Mosques Double in America; Pastor Grahams Apologizes & our Need for Courage

Read these two articles.  Compare them and then ask:  Would Reverend Graham apologize for saying that Christianity and Islam are different? That all paths do not lead to the same God? That Christianity teaches that those who do not accept Christ's blood as remission for sin are in danger of God's wrath?  

While one religion spurs its believers to multiply, the other can't even question the beliefs of those around them.  There is dedication and strong belief in one of these religions.  Their leaders consistently espouse what they believe and this faith requires continued devotion, devotion to the point of death for many.  


Does that sound like Christianity in America in the 21st century?  


Instead of denouncing the President for forcing Catholic charities and hospitals to offer contraceptives against their religious beliefs and calling out the President's pastor's outrageous statements on orthodox Christianity, he apologizes for even 'calling into question' the belief of another self proclaimed Christian.


Want to see courage?  Perhaps we should learn a less from Sophie Scholl, who fearlessly stood firm in Nazi Germany, and went to her death before compromising her conscience.  





Mosques in America nearly double since 9/11

Mosques in the United States have doubled in number since the September 11 attacks, with urban and suburban centers seeing an uptick in mosque construction over the last decade, according to a new report.

"This is a growing, healthy Muslim community that is well integrated into America," Ihsan Bagby, who headed the research project -- which was sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, among other groups -- told The Washington Post. "Researchers conducting the national count found a total of 2,106 Islamic centers, compared to 1,209 in 2000 and 962 in 1994," The Washington Post reported.

The Washington Post offers the statistic as a sign of the Muslim-American community triumphing over the anti-Muslim "backlash" supposed to be demonstrated by the opposition to the so-called Ground Zero mosque in New York City. But maybe the data vindicates those critics of the mosque who claimed to oppose the Ground Zero mosque construction not out of bigotry, but a very particular sensitivity regarding that mosque's proximity to Ground Zero of the World Trade Center attacks.

"When I look over there and see a mosque, it’s going to hurt," the New York Times quoted C. Lee Hanson, who lost a son in the September 11 attacks, as saying in 2010 about the Ground Zero mosque. "Build it someplace else."

Apparently, Muslim-Americans have been doing just that for the last decade.

Rev. Franklin Graham Apologizes For Refusing to Say Obama Is a Christian

It’s been a week since the Rev. Franklin Graham set off media mayhem over his refusal to admit that President Barack Obama is a Christian. As you may recall, he declined to say that Obama is, in his view, a believer during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

But now, only one week later, the prominent faith leader has issued an apology over the incident saying that he regrets “any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama.”