We know Islam isn’t biblical, even though I heard a Muslim scholar explain on the radio coming home the other night that if Jesus and Mohammed were together in the same room, they would get along famously. However, that is not the point of this post. I had already been asking myself, but the attack in San Bernadino crystallized the question I posed in the title.
The first amendment reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
I direct your attention to one part, “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Does this protect the free exercise of Islam in the United States?
What is “free exercise”? I understand that the questioning of these two words might be thought to open the door against biblical Christianity as well. My goal is not to redefine “free exercise,” but to understand what the founding fathers meant by it and whether it is compatible with Islam? Not all religion is accepted as “free exercise” of religion. A previous iteration of Mormonism that included polygamy was rejected by the United States. Bob Jones University could not prohibit interracial dating for religious reasons without loss of its tax exempt status. The religious leadership of Roman Catholicism does not have the freedom to practice child molestation. The United States government would not allow the practice of the Branch Davidian cult in the famous Waco siege of its compound. The state of Texas imprisoned Joshua and Caleb Thompson for the physical beating of an eleven year boy attendee of their Sunday School.
What I’m saying is that the United States defines what “free exercise” is. With that in mind, should the United States allow for Islam? If you were a family member of someone murdered in San Bernadino, would you believe that Islam can coexist in the United States? Are there a certain number of murders or attacks that we must absorb before we do something? Would you be willing to have it be you or your loved one?
I see four categories of Muslims. I can’t say that I know for sure what the percentages are, but I’m still going to give my opinion. I believe there are three fairly equally sized groups, and then a fourth, which is the smallest. The smallest of the three, I believe, are active terrorists. The second biggest are those who support the terrorists either actively or passively, like those in Turkey, who booed the moment of silence at the soccer match. The biggest group of the three are those who do nothing about the first two. They are silent, but through their silence they accommodate and accept. The fourth and smallest group represents those who oppose the first three in an active way.
What I’m saying is that the United States cannot trust Islam to assimilate into an American way of life. Not every Muslim is an enemy of the United States, but Islam in general is an enemy of the United States. I’m sure there are professing Muslims who can live here peacefully, generations of them, who have been here for a long time. Many of them live here and countries like the United States because they are in the minority. History shows us that when Islam nears something of a large minority of a nation, the Muslims start reeking havoc on a country until they have their way. Once they have their way and all the other religions are subdued and without full freedom, they are a peaceful people. This is how I see it, and I wish I was wrong, but I don’t think so. There are not enough Muslims to step up and stop their terrorist category from doing what they do.
I know I can coexist with Muslims, who can practice their religion peacefully. I have never had a Muslim come to me to attempt to persuade me of his religion, but I believe he should be free to use verbal argument to do so. However, I do not believe that Muslims can coexist here. Every mosque, I believe, is a likely location of terrorism against the United States, plotting its overthrow. Islam will not overthrow the United States, but the coexistence of Islam with the United States will not allow Americans to live freely.
What complicates the rise of Islam in the United States even further is the new outlaw of personal firearms. Americans in general cannot carry firearms, so are prey to terrorists. Americans do not know which Muslims are terrorists and by the time they find out, it’s too late. The first dozen or thousand must absorb the attack so that others might live. I’ve told my school class that right now the plan is for me to rush the terrorist without a weapon and yell for the kids to run. What do you think of that plan? This is the suggested plan by Jerry Brown and the state of California, a place of Stanford and Google and tremendous innovation. Americans are now expected to accept round after round of these attacks without guns. The police will tell you that they can’t protect you and neither will they allow you to carry a gun. They will not protect you and you cannot protect yourself. This is not freedom. We are no longer a free people, especially with the combination of these two factors: restriction on concealed carry of firearms and the free exercise of Islam.
In this last week, Donald Trump said that President Obama’s refusal to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism” indicates that “there is something going on with him that we don’t know about.” That statement is very ambiguous, but still represents the most plain statement made about the mysterious defense of Islam in the United States by our president and his disposition to bring in almost as many Muslims into the country as he can. It is obvious he respects Islam more than he does American citizens who happen to be Republicans. The reason Trump must say it in such a coded way is because free speech is muzzled mostly by the left wing in the government and the media.
