Christianists vs. Islamic Fundamentalists

I have long maintained that the only difference between Christianists and Islamic fundamentalists is the degree to which they will use violence to achieve their goals. To date, the Christianists have not embraced terror and bombings, and the killing of innocent civilians, although the skinheads recently arrested in Tennessee for a plot against Barack Obama spoke of killing 100 innocent black citizens, so sadly that may be changing. Mirroring my thoughts is a column that appeared in the Daily Times, a newspaper in Pakistan, where the similarities of the Christianists and the Islamic fundamentalists were compared by the author. The reality is that BOTH groups are a clear and present danger to freedom and religious tolerance. Here are some column highlights:

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So what do the Republicans and Al Qaeda have in common? Divisiveness. It is the ‘with us or against us’ approach, the delineation of patriotic vs. non-patriotic parts of the country, the Red states vs. the Blue states, the black man vs. the white man that that strikes a chord with Al Qaeda, for they too have the same approach — if you are not with them, you are going to hell. It is the puritanical attitude that both groups share, the belief that all those who are different are to be shunned and that uniformity is the only way to achieve unity.

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And it is the use of fear as an operating mechanism that brings these two groups together. One side woos its voters by telling them the other candidate will take their money, turn their nation into a socialist state, coddle criminals and be an open target for the Russians and the Muslims. The other side recruits its followers by telling them that they will be enslaved by the immoral West, their wives will stop listening to them and there will be lewdness and orgies on the street.

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Both these groups cater to an uninformed audience. Both these groups preach intolerance. And both lure their followers by claims to “return to the core values” — a proposition which sounds good until you ask, what values? And more importantly, whose values?

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A great Sufi, Sheikh Ibn Arabi, once wrote, “Beware of confining yourself to one belief — for much good would elude you. Be in yourself a matter for all forms of belief, for God is too vast and tremendous to be restricted to one belief rather than another.” While the wisdom of this quote eludes both groups, they continue to shun a mindset that discourages inclusion and incorporation.

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For them, their agendas comes first — in the case of Al Qaeda, doing whatever they can to bring down the West and set up their own rule in the East, in the case of the Republican Right, setting the stage for the Rapture, or the second coming of Christ, which many right-wing Christians, including Bush, believe can only happen once certain events take place.