A word from the pastor

President Barack Obama made some odd comments at the National Prayer Breakfast held on Thursday, Feb. 5. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the majority of government and military opinions have accurately described various terrorist organizations by their dominant defining features as radical Islamic terrorists. In a misguided attempt to defend “ordinary” Muslims, President Obama has taken a course of action to remove any reference to these groups being Muslim or Islamic.

Ignoring the identity of terrorists makes no sense. If two parties are in battle, they must learn as much as they can about the enemy and what motivates the enemy. These terrorists have a very set system of beliefs that find their justification in the Quran and in the teachings of some radical Muslims. Imagine the absurdity of denying the obvious fact that most Nazis were Germans. What the president does frequently in this discussion is to create a fallacy in the guise of fighting a fallacy. The associative fallacy is when you say something like this: All terrorists are Muslims, therefore all Muslims are terrorists. This is a fallacy, but it seems to be the only pressing issue the president sees in regard to terrorism.

At the National Prayer Breakfast, the president chose, in the defense of Islam, an additional canard. He pointed out that just as things are being done in the name of Islam, in the past things were done in the name of Christ that were evil. This type of reasoning is a dangerous effect of not having firm moral principles. This type of moral relativism is excellent at silencing discussion, because it essentially says: Who are you to criticize since you were wrong once, too?

The president’s comments, however, are rooted in an error which reveals his own personal prejudices. I am not going to deny that evils were committed during the Crusades, but this does not mean the Crusades were an evil enterprise. What some historians seek to omit, in the interest of tolerance, is the historical record of violence and intolerance in Islam. One of the reasons why the Crusades were necessary is that non-Muslims were not afforded free access to sites in the Holy Land by Muslims. Again, I am not saying that all Muslims are bad, but I am pointing out that like any human enterprise there is and was corruption.

To deny facts does not create tolerance and to misrepresent history does not create tolerance either. In fact, the president is playing a dangerous game that is doing more harm than good. The only way for radical Islam to weaken is to drive a wedge between good Muslims and evil extremists. By highlighting the actual identity of terrorists, good Muslims can begin to condemn the terrorists’ actions themselves. President Obama seems more concerned about semantics rather than the real issue. The real issue is that some Muslims find in their religious viewpoint the justification for murder, torture, rape and intolerance.

Moderate voices of Islam must alienate these radical elements from their faith. In addition, President Obama should be speaking to the Muslim world of the importance in expressing its faith in a more positive manner. The disconnect is not in the perception of non-Muslims but in the enshrined values of intolerance that prevails in the Islamic world. At present, most Muslim countries do not allow for equal treatment of religions, or gender. Reinventing history will not address these matters, nor will patronizing a group of people effect real change. Honest discussion is the right place to begin and it begins with an honest presentation of facts and not in politically correct fallacies.

Father Robert Repenning is a former U.S. Army Chaplain who served  in Iraq Operation Freedom 3 in 2005 and is now pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Poughkeepsie. He distributed the above to his congregation on Sunday, Feb. 15, in response to the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians.