Thomas S. Kidd: Muslim Americans: What Would Jesus (or George Washington) Do?
[Thomas S. Kidd teaches history and is a senior fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion. He is the author of "God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution." Follow his writings via Facebook.]
With the current unrest in Egypt and across the Middle East, Americans would do well to consider the collective messages we send to the Muslim world, including the Muslims of America. Along these lines, I recently wrote an opinion piece for the Houston Chronicle advancing what seemed to me a fairly uncontroversial argument: The state of Texas should not put an anti-Muslim amendment into the state constitution....
My modest piece clearly touched a nerve, with a range of letters, emails, and online comments suggesting that I was an effete academic, a dupe of a great Muslim conspiracy, or worse. This response reminded me that Muslims have become, in the minds of many Christians, America's great spiritual enemy....
Here is another case where historical understanding could spare us from repeating the mistakes of the past. American Christians have always tended to cast one particular group as their primary spiritual enemy. At the time of the American Founding, there was no doubt as to the identity of this adversary: It was the Catholic Church. Even leading Founding Fathers indulged the dread of Catholicism. Boston's Samuel Adams, for example, wrote in 1768 that new taxes and British political power were not America's most formidable foes: "What we have above everything else to fear," he declared, "is POPERY."...
But some Founders, including George Washington, rose above fear and realized that they needed to win Catholic allies, both in North America and in France itself. So General Washington forbade the celebration of "Pope's Day," Nov. 5, which had long featured the burning of the pope in effigy. (Nov. 5 commemorated the infamous "Gunpowder Plot" by Guy Fawkes, a Catholic, to blow up Parliament in 1605.)...
Read entire article at CS Monitor
With the current unrest in Egypt and across the Middle East, Americans would do well to consider the collective messages we send to the Muslim world, including the Muslims of America. Along these lines, I recently wrote an opinion piece for the Houston Chronicle advancing what seemed to me a fairly uncontroversial argument: The state of Texas should not put an anti-Muslim amendment into the state constitution....
My modest piece clearly touched a nerve, with a range of letters, emails, and online comments suggesting that I was an effete academic, a dupe of a great Muslim conspiracy, or worse. This response reminded me that Muslims have become, in the minds of many Christians, America's great spiritual enemy....
Here is another case where historical understanding could spare us from repeating the mistakes of the past. American Christians have always tended to cast one particular group as their primary spiritual enemy. At the time of the American Founding, there was no doubt as to the identity of this adversary: It was the Catholic Church. Even leading Founding Fathers indulged the dread of Catholicism. Boston's Samuel Adams, for example, wrote in 1768 that new taxes and British political power were not America's most formidable foes: "What we have above everything else to fear," he declared, "is POPERY."...
But some Founders, including George Washington, rose above fear and realized that they needed to win Catholic allies, both in North America and in France itself. So General Washington forbade the celebration of "Pope's Day," Nov. 5, which had long featured the burning of the pope in effigy. (Nov. 5 commemorated the infamous "Gunpowder Plot" by Guy Fawkes, a Catholic, to blow up Parliament in 1605.)...