Author Archives: Rob Harrison

Happy Independence Day!

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John Adams, to his wife Abigail, in a letter of July 3, 1776:

Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. — This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

This is purely delightful

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I don’t know if they were inspired by the Sound of Music stunt last year at Antwerp’s Central Station, but a couple months ago, the Opera Company of Philadelphia performed “Brindisi” from Verdi’s La Traviata in the Reading Terminal Market, during their Italian Festival. Just watch, this is too good for words:

Whither men? (Part I)

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In the course of a brilliant article on “The Greatest Change in the History of Media”—an article well worth reading and pondering for its own sake—Vin Crosbie made an interesting observation which applies far beyond the scope of his piece:

Most people’s ability to perceive change is inversely proportional to its scale. They hail superficial changes as transformative, dismiss moderate changes as inconsequential, and fail to perceive gargantuan changes.

The context for that comment is his analysis of the failure of media corporations to understand the actual change that has occurred in their business, but it’s a general truth which has ramifications across the whole landscape of society; for most people, the truly massive changes that happen are too big to be seen, at least until it’s too late to do much about them. Unfortunately, that inability tends to be reinforced by a general resistance to believing that such huge changes could actually be happening, and perhaps could actually happen at all; that’s why so often, those who do perceive them are ignored or dismissed like so many Cassandras.

In that vein, it will be interesting to watch the response to Hanna Rosin’s piece in the latest Atlantic titled “The End of Men”; Rosin has put her finger on a change that’s been a long time building, and is far from done. The opening abstract sums it up well:

Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way—and its vast cultural consequences

I suspect that the discussion of her article will largely be unhelpful, which if so will be highly unfortunate, because the change she’s identified will indeed have vast cultural consequences—and probably not ones she or anyone else can see coming. We can certainly see what’s likely to produce those consequences; besides the obvious conclusion that increasingly, women will on the whole be more successful economically and socially than men, the other key result of the reversal she identifies will probably be the accelerating collapse of the institution of marriage in our culture, an issue which Rosin also considers. The hard question is, what will the results of those two things be?

Our natural tendency in forecasting the future is to use what we might call the Quisenberry model, taken from the late Dan Quisenberry’s quip, “I have seen the future, and it is much like the present, only longer.” What we tend to forget is that societies are relational systems writ large (or perhaps we might say, metasystems), and that systems are elastic; stretch a system out of balance, and it will try to pull back towards equilibrium. Stress it in one direction, and you’ll end up dealing with recoil from another. Backlash is built right into the structure. As such, looking at Rosin’s thesis and her evidence, what we ought to be asking is, where will the snap be coming from, and what will it look like?

I have some thoughts on that—too much for one blog post, of course, since this is a very big topic; but I’m planning to take a few posts, anyway, to sketch them out as best I can. As such, look for more on this in the days ahead. In the meantime, if anyone else has any ideas they’d care to contribute, I’d be interested to hear them.

On this blog in history: June 9-19, 2008

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On the power of stories to teach, part II
Inspired by Dr. John Stackhouse and his evaluation of The Shack

Our Swiss-cheese Bibles
Do we read the Holy Bible, or just the holey Bible?

Reflection on Amos 5 worship, for a thoughtful friend
The importance of reading Amos 5 in light of Amos 2

Out of the past, in the present, toward the future
On time and the life of the church

In defense of the church, part IV: Jesus
Whatever else may be true, however little we may deserve it, Jesus loves his church.

Supreme Court refuses to protect Christian group

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I’ve been trying for a couple days now to figure out what to make of this, and I’m still not sure.

In a 5-4 decision this morning, the Supreme Court said that a California law school can require a Christian group to open its leadership positions to all students, including those who disagree with the group’s statement of faith.

The majority opinion, issued by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said that Hastings College of the Law’s “all comers” policy, which required all groups to open all positions to all students, “is a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access to the student-organization forum.” The Christian Legal Society (CLS) chapter at the University of California school, Ginsburg wrote, “seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings’ policy.”

