But this stark contrast—a contrast between violence in the name of a prophet and forgiveness in the name of a savior—is as politically incorrect as it is obvious. For example, yesterday the Associated Press (the largest news wire service in the world) explained that it was banning cartoons that are offensive to Muslims from its wire. Its explanation was that “it has been our policy for years that we refrain from moving deliberately provocative images.” Yet that never stopped them from running pictures of the Virgin Mary covered in feces, or a picture of Jesus being splattered with urine—to give just two examples that come immediately to mind.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, yesterday a Newspaper office in Paris was attacked by gunmen who murdered twelve people. The specific targets were the paper’s editorial cartoonists, and the motive for their murder was the fact that they had often drawn cartoons disparaging Mohammad.

While the attack was swiftly condemned by many political leaders—France’s own president called it “an exceptional act of barbarism”—it was also met by many people eager to protect the reputation of Islam. The fact that the murders were done to avenge the reputation of Mohammad and that the politically correct response was to protect Islam’s reputation is ironic indeed.  

MSNBC compared the ideology of the fundamentalist Muslims who carried out the crime with the ideology of Jerry Falwell and Liberty University. Several American politicians and journalists made comments along the lines of “all religions have their fundamentalists  responsible for violence” (and of course, remember this from Salon? “What’s the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? Lipstick: A theocrat is a theocrat, whether Muslim or Christian”).

These kind of comments demonstrate our culture’s tendency toward moral equivocation. We value relativism so much that we have lost the ability to say that some religions are enemies of both truth and freedom.

But it is an event like yesterday’s attack on Charlie Hebdo that should highlight one of the stark contrasts between Islam and Christianity. Islam teaches violence, while Christianity teaches forgiveness. I’m not referencing fringe Islamic groups, but mainstream governments and mainstream cultures. Countries run by Islamic law foster violence and are democratically unworkable, whereas countries run by Christian law…

Well, it should dawn on you that there are no countries run by Christian law. Because Christianity is a religion built upon an individual’s relationship with God through Christ, not on a way of structuring a society. Because the focus is on the individual, nations with a Christian heritage produce individual and civic freedoms.

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