Like Trump, I don’t know what it is with our president and how he acts toward Islam. I think he is truly irreligious, not a Christian or a Muslim, while claiming to be a Christian for political purposes, but that he has stronger sympathies toward the practice of Islam than he does most Christianity in the United States, and for many reasons that are ingrained in him from his youth. The same mindset is what motivated Malcolm X and Cassius Clay to convert to some form of Islam and why the president was comfortable for years in the religion of the “Reverend Wright” in Chicago, someone who has been very, very close to Louis Farakhan and his Nation of Islam. I believe this is the translation of “something going on with him that we don’t know about.” We actually do know about it, but the media casts a blind eye because of its leftist ideals.
Do you remember the pizza place owned by Christians in Indiana that would not do pizza for a same-sex marriage reception? They were opposed and picketed and ridiculed and threatened. Shortly thereafter someone videoed someone posing for a same-sex marriage, who went into a Muslim bakery in the Detroit area to ask if it would bake for his same-sex marriage. The Muslim bakery owner said he would not. This video tape went viral, but that bakery did not receive the vitriol and threats and ridicule that the pizza shop in Indiana did. Why? A major reason, the biggest reason, is that people are afraid of this very small minority of Muslims. They are not afraid of the Christians who own the pizza parlor. This tells the story of the intimidation already that Islam brings to freedom in America.
I digress to some degree to an interesting subject that maybe I can address again some time in the future, so let me get back to the original idea behind the post. How can we allow Islam in the United States? I understand the so-called “arguments,” to start, that this is freedom of religion. But that’s what I’m talking about. We can’t allow for Islam because it isn’t compatible with the American way of life, the founding documents, a proper interpretation of the Constitution. The other arguments are mainly sentimental, I believe. Like with illegal immigration, there are those who would say that there is no way that you can send away all these people who have been living here peacefully all these years.
Most of you readers know that the Boston bombers had been living here peacefully numbers of years. Soviet spies lived in the United States peacefully for decades. The religion of Islam has proven that it will not assimilate as a whole with the United States and it is impossible to detect which ones are the terrorists and which ones are not. There is too much risk. Polygamist Mormonism wasn’t allowed. We’ve decided this way before now with others.
My thinking isn’t fully formed on what the exact solution is. Right now, the thoughts are experimenting with the idea that Islam should be banished from the United States. Moslems should go to Moslem countries and spread American values. Another argument follows. ISIS will use it as a recruiting tool It seems the major way for this administration to combat ISIS is by constraining free speech, which is sometimes called “political correctness.” We can’t use certain terms for fear of their using it as a recruiting tool. Who is out there to recruit in this “peaceful religion”? The argument continues that if ISIS perceives this as a war against it, then they will fight a war against us.
Guess what? ISIS is already at war against the United States, and this president says ISIS is not winning, but it is winning in that it has changed the way Americans can talk. They cannot express themselves. There is an existential threat in this country and everyone knows it. There is a threat in even writing this article. I think many believe that terrorists are culling the internet to make up an enemies list, which chills free speech. I fully understand this type of threat. It’s why the coward left will attack only the Christian pizza parlor and not the Muslim bakery.
We have had gangs of teens use some of our property as a hang out. We tell them to leave at certain times, like during services. In response, two weeks ago, they broke the window to my car door. When a gang of them was using a retaining wall as a place to smoke and fornicate, I would just preach to them. They would disrespect me and then slouch off. However, I knew that I wasn’t forbidding them to come, because I knew they might come back to do more damage. Anyone who lives in an urban area of the United States knows what I’m talking about. The police can’t and won’t protect us, and we cannot protect ourselves. With those conditions, we have to decide about Islam too.
One other argument is that Mohammed would reject much of modern Muslim scholarship. The Muslim scholars say that what we see today is a perversion.. Usually the discussion starts with equality of women, showing more skin, and not wearing burkas. What mainly bothers me about burkas is their ability to conceal bombs and AK-47’s. The experts will drone on about how that it is all really good in the Koran and that what you see is a corruption. Yet, if the corruption itself, becomes the rule, then that is what Islam is. I can’t sort through for all Muslims the correct interpretation of their book. What I know is what I see. I don’t want to hear about the original intent of Mohammed when both my legs are blown off.
Numbers of Muslims live in the United States because the freedom allows for a better way of life than they experienced in their Muslim countries. They like that way of life. The economics are a direct result of the freedom. By allowing more Muslims though, the United States will become more like the Muslim countries. We have already experienced a loss of freedom because of it, but how much more should we be willing to put up with, until it isn’t America any more?
