DON'T SWEAR ON THIS

Excuse me. On the Keith "I Will Take Oath Of Office On The Qu'ran" Ellison controversy, someone has suggested to me that Muslims are taught not to pledge themeselves to anything save Allah because the Qu'ran tells them so. This might very well be true.

However Jesus also tells his disciples not to take an oath, but to speak plainly, letting one's yes mean yes, and one's nay mean nay. The Nazarene's admonition was a correction to the Jewish and human tendency to take out holy oaths on everything from the mundane to the preposterous.

In American life this wise counsel to avoid oaths has morphed into a cultural stigma against so-called profane or bad language, i.e. cursing (which changes with the times), and is something else entirely, much closer to the religious concept of blasphemy.

Frank, dutiful honesty and follow-through trump the swearing of oaths and other empty gestures. This is the way pointed out by our prophets and Messiah. I'm old enough to remember when a man's word and handshake ruled the land without need for bloated contracts, lawyers, and legalistic oaths taken with one hand slapped to a book for most ordinary activities.

In other words, as an American patriot who agrees that Islamo-fascism has announced itself as America's sworn enemy, and that we are at war with those Muslim jihadists and their moderate apologists who have lifted certain passages from the rather diabolical Qu'ran to support their agenda whiel using our own open system against us, I believe that the "honest Christians" on this website—to remain free of petty hypocrisy—would be better served by a more comprehensive understanding of their own book before lashing out at some of the less pernicious clippings from the Qu'ran.

After all, the bible is a rather controversial book, in its own right, especially from a Protestant perspective. Ever heard of an absentee Christian, a listener of the word rather than a doer of the word, a lukewarm believer? The fact is we are all condemned by our own self-interests and hypocrisies. And we will ALL require grace at Judgement Day.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...