It has become exceedingly clear that Barack Obama does not believe that all religions should be treated equally. In recent days Barack Obama has gone to great lengths to apologize for the “inadvertent” burning of Korans by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan. In fact, Obama has given his word that the United States will be “holding accountable those responsible” for the burning of the Korans. But when the U.S. military purposely burned Bibles in Afghanistan a few years ago, there was never any apology from Barack Obama. Christian groups all over the U.S. expressed great outrage but there was dead silence from Obama. So why the double standard? Do Muslims get an apology because they are willing to become violent over the burning of a Koran? Does Barack Obama consider a Koran to be more valuable than a Bible? Exactly what in the world is going on here?
Barack Obama sent Afghan President Hamid Karzai a three page letter on Thursday apologizing for the burning of Korans at a NATO air base in Bagram. In the letter, Obama specifically promised that those “responsible” would be punished….
“The error was inadvertent; I assure you that we will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, to include holding accountable those responsible.”
Well, the truth is that the soldiers that dumped the Korans into the incinerator were just following orders.
So who is going to be held responsible?
Their superior officers?
Someone higher up in the chain of command?
Barack Obama is sitting in the chair of the Commander in Chief.
Doesn’t the buck stop with him?
Of course we all know that some poor scapegoat will be found. That is the way these kinds of things always work.
Ever since news of this Koran burning got out, Afghanistan has been in a constant state of turmoil. Both Afghans and U.S. soldiers have been killed in the wild violence that has erupted. The following is from a Reuters article….
The Koran burnings ignited anti-Western fury. Thousands have taken to the streets and at least 27 people have been killed in the protests. Two American soldiers were shot to death on Thursday by an Afghan national army soldier who joined the rallies.
Even Afghan police officers and Afghan soldiers have joined in the anti-American protests. The following example is from the New York Times….
Mohammed Anwar, an off-duty police officer, had joined the protesters on Friday and seemed barely able to contain his fury. “I will take revenge from the infidels for what they did to our Holy Koran, and I will kill them whenever I get the chance,” he said as he walked with crowd of protesters wielding rocks and sticks. “I don’t care about the job I have.”
This is a story that is not going to die any time soon, and Barack Obama will continue to ensure the Afghan people that nothing like this will ever happen again.
But there was never a single word of apology from Obama for the deliberate burning of Christian Bibles by U.S. forces in Afghanistan that happened just a few years ago.
Apparently the burning of Bibles is not a problem for the Obama administration.
Many of you may not have heard about that incident. The following is how a CNN article back in 2009 described what happened….
Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to try to convert Afghans, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday.
You can view a video news report about this incident right here.
There was no letter of apology when Christian groups expressed anger about this.
So why does the Koran get treated with far more respect by the U.S. government than the Bible does?
But this is far from the only time that Barack Obama has given Islam a tremendous amount of respect while showing tremendous disdain for Christianity.
The following are 10 quotes from Barack Obama that show the incredible admiration that he has regularly expressed for the religion of Islam….
#1 “Islam has always been part of America”
#2 “we will encourage more Americans to study in Muslim communities”
#3 “These rituals remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.”
#4 “America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
#5 “So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed”
#6 “Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality”
#7 “As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.”
#8 “I look forward to hosting an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan here at the White House later this week, and wish you a blessed month.”
#9 “That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
#10 “I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story.”
Now, compare those quotes to these 10 quotes from Barack Obama about Christianity….
#1 “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation”
#2 “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.”
#3 “Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith?”
#4 “Even those who claim the Bible’s inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages – the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ’s divinity – are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.”
#5 “The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.”
#6 From Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope: “I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex—nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.”
#7 “I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can’t imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. That’s just not part of my religious makeup.”
#8 “Those opposed to abortion cannot simply invoke God’s will–they have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths.”
#9 On his support for civil unions for gay couples: “If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount.”
#10 “I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”
Do you notice a difference?
In the end, Barack Obama can believe whatever he wants to believe.
Everyone gets to make a choice.
But the American people should take note of how he regularly goes out of his way to treat Islam with the utmost respect while not doing the same for Christianity.
And as I have written about previously, the Christian faith is under assault in America like never before.
In our television shows and in our movies, Bible-believing Christians are almost never portrayed as the heroes. Instead, they are almost always portrayed as villains or as crazy people.
It has become fashionable to treat Bible-believing Christians with blatant disrespect and we have been taught that we must push all expressions of the Christian faith out of public life.
If you are a public school student and you try to talk about Jesus with your fellow classmates there is a good chance that you will be suspended from school.
If you want to go out on a public sidewalk and discuss your faith with others, there is a good chance that you will be arrested.
If you are anti-abortion, if you have “radical theology” or if you are against “the New World Order”, there is the possibility that you will be labeled as a “potential terrorist” by the Department of Homeland Security.
Can you see where all of this is headed?
If Barack Obama is going to apologize for burning Korans then he should also apologize for burning Bibles.
But that is not the way that Barack Obama does things and that is not the way that the U.S. government has done things for a very long time.
If you are a Bible-believing Christian, you need to start preparing for dark times because persecution is coming. The world system that we live in does not like you, and the leap from blatant disrespect to violent repression is not as far as you might think.
