“This religion’s plan is to destroy our way of life…”

Here’s the AP article that I took as inspiration:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100818/ap_on_go_ot/us_mosque_fact_check

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This religion’s plan is to destroy our way of life. … If we have to let them build it, make them build it nine stories underground, so we can walk above it as citizens and Christians.

Ron McNeil, a House GOP candidate in the Florida Panhandle

The News Herald (Panama City FL)

That’s complete hooey… Mr McNeil says, “This religion’s plan is to destroy our way of life…” Oh, yeah, Mr McNeil? Well… a picture is worth a thousand words… look at these Muslims:

Army General of the MVD Rashid Gumranovich Nurgaliev (1956- ), holder of the Order of Merit and the Order of St Dmitri Donskoi (First Class) (this is a decoration of the MP), Minister of the Interior of the Russian Federation. General Nurgaliev led the successful fight against the Islamocist terrorists in Chechnya; his forces tracked down and killed Shamil Basayev, one of the most dangerous bandits in the Caucasus. Here, he’s decorating a hero of the OMON with the star of the Hero of Russia.

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Firdaus Zaripovich Kabirov (1961- ), Honoured Master of Sport of Russia, holder of the Order of Merit, world champion truck rally driver for the KAMAZ Master Team, winner of the 2005 and 2009 Dakar Rallies.

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Nurkhatim Bikulov (1937- ), painter of Tatar nationality

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Preparation for a Holiday

Nurkhatim Bikulov

2003

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Over Tea

Nurkahtim Bikulov

2003

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Charles Prince of Wales (1948- ) (centre), owner of Tatar restaurant Dzenneta Bogdanowicz (right), and Mufti Tomasz Miskiewicz (left) talk about traditional Tatar food in Kruszyniany in eastern Poland, on 16 March 2010. Looks like good eats to me! Sure DOESN’T look an al Qaeda convention either!

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Elvira Sakhipzadovna Nabiullina (1963- ), holder of the Order of Merit (First Class), Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation.

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Marat Mikhailovich Safin (1980- ), Honoured Master of Sport of Russia, Commander of the Order of Merit, world champion tennis player, he won two majors and held number one ranking amongst male tennis players in the world.

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Rail Davletbayev (1961- ), painter of Bashkir nationality

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The Fair

Rail Davletbayev

2005

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A Holiday

Rail Davletbayev

2005

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Ask any Russian who’s “The Boss”, and they’ll tell you, “It’s Muslim Magomayev, of course!” Muslim Magometovich Magomayev (1942-2008), People’s Artist of the USSR, holder of the Order of Honour. Without a doubt, the most loved pop star of the 60s and 70s. He also sang opera, too! His father, Magomet Muslimovich Magomayev, was a hero of the Second Great Patriotic War who died in the closing days of the conflict.

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Muslim sings Silent Night with his wife Tamara Sinyavskaya (she’s also a People’s Artist of the USSR and holder of the Order of Honour, and was a Soloist of the Bolshoi Theatre)

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This song has a long intro, Muslim doesn’t start singing until 1.01 into the vid

All of Russia mourned his death… he was a phenomenon, the “Russian Sinatra”.

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Dinara Mikhailovna Safina (1986- ), Honoured Master of Sport of Russia, world champion tennis player, won a silver medal at the Olympics in tennis women’s singles, held number one ranking amongst female tennis players, sister of Marat Safin.

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Greco-Roman wrestlers Artur Suleimanov and Ruslan Adzhigov (both 1993- ), part of Team Russia at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore (they both won medals in their class).

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The trucks of the mighty KAMAZ Master Team are made in Kazan in the Tatar Republic… most of the workers and drivers are Muslims… what a concept!

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Yelena Gadzhievna Isinbayeva (1982- ), Honoured Master of Sport of Russia, nine time major champion in the women’s pole vault, she’s considered the greatest female pole vaulter of all time, she’s one of the most talented female athletes alive today, and she’s one of the 40 “Champions for Peace”. Yelena Gadzhievna’s also a Captain in the Russian Army.

