Where are the “Moderate” Christians?

Following every highly publicized act of violence carried out by people of the Muslim faith, supporters of the regime’s war on Islam theatrically condemn the supposedly incriminating silence from the Muslim majority. This ritual is often repeated when the crime involves no clear religious or nationalist motive, such as the grotesque knife attack allegedly carried out by Alton Nolen in Oklahoma a few weeks ago.

Muslims must condemn crimes for which they bear no personal responsibility, the War Party insists, or be implicated in them. Of course, that perverse concept of collective guilt doesn’t apply to Christians when Muslims are the victims.

A dawn prayer service at a mosque in Coachella, California was interrupted when a still-unknown assailant fired six gunshots at the house of worship. Thankfully, nobody was hurt. Although the identity of the shooter and his motives are still unknown, one member of the congregation recalled that several months ago the mosque received a phone call from someone who said “something about Islam” and vaguely threatened to “do something.”

“I know we’ve been getting a lot of bad press lately around the world,” commented mosque president Reymundo Nur, “but that is really and truly not what Islam is.” It’s difficult to imagine another context in which someone who had been on the receiving end of an act of unprovoked violence would feel it necessary to offer such a disclaimer.

In late October, an unoccupied mosque in Albuquerque was vandalized by someone who hurled a Molotov cocktail. A few weeks earlier the Oklahoma City mosque that was briefly attended by Alton Nolen received anonymous phone calls from people who threatened to kill and behead Muslims. This happened both before and after the gruesome attack at Vaughn Foods.

On October 30, a 21-year-old Oklahoma man confessed to beheading an acquaintance for explicitly religious reasons. Because the admitted murderer was named Isaiah Marin rather than (for example) Ibrahim Hamdan, and he was a professed Christian rather than a Muslim, the public was spared the familiar lecture about collective responsibility and guilty silence.

Marin, who is described as a “heavy drug user” and a “religious zealot,” was found covered in blood and carrying a knife. After watching what were described as religious-themed YouTube videos, Marin allegedly attacked the victim, Jacob Crockett, with a large black sword as punishment for “practicing witchcraft.” He told investigators that he expects to write a series of epistles from prison explaining and justifying his actions, which — some critics of Christianity might contend — are mandated by the Bible (Exodus 22:18).

Oh, sure, that passage is widely misconstrued, and refers to a specific set of circumstances in the distant past. But the same is true of the Quran’s “war suras,” which are incessantly invoked, and rarely read in their entirety, by self-appointed “experts” on “Islamic extremism.”

From what can be found in the public record, no Christian leaders in Oklahoma have condemned Marin for murdering an innocent person in the name of their shared religion — and they shouldn’t be expected to do so, any more than adherents of the Muslim faith should be expected to prove their “moderation” by tying themselves in knots of contrition over crimes in which they were not involved.

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5:47 pm on November 5, 2014