The Prof points out this Post article which talks about an alliance between U.S. Christian conservatives (and the Administration) and moderate and hard-line Muslims teaming up against abortion and for the family. When they caution that they view the fundamentalist Muslims as "allies" and not "friends," it's amazing that the reporters could hear them as they spoke out of their posterior orifices.

Where the United States and Sudan agree, we agree. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time. Even Sudan can be right in opposing certain UN charters that the Administration also opposes. So, when it comes to a UN declaration that makes of abortion rights as an international mandate, we can vote the same way because we happen to agree. Let's just be as quiet about that agreement as possible.

While there is indeed a strong case to be made that Muslims and fundamentalist Christians can be allies in the name of faith over atheism and values over amorality, any Christian who thinks the governments of Sudan and Iraq are even allies are out of their minds. Sudan's enslavement of Christians is well-documented, not to mention the atrocities they have committed in the name of faith. Actually, let's go ahead and mention it. These are people who have consistently used their faith not as an olive branch, but as a hammer to smash from existence anyone who opposes their ideas (which includes, might I point out, Christians). Even the most proselytizing Christians are overzealously seeking souls to save. One of the cheif tenets of Christianity is forgiveness. To the fundamentalist Muslims we are not teaming up with, we are beyond redemption. There is no olive branch, only the hammer that remains hidden behind their cloak solely because they know it is not big enough to smash us. Saying that fundamentalist Christians and radical Muslims are on the same side is like saying that the United States and Nazi Germany should have been friends because they both support the notion of family and are basically Christian nations.

There are, of course, more moderate facets of Islam that Christians can perhaps find some common ground with. Unfortunately, by refusing to discriminate between moderate Muslims and their radical counterparts, the fundamentalist organizations in the article are implicitly endorsing the latter as legitimate. While moderate and radical Muslims are both wrong in the eyes of Christianity, from a tactical standpoint there is much more to be lost by dealing with Islamist regimes with which our nation is at war with. Presumably we are overlooking our differences of faith because it is beneficial to the causes we mutually support. Even leaving aside the stark differences of ideas of family between the fundamentalists in the US and the government of Iran, they are not helping the cause. They are solidifying the association of religion, faith, and family with the Islamist hammer and not the Christian olive branch.

It is in spite of, not because of, these kinds of Christians that I am one.