Hal Lindsey: Threatening American Muslims?

Hal Lindsey once said of me and Selling Satan coauthor Mike Hertenstein that we were either satanists or the pawns of satanists. Frankly, I was amused. But when the guru of end-times bestsellers fires off a salvo like this at peaceful Americans who are Muslim, I don't find such fascist-tinged rhetoric at all funny:

Islamic Fundamentalists are like parasites. They feed off the body of Muslim communities living among us. It does not take a rocket scientist to see what must be done. If the ‘peaceful’ majority of Muslims do not begin to actively and vigorously expose the radicals in their communities, then we, the people of the United States and United Kingdom will have to do it for them.

Where does Lindsey get this stuff? Jingoism is always a hit with some folks, I suppose. The problem (or one problem, at least) with jingoism is that it is always just one or two steps away from violent words inciting violent acts.

But Lindsey himself answers the question I had as I read his column. What, I wondered, was he trying to tell my Muslim neighbors was going to happen to them if they didn't comply with his version of reality?

According to Hal, if a nuclear or other major sort of attack comes from Muslim extremists, we're gonna take out entire Muslim communities.

When one of these attacks happens, a flood of rage will burst forth and nothing or anyone will be able to stop it. The law of the jungle will take over. Muslim communities who did nothing to stop the radicals among them will be the first targets.

We are tired of the ‘peaceful’ Muslims sitting by and doing nothing to expose the disciples preaching hate and jihad in their Mosques. There is almost a silent admiration of these fanatics on the part of some. Many allow their financial contributions to be used by the Jihad preachers.

We are getting weary of organizations like CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) crying about civil rights violations when law enforcement organizations seek to carry on surveillance of Muslim communities. Since Muslims do not police themselves against the Islamic Fundamentalist parasites, we must.

No. This hate-mongering riff is absolutely unacceptable, even in this age of idiocy and illogic. It is also absolutely immoral from a Christian viewpoint. And lest defenders of Lindsey try the old line that he isn't suggesting this is a good idea, rather only that it will happen if we're attacked again, I say they lie. Lindsey is in fact using Muslims as the "evil other," who, like blacks, Jews, Catholics, and various other minorities in American history, have had to play scapegoat. Play? No, it isn't a game but rather deadly earnest.

Note the complete lack of any supportive evidence for anything said in his column. We're to believe that entire communities of American Muslims are covering up for terrorist cells. We're to believe that groups of Americans such as those involved in CAIR don't have the right to cry out when members of their communities are unfairly targeted. We're to believe that Christianity has become nothing more than an American fist or gun or prison cell -- "THIS is how we love our MUSLIM neighbor."

I, for one, demand an apology from Hal Lindsey, a retraction of this hate mongering. Either that, sir, or stop using the name Christian.