Christianist Love

I thought this was an interesting story:

Bomb Plot Thwarted at Falwell's Funeral

Even in death, the Rev. Jerry Falwell rouses the most volatile of emotions.

A small group of protesters gathered near the funeral services to criticize the man who mobilized Christian evangelicals and made them a major force in American politics -- often by playing on social prejudice

A group of students from Falwell's Liberty University staged a counterprotest.

And Campbell County authorities arrested a Liberty University student for having several homemade bombs in his car.

The student, 19-year-old Mark D. Uhl of Amissville, Va., reportedly told authorities that he was making the bombs to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service. The devices were made of a combination of gasoline and detergent, a law enforcement official told ABC News' Pierre Thomas. They were "slow burn," according to the official, and would not have been very destructive.

This harkens back to my post of last week about Christian-based terror. And a fine demonstration of Christian hypocrisy it is.

To listen to Christian fundamentalists, Muslims as a group are predisposed to violence due to their religion's belief system, specifically regarding jihad. Christianity, of course, never specifically preaches any kind of violence. Jesus, when it is convenient, was a man of peace, which makes the Christian fundamentalist a man of peace as well, at least in their heads. A poll of Fundamentalist leaders taken in 2002 by Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron found that 70% believed that Islam is a "religion of violence." There is nothing particularly surprising in findings like this; fundamentalists always think their religion is the one true religion and thus right, and others are of course inherently wrong.

However, it is impossible to miss the cognitive dissonance. Christians are, in fact, attempting and sometimes succeeding in terrorist acts. Their leaders are calling for the assasinations of leaders they don't care for, publicly, like any Mullah might. Their belief in the End Times is behind political support of Israel in the hopes of the Second Coming/Rapture mythology, support that is helping to kill thousands of people a year. Whether or not the Bible actually says to kill in so many words, it is the primary inspiration for these beliefs, a fact you'll never hear them deny.

Religion and spirituality may inspire, but people act. People's actions are a reflection of who they are, not what their religion is. The way they interpret how their religion is supposed to interact with the material world is entirely on their shoulders, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, etc. To decry a religion as inherently violent while supporting and even encouraging acts of violence in the name of your own is little more than an argument of convenience.