Politics: Catastrophic Converters

The New York Times this morning is also reporting on a disturbing trend at the "grass roots of evangelical Christianity:" training to convert Muslims.

I can't even begin to explain what is loathesome and vile about this enterprise, not to mention the travelling salesman aspects of the unidentified Christian preacher who is wandering the American south teaching the idle, heavyset and racist all about how Islam is evil and Christianity is good.

An interesting contrast is that in the Quran, the Prophet Mohammed makes it fairly clear that no-one is to attempt to convert people who are committed to other religions. I am, of course, fully aware that people of all religions, including Islam, proselytize. But there is a bigger point here. Read this passage from the Times piece:

At the grass roots of evangelical Christianity, many are now absorbing the antipathy for Islam that emerged last year with the incendiary comments of ministers. The sharp language, from religious leaders like Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Jerry Vines, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has drawn rebukes from Muslims and Christian groups alike. Mr. Graham called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion, and Mr. Vines called Muhammad, Islam's founder and prophet, a "demon-possessed pedophile."

In evangelical churches and seminaries across the country, lectures and books criticizing Islam and promoting strategies for Muslim conversions are gaining currency. More than a dozen recently published critiques of Islam are now available in Christian bookstores.

Arab International Ministry, the Indianapolis group that led the crash course on Islam here, claims to have trained 4,500 American Christians to proselytize Muslims in the last six years, many of those since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The oratorical tone of these authors and lecturers varies, but they share the basic presumption that the world's two largest religions are headed for a confrontation, with Christianity representing what is good, true and peaceful, and Islam what is evil, false and violent.

What we're looking at here is policy by other means. All of this activity in the United States and abroad is driven by the maniacal belief that America and the whole world is supposed to be some goddamn Christian utopia. I have absorbed some of the Christian fundamentalist conversion dogma first hand from acquaintances and distant relations. The whole thing is terrifying. I wouldn't be any more or less concerned about these people than I would be if I started to hear similarly crazy noises from my Muslim relatives about Islam.

Fundamentalists on both sides are moving toward that big confrontation alluded to in the final paragraph of the passage above. That's because the ravenous, unstoppable aspects of fundamentalism are simply outdated and incompatible with modern life. America and the world are enormous containers of people. The very idea that one of the literally hundreds of faiths and belief systems at large inside that container should take as its duty the task of devouring all the other faiths, making everyone believe the same thing, is unacceptable.

But that's what this faith pursues, wildly, blindly. I am not alone in believing that there is no comeuppance for this type of behavior. The Bush administration is doing everything it can to insert these conversion-bombs into Muslim countries, bringing in fundamentalist Christian media corporations, fundamentalist Christian bigots, such as Franklin Graham, mentioned above, and permitting Army chaplains to trade baptisms for water.

Domestically, Bush has similarly ensured that religious institutions can use government funding and sanction to spread its dogma far and wide. Although some legislative attempts to relax religious discrimination laws have failed, Bush has continued to push other such laws, and has done a lot by executive fiat.

In the end, the religious right has captured the biggest convert of all in President Bush. All the end-time lunacy aside, there is a lot of money to be had from every converted Christian fundamentalist, running to about 10-15% of their income, and more importantly, the establishment of valuable churches and outreach for the machine to continue consuming people and their pocketbooks. That this sets up an endles confrontation where more violence will begat more conversions is not a coincidence. In fact, it might be the prime directive.

But it all starts somewhat benignly, it seems, with a preacher travelling from town to town, telling people that Islam is evil. A hate crime by any other name...