Generally, I try to have better titles to posts, but sometimes you come across something that baffles you so much that words are impossible to come by to describe it.
Take, for instance, Brian McLaren’s willingness to celebrate Ramadan with his Muslim friends. Most of his subsequent posts are emails from loyal fans thanking him and congratulating him for his choice to do this (as opposed to responding to the legitimate critiques).
Now, some might think, “Joel, why does this upset you?” For one, McLaren is, by his actions (and words, look at his “part 3″) acknowledging Allah and the Christian God to be the same. Now, I could offer up academic arguments pointing out they are not the same, but I want to take a different approach. McLaren is telling Christians in the US to be more open minded, more willing to embrace our Islamic “brothers.” But what does he say to Christians in the Middle East? What does he say to the girl in Pakistan who was gang raped because she refused to accept Allah as God? Does he tell her, “You silly conservative girl; if you would embrace postmodernism instead of your modernistic, closed-minded way of thinking, you wouldn’t have been raped”? What does he say to the little boy who watched his father killed by government officials because his father was unwilling to admit Allah was God?
