INCITEMENT WATCH: "IT'S A WAR BETWEEN GOD AND THE DEVIL"
HINN FINDS AUDIENCE FOR CRITICISM OF ISLAM
By Darren Barbee and Josh Shaffer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 7/3/02
dfw.com
With a voice like a conquering general, Benny Hinn walked to the edge of the stage and proclaimed to thousands of worshippers, "The Muslim population is going down!"
Cheers erupted like thunder.
The applause grew louder when the celebrated faith healer invited an Israeli tourism official on stage and offered his support to the war-torn country.
"We are on God's side," Hinn said. "This is not a war between Arabs and Jews. It's a war between God and the devil."
Several area ministers, joining the Grapevine-based Pentecostal on stage last week at American Airlines Center in Dallas, clapped and nodded their approval. The line between Christians and Muslims, they said later, is the difference between good and evil.
Scholars believe their condemnation points to a growing intolerance among Christian denominations. They see more of the faithful drifting to conservative camps, drawn by the easy explanations of a world divided neatly between friends and foes. And since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Muslims are increasingly being pushed into the evil category.
"This is all part of a very depressing pattern in right-wing and evangelical circles," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Dallas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "The demonizing of Islam. The actual call for the elimination of Islam. It's disturbing."
The shift to the right among Christians can be traced to the same political drift toward conservatism, said Ronald Flowers, a religion professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.
Those who are drawn to fundamentalism tend to seek an uncomplicated, old-fashioned world with enemies that can be easily identified, he said. "It's a search for certainty in an uncertain world," Flowers said. "The fact that Muslims and Christians worship the same God seems to escape these people..." |
