May 13, 2008

That’s me on the …

It’s difficult to explain to a big pink gorilla why as a journalist you don’t want to mug for the camera, so I indulged Zack Sher last week at UC Irvine. He and his fellow Anteaters for Israel were celebrating the Jewish State’s 60th anniversary with iFest, a week long festival that preceded and partially overlapped Palestinian awareness week, for which I’ll be heading down south again this week.

I made a mistake Monday morning. I should have read that Edward Luttwak op-ed on Barack Obama the Muslim apostate that I linked to here but didn’t discuss. As the day dragged on, my Google Reader filled up with a few RSS feeds attacking the bankruptcy of Luttwak’s argument that Obama, as an apostate who purportedly was born a Muslim and converted out to Christianity, could not be tolerated by other Muslims and might even be killed for it.

Here is what Luttwak wrote:

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings.

Obama, in fact, is not the son of a Muslim father. This belief comes from that rumor that he’s a closet Muslim. Secondly, Luttwak’s argument is not original, having first been made last summer in FrontPage magazine, courtesy of the man leading a battle against peaceful Islam, Daniel Pipes.

As a teen, I was told several times by fellow Christians that Charles Darwin recanted his theory of evolution on his deathbed. This 125-year-old legendwas believable because it played into the idea that no matter how wicked a life someone had led—and we believed Darwin to be a vile man—God would welcome them back, even in their final moments.

For Albert Einstein, who I will admit is one of my heroes, nearing the end did not make him a more religious man. His vague language on God had long been interpreted by the faithful that Einstein was a fellow believer. But, in a letter being auctioned in England, Einstein was quite critical of religion and the Jewish people, of which he was a proud member. From The Guardian:

Einstein penned the letter on January 3 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. The letter went on public sale a year later and has remained in private hands ever since.

In the letter, he states: “The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.”

Einstein, who was Jewish and who declined an offer to be the state of Israel’s second president, also rejected the idea that the Jews are God’s favoured people.

“For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

Avoiding Einstein’s frank review of his people, I disagree with his interpretation of the Bible. Yes, Jesus spoke highly of a childlike faith, but does that mean the Bible’s stories are “primitive” and “childish?”

Hardly. Even if you don’t believe its accounts of Jewish history, the Gospels and the epistles, the complete book, covering 4,000 years from the Beginning to the End, is the greatest literary work ever.

It’s more enjoyable, though, if you believe it.

The New York Times this morning recycles a lot of news you’ve seen here in the past few weeks. The story is about Barack Obama’s push to attract Jewish voters and alleviate their fears; it mentions his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic and his congratulations to Israel on turning 60.

Nothing new, except for a reference to an op-ed Obama wrote for the Sunday edition of Israel’s largest paper, Yedioth Ahronoth. I, however, can find no trace of this online.

When I wrote last week about Steve Kreuscher, the man from Zion who wants to legally change his name to “In God We Trust,” I cross-posted the article at the CT Liveblog. I was just checking comments there, and I saw that awaiting approval was one from Kreuscher.

The following is the whole reasoning behind me wanting to change my name to “In God We Trust;  So that You know the whole truth about why I am doing it and see that I am more down to earth, then you probably thought at first.

“I have been a very creative artist since 1967.  I have been searching for a new powerful and meaningful signature for my artwork, for the last 10 years.  I was looking for a signature, which would best express my charactor of “Trust In God”, my life of “Trust In God” and most of my artworks, which faithfully express my “Trust In God” also.

“Being born and raised in Zion Illinois, the city which the world renown faith healer, Dr. John Alexander Dowie, founded in 1900, I had a stong “Trust In God”  since childhood.  But then at 23 years old, I had a very dramatic spiritual experience and full whole hearted conversion to Christ, in October 1973, which is also the title of one of my very important works; “October 1973, My Conversion”.  Most of my artworks since my conversion, are very deeply religious.  Being very religious, those artworks faithfully express my “Trust In God”.  Also many of those artworks express powerful stories about many tribulations that I went through in my life and how God used those trials to develope and increase that “Trust In Him” to where it is today.

  “Therefore, changing my name to “In God We Trust” is my newest creative artwork; painted not with paint, but instead with those beautiful, powerful and meaningful words, on the canvas of my life.  Those words “In God We Trust” most truely and most faithfully express me and who I am, in a beautiful creative word painting, a million times better, than the name Steve Kreuscher does.

  “Those beautiful words are now the person, who God has made me into, by “the free riches of His power and His grace, In Christ Jesus” , my Lord and Savior

  “And finally, by taking those precious words as my new name, I am joining those beautiful words, which are so dear to me, in a permanent way, to myself, preserving them for myself as part of me for ever.”

Needless to say, My four children, my five grandchildren and myself need all the prayers and support that you can give us, for God’s Divine protection, wisdom, strength and any thing else that God knows we will need through this all, and especially on Friday the 13th of June.  I would love to see June 13th to be made into the offical “In God We Trust” day here in America.  And last of all, my hopes and prayers are that Christians, all over America and all over the world, on that day figure out some creative, loving, peaceful way to take there own little personal stand for “In God We Trust” on that day. 

      All my love “In Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior”;  Steve Kreuscher ( In God We Trust )

Kreuscher had me for a minute. Sort of. And then he mentioned Friday the 13th.

Yawn.