1. A president offers hope – the hope of reunions and a love stronger than death, and justice beyond our understanding.

2. Part of presidential leadership is to give a narrative, a structure to the past. That’s why presidents start speeches, “Four score and seven years ago.” Religion is an important part of that story, and we’ve tried to make that point.

3. “There are many experiences of faith in this room, but most will share a belief that we are loved and called to love; that our choices matter, now and forever; that there are purposes deeper than ambitions and hopes greater than success. These beliefs shape our lives and help sustain the life of our nation. Men and women can be good without faith, but faith is a force for goodness. Men and women can be compassionate without faith, but faith often inspires compassion. Human beings can love without faith, but faith is a great teacher of love.

I thought this third quote really summed up an example of how a speech can be inclusive of people with or without faith. It touches on how faith is merely a vehicle for good actions – which can resonate with both believers and non-believers of multiple faiths. For instance, a non-believer can interpret this to mean that someone else’s faith is their personal aid to goodness, but for them, it comes from another source. To the believer—particularly the Christian, it demonstrates the scriptural idea that salvation is not by good works, but good works should be evidence of salvation.

FRANKLIN:

1. However, the abusive treatment of women in most Islamic countries is nearly as draconian and falls far short of the dignity, respect, and protection almost universally given to women and mandated by the United Nations.

I think it’s a good touch, his clarification of the abuse faced by women in “Islamic countries” rather than the faith of Islam itself. I recently saw a play called “The Domestic Crusaders” with two Muslim friends. The play was somewhat of a comedy – and somewhat tried to depict some of the poor stereotypes that are faced by Muslim Americans. In this play, the wife was depicted as strongly as the husband – and in most cases, even wiser. I think it’s easy for us to confuse cultural differences and differences within a faith. My two Muslim friends are husband and wife and share a healthy marriage based on respect and love for each other. It’s important to distinguish the cultural differences and realize that not all cultures deserve our up-most respect – the ones that are accepting of poor treatment of women, in particular. However, a faith that does not condone that type of behavior does indeed deserve our respect.

TOP:

Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, said to the 40 leaders attending today, ”Since we are in a global community, no doubt about it, we must temper our speech and we must communicate primarily through actions.”

I think Mr. Haggard is correct – in that a Christian’s actions should come through our actions. What’s interesting about his statement though, is that three years later he admitted to seeing a male prostitute and using methamphetamine. I’m not placing judgment on Mr. Haggard, but it is important to note that often our actions fall short of what we really want to convey. In that case, I believe that we should co-exist with other religions (including Islam), but realize that a lot of the time – before we can be good examples for people of other faiths, we have to examine our own lives and see if we are fit to be those examples.

GREAT DIVIDE:

The chasm between Muslims and the West is also seen in judgments about how the other civilization treats women. Western publics, by lopsided margins, do not think of Muslims as “respectful of women.” But half or more in four of the five Muslim publics surveyed say the same thing about people in the West.

I found this quote to be interesting because it correlates with my comments from Mr. Haggard. First, I would say that the inhumane treatment of people in some civilizations is in fact much worse than how people in Western culture objective women – one is emotionally damaging, the other is physically and emotionally damanging (often times). On that note however, both treatments are not acceptable and I think the cross-judgement again comes from the cultural differences, not the religion – and both treatments should not be dismissed as “just part of their culture.” This shows us again that humans in general have a lot of work to do – of all faiths and cultures – and the actions we like to think we portray aren’t always accurate.

QUESTION 3:

I agreeed with Franklin’s idea that as a minister, he has a certain responsibility to the Church and to God to speak what he deems to be the Biblical truth. For a President however, I believe it should be their job to unite the country with their words – and anything less may create an unsettled attitude that is not ideal in any country. I respect Bush for his inclusion of Islam and think it showed an understanding of when it is appropriate to speak about one’s own faith, and when it’s appropriate to unite the country. As Gerson mentioned, the president’s job is to comfort in crisis, remind us of our historical background, and so-on.

“There’s also a deeper objective that I think would be worth discussing, that seems to assume that moral reasoning rooted in religious belief is somehow itself off limits. If you are for a certain right or belief because the Constitution said so, that is okay. If you’re for certain rights because you believe the image of God is found in every human being based on a theological teaching, that is not. G.K. Chesterton, in a quote I like, called this a “taboo of tact or convention whereby a man is free to say this or that because of his nationality or his profession, or his place of residence, or his hobby, but not because of his creed about the very cosmos in which he lives.”

“The deeper danger of course is the faith itself. A political and politicized and judgmental faith seems to miss the point. I’ve been a Christian all my life, but I still don’t feel competent to define it for others. I think, however, it has something to do with forgetting yourself and seeking the interest of other people. It has something to do with getting beyond petty fears and selfish ambitions and seeing God’s kingdom at work – a kingdom that’s not of this world. And when those kingdoms are confused, it is faith that suffers the most.”

