December 5, 2020 (American Thinker) — Past and present, one of the least known — and, until the modern era, largely futile — tactics used by Muslims to disarm Christians has been to insist that Christianity is against warfare and violence in general.
The most recent Muslim to take on this mantle of Christian theologian is none other than Somalia-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Around November 18, after Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) criticized Georgia Senate candidate Raphael Warnock for claiming that Christians could not serve both God and the military, Omar, the Muslim, turned to quoting — that is, misquoting — the Bible. In a tweet with an embarrassed face emoji, as if to suggest that what Rubio was saying was so embarrassing — in fact, the emoji was appropriate, but more because of her spelling errors — she posted:
Mathews [sic] 6:24
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and dmoney.' [sic] The lies and smears of the GOP have no boundaries, but this is a disgrace and shameful.
Omar is hardly the first Muslim to try to manipulate Christian theology to Christians' own detriment and disadvantage. For example, prior to the Crusader siege of Antioch in 1098, Muslim emissaries were sent to parley. They told the Europeans how their masters were “amazed that you should seek the Sepulchre of your lord as armed men, exterminating their people [Muslims] from long-held lands — indeed, butchering them at sword point, something pilgrims should not do.”
These diplomats said nothing about what “their people” had been doing to Christian subjects and pilgrims — that is, extorting, torturing, raping, and killing them — which is what occasioned the Crusades in the first place.
Similarly, Omar, who hails from a radically Islamic nation, Somalia — deemed the third worst persecutor of Christians in the world — would much rather scold Christians into disarming than have them resist violence, especially at the hands of Muslims.
In other words, she, like so many others, is an advocate of Doormat Christianity — a passive, nonjudgmental form of Christianity that deems lying down before an enemy virtuous. Muslims and other elements are persecuting innocents around the world? Show love and tolerance, turn the other cheek, say a prayer, and feel guilty for your own crimes — or even your ancestors' crimes. That is one of the dominant strains of this brand.
Doormat Christianity was regularly on display during Barack Hussein Obama's presidency: “On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love,” he said in 2015 — three days after a terror attack targeting Christians killed 147 people in Kenya, provoking a few American Christian groups to express anger. “And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less than loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned.”
Remarks attributed to Pope Francis (and, not denied by the Vatican) in support of homosexual civil unions have caused grave scandal to the faithful.
Please SIGN this urgent petition which asks Pope Francis to clarify and rectify these heterodox and scandalous remarks on homosexual civil unions, and which will be delivered both to the Vatican and to the Papal Nuncio of the United States (the Pope's official representative in the U.S.).
As the last guarantor of the Faith, the Pope should clarify and rectify these remarks, which go against the perennial teaching of the Church, even including the teaching of his living predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
"What we have to create is a law of civil coexistence [meaning civil union law, for homosexuals]...," Pope Francis is reported to have remarked, in what is arguably his clearest statement of public support for a practice morally prohibited by official Catholic Church teaching.
In fact, the Church has been crystal clear in Her opposition to homosexual unions.
Just in 2003, Pope Saint John Paul II approved a document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, titled 'Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons' and written by Cardinal Ratzinger (now, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI), which concludes with the following:
"The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself."
It could not be more clear: the Church is calling people to repentance, not to be left to indulge in grave sin.
Since becoming public, several senior prelates as well as other notable Catholic figures have voiced their opposition to these remarks attributed to the Pontiff.
Cardinal Raymond Burke stated: "It is a source of deepest sadness and pressing pastoral concern that the private opinions reported with so much emphasis by the press and attributed to Pope Francis do not correspond to the constant teaching of the Church, as it is expressed in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition."
Cardinal Gerhard Müller commented: "Where there is tension between the plain and obvious Word of God and the infallible interpretation on the one hand, and private expressions of opinion even by the highest church authorities on the other, the principle always applies: in dubio pro DEO [When in doubt, be in favor of God]."
And, Catholic theologian and apologist Scott Hahn, without directly quoting Pope Francis, shared on Facebook the 'Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,' published by the CDF in 1986, with the statement: "Holy Father, respectfully and humbly, I beg to differ... if that is indeed what you said. In any case, please clarify and rectify your statement, especially in view of the official teaching of our Lord through the magisterium of His Church."
But, the silence from the Vatican has been deafening, with no clarification forthcoming.
We must, therefore, ask the Pope for clarification in this serious matter.
Please SIGN and SHARE this petition which asks Pope Francis to clarify and rectify remarks attributed to him in support of homosexual civil unions.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'Cdl. Burke: Pope’s homosexual civil union remarks ‘contrary’ to Scripture, Tradition' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/cardinal-burke-on-popes-homosexual-civil-union-remarks-contrary-to-the-teaching-of-sacred-scripture-and-sacred-tradition
'Cardinal says Catholics ‘can and should’ disagree with Pope’s ‘opinion’ on gay civil unions' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/cdl.mueller-popes-words-on-gay-civil-unions-purely-private-expression-of-opinion-which-every-catholic-can-and-should-freely-contradict
'Archbishop Vigano, Bishops Tobin and Strickland respond to Pope’s approval of homosexual civil unions' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/archbishop-vigano-and-bishops-tobin-strickland-respond-to-popes-approval-of-homosexual-civil-unions
'Pope’s comments on gay civil unions cause shockwaves around the world' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/deepest-sadness-cardinal-burke-condemns-pope-franciss-remarks-supporting-civil-unions
Similarly, during the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, 2015, Obama directly invoked Doormat Christian tenets to shame Christians from being too critical of Islamic State atrocities: “Lest we get on our high horse and think this [Islamic beheadings, sex-slavery, crucifixion, roasting and burying humans alive] is unique to some other place,” the American president admonished, “remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”
Speaking of the Crusaders, how did they respond when Muslim diplomats expressed their shock that they, Christian pilgrims, had come with the sword? With more knowledge of Christian Just War theory than Omar, Obama, and their ilk would have us believe.
According to the account of Robert the Monk, with “one accord,” the crusaders replied:
No one with any sense should be surprised at us coming to the Sepulchre of Our Lord as armed men and removing your people from these territories. Any of our people who came here with staff and scrip [unarmed pilgrims] were insulted with abominable behavior, suffered the ignominy of poor treatment and in extreme cases were killed.
Thirty years earlier, and as just one of countless examples, a German pilgrim wrote of what the Muslims did to a “noble abbess of graceful body and of a religious outlook” who undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem: “The pagans captured her, and in the sight of all, these shameless men raped her until she breathed her last, to the dishonor of all Christians. Christ's enemies performed such abuses and others like them on the Christians.”
Before the walls of Antioch, where the word “Christian” was first coined, the Crusaders continued by noting that the land “belonged to our people [Christians] originally and your people [Muslims] attacked and maliciously took it away from them, which means it cannot be yours no matter how long you have had it.” Accordingly, “payback will be exercised by Frankish swords on your necks!”
The modern reader may find such an approach extreme, certainly “medieval.” But for the proponents of Doormat Christianity, nothing less than total capitulation will ever do. To quote Karen Armstrong, a former nun turned advocate for Islam, “During the 12th Century, Christians were fighting brutal holy wars against Muslims, even though Jesus had told his followers to love their enemies, not to exterminate them.”
In short, Christianity makes ample room for Just War — even as those who seek to subvert justice argue otherwise.
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
Published with permission from the American Thinker.