Peter Kreeft - Ecumenical Jihad: Ecumenism and the Culture War

Of my 60+ books, this is one of only three that went out of print.

Why?

For the same reason my two books on abortion (like ALL books on abortion) dont sell well: because people dont want to hear what they say. It upsets them.

Why reprint it, then? Why send a loser out again into the field to compete with Oprah- approved politically-correct best-sellers?

Because its even more important now that people hear it.

Why is that?

To answer that question, lets distinguish 4 kinds of books:

(1) Books that tell lies that people want to hear

(2) Books that tell truths that people want to hear

(3) Books that tell lies that people dont want to hear

(4) Books that tell truths that people dont want to hear

Obviously, books that people want to hear ((1) and (2)) sell best.

And since people tend to believe what they want to believe, i.e. what the find comforting, and since lies are often more comforting than truth, therefore books in category (1) often sell better than (2). (Think of all those Oprah-approved politically-correct best-sellers.)

And the reason category (3) sells better than category (4) is that people are more upset by truths than by lies, because truths demand that they changeat least their thoughts, if not their lives.

This book upsets two kinds of people:

(1) liberals who like ecumenical but not jihad

(2) conservatives who like jihad but not ecumenical

In other words, people who are unlike Saint John Paul II and Saint Teresa of Calcutta and Pope Benedict XVI.

If you think that maybe, just maybe, these three spiritual giants might understand whats going on in the world today (spiritually, behind the headlines) better than you do, then you might want to give this cantankerously bothersome book a try.

I originally wrote this book before 9/11. Many people have asked me if Ive changed my mind about what I said about Islam and Muslims in light of that horror. My short answer was No, and my long answer was another book, Between Allah and Jesus: What Christians Can Learn from Muslims.

That book too upset both liberals, who didnt like my calling Muslims heretics, and conservatives, who didnt like my calling them allies. How can heretics be allies?

Mormons are heretics too, but they are allies in the culture war against the Culture of Death, the baby-killers, the soldiers of sodomy, the Hookup Culture (our colleges are now every randy teenagers dream: free hookers), the attack on the family, and Brave New World.

Have I upset you yet?

Can you look past the words, the categories, the knee-jerk reaction against calling an apostasy an apostasy, calling a whore a whore, and calling a kill a kill, and can you think clearly and rationally for a minute? Look:

Flannery OConnor shocked her Southern Baptist audiencewhen she told them, back in the 50s, that they were closer to the Pope than to some of the theologians in the liberal northern parts of their church, and that she was closer to them than she was to some of the theologians in her Catholic Church. She said, in effect, We both believe Jesus is God, and literally died and rose from the dead to save us from sin and Hell. They dont. So lets put this thing in perspective.

That ecumenical jihad perspective was rare then. Its not so rare today. The fog is lifting.

Lets apply this to the Muslims. Many Muslimsnot a majority, but a significant minorityare terrorists or supporters of terrorism, i.e. the deliberate murder of innocent human beings, including women and children and especially other Muslims.

Emo Philips answers that with a Perfect Joke.

I was walking across the Golden Gate Bridge and a saw a man about to jump.

Dont do it, I said.

He said, Nobody loves me.

I said, God loves you. Youre not an atheist, are you? He said, No.

I said, Good. Are you a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim? He said, A Christian.

I said, Me too! Are you Protestant or Catholic? He said, Protestant.

I said, Me too! What denomination? He said, Baptist.

I said, Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?

He said, Northern Baptist.

I said, Me too! Conservative Northern Baptist or Liberal Northern Baptist? He said, Conservative Northern Baptist.

I said, Me too! Conservative Northern Baptist of the 1879 Great Lakes conference or Conservative Northern Baptist of the 1912 Eastern Conference?

He said, Conservative Northern Baptist of the 1879 Great Lakes Conference. So I said, Die, heretic! and I pushed him off the bridge.

Some Muslim terrorists are full of hate. They will give their lives for the opportunity to murder you. Unless that is a faade masking the opposite state of soul underneath, or unless they repent, these people are probably going to go to Hell. Most Muslims, on the other hand, especially in the West, are very pious, very morally serious people. They take their religion more seriously than the average American Christian does. They fight for life, not for death. They love justice and peace and charity. Unless God is more cruel and unjust than we are, they are probably going to go to Heaven (though they will be shocked when they die and learn that only Jesus got them there).