Essie's Heroes

Dr. Robert Jeffress, Pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, is one of my heroes. He has the courage of his convictions. He's recently taken a lot of heat for calling Islam what it is -- an evil religion. Steve Blow of The Dallas Morning News doesn't like that. He says Dr. Jeffress has gone too far -- that he is uninformed, un-Christian, and un-American.

First of all, I daresay that Dr. Jeffress, given his background, knows far more about Islam than Steve Blow does. Second, since when is it un-Christian to speak the truth? John the Baptist, Paul the Apostle, and even Jesus, offended quite a few people in their day, but it was because they spoke the plain unvarnished truth. And third, isn't Steve Blow skating on thin First Amendment ice when he questions Dr. Jeffress's right to speak his beliefs? Freedom of speech and religion are the very foundations of what it means to be American.

Blow couldn't refute what Dr. Jeffress said. He made a big deal of Jeffress saying that when Christians committed atrocities in the Crusades, it was contrary to the New Testament, but when muslims commit atrocities, it's in accordance with the teachings of the koran. That's quite true -- the koran says that the infidel is to be destroyed.

Then he also takes Dr. Jeffress to task for saying that Islam oppresses women and is a violent religion. I suppose Blow hasn't seen all those women running around in burqas, hasn't heard about how they stone adulteresses (but rarely adulterers as they don't consider that men commit that sin), and has forgotten about the 3000 people killed on 9/11.

Blow brought in an SMU professor of theology who said that Jeffress lied about Mohammed condoning pedophilia. But he couldn't deny that he married a nine-year-old girl. Doesn't sound to me like Jeffress lied. The professor says that Jeffress lied about everything. There's some lying going on, but it's not Robert Jeffress who's doing it.

"Dallas pastor's words on Islam go much too far." The Dallas Morning News; September 5, 2010; p. 1B.