Presidential Plaudits for Ecumenism

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This story is from the SNS News Service, dateline: Israel.

President Clinton stated experiencing hunger during Ramadan the followers of Muhammad learn true compassion for the poor of the world who go hungry every day. By reflecting on God’s teachings in the Qur’an, they learn humility and the beauty of forgiveness, and by the example of devotion and self discipline during Ramadan, Muslims remind us all that our true strength is derived not from food and drink, but from closeness to God. “As the crescent moon marks the beginning of Ramadan again this year, Hillary and I extend our best wishes for a holy and memorable observance.” 

Tom:  Now Dave, we’ve addressed our former presidents. We addressed Jimmy Carter, but one of the things that I’m finding, and we’ve got another news alert that I am going to read in a minute, or that we are going to go to in a minute, but the theology of our president and former presidents lacks quite a bit here.

Dave:  Yes, I’m not sure it’s theology. I think it’s politics. I don’t think he cares what they believe, but it is to suggest that they are learning how the poor go without food by their fasting during Ramadan. They don’t eat during the day, but they feast at night. That’s hardly fasting. And that they are learning compassion from the Qur’an—well the god of the Qur’an says “…pursue the infidels wherever they are and kill them.” Whether Clinton is speaking from ignorance is hard to imagine that he could be that ignorant.

Tom:  Well the implication here is that by reflecting on God’s teachings in the Qur’an—

Dave:  This is not the God of the Bible.

Tom:  Correct.

Dave:  Allah is the moon god. Allah is the chief idol in the pagan temple or the Ka’bah. Allah—it clearly says in the Qur’an that Allah is not the father and he has no son. In fact he had three daughters. Allah hates the Jews. This is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Allah in the Qur’an is very capricious. You never know whether he’s going to forgive you or not. And really about the only way to get into paradise is to die in jihad—holy war against the infidels when you are trying to kill them. Allah’s gospel is spread by the sword. It was spread by the sword and still is.

So for our President to be honoring the Muslims as though their god is the God of the Bible and as though they really fast and as though during Ramadan they learn compassion from the Qur’an, I mean that’s just totally false. So it’s not even twisted theology, I think it’s politics and I think it’s a shame that we would deny truth for politics, but it’s done all the time. We’ve never heard about the Islamic curtain, we’ve heard a lot about the Iron curtain. But it happens that the Muslims, the Arabs have the oil, so we don’t talk about their horrible abuse of civil rights. You have to be a Muslim to be a citizen of Saudi Arabia. It’s the death penalty officially for a Saudi Arabian Muslim to convert to any other religion. Why don’t we talk about that? Why doesn’t the government come down and express their concern about that? No, it’s politics—and they’ve got the oil. So it’s sad.

Tom:  Yes, and again we have information that’s being communicated that’s just not true. But not to take sides here, we have a Democrat in President Clinton, but former President George Bush—let me read this to you: “Sun Yung Moon launched a Spanish newspaper for the whole of Latin America this weekend with the backing of guest George Bush who as guest speaker at the Buenos Aries banquet praised Moon’s respect for editorial independence. Bush then traveled with Moon to neighboring Uruguay to help him inaugurate a seminary in the capital, Montevideo to train 4200 young Japanese women to spread the word of his church of unification across Latin America.” Bush was reported by the Washington Post to have been paid $100,000 for his Buenos Aries appearance.  

Dave:  Well that’s scandalous. This isn’t even politics. This is money. Now to praise him for his open—what is it? His freedom that he allow in editorial policy—

Tom:  Yes, his respect for editorial independence….

Dave: Right, that’s nonsense. He’s a cult leader, mind control. He has one purpose and that is to establish himself as the messiah of the whole world.

Tom:  Yes, he’s the Lord of the Second Coming.

Dave:  Right and he claims that—

Tom:  He’s a false Christ isn’t he?

Dave:  Exactly. He claims that Jesus failed in his mission and that he’s now the one that’s going to do it. He is self deluded and he deludes others that you know, you have to have the perfect marriage. He doesn’t have the perfect marriage and so forth and that he’s going to form the perfect family and he marries maybe 1000 or more couples at once. This is a cult!  And that George Bush would help this cult—you know George Bush who claims to be a Christian, the last I heard—that he would help this cult leader establish himself in South America simply because he’s getting paid $100,000 for it— I mean George Bush must know who Sun Yung Moon is; he must know what he is doing. So it’s very disappointing that there would be that much lack of integrity and compromise with evil in order to earn $100,000.

Tom:  Right and again the sad thing here is in the last few weeks we’ve mentioned former President Jimmy Carter, now President Clinton and former President George Bush. These men claim to be Christians and they are influencing many even though they’re not theologians, but they’re influencing many with what they are doing which has a religious connotation to it.

Dave:  Yes, so Tom the reason we mention these things is to alert people. We’ve got to think for ourselves. Don’t just along with what everybody says or does. But we are to earnestly contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints and George Bush in promoting Sun Yung Moon is promoting a false faith, a false gospel, a false Messiah. And Jimmy Carter of course claimed that the Mormons are Christians and we dealt with that so we can’t go back there. They’re god is a man who was redeemed by another Jesus on another planet you know, and has a physical body and so forth. And now what Clinton has said about the Muslims— He and Hillary do this every year at Ramadan time. It’s just unconscionable. It’s for political reasons and it’s tragic, but this is the example that’s being set for our youth. And of course a lot of it is because of the schools we have where you can’t even name God, you know. God has been put out of our society and out of our schools and so forth. So it’s a tragedy, but we want to warn people and keep them alert to what is happening.