The Today program interviewed Muslims in I think it was High
Wycombe. They decried the violence but with some anger supported the motives of
the Paris assassins. Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine, should not have
made fun of their prophet Mohammed. One man said he loved Mohammed more than
his wife and family. That saddened me deeply. It somehow reminded me of calling
on a man to buy a bike years ago. He was a committed Christian and welcomed me
in that style, but when his son came in he dismissed him thoughtlessly. There
seems to be a moment when, like that man in High Wycombe, some believers begin
to love their prophet more than the God he was trying his best to tell them
about, it being far easier to follow some earthly cause than surrender to a
more heavenly spirit. From that moment there is great anger in the first for
the second because the second reminds them of their own failure. Charlie Hebdo
reminded those extremist assassins that its irreverence is a joy they cannot
take pleasure in, that its spirit holds a freedom they cannot experience, and
that its love holds a forgiveness that cannot absolve them. It’s pitiable the
punishment they have chosen for themselves. Yet it’s a very human contagion to
respond in like manner as the beliefs in one invoke the beliefs in another. I
would remind the man from High Wycombe he is not a follower of Mohammed but of
the God that Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed tried their earthly best to
illuminate. I would say the same to the Christian who sold me a bike.
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