Violent Forgiveness

It has been really sad to see the spread of violence that has happened as a result of some cartoons portraying the Islamic prophet Mohammed as a militant were released in a Dutch newspaper (or Dutch cartoons in a Norwegian paper, not quite sure). (That sentence is kind of ironic.) Many Muslims were outraged because Mohammed is not supposed to be represented at all, let alone in ways that poke fun at him. They are upset because people have been insensitive, even openly hostile toward the holist man of their faith. For some the response has been to make those responsible pay however they can, like burning down embassies (though to be fair, the number who have gone to actual violence is small in comparison to the Muslim population of the world or even the countries where this is happening). For others it is just to speak out against it and condemn those who were a part of it.

There was another great religious leader who had people poke fun at him, misunderstand him, and even kill him in his own time. His response to this was to love the ones that did and pray for their forgiveness. Jesus wanted his followers to do the same thing. I don't know nearly enough about Islam to know how their faith would instruct them to respond to something like this, but I hope that as people do the same things to Jesus (and they do, you don't have to look too hard to find horribly offensive portrayals of Christ) his followers will respond to those who do these things with love and forgiveness instead of protests and violence.

P.S. My intent here is really not to paint Muslims as violent bad people. As I said earlier, I don't know how Islam would tell them to respond and "Christians" have perpetrated their fair share of violence and hate against those who disagreed with them. I just know that Jesus would have us respond with love when people degrade him.