A few days ago Geert Wilders was interviewed in German by Der Spiegel. The PVV leader’s theme was “Merkel is Afraid”, and his words caused a bit of a stir in the German-language press. Today the English translation of the interview was published, and is now causing a stir in the English-language press.
I’ll include some lengthy excerpts in tonight’s news feed, but regular readers will not find anything surprising — what Mr. Wilders had to say is the same thing he has said numerous times in the past. It’s part of his consistent message: Islamic ideology is dangerous and damaging to Europe. European culture and civilization will be destroyed if immigration from Islamic countries is not stopped.
The interviewer’s tendentious questions were also par for the course. Der Spiegel laid the customary land mines for their guest: Why do you engage in religious and racial exclusion? Aren't you sometimes ashamed of the hatred that you sow? Are you serious about a “head rag tax”? Mr. Wilders handled these straw men with aplomb, but was also caught in a carefully-laid trap by the interviewer.
The trick that was pulled on Mr. Wilders was so low and dishonest that it is worth quoting. Here’s the exchange:
| SPIEGEL: | Are you familiar with this quote from the Prophet? “But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and slay them before me”? |
| Wilders: | I have read many such passages. |
| SPIEGEL: | The Prophet cited in this case was Jesus, from Luke, Chapter 19, Verse 27. Do you admit that there are also calls for violence in the Bible? |
If Mr. Wilders were more of a churchgoer, he might not have been so easily suckered. The quoted passage from Luke is actually taken from a “The Parable of the Ten Minas” as told by Jesus, and was spoken by one of the characters in the parable, not by Christ Himself.
Below is the entire parable, from Luke 19:11-27 (English Standard Version):
As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. He said therefore, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come.’
“But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’ When he returned, having received the kingdom, he ordered these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by doing business.
“The first came before him, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made ten minas more.’ And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.’
“And the second came, saying, ‘Lord, your mina has made five minas.’ And he said to him, ‘And you are to be over five cities.’
“Then another came, saying, ‘Lord, here is your mina, which I kept laid away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.’
“He said to him, ‘I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant! You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I might have collected it with interest?’ And he said to those who stood by, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’ And they said to him, ‘Lord, he has ten minas!’ ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.’”
Not quite the same style as Mohammed, is it?
The Messenger of Allah was not one for allegory — the literal shedding of infidel blood was preferable by far, and he spilled copious amounts of it over his illustrious career.
But Jesus was making a somewhat different point — and “let all who have ears hear.”
And they say that we quote the Koran “out of context”!
The fact that a major media outlet can get away with something like this without being called on it is a sign of the degraded age in which we live. Der Spiegel is The New York Times of Germany, a highly respected organ of public opinion. To engage in such base dishonesty should lead to public condemnation and financial ruin, but of course nothing of the sort will happen. Business will continue as usual.
The parable of the minas is actually quite apropos to the case at hand. The editors of Der Spiegel were granted their own mina, but they have not invested it for a good return, nor did they even bother to wrap it up and hide it away. Instead they cast it with utter contempt upon the cultural dungheap.
For Der Spiegel — and for all the other MSM outfits who batten off their hubris until they attain the girth of Hermann Göring — I have a relevant verse from a different parable told by Jesus. And I’ll even provide the context for this one: it’s from the parable of the man who built his house upon the sand.
Matthew 7:27 (King James Version):
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
24 comments:
Yes, well said, Baron. Might I add that such dishonesty reveals a deep hatred of Christianity, which is a common trait in those who would advance the cause of Islam in our societies. This journo was going after two enemies at once!
I'd like to see those same journalists be as critical of the multiculti-politicos in their country. Fat chance, eh?
Again the common and predictable leftist error, the assumption and/or presupposition of all things being equal how can the result be different, therefore the judge must be wrong.
I mean how shallow, how dishonest and how stupid do you have to be to use the bible the way it was used here and consider it a smart move. I mean, if i tried to use the Koran that way I would feel dishonest and wrong. What a difference hey? I wouldn't use the Koran that way because my conscience constrains me to use it honestly, I have no need to twist or distort. But the leftist has no such compunction.
I will say it again, it seems to me almost beyond belief how blinded the left is and the only way to account for it seems to be in reference to "unbelieveable" biblical statements, as if this were a judgement from God. Like they are condemend to believe a lie in order that they might be condemend and damned as a punishement for their loving darkness and preferring a lie over the truth.
"This is your lot, the portion I have decreed for you," declares the LORD, "because you have forgotten me and trusted in false gods."
"..Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
Doesn't that sound like the modern leftist party? No? Think of AFA, parading in the street, insolent, arrogant, slanderers. Disobedient to parents, not only their immediate parents but those of the past who left them Western Civilization.
