Mike, The Tow Truck Muslim

I think that most people know by now that much of my time up here has been one large calamite after another. Being broke, switching jobs, switching homes, crashing my car in an empty parking lot–in less than three months. Last night was another doozie. I was down in the city, leaving Dan Sadlier‘s when I heard a pop in my drivers side wheel. I thought it was odd, but kept going, eventually I took a turn and my tires locked up, both facing inward at a solid 45-degree angle. I broke a tie-rod.

 

Religion at U of A

A recent front page article in the The Traveler, the University of Arkansas newspaper, caught my eye the other day. 

The story, “UA Offers Diverse religious Groups on Campus” was the front page of the December 2, 2009 issue.  The story was basically just a piece describing the different groups that are on campus. 

I have a few friends that I see from time to time who are Muslim.  I have yet to attend or meet anyone involved in the Hindu groups that are mentioned at the bottom of the page, but would very much like to.  What I really want to do is kick it with some Sikhs again.  Those were the good times.

Most of the groups on campus seem more interested in awareness and educating people over their religion, not as much concerned with conversion or evangelistic efforts. 

Anyway, just wanted to share this piece.  I thought it was interesting. 

I’ll let you know about Islamic Awareness week next semester.

 

To Ensure Peace…

Pax Romana lives.

Pax Romana is the time period in the first two centuries of the common era where there was little expansion militarily.  Sometimes it is called Pax Augustus.  By Roman accounts there was relative peace throughout the land.

But, we know from our sources how that peace was achieved: through an iron first and quick snuffing out of any rabble-rousers.  It is in this time of peace that the crucifix became popular.  This is also when they would destroy Jerusalem leaving no stone on top of another.  Gladiatorial fighting also came into its own at this time. 

Under the Roman Peace, anyone considered odd or questionable was taken out with few questions asked.  It was at this time that those odd Christians would become human tiki-torches, lighting the gardens for Nero’s parties.  They were forbidden to assemble, worship, exist…

Horrible things to maintain the Peace.

It always starts with groups who, to outsiders, seemed suspicious.  Many writers in the second century said that the Christians must be subversive because they were meeting in homes on a weekly basis and they talked about a “new kingdom.”  They also suggested that they were atheists because they never went to the temples.  They suggested that Christians be “put in check” in order to protect the families of Rome.

In the late 1930s Germany was finally coming back.  They had been beaten in World War One.  It was a new world.  Political analysts, philosophers, theologians, and writers around the world thought that World War One was going to be the last war.  They believed that after seeing the horrors of that great war that no one would desire it any more, that through experience we had evolved to a more moral plain. 

So, when rebuilding Germany in this new moral era, Hitler looked for anyone that could get in his way.  He focused his energy on a people who were rejected in most of Europe (I believe for their success in adversity): The Jews. 

What did he use to tighten public opinion?  Propoganda.  Propoganda suggesting that they were in the way of success and that they were even conspiring against the success of the Germans. 

We can use other examples: Rwanda, the Native Americans, Apartheid, Jim Crowe, Segregation.  In fact, some might suggest that many of the great world atrocities have been carried out in the name of peace. 

It seems that many nations, in order to maintain their Pax Romana are willing to limit the rights of their people, invade their privacy, keep secrets from them and even remove people they deem possible trouble makers.

Enter Switzerland, a country hailed in the modern era as a nation that is doing so much for peace and human rights around the world, who this week sent a very clear message to a muslim minority, who are generally suspect across Europe (more than in the U.S. from what I could tell).  To ensure the peace of the nation, they outlawed the building of Islamic religious symbols. 

Again, how does this happen?  Propoganda.

Is it any surprize that the some of the biggest critics of this kind of poor characterization and discrimination are European Jews, who know the kind of damage this can lead to?

Peace by force, fear and strength is not Peace at all.