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World-renowned gymnast Laishan Albertovna Utyasheva (1985- ), Honoured Master of Sport of Russia, TV presenter and sport commentator, one of the spokesmen of the “Many Peoples… One Country” campaign. Ms Utyasheva is of the Bashkir nationality. The Bashkirs are a Muslim people from the foothills of the Urals in Western Siberia.

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Eat your words, Mr McNeil… these people are no threat to anyone… except to pinheaded ignoramuses like you. If you read the article linked at the top of this post, you can see how moronic the Republican Party is being in this case. I’d say that there are dangerous sorts… amongst the American Sectarians! Orthodox Christians shouldn’t associate with such… it could rub off.

As for me, I refuse to buy any of the Tea Party’s undisguised hate and bigotry. Why should you?

BMD

It is Better to See the Turban of the Turk in the Midst of the City than the Tiara of the Pope…

The Church has NOTHING in common with Bible Thumpers… just read Patriarch Kirill or Deacon Andrei… so, why have any truck with the Tea Party, which is their political cat’s paw?

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I got a few angry rebuttals for my defence of the mosque and for my support of Alexi Gennoulias. Thank you! It gives me an opportunity to say a few things about the current situation.

One of my correspondents wrote the following about the general Church situation, but I believe that it applies to the present question:

Culturally, the Orthodox Church in the diaspora is quite conservative to the point of insularity. All too often, those who are “different” aren’t seen as people we are called upon to love and to love as Jesus Christ loves. Rather, they are seen as outlets for pent-up guilt and judgement of the self-described “faithful” who may sin, but, well, at least it isn’t like THEIR sin! “My sin is understandable”. In my opinion, in America, we get this from conservative Protestantism. They (rather like Islam, interestingly enough) divide the world into two camps. The “Saved” and the “Damned”, which is much like Islam’s “House of Peace”/ “House of War”. The “Saved” can pull no punches in condemning the “Damned”. That’s the “good fight”. So, if the “Damned” sin… Shout about it! Fight it! Fight THEM! After all, they aren’t “Saved”. They aren’t “One of Us”. If, however, the “Saved” sin… well… that’s “Backsliding”, but that’s OK. They are “Saved”, after all and “One of Us”. Thus, it’s acceptable for “Christians” to spit at homosexuals. They’re “Damned”; they’re not “Saved”. However, a “Christian” can get caught seeking gay sex in an airport men’s room and it’s ultimately OK. He’s “Saved”… he’s “One of Us”. Thus, we can understand why there is a complete lack of a sense of guilt in American culture for its wars against the indigenous natives and its enslavement of an entire race! Therefore, because of the culture in which we live, many Orthodox now have subtly accepted the famous Protestant hypocritical double standard as “Orthodox”. Moreover, it isn’t going to change in the near future.

This is why any form of cooperation, or even contact, with the Tea Party is dangerous in the extreme for Orthodox Christians. We have a very hard choice to make. On the one hand, there are secularists who favour “abortion rights” and “gay marriage”… but they shall leave the inner life of the Church alone. On the other, there are “religious” sorts who are “anti-abortion” and “anti-gay marriage”, but they are zealous in pushing their particular heresies (the worst cases are the Mormons and Pentecostalists).

I submit that it’s better for Orthodox to vote for the former rather than the latter. The former cannot hurt our soul, our inner being… the latter wish to suck away all the real Orthodox content from our Faith and replace it with American Sectarian stuff n’ nonsense. We see this in all too many konvertsy… they act as though Orthodoxy agrees with Sectarianism, when, in reality, the Church is foursquare against the hateful beliefs of the “Evangelicals”. The church is both more specific and more forgiving than that. We have “canons”… not “canon law”. Except for a few well-known and well-delineated exceptions that are known to everyone, our bishops are free to act as they see fit, “for the sake of a person’s salvation”. Thus, although the Church will never sanction “gay marriage”, it allows the remarriage of those who lost a spouse through death, and it allows those who divorce to remarry… even though the canons supposedly forbid such.

