“My plea to all Muslims in this country is the words of Jesus Christ, who to you is a prophet and to me a savior,” said Archbishop John Sentamu, who then quoted the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. “You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. If you love those who love you, what reward do you have?”
Muslim Council of Britain spokesman Inayat Bunglawala wasn't interested in any of this saying:
“Just as we could not call on Jews to turn the other cheek when faced with anti-Semitism, it cannot be right that we are asked to tolerate anti-Muslim prejudice,” responded Muslim Council of Britain spokesman Inayat Bunglawala. “We should have a zero-tolerance policy towards all forms of prejudice, be it anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim or anti-Christian. But we cannot just turn the other cheek.”
Prejudice, however, is within the eye of the beholder. Especially if you are seriously invested in remaining with the narrow confines of the 7th century. However, this "investment" as with all investments did not manifest itself as an air plant.
An insightful conclusion from The Belmont Club:
How has it happened that the most unlikely persons are speaking on what is apparently the most volatile of subjects? It is doubly surprising because there is a powerful reluctance within the organizational culture of Christian churches to voice any criticism of another religion. The statements by Pope Benedict XVI, Lord Carey and Cardinal Pell are really near-despairing expedients to fill the aching void left by Western cultural and political leaders -- a vacuum which has emboldened militant Islamic preachers to cross boundaries they would have respected until recently. This erasure of cultural borders caused by the near total desertion of the frontier by the so-called opinion-leaders has invited the most reckless elements of Islam across and raised the risk of real clash of civilizations. As Lord Carey put it: "We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times". It is a time made perilous not only by the absence of moderate voices within Islam but by the even more conspicuous absence of any leadership among Western politicians. It is a failure which will sooner or later lead to what military historians call a "meeting engagement" in which two forces, each possessed of its own momentum, blunder into each other with catastrophic results. A false kind of tolerance has abolished the fence between the piggery and mosque, the adult video store and the cathedral, the flaming match and the stick of dynamite and called it progress. It is no such thing. It is called stupidity.
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