Sunday, December 6, 2015

None Shall Pass

While I understand the sentiment behind this cartoon, I have never actually encountered anyone claiming that it was unfair to blame pro-life murders on the killers Christianity. Instead, my experience has always been one of gatekeeping, with Christian apologists seeking not to distance themselves from the killer, but to distance the killer from Christianity by pointing out failures to abide by certain rules of conduct that are said to be integral to the religion.

By the same token, there seems to be little patience for that same sort of gatekeeping among Moslems, who are instead required to denounce attacks and attackers, rather than simply being allowed to disown them in the same way that American Christians do. Of course, this is a charge of institutional hypocrisy that notes inconsistencies in behavior across a diverse group of individuals, rather than any given person attempting to have things both ways. And in that regard, it's not a particularly useful critique.

But one does understand how the Moslem community in the United States can come to feel that Christians expect more from them than they do from themselves. The fact that it may not be any specific individual speaking from both sides of their mouth does little to lessen the impression of being unfairly put upon.

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