Thursday, February 09, 2006
You might remember this story from 1989:Washington DC, (AF) -- Capitol Police fired in the air Monday to disperse stone-throwing protesters demonstrating over a Photograph deemed offensive to Christiananity, triggering a stampede in which several people were killed in the nation's capitol.
Hundreds of protesters threw stones at police and aid workers after attending a peaceful rally at the capitol, sparking the stampede in which several were killed, said businessman Paul Sanstrum, a witness.
Protests over the photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe which included a photograph, Piss Christ, of a crucifix submerged in the artist's urine, broke out in three other U.S. cities, as they have around America. Some 300 members of the Military Police later were deployed in Tallahassee, capital of Florida, to quell rioting there.
Outside the National Endowment for the Arts offices in Chicago, hundreds of Christians from First Baptist Church, threw rocks at the building, burned a effigy of Maplethorpe, reprints of his photographs, and clashed with police. "Death to Maplethorpe!" they chanted, outraged by the photos that were first displayed in a Chicago museum. "Apologies are not enough," said Pastor Jim Harrison of First Baptist. "There should be some retalatitory measures taken against that particular museum."
Of course this artice was never written because these things never took place. They never took place because Christianity is the religion of peace, and places it emphasis on God's love for people and people's love toward each other.
The Apostle Paul wrote, "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing." (1Cor. 13:2)
What we see taking place in the world of Islam is the reaction of a people insecure in their own beliefs and in love with rules and commandments instead of in love with God. The Psalms declare that those who love God's laws will have great peace and "nothing shall offend them." Sure, we Christians found Maplethorpe's photographic statements insulting, but we understood the greater principle of "not rendering evil for evil."
Make no mistake about it. Islam is a bloody, revengeful religion of hate. It will have to be Christians who show the world that like Jesus, to love and forgive is to be great in the sight of God.
posted by Steve Stevens at
8:45 AM
