In another example of a sort-of cultural suicide where western media types assume that all Muslims are blameless – while all Americans are at fault in this clash of civilizations between Islamism and the West – we have a recent episode of MSNBC’s Hardball with one-time Democratic operative Chuck Todd standing-in for host Chris Matthews.
Todd was discussing the riots in Afghanistan sparked by Islamist ire over the burning of a Koran by a Florida pastor. During the interview Todd and a guest stated that the Christian Bible was just a book written by men while the Koran was the “direct word of God.” The two implied that this excuses Muslims from murdering people over the book burning.
In the segment Time Magazine’s World Editor Bobby Ghosh told Chuck Todd that the riots and murders perpetrated by Muslims in Afghanistan were obviously understandable because the Koran is apparently more holy than the Christian Bible. Ghosh averred that it’s important to “keep in mind” that the Koran is “not the same as the Bible to Christians.” Why, you might ask? Why it’s because the Koran is “directly the word of God.” On the other hand, the Bible is just a book “written by men.”
Of course, Ghosh is wholly incorrect that Christians see the Bible as just some storybook “written by men.” After all, the Bible is thought of as “the word of God” by millions of Christians across the world as it has been throughout time. Ghosh’s claim that everyone just accepts the Bible as something “written by men” and easily dismissible or somehow less sacred to Christians on that basis is simply erroneous. It is also extremely offensive.
Naturally, Chuck Todd heartily agreed with Ghosh’s misstatement.
Now, certainly Christians agree that the Bible was “written by men” but there is no assumption that it is somehow less for it. After all Christians feel that these mere men were inspired directly by God. Just as the Koran is assumed to be the direct word of the Muslim’s god, Christians also believe that the Bible is the Word of God.
In fact, it is easier to make the historical case that the Bible was written by people who knew Jesus while the claim that the Koran was written by anyone that knew the Prophet Mohammad is nearly impossible to substantiate. Parts of the Bible have been determined as having been written within the life times of people that would have known Jesus personally. On the other hand, there is no proof that the Koran was written any time closer than 100 years after Mohammad’s death, long after anyone that might have known him would have been dead.
Regardless of the suppositions of historians, though, there is no legitimate way to claim that the Christian Bible is any less sacred or awe inspiring for Christians than the Koran is for Muslims. The difference is not in the writers of the books or their provenance. The difference is in their cultures. Christian reforms have brought tolerance and peace between factions of Christianity as well as between Christians and people of other beliefs while there has been no such tolerance infused into Islam.
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