of the Times comments to that matter? The Times article seems to be an absurd attempt at moral equivalency and to hear the sound of it's own voice.
Christianity is a religion of almost 2 billion people, a handful of whose followers 'go off the reservation' every few months to every few years, whose followers universally raise their voices against the violence in their name, and whose followers actually take steps to root it out internally. To put Christianity, with it's zealots, on par with Timothy McVeigh (whose actions were completely unrelated to religious zealotry), or Charles Manson (a mentally ill, career criminal, whose actions occurred almost 40 years ago), or other religions where violence is more common, is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest ... and the motives and intent of such an analogy are suspect.
Why not spend the print space of the article focusing on religious beliefs where violence is more common? In the name of religious zealotry, there is violence or attempted violence, committed almost every day, in most countries of the world, (including the U.S.), resulting in thousands of deaths a year, for several decades, and it doesn't involve Christianity. The analogy of the Times is most unseemly. On a daily basis around the world we are protecting ourselves at airports, subways, and the world has spent literally trillions of dollars in the last few years to protect against religious zealotry ... and it is not the zealotry of Christianity. Does the Times Editorial Staff think they are standing nearly naked at airport security because of the actions of Presbyterian zealots?
