The Smug Baldy Speaks

I’m not surprised that Joe Scarbough keeps beating up Rosie O’Donnell for her comment on ABC’s The View that, “Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.” Equally unsurprising is Joe’s spin that this is an attack on Christianity. It’s an election cycle - and nothing plays better in GOP circles than a lesbian attacking Christianity - except maybe the efforts of a knitted-brow conservative rushing to Christianity’s defense.

Come on, Joe Scarborough. You can’t really believe that there are some forms of radicalism that are more palatable than others. I believe that Scarborough is simply doing what he’s accusing Rosie of doing - using the forum he’s been given to present his own biases. In our increasingly less-free society, however, it has always been more easy to defend, rather than offer dissent against, the bias that the majority has: that Christians are good, that Americans are good, and that those who offer comment on these “facts” are either unpatriotic, sick, mindless, or all of the above.

Never mind that there are plenty of very unapologetically bad Christian militant groups in America that endorse murder of women’s health care providers, as well as hate crimes against homosexuals, illegal aliens, and people of color.

Joe: The point you consistently miss is that in our overwhelmingly Christian society, dangerous radical groups tend to paint their antisocial rhetoric with a flimsy patina of twisted, perverted Christianity. They claim that God supports the atrocities they commit, and the duty of all like-minded Christians is to take up their banner and fight against whatever it is they despise.

Is Rosie correct? Probably not. Her opinion that radical Christianity is just as much a threat as radical Islam is probably as far off base as Joe Scarbrough’s opinion that this is an attack on Christianity. The truth, as is often the case, is probably somewhere in between. Maybe it’s closer to the idea that radicalism is naturally produced at the fringes of any religion, where people tend to miss the point of their own faith, and somehow find it reasonable and acceptable to kill in their God’s name. The danger isn’t Islam, or Christianity for that matter. The danger is that there are True Belivers everywhere that heed the fundamental calling of their very own, deeply held, mistaken ideas about what their religion really teaches.