Professor weighs in on religion
9-11, extremists and the religious right among the topics addressed
TIM FUNK
Wake Forest University religion professor Charles Kimball, an ordained Baptist minister whose books include "When Religion Turns Evil," spoke Sunday at the Levine Museum of the New South in uptown Charlotte.
Here's some of what he said:
• "It doesn't take many (religious fanatics) in our increasingly interconnected world community to wreck havoc ... A small number of people don't just affect a small number of people. Now, a small number of people can literally change the world."
• "The vast majority of Muslims throughout the world are as horrified and offended by the acts of violent extremists as we are in this room. The behavior of people on Sept. 11 that we so vividly witnessed represents only a tiny fraction out at the end or on the fringe of the larger Islamic world."
• "Anybody who thinks they've got God in their pocket or that they know exactly what God wants for you and for everybody else is a disaster waiting to happen, potentially. None of us sees the world with the mind of God."
• "(Christian leaders who claim Muslims worship a different God) are playing to people's ignorance and fears and trying to dehumanize (Muslims) to make it more acceptable to fight and kill others `who really aren't like us.' "
• "Whenever you get people who believe that history as we know it is about to end, that that `new day' is upon us and that they are somehow connected to that and have a special role in that process, what you find studying the history of religion is that (these) people are capable of doing anything -- including very violent, disruptive things."
• "(Because they believe Jesus is returning soon) the people who have been the most vociferous in their opposition to any kind of initiative that might bring peace and hope to the Israelis and Palestinians have been people on the religious right in the United States ...
"I've heard major (Christian) religious leaders on national television say, `If you're working for peace in this situation, you could be working for the Antichrist.' So, the Sermon on the Mount -- `Blessed are the peacemakers' -- apparently just falls on deaf ears."
• "You can't say `I love God' and fly an airplane into a building."
Professor weighs in on religion
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