I often spend time thinking that we, in this time and place in history, are beset by the yin and the yang. We seem helpless to know what we should be doing right now to avoid the catastrophes of the future. But so much is really clear and self-evident as to what we must do to avoid our destruction, to stop the madness and to immediately begin reforms to avoid chaos and disaster. Why is it so hard to stop doing the stupid things that are PLAIN stupid? Why are we so paralyzed?I imagine many of you wonder if Islam is, indeed, hell-bent on taking over the world. Havent factions of Christianity always sought to take the message of Christ to all ends of the world, reach all people and make disciples of everyone? We think of The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, launched in 1974 by 2,500 Christians gathered in Lausanne. Switzerland. It has fueled numerous evangelism movements and certainly missionaries are energized by a perceived Muslim counter-threat to their work.Jason Mandryck, co-author of Operation World, a prayer guide, recently told a Christian leadership development gathering in Malaysia that although Christianity has barely kept pace with the worlds population growth, evangelicalism is far and away the fastest growing major religious movement in the world today. He said it is growing at twice the pace as Islam and three times as fast as the overall world population. He and others say the older generation has dropped the ball on mission work, but a younger generation of committed Christians is taking charge. Wait a minute, Islam regularly is touted as the fast-growing religion. And don’t the Mormon say that, too?The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which describes itself as the nations largest Muslim civil liberties group, is highly productive at informing the press about all things Islamic. One or two long daily digests of stories come to me. They chronicle anti-Muslims events and issues. Much is made in the latest American Muslim News Briefs about two separate incidents at Pace University in New York City where copies of the Quran were found soaking in campus library toilets. It has sparked heated discussions of whether authorities treated them only as vandalism and not hate crimes.Theres an excerpt of a commentary called Targeting Muslims The New Inquisition by Bradley Burston. It was published this week in Haaretz, a Tel Aviv, Israel, liberal, independent Middle-Eastern newspaper. Burston has written a thoughtful, sound piece suggesting non-Muslims understand Islam, appreciate values they embrace and stop being so preoccupied with such shallow things as headscarves. And, yes, we ought to have empathy for Muslims who have suffered so much distrust and verbal and physical attacks since 9/11.Its worth posting some of Burstons excerpts: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/775898.html– "If you are going to have Islamic schools, the question is whether they are going to embrace Western values," Patrick Sookhdeo, a Pakistan-born Anglican priest in England who converted from Islam, told the New York Times this month. "I would argue that Islamic values are not compatible with Western values," he said. And what Western values might these be? Are they the time-honored Western values of intolerance for people of color, suspicion and marginalization of non-Christians, fear and loathing of non-Whites? Exploitation of and contempt for the residents of former imperial possessions and colonies? — Perhaps it is time for us in the Western world to declare that Islam has a right to exist. Perhaps it is time for us to recognize that non-violent, non-Judeo-Christian religious observance is a right, not an act of war. Scarves don’t explode. Veils do not kill. The niqab does not incite.– In the Age of Paris Hilton, however, the West desperately needs women who devote themselves to serious pursuits, to the betterment of society, women who believe that self-esteem and dignity are worthy values. If they choose to wear a veil, and we take offense, that is wholly our problem. We have no business making it theirs.It bears repeating again and again. Unfortunately, much of the Christian West is obsessed that Islam intends to defeat it and impose its religion and culture. A segment of Islam may want that, just as a segment of Christianity wants the entire planet to fall in behind Christ. The many billions of us in the middle including Muslims who understand the dilemma and the grave risks of being mistrusted and demonized need to be active in breaking down religious and cultural walls, in ending fear and wariness and in showing that understanding leads to cooperation and coexistence.

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