Don't hold back Bob!

What does Bob Price have in common with Martin Luther?

They both got more crotchety as they aged.

Luther wasn't one to hold back the venom when it came to political dissidents and Jewish culture. As he got older he became thoroughly splenetic. The churches that bear his name have long since apologised for his acerbic polemic.

"What?" you might cry. "Are you accusing Bob of the similitude of Luther's afflictions?"

Well, thou mayest judge for thine own self. Bob has a new blog entry up on Islam entitled (with brilliant word play) I Slam Islam.

Truth to tell, most of us walk on eggshells when it comes to Islam. We refrain from plain talking criticism (the sort we might freely offer if talking about any of the sects of Christendom) because it reeks of narrow intolerance.

So here cometh the prophet Bob to disturb our sanguinity.

As you might already suspect, I'm I big fan of Bob (Dr. Robert M. Price). Not of his politics, I hasten to add, but of his honesty, directness and humour in his chosen field of biblical studies. Again, not that I agree with him on everything, but his 'take' on the Bible and religion is always worth considering. He's not called "the Bible Geek" for nothing.

My favourite line in I Slam Islam is his description of Martin E. Marty as "the very poster-boy for namby-pamby, “standing for nothing, offending no one” liberal Protestantism".

And there's much more polemic where that comes from.

Bob is of course a thorough conservative when it comes to politics, somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, which bizarrely puts him at the other end of the spectrum to most of his admirers in the world of atheistic biblical study.

Here's an excerpt.

Today, when Multiculturalist apologists (excuse-makers) for Islam hurl accusations of “Islamophobia” against anyone who dares to criticize Islam, they try to discount Islamic savagery as some kind of distortion of “true Islam” (as witness our theologian-in-chief: “ISIS is not Islamic.”). No, they say, “real” Muslims are gentle folk quietly running falafel stands on your local street corner. This is of course itself an essentialist argument. Consistent essentialists say there simply is no “true Islam,” but this is really saying the same thing: that you can’t condemn “Islam” since there is no such thing. Sure, there are mass-murdering rapists who carry a pocket edition of the Koran in their ammunition belt, but that’s pretty much a coincidence. You wouldn’t want to “profile” Muslims as terrorists—or terrorists as Muslims!

What gives the lie to this nonsense is the dynamic of assimilation-and-reaction. Religions moderate by virtue of assimilation and accommodation. In other words, jettisoning their original principles, no longer being true to themselves. That’s the whole point of it!

Moderate Muslims in America (like the innocuous, head scarf wearing teenager in the i-phone commercial, or smiling giant Shaquille O’Neill hawking Gold Bond, whatever the hell that is) are good Americans precisely insofar as they take Islam less seriously. Just read the damn Koran. Look at Islamic origins and history. When mealy-mouthed “moderate Muslims” tell us that jihad has nothing to do with killing infidels but refers only to the pious individual’s spiritual struggle, we are hearing either disingenuous spin (cynical PR worthy of Josh Ernest and Jay Carney) or hopelessly naïve ignorance.

Luther, one suspects, would have applauded.