06 April 2006 Blog Home : April 2006 : Permalink
I’m getting a few emails from people offended that I dare praise South Park: “don’t you know that they made a horrific episode mocking the Virgin Mary?”
Well, yes, I saw that episode and was offended by it and shut it off…but they weren’t mocking the Virgin Mary so much as people who look for supernatural signs and go overboard with them. But yes, I was offended, but I didn’t take it personally. South Park mocks everyone, and to be honest, they want to mock Mary, she’ll get them in the end - she’ll bring ‘em to Jesus; you don’t mess with Mary! After I turned off the The Virgin Mary episode I frankly prayed for the guys (they’d hate that, I know). Too bad. I prayed for ‘em.
Imagine how different the world would be if Muslims prayed for those who offended them, instead of declaring fatwas on them.
Indeed. And this is not an isolated incident. From the founder and his immediate followers (think St Stephen) to numerous modern day Christians of all denominations from Pope John Paul II down, the reaction to insult of the overwhelming majority (as in all bar a handfull) of Christians, whether clergy or laity, is to pray for those that caused the offence not insist that they recant on pain of painful death. There are undoubtedly Muslims who react the same way, the comments on my Muhammed cartoon page and some of the related blog posts included some from those who reacted in that fashion, but numerous Muslims, including numerous influential Muslims that are the equivalents bishops or higher, do not.PS FWIW depending on your Client / Server position my Unitarian Jihan name is: Brother Katana of Warm Humanitarianism. and/or Brother Dagger of Tolerance. I rather like the former but then I've always prefered client-side action....