Brian responded to my blog of the dangers of Islam entitled Prepare for the Skyline of the Future. Here is his email and my response. This was stimulated it seems by the senseless an insane slaughter of Muslims in New Zealand by a hateful nutcase.
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Thanks Steve
Respectfully I have to disagree with a lot of your Steubenville University address. Commonweal Magazine and America Magazine and the UK Tablet are my go to Catholic reading. I do read other more conservative views. I listen to EWTN but am very aware it is particularly North American in tone and register. It’s a pity there is not more Catholic radio and podcasts outside the US.
Our Catholic Bishop of Christchurch has reached out to the Muslim/Islamic community with these words, “We have been blessed by dialogue which has revealed the beauty and peace of those who live a religion of prayer, generosity and belief in the same God of Abraham in whom we believe.”
Also our visiting priest has written these words as well as quoting our bishop- “Christianity and Islam are two of the three (with Judaism) great monotheistic faiths. Together we are the descendants of Abraham who was the first to speak of one loving God, in an environment heavy with cult rituals to please and appease temperamental gods. The belief in one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is the greatest unifying conviction in human history.”
Our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has instigated a ban on assault weapons. This will go through our Parliament. Our people want this. Also we are instigating an inquiry into why our secret services concentrated their monitoring on Muslims in New Zealand and ignored alt right white supremacists with their hateful ideologies directed towards Muslims and Islam. They took their eye off the ball.
You are a social media star of sorts among some Catholics. Surely it is your responsibility to not instill anxiety among conservative Catholics about Muslim “invasions”, by suggesting Christianity is under threat from Islam. With your reach on YouTube and other social media you could look at what interfaith groups are doing to build dialogue with our Muslim brothers and sisters. A good start could be to look at what we are starting to do here, in Christchurch New Zealand to build bridges, relationships and dialogue with our Islamic communities.
“We pray not just for healing of the injured and comfort to those who mourn, but for a renewed outreach to others in love, kindness and welcome.
Yours
Brian
Christchurch
New Zealand
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STEVE RAY HERE
Brian:
I certainly appreciate your friendly and irenic tone. I’m sure you and I would agree on a lot of things and be good friends if we lived next door. I also appreciate the time you took to write a lengthy response sharing your ideas and thoughts and that of your bishop.
First, if these are your “go to sources” for all things Catholic, I can certainly understand why you believe as you do. I couldn’t disagree more and I see Islam as not so much a religion as it is a political ideology. When you’re on your island far removed from the rest of the world, or so it seems, it is easy to look at the “nice Muslims” that live among you and draw your conclusions about Islam from that. I find that the majority of people who are sympathetic to Islam itself, do so because they know “nice Muslims.“
But when you spend a lot of time in countries and cities that are predominately run by Muslims, like I do, you see a whole different face. When you look at the history of Islam from the 7th century until today you see violence and consistent persecution of Christians and an attempt to dominate by the sword. Mohammed is their model (as Jesus is ours) and he was very clear what his intentions were and the Koran is equally clear.
It’s unfortunate that so many people are being duped by Islam and the liberal Left and uninformed bishops and I’m afraid they will realize the truth of it when it’s too late.
I have good friends who are Muslims and they’re nice people but most of them do not practice what their religion/political ideology actually teaches which is why we consider them nice people. I don’t believe the “the radicals” are really radicals but the ripe fruit of Koranic Islam. It doesn’t take a lot of looking around the world, for example Nigeria and Egypt, etc. to see what’s actually going on in the world and it’s Islam that’s causing the problems.
https://www.catholicconvert.com/blog/2019/03/17/the-worlds-50-most-anti-christian-countries/
Anyway, this is not an American perspective because I spend half of my time outside America and I spend the rest of it in other countries around the world including India, the Philippines, all over the Middle East and more.
Having said that, thanks again for writing, for your love of God and Our Lord Jesus Christ and God bless you and your family and all those you love.
Sent from Steve Ray’s iPhone
http://www.CatholicConvert.com
http://www.FootprintsOfGod.com
Twitter.com/JerusalemJones
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I have to agree with you Steve. I live in Malaysia, a moslem-majority country in South East Asia. I was born and raised Catholic, my parents are too, so are my siblings and extended family. Alas, my eldest sister converted to Islam through marriage (and why does she need to convert even, I still don’t understand) But that’s how Islam is practised in this country. As a minority (both in religion and ethnicity), I faced a lot of challenges; during the fasting month of Ramadhan, I have to carry around my ID to prove that I have every right to eat and drink BEFORE dusk. My children are constantly questioned about their religion just because they neither look Chinese nor Indian (their father is mixed Chinese and Indian) neither do they look like a native person (me). It is so bad here in Malaysia that to mention the word ‘pig’ or ‘pork’ even in a conversation between non-Moslems and with Moslems present, is considered rude and insensitive.
when the Christchurch shooting happened, my eldest sister condemned the act by saying horrible things like “the shooter should be hanged”, “he deserves to burn in hell”, and more surprising to me, she said “these Christians are heartless” (and the shooter’s religion was not even mentioned). This, coming from a woman I grew up with, who helped stitch my First Holy Communion veil, who introduced me to the Legion of Mary etc.
So are Moslems nice? Maybe in the individual/personal level. But as a group, the friendly, understanding Moslem person you consider a friend would turn against you at the snap of a finger, and especially if it’s about/involves other religion.
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