Two of the three Abrahamic religions \u2013 roughly half of the world\u2019s population \u2013 have pacified their enthusiasm. Goodness, knowledge, culture have beat their swords into ploughshares. Judaism, long ago\u00a0(remember the Moabites, Ammonites, Philistines) quit spearing its\u00a0foes; Christianity wars not with Jews or its heretics. And\u00a0bloodthirsty Crusades against the infidel are unfashionable \u2013 just an old chapter in its history book.<\/p>\n
But Islam, strongly powered by Iran still decapitates its foes: and\u00a0sees them everywhere. Not just Christians and Jews but \u2013 Shiite versus\u00a0Sunni, Wahhabi versus Houthi, plus dozens of other unpronounceable and\u00a0unspellable sects.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re like the grammar school bully who grew up and matured into a\u00a0Mafia \u201csoldier.”\u00a0\u00a0Now he\u2019s a pro. Unfortunately, they can\u2019t restrict\u00a0their bloodlust to their own. They are also wholesale killers of,\u00a0naturally, Jews. (They use a territorial excuse for this.) But they\u00a0also enjoy beheading Christians. Why? From the 8th Century until today\u00a0the answer is the eternal, \u201cI dunno\u201d. The old excuse \u201cyou must praise\u00a0Allah as your god\u201d, doesn\u2019t work. A headless corpse is logically an inadequate worshipper.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a leader of Christianity robed in an expensive white gown\u00a0crowned with a yarmulke \u2013 to remind him where he came from \u2013 sits\u00a0enthroned in Rome. He is the CEO of Catholicism; and though doctrinal differences exist with Protestantism, symbolically he represents\u00a0Christianity.<\/p>\n
Protestants and Catholics, as you notice, no longer\u00a0slaughter each other or heretics. Civilization, or maybe the G-d of\u00a0loving kindness that they commonly worship, has blunted their spears.\u00a0And Jews pacified by time and \u201cmodern\u201d interpretations of Torah greet\u00a0their old pagan Canaanite foes with a smile, not a knife.<\/p>\n
But today\u2019s headlines scream of Jewish and Christian deaths at the\u00a0hands of their Abrahamic brothers \u2013 specifically Daesh \u2013 some criminal\u00a0amalgam of the Islamic Brotherhood. Israel reacts. But Christendom?\u00a0That finely-dressed Christian CEO in Rome worries about Global\u00a0Warming. He doesn\u2019t even whisper of vile injustice suffered by his\u00a0flock. Not a word, not a thought, not a gesture. He\u2019s as meek as John
The Bible that both Christians and Jews worship\u00a0glorifies life and permits violence to those who would take it from\u00a0you. Why not a 21Century crusade? ISIS is a pygmy beside resolute\u00a0battalions singing \u201cOnward Christian Soldiers\u201d.<\/p>\n
And if a few dozen thugs from the U.S. find their way to Daesh ranks,\u00a0how many defenders of the second oldest Abrahamic faith would spring\u00a0to a worldwide call from Peter\u2019s successor?<\/p>\n
Instead Pope Francis meets with bloody Iranian president Hassan\u00a0Rouhani, the man who hands the sword of spiritual executions to the\u00a0Islamic killers of Christians. The Pope smiles upon him while the\u00a0flash of cameras sends the visitation of a murderer on the approving\u00a0Pope worldwide!\u00a0\u00a0Has the world turned upside down? Does Christianity\u00a0no longer recognize evil?<\/p>\n
The Prince of Christianity shakes hands and\u00a0grins at this banker and inspirer of murderers. Is my calendar askew?\u00a0Is this 1938 and we\u2019re in Munich? This is double D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, as Yogi Berra\u00a0would say. Does the Pope have anything under his yarmulke beside hair?<\/p>\n
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