Kevin McCullough Is a Dolt (Whose Horse is Higher Edition)

Kevin McCullough is outraged, outraged, that Pres. Obama would note that Christianity, too, has been used as a justification for the same sorts of violence and atrocities that Islam has.

http://onenewsnow.com/perspectives/kevin-mccullough/2015/02/09/the-view-from-the-high-horse

So lets look at some extracts from his latest guest column at OneNewsNow, "Your Latest News from a Christian Perspective":

"While President Obama attempted to eviscerate a wholly righteous anger in the hearts and minds of the American people earlier this week — he took to chastisement as his verbal bludgeon of choice."

Just so we know that Mr McCullough (author, blogger, and radio show host) isn't coming to this from a sadly-disillusioned-centrist point of view. The man just had a book published titled No He Can't: How Barack Obama is Dismantling Hope and Change, so one should factor in a certain animus in his analysis.

"The president's choice of venues to express these sentiments was also quite odd. The National Prayer Breakfast was once known as a time to exalt 'Christ above all others.'"

Yes, when "once" we thought of Christianity as the norm for all citizenry, and that somehow keeping church and state separate didn't include the politicians running around exalting "Christ above all others." Fortunately, some of us have grown a bit from that standpoint — even good and faithful Christians. Because, after all, if the majority religion gets to be treated as the norm and basis what should be "exalted," what would happen if Christianity stopped being the majority?

"So of course it makes complete sense for him to go out of his way to add the Dalai Lama, several Muslim Brotherhood members, and a few other ingredients to the mix. Because… You know…"

Yes, it does make sense, because unless you're going to baldly call it the "National Christian Prayer Breakfast," the presumption is that the only thing that is in common amongst the participants is prayer to one or more higher beings, not adherence to a particular creed.

"The 3,600 in attendance were 98 percent Christian."

Well, let's see. The US population is only 78% Christian (26% Evangelical Protestant, 18% Mainline Protestant, 7% Black Protestant, 25% Catholic, 2% Mormon, 2% other Christian), 5% other religions, and 16% unaffiliated. (http://religions.pewforum.org/reports) That indicates Christians were slightly over-represented amongst believers, but that's hardly the point.

"That he would yammer on about the importance of the presence of the Lama, …"

Yes, the Dalai Lama's presence was only yammer-worthy. Got it.

"… discuss the atrocities of Christians (a thousand years ago,) …"

Except for the atrocities committed more recently that he also mentioned. And it's hardly a complete list.

"… and ignore the acts "done in the name of Islam" demonstrated the contempt he even has for the very event — much less the prayer it generates to support his administration. His justification of modern-day ISIS in any regard is stomach churning."

Really? Because I'm pretty certain his speech (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/05/remarks-president-national-prayer-breakfast) included the following:

'From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for faith, their faith, professed to stand up for Islam, but, in fact, are betraying it. We see ISIL, a brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism — terrorizing religious minorities like the Yezidis, subjecting women to rape as a weapon of war, and claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions.'

I'm really unclear how that represents "ignoring" or "justifying" anything being done by ISIL or or Islamist terror groups or oppressors.

"For the sake of space here let me summarize the portion of history President Obama flunked. In the Mohammadian era, Mohammed and the other reprobates he inspired to follow him, decided they were gonna rape who they wanted, destroy what they wished, and steal what wasn't theirs."

I don't think Mr McCullough realizes that if you file off the name Mohammed from his statement, you get a pretty good summary of the behavior of the Israelites in the conquest of the Holy Land. Or, for that matter, a number of those Crusades that have been mentioned.

"Obviously this agenda really struck a chord with the deprived, brain-washed abusers who could keep neither steady jobs nor adult relationships in their lives. Because the doctrine of "jihad" allowed/s them to go to war if someone was disrespecting, insulting, or in some cases just telling the truth about this perverted system of belief they were encouraged to kill all who doubted, disagreed, or disbelieved."

Which in turn sounds like the internal crusades — military and inquisitorial — launched by the Church against heresies, apostates, witches, and Jews — during the Middle Ages. Or the holy wars between Protestant and Catholic nations that wracked Europe until the Eighteenth Century or so (give or take some Irish Troubles).

"So for over 400-plus years these gangs attacked Arabia, large portions of Eastern Europe, the land of Abraham, and even swaths of Western Europe. (Close to two-thirds of the known world.) Christians were beheaded, burned, buried alive, and mostly beaten in every region. For 400 years…"

See "The History of Christendom, from the 4th to the 18th Century." Christians have beheaded, burned, buried alive, and beaten each other for purposes of doctrine (or politics disguised as doctrinal differences) for far longer than Muslims ever did, and in far greater numbers — even if one accepts the nature of the various Muslim national conquests described by McCullough. The Ottomans, for example, were hardly a band of "gangs" in their attacks in Southern Europe, nor were the Moors in their invasions into Spain and Portugal, and while non-Muslims were definitely second-hand citizens in conquered territories, after the conquests were complete they were largely tolerated.

