President Barack Obama speaks during a meeting at the White House last month. (Susan Walsh, The Associated Press)
Re: “Tip-toeing around Islamic extremism,” March 29 Perspective article.
Peter Singer’s article about Islamic extremism was interesting and thoughtful. However, I was taken aback by his attempt to equate the behaviors and attitudes of radical Islamists with those of Christian fundamentalists. Granted, both groups are “militant” in their beliefs. However, the similarity stops there and the distinction between the two groups couldn’t be more clear. While Christian fundamentalists are aggressively active (militant) in pursuing their beliefs, Islamic extremists are violently militant in their actions. To state that “Like Christian fundamentalists, they (Islamic extremists) see themselves as preparing for — and helping to bring about — the apocalypse” borders on intellectual naivete and stretches the reality and consequences of their actions. Imposing your will under the veil of death is vastly different from evangelizing. I understand the point Professor Singer was trying to make, but his comparison detracted from the value of his article.
Peter K. Bryan,Centennial
This letter was published in the April 5 edition.Re: “Obama’s claim that ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ is a fantasy,” March 29 Mike Rosen column.
Mike Rosen’s column is a blatant provocation in its assertion that it is a “fantasy” for President Obama to claim that Islam is a “religion of peace.” (President George W. Bush said the same thing.) Rosen’s column perpetuates stereotypes and anti-Muslim prejudice. His enmity is evidenced by his dredging up debunked claims that President Obama is Muslim, or as Rosen puts it, that he has made Christianity “his public religion to more easily advance his political ambitions.”
Make no mistake: World leaders should be more forceful in identifying and condemning Islamic extremist movements that are responsible for unspeakable torture, beheadings, bombings and mass murder. However, this is no excuse for Rosen to conflate Islam with Islamic extremists and to promote prejudice against the religion of 1.6 billion people.
Scott L. Levin,Denver
The writer is regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.
This letter was published in the April 5 edition.Based on audacious presumption, Mike Rosen claims he understands President Obama’s religious motivations better than the president does. Even if Rosen’s clairvoyance was accurate, Obama’s baptism definitively settles it: He is a Christian. One is simply not going to find a Muslim who will affirm Obama as a Muslim, knowing that he was baptized.
What is most egregious is Rosen’s self-acclaimed expertise in “strangely perverted brands of Christianity.” As a devoted Christian and biblical scholar, my mind reels daily with the outrageous biblical contradiction that conservative Christians and pundits like Rosen are intoxicated with. All the while, they ignore one of the most consistent, central, and “literal” concerns in the Bible: economic injustice. They, in fact, advocate an ideology that is so at odds with biblical concerns that I often wonder which version of the Bible they are consulting. Is there any way to remind them that Jesus was executed for sedition by an empire enamored with the use of lethal force to bring about peace?
Keith Ruckhaus,Littleton
This letter was published in the April 5 edition.
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