I believe we’re already there.
The Apostle Paul said that "we are not ignorant of (Satan's) devices", and yet it appears to me that a great many Christians want to live in their own community and ignore what is going on around them. I don't think that is what Paul meant.
While we do not need to know everything about every religion around us, we should know the main points. Not to "dialogue" with them but to effectively counter their attacks against the gospel. How can we reach a Muslim for Christ if we cannot show them that their religion is wrong? How can we show them the difference if we don't know what the difference is?
A Christian pastor from Egypt has translated a literal translation of the Qur'an, with notes showing why it is wrong. I am going to order one, and I recommend that others do to. You can find it at http://www.thestraightway.org/
Hi Dan,
I agree that if the Muslims stay, or whoever stays, we should preach the gospel to them, but is that the decision the country should make, is the point of the post. Thanks for encouraging us to evangelize Muslims. I've actually had many conversations, including with an Imam a few weeks ago. It's not that hard to deal with their wrong thinking if you know the Bible and are willing to talk to people, but again, what about what I wrote in the post? Are you saying, please come Muslims, so we can preach to you before you reject the gospel, get offended, and then blow us up?
The freedom of religion you describe occurred within the framework of "one nation under [the Christian] God," Who has granted liberty of conscience to man. Unfortunately, post-modernism has stripped away that framework from American society while retaining lip service to freedom of religion. Apart from the framework of Christianity in society (with its soul liberty, a value that would curtail the violent tendencies of most other religions), freedom of religion is actually unworkable. I do think that under the original framework and intent of your nation's enshrined liberties, a Muslim could practice his religion and assimilate into culture. At this stage, the framework is gone and they are also not expected to assimilate.
Rest assured, this current secular society will ban peaceful Biblical Christianity before it bans violent Islam. After all, secular culture and Islam (despite all the ranting about the "satanic west") share the same father, which seems to me to be the real reason why there is no uproar over the Muslim bakery owner's refusal to bake a cake.
I believe that Muslims in America definitely constitute a problem, but deporting them all based on religion would be a gross violation of the First Amendment and an assault on liberty that is far worse than the current state of the problem. Baptists could get deported next by the ungodly population. Furthermore, the First Amendment does not limit religious freedom to those religions that are consistent with liberty.
For Muslims already in the country there's probably nothing that can be done. What could be done, and done without a violation of the First Amendment, is an alteration of our immigration policy so that countries that have a percentage of the population more than, say, 10% that support terrorism are not allowed to have people immigrate to this country except perhaps under very extreme circumstances (e.g., Christians getting persecuted in those countries who need to flee). Limiting immigration from countries where more than 10% of the population supports terrorism would essentially eliminate immigration from Muslim countries, yet such an alteration in the law would not require specifying any country in particular nor any religion in particular.
However, no matter what we do we are doomed without a religious revival.
If you like the proposal I made above about limiting immigration from countries that support terrorism, I would suggest that you bring it up to your Congressman and Senators.
Finally, it is not true that it is impossible to buy guns anymore in the United States. Here in Wisconsin it is very easy to buy a gun. That impossibility is more restricted to California and especially to the Bay Area. I do like the Bay Area a lot – but I do also like to be able to own guns here in Wisconsin. It might even be worth it to balance the winter. 🙂
Brother Brandenburg,
You said, "Islam will not overthrow the United States…" I don't disagree, but will you expand on this a little bit? I assume you mean that the US will collapse under the weight of it's own sin, instead of being defeated from an outside attack. If so, couldn't Islam be like the soldiers of Cyrus, who walked under the massive defensive walls of Babylon, and took the impregnable city in one night? Just wondering what you meant.
Thanks
Vic Crowne
Hi James,
You write very well and make some good points. We must argue based on the original intent of the founders, which is how I'm arguing. To say that postmodernism has destroyed what people think shouldn't send us into a holy huddle, waiting for the rapture. I recognize they aren't expected to assimilate, but I'm still arguing based on the idea of a "melting pot." I'm also not sure that our society yet will ban biblical Christianity before Islam. Nevertheless, the discussion is, "Should we?" Not, "can we?" I still think fear of Islam is the primary reason for the lack of motivation, but your explanation is true.
Thanks.
