We Can’t Knuckle Under to Muslims While Giving Lip Service to Religious Freedom

By Ken Blackwell
April 8th, 2009

This is Holy Week for Christians. For Jews, it is the time of the Passover. Both of these traditions remind us that we must continue to stand for religious freedom for all. I agree with Britain’s Anglican Bishop of Rochester, the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali. He says that we Christians should treat our Muslim neighbors with love and with respect. We believe, even if they do not, that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. We believe that they share with us the civil rights that are enjoyed by all Americans. But we also believe, with George Washington, that each one here should be able “to sit under his own vine and fig tree and there should be none to make him afraid.”

When Anglican Bishop Nazir-Ali came to the U.S. earlier this year, he did not call for persecution of Muslims. Nazir-Ali called upon all Christians to treat Muslims with genuine respect. Asked whether muezzins ought to be allowed to call Muslims to prayer in his home city of Rochester, England, “certainly,” the Bishop replied even-handedly, “as soon as church bells ring out in Mecca.” The Bishop’s point was there should be no knuckling under.

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