The Dearborn Mob Video and National Security
A video of provocative evangelicals being violently attacked by an enraged crowd at the 2012 Dearborn Arab Festival has gone viral, getting about 750,000 hits in one week. The story isn’t just about how the police stood or how the media misreported it. It’s also about a dangerous long-term trend that Europe has woken up to and is beginning in the U.S.
The United West edited down the original video to about 23 minutes and released it to the world. A group called Official Street Preachers went to the festival to preach the gospel. They carried around a model of a pig’s head on a pole and carried signs telling Muslims that they were destined to go to hell. Their website is very hell-centric, even preaching that “potheads are hellbound.”
I, as a Christian, do not approve of their tactics but that’s not the point. The point is the violent, frightening reaction to it. Belief in a free society requires a willingness to be offended. If someone offends you, you might tell them off but you continue on with your life, accepting it as free speech. Few handle the dispute with violence and if they do, they should be punished according to the law.
The evangelicals weren’t just yelled at. They were met with venomous hatred that is unsettling to view by a large crowd, not an unruly few. They were violently attacked with crates, stones, eggs and whatever else could be easily thrown. The group’s leader, Ruben Israel, was bleeding from the forehead. Remember, it’s not like the group went to an event run by Islamists like Hizb ut-Tahrir and are using the inevitable chaos as a representation of Muslims. This was a large, public event, attended by Arabs of all kinds.
Most disturbingly, small children and young teenagers were among the most aggressive. The adults stood by as they cursed, threw things and threatened. When some openly made calls for violence, with one shouting, “Let’s beat the s— out of them,” not a single person is seen in the video appealing for calm.
Click here to read the rest of my Family Security Matters/Institute on Religion and Democracy article.
wsieruk Says:
One of the reason that some hate Christians so much that some of them will even engage in violence towards them is because the imams keep telling the people in the mosque terrible things about Christians and Christian doctrines. The imams don’t really care if the things they say are true or not, well founded or not. Just as long as they keep speaking evil things aboout Christians and Christian doctrines. To this the Bible explains about such men as these imams.
For in Second Peter 2:12. It reads “For they speak evil of things they do not understand and will perish in their corruption.” [NKJV]
It also be noted that when the Bible uses the word “Perish’ in this context in does not mean “Loss of being but loss of well being.” As in going to ruin by ending up in suffering in the fires of hell.
Posted on July 16th, 2012 at 4:39 pm