Tony Campolo
isn't making sense:
In Campolo’s fervid “imagination,” Christians are disliked in the Middle East because Anglo-American intelligence sided with the mobs who supported the Shah against the mobs who supported the Iranian premier who had attempted to topple the Shah, and all this over half a century ago. The toppling of governments in the history of the Middle East is so very unusual, that the Shah’s restoration in 1953 after a few days exile is uniquely notorious among Muslims, Campolo insisted, accurately representing the mythology of the Western Left.
“It baffles me as to how the same evangelical Christians who are committed to spreading the gospel in the 10/40 window support with enthusiasm support military actions and diplomatic policies that make evangelizing those who live in that part of the world nearly impossible,” Campolo mourned. “Perhaps in the long run they put nationalistic jingoism and our lust for oil above the call of Christ to go into all the world and preach the gospel.”
How generous of the evangelist to ascribe “jingoism” and oil “lust” to fellow Christians who do not share the Religious Left version of America as chief pariah in modern world history. Sanctimoniously, Campolo concluded: “We Red Letter Christians…must act quickly to not only stop an immoral war and end the oppression of Arab peoples, but to help our missionary-minded evangelical brothers and sisters understand that America’s militarism is curtailing our capacity to spread the gospel.”
By “oppression” of Arab peoples, Campolo naturally was not referencing the monarchies, dictatorships and theocracies that corruptly govern almost all Arab countries. Apparently he is uniquely referring to the elected government of Iraq and also to democratic Israel, which the evangelist presumably sees as simply an arm of American imperialism against the Palestinians.
The Religious Left in America, like the international secular Left, tragically believes many of the hateful fables that radical Muslims perpetuate about America. They can never admit that radical Islam itself is innately violent and spiteful, and would remain so, even if the United States were to curl up and die a quiet death. Campolo, of course, wants to blame the current U.S. administration for Islamic hatred of America. But why not blame the Carter Administration, whose refuge for the Shah provoked the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis? Or blame the Nixon administration for rescuing Israel during the 1973 war? Or blame the Truman Administration for supporting the creation of Israel? For that matter, why not blame the Jefferson Administration, for warring against Islamic pirates who governed North Africa 200 years ago?
It's sort of odd, isn't it, that conservative Christians are so easily accused of selling out to the Republican party and turning their religion into politics, and yet those on the religious left, who (IMHO) are more transparently political and sold out to the Democrat party, never hear that criticism?
