The Crusades Were a Bad Idea: Let’s Not Do It Again

Update: I’ve been Snoped. Ouch. It appears the stats in this video are of questionable accuracy. They’re not denied outright, but there are significant questions. Despite all the rhetoric (my own included), perhaps the real question this post should raise is how should we respond to news of the growing population of a different faith? I’d contend that the negative overtones of this video aren’t helpful. End update.

I saw what I consider to be a bat-crazy video today. Take a look and tell me what you think:

Why I think this is dumb:

  1. It cracks me up the way the voice-over says the words “Islam,” “Muslim,” and “immigration” like they’re dirty words.
  2. Change is apparently bad. No change!
  3. The video seems to imply that the preservation of culture is important. OK, whatever, but from a Christian perspective, who cares? Our faith should transcend culture. If it doesn’t, we don’t have much of a faith.
  4. One response to this video, at least from where I first saw this video and in the YouTube description, is that we should have (or adopt) more babies. Sorry, but procreation does not equal evangelism. That’s worked for hundreds of years, but it’s not a stellar evangelism strategy. Raising your kids in the Christian faith certainly makes it more likely that they’ll be Christian, but it’s no guarantee. It’s prone to failure (ask anyone in youth ministry) and frankly it’s kind of lazy. If having babies is your evangelism strategy, you really don’t understand Christianity.
  5. I love how the video talks about Muslims getting together in Chicago and planning their strategy like it’s a bad thing. Like that’s not exactly what the creators of this video are doing.

If you disagree with tenets of the Muslim faith, that’s fine. If you’re concerned about human rights abuses in Muslim nations, that’s fine. But none of those things justify this kind of fear-mongering. If anything, shouldn’t Muslim immigration mean more evangelism opportunities in the United States? If it’s hard to do evangelism in the Muslim world, shouldn’t this be a blessing? Isn’t this an opportunity to teach the 9 million Muslims in America the benefits of our free-market, democracy-based society and watch it spread from there?

I feel like I’ve written on and off about Islam lately, and I do it because this kind of religious prejudice is nuts. Fear, anger and this war-like response are not compatible with the Christianity I believe in, the Christianity of love, hope and grace. The Crusades are over. Let’s not go there again.

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