Pat Robertson got some good press this week for criticizing the young-earth creationist Ken Ham after Ham's debate on evolution with Bill Nye, the Science Guy. But the news operation of Pat Robertson's TV channel CBN just ran a story praising the actions of a German woman who disrupted a cross-cultural concert for peace by attempting to shout down an imam:
'Brave German Woman' Rebukes Islam's LieThe woman bought tickets to the concert, grabbed a German flag with the words "Jesus Christ is Lord," and drove an hour and a half to attend:
SPEYER, Germany -- Islam continues to grow in power and influence across Europe. But at a recent concert in Germany, one Christian woman decided to stand up to it.
"The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace" by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins was supposed to be an interfaith event to bring Christianity and Islam together.
But when the Muslim imam began his call to prayer during the concert, he was interrupted by a small woman in the balcony proclaiming that "Jesus Christ alone is Lord of Germany," and shouting, "I break this curse."
... "My purpose was, I broke this curse because [Muslims] say, 'Only Allah is the Lord. He is God, the only God.' And I broke this curse in this church and I broke it over my country," she continued.
And she repeated the words of Martin Luther in 1521 after he refused to recant his faith in scripture alone: "Here I stand. I can do no other" and "Save the church of Martin Luther
Video shows another concert-goer trying to calm her by saying, "This is a concert for peace."
Mund can be heard responding in German, "No it's not! Allahu Akbar is what Muslims scream while murdering people! Don't be fooled! Don't be fooled! This is a lie!"
She was thrown out of the church....
The CBN story says that video of the disruption "went viral." Did it? I'm not sure. I'm seeing it at this site (post title, via Google Translate: "Iman Muslim desecration in Ev. Memorial Church Speyer 10 11 2013 ... a listen to this whining ......"). An account by the woman is here, at a blog whose sidebar includes an ad for the far-right German Defence League.
If this story is going viral, it's doing so in America, right now, in a small way -- it's showing up at about 1,500 sites right now, in the Christian-right and anti-Islam regions of the Net.
I don't think it's a huge story for these folks -- that imam is just one more bit of evidence, for these folks, that Christianity is under assault in the West and Muslims are taking over. But it's one more thing that has them riled up.
A bit about The Armed Man from Wikipedia:
The Armed Man is a Mass by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins, subtitled "A Mass for Peace". The piece was ... dedicated to victims of the Kosovo crisis. Like Benjamin Britten's War Requiem before it, it is essentially an anti-war piece and is based on the Catholic Mass....That, according to Pat Robertson's people, is a force for evil. This Muslim-bashing woman is a force for good.
In addition to extracts from the Ordinary of the Mass, the text incorporates words from other religious and historical sources, including the Islamic call to prayer, the Bible (e.g. the Psalms and Revelation), and the Mahabharata. Writers whose words appear in the work include Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Sankichi Toge, who survived the Hiroshima bombing but died some years later of leukaemia.
The Armed Man charts the growing menace of a descent into war, interspersed with moments of reflection; shows the horrors that war brings; and ends with the hope for peace in a new millennium, when "sorrow, pain and death can be overcome"....