“Hastings, caught in the crossfire between a group’s desire to exclude and students’ demand for equal access, may reasonably draw a line in the sand permitting all organizations to express what they wish but no group to discriminate in membership.” Ginsburg wrote.

However, Ginsburg gave some hope to CLS, which had argued that Hastings officials had selectively enforced its “all comers” policy, allowing organizations like the Latino group La Raza, but not CLS, to have rules restricting its membership. Noting that lower courts had not addressed is accusation of selective enforcement (and that the Supreme Court “is not the proper forum to air the issue in the first instance”), Ginsburg said the Ninth Circuit Court could consider the argument.

It seems to me that if this is seriously enforced, it would do serious damage to meaningful freedom of association, since the freedom to associate with those of like mind necessarily means the freedom to exclude those who are not of like mind. Obviously, we put limits on that freedom, but still, tossing it out the window entirely does not seem like a rational move. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s concurring opinion may prove important here:

In it, Kennedy said that CLS would have a substantial case “if it were shown that the policy was either designed or used to infiltrate the group or challenge its leadership in order to stifle its views.”

This isn’t just a theoretical possibility, either.

The spectre of students organizing to take over the leadership of groups they don’t like has already happened at Central Michigan University, said David French, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund and director of the ADF’s Center for Academic Freedom. It’s a strong possiblity at any school with a policy like the one at Hastings, he said in a blog post.

“By emphasizing the value of dissent within groups, the Court ignores the fundamental reality of an all-comers policy: Distinct student organizations exist at the whim of the majority,” French wrote. “If ‘all comers’ can join, then the majority can override the speech of any student group. Thus the true marketplace of ideas exists by the permission (or, more likely, apathy) of the majority. The potential for minority or disfavored groups at schools with an all-comers policy to self-censor to avoid controversy—and potential hostile takeovers—is high.”

This is truly problematic, and an unhappy indicator of where the Court might be moving. But on the bright side, at least, this decision will make it hard for the Congressional Black Caucus to exclude Tim Scott when he wins his House seat this November down in South Carolina . . .

The cost of saying, “Peace, peace” when there is no peace

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From a great post by Ray Ortlund, “‘One anothers’ I can’t find in the New Testament”:

Humble one another, scrutinize one another, pressure one another, embarrass one another, corner one another, interrupt one another, defeat one another, disapprove of one another, run one another’s lives, confess one another’s sins, intensify one another’s sufferings, point out one another’s failings . . . .

In a soft environment, where we settle for a false peace with present evils, we turn on one another. In a realistic environment, where we are suffering to advance the gospel, our thoughts turn to how we can stick up for one another.

It’s a great list, very true and very much on point; but I think that second paragraph is even more important: when we make peace with the real enemy, when we refuse to confront (or even decide to accommodate) the evils of our day, we end up treating each other as the enemy instead. We cannot have gospel unity if we have sold out gospel clarity.

Planting trees in the blight

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Over a decade ago now, as a seminary student, I made a foray into inner-city ministry at a street mission in Vancouver, BC’s Downtown Eastside. At that time, that neighborhood had the highest rates of drug addiction, HIV infection, and deaths from both of any neighborhood in the developed world. It was a grim place to be. My time there didn’t end all that well, for a variety of reasons—one of them being that I discovered I’m not well gifted for that area of ministry—but when I left, I left carrying many people in my heart. I still think about them, and pray for them, and wonder how many of them are still alive. (Given the odds, I doubt even half of them are, but I really don’t know.)

Now, apparently, there’s a massive development project going on right within the Downtown Eastside, putting in both high-end condos and good-quality affordable housing, combined with other efforts to turn the area around (such as cleaning up Oppenheimer Park, which boggles my mind); the National Post has one of its reporters living in one of the condos for a month, writing about the development and its effects on the neighborhood. It’s a fascinating series; I’ve linked to the oldest page of posts, and if you have a little time, I really encourage you to check it out and follow it up to his most recent pieces. It will be interesting to see how this story plays out over time; if this sort of project can bring meaningful renewal to a neighborhood like that—well, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.

