The Wardman Wire

This is a Guest Post by Davd Keen, who blogs at St Aidan to Abbey Manor .

Exit pursued by a Bear (sorry)

Gillian Gibbons is safely back in the UK, thank God, thanks to the intercession of 2 Muslim peers, and widespread international condemnation of the Sudanese government.

What the whole sorry business has demonstrated, if a demonstration was needed, is that there are radically different versions of Islam at work in different places.

Supportive Muslim Council of Britain Reaction

Here in the UK, the Muslim Council of Britain welcomed her release and strongly condemned her initial arrest - here is their press release :

The Muslim Council of Britain deeply regrets the decision of the Sudanese authorities to jail the schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons over the naming of a teddy bear.

“This case should have required only simple common sense to resolve. It is unfortunate that the Sudanese authorities were found wanting in this most basic of qualities. They grossly overreacted in this sad affair and this episode. Gillian should never have been arrested, let alone charged and convicted of committing a crime. We hope that Gillian will be able to return home without much further delay,” said Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain.

Another MCB spokesman told BBC News :

“Each time we have stories like these, that distort what Islam stands for or misrepresents what the compassion of Muslim law stands for, then we have repercussions and people begin to feel that Islam has no place in modern society…

“I have not come across one single Muslim in our country who has supported what has happened.”

Meanwhile, elsewhere…

But stay with the story a little longer, and you find that news correspondents who have stayed in Sudan are reporting again on Darfur, and the violence of the Islamic Sudanese state against the mainly Christian south of the country.

Look for a list of the ‘10 worst dictators‘ and you find that 6 of them are Muslims, 3 are within the sphere of influence of atheist China, and the other is Mugabe.

Search for ‘Religion of Peace’ and you find a website detailing the daily atrocities committed in the name of Islam.

Which is the true Islam?

And the question of utmost importance for Westerners, and for Muslims themselves is:

which of these two is the true Islam? Is it al-Qaeda, or is it Baroness Warsi?

And which is the true Christianity?

This is a question that can just as potently be leveled at Christians:

is the true follower of Jesus more like Desmond Tutu or godhatesfags.com?

Any Christian, like me, engaging in this debate has to negotiate the very large plank in our eye bearing the words ‘Crusades‘, ‘Inquisition‘ and ‘Cromwell‘.

A plague on both your houses…

The secularists response to all this is ‘a plague on both your houses’, but it’s an infectious plague, spread too by the atheist Stalin and Mao and the nation-worshipping Hitler.

Wrapping-Up

So perhaps the question is not about what is the true face of Islam, Christianity, or any other faith system, but ‘what is the true face of humanity? ‘.

In the end, all politics and policy, as well as what God is like and whether we need Sharia or a Saviour (or something else), comes down to this very spiritual question, and how we answer it.

Tags: islam, christianity, mohammed bear, muhammed bear, sudan, al-qaeda, baroness warsi, desmond tutu, oliver cromwell, godhatesfags.com, spanish inquisition, sharia law, islam, christianity

[tags]islam, christianity, mohammed bear, muhammed bear, sudan, al-qaeda, baroness warsi, desmond tutu, oliver cromwell, godhatesfags.com, spanish inquisition, sharia law, islam, christianity[/tags]