Juan Williams: a bigot or a human?

The second commandment says, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord, your God.” We pray “Hallowed be thy name.” This is the point of both: Whatever individuals who bear God’s name do will ultimately influence how people view the true God and the faith founded around Him. And so, when we do acts of mercy, people learn that God is merciful. When we forgive one another, people come to understand God as forgiving. When we love one another, they suppose God is loving.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well. When a Christian acts with anger and rage, people assume that God is like that and want nothing to do with the church. When Christians abuse people, the entire church is stained with this sin, and people want nothing to do with the God who gathers them. When a pastor is involved in adultery, hypocrisy is the charge against the entire faith and people see God as powerless among his people.

Here is my point: What individual Christians do influence how people view the entire faith and God himself. It is just true. God himself knows it to be so. And this is why he reminds us to not misuse his name. It is also why when Christians do wrong and evil things, we, the people of God, must be the first to note it. Before the world cries fowl, we must shout the same. We must say that their actions are not in accord with our faith and in need of confession and forgiveness.

I am told this idea is found in the Koran also. Even if it is not, it is still true. When Muslims (yes, extreme Muslims) fly planes into buildings and kills thousands, it reflects upon the the entire faith and the god it professes to be founded around. The only way to negate some of this effect is for people of the same faith to quickly and boldly call the act evil. And this simply did not happen in any large measure immediately after the event. Even years after the event, it is still hard to find Muslims who speak out about the evils of that day. And so the fact that Juan Williams and most of us do a double take when we see Muslims dressed in traditional garb getting on the plane we are riding in is not the result of the bigoted attitudes of individuals, but the result of the actions of a few radical adherents of the Islamic faith who did those things on 9-11 and those Muslims who did not quickly identify such acts as evil and sinful. Every Muslim dancing on the street that day added to the impression that this act was what Islam was about and what Allah wanted. Even if that is not true, that was the impression given that remains.

That is what Juan was saying. And I agree with him. The actions of any adherent to any religion impact how we view that religion and its god. That is why we Christians must make very effort to not bring dishonor to God and to his Church. And when we do, we must confess those sins quickly and openly. We must beg that Jesus be judged according to his works and not our own. But all the while we must know that he is judged by the world first and foremost by the actions of those who bear his name.  Lord have mercy, Amen.

clipped from www.google.com

NPR fires news analyst after remarks about Muslims

WASHINGTON (AP) — NPR has fired longtime news analyst Juan Williams, also a commentator on the Fox News Channel, after he told Bill O’Reilly that he gets nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb on an airplane.

In a statement late Wednesday, National Public Radio said it was terminating Williams’ contract as a senior news analyst over his comments on Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor.”

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country,” Williams said. “But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”