For some the terrible agony begins at a stoplight

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It never happened to Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. They never got beat up after engaging in a heated religious discussion and they were involved in more than a few theological disputes, not with each other, that would have been ridiculous, they shared many of the same views and there were enough Christians to go around, most of whom were willing to let Jerry and Pat carry the heavy theological load while they prayed on Sunday and then went crab fishing or hiking in the Adirondacks.

Not once, as far as is known, did a car loaded with would-be theologians pull up alongside Jerry’s or Pat’s limo at a red light and one of them hop out to ask Jerry or Pat directions to some place or other in Urdu and then reach in through the window to grab Jerry or Pat by the hair to continue the debate on a more primitive level. But that is what happened to Reverend Noble Samuel of Heston United Reformed Church of West London when he stopped for a red light on his way to a TV studio to film his Asian Gospel Show.

The Reverend had been involved in a number of heated discussions with Muslim callers and a particular group of disputants had decided to take the talks to the next level. Samuel was slapped, his head was banged against the steering wheel; his cross was ‘wrestled’ to the floor and his Bible and laptop were stolen. The men were described as ‘Asians’ though they didn’t look like Chinese or Korean—maybe Pakistanis. (Samuel had been born in Pakistan and educated by Christian missionaries) The police said it was a Religious Hate Crime.

“If you go back to the studio,” the thugs told Samuel, “we’ll break your legs.”

“I am frightened and depressed,” said Samuel. “My show is not confrontational.”

It couldn’t have been the clothing he was wearing, it must have been something he said. It doesn’t take much to start a religious argument. Spanky and Alfalfa got into a religious broil on the way to Sunday school that lasted a week. A week! It was over the exact nature of the Trinity. Alfalfa said there were three and Spanky said there were two because Ghosts didn’t count. The Reverend Felcher set them straight.

Maybe it was something like that—a simple misunderstanding. Why can’t we learn to get along? There is no need to rough up men of the cloth at stoplights. This way of settling religious controversies could get out of hand. It is certainly trending in that direction. Why just the other day, the director of a Channel 4 television documentary exposing the less than ‘Christian’ treatment of gay and lesbian Muslims under Islamic law received death threats! Death threats! Just before that a Muslim cop who had been fired for allegedly beating up a homeless man was screaming Islamophobia—and still is.

And no doubt there has been some perverse joy in the news that Inayat Bunglawala, one of the sweetest men who ever lived, has been accused of stabbing another man in his fancy digs. Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain—the man who saved Tony Blair from going mad after the London Bombings, accused of a common crime!

And it doesn’t stop there. Two Muslim women who work as stockbrokers in London are accusing their employer of racial, sexual and religious discrimination for transferring Jewish clients to non-Muslim brokers. Racial and sexual and religious discrimination! There seems to be considerable overlap. At least Spanky and Alfalfa had some idea of what they were arguing about.

A senior Muslim police officer is suing Scotland Yard for racial discrimination. Scotland Yard said they were unaware anybody had been victimized, bullied or harassed. It takes two to tango but only one to level accusations.

Back in September of 2006, an employee of British Airways was suspended for wearing a silver cross on a chain. It was deemed offensive to the religious sensibilities of minorities. How many fistfights and brawls were avoided at Heathrow is anyone’s guess.

Red Cross stores in England have banned overly religious decorations. Christmas cards depicting the birth of Christ are verboten. “I don’t think Muslims are offended by Christmas,” said one volunteer. Maybe not—but few Imams have been seen jumping for joy at the thought of the child in the manger.

Qur’an: 5:17 “Verily they are disbelievers and infidels who say, ‘The Messiah, son of Mary, is God.”

Qur’an: 5:73 “They are surely disbelievers who blaspheme and say: ‘God is one of three in the Trinity for there is no Ilah (God) except One, Allah. If they desist not from saying this (blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall them—the disbelievers will suffer a painful doom.”

Someone will break someone’s legs.

Barnsley is the first town in the UK to ban all-you-can-drink promotions. Who got up this silly idea? Could it be part of some subterranean religious argument? They would not have dared this if Bennie Hill were still alive.

If this seems one-sided—Christian symbols being banned and Christian organizations under attack, it is. And there has been no meaningful religious discussion. How many angels can fit on the head of a pin; how many witches are there in a coven; will salvation come before or after the last Harry Potter movie? Nothing! Instead there are charges of racism, sexism and religious discrimination and a lot of “Allahu akbars!”

Why did the thugs in the other car at the stoplight want to break the Reverend’s legs? Was it simply because he was a Christian and that was what angered them? There is no discussing Islam. Samuel would have received a more respectful hearing had he debated the merits of International Jewry with Dr. Joseph Goebbels and he could have taken either side in the Spanky-Alfalfa debate and been on safer theological grounds.

The Reverend says his show is not confrontational. Perhaps not to a Scientologist halfway through Dianetics and it certainly wouldn’t have been to Plato or Socrates, but there are those who do not like their beliefs to be challenged in any way or manner and in the 21^st Century they drive cars that pull up at stoplights.

Qur’an: 3:55 “Allah said, ‘Jesus, I will take you and raise you to Myself and rid you of the infidels (who have forged the lie that you are My son).”

Qur’an: 3:56 “ As for those disbelieving infidels, I will punish them with a terrible agony in this world and the next. They have no one to help or save them.”

For the Reverend Samuel the terrible agony began at a stoplight.