"Politically Correct" Discussions of Islam

Bill O’Reilly and Juan Williams are in the media doghouse together, except that Juan is out of his NPR job as head news analyst.

O’Reilly has been the focus of news commentary regarding his visit to left-leaning TV talk show The View. Whoopie Goldberg and Joy Behar walked off the set after he made the statement that Muslims attacked us on 9/11. That, of course, was contextualized in the uneasiness about a Muslim mosque in sight of Ground Zero.

Williams was sacked by NPR on Oct. 20 after appearing on The O’Reilly Factor and expressed his personal uneasiness when on an airline with Muslim passengers dressed in their distinctive attire. Political correctness has a thin patience quotient proven by hair-trigger sensitivities to any mention of concerns over Islam.

What this amounts to is a pathetic suppression of historic reality and free speech. Any semi-earnest student of history had better keep his mouth shut, only complimenting Islam for giving us Arabic numbers, intriguing art and some medical and astronomical advances centuries ago, rather than pointing to a massive problem with Islamic history and the radicals’ recent savagery.

Mohammed, the founder of Islam, had twelve wives and dictated a presumed divine revelation that is so unscientific and violent as to challenge the imagination. His early financing came by raiding caravans. Those who spurned Islam were either killed, forced to convert or taxed to pay financially draining tribute.

The massive and bloody invasions of Christian lands by Muslims is too gross to recount. The Muslim Barbary pirates kidnapped or killed untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Christians sending them to slavery or holding them for expensive ransom. By 1794, the threat was so great to America’s shipping in the Mediterranean Sea and eastern Atlantic that the United States established a navy to eliminate the 20% of our national budget being siphoned off in extortion. The U.S. Marines put a stop to this debauchery, and to this day we sing about “the shores of Tripoli,” which was the deciding battle in Algeria on the Barbary Coast. The deaths of 1.5 million Armenians by 1915 at the hand of Ottoman Muslims would do nothing to comfort Juan Williams either.

If there were a massive call for internal Muslim reform, Williams might feel better, but the sad fact that neutral Muslims seem amazingly mute regarding former atrocities or even current 9/11 type behavior does seem to legitimately unsettle such an anti-prejudice minded man as Juan Williams.

Political correctness has been stifling free speech even when factually true. A strange dampening of Islam discussion seems to be a cleverly crafted effort to dignify Islam and demean Christianity. The Texas Textbook Committee recently voted 7-6 to reverse an imbalance in positive Muslim references over negative Christian ones. It brings into focus a ten-year infiltration of American public school textbooks by Islamic apologists, according to David Barton of Wallbuilders. This is known as subtle Jihad. The wrath and rage of Saudi Wahabis such as Osama Bin Laden is troubling much of the western world, but subtle Jihad is quietly eating away at open discussion of Islam. We are not at war with Islam, but Islam is at war with us according to doctrinaire radicals in open or subtle battle with the non-Muslim world and especially against any friend of Israel.

A personal friend of mine who is an adjunct professor at a Christian college recently put together an in-depth presentation on Islam only to find that the course was cancelled for want of registrants. Further, a Christian school declined his offer to present a free seminar on Islam for interested parents. An indistinct fear of Islam accompanied by refusals to even consider its implications and now the firing of Juan Williams for a single sentence regarding his personal concern are warning signs that all is not well in the world of studies of comparative religions.

While open civilized discussion is needed, more important is the sharing of the Gospel of Christ with the Muslim world. Author Joel Rosenberg reports that hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Iran and other Islamic nations are coming to Christ through radio, TV and quiet personal evangelism. You can read about it in his book “Inside the Revolution.”

The Gospel of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection for our sins and our blessed new life is still the best weapon in calming the raging storms in the human heart and between nations. Talk shows may present the problem, but only a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the solution. Personal righteousness in Christ will always win over political correctness in public discourse.

Dave Virkler