Responses to Blasphemy!

It is clear that for many who claim to follow Jesus, love for him does not impact their everyday life greatly and to have their Christ ridiculed does not inspire deep seated grief. But the lack of "visible" outcry (such as was seen in the Muslim world) does not necessarily indicate an apathetic tolerance, but in many cases may highlight the stark difference between those who have chosen to follow a crucified Lord (yet resurrected) as opposed to those who cannot tolerate an insulted leader. - J. B.

That months passed between the cartoons' publication and the riots follows the same pattern of orchestrated incitement witnessed in Israel time and again. It is all part the on-going goal of imposing Islamic 'rule' upon western culture. Unfortunately the rampant lack of modesty in the west and the philosophy of 'If it feels good it is okay' has opened a wedge for Islam to make its extremist point. That having been said, we in the west are not the cause of these barbaric riots. The cause lies totally within the philosophy of intolerance endemic to Islam. When President Bush immediately following the 9/11 murders urged the American public to understand Islam and not to judge, there was in the statement the hint of having the victum feel as if the victum had somehow caused the attack. Every victum of rape knows the feeling of this convoluted logic. What we never heard about was the Reuter's film forced to be withheld under threat of death to the Reuter's reporters of the 100,000 persons celebrating in Gaza. Intolerance backed by terror is a very powerful and effective way of reaching one's goal. - G. S.

It is easy to miss a key distinction between Muhammad and Jesus, and why their followers are on such divergent paths. Jesus taught his disciples to expect to be in the minority, to expect persecution, and to accept it as the normal state of affairs. He himself set the example of how his disciples respond to insults—"he opened not his mouth." Muhammad, on the other hand, taught his disciples to expect to be in the majority, to dominate, and to resist persecution. He regularly led raids on neighboring tribes. In the spread of Islam, persuasion was considered the ideal means of conversion, but those who were not persuaded were taxed severely and commercially isolated. Islam is a religion of the majority. Its adherents cannot accept anything less than cultural domination as normal. I do not say this to insult Muhammad or his followers, just to point out that Jesus and Muhammad taught different things, and therefore their followers respond differently to insult and injury. This is not to say that Christians do not seek to influence society and the culture surrounding them. We follow the example of One who revolutionized the world, but who did it through peace. Of course it hurts and even angers us when we see and hear our Lord insulted, but we honor him best by responding as he did, not in following our instinct to strike back. - A. P.

D'Souza is pained to see fellow Christians in the US and Europe ignoring, nay refuse to be worked up over publications or works of "art" that denigrate Christianity. To him this is the fallout of the prevalence of "secularism" as the accepted societal creed in these countries. This is simply untrue in India where secularism does not mean indifference to religion let alone tolerate any religion being lampooned or denigrated in the name of freedom of speech. This philosophy flows from the Hindu belief in the universality of all religions and the need for tolerance and accommodation. In fact India is secular solely because 82% of the population is Hindu. However, Christian missionaries operating in India, in particular the American Evangelists, Mormons, Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and their like have constantly denigrated Hinduism, particularly among tribals and the poor with the sole objective of converting them to Christianity. This has led to tension among Hindus and Christians at times leading to great violence. Hindus have become sensitive to this nefarious activity of Christian missionaries and are aggressively countering their moves. D'Souza has skirted this issue though he should be familiar with this phenomenon as he admits India was his "original" homeland before he became a self-proclaimed all American cheerleader. After all his forefathers must have been Hindus. He would do well to reveal how, why and when they converted to Christianity before waxing eloquent on the self imposed travails of Christians in the West because of the adoption of an irreligious form of secularism. - H. P.