I really agreed with this last quote, and personally connected to it. Faith it really isn’t something you can just describe and give some sort of cookie-cutter answer to when someone wants you to define it. Their are different views and definitions of what faith is to different people. But when a Christian mixes their religion and political sides together, faith can get confused and they way people look at you is as if your faith is a hoax, and therefore, faith becomes what is suffering, Because at times, I think people are expected to set their faith aside when it comes to certain issues, and that is when faith is most important.

My View of Islam by Franklin Graham
“But Jesus also taught his followers to love others. It is this central teaching of Christianity that motivates my life and work, as a relief worker as well as a minister. While as Christians we disagree with Islamic teachings, if we obey the teachings of Jesus we will love all Muslims.”
I think for many Christians this is hard to do. Christ calls us to love everyone, because they are his creation too. I think Christians today, especially since the War on Terror and all the issues we have been having in the Middle East, I think they find it hard to love Muslims, because we don’t believe the same thing. But I think it is one of the most important group of people that we as Christians love because of the Muslims hatred for Christians.

Top Evangelicals Critical Of Colleagues Over Islam by Laurie Goodstein
“It has been more than a year since major evangelical leaders, like the Rev. Franklin Graham, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and the Rev. Jerry Vines, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, began publicly branding Islam, or Islam’s prophet Muhammad, as inherently evil and violent. Mr. Graham, son of the evangelist Billy Graham and head of a global missions agency, Samaritan’s Purse, said last year that Islam was ”a very evil and wicked religion.” Mr. Vines described Muhammad as ”a demon-possessed pedophile.”

I’m not sure why, and I really haven’t anything other than these articles on the topics, but what Franklin Graham apparently said in this article about islam being “a very evil and wicked religion” seem contradictory to me from the other article he wrote. I’m sure he wasn’t meaning that it’s not and evil and wicked religion, but more that we should love them anyway. Graham says that evil things have been done in the name of Islam, and I feel like this article is really one sided.

The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims view each other
“The chasm between Muslims and the West is also seen in judgments about how the other civilization treats women. Western publics, by lopsided margins, do not think of Muslims as “respectful of women.” But half or more in four of the five Muslim publics surveyed say the same thing about people in the West.”

I thought that this was really interesting. It’s funny how the world sees each other. But I was curious when reading this how Muslims then depict how woman are treated in the western world. I know that being a woman in the western world, I feel like I have more respect than what I see when I look at Muslim woman. I actually grew up around a lot of muslim in Iowa. We have a pretty large population of muslims from Bosnia. But I can kinda see how people in the muslim world look at the West and how some woman are treated. I guess everyone just looks at it differently. People in muslim countries might say they respect their woman in a certain way, and the same might go for the West.

In doing this research, I am kinda up in the air about President Bush’s public references to Islam and the responsibility of political and religious leaders. I think as a nation, and even as religious leaders, it can be important to engage in certain aspects to help relate to Islam. We want them to see our nation as friends, rather than enemies. But for Bush to say that Christians and muslims pray to they same God, because if it was the same God, then we would not being the fight that is gonig on. It really all comes down to respect. You may not have to believe in what someone else believes, but you should respect them. And when people feel like they are being respected, it opens doors for other things. As for religious leaders, it’s tough because they have a responsibility to God first, and then to others.

This area I found very interesting. Being in a strict Muslim country for only a month I saw this conflict going on between their younger and older population. The older population again was very agianst the West and the modern world. While younger muslims did not see the conflict, they saw and questioned why they could not remain devout to their faith while advancing their country into a more modern world

“”"Do I agree with these statements…yes. Do I think you should go up to a Muslim and tell them this…no. Our goal is not to go to every Muslim and when a great debate to prove them wrong and us right. Our goal is to bring Christ into the world, not by force or argument, but through love, to show them through our lives the redeeming grace given to us by Christ. Attacking what they have known their whole lives as true will simply shut them off to any further talk of grace, we must show them first our heart and love for them and Christ’s love for them before we can speak on any further matters”"”"”

“”"”I think today many Christians have a difficulty in doing this. How can you love Muslims without giving the appearence of tolerating or compromising by saying it is okay for them to do what they do. Working with Christians from all around the country I hear again and again only hate speech on Muslims and how we should rid ourselves of them here in America. Whenever I hear this I think doesn’t Christ tell us to spread the Gospel, doesn’t having Muslims hear in America present us with a great opportunity to witness to those who we know are lost. I think Franklin’s quote hear helps clarify this issue. Yes what is done in the name of Islam is an almost unspeakable evil, but Christ’s command to love those that our lost still demands us to go into this evil to win over those lost in it.

“”it is kind of ironic that we say we can state our moral beliefs on the constitution but not on religion when earlier he spoke of how historically our nation was built on religious ideas. If the religious ideas are what inspired our constitution than how is it not okay today to use them as a guide to help us discern what the constitution means.”"