DO NOT TRY TO ADJUST

The picture you see above is currently on display in an art gallery in New York. I did not post it upside-down by the way, it is portrayed the way the artist intended. And yes, that image is of Osama bin Laden.
If you were to see the entire print, you would read along the edges words like 'terrorist' and 'infidel' along with some references to Nazis. This is an artist rendition of Jesus Christ. To this artist, He is a terrorist. The painting is still on display at the time of this posting. The building has not burned to the ground and the artist is still alive.

I have watched the violence continue to unfold since my last posting. I was hopeful at seeing the information I posted being reported on the evening news. I was thinking that perhaps news of an actual Muslim Iman trying to fan the flames of violence and hatred with his own pictures would turn the tide of opposition a little.
I was shocked and dismayed to find out otherwise. It seems that the media believes Islam is a religion that has been oppressed and ridiculed so much that all of this protesting is justified. Sure, they condemn the actual violence, but they point to the recent riots in Paris as a symptom of segregation and racism.

This whole issue angers me. It's not the kind of anger that will send me into the streets with a gun or even a placard, but I am angered at how quickly Christianity is ridiculed and condemned. We lose our rights to pray in public, to display our Savior, and in some areas, we have lost our rights to some of our Bible. If we care too much about an issue, like abortion or even the environment; we are dismissed as right-wing and fundamentalist. Let's not even discuss marriage laws; we're too close-minded to have a discussion. We are lumped together with republicans and Pat Robertson, and we are laughed at. The values that our founding fathers had, that our nation has flourished with, are thrown out as archaic and oppressive.

Well then, why should Muslims be surprised to be lumped together with the terrorists? They don't deserve their individuality any more than I do. They also deserve it as much as I do. The media has no distress when they report on Christianity with a 'them' mentality, but they seem to have remorse for the actual peaceful practioners of Islam. I am so tired of this double standard. It would almost seem that Christianity, and Jesus in particular, strikes a chord in people. This chord is so unsettling that it causes defensiveness and the urge to flee.

So then, the reason I don't fight? Because despite what the world around me may say, or may look like, I know God is truly in control. Names will never hurt me, not really. I am a child of the King, and I will let Him defend all of us in His own time. Which I have no doubt will happen. Until then, I'll just keep content knowing the truth.

PAUL MAKES MY POINT FOR ME...

"[But] God's angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see; eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of His divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat Him like God, refusing to worship Him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in His hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand." Romans 1.18-23