No concessions

Next time there’s a shooting somewhere here in America that strikes you as likely to have come from a radical believer in Islam, ask yourself this question: Why do our culture’s justice system and its mainstream media both seem so protective of Islam and so eager to keep you from premature judgment?

I ask because it’s so relatively certain that the scenario in Garland, Texas, on May 3 will repeat itself somewhere, sometime—and probably soon. Some details of that Texas shooting virtually guarantee that there will be follow-up attacks. Some Muslim leaders have explicitly said so.

Which makes it just that much more dismaying that the Garland attack on a gathering of cartoonists led so predictably to repeated up-front disclaimers from both law enforcement and media folks: “Just remember that no link has been established yet with Islam.”

That’s a little like finding a black man swinging from a noose in rural Mississippi or Alabama in 1930 and immediately declaring again and again that no one should think of suggesting that the KKK might be involved.

When Muslims start accusing us of ‘hate speech’ against them, won’t we wish we had sought out a few more allies?

Yes, we’ll pledge to keep diligently in mind the constitutional demands that every suspect is innocent until proven guilty. We’ll work hard to insure that everyone gets his or her day in court. But we don’t have to make ourselves look foolish in the process.

So while pursuing those lofty goals, one of the very worst things we could do to ourselves, our country, and the Free World would be the unilateral concession of one freedom after another—freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. But that’s exactly what was advocated after the Garland attack. “Tone it down a bit,” the cartoonists were warned by a number of sophisticates. “You don’t need to egg them on.”

I’ve never met any of the participants in the group of cartoonists targeted by the Texas attack. Indeed, from what I’ve understood, many of them are a bit unseemly and a fairly crude bunch, holding little in common with serious Christian believers. But I’m compelled nonetheless to cast my lot with them in this specific matter—so that when they stand up tall for the right to express themselves freely, regardless of viewpoint, I must support them.

While there are several reasons for this, by no means the least is the so-called Golden Rule: “What things so ever you would that others do to you,” Jesus said so memorably, “do so to them.” Evangelical Christians have to understand in today’s climate how close the strong arm of so-called “justice” is to bringing severe oppression on our lives as we have known them. When Muslims start accusing us of “hate speech” against them, won’t we wish we had sought out a few more allies—or, as Francis Schaeffer called them, “co-belligerents”—and enlisted their help on this particular assignment?

Yes, it’s not just likely, but certain, that the Texas group meant deliberately to offend and antagonize the Muslim community with its gathering. They’ve said so themselves. They were there partly to test the waters of broad societal tolerance, and partly to demonstrate how intolerant the Muslim community itself really is.

But do we really dare sit back and claim that such tests and such demonstrations are inappropriate or wrong? How will we in the future, when we have spoken out from a biblical perspective against the belief system of Islam, ever go about proving that our “speaking the truth” wasn’t a deliberate act of antagonism? Those who are antagonized will rarely be inclined to accept our explanations.

Whenever we consciously and deliberately back off the exercise of our First Amendment rights, we may so do for a variety of reasons. It may be because we think we’re being fairer to our opponents. It may be because we don’t want to be seen as inciting violence. It may be that we have been persuaded that a quiet voice of reason is always the better path. It may simply be that we’re scared for our physical safety.

Whatever the case, we need to keep in mind that we’re quietly trading away something of enormous value for a mess of pottage. And we shouldn’t be surprised if we never see that treasure again in this lifetime.

Email jbelz@wng.org