I love the New York Times. Brilliant op-ed piece yesterday from Nicholas D. Kristof on the latest volume in that god-awful (ha!) Left Behind series:

If a Muslim were to write an Islamic version of "Glorious Appearing" and publish it in Saudi Arabia, jubilantly describing a massacre of millions of non-Muslims by God, we would have a fit. We have quite properly linked the fundamentalist religious tracts of Islam with the intolerance they nurture, and it's time to remove the motes from our own eyes.

. . . this portrayal of a bloody Second Coming reflects a shift in American portrayals of Jesus, from a gentle Mister Rogers figure to a martial messiah presiding over a sea of blood. Militant Christianity rises to confront Militant Islam.

This matters in the real world, in the same way that fundamentalist Islamic tracts in Saudi Arabia do. Each form of fundamentalism creates a stark moral division between decent, pious types like oneself — and infidels headed for hell.

I truly do not understand fundamentalism of any kind. This notion that your unique understanding of the universe is the only one that matters, that anyone who doesn't believe exactly the way you do is not only eternally doomed but also legitimately (in the eyes of your god) set up for discrimination, persecution, enslavement, and worse, is ludicrous and arrogant.
- posted by Lori @ 10:47:00 AM | permanent link | |