Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

RAYMOND IBRAHIM - WHY "MODERATE ISLAM" IS AN OXYMORON

 

 Some excerpts from Ibrahim's article:  

 . . . just the other day, a Kenyan mosque leader said that the Westgate massacre, where Islamic gunmen slaughtered some 67 people, “was justified. As per the Koran, as per the religion of Islam, Westgate was 100 percent justified.” Then he said: “Radical Islam is a creation of people who do not believe in Islam. We don’t have radical Islam, we don’t have moderates, we don’t have extremists. Islam is one religion following the Koran and the Sunna” [emphasis added].

Note his point that “Radical Islam is a creation of people who do not believe in Islam,” a clear reference to the West which coined the phrase “radical Islam.” Ironically, the secular West, which relegates religious truths to the realm of “personal experience,” feels qualified to decide what is and is not “radical” about Islam.

Consider one example: Allah commands Muslims to “Fight those among the People of the Book [Jews and Christians] who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of truth [i.e., Islam], until they pay the jizya [tribute] with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” [Koran 9:29].

How can one interpret this verse to mean anything other than what it plainly says? Wherein lies the ambiguity, the room for interpretation? Of course there are other teachings and allusions in the Koran that by necessity lend themselves over to the fine arts of interpretation, or ijtihad. But surely the commands of Koran 9:29 are completely straightforward?

In fact, Muhammad’s 7^th century followers literally acted on this and similar verses (e.g., 9:5), launching the first Muslim conquests, which saw the subjugation of millions of Christians, Jews, and others, and the creation of the “Muslim world.” Such jihadi expansion continued until Islam was beaten on the battlefield by a resurgent West some two or three centuries ago.

JONAH GOLDBERG - "WHAT IS SOCIAL JUSTICE?"

Jonah has produced a fabulous short video below.  It's part of PragerU, an initiative of Dennis Prager.  Goldberg says: "For a much lengthier discussion of the subject, including its history, you could always buy my last book."

 

Other recommended talks at PragerU:

  -  "Are People Born Good?" by Dennis Prager

  - Dennis Prager Interviews historian Paul Johnson

  -  More videos . . .

WORLD VISION HAS CHANGED ITS POLICY REGARDING HIRING INDIVIDUALS IN SAME-SEX MARRIAGES

Update 3/27/14 - World Vision Reverses Decision to Hire Christians in Same- Sex Marriages

Only two days after announcing it would hire Christians in same-sex marriages, World Vision U.S. has reversed its ground-breaking decision after weathering intense criticism from evangelical leaders.

(Original post) - A friend wrote me about World Vision's change of policy.  I wrote back:

Thanks for the notice of World Vision's new policy. . .   After receiving your email, Tony Perkin's commentary arrived in my "inbox."  I then read the Christianity Today article, as well as Albert Mohler's commentary and Russell Moore's.   It's clearly a sad day and a terrible decision on theological grounds, and I think it will prove a stupid decision on pragmatic grounds as well.  

World Vision's leadership has proven itself lost at sea, which is particularly tragic since the world needs moral and theological leadership now more than ever.  As a pastor of a local church creates havoc because of sexual sin, so World Vision has done the same to the evangelical body of Christ which has provided its support.

THE IRS TARGETS ADOPTIVE FAMILIES

I am filing this blog post under the category: "Things I didn't know before".  David French recounts the various evils of the contemporary United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) under the current Democrat administration and includes the following item, which I find unbelievably mendacious on the part of the IRS:

Maliciousness: How else can one interpret the IRS’s effort to audit adoptive families? In a two-year period almost 70 percent of adoptive families were audited (including, by the way, my family) without any indication of fraud or misconduct. By contrast, the normal chance of an audit for a middle-class family is roughly 1 percent. And what did the IRS get for this dragnet — a dragnet that caused real financial hardship to families who’d financially extended themselves to adopt? Not much: ”The IRS disallowed less than 2 percent of the total tax credits claimed.”

QUICK TAKES

**  Report: D.C.'s green-approved buildings using more energy

 

**  German Home-School Family allowed to stay in the United States

A German home-school family will be allowed to stay in the United States permanently, the Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.

The U.S. Supreme Court had refused to hear Uwe and Hannelore Romeike's bid for asylum after they fled Germany over their choice to home school their children.

Today, the DHS announced the family has been granted indefinite deferred action status. That means that the Romeikes can stay in the United States permanently unless they commit a crime or violate the terms of their status.

"This is hugely great news," Attorney Michael Donnelly, with the Home School Legal Defense Association, said.

In 2008, the Romeike family fled Germany because the state threatened to take their children away if they did not enroll in public school.

In 2013, the Justice Department argued in the Romeike case that home schooling is not a fundamental human right. The department filed suit to have them sent back to Germany.

    Update:   Lindsay Howard offers a suspicious (and perhaps accurate?) evaluation of the DHS's move and issues an admonishment:

I suspect this was done for political expediency. The Obama Administration really doesn’t care about one more homeschooling family in the U.S. They just wanted to use the Romeikes to make legal precedent. So, after they win in court, set the precedent that homsechooling is not a parental right (and that refusing to allow homeschooling is not persecution), they act magnanimous and allow the Romeikes to stay to get the public to shut up and forget about the whole thing. We need to be sure we DON’T forget about it. We need to keep working to ensure that our government recognizes the rights of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

 **  The new USA secession movement gains steam

OBAMA'S LATEST INTERVIEW REVEALS A DELUSIONAL PRESIDENT

Jeffrey Goldberg conducted a wide-ranging, in-depth interview with PresidentObama last Thursday.  Goldberg summarized the exchange and then printed the verbatim text of the interview.   

When I read the text of the interview I said to myself, "Obama is delusional."  Then I read Elliott Abrams' report on the interview in the Weekly Standard which he sub-titled "Obama's scary interview. "  Elliott briefly dissected the interview and declared it shows a "chief executive who has learned next to nothing about the world in his five years in office."  That really is scary.  Check it out.  Note well what seems to me Obama's thinly-concealed contempt for Israel.   One day I think historians will use this interview to document Obama's foreign policy delusions.

Elliott Abrams offers sensble reflections on "How We Can Make Putin Pay, and Why We Must."

John Fund weighs in with additional thoughts as does Victor Davis Hanson and Jim Talent.  Update: Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal writes "Anatomy of a Feckless Presidency."

Update:  News report says Netanyahu pushed back against Obama's diplomacy

Update #2 - Charles Krauthammer's T ake: Obama is Living in a Fantasy World

 

NRO staff:

President Obama simply doesn’t understand international relations, and that’s why Russian president Vladamir Putin had the gumption to invade Ukraine, Charles Krauthammer explained on Special Report tonight. “To invade Crimea is a huge step and he would only have done it with a president who has shown from the very beginning that he’s living in a fantasy world,” Krauthammer said.

Obama began his presidency declaring that no nation can or should dominate another. On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that Russia committed a “19th century action in a 21st century world.” “They imagine the world as a new interconnected world where climate change is the biggest threat, and they are shocked that the Russians are actually interested in territory” Krauthammer said.