"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools."
"They exchanged the truth of God for a lie."
While some here may find it hard to believe in the biblie as containing the oracles of God because of a perceived discrepancy between biblical ideas and observed facts concerning the involvement of such a deity in life, we cannot come to a similar conclusion when it comes to the biblies description of societal issues and their present otherwise inexplicable and completely irrational state. Modern and post modern theories do not help at all perhasp primarily because they are made up by leftists in academia anyway.
But it must seem a bit uncanny that the bible is so dead on in its description of modern delusion and its biblically described pre-conditions. There the evidence lines up rather well. One question one may ask as a result is whether those truths are so true and signficant that they outweigh any agnostic doubts one may hold.
I read this piece aloud to my son to see if he would recognize the trick played on Wilders. He quickly recognized the statement as foreign to the qur'an, stating the qur'an doesn't refer to Mo as a 'king'. (insert cheesy grin here)
I find no better description of the left and even academia today than saying that they "love a lie",
"professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.". In all the schooling I have ever had, not claiming it was much by the way,in all my dealings with people day in and day out, in all of media, including conservative media, in all the books on bookshelves, I never come across anyone or anything that even approaches the truth of these statments from the bible, that basically describe and tell the turht about the human condition. Everything else seems for the most part to be a lie or built upon a romantic lie about mankind. One of the things that struck me most when I first opened a bible was the catalogue of sins listed therein. I remember thinking that no one in all of my life had spoken to me like that and told the truth of the ugly things that secretly go on in my heart.
A "parable" by definition is a non-literal story with a metaphorical message.
Der Spiegel is cracked mirror.
Wilders only needed to ask for the quote in context.
Which would have revealed the trite deception.
Such "journalists" are like whitewashed sepulchres... bright on the outside, but inwardly full of rank corruption.
I think that this should be good lesson to those opposed to the islamisation of the West to not get led down blind alleys. A verse for verse comparison between the Islamic and the Christian foundation texts is largely a theological pursuit. The West is based on the greco-roman, judeo-christian and enlightenment tradition. The Islamic realm is based on a different tradition that is foreign and antagonists to the western tradition.
I do not want a takeover of the anachronistic Islamic tradition via demographic fait-a-compli - it's as simple as that. Comparative religious studies are nice but irrelevant distractions, where wins are based on oratorical trickery but essentially unsubstantive.
Romans 1: 28-32
Thanks for that, Michael.
Dox Raven,I agree with you and I haave a question as well. Is there anythng in the Enlightenment or Greco-Roman tradition that can now save us? I think not. First of all, we know that the Greco-Roman tradition while great and admirable in many ways was overtaken by the despiseed Jedo-Christian tradition. The one thing theat both Enlightnment and Greco-Roman traditions have in common is a lack of authoritatively received command to moral obedience and adherence both mentally and in body. Those traditions respect diversity in a way that is ultimately unsustainable unless butressed by a exclusivistic underpinning which Christianity fit perfectly.
As a result I don't presently see the Judeo-Christian tradition as irrelevant in themselves or in relation to what is going on today.
The one thing that has been abandoned and as a result provides us with a controlled thought experiment, is the moral thrust and input of Christianity, leading to the tentative conclusion that Enlightenment principles alone and divorced from Christianity are no longer the Enlightening principles we thought they were but turn out to be the unstable machinations of reason that serve any purpose and are not synonymous with morality or Christianity as they were once touted as being.
I was taught that Jesus was speaking about himself in that parable.
The “man of noble birth” is Jesus.
The distant kingdom is heaven.
The servants are believers.
The minas represents the gospels.
The nobleman's return is Judgment Day.
I went to Catholic schools so YMMV.
Michael Servetus
That is a big question but I essentially agree with your own answer.
As you say, any one part of the three inputs to our tradition is incomplete in and of itself - maybe like a three-legged stool.
The crisis of today is not caused by Islam but exploited by the imperialistic genome of Islam. To defeat the islamisation of Europe we have to defeat the creeping left-wing fascism. What the Enlightenment has brought us is classical liberalism but also the scourge of socialism (French Rev , 1848 etc). What we have not worked out is how to tame socialism. Untamed socialism leads to fascistic political system like Communism and National Socialism. The left-wing has managed to falsely pin fascism and its excesses on conservatism or classical liberalism. The framing since 1945 has worked and has resulted in the racists ideology of "political correctness" and "multiculturalism" and "relativism". This left-wing program is racists because its multi-minus-one where we are indoctrinated on the left-wing version of the original sin - the historical guilt that disqualifies the Western tradition from the relativism love-in.
