FITNA Questions

At Chronicles of Atlantis, I try to look at reasons people in the West who have clearly been influenced by the Gospel still justify the myths, rituals, and prohibitions of a conventional, billion-person strong religion that is more than a little informed by the primitive Sacred. Desire to "put it to" Judaism and the Christian faith is one reason; a multicultural pipe dream of wanting to "teach the world to sing in perfect harmony" is another; and a third is blind, freakin' fear of having one's head severed from one's body, so placate, placate, placate.

Geert Wilder's fifteen-minute film has just been released. You can find it any and every where. It is, as Robert Spencer says, accurate. But are there some other valid reasons for not showing it in today's obviously scandalized state of things?

Will it influence those who are hyper-susceptible to mimesis, for example, to carry out similar heinous acts of ritual violence? Is it likely to be used as "recruiting material?" Will the "ostriches" of the West and ranting atheists like Dawk and Hitch say, "There! See? I toldja so"?

For my part, those who scold Wilders and accuse him of being a hate-monger and "racist" ( __ ? What "race" is he denigrating? Islam is a religion.) forget something. He is charged with such accusations for holding up a mirror. That is all.

If people don't like what they see in it, too bad. Maybe they should start acting differently. More tolerantly. More charitably. Less violently.

The question that FITNA brings to the fore, in my opinion, is this: What does faithful, just, Christian life look like in these tumultuous days of cultural clash and terror? If St. Francis is your thing, you may want to look at Gen's recent offering at Real Clear Religion. But for now, there are still many questions and challenges facing people of the biblical faith. Questions that FITNA raises, but only by being a looking-glass in which we see realities of today.