Bryan Fischer #fundie

Bryan Fischer #fundie afa.net

It’s long past time to give up our nation-building efforts in Muslim countries. It won’t work, can’t work, and never will work. Islam makes the creation of a democracy an impossibility.

Islam is not about freedom, it is about heavy-handed and punitive control. Domination is at the heart of Islam, making the Muslim faith utterly incompatible with the Judeo-Christian values on which Western civilization has been built.

Freedom is in the DNA of Christianity, but tyranny is in the DNA of Islam.

Islam is grossly and permanently incompatible with the liberty we cherish in the West. And since tyranny is deep in the spirit of Islam, only the Spirit of God can root it out.

The Judeo-Christian tradition says, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). That verse was found on the lips of virtually every patriot during the days when were were defending our newly proclaimed independence from the foreign aggression of the British. That Bible verse became an animating force in our quest to secure and preserve liberty. Individual liberty is in the heart and soul of Christianity.

Where there is the spirit of Christianity, you will find a hunger and thirst for freedom. Where the spirit of Christianity is absent, as it is in Muslim lands, you won’t. There is no “Spirit of the Lord” in Islam. The spirit that animates Islam is of a much darker sort.

69 comments

old comment by Mister Spak

"Islam is not about freedom, it is about heavy-handed and punitive control."

Ummmm . . . .

"making the Muslim faith utterly incompatible with the Judeo-Christian values on which Western civilization has been built. "

You know one of those values is freedom of religion, right? As in "you can't have an abortion to save you life because it's against my religion" is contrary to those values?

"Islam is grossly and permanently incompatible with the liberty we cherish in the West."

Like the liberty to marry who you want to, regardless of the commands of a giant man with a long white beard who lives on clouds? Is that the liberty you're talking about?

"There is no “Spirit of the Lord” in Islam."

And there's no spirit of Allah in christianity. So what?

old comment by dionysus

Islam is not about freedom, it is about heavy-handed and punitive control. Domination is at the heart of Islam, making the Muslim faith utterly incompatible with the Judeo-Christian values on which Western civilization has been built.

What Judeo-Christian values? I did a comparison once where I saw what rules in the Ten Commandments violate Western law and what amendments in the Bill of Rights violate rules in the Bible and I found that at least 7 commandments violate standard freedoms we give to everyone (and that's being generous and equating bearing false witness literally with perjury) and at least 3 amendments in the Bill of Rights contradict the Bible while the rest were not commented on by one way or the other.

old comment by

Freedom in the DNA of Christianity?

Leviticus 25:44-46 (KJV)

Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.

Ephesians 6:5-9 (NRSV)

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

1 Peter 2:15-20 (NRSV)

For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.

old comment by Amadaun

...uhm. No.

Scripturally, Christianity has a certain strain of individualism, rather than communalism, that its siblings don't, simply because of the kind of messianic movement it was and the whole 'he who does not hate his parents does not love me' business. And that found some voice in actual Christian practice over a thousand years after the fact, as Christianity became more and more theoretically compatible with acquisitiveness and other forms of self-aggrandizement.

You would have a very different religion if Jesus had actually wanted to jettison his religious heritage and you only had gospels to work with. But you have the Tanach as well, so...yeah. All that is Christian, as well. (And I think that's the 'Judeo-Christian' thing; Christianity has all this Hebrew material built in.)

Islam was a bit of a merchants' religion from the beginning, because of its founder and the local economy, but it was a premodern merchant, which was a bit different. It was also more of a warrior's and a politician's religion. But really? It was almost as incompatible with real life as most of these weird 'revealed religions' are.

The best fact for your case, and the one you mysteriously passed over, is that while 'Judaism' refers to a tribal identity, and 'Christianity' refers to a loyalty to the anointed one, 'Islam' means submission. To God. Thing is, that's not really unique.

On the other hand, Islam has its own long tradition of personal spirituality as well as one of decisions based on consensus. The tendency for assemblies to 'hammer out a consensus' rather than 'vote' and give the day to a majority has had an impact of democratizing countries with a Muslim majority, but...the rest is pretty much bullshit.

old comment by Tempus

"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less... Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ."

--George Grant

old comment by

To me, his characterization of Islam as being about "heavy-handed and punitive control...Domination" applies to all the Abrahamic religions. The freedom and liberty he rhapsodises about are ideas which came out of the (secular) Enlightenment, and were most often resisted by the Church.
And I love "the foreign aggression of the British" as though the American revolutionaries weren't often sons and grandsons of British settlers, anyway. Enlightenment ideals, and not "Judeo-Christian values" was the animating force of that revolution. If it was all based on the Bible, why didn't they immediately declare a sort of "Handmaid's Tale"-type Christian theocracy, and adopt the Bible as their Constitution?

old comment by Professor M

The Judeo-Christian tradition says, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). That verse was found on the lips of virtually every patriot during the days when were were defending our newly proclaimed independence from the foreign aggression of the British.

Are you sure about that, Bryan? The widespread use of Biblical lines as magical spells is a feature of a branch of Protestant Christianity which mostly didn't exist at the time -- and considering the attitudes towards religion of the dudes in charge...

And how, exactly, were the British any more foreign than white colonists? Really, the Revolutionary War stemmed from a difference of opinion among foreign invaders. Said group of foreign invaders and their descendants may have cleaned up our act a bit in the years since, but that doesn't change what was going on at the time.

old comment by

Edit. This is Swede.

During the Dark Ages it seemed impossible to create a democracy in a Christian nation. Christianity then was not about freedom, it was about heavy-handed and punitive control. Domination was at the heart of Christianity, making the Christian faith utterly incompatible with today's secual values, on which the Western civilization has been built.

Moderate Muslims around the world are trying to make Islam and democracy fit together just like Christianity and democracy now fit together.
THAT is exactly what makes the fundamentalist Muslims so furious and aggressive. They won't allow any change to their precious faith, even if it would mean a more prosperous, calm and friendly society.