Judging Islam By Its Violent Fundamentalists and Kooks

"They (the Muslims) have a right to build a mosque near Ground Zero in NYC, but should they?"

That seems to be the majority consensus right now in the country, with some putting more emphasis on the first half and many more on the second half of the sentence, including some Democrats like Harry Reid and apparently even President Obama.

As for me, this is all a very ignorant discussion.  It is incredibly narrow-minded and bigoted to paint all Muslims as violent, anti-Christian, anti-American radicals.  Of course they (1.2 billion around the world) are not, and anyone who knows Islam (like more of us should know Islam) should know that. 

The 9/11 terrorists were fundamentalist, politicized Muslims, representing a narrow, radicalized, modernist aberration of an acknowledged world religion.  We Christians have our analogue, in the person of Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh, Jim Jones, David Koresh (and this list could go on for quite a while, and I would probably include those militarized Christians who enjoy invading other countries in Jesus' name). 

What if the world only understood Christianity or judged Christianity on the basis of its kooks and extremists?  (In fact, that is what happens, since the world mainly sees the fundamentalist Christians who dominate the media...I rarely see anyone representing the way I and most of my pastoral peers think.)  We would think they were being unreasonable and bigoted. 

That is what we're doing to the Muslims in this country and hundreds of millions more around the world.  Judging them all on the basis of a few 'bad apples' and extremists.  It's ridiculous...and wrong.