A Voice from the Past, Speaking Out for Today

The news these past few weeks has been full of stories about terrorist attacks around the world:  Lebanon, Mali, Paris.  And I am frightened.  Very frightened.  Not so much by the terrorists themselves, though their actions are cause for a measure of fear.  No what really frightens me is the vitriol of the response to their actions that seems to sweeping across the nation.  It especially concerns me when it is packaged as a "Christian" response. 

There is something especially frightening about the prospect of some sort of national registration based on religious affiliation.  The suggestion that all Muslims should register as such with the federal government is abhorrent.  And then to go on and suggest that all mosques should be kept under surveillance only increases the level of fear and hatred already present in this country.  Does that mean monitoring all those coming and going from mosques?  Does that mean embedding spies in all Islamic prayer services and classrooms?  We must step up and say no to such ideas.  Not later when they become actual regulations or laws, but now, while they are still only ignoble suggestions.  If for no other reason than to protect our own religious freedoms.  For if the government can do it to one religious group what is to prevent it from doing it to all?

These ideas, as so many have pointed out, smack of the Nazi's rhetoric and actions towards Jews and others in an earlier time.  Indeed, the words of Martin Niemoller, a German Protestant pastor who was held in a concentration camp for seven years, ring as true today as they did so many years ago.

"First they cam for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--because I was not a Socialist.  Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--because I was not a Jew.  And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."

Yes, there are Islamic Radicals, Extremists, Terrorists at work in the world.  And we must seek to bring them to justice.  But we must not, absolutely must not, paint the millions and millions of Muslims around the world and in our own nation, with the same brush strokes.  We must stand up and say, No!