I couldn’t disagree with you more. I think that what separates us from the rest of the world is our "niceness" which you seem to think is an inappropriate response to these sorts of mockeries of our faith (and the object of our faith). I wonder how exactly you are proposing that we respond. Do we burn down the buildings that house the offensive pieces of "art"? Or if we find something particularly offensive, do we place a "death fatwa" against the perpetrator? And at what level do we stop our vengeance? If my neighbor happens to reveal to me his beliefs that Jesus was a dork, am I called to deface his house in the name of Jesus to show just how great He really is? I’m sure you are not advocating such things, but honestly, does it really do anyone any good when Christians do their national boycotts or berate people with whom they disagree? Who benefits from that? No, I seem to remember Jesus seeming quite accustomed to being disrespected (see John 15) – almost like He expected it, huh? I remember Jesus saying that the same thing was going to happen to us, and yet He told us to turn our other cheek to that kind of stuff. He told us that the way people were going to know we are His disciples was by our love, but somewhere along the way we seem to think that we are going to convince people by being tough and right. I wonder who you would have us resemble – the disciples who quietly followed their Master to death on crosses and piles of burning wood and other tortures beyond imagining, or would you have us be like the Crusaders on the path to war with the infidels? - D. P.

First, I have to say I was quite frightened by your most recent article. Are you asking us to follow suit to muslim rioting? Respond to contemporary art by picketing hate messages? Lead our faith into vengeful violence? I don't see Christ's cheek turning in this article. Christianity in America needs to look toward Christ. Unlike other doctrines, we should not react in violence. Instead, we should take these 'blasphemous' artists in to shelter. Yes! You might say, 'how absurd, befriend a desecrator?!' But isn't that the whole message Christ was trying to deliver? Forgiveness is not easy, it's practically absurd! Andres Serrano is a man who has a strong interest in faith. His artwork repeatedly suggests this. Actually, his home is full of classic religious artwork. Serrano's Catholic upbringing is undeniably an influence on his Catholic imagination. YES, he is very critical and YES he was very insensitive to the protestant adoration of Christ. So is he now to be viewed as a modern leper? But, Christ kept company with prostitutes and lepers. How can we keep company with someone we hate? Often, it helps to communicate with them after forgiving them. If we want artists to take Christ seriously and to pay attention to the sacred, we must also take artists seriously. The short art exhibit review that has been used on your website is not written by an informed art critic. There is little attention given to the art. Instead the author glazes over the whole exhibit with a hateful, self-titled 'Negative' description of what s/he calls a 'surface' only exhibit. It seems s/he was offended before s/he could actually study any underlying meaning. Today, the fine arts in the academia shun literalism, i.e. there must be an underlying meaning in order for art to be legitimately 'good'. I am not saying everything in that art exhibit was 'good', art can be bad too - even if its famous/infamous. If one were to study carefully - with a forgiving heart - one might actually write a book about Andres Serrano's most controversial piece. For a thought provoking start, body fluids have been given extensive attention even in classic Christian theology. St Augustine, for one, wrote in the 'The City of God', 'that we are born between feces and urine'. Was Christ not birthed through a human, or did he just appear one day in a manger all squeaky clean and perfect? Second, clearly, here you don't mind publishing Serrano's 'Piss Christ' repetitively, a deceivingly beautiful photograph of Christ on the cross. If it hurts your eyes and heart so much, why do you publish it? If He was so brutally tortured on the cross for our sins, BY US, how can we bare to look at such gore? Him? Remember your part in the crucifixion. This is what we do to Christ. - K. E.

Dear K. E.: The article condemned the violent response of the Islamic activists. We did not advocate hate, isolation, or censorship of Serrano. If Serrano did not want to deeply offend and provoke, why did he call it "Piss Christ"? By the way, tothesource does not attempt to be a church. We publish thought provoking commentary on cultural issues.

The article on blasphemy was a good article it is good to see people care about the depiction of Christ and of God. There seemed to be an underlying thought that we should respond with some movement or perhaps violence that we should be emotionally charged by people’s defiance to God. I agree that it is disturbing to see or hear of these things and that perhaps we should have responses to these blasphemies, but publicly our responsibility is to respond with forgiveness and understanding. That is not to say that we should pacify these actions, but operate in the understanding that God is way bigger and way more capable than we are of defending His name and His reputation. I personally want to give grace. These people have no idea what they are doing. Generally speaking these actions are in response to some injustice or hurt that they have felt from the Christian faith. It is out of ignorance that they do these things. I pray and hope that they will some day feel the forgiveness and grace that is offered them through Calvary. - J. H.

I liked your recent article and placed a link to it on my web site for others to read. I also included a link to your web site on the right side under Breaking News Services. Hope that is OK with you? E.H.