Well said doxRaven. I like the way you think. "Untamed socialism" -that's funny to me.
"Anyone of the three inputs being incomplete in itself, like a three legged school." -Very fair minded and balanced.
and " the disqualification of the Western tradition from the love-in" -funny again and insightful.
Parabarbarian,
That is correct, the parable is definitely self referential to Jesus. The failure of the equivalency is not dependent upon distancing it from Jesus or denying the parable any reality but simply in the whole tenor of the gospel and sciptures in comparison with the Koran. The koran's approval and encouragement to violence is open ended whiel the NT and even the worste OT examples of violence are limited and time specific. The NT particularly limits any violence and judgment to God and explicitly condemns and forbids violence by Christians. Whether this restriction is limited only to religous disputes only or extends to worldy warfare is disputed but unquestionably the earliest Christian writings show that it was interpreted to mean no violence or fighting or warfare period.
The BBC tried the same trick on Wilders a few months back, the sly interviewer says she is quoting a "verse" to get his reaction, Wilders spotted the trap immediately that time - video link below, trap laid at 4.09
Video
Michael you are right about the principles of the enlightenment needing the underpinnings of Christianity. The two of them were used against Communism in the early 20th Century and in Greece in the 1940s, after that the left started to attack Christianity to remove a threat to their conquest of the world. Most people don't remember that the US went into Nam to protect the Mountain Tribes that were being slaughtered by the Cong. The appeals to get us into Nam were based on both the enlightenment and Christianity.
Now thanks to the left one half of the protection we had is slowly being removed, and in the name of politically correct tolerance we are allowing this to happen.
Even if the parable is self-referential to Jesus, it does not call for the murder of non-Christians.
There is no mention of believers and unbelievers. The thing driving the story is attitude-- that of the servant to whom little is given.
Muslims know little about attitudes, and a great deal about action.
When one considers the parable, Jesus (who is indeed the King in this parable) is basically saying that these people have condemned themselves to die by sin, for St Paul wrote that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and these people, having refused to be cleansed of their sins by faith in Christ, are condemned to accept their wage and die.
And it is interesting that Der Speigel refers to Christ as only a prophet. Yes, He was a prophet, for he prophesied the coming of the Kingdom of God. But He was so much more - He was God.
I suppose, however, confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord is too much. Even when I say "Let's talk about Jesus" I actually feel sappy. I shouldn't, but I do.
Good news then that the Vatican wants to re-evangelise Europe. Anyone game for a complementary counter-Dawa? It's time to spread the Word, methinks.
Hear! Hear!
Mr Wilders was maybe a bit careless. The question, "Are you familiar with this quote from the Prophet?" has only one answer, "What prophet are you referring to?"
I've noticed the MSM when referring to Mohammed has a habit of calling him the Prophet Mohammed when in fact he is the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.
I've noticed the MSM when referring to Mohammed has a habit of calling him the Prophet Mohammed when in fact he is the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.
They really ought to call him either the alleged prophet Mohammed or just Mohammed.
And it is interesting that Der Speigel refers to Christ as only a prophet
I find it more interesting that they use the word "prophet" at all. That's dhimmi Muslim-speak, Christians do not use that word to refer to Jesus.
The general appellation for Jesus is "Son of God."
That's enough to make a Muslim wince.
I was once discussing the phenomenon of Muslims praying on the seafront at Sliema, and the Muslim fellow who had taken it upon himself to defend their position tried saying a) Muslims know how to pray properly, and Christians ought to be grateful to Muslims when they see them prostrating themselves while facing a black stone in the desert somewhere, and b) Muslims regarded Jesus as a prophet. My response to the second point was that when he mentioned Jesus, the word 'prophet' was preceded by the indefinite article. He didn't do that when he referred to Mohammad. Why not?
Spiegel is not aware that the same story is also described in Matt. 25:14-30. In Matt. you can find the same message but with other words:
"And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
compared to:
But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to be their king, bring them here and slay them before me”?
This is from the same parable and it has something to do with punishment for not using the Word of God in a way that is profitable, for yourself and others, but just stored up in the outer part of the human, in the human memory, in the earth, doing no good. Earth is the same as the natural man.
If you are just using the word to fill up your memory, create a moral you are not following, you will sooner or later die, spiritually or literally, and you can just as well use the word slay, but the punishment is made by an absent of God, not by God.
The fact that the story is repeated, with two different type of concepts, clearly tells that the story is not meant to be read as a call for violence.
The Koran is of course different. There you have repeatedly calls for violence, and the example of Muhammed also tells that it is meant to be taken literally.
Can anyone give me the e-mail address to this journalist? I want a word with him. He should be ashamed of himself.
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