What Have We Ventured for Christ?

I have this thought that if Americans weren't afraid of brown skin, Islam could spread through our culture with ease. It's my opinion that Allah and the god of country music are not so different from each other. If the "Good Lord Up in Heaven" could be persuaded to only insist on, say, 5 commandments, and if he could be talked in to letting us love our friends and hate our enemies, we'd have Islam and few Americans would object. At least, that's what I suspect.

I'd love to be wrong, but I won't hold my breath. Another thing that makes me think this way is the fact that, historically, one of the ways Islam spread was by freeing the slaves and pardoning the debtors of their enemies--on the condition that the ex-slave/ex-debtor submit to Islam. With the amount of consumer debt in this country I think we're especially vulnerable on that front. It would add a whole new meaning to filing for bankruptcy. If I'm right that it's basically racism that keeps Americans from giving Islam a foothold, how sad is that? A vice is keeping us "virtuous"?

My friend Matt sent me this excerpt from a sermon given by Cardinal Newman. I think he (Newman) expresses a similar idea. If our faith is merely of the Country Music/American Civil Religion variety have we really risked anything to follow Christ? Remember the old addage: nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"What have we ventured for Christ? What have we given to Him on a belief of His promise? The Apostle said, that he and his brethren would be of all men most miserable, if the dead were not raised. Can we in any degree apply this to ourselves? We think, perhaps, at present, we have some hope of heaven; well, this we should lose of course; but after all, how should we be worse off as to our present condition? A trader, who has embarked some property in a speculation which fails, not only loses his prospect of gain, but somewhat of his own, which he ventured with the hope of the gain. This is the question, What have we ventured? I really fear, when we come to examine, it will be found that there is nothing we resolve, nothing we do, nothing we do not do, nothing we avoid, nothing we choose, nothing we give up, nothing we pursue, which we should not resolve, and do, and not do, and avoid, and choose, and give up, and pursue, if Christ had not died, and heaven were not promised us. I really fear that most men called Christians, whatever they may profess, whatever they may think they feel, whatever warmth and illumination and love they may claim as their own, yet would go on almost as they do, neither much better nor much worse, if they believed Christianity to be a fable. When young, they indulge their lusts, or at least pursue the world's vanities; as time goes on, they get into a fair way of business, or other mode of making money; then they marry and settle; and their interest coinciding with their duty, they seem to be, and think themselves, respectable and religious men; they grow attached to things as they are; they begin to have a zeal {302} against vice and error; and they follow after peace with all men. Such conduct indeed, as far as it goes, is right and praiseworthy. Only I say, it has not necessarily any thing to do with religion at all; there is nothing in it which is any proof of the presence of religious principle in those who adopt it; there is nothing they would not do still, though they had nothing to gain from it, except what they gain from it now: they do gain something now, they do gratify their present wishes, they are quiet and orderly, because it is their interest and taste to be so; but they venture nothing, they risk, they sacrifice, they abandon nothing on the faith of Christ's word."