"radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam..."

Says who? Rosie O'Donnell, not-so-funny comic who regularly appears on a silly chat show on ABC called "The View." Watch the video here; also available, with commentary, on the NewsBusters.org site. Her full quote: "And just one second, radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America."

If that's true, should we conclude that "radical Christians" are also idiots? After all, there are certainly many more devout, serious Christians in this country than there are radical Muslims, yet acts of terrorism, murder, and mayhem by such radical Christians hardly ever make the news (hmmm...I wonder why?) Perhaps those knuckle-dragging Christians cannot figure out how to kill thousands of innocent people with hijacked planes. Or, more likely, perhaps they are too busy working within the democratic process, pursuing political office, publishing books and articles, hosting websites, and carrying on public discourse to build bombs and hijack planes.

Of course, if O'Donnell had said something offensive about radical Islam, we all know what the response would be. (And my guess is that she would be eager to apologize and make nice, something she won't do with Christians.) Meanwhile, radical Christians upset by O'Donnell's remarks will write letters, post thoughts on blogs, and stop watching "The View" (if they ever did watch it in the first place). I say, keep it up, Rosie. Keep speaking your mind. The more deep thoughts and incisive analysis you share with America, the more America will weary of your comical way of perceiving reality.

Comments

[Les]

Rosie who?

[Tom Callaghan]

Mr. Olson, you said, "... yet acts of terrorism, murder, and mayhem by such radical Christians hardly ever make the news ...". I am sure that you are not forgetting that the bombing of abortion clinics and the killing of abortion doctors are acts of "terrorism, murder and mayhem" AND that at least some of these acts have been perpetrated by people claiming to be Christians. They have and continue to be reported in the media and rightly so.

While not killing thousands, do you not think that these acts of radical Christians are as dangerous as the acts of radical Muslims?

Please bear in mind that I believe that abortion is murder and as an act of radical "privacy" its perpetrators are equally as dangerous, albeit in a very different way, as the above referenced radicals.

I also am not a Rosie O'Donnell fan but I see a point in what she said.

[Plato's Stepchild]

"bombing of abortion clinics"

Mr. Callaghan, please do a little research and then tell us how many abortion doctors have been assassinated and how many have been killed by abortion clinics being bombed. Then, also, please state the year(s) that these events occurred.

Then we'll talk.

For a side comparison, ask an abortion clinic how they would feel about being relocated to somewhere in the Middle East to practice their trade.

That may put the moral equivalence canard into crystal clear view.

[Shaun G]

One big difference between the Christian attackers of abortion clinics and Islamic extremists is that the abortion clinic attackers have acted in isolation, without anything but universal condemnation from the rest of Christianity.

In other words, there's no Christian denomination out there that condones such tactics; the sect of Christianity that these guys adhere to is always their own deluded creation, "Population: 1."

In contrast, radical Islam is a movement, and the violence it begets has much more institutional approval.

[Ed Peters]

Well, I was gonna say it, but Shaun G already did.

[Tom Callaghan]

I believe each person participating is capable of doing their own research and constructing their own opinions.

I am not aware that Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5 and Matthew 5 give any indication that God has made quantity, conspiracy or chronology moral differentiators regarding murder. I am aware that the laws of the various states of the United States, the laws of the United States and of various other countries do apply certain legal differentiators to murder. These may even be based on interpretations of the referenced scriptures, and/or others, to construct various differentiators. But those constructions are man-made and subject to the whims of mankind, e.g. the abortion laws of the United States.

This article, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_10_35/ai_53588259, does not strike me as condemnation of a murder and the murderer. I think it is indicative of the vacillation some people have when confronted by the murder of a murderer. At any rate, it does indicate something slightly less than “universal condemnation from the rest of Christianity” concerning the killing of an abortion doctor.

Paul Hill, a one-time Presbyterian minister, murdered abortion doctor John Britton, 69, and his driver, James Barrett, 74 with a shotgun. Hill said God led him to shoot them and belonged to a small sect within the antiabortion movement that sanctioned the use of ''justifiable homicide'' to stop abortion doctors. At least in this instance the population appears to have been greater than one.

[Margaret]

Mr. Callaghan,

Have you ever actually spent any time around people who pray or protest in front of clinics? THEY are the people who are/were probably the most horrified when something like a shooting or a bombing occurs. Back in my pre-baby days, I know that I and my friends would have been the first ones to raise the alarm if we'd ever suspected somebody was off his rocker enough to do something violent. Part of the reason these lone gunmen can do these things is because they are precisely that-- lone gunmen. Consistently, the bombers and shooters are not part of the "regular crowd" that meets to pray in front of the clinics every week or month. If you read the news accounts carefully, the response from the clinic regulars were, in this order, "How awful!" and "Who is this guy, anyway?!??"

[padraighh]

Radical Islam is a myth,
e.g. moderate Islamic governments forbid freedom of religion.

Radical Christianity is nearly a myth for it would mean taking
Christ's words seriously.