Rage Explodes at Egyptian Family's Funeral

This more-detailed account of the melee at the Hossam Armanious funeral comes from The New York Times. Ted Olson at CT Weblog picked it up. If the Times account is accurate, then Mr. Armanious' neighbors made a serious tactical error. "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal," said St. Paul. Accordingly, the assault on a Muslim cleric who came to the funeral service and, by all accounts, did not come armed nor threaten anyone himself, was inappropriate and un-Christian. (Apparently some mourners called for Sheik Tarek Yousof Saleh to be struck, and the Jersey City cops hustled him out of harm's way before any blows could land. Again, I quote Scripture: "You sit there to judge me, according to the law, and order me to be struck, contrary to the law?" [Acts 23:3] It's not enough to say that anti-Muslim feeling broke out in this community of Coptic exiles. When our fellow Christians behave this way, we make it that much more difficult to press the Muslim community on just how seriously they take their own foundational documents--and whether they are willing to recognize the error in those documents. In the meantime we ought to obey our own foundational documents, including the verse about loving our enemies--and, of course, the Golden Rule.