There’s a lot to pick through in our interview of Bryan Fischer, but one argument of his in particular caught my eye. Fischer, a social conservative activist and gadfly, claims “the Koran’s entire purpose is subversive” so Muslims should not be afforded freedom of religion.
Is this really what conservative U.S. Christians want to be hanging their hats on? Does Fischer need a refresher course on the origins of Christianity? On the revolutionary culture from which Jesus himself emerged?
I imagine some first or second century Roman named Fischer — a gadfly at Roman Family Values events perhaps? — leading the charge against the heretical followers of that “cult” that first emerged from one the empire’s far frontiers. If only Fischer’s early Christian forbears had been less “subversive” they might have avoided those Roman persecutions.
Without conceding his point that all Muslims are subversives, I wonder what brand of Christianity sees itself not as subversive but as defenders of the status quo?
David Kurtz
David Kurtz is Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo where he oversees the news operations of TPM and its sister sites.