November 30, 2006

What. He. Said.

I ask, beg, urge, beseech, implore and even demand that you go read Darren Duvall's excellent response to the whole kerfluffle over a quote in yesterday's Tennessean attributed to Lipscomb University professor Dr. Lee Camp. Duvall, a self-styled "simple country radiologist" from Longview, Texas, gets to the heart of the issue of conflict between Christians and Muslims, and the more than a thousand years of history that drives it:

While it's important that we recongnize what Christians have done in the past, having a discussion with a Muslim about which religion has been the most violent or aggressive is patently beside the point. If you want to discuss what some people have done in the name of my God, then we're not discussing my God or his Son, are we? It's a continuation of the anti-rational thread that runs so spectacularly through the more extremist versions of Islam and is still latently present in feelings of inadequacy and failure that run through the Arab world. It's up to me as a Christian to be Jesus to people, real living people that aren't at the Siege of Vienna or the Battle of Tours or the Sack of Jerusalem during the Crusades. In day-to-day interactions, I don't see where the history of either religion comes into play. Either I'm a living example of the love of Christ to people I interact with, or I'm not. I fail to see why wearing a T-shirt that says SORRY FOR THE CRUSADES will make me more credible.