Robert Spencer - Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t

The war on terror is an ideological conflictone in which Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, secular Muslims, and others have a stake. But on that ideological front the West has been notably deficient. And this is due, in no small part, not only to a lack of cultural self-confidence, but also to a sense that Christianityupon which Western civilization is largely basedand Islam are at best morally equal. In the view of many left-liberal leaders, Christianity itself (or religion in general) is the real problem.

These days, Western bookstore shelves groan under an avalanche of anti-Christian books. In 2006 alone, major New York publishing houses unleashed such titles as American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century by Kevin Phillips; The Baptizing of America: The Religious Rights Plans for the Rest of Us by James Rudin; The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege by Damon Linker; Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg; Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelicals Lament by Randall Balmer; Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom by Barry Lynn; Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right by Mel White; American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America by Chris Hedges.

Other popular books sound many of the same themes, including The Conservative Soul by homosexual activist and blogger Andrew Sullivan and the atheist apologetics The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. The parade of anti-Christian books of several years ago, like Papal Sin by Garry Wills, Constantines Sword by James Carroll, and Hitlers Pope by John Cornwell, targeted Catholics. Now Protestants are finding themselves in the crosshairs.

Attacks on Christian history and doctrine are an integral part of a larger effort to instill a sense of cultural shame in even non-Christian European and American youtha shame that militates against their thinking the West is even worth defending.

A white American student, Rachel, unwittingly summed up this attitude when she told American Indian professor Dr. David Yeagley in 2001: Look, Dr. Yeagley, I dont see anything about my culture to be proud of. Its all nothing. My race is just nothing. Look at your culture. Look at American Indian tradition. Now I think thats really great. You have something to be proud of. My culture is nothing.

Yeagley mused: The Cheyenne people have a saying: A nation is never conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. When Rachel denounced her people, she did it with the serene self-confidence of a High Priestess reciting a liturgy. She said it without fear of criticism or censure. And she received none. The other students listened in silence, their eyes moving timidly back and forth between me and Rachel, as if unsure which of us constituted a higher authority. Who had conquered Rachels people? What had led her to disrespect them? Why did she behave like a woman of a defeated tribe?1

Rachels spirit is pandemic in Europe. Historian Bernard Lewis was quoted in January 2007 that Europeans are losing their own loyalties and their own self-confidence. They have no respect for their own culture. According to Lewis, Europeans, in a spirit of self-abasement, with its hallmarks of political correctness and multiculturalism, have surrendered to Islams increasingly shrill demands.2 Nor is Rachel alone in America: columnist Alicia Colon wrote in April 2007 that sadly, my generation has spawned self-loathing Americans who actually believe that this country is evil. They have neither respect nor love for this nation. Rather they are being taught by todays academic community that America and its institutions should be held in contempt.3

A principal aspect of this abject condition of Western hearts is disgust with Christianity and Judeo-Christian civilizationwhich for most Americans amounts to contempt for our forefathers. Christianity and the Jewish tradition from which it was born are at the heart of Western civilization. It has formed who we are as Americans, and has influenced Europeans and others around the globe for even longer. Like it or not, it has even shaped many who reject the Christian faith. For although the West has largely cast off its Christianity, and a war against Christianity has been raging in the courts for several decades, many of the societal values of Western countries remain rooted in Christian premises. Christianity also shares key moral principles with Judaismprinciples that do not carry over into Islam. These principles are the fount from which modern ethicists have drawn the concept of universal human rightsthe foundation of Western secular culture.

But apparently despite all this, Racheland those who equate Christian and Islamic fundamentalismposits that Christianity poses just as much or more of a threat to the free world than does Islam.

American high schools, colleges, and universities have now created millions of Americans who think and speak like Rachel. They have been subjected to decades of anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Christian conditioning by our educational establishment. And many like Rachel are today in positions that affect public policy.

This is why the truth must be told about Christianity and the Judeo-Christian culture. Americans and Europeansas well as Christians in the Middle East and elsewhereneed to stop apologizing for all our forefathers allegedly and actually did wrong, and for the culture they built (which is not identical to todays popular culture) and remember what they did right, recognizing what Judeo-Christian civilization has brought to the world. We must look honestly at Islam and Christianity and recognize how they differ. Although human nature is everywhere the same, and people have justified violence in the name of every faith, religions are not the same. We must not allow politically incorrect censors to stifle statements like this.

Ultimately this must be done because, as Yeagley points out, people who are ashamed of their own culture will not defend it.