Thomas,
You seem to be arguing that free exercise allows for a religion to persist in terrorist acts against the United States. One could set up a religion with a goal to overthrow the United States. Islam won't say it's doing this, but it is and does in fact do this, as witnessed in every case in history. If you don't defeat it, it will defeat you. You haven't convinced me that the founding fathers would have allowed for Islam and especially as it stands. I'm challenging that assertion and what you've written simply says that what I'm saying is a gross violation of the first amendment, but it doesn't prove anything. A gross violation of the first amendment isn't defined as "what Thomas Ross says is a gross violation of the first amendment." You haven't proven to me what you are asserting.
I can buy a gun in California, but I can't carry it off my private property and we can't carry at our school. The county here hasn't given permission to do that. You can purchase a gun in the state. I've done that. However, you are not free to carry it for when you need it outside of your home.
Vic,
Islam lacks of the infrastructure to defeat the US. They don't have an army to fight conventional war that would take over the U.S. They can take away freedoms. I've said they are already doing that. The combined forces of Islam lack the military force to defeat the U.S. in war. I don't see their culture doing it either.
Dear Pastor Brandenburg,
Of course people who are plotting terrorist activities should receive severe punishment at the hands of law. That is not the same thing at all (as I think it is highly likely you recognize) as deporting all Muslims. If Muslims were consistent with their beliefs, would they practice violence and terrorism? Yes. However, evolutionists, communists, atheists, agnostics, Reconstructionists/Theonomists, and many other types of people could, with their inconsistent and false ethics, do the same thing, but we should not deport all of them. The First Amendment guarantees Muslims the right to peaceably agitate for an Islamic caliphate. If they were in the majority, it would, of course, be the end of freedom and liberty. However, freedom and liberty will also end when secular humanism takes over completely. We would also lose our liberty if we give the government power to decide groups of people should be deported based on their religion, even if the first group that they deport happened to be the Muslims.
Is Islam protected by the First Amendment? Absolutely.
See http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0205/tolerance.html for the Founding Fathers on Islam and the 1st Amendment. ( Some of what he states may be overstated, but the point is nevertheless still valid.)
Thanks for the thoughtful post.
Much of the argumentation displayed here is what the advocates of gun control use with regards to firearms and the Second Amendment-namely that the Founders didn't really mean individual gun ownership or that they would not have applied it to assault rifles as well as the argumentation based on the large numbers of deaths caused by having loose laws on guns. Ultimately, if the First Amendment does permit the right of Muslims to practice their religion as the Second Amendment permits individuals to own virtually all classes of firearms, then its effects-the rather small number of terrorist attacks by Muslims or the vastly higher numbers of deaths caused by high rates ownership of firearms is simply irrelevant.
Thomas,
I was happy to read the article you linked to, but it wasn't that helpful in the long run, because there is a long history of rejecting freedom to certain religions. The founding fathers weren't even judging the same situation, not even close. "Free exercise" has been challenged many times in the history of the U.S. judicial system. I don't think it is a valid argument to say that opposing the free exercise of Islam will backfire on Baptists who want to practice, because there is plenty of precedent for the practice of Baptists, but not for the jihad of Islam.
Bernard Lewis wrote the book, Islam and the West, so if you want to understand jihad, listen to Lewis. I might write on this tomorrow or Wednesday, but jihad is the belief of Islam, and I don't think it is the responsibility of the United States. There is an easy basis to believe that Islam takes over countries with violence even with a large minority. We've got to define religion and free exercise.
It's easy to see what the Quran teaches and how this was played out in obedience through all history. Read here:
http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/l/Lewis98.pdf
http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/courses01/rrtw/Lewis01.htm
People are living in a fantasy world if they believe otherwise.
The argument that the Founders weren't facing the "same situation" is also strikingly reminiscent of the pro-gun control argument regarding the Second Amendment. The simple fact is, the Founders were faced with the question of whether or not the First Amendment applied to Muslims or not and they answered in the affirmative. The parallel to Mormonism is actually quite apt-Mormons were forbidden to practice polygamy but that did not mean that the government sought to ban the entire religion or to expel its adherents from the United States.
Kent,
In America, Muslims should not have the right to peacefully agitate for a Caliphate any more than Episcopalians could peacefully agitate for the secular rule of the English King, Catholics could peacefully agitate for the secular rule of the Pope, or communists peacefully agitate for the rule of the Soviet Premier. Anyone who advocates the overthrow of our form of government is a traitor.
