When I wrote about how a Christian was arrested, slammed across a store-front window, and handcuffed so tightly that blood was drawn, and all because he was talking about God to two willing listeners in a mall, I received a ton of responses. The overall argument against me was that I was wanting a theocracy, and that the mall as a private business had every right to decide what topics of discussion would be acceptable at the place of their business.
Never once in that article did I suggest that the law should force private business owners to accept Christian discussions on their property. However, I did accuse Political Correctness as part of the problem, as well as new societal views that run contrary to the founding principles of this nation.
The article was a commentary on society, and how we've gotten to the point that the very mention of God has a minority of citizens willing to take away societal freedoms because somebody, somewhere might be offended. Of course, I doubt we would have seen a similar action by the mall's security if two Muslims were talking about Allah, or if a couple homosexuals were discussing the gay rights issue.
The debate has become less about religion, and more about Christianity in America, despite the fact that it is other groups that use thuggish tactics, or that it is Islam pushing for a theocratic form of government system.
It is common in a debate initiated by a discussion of religion and politics for the topic to turn to God, and specifically to the Christian God. The fact that the founding fathers were inspired by biblical text is forgotten, and denied. The Declaration of Independence is filled with references to "The Creator." The majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had Christian seminary degrees. The early meetings of the fledgling American government were accompanied with prayer, and an understanding that the rights they were trying to protect were given to us by God.
Many believe that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, with the U.S. Constitution bearing strong biblical influence. This is not to say that the founders were striving for a theocracy. In fact, the First Amendment was written very carefully to ensure that a theocracy was unable to rise up, while still protecting the religious freedom of all citizens.
Secularists assume that like the followers of Islam in the societies that the Muslims dominate, Christians desire a system that imposes biblical morality by force on its citizens. The problem with that argument is that it runs contrary to biblical teachings. Salvation through Christ, and even the willingness to believe in God in the first place, is completely voluntary. The consequences are not to be imposed by man for disbelief, but by God at The Judgement.
Despite the fact that Christianity does not teach "forced religion," it is reasonable to assume that in a society suffering from moral decay, Christians are going to try to affect a path to the contrary, and preach the "good news" as much as they can. Unlike Islam, however, Christians don't do this to make a larger army, or to overrun a society. The Great Commission is anchored in love for one's fellow man, and the message is provided in the hopes of saving another wayward soul from the eternal damnation that follows this life should one die without Faith in Christ.
The argument against the Christian Faith, when this topic arises, invariably always turns to The Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisitions. The talking point presented claims that "Christianity is guilty of more deaths than any other group in history," and that Christianity has pushed for a worldwide theocracy in the past. That statements are false, and I have addressed the claim regarding the deaths caused by Christianity once before in a post titled: Murderous Christians. And when that debate point emerges, I must also remind the accuser that The Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisitions, were a response to the invasion of The Holy Land, and Europe, by Islam's warring military forces, not an attempt to spread a Holy Christian Empire.
During The Crusades there were individuals that took advantage of the situation, and corruption did arise within some of Europe's armies. The Vatican did, in fact, do a few questionable things while the wars were going on for which I have no explanation, other than that there were individuals that were guilty of wrong doing. One must also remember that no particular church represented all of Christianity during that time period. Catholicism, the Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists, or Calvinists did not represent all Christians no more than the liberal leanings of Obama and friends represents all Democrats, or all Americans. However, when viewing the big picture, it is obvious that The Crusades were necessary to protect Europe, and The Holy Land, from the scourge of a rapidly spreading, and bloodthirsty, Islamic Empire.
In 395 A.D. the Roman Empire was divided into two sections. The eastern portion became known as the Byzantine Empire. Barbarians from the north, principally of Germanic origin, brought down the western section of the Roman Empire in 476 A.D. As a result of internal corruption, and moral decay, the Western Roman Empire was so paltry a threat that the leader of the Germanic Barbaric forces didn't even bother with killing the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus.
The Eastern Roman Empire remained intact, ruling over its territories until 1453 A.D., when Muslim Turks toppled the empire. Likewise, it was an Islamic Caliphate that took Jerusalem in 637 A.D. The Islamic Empire ruled over the entire Middle East, and was attempting to expand across Europe, as well.
Europe, by this time, was largely Christian. Since Europe was dominated by the various religions of Christianity, the region saw the need to protect The Holy Land from the Muslim attackers, and dispatched crusaders to Jerusalem's defense. The Christian European armies battled the Muslims from the Gates of Vienna to the heart of Spain. The Muslims, in the hopes of toppling Europe from within, began to infiltrate the populations, living withing the borders of the cities they planned to conquer, building a foothold within.
Aware that the Islamists had infiltrated their populations, the Spanish Government had to take drastic actions to root the Muslims out. The Spanish had to figure out a way to use the Muslim Faith against the Islamists. The answer came in the name of Jesus Christ.
Any sane man, to save his life when faced with a question demanding if he proclaimed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, will proclaim such with tears of faith in his eyes, even if he doesn't even believe in the existence of a God. A Muslim, however, bound by the tenets of Islam, which includes "There is no god greater than Allah," and that "there is no prophet greater than Muhammad," will refuse to make the proclamation praising the Name of Christ, and therefore, as expected, was exposed by the Spanish Inquisitions.
Spain's history is riddled with being overrun by Muslims, and then later the Christian forces battling back. The Spanish were very familiar with how to fight Islamists.
It is also important to note that it was the war with Islam by the European Christians that resulted in Europe's loss of access to the Black Sea, depriving the Europeans of a land route to India for trade. Therefore, the Europeans were compelled to search for a new sea route, which led to the discovery of The New World, and ultimately, the birth of the United States of America.
When one argues that the Crusades, and Spanish Inquisitions, are a sign of the evils of Christianity, and that those episodes of history are proof of the murderous nature of the Christian Faith, one must recognize the absence of much of the story, and remind the individual that is putting forth the anti-Christian argument that it was ultimately Islam that brought about The Crusades, and in turn, it was the Muslims that caused the death of millions of people during that time period.
During the early years of the United States, Islam was also a problem. American commerce in the Mediterranean was being severely hampered by attacks from Muslim pirates. In 1784 the Continental Congress agreed to negotiate treaties with the Islamic Barbary States, even to the point of appeasement that included paying tribute and ransoms in order to appease the Muslim slavers, and retrieve seized American ships, and the freedom of enslaved American sailors. Thomas Jefferson, however, saw that there would be no end to the demands for tribute, and came to the conclusion that the only way to stop Muslim piracy was "through the medium of war."
The Conclusion reached by Europeans during The Crusades, and by Jefferson prior to the commencement of our nation's first foreign war, was the same. Appeasement, and giving concessions to Islam, only makes matters worse. The only way to stop the terror inflicted by the Muslims upon non-Muslim peoples is to end it by force.
When Adams and Jefferson asked the Islamic leaders why the Muslims had a beef with America, a nation with which there was no history of confrontation with Islam, the answer was the same then as the one we get today. Islam believes it is superior, and all non-Muslims are inferior. Therefore, it is their duty to make war against all that refuse to recognize the authority of Islam, and to make slaves of all they can take.
The U.S. Marines, under Thomas Jefferson, marched across the desert sands of Tripoli to free all American slaves. They wore leather collars to protect their necks from the beheading blades of Islamic swords (hence the nickname "leathernecks"). By 1815 all of the Muslim pirates were defeated, and the Barbary States were collapsing.
In 1924 the last remnant of the Islamic Empire fell when the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War I. The Christian West defeated the terror of the Islamic Empire once and for all. . . or at least that is what they thought. Now Islam is trying to position itself to rise as a terrible empire once again.
It is the Christian principles that founded this nation that we must lean upon if we are to defeat the Islamic Empire again. We did not start this war, nor have we considered it a Holy War - but like it or not, Islam is at war with us, and they see it as a Holy War that will not end until they kill each and every non-Muslim.
I agree that we must recognize religious freedoms in America. But on the same token, let's not be stupid, and lay down like Romulus Augustulus, or Constantinople, under the weight of corruption and decay, and let the Islamic political ideology that operates under the guise of a religion, to simply walk in and change society. We should at least put up a fight, like the Crusaders did.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Galleria Mall: Talk About God and Get Arrested - Political Pistachio
Murderous Christians - Political Pistachio
The Fall of Rome: The End of the Roman Empire by N.S. Gill
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbons
The Fall of Constantinople by Steven Runciman
Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam by John-Victor Tolan
Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain by Kenneth Baxter Wolf
The Camp of the Tenth Legion in Jerusalem: An Archeological Reconsideration by H. Geva Pace
God's War On Terror by Walid Shoebat
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