The Wondering Mind

We hardly need to look too hard to find examples of negative portrayals of Muslims and Islam. While I would agree that such stories are not a fair representation of Islam, they nevertheless represent the mainstream in far too many place and are rightly condemned. So it’s interesting to compare such reports to how Christianity is portrayed in the media.

Case in point, the current upheaval in the world Anglican communion over the ordination of gay and women priests. One thing history has proven time and again is that the Christian churches have been behind the times more often than not. It wasn’t until 2000 that the Catholic Church formally recognised that Galileo Galilei was correct in repudiating the view that the sun orbited the earth. And that’s far from the only item they’ve had to apologise for. And yet you still find many Catholics still busy arguing how the Catholic church was right. Just Google search “Galileo” and the “Catholic church” and you’ll find many such apologist sites arguing that “black is white” just to save the face of a church that has long since been tarnished.

And now the world Anglican communion is throwing its hat into the ring of inglorious Christian history. Naked homophobia is hardly the way to spread the word of Christ’s message of universal love. In societies where such hateful, and hate-filled, attitudes are unacceptable in all but the most ignorant circles, these people try to disguise their hate, and fear, as religion. Same goes for resistance to women. When women can run for President of the United States, you have to try real hard find an excuse for your bigotry without sounding stupid, and “religious belief” is about the only socially acceptable excuse left.

If we were to see the same from Muslims, the media would holding them up as another example of how barbaric and retrograde these people and their culture are. “See how ignorant they are. See how ridiculous their behaviour is.” Maybe. Or maybe not. But why not hold Christians to the same standards?