fun with fitna

ever since Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilder's film Fitna was released a week or so ago, there has been a furore of anger, from those agreeing with his sentiments, from those arguing that Christianity is every bit as evil as Islam, from the atheists arguing that every religion is equally evil.

the film has been removed, replaced, removed, replaced, many times over. last time i looked you could still watch it here.

the first voice of moderation came from Richard Shumack's article, followed by CPX's directors' discussion of it:


these encourage the viewer to actually listen to a Muslim hermeneutic of their own text.

a Saudi blogger Raed al-Saeed responds with the following film, an interspersing of OT verses mainly about God instructing Israel to take posession of Canaan, with images of Gulf War II and the documentary "Jesus Camp".


there are plenty of other video responses, most of them having lost any sense of reasonability.

an article on jesus.de by Rolf Krüger, here, maintains the critique of Koran inspired violence is valid, whereas al-Saeed's twisting is not - yet his reason seems to be more emotive than hermeneutical.
for whilst i disagree that the US-led invasion of Iraq and their behaviour there as seen (heard) by the leerish voice in al-Saeed's film are in no wise representative of Christendom, and "Jesus Camp" is likewise a scary indictment on how not to do church, the fact remains that for some Christians they somehow do see these things as representing them, and are proud to be associated with them.

so in the same way as we may see the attacks on the west as the valid working-out of Islam - as doubtless there are some Muslims who do too - listening to these as representative is unfair, and unreasonable.

if one gives an answer before he hears,
it is his folly and shame
Proverbs 18:13