So RPK has a piece today entitled Islam bashing is actually Christianity bashing, in which he actually kinda does bash Christianity’s morals.
The relevant portion of his article, bolded portions for emphasis done by me:
Take the story of Sodom and Gomorrah from Genesis as one example. Malays know what the Qur’an has to say about this episode. But do they know what the Bible says? Not many do.
Genesis tells us that God wanted to test the people of Lot’s community so He sent two angels disguised as very ‘jambu’ men to that community (if you do not know what jambu means then go ask your Malay friends). And Lot took these two jambu as his guests for the night.
The men in Lot’s community then went berserk. They wanted Lot to surrender these two jambu to the wild crowd so that they can gang rape them. Lot refused and instead offered his two virgin daughters as replacements. They can gang rape his two virgin daughters if they leave the two angels disguised as jambu alone. But the crowd refused Lot’s two virgin daughters. They still wanted the two sexy men.
So God told Lot to take his family and leave that community because He was going to destroy the entire community. Lot and his family were told to leave and not look back. Unfortunately, Lot’s wife did not follow God’s wishes and looked back so she was turned into a pillar of salt.
Lot and his family were spared because they were all righteous people even though Lot had offered his two virgin daughters to be gang raped by the horde of sex-crazed people. Offering your two virgin daughters to be gang raped does not make you unrighteous.
After they had escaped, Lot’s two virgin daughters got him drunk and then had sex with him. Then they became pregnant. But God did not destroy them because they were righteous although they had sex with their own father and got pregnant. Only if you have gay sex will God destroy you.
That is what Christianity teaches us. So what the government did to Anwar is not as bad as what God did to the people of Lot’s community. So why are we complaining about what the government did to Anwar when God did worse? God did not punish Lot for offering his two virgin daughters to be gang raped. In fact, God said Lot was righteous. God did not punish Lot’s daughters for having sex with their own father. In fact, God said they were righteous. God only punished those who have gay sex.
Although RPK goes on quite a bit in his article about reading the Bible, taking comparative religions and understanding religions other than one’s down, here his understanding is lacking and/or coloured by his Islamic background. I don’t blame him really, as many self-proclaimed Christians similarly would not know the following:
Righteousness as defined by Christianity has nothing to do with your deeds, save one: Faith in Jesus (and by extension, God).
There relevant passage:
What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. – Romans 4:3-5
This is probably a very foreign, counter-intuitive and perhaps even downright wrong concept to a Muslim or someone steeped in an Islamic background. I know, as I’ve encountered such a different worldview before: Differences in Worldviews of Christianity vs Islam – As Supplied by menj
But the whole concept of Christianity is that nothing we do makes us worthy or forgiveness or salvation or heaven, it’s 100% about what Jesus did on the cross.
Sacraments? Good karmistic works? Five Pillars? None of these matter, for how can we ever compare to the holy and infinitely perfect Creator? (This is something that a Muslim can probably agree with.)
As Isaiah 64:6 laments, all our righteous acts are like filthy rags to Him! A single drop of our filth would contaminate His perfectly pure heaven – only Jesus’ divine redemptive sacrifice can truly and fully cleanse us.
All the ‘Heroes of Faith’ in Hebrews 11 are commended for believing in something they had no assurance of other than God’s word of honour. God promised it, and they lived like they believed it.
Hence when Lot is considered ‘righteous’ in 2 Peter 7-8, it is because he heard God’s message through the angels (leave town!) and believed (he left town).
And on a related point, it is not correct either to assume that the daughters’ de facto rape of their unale-to-give-legal-consent father did not result in any punishment or ill effects. An observant reader will realize just how serious the result of Lot’s family’s sin was – the children born of the incestuous, extra-marital act were named Moab and Bene-Ammon (Genesis 19:36-38). Generations later, the Moabites and the Ammonites were some of the most vicious enemies of their cousins Israel (i.e. the daughters’ father Lot’s uncle Abraham’s son Isaac’s son Jacob aka Israel).
So while faith leads to eternal salvation, earthly actions do have (often serious) consequences.
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PS. This is not relevant to my points above, but I’m pretty sure the piece RPK cites that got him so riled up, Council of Islamic Ideology declares women’s existence anti-Islamic… Is actually satire.
PPS. Come to think of it, RPK keeps focusing on the ‘Sodom condemned for its homosexuality’ angle… But seems to ignore that Sodom involved attempted forcible gang rape too! Or is he saying that sort of thing should be ok?
THE SCOTTTCAST 