The New Exodus

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(Psalm 95:6-11; Hebrews 3)

As we saw last week, we’re into the second part of Hebrews’ argument for the uniqueness and supremacy of Jesus Christ. In the first part of this section, which we read last week, the author argued powerfully that Christ has authority over all creation, having been given that authority by God the Father. The world raises an objection to that, what’s usually called the problem of evil: if all the world is really subject to Jesus, why don’t we see it? Why do we still see suffering?

The author of Hebrews acknowledges that indeed we don’t see all things subject to Jesus, at least not in the obvious way; we don’t see a worldwide political regime that acknowledges his authority and seeks to rule according to his will, nor do we see a world free of senseless tragedy, devastating illness, or natural disaster. Rather, we see a world where sin often seems to have the upper hand. Hebrews doesn’t try to pretend otherwise; rather, the author contends that while we don’t see obvious signs of Jesus controlling things from on high, instead, we see Jesus suffering with us, and at work in and through our suffering for our good, and the good of others. We don’t see him reigning as king, but we do see him exercising his authority as high priest to bring about our redemption, and to set us free from our slavery to sin.

Now, as I noted, the author’s ultimate aim in this section is to establish that Jesus is a higher authority than the law. Many Jewish Christians still kept the whole Jewish law, and often they tried to force other Christians to do the same; they believed that even if you worshiped Jesus as Lord, you still needed to keep the whole law in order to be saved. The goal of the author of Hebrews is to convince his audience that this isn’t true, that they are saved through faith in Jesus Christ alone—and indeed, not only did they not need the Jewish law, but that if they put any of their faith at all in the law, they would be turning away from Jesus. As C. S. Lewis would later put it, Christ plus nothing equals everything—but Christ plus anything equals nothing. Hebrews wants to make sure we hold fast to Christ alone and so end up with everything instead of nothing.

To that end, having asserted the absolute authority of Christ over everything, the author turns to apply that by showing that Jesus is superior to Moses, through whom God gave the Old Testament law. He doesn’t in any way disparage Moses, but affirms him as a servant of God who was faithful in all God’s house, someone who is worthy of glory for doing the work God gave him to do, and doing it faithfully; Moses deserves the honor he receives, and there’s no need to diminish him. Actually, that Moses was indeed a great man of God is part of Hebrews’ point: even as great as Moses was, Jesus is greater. Come up with the greatest, most admirable, most important person you can find—it doesn’t matter who, Jesus is greater.

The argument here is simple: like Moses, Jesus was faithful to God, but Moses was only God’s servant, Jesus is God’s Son. Moses was faithful in God’s house, which is worthy of glory and honor, but Jesus is faithful over God’s house, which is worthy of far more. Moses is a servant in the house; Jesus is its builder and the one who has all authority over it, and he has been completely faithful in all that the Father has given him to do.

Then in the second half of verse 6, we get this interesting transition: Christ is faithful over God’s house, and we are his house. We’re moving away from the cosmic reality of Christ as the one who is above all the angels, who made the whole world and has authority over all of it, to focus on Christ as the one who has authority as high priest over the household of God, which is his people. There are several reasons for this shift, some of which we’ll get into as we go further into the book; in part, though, it’s part of the comparison of Jesus to Moses. Hebrews isn’t just saying that Jesus is greater than Moses because he made the world and Moses just lived in it; that wouldn’t really be to the point. Rather, Hebrews is saying something much more relevant: yes, Moses was a great leader of God’s people, but in this way, too, Jesus is greater. He’s worthy of more glory than Moses not just because of his work as creator and sustainer of the world, but because of his work here on earth.

