Why does the establishment press continue to give the hateful and bigoted Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan a free ride?
Here's a guy who has called Judaism, the first of the great monotheistic faiths, "a gutter religion." This is a man who has actively solicited megafunds from Libya's Moammar Khadafy to spread his gospel of divisiveness throughout America's black community. And, in a gross insult to and distortion of Islam itself, he peddles the bizarre and racist notion that whites are the evil descendants or mutant creations of ancient aliens from outer space placed on earth to oppress and exploit blacks.
Surely he is a force to be reckoned with as he dazzles audiences with empowering ideas of self-reliance and individual achievement as the antidotes to more than 30 years of government-bred welfare dependency. But what is it about this former nightclub Calypso crooner that turns journalists into jellyfish? Why doesn't the press expose him for what he is -- a fraud and hatemonger?
The question arises now because, recently, Calypso Louie outdid himself in the kind of rhetorical slander for which he has become famous. And not a single major establishment media outlet even reported on it.
"Christ is a man of yesterday," he said during his self-proclaimed "Day of Atonement" speech to several thousand at the University of Illinois. "He cannot guide you in 1997. Go to your Bible. Where does it say Jesus wanted you to be a Christian? You can't find it."
This is atonement? This is reconciliation? This is expiation? No, this is blasphemy. It's ignorance. It's the kind of intolerant zealotry and know-nothing narrow-mindedness that we've all come to expect from this dangerous lunatic. And it didn't stop there.
"You did a good thing, calling on white males to repent -- because the white man is most guilty," he said directing his remarks to the Christian Promise Keepers who had gathered about 1 million strong in Washington a week earlier. "He should repent."
Of course, he knows darn well that the Promise Keepers rally involved more than white males. I saw a representation of black men that roughly correlated to the population at large. I saw brown-skinned men. I saw native Americans. I saw every cultural, ethnic and racial group imaginable represented at that moving event. And that's really the point.
You see, Farrakhan is threatened when he sees multiracial, multiethnic and mutlicultural groups put their differences aside to support a common cause and a common faith. That's the kind of movement that Farrakhan will never be able to compete with. And he knows it.
Farrakhan betrays even his own pseudo-Islamic faith by denigrating Jesus, whom real Muslims believe is very much a man of tomorrow -- the greatest of all prophets who will return to earth in an event markedly similar to the one Christians envision in the Second Coming.
I'll tell Farrakhan what Jesus did say: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." No one, Louie -- not even you. And Jesus wasn't just talking to the generation that witnessed His first appearance on Earth. He was talking to people in 1997 and for all eternity.
And, by the way, speaking of "atonement," that's why Jesus came in the first place -- to atone for the sins of humanity. Christ is the very embodiment of "atonement" -- a sinless, blameless, perfect Savior who gave His life for all sinners, including Farrakhan, if he could ever accept the fact that he is nothing more than a sinner very much in need of atonement himself.
No one will ever get closer to God by listening to Louis Farrakhan. His brand of "atonement" will not lead to reconciliation, only to separation -- not just of the races here on Earth, but from God in the next life.
If I was Louis Farrakhan, I might read my Bible a little more closely -- especially Paul's prophetic second letter to Peter, in which he writes: "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves."
With that in mind, I wouldn't want to be in Louis Farrakhan's shoes on judgment day.