What Would Jesus Do?

Why would anyone with their heads on straight think for even a moment that holding a pig's head and telling people that they would burn in Hell might possibly encourage those folks to convert to Christianity? Yet a group called Bible Believers apparently believe exactly that. They made their case, such as it is, at the opening of yesterday's annual Arab American festival in Dearborn, Michigan.

It is nothing less than amazing that such 'missionaries' cannot see that they are exactly who they are presuming to protest against: ignorant and reactionary. To be sure, any seriously religious person would want others to come along with them. Anyone who really believes they have found the path to righteousness should want to share that with all others. But they surely also must realize that they will reap few followers with hatred. Will they ever question what their venom might say about them?

These people are not conservative, though they will be painted as such by many others, others who belong in the same ignorant army as the Bible Believers. They are in fact reactionaries, lashing out at any and all who they have deemed evil; it is worth note that Catholics as well as Muslims are under their savage glare. Basically, whoever is not goose-stepping alongside them is evil.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and you never teach love with hate. We are not saying that you must respect those in the wrong, those who act in honest error, but it is here where the word tolerance may actually have a decent meaning. You tolerate what they do in their everyday lives, in your own day in and day out interactions with them, pleasantly and with good cheer, showing them your way of life and your beliefs in a manner befitting your way of life and beliefs. It is then, if they are willing and able to convert, that they will.

But if you taunt them with a pig's head, they will at best only wonder what is the condition of your own sty.

Examine Your Own Creed Before Judging Others

The issue of tolerance, or, perhaps, intolerance, has been brought to Detroit. At Ford Field, a prayer gathering has called for Detroit and indeed the entire United States to turn Jesus or else we're doomed.

That sentiment itself is of course quite true. But the manner in which it is often presented can and should be subject to question. As such, it explains the diverse peoples outside of Ford Field who protest the particular manner in which the group, the New Apostolic Reformation, and its leader Lou Engle, are representing the cause of Christ.

The NAR is accused of being racist, sexist, anti-gay rights, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, and intolerant. We see no need to go into the details of their harangues. You can probably imagine them well enough and they're likely as not all over the Internet anyway. However that may be, theirs is an organization which, other than on free speech grounds, it would be difficult to defend.

But the people against them must be aware of themselves and what they may stand for as well. One common lament against Mr. Engle and his followers is that they are not for 'inclusion' but hate. They do not promote tolerance, but hate.

Well, are the protesters really practicing inclusion and tolerance themselves? Do they, by simple argument, hate what was and is going on inside Ford Field? Otherwise, why not include and tolerate the New Apostolic Reformation? Ah, because the sign carriers are for inclusion and tolerance of the people and creeds they like. So they protest, many of them never questioning whether their heads are on straight either.

We are not defending Lou Engle or the NAR in any way, shape or form. Yet we cannot escape the feeling that many of those who speak against him speak with forked tongue themselves. They're for tolerance and inclusion...of what they like. But as for Engle and Company, they would not tolerate or include.

The point here is that we can and must judge the actions and intentions of people if we are to understand the world and really make it better. This must mean the tolerance and inclusion of certain ideas and ways as well as the intolerance and exclusion of ideas and attitudes contradictory to human good. Protests against bigots are all well and good when we are actually dealing with knee jerk and intellectually shallow bigots. But notice that that involves the judgment that such persons are wrong in their ways.

It also implies that we may judge your ways. And if you don't allow it, it you refuse to let others tend rational judgments about your ways and your means, then you are no different than those you refuse to tolerate. You may indeed be worse. You may be self centered and self aggrandizing bigots of the worst kind. You may be hypocrites.