Now, the interesting thing here is that the author actually goes on to make that argument in his warning section. You may remember, if you were here two weeks ago, my talking about the three-part sections of this book—first, the author presents an argument for the supremacy of Christ, then he applies it, and then he warns you what will happen if you turn away from Christ—and beginning in verse 7, we get the second warning of the book. Once again, he starts by quoting one of the Psalms, Psalm 95, which is a telling choice, I think. It starts by giving praise to God as Savior, then as the creator of all things and the God and King above all other powers; then it makes the transition and says, “Let us worship him specifically as our God, for we are his people.” This is the same shift we see in Hebrews. And having made it, we get this passage which the author of Hebrews quotes, which references the Exodus in warning us not to harden our hearts against God.

At first glance, it seems like a jarring change—but when you stop and think about what the psalmist is saying, it really isn’t. Israel affirmed God as the rock of its salvation—why? Because of the Exodus. The Exodus was the defining event of Israel’s history and identity; it was during the Exodus that he gave his people the Law, and it was through the Exodus that he established the corporate relationship with his people that would set the terms for their national existence from then on. And here’s the key: the Exodus was God saving his people as a people from slavery to a power which they could never have overcome, then leading them out of exile in a far country and back to the home which he had promised them and prepared for them.

Underlying this warning in Hebrews, though the author doesn’t explicitly come out and say it, is the understanding that Jesus came to lead the people of God in a new and greater Exodus. That was something God had promised through his prophets, as a consequence of the exile: though God had punished them by sending foreigners to conquer them and drag them far from home, he would raise up a leader who would bring their exile to an end and return them to Jerusalem. Those promises were fulfilled at the most basic level when Cyrus of Persia decreed that the Jews were free to go back to their own land, but there was much in them that was not fulfilled; even though they were back in Israel, the Jews were still a conquered people, and the throne of David was still vacant. Over time, they came to the conclusion that in some ways, they were still in exile, and still needed God to send his Messiah to bring about the new Exodus which he had promised long before. This, says Hebrews, is exactly what God did in Jesus.

Of course, as we’ve noted before, the problem was that it didn’t look like what people expected; it wasn’t a political victory, and it didn’t result even in political freedom for Israel, let alone a politically and militarily powerful Israel that could bring the Gentiles under the rule of God’s law. It certainly didn’t produce anything that looked like the promised messianic kingdom. So if we do not see everything subject to Jesus, then what is it we see? Hebrews answers that by saying, what we see is Jesus leading a new Exodus, not out of earthly slavery to an earthly government, but out of the far more oppressive and far deadlier spiritual slavery of all human beings to the power of sin and death.

This is a profound thing: Jesus has inaugurated God’s ultimate work of deliverance, that of all his people—now expanded to include all the peoples of the world, not just Israel—from all that has been set wrong in his creation, and all the effects of that blight. This is no mere partial solution, quick fix, or treatment of symptoms; this is the healing of the whole disease, right from the root. However, as the language of Hebrews acknowledges, it is a deliverance which is still in process. God through Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt, but they didn’t simply cross the border into their own land—he led them out into, and through, the wilderness. He took them into a period in which they had already been delivered, but their deliverance was not yet complete; they were already out of slavery, but not yet experiencing everything he had promised them. They were living in between. God had promised them a new home, he had begun the process of getting them there, but they had not yet seen it.

It’s out of that reality that the warning comes, both from the psalmist and from the author of Hebrews. God took his people out into the wilderness, and they promptly started complaining, and finally rebelled; as a consequence, he kept them there for an extra forty years, until that rebellious generation had died off. His people wouldn’t put their whole faith in him to take care of them, because they didn’t really believe that they would see the rest which he had promised them; and so God judged them, and they didn’t. Instead of focusing on God and his promises, they focused on their circumstances and difficulties, and when push came to shove, they believed in their circumstances more than in God. God said, “Go into the land, and I will give you the victory,” but their eyes said, “Those enemies are too powerful for us, we’ll lose”; they trusted their eyes over God, and refused the gift. They refused their promised salvation, out of unbelief and fear.