If a Muslim person can honestly espouse all the tenants of our Constitution and its Amendments, he can become an American. But his agreement with those Amendments (particularly the 1st) states that everyone in the country can freely exercise their religion also.
The problem we have in America is that we have a history or separating church and state. It is foundational to American thought. Other religions, like the Catholics in particular have learned to exist within the American framework. Generally, Muslims do not separate their "church" from the secular rule of law. For that reason, a Muslim with those beliefs has no right to become an American.
Those are my opinions on the matter. I don't know if I answered all the issues you raised, but I'm going to stop here.
Jeff Voegtlin
Hi Jeff,
I agree with you in general. How does one know when a Muslim is peaceful? Every terrorist says he's peaceful before he detonates his bomb. Part of the strategy of infiltration is to look like you are with the program. I understand Muslims wanting to live here. Their countries are garbage, so they come here to have a good life at the same time advocating for the beliefs that turn something into garbage.
I agree with the idea that they can't separate their religion from the state. They do, because they have to, and some do assimilate. Some assimilate and then you find out it was just a cover when you look at the hole through your chest.
Horace,
Strikingly similar? No. The same founders that ratified the bill of rights also advocated for the alien and sedition act. I think it's a bad argument that the founders appreciated Islam. I'm saying there isn't enough of a sample to know their thoughts about Islam. They would be for peaceful anything, just like we would. We know more today. They would not support jihad. I think of what we did in Tripoli with the pirates in early U.S. history. We wouldn't stand for any of that kind of behavior. They would have been executed.
Do we know more about guns today too? Is that your striking similarity? I don't get the parallel. If they knew there was going to be a semi-automatic (one pull of the trigger per bullet) gun, they would not have agreed on the second amendment. I just don't get what you're talking about. They would not have prohibited the right to bear arms and we shouldn't still. Would they have allowed for today Muslim? No way.
Pastor Brandenburg,
To be more specific, certain Founding Fathers advocated for the Alien and Sedition Acts and many others immediately recognized its unconstitutional and tyrannical nature and fought against it. I certainly didn't intend to say the Founders "appreciated" Islam (which indicates a positive view of the religion)-merely that they believed that the practice of Islam was protected under the First Amendment. The Founding Fathers certainly were not ignorant and knew of the violent aspect of Islam's history, yet nonetheless they held the views outlined in the article Thomas Ross provided (to give another example George Washington was more then happy to recruit labourers of any confession including Islam to work at Mount Vernon). I absolutely agree they would not support jihad, defined as violence for the aggrandizement of Islam and I believe that any sort of attempt at jihadist violence should be immediately suppressed. Needless to say I approve of military actions that has the effect of suppressing Islamist reaction which is why I admire our current President's relentless campaign of drone strikes against terrorists holed up in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere. However, holding Islamic beliefs (of which there are many schools of thought) does not immediately equate to jihad and that is what I'm trying to distinguish here.
And as to the Second Amendment analogy, that's what I'm referring to. If you look at the advocates of gun control, they often will claim that if only the Founders knew about semi automatics they would not be in favour of such broad rights for individual gun ownership.
Being constantly surrounded by Secret Service, Capitol Police, personal security details, etc. has to skew one's view of security. My family just got to travel through several states in the Deep South and we like to visit state Capital buildings. I always felt more comfortable once inside said buildings behind security checkpoints as opposed to walking around town with my wife and 6 children 8 and under. I don't think they understand the vulnerability of John Q. Citizen out here who has 1 Tim. 5:8 in his mind.
Rush had an interesting take and citation of an 1952 law that is on topic here and was actually used by Carter in the 70's during the hostage crisis:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/12/09/trump_s_nutty_proposal_is_already_the_law_of_the_land_and_was_used_by_jimmy_carter_during_the_hostage_crisis
John,
I agree. The law of the land is already in place. Where were those who should have been standing for "religious liberty," embracing Islam as a religion and its free exercise, which happens to be kill as many infidels as possible. Or, "pray for postmodern Islamists," "pray for the spread of postmodernism among Islam." How can you tell the postmodern Muslim from the real Muslim? It doesn't matter. You at least will take one off the scene by absorbing the bullet, because that's how you'll know. They just practiced their religion on you, so celebrate the freedom of religion as you bleed out.