We cannot have anything to do with the Tea Party because it is more dangerous to our souls than the secularists are. Therefore, they must be defeated, if we can. Why does the Tea Party lie so egregiously? I believe that it does so as it is rooted in American Sectarianism, which is a lie from stem to stern. Can you believe in the Mormon “magic spectacles?” How can Pentecostalism claim to be Christian when it only started in 1901? Dominion Theology and Christian Reconstructionism permeate American Sectarianism, that is, that the Bible trumps all secular law. We, as Orthodox believe in the symphonia of Church and State, and that each has its proper sphere, we repudiate the vicious New England Puritan-style theocracy that is the model of so many in the Tea Party.

There is very little that we share in common with these sectarians, and there is much literature on this, unfortunately, most of it is in Russian. However, one work available in English spells out why we differ from sectarians, Christianity or the Church, written by St Hilarion Troitsky the New Martyr in the early 20th century. Here is a link to the text:

http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/christianity_church_e.htm

The Tea Party is deeply sectarian; the secularists are not. That’s why the latter are much less dangerous. The former is a temptation to heresy, schism, and the rejection of a truly Orthodox way of life; the latter presents no such temptation. Therefore, we must follow the advice of Megas Doux Loukas Notaras, “It is better to see the turban of the Turk in the midst of the City than the Tiara of the Pope…”

“It is better to see the secularists prevail in the City than to install a Sectarian theocracy in her midst…”

A meaty thought, no?

By the way, I THANK my angry interlocutors… it got the ol’ brain in gear. These children do have to keep in mind the “Law of Unintended Consequence”.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Albany NY

Editor’s Note:

Here is some correspondence from Sunny Jim… it needs no commentary from me:

What your correspondent had to say about Protestantism and Orthodoxy was so perfectly applicable to many in the parish where we attended until recently. The konvertsy, as you would say, are sometimes very hard to take, with their conviction that “those others”… whether it be Muslims, Obama supporters, or immigrants… are to be railed against relentlessly and with abandon. Building bridges seems to be a class these “engineers” skipped over in their studies… demolition is more their thing.

God has blessed me with friends… that is the best kind of wealth, as the old Russian saying has it. I am humbled…

BMD

Musings on the Current Dispute Over the Mosque…

“A picture is worth a thousand words”… the Tea Party claims that a mosque is being built on the site of the WTC attack. It KNOWS that’s a lie. That’s EVIL and VILE. Please excuse me… I’ve got to hurl in disgust at such brazen lies.

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The brouhaha over the mosque in southern Manhattan had me thinking… what should Orthodox Christians do? Both specifically, and what does it lead one to think in general of “lying in the cause of truth”. Here is something that I have pondering lately in conjunction with these events…

Guard your thoughts. Everything we do begins with a thought, both good and evil, for thought precedes action. Earthly law doesn’t punish our thoughts; it only punishes what we actually do. However, God’s law punishes not just our works, it punishes our thoughts as well, so, guard your thoughts. If the source is clean, the water will be clean, too. If you have pure, bright, and healthy thoughts, God will bless everything you do. Guard your thoughts.

Elder Archimandrite Tadeja Štrbulović (+2003)

What has struck me in the current imbroglio over the mosque is that the Tea Party is claiming that it is “being built at Ground Zero”. It isn’t, and what is more, they KNOW that it isn’t. “If the source is clean, the water will be clean, too”. In other words, “if the source is dirty, the water will be tainted”. That’s obvious. Therefore, when the Tea Party claims, “The mosque is being built at Ground Zero”, they tell the world that the truth means nothing to them, that they will tell brazen lies whenever it suits them, and that they don’t feel themselves bound by the normal and accepted moral imperatives.

I also thought upon, “If you have pure, bright, and healthy thoughts, God will bless everything you do”. If you decide to lie when you know the truth of the matter, that isn’t “pure, bright, and healthy” by anyone’s standard. That means that Almighty God does NOT bless the Tea Party or anything associated with it. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”… what concord does that have with deliberate untruth told for the sake of earthy power and filthy lucre?