The concern driving the author of Hebrews is that some of his readers are being tempted to make the same mistake. We are in the wilderness, and so we do not see all things subject to Jesus; we are halfway home, in between the land of slavery and the land of promise, and all the promises Jesus has made to us are already assured, but most of them are not yet fulfilled, though we have started to see the fulfillment of many of them. The road through the wilderness is not an easy one—that’s why the Israelites kept thinking that maybe they’d be better off going back to Egypt, forgetting that slavery was even worse than the challenges of freedom; it’s easy to start to wonder sometimes if we’re really getting anywhere, and if it’s all really worth it. It’s easy to start to think that maybe that glimmer off to the left there is actually an oasis, not just another mirage.

In response, Hebrews tells us to learn from history. To those who held fast to God, he was faithful; those who trusted that God would do as he promised saw his promises fulfilled. Those who did not, did not. If we’re faithful, we can be absolutely certain that God will be faithful; but unbelief is its own punishment, because however difficult the road may be to which God calls us, it’s the only road that will get us where we need to be, and the only road he’ll help us walk.

Of course, “just have faith” and “just keep going” are both easier said than done, and sometimes by a long way; which is why we have this interesting statement in verse 13, “Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” We need one another. We need people to walk alongside us, to listen to us, to encourage us, to tell us we can make it; we need people we aren’t willing to disappoint, people we really don’t want to see us fail. It’s one of the key things that makes Alcoholics Anonymous work. If we try to go out there and just be strong, if we try to be Nike and “just do it,” we probably won’t; we’ll probably fall for lack of support, and there will be no one to help us up. But if we go together, we have the support of others to keep us from falling, and to help us get up and keep going if we fall anyway. We need each other.

And we need to encourage each other while it’s still called “today.” It’s easy for us not to do that; it’s easy for us to figure we have time, we can do it tomorrow. But you know, it’s always “today” when you actually do what needs to be done or say what needs to be said; we don’t live in “tomorrow,” we only live in “today.” If we try to hand things off to the future, when the future becomes the present, will we do them then? Or will we just kick them down the road again? And what if the future we imagine never comes? What if we actually don’t have time—what then? We don’t have tomorrow, we can’t count on it or control it; we just live in “today,” one day at a time, never knowing when this might be the last “today” we have. We only know what we can do now, and we have no assurance of any kind that we’ll ever be able to do it again; we need to take the opportunities we have while it is still called “today” to give others the encouragement they need from us, because we may never have those opportunities again—and who knows what may be lost? There are those who are gifted in this way, to whom seeing and seizing those opportunities comes naturally, and there are those of us who are much more likely to miss them; but gifted or not, this is something we’re all called to do, to actively look for chances to encourage those around us to follow Jesus, to trust him, to hold fast in their faith, in the assurance that however rough the road may be, he will bring us through the wilderness safe and sound, and into the promised land at last.

A victory for the rising tide

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I put up a post a few months ago arguing that the effort by corporations to use copyright law as a club to try to control people’s behavior is both philosophically problematic and economically counterproductive; the evidence shows, I believe, that they’re better off letting the market work than trying to over-regulate it. As I noted, though, corporations would rather regulate competition out of the way than have to actually compete, and they would rather try to control the market by regulation than have to rely on making a better product or selling it more cheaply. Thus we had, for instance, Viacom suing YouTube to try to force YouTube to remove any videos that might infringe on copyright law; as Farhad Manjoo writes in Slate,

a ruling in Viacom’s favor would have much wider repercussions. It would shift the balance of power between Web companies and entertainment companies, requiring sites to essentially ask permission or seek licenses from Hollywood and the music labels before innovating. Some of the world’s biggest Internet companies—not just YouTube, but also Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, Flickr and others—would never have been able to get off the ground had they been required, as struggling startups, to constantly police their networks for potentially infringing material.

Interestingly, though, Viacom didn’t win—not at this stage, anyway; Judge Louis Stanton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted YouTube’s motion for summary judgment. Their policy has been to let copyright holders advertise alongside their content, and to take that content down if the copyright holder asks, and the judge decided that’s good enough. Viacom appealed, of course, but Judge Stanton has given us an all-too-rare victory for common sense; here’s hoping the decision stands.

Criminalizing evangelism?

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You’ve probably heard about the Christians who were arrested last Friday night in Dearborn, MI and charged with disorderly conduct for attempting to give people copies of an English/Arabic Gospel of John outside the Arab International Festival. If not, here’s the video they took (though I’m not sure how, since their cameras were confiscated):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Smw9QuH1xkA

If you want to see a Muslim response to this, Allahpundit posted one, along with the above video; having watched it, I’d have to say he’s being exceedingly generous in calling that attempt at a response “singularly lame,” since it’s a collection of repeated assertions supported by non sequiturs and a brief video clip of dubious provenance and import.

I have to say, I have two reactions to this. On the one hand, from a constitutional point of view, I find this very troubling; while I certainly don’t support the “separation of church and state” read as government-mandated secularism, I’m also no believer in theocratic government—and in particular, the idea of agents of government aiding and abetting the de facto imposition of shari’a law in an American community is deeply problematic. Muslims are as welcome in America as anyone else—and they have to play by the rules, same as anyone else, that’s the deal. Our history has well established that “separate but equal” isn’t, that different rules for different groups is wrong, no matter the reason; Muslims have no more right to be insulated from the discord, dissent, and disagreement of a democratic society than anyone else. If they’re going to argue that their faith demands otherwise—well, in that case, we have a problem.

Considered as a case of Christian witness, though, I find this video very troubling in a different way. Though the professed purpose of the folks who made it is to share the gospel with Muslims, nothing about their actions actually seems to support that purpose aside from their copies of the Gospel of John. Rather, their actions in this case seem designed to test the Dearborn police; I’m not sure it’s necessarily fair to say they were trying to provoke a confrontation, but it certainly looks like they were trying to see if they would get one, and indeed that they were expecting to. From their comments during the video, and especially from the final section complaining about all the intersections where they aren’t allowed to hand out copies of the Gospel, it sure sounds like their real concern is not bearing gospel witness to Muslims, but the infringement on their constitutional rights.

Which I don’t deny, either as a real issue or as a fair complaint; as I say, I think there’s reason for real concern here. If in fact we’re starting to see Muslim communities in this country effectively seceding from the larger political and social structure, as many European countries have seen, that’s bad news. But it does make the whole thing more than a little disingenuous, in my judgment. It makes this supposed attempt at evangelism look like, not a true expression of Christian discipleship and witness, but a calculated attempt to use Christian practices to make a political statement—and that, as someone has said, is a kettle of fish of a different color.

The truth is that the life of Christian discipleship isn’t based on rights; as I’ve said elsewhere, in the Bible, “right” isn’t a noun, it’s an adjective. Christian doctrine certainly provided and provides the foundation and root for the political concept of human rights, and in its political implications, it requires us to stand up and defend the rights of others; but our contemporary insistence on standing on our own rights and insisting on our own rights against others is nowhere to be found in Scripture, and especially not in the example of Jesus. I can’t presume to judge the hearts of David Wood and the folks with him in that video, but from what I can see of his judgment, it’s pretty poor, and it looks to me like their priorities are out of whack.

In my judgment, what the folks in that video are actually advocating and bearing witness to is not the gospel, regardless of the texts they were holding; they showed none of the humility or willingness to meekly accept suffering for the gospel which Paul holds up as essential in Philippians 2, and most of what they had to say was about themselves. Rather, they were to all intents and purposes serving as advocates and defenders of a particular political and cultural position. In that role, it appears to me they succeeded, judging by the e-mails and blog posts I’ve seen. As evangelists . . . well, God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform (just read the book of Jonah), and I’m not going to say what his Holy Spirit can and can’t use—but the whole affair seems a lot more likely to turn the hearts of Muslims against Christianity than toward Christ. And shouldn’t that really be the bottom line?