Don Ahlquist
His detractors say that he is irrelevant in this age but Prince Charles demonstrated courage and apparent conviction when he recently took a stand and made a pro Christian statement (in possible preparation for his soon to be inherited title of "governor of the church of England"). He said " It is an indescribable tragedy that Christianity is under such threat in the Middle East". He described himself a few years ago as a defender of "faith". Now he calls himself a defender of "The Faith" which is a refreshing and distinct admission that doctrinally most faiths are mutually exclusive. In view of the politically sensitive nature of the subject I must make it clear that he never made any overt claims against Islam itself but merely made regional reference to the hostilities.
The Prince's clear and even bold position should garner at least some favour in the eyes of the citizenry of countries whose heritage is in the Commonwealth and especially in Great Britain itself.
Twenty or thirty years ago this statement would have had stunning effect but Christianity has lost popularity in European and North American cultures. Most of the precepts however, are still intact.
To characterize Prince Charles as having Churchillian resolve maybe a gross overstatement at present but his commitment to a philosophical direction that has historic roots Is obvious and somewhat inspiring.
As far as those grievous inhuman acts in the Middle East are concerned, I would like to know why there is so much support for terrorists (and I use the word in its rightful context, not as an hyperbolic device to promote emotionally driven conjecture).
Solzhenitsyn said "we honour great evildoers we venerate great murders" in his book "The Gulag Archipelago". His statement was in reference to those who defended Stalin. The context was any circumstance where valid criticism was levelled against a tyrant and condescendingly rebuked by a stupefied pawn. Not dissimilar in any major respect to the global subject of today.
With regards to world-views and belief systems generally, they can all be wrong but they cannot all be right and most certainly Islam and Christianity (contrary to a fairly popular belief) are absolutely incompatible one with the other. A Muslim is compelled by the dictates of the Koran to deceive, hate and murder adherents of other faiths especially Jews and Christians. A Christian is encouraged and even admonished by the Bible to love his enemies, pray for those who persecute them and engage in the humanly impossible practice of forgiving those who offend them. That is a fundamental and candid summary of the two faiths,
I realize I should not expect much resistance to this message in rural Western Canada but to any of us of advancing years, we must realize we are less insulated from events thousands of miles away than we ever were. ISIS may not be in our backyards but we can hear "radicalization" voices down the block and even more disturbingly, rifle shots in our capital.