Was it something we said?

Still from "The Jesus Film"

Just when the Vleeptron NGO was certain we were on the brink of bringing about Peace On Earth between Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus by instructing our readers how and when to wish our Muslim neighbors a good Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr, the Paris cops tossed a tear-gas grenade into a mosque during Ramadan worship, and things have been going south (literally -- Dijon, Marseilles, etc.) since then.

Whence cometh this Global Misunderstanding? Is it something we said or did?

Maybe it wasn't Vleeptron's fault. (But we do worry that, because we can't read fancy Arabic calligraphy, we have been posting images urging our Muslim neighbors to eat more Skippy Peanut Butter.)

The following Op-Ed/Opinion essay from The New York Times is a little stale -- right about the time of the full-tilt-boogy Shock & Awe military phase of our Operation Iraqi Freedom. Vleeptron apologizes. Vleeptron will try to update it. Any assistance readers who are a little more plugged into this Christian Missionary Business can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Probably between April 2003 and now, the American Fundamentalist Evangelical Christian Missionaries have realized how disrespectful of Muslims their ill-considered efforts were, and how their missions might be outraging Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, and increasing the danger to our soldiers. So they've packed up all their Bibles and come back home to Georgia. Watch This Space.

Meanwhile, Vleeptron has some advice for American college girls travelling in Muslim countries during Spring Break: Nifty a film as it is, don't hold public showings of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." There are Syrians from a little mountain town who actually speak fluent Aramaic. They don't need no steeenkin subtitles.

[TYPOGRAPHICAL MONKEY BUSINESS (Affengesellschaft): As is Vleeptron's wont, the article's text is unchanged, but Vleeptron has merrily added boldface and color emphasis hither and yon, because it feels good.]

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The New York Times
6 April 2003

Should Christian Missionaries
Heed the Call in Iraq?

By DEBORAH CALDWELL

Deborah Caldwell is a senior producer for the online magazine Beliefnet and an editor of "Taking Back Islam."

As American troops began invading Iraq last month, Christian relief workers from all over the United States geared up to follow. Loaded with food, medicine, diapers and toothbrushes, volunteers began planning their aid to Iraqis, 97 percent of whom are Muslim.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest American Protestant denomination, announced that its International Mission Board would send volunteers to distribute food and shelter, and to help Iraqis "have true freedom in Jesus Christ."

At the same time, the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham, said that his relief operation, Samaritan's Purse, was ready to move into Iraq as soon as the war was over. Another Christian group, World Concern, said that it will care for anyone, regardless of religion, but that "we do seek appropriate ways to communicate the love of Christ in both word and deed."

Franklin Graham emphasized his group's objective is to help people who have lost their homes or are sick and hungry. "We're in an Arab country and we just can't go out and preach," he said in an interview. But, he added: "God will always give us opportunities to tell others about his son. We are there to reach out to love them and to save them."

Muslims have said they are not happy about the evangelicals' plans. "The Iraq war is being interpreted in religious terms by Muslims around the world as a war against Islam, and this is dangerous," said Abdulaziz Sachedina, a University of Virginia expert in Islam and democracy. Mr. Sachedina suggested that, at the least, Christian groups wait a while before heading into Iraq.

In many Muslim countries, the American military and its dominant religion appear inseparable, said John C. Green, the director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. True or not, he said, "you have the image of a deeply religious president essentially giving Christians a green light to come into Iraq."

The Arab press has noted that Franklin Graham, who has called Islam a "very evil and wicked religion," delivered the invocation at Mr. Bush's inauguration.

The Arab news media have also publicized the views of the Rev. Jerry Vines, a past president of the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention.

Last summer, Reverend Vines described the prophet Muhammad as a "demon-possessed pedophile."

The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, denounced that view, saying that it was "something that the president definitely disagrees with."

And last week, after news of the evangelical groups' plans for Iraq were publicized, Mr. Fleischer again distanced Mr. Bush from the Christian leaders' past remarks, calling Islam "a religion of peace." Both Mr. Fleischer and a spokeswoman for the United States Agency for International Development, which coordinates humanitarian aid, said that the government could not control the work of private charitable organizations because it did not finance them.

[VLEEPTRON NOTES: Iraq is currently a nation occupied by foreign military forces, who effectively approve and control all comings and goings. The United States can bar any American it does not want in Iraq, and routinely does bar people.]

Franklin Graham and the Southern Baptist Convention are only the most well-known voices in a growing effort by American Christians to convert Muslims. Since 1990, the number of missionaries in Islamic countries has quadrupled, according to researchers for the evangelical missions.

Five years ago, the Southern Baptists reorganized their International Missions Board to focus on the part of the world where Muslims live. Two years ago, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas created a master's degree program for missionaries ministering to Muslims.

The linchpin in most of these efforts is the "Jesus Film," which was made by the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ in 1979 and has been translated into 811 languages. Stories of the film abound in missionary circles: it has been carried up mountains and into remote villages around the world. In November 2001, after two Christian relief workers, Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, were rescued from Afghanistan, it was disclosed that the Taliban arrested them for showing the film.

Last week, a missionary writing from Iraq on the International Bible Society's Web site described the scene this way: "I can hear jets flying over the town, and I hear explosions from the distance. There are still a few of us in town. We go out to visit and distribute tracts and the Jesus video. We are busy duplicating the video. We ran out of tracts and we need to print 10,000 more." The Bible society has published a Scripture booklet especially for Iraqi refugees. Christians in the United States are urged to spend 40 cents per booklet to print and ship them to Iraq.

Conservative Christians are puzzled by criticism of their efforts. After all, they point out, Christians believe they were commanded by Jesus to spread the faith and do so in a selfless, often courageous way. "It's a strange perception that someone who would take a risk and use their financial resources to provide humanitarian aid would be trying to destroy someone or harm them," said Wendy Norvelle, associate vice president for Southern Baptist relations.

But some Christian leaders said they worried that the evangelicals' actions would be viewed as a crusade.

"They identify the American cause with this war as the cause of Christ," said Robert Pyne, a theologian at the conservative Dallas Theological Seminary. He read from a prayer making the rounds among evangelicals:

"Let us be sending in 'prayer missiles,'
'Cruise and Scud prayers'
to target enemy plans.
We are praying that the enemy leaders become confused,
that their entire system of attack
fall apart and that these enemies would become
aware of the war Jesus has already fought for them."

Mr. Pyne, himself an evangelical, said it was the wrong time and place for such "a visible Christian presence." Instead, he said, American Christians might consider ceding control of their aid.

"We're the ones who think we have to do it, and want to do everything ourselves -- those are images of the ugly American," Mr. Pyne said. "We may need to get over that to truly distance ourselves, as Christians, from what is perceived around the world as a national agenda."

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