Praise Allah! Praise Y*w*h. Praise God?

Listened to Christian talk radio today, on accident. On the right side of the dial (ninety something point something...) as she put it, there's the most bigoted small minded insolent woman I have ever heard. I don't know her name, but I must figure that she's representative of the genre, broadcasting locally here in Portland during drive time.

She announces one of the most inspiring stories I have heard in the last few years. A town in Michigan, right by the Motor City (at first she said Chicago--I should have guessed that she has mental problems at that point) has decided to allow the local mosques to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer over their outdoor PA systems. What a wonderful development!

Can it be true that more American cities have a collective conscience outside of the traditional liberal havens? (I know it's not Dallas, but they'll be out of the closet soon enough, too.) What a time to rejoice, I thought. Bully for them!

I must say that I do not know how it works. Maybe it will be loud. In that case, a reasonable volume would be in order, lest it become a nuisance. However, I do not see a huge problem if it can be heard for a 50' radius around the mosques. The church bells peal echoes for miles. All over the country. One small town has the decency to sanction a prayer to Allah.

So this woman decides to make her call in topic: Would this offend you? What?! Is she kidding me?!

I listened for a while on the bus home today. Thankfully, two callers I listened to did not really want to talk on topic. Not that she didn't try to get them riled up about it--they weren't interested. Their comments were bizarre, though.

Can somebody tell me since when Did Abraham worship two gods? Or maybe it was three. I guess I don't know anymore. As I was taught it, Abraham was one of the first monotheists. His son Isaac worshipped the same god too, no? Yes. At least that's the way I read it.

OK, so I am a biblical scholar, and I have never heard anyone with a different take on Abe's god. That's why he went with the name Abraham - it was part of his faith. He lived in a time of polytheists and set himself apart by worshipping one god instead. He changed his name from Abram to Abraham to symbolize his faith. (I hope this sounds familiar. It's in the Tanak. The Christian and Islamic religions both revere Abraham as one of their earliest patriarchs.) Everyone who worships Abraham's god knows this story.

So now we have Islam and Christianity and Judaism as the three religions who worship Abraham's god. Looking back to Abraham, we know he had a son, Isaac. Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. The scriptures tell us that all of them continued to worship this god and spread faith in this god, eventually around the world.

Esau was Isaac's first son. He was a manly son, just the type of guy we would call the ideal rugged man - he could wrestle a bear and win. He was the epitome of manhood then, too: honest, faithful, hard-working and successful.

Jacob was Esau's opposite. Jake was a wimp. A twiggy little girly man who couldn't pull his own weight, let alone make a good living off the sweat of his brow or the strength of his intellect.

On Isaac's deathbed, Isaac bestowed his blessing on his son, as was the custom at the time. The firstborn received the blessing of the father, that he might succeed in life and carry on the family legacy. But, Esau did not receive this blessing that he so richly deserved. Jacob and Rebecca, his mom, lied to Isaac and duped him into giving his blessing to the second son.

Does any of this ring a bell? Because according to the radio earlier today, it seems that some folks have forgotten.

Now Esau, the God worshipping, strong and rightful heir to Isaac's blessing, realized what had happened, asked pop for whatever blessing he had left for him, but it was all gone. If you ask me, he really did not need it. He had it all already. Plus he had his god. That god would be good to him and make him the father of a new faith one day. Islam is his legacy to the one god of the Hebrew bible. Eloim, if you will. Or Allah. There is no God but Allah.

Jacob went on to father twelve children, among them Reuben, my namesake, and Josef, the one the other brothers sold into slavery. These children, Ephraim, Mennasseh, the whole lot of them, would each father a tribe of Israel. The twelve tribes of Israel. All of these sons carried on the faith in one god, started by Abraham, their great grandfather.

Now I have to wonder something? Which god does the lady on the radio worship? As far as she made it sound, it is the Christian god. The Jewish god. The god of Abraham. Allah.

But she said that she worships a different god. And I am lost. She either worships god or she doesn't. The only difference is that the three monotheistic traditions worship differently. Heck, there are literally thousands of different God traditions. Do they all worship a different god than her? I could suppose they must, but then I wonder how many monotheistic gods there are?

The woman is cracked like a walnut if she thinks Muslims worship a different god than Christians. And by the same token, she should not have any reason to be offended by a prayer to her god.

But she obviously sees it differently. And she deserves all the misery in the world if she truly has that much hatred for Islam. If you read my queer marriage post, then you must realize that I am about to attribute this woman's paradigm to self-loathing. She needs some enlightenment. Allah save her.