Tolerating Islam

The University community unceasingly promotes plurality, diversity, and tolerance.

Central to the Christian faith is proclaiming that "all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD made the heavens" (Psalm 96:5).

One such idol of the peoples is the god of Islam. And yet, in response to the Islamic State's recent reign of terror, we find Muslims, Atheists, and even Christians falling all over themselves to defend Islam from denigration, proclaiming that the Islamic State is not really Islam…

I'm in the middle of reading an eye-opening article in The Atlantic on the Islamic State. Here's a teaser which sheds light on whether or not the Islamic State is faithful to the Koran and the historic teachings of Islam:

Muslims who call the Islamic State un-Islamic are typically, as the Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel, the leading expert on the group's theology, told me, "embarrassed and politically correct, with a cotton-candy view of their own religion" that neglects "what their religion has historically and legally required." Many denials of the Islamic State's religious nature, he said, are rooted in an "interfaith-Christian-nonsense tradition."

The one true God is indeed tolerant. In His kindness and patience, the living God tolerates Islam every day, even as it continues to rear its ugly head against the LORD and His Word. He does this for one reason:

Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.

Muslims are storing up wrath for themselves as they continue in unrepentance. So do you love Muslims? Are you more concerned with protecting "peaceful" Muslims from condemnation, or with calling all those in rebellion against God to come to Jesus Christ, repenting of their sins and trusting in His shed blood for forgiveness?