Also, "two-thirds of the known world" — the world known to whom?

"The Crusades were the reason that most of those exploits except for the area around modern-day and historic Israel were reversed."

The Crusades encompasses a wide variety of military exploits, from the Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula (which then led to the Spanish Inquisition) to the Normans taking Sicily to the various wars in Southern Europe. The most famous Crusades were toward the Holy Land itself, which as often ended in crazed bloodshed (such as the sacking of Christian Byzantium) as any real military conquest, let along a holy one.

"Did they force conversion? Many will say yes."

For "many" read "all historians who have actually studied the period."

"But did they kill all who disagreed? No! In large measure they simply pushed Muslims back to the lands where Mohammed started his glorified nightmare of a religion."

Except for, y'know, North Africa and Turkey.

(One might almost get the impression that Mr McCullough doesn't care for Islam.)

In Spain, not just Muslims but Jews were also expelled; the search for people who maintained their faith in hiding was what the infamous Spanish Inquisition was all about.

"Muslims had not been nearly so kind in their initial assaults."

I'm not sure Jesus would draw a serious distinction about the wartime efforts of the Moors vs those of the Reconquista in Spain, nor about how the conquered were treated afterwards.

"How terribly ironic it is to this day that the ones who lost 'their' unjustly conquered territories still hold a grudge against those who kicked them out by labeling the nations that descended from them as 'Crusaders.'"

Really? We're going to go into "who conquered who justly" as an argument? The Reconquista took nearly 800 years. By the time it was over, there were parts of the Iberian peninsula that had been controlled by Muslims longer than Christians. Who gets to claim what territory when?

"Not to mention the fact that slavery was never performed 'in the name of Christ' — though it still is to this day 'in the name of Islam.'"

I recommend to Mr. McCullough this article (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/the-foolish-historically-illiterate-incredible-response-to-obamas-prayer-breakfast-speech/385246/), which not only quotes Confederate VP Alexander Stephens at length as to his religious and Christian justification for slavery (a frequent theme amongst churches and politicians in the Confederacy before and during the Civil War), but also notes the religious justifications George Wallace used in his "Segregation Now" speech in the 1960s. Slavery (and racial discrimination) were seen as God's order, as a way for the superior white man to bring Christ to the savage blacks, and explicitly justified by passages discussing slavery in both the Old and New Testament.

As to slavery being religiously justified by some Muslims today, I certainly won't defend such an action. It is, however, clearly a fringe element (ISIL most notoriously), and is not supported in its religious claims by the vast majority of Muslims.

"And that while Christians themselves overwhelmingly agitated and produced the abolition of slavery in Western lands, nary a Muslim has dared to do the same."

Some Christians drove the abolitionist movement (and the civil rights movement of the 60s). Others stood opposed to it, again, on religious grounds (or using their religious beliefs to validate their prejudices). And many Christians supported abolition, while still considering blacks to be racially inferior; their idea of dealing with former slaves was to ship them all back to Africa; Abe Lincoln played with that idea for many years.

Slavery is, in fact, condemned by most Muslims, and is absent in the vast majority of the Islamic world. An open letter of jurists and religious teachers to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIL, includes a condemnation of slavery (http://lettertobaghdadi.com/); they maintain, in fact, that Islam formally condemns the practice (which is more than can be said of Christianity), and notes freeing of slaves as a virtue and religious obligation. See also http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2014/11/05/isis-says-islam-justifies-slavery-what-does-islamic-law-say/, http://www.al-islam.org/slavery-from-islamic-and-christian-perspective-sayyid-akhtar-rizvi, http://islamqa.info/en/94840, http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21625870-jihadists-boast-selling-captive-women-concubines-have-and-hold, http://misconceptions-about-islam.com/islam-quran-abolish-slavery.htm .

Have there been slaves held by Muslims. Of course. Have there been — are there — slaves held by Christians? Of course. Noting the one does not justify the other; condemning the one without recognizing the other is hypocrisy.

"The 'high horse' was reserved for the victorious general. It was a steed of honor to declare victory over the known enemy. Our president neither understands who our enemy is, nor what the victor must do to defeat them."

Yes. Thus the phrase to "get off your high horse," meaning "stop inappropriately taking on airs of a victorious general." The triumphalism of some Christians as to the superiority of Christian behavior, now and in the past, is a great example of inappropriately riding a high horse. Leaving aside Jesus' teachings about humility, and Paul's message about how Christians will be redeemed through faith and grace, not through ostensibly laudable works, it's simply myopic tribalism with a cross on it.

"My earnest prayer is that it doesn't require 400 years of rape, terror, conquest, and beheadings by Allah's jihadists for us to understand the lessons of history and what we must do to assure the watching world that they will never be repeated again."

And what would that be, Mr. McCullough. Are you declaring jihad on the Muslim world? Because it sure sounds like it.

But that can't be, since obviously a Christian would remember what happens to those who live by the sword.

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