Something to think upon…

Editor’s Irreverent Thought:

If the telling of deliberate untruths when one knows the truth is evil, what does that make those who say, “It’s for the good of the Church?” I would say, “What concord hath Christ with Belial”…another meaty bone to chew on, no?

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Albany NY

Ulyanovsk Resident Fined for Inciting National and Religious Hatred on the Internet

Religious hatred ain’t allowed in the rodina…

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A resident of Ulyanovsk received a fine of 100,000 roubles (3,280 USD 2,551 Euros 2,103 UK Pounds) for posting extremist articles online, according to Vasili Zima, a Senior Assistant Procurator in Ulyanovsk oblast. He told us that 45-year-old Sergei Kryukov was convicted under Article 282 Part 1 of the Criminal Code (public actions aimed at inciting hatred and enmity and/or public defamation on the grounds of nationality and/or religion). The investigation established that, from June 2008 to January 2009, Kryukov repeatedly posted original extremist articles online. They included such posts as, Русизм: праздник зла (Russianness: A Holiday of Evil), Русское поле: семена лжи породили сорняк сатанизма (A Russian Field: Seeds of Deception Generated by the Weeds of Satanism) and Голоса совести в океане лжи (Voices of Conscience in an Ocean of Lies). The procurator’s office carried out a comprehensive psycho-linguistic forensic examination, which showed that Kryukov expressed hostility and antagonism towards both the Russian people and the Orthodox Church in the texts. “His characterisation of the Russian political system and of the Russian people was very negative. The content of these articles defamed people on the grounds of nationality and religion, one can interpret them as exhortations to loath both Orthodox Christians and the Russian people as a whole”, Mr Zima said.

17 August 2010

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=36957

Editor’s Note:

Firstly, let’s have a quote from Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate from Illinois:

Everyone in the world is waiting to see how we react. Are we going to talk about tolerance, talk about freedom of religion, or, are we actually going to practise it?

Freedom of religion also means that one protects religion from undue attacks or incitements to hatred. Let this sink in… if Pat Robertson, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Mark Kirk, Sarah Palin, et al were in Russia, they’d be in Correctional Colony 1313 on Cape Anadyr bustin’ rocks under the Arctic sun for inciting religious hatred and bigotry (in that case, “They fought the Law and the Law won”). The mosque isn’t being built on Ground Zero. The procurator would point that up to the judge, compare it to their statements that a mosque WAS being built there, and that would write finis to the lot of ‘em. They’d be convicted under Article 282, and that would be that. Good riddance to bad lying rubbish. Trust me; things like the following from the Kirk campaign would have intensified the sentence for its hypocrisy and ill-concealed bigotry:

While we protect freedom of religion, Congressman Kirk agrees with the Anti-Defamation League that sitting this mosque near ground zero causes undue pain to families of the 9/11 victims. There are legitimate calls for more transparency on the source of the estimated 100 million dollars (3.046 billion Roubles 77.67 million Euros 64.01 million UK Pounds) Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf will raise from here and abroad to build the mosque. In the end, Rauf should accept New York Governor Patterson’s offer of a convenient but less controversial site.

What utter hokum and hooey. There are stronger words for it, but I’m sure that you know them as well as I do. This sort of smarmy and sanctimonious BS is illegal in Russia… but not in the USA! Mr Giannoulias should take Kirk and press him to the mat on this one… Kirk claimed that a mosque was being built “at Ground Zero” publicly… he should be held to account publicly. The supercilious bastard should be made to eat his words publicly… and apologise for his brazen lies about the mosque location. As for the implied message of bigotry in his campaign statement, it’s beneath us as Orthodox Christians. The nativist chauvinism and hatred of Islam is obvious to all comers.

Paffhausen is in bed with the Tea Party… reflect on that.

By the way, due to differences in PPD between Russia and the USA, the fine was equivalent to one of 10,000 bucks (304,590 Roubles 7,767 Euros 6,401 UK Pounds) here in the States. They’re SERIOUS about religious defamation in Russia… could we hope for that here, too? I’ll admit, the thought of Palin, Robertson, Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter, and all the rest in prison orange for their pontifications is just too rich! Could we dare hope for such? Ya never know…

BMD