Liberal mainstream Protestant denominations harbor leaders with unabashed dhimmi apologists. We have posted on some of them who invite the worst elements of Middle East Christian leaders into US churches to spew forth anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, anti-Israeli and neo-Marxist ecumenical liberation theology. Whether Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist or United Church of Christ, these denominations have opted for bearing witness for Jihadi Muslims, as a professed means of saving the remnants of their flocks in the Middle East.

Today’s FrontPageMagazine had an article entitled “Yale’s Dhimmi Applicants” by Mark D. Tooley, about a conference this week at Yale Divinity School in New Haven sponsored by the National Council of Churches (NCC) that belies the obsequious dialogues with Muslim clerics that erupted in the wake of the famous October, 2007 letter to Christian leaders from Muslim clerics that affirmed core Quranic beliefs. A week ago we saw the Madrid Conference of the Saudi Wahhabi sponsored World Muslim League at which selected Christian and Jewish leaders were invited to parlay, that achieved little except a visual confirmation that Spain was the Islamic Waqf of Al Andaluz – a land once conquered held in trust for Allah forever.

Now, it is the turn of the NCC to hold a similar session at Yale Divinity School with entreaties captured by Dooley in the FrontPageMagazine article like the following:

In typical fashion for accommodating Western clerics and academics, the Christian response opened with words of apology about Christians “sinning against our Muslim neighbors” in the Crusades of 1000 years ago, and then again today through “excesses” in the “war on terror.” The Christians implored: “We ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and the Muslim community around the world.”

Very likely the Yale jamboree and other dialogue events will repeat this predictable formula of Muslim smiles followed by Christian apologies. Muslims will articulate their doctrines, while Christians will downplay theirs in a typical bid for approval and good will. For the sake of good manners and to ensure future dialogue, the Christians will largely avoid mentioning Muslim persecution of Christians and others. Meanwhile, the Muslims will be vague about religious liberty issues, while pointing instead to ostensible Western and Christian injustices towards Islam, to which the Christians will respond with more apologies and hearty “amens.”

Yesterday, we posted a piece about Dhimmitude in our government, an exchange between Undersecretary of State Glassman and a question raised by ACT! For America chapter leader in suburban Maryland, Alan Nichols on what constituted extremist Islam. Today, Nichols sent us the latest example of Dhimmi Protestant Clergy, the Rev. John T. Wright, of the Grove United Methodist Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Rev. Wright hosted a 10 week course on Islam by CAIR. Nichols wrote Rev. Wright and asked why he did this. Rev. Wright responded. Here is the exchange.

1.

Did the Islam course in your church deal with radical Islam and how to counter it in the US?

The course, among other topics, covered the issue of the rise of extremist movements among Muslims within historical and contemporary periods. It located the modern extremist movements in the Muslim world in the context of the breakdown of traditional Muslim institutions of learning as well as the rise of borrowed ideologies of resistance to occupation from European experiences such as the French Revolution.

2.

Does CAIR have a program to monitor what is being preached in US Mosques?

CAIR is a civil rights advocacy organization. CAIR’s vision is to be a leading advocate for justice and mutual understanding. CAIR’s mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding. CAIR is a grassroots organization whose members are also members of many American Muslim institutions such as mosques, schools and other organizations. As such CAIR considers the American Muslim community to be mainstream and integrated into the American fabric.

3.

Does CAIR have a program to root out radical clerics calling for the overthrow of our secular democracy and the establishment of Sharia law?

CAIR’s mission is to promote dialogue and mutual understanding. As such, it takes positions against violence and hate. CAIR has a long history of condemning violence and promoting dialogue.

4.

If Islam is truly a loving religion, why are there hundreds of hateful Suras in the Koran?

The Qur’an is considered to be a book of revelation by Muslims and historically Muslim scholarship developed a healthy process of dissent in the interpretation of the Qur’an. As such, classical scholarship promoted an acceptance of multiple interpretive points regarding some verses to be categorically authoritative and most verses to be presumptively authoritative and always cognizant of the context of revelation for the verses. The presumptively authoritative verses by definition provided multiple positions of interpretation whereas the categorically authoritative verses provided a single interpretation. Those who consider the Qur’an to have hundreds of hateful Suras need to be cognizant of the multiple points of interpretation that may render the allegedly hateful Suras to be less so or not so at all. Harsh passages in all religious texts need to be understood in the context of ‘revelation’ or ‘writing’ of the text; removing that context can warp the understanding and the limits of the harsh text.

5.

Islam recognizes Christ is a prophet but not the son of God. In any exchanges in the class, was there an effort to get CAIR leaders to consider becoming Christians?

The class was not structured to be polemical in nature but was constructed to be educational. Therefore the doctrinal positions that Muslims have developed were presented to the class based on the text of the Qur’an and the Church participants were invited to provide their own perspectives on the verses and their own understanding of the verses.

6.

Do you honestly realize what a threat radical Islam is to our country?

Radical Islam is not any more or less a threat than right-wing Christianity is to our country. It is people who show extremist points of view and seek to dominate upon others those views that continue to be a threat to the lives of all of us, in this country and outside.

Whether theologians at Yale Divinity School palavering with Muslim clerics or local Methodist ministers like Rev. John Wright in West Chester, Pennsylvania giving over his church for weekly Da’wah sessions by Muslim Brotherhood front, CAIR, Dhimmitude in liberal Protestant denominations is rampant.