“Work With Me Here”

Donald Sensing, being a minister by trade, has an excellent perspective on many things having to do with religion in general. Today is no exception. He rounds up a lot of links and information about the whole enormous – and apparently still escalating – uproar over the speech that Pope Benedict XVI gave in Germany last week.

As may be expected, this inflames the fabled "Muslim street" (but what doesn't these days?). Muslims clerics and leaders of Islamic nation demanded apologies from the Pope. Fair enough. But then they loosed their people into the streets to riot. Oh, please face the fact that in almost every Muslim country in the world, no one riots or even demonstrates without prior government approval or instigation. There are exceptions, such as (maybe) Turkey, but they are very few.

What are they protesting? Why, the Pope's apparent accusation that Islam is a violent religion….

Read the whole thing, especially if you've missed the entire mess unfolding over the weekend. He cites one particular article written by Jules Crittenden of the Boston Herald. I had a private email exchange with Crittenden about that article in which we disagreed with one another's takes on this whole issue. You know what? Neither one of us went after one another with violence. Funny how that works, isn't it?

UPDATES: LOTS of activity in the blogosphere on this. Read Tim Blair (Crittenden makes an appearance in comments), Hyscience, (Actually it's more properly 7th century, not 14th), Dr. Sanity, Rightlinx, Dean's World, Slapstick Politics, Rightwing Nut House, Liberty and Justice, Confederate Yankee,