Your criticisms on the passivity of western Christians are well spoken, well deserved and it remains to be seen if they will be generally well taken. The issue western Christians need to face is not if they can tolerate insults against their faith or their God. Insulting God is not real blasphemy. Pundits who lampoon Christians, Christian leaders or our God are not necessarily being blasphemous. In fact, to the degree they reveal Christian hypocrisy they do us a good service by calling us to repentance. In any case they do no harm. Christian passivity does a great deal of harm. Real blasphemy is when God's own people misrepresent God and fail to live in harmony with God's Word. Equating that which insults us with blasphemy is getting pretty close to blasphemy. - B. F.

All people of faith ought to be standing beside Muslims in strongly condemning the blasphemous portrayal of their prophet. Of course, where were our fellow Christians, Jews and Muslims when Chris Offili's "The Holy Virgin Mary" was displayed in the Brooklyn Art Museum? - K.L.W.

Thank you so very much for printing such an honest piece. I find it to be no small coincidence that the uproar over the cartoons of Muhammad really got big within days of rapper Kanye West posing as Jesus on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. I wrote a piece on that incident myself and tried to get Christian and Gospel musicians as well as preachers to comment. Out of the 50 that I contacted, only 5 were willing to go on the record with comments. Several people told me "off the record" that the cover was everything from blasphemy to heresy to outrageous, but to comment on the record would be impossible because they didn't want to make it the next big thing like Christians and Target at Christmas. The personal assistant of one very popular, very well known preacher, who heads up a very large church asked me one question - "Who else has commented?" When I didn't name off enough other "big" names to suit him, he said that the pastor in question wouldn't be available to comment. We, as Christians, are quick to complain amongst ourselves that making fun of our religion is a popular past-time. Yet we sit quietly by while people do it - keeping our mouths shut so we don't sound "too Christian" or fanatical. While I don't condone violence or riots at all, I think it's well past high-time that we start to speak up. God gave us voices - yet we won't use them. We are much like the watchmen in Isaiah 56:10-11 - "His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter." I've gone back in and added a link to your article to mine, which is located at http://christianmusic.about.com/od/editorial1/a/kanyeRSedit.htm - K. J.

Thank you for your thoughtful articles. Please think also about this: Mohammed ordered the execution of some who mocked him. Jesus forgave those who mocked and even those who killed him. Perhaps you should look at this as root of the differences in the response of the followers of these two religions. Perhaps those Muslims that respond with violence and those Christians that respond with silent suffering are most faithfully following their prophet, and it has nothing to do with zeal nor with apathy. - W. W.

If only Christians would be known by our love, as jesus intended, rather than for our politics, protests or crankiness. - P. G.

Are you kidding? Is it a credit to the west that people of traditional faith are largely indifferent to their own faith being ridiculed? That's really stacking a question -- if indifference means resignation that Christianity is often attacked unfairly -- what do you propose we do -- start marching in the street? Start attacking those who have taken their positions in ignorance or hostility? That would be the time that I drop out of organized Christianity. - C. I.

D.P. states, "If Christianity delivers on its message of 'love God and love your neighbor as yourself' of course it will survive. If it falls into extremism like rejecting evolutionary theory it will fail." Yet, it is the Evolutionary Theory that has so drastically devalued human life. It is that very Scripture D.P. quotes, and others like it, that has elevated the value of human life above that of another's convenience. Hitler's slaughter of the Jews and Slavs was based on an evolutionary view of human life: the belief that the Aryans had evolved to a higher and purer level and therefore had the right to eliminate the lower life. Evolutionary Theory has brought about the deaths of almost 50 million children in this country. And then we complain because so much of the work force are retiring and there are not enough workers to pay into Social Security to cover the S.S. payments? After having slaughtered 50 million of them? No, the practice of "love God and love your neighbor as yourself" means valuing all human life, from conception on, no matter what the nationality, age, religion, background, education, etc, because all are a creation of God in His image. Evolutionary Theory gets a big "F" on this, no matter how you view it. If ever there was a view that is the complete opposite of "love your neighbor as yourself, it is Evolutionary Theory. - S. M.

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