Weird New Trend?

While catching up on some blog reading this morning I came across two separate incidents of renewed fondness for fundamentalism among Christians. The first was tucked in the comments section of Jason Roth's Save the Humans [from 3.18.06], and expresses a wish that the recent violent Islamic outrage against depictions of Muhammad serve as an example against similar depictions of Jesus:

Let's hope the National Endowment for the Arts will learn from the reaction to that danish cartoon which parodizes Islam and think twice before funding anymore art which defames Christ Jesus!

The next was a news article posted by Nicholas Provenzo on The Rule of Reason. In the Reuters article Cardinal Arinze is quoted as urging Catholics to pursue some un-named legal recourse against those who insult Christianity. Most eerily, he cites respect for others beliefs as a fundamental right and hints at other religions that wouldn't tolerate such disrespect. The pertinent statements of Arinze are [emphasis added]:

"Sometimes it is our duty to do something practical. So it is not I who will tell all Christians what to do but some know legal means which can be taken in order to get the other person to respect the rights of others,"

"This is one of the fundamental human rights: that we should be respected, our religious beliefs respected, and our founder Jesus Christ respected,"

"Those who blaspheme Christ and get away with it are exploiting the Christian readiness to forgive and to love even those who insult us. There are some other religions which if you insult their founder they will not be just talking. They will make it painfully clear to you,"

As Mr. Provenzo points out, Arinze obviously has no idea what rights and respect are, though he throws the terms around quite a bit. Interesting to note, Arinze calls respect a "fundamental human right"; that is, fundamental to being human. But if this were true he'd have to respect the beliefs of the artist. No, what he's doing is demanding respect for Christian beliefs, by force if necessary, and legitimizing it by selectively applying the popular egalitarian idea that everyone deserves respect. Wrong on both counts. See what happens when you get sloppy with terms; when you confuse respect for the fact that a person was born with respect for their achievements since then [see my post on manners]. You allow room for all sorts of bad ideas to sneak by casually. That he is a follower of Jesus and advocating a policy which is specifically not turning the other cheek [calling one of Jesus' primary laws a "readiness"] is beside the point; but still worth mentioning because it's hilarious.

What's really creepy about these statements is that they're honouring religious violence. I mean, I thought Judeo-Christians abandoned that centuries ago and matured into passive aggressive moral domination. Does this signify a call to revert back to the good old days of the Medieval Age, or is it just a coincidence? I very much hope the latter, even though the former would show the perversion of religion more concretely.

Mr. Provenzo says:

Arinze's statement is disturbing; it indicates that even the more Westernized religious creeds are drawing inspiration from militant Islam in seeking to coerce belief. I count that as among one of the worst philosophic signs I've seen in years.

I agree.