{"id":448,"date":"2011-04-04T11:06:55","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T15:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=448"},"modified":"2011-04-04T17:46:21","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T21:46:21","slug":"irony-alert-should-christians-apologize-for-terry-jones-westboro-baptists-abortion-clinic-bombers-etc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/irony-alert-should-christians-apologize-for-terry-jones-westboro-baptists-abortion-clinic-bombers-etc.html","title":{"rendered":"Irony Alert: Should Christians Apologize for Terry Jones, Westboro Baptists, Abortion Clinic Bombers, Etc.?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s some food for thought: Should all Christians, or at least evangelical Protestants, apologize on behalf of the actions taken by Florida&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/04\/03\/us\/03burn.html?partner=rssnyt&amp;emc=rss\">reportedly unrepetant<\/a>, enthusiastically<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/faithworld\/2011\/04\/04\/u-s-pastor-unbowed-vows-new-anti-islam-protest\/\">\u00a0Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones <\/a>&#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/04\/04\/the-take-zakaria-on-the-quran-burning\/\">which prompted violent protests in Afghanistan <\/a>over the weekend &#8212; or the hatemongering Westboro Baptist Church (now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/03\/24\/westboro-baptist-church-elizabeth-taylor_n_839979.html\">planning to picket Elizabeth Taylor&#8217;s funeral<\/a>!), or abortion clinic-bombers and doctor-killers, or gay-bashers,\u00a0etc.?<\/p>\n<p>No? Then why do people insist that random Muslims should apologize for the actions of their extremists? (For what it&#8217;s worth,\u00a0the big American Muslim organizations\u00a0now routinely issue\u00a0press releases denouncing terrorism, but this still seems to be ignored by the folks determined to paint them all with the same brush.) Does being a Muslim mean always having to say you&#8217;re sorry?<\/p>\n<p>Please share your thoughts &#8212; keep it civil and on-topic &#8212; in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p>P.S. I think the AP had an interesting graphic on the <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.chron.com\/believeitornot\/2010\/12\/debating_how_many_muslims_are_1.html\">tiny (news to Glenn Beck!) percentage of the world&#8217;s 1.5 billion-plus Muslims who\u00a0commit terrorism<\/a>, versus the tiny percentage of the world&#8217;s 2\u00a0billion-plus Christians who do likewise.\u00a0Check back for updates as I try to track it down. Or, if you have a link, post it in the Comments section below.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to\u00a0<strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s some food for thought: Should all Christians, or at least evangelical Protestants, apologize on behalf of the actions taken by Florida&#8217;s reportedly unrepetant, enthusiastically\u00a0Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones &#8212; which prompted violent protests in Afghanistan over the weekend &#8212; or the hatemongering Westboro Baptist Church (now planning to picket Elizabeth Taylor&#8217;s funeral!), or abortion clinic-bombers&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,41,13,43,34,8,39,38,35,36,40,44,37,42],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-christianity","tag-elizabeth-taylor","tag-evangelical-christians","tag-fred-phelps","tag-islamic-terrorism","tag-islamophobia","tag-koran","tag-koran-burning","tag-muslim-terrorism","tag-protestants","tag-religious-extremism","tag-shirley-phelps-roper","tag-terry-jones","tag-westboro-baptist-church"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Irony Alert: Should Christians Apologize for Terry Jones, Westboro Baptists, Abortion Clinic Bombers, Etc.? - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/irony-alert-should-christians-apologize-for-terry-jones-westboro-baptists-abortion-clinic-bombers-etc.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Irony Alert: Should Christians Apologize for Terry Jones, Westboro Baptists, Abortion Clinic Bombers, Etc.? - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#8217;s some food for thought: Should all Christians, or at least evangelical Protestants, apologize on behalf of the actions taken by Florida&#8217;s reportedly unrepetant, enthusiastically\u00a0Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones &#8212; which prompted violent protests in Afghanistan over the weekend &#8212; or the hatemongering Westboro Baptist Church (now planning to picket Elizabeth Taylor&#8217;s funeral!), or abortion clinic-bombers&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/irony-alert-should-christians-apologize-for-terry-jones-westboro-baptists-abortion-clinic-bombers-etc.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-04T15:06:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-04-04T21:46:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Irony Alert: Should Christians Apologize for Terry Jones, Westboro Baptists, Abortion Clinic Bombers, Etc.? - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/irony-alert-should-christians-apologize-for-terry-jones-westboro-baptists-abortion-clinic-bombers-etc.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Irony Alert: Should Christians Apologize for Terry Jones, Westboro Baptists, Abortion Clinic Bombers, Etc.? - Belief Beat","og_description":"Here&#8217;s some food for thought: Should all Christians, or at least evangelical Protestants, apologize on behalf of the actions taken by Florida&#8217;s reportedly unrepetant, enthusiastically\u00a0Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones &#8212; which prompted violent protests in Afghanistan over the weekend &#8212; or the hatemongering Westboro Baptist Church (now planning to picket Elizabeth Taylor&#8217;s funeral!), or abortion clinic-bombers&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/irony-alert-should-christians-apologize-for-terry-jones-westboro-baptists-abortion-clinic-bombers-etc.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-04-04T15:06:55+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-04-04T21:46:21+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/irony-alert-should-christians-apologize-for-terry-jones-westboro-baptists-abortion-clinic-bombers-etc.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/04\/irony-alert-should-christians-apologize-for-terry-jones-westboro-baptists-abortion-clinic-bombers-etc.html","name":"Irony Alert: Should Christians Apologize for Terry Jones, Westboro Baptists, Abortion Clinic